"You are now two miles below the surface. The tunnel behind you is blocked by steel and concrete shafts, which were actuated, each in its turn, by your passage. It will take an hour to get from here to the palace. Slans are forbidden under severe penalties to enter the palace proper. Take heed."
There was a tickling in his throat. He fought back the sneeze but it came, followed by a half dozen more. The tears ran down his cheeks. It was dimmer where he stood than when he had first come into the corridor. The long row of ceiling lights, which faded into the remote distance ahead, were not as bright as they had been. Dust obscured them.
Cross bent in the half darkness and ran his fingers lightly over the floor. A soft, thick carpet of dust lay there. He peered ahead, searching for footprints that would show that this corridor had been recently used. But there was only the dust, an inch at least, years of it.
Countless years had passed since that order with its vague threat had been placed there. Meanwhile there was more real danger. Human beings would now know where to look for the secret entrance. Before they discovered it, he must, in defiance of the slan law, penetrate the palace and get at Kier Gray!
It was a world of shadows and silence, and insidious choking fingers of dust that kept reaching for Cross' throat, and then – ludicrous paradox – tickled instead of strangled. He went through many doors and corridors, and great stately rooms.
Suddenly, there was a soft metal click behind him. Whirling, he saw a solid sheet of metal door flow softly into the floor over which he had just passed, creating a smooth, hard wall. He stood very still, and for a moment he was a sensitive machine receiving impressions. There was the long, narrow corridor, ending just ahead, the dim lights above, and the floor beneath him, the latter cushioned by a thick, yielding dust. Into the silence a second click projected harshly. The walls creaked metallically and began to move, coming at a deliberate pace toward him, and toward each other.
Automatic, he decided, for there was not the faintest tendril of thought anywhere. Coolly, he examined the potentialities of the trap, and presently discovered at the extreme end of each wall a nook. Each nook was six feet four inches in height. A shallow place large enough to hold half a human body sideways. The contours of the body were grooved into those nooks.
Cross smiled grimly. In a few minutes, the walls would come together, and the only available space for him would be where the two nooks would then be joined. A neat trap!
True, the atomic energy of the ring on his finger could probably disintegrate a pathway for him through the walls or the door, but his purpose demanded that this trap be successful up to a point. He examined the nooks more carefully. This time his ring flashed twice in brief fury, dissolving the handcuffs that waited in the handholds for the helpless, carving also enough space to give himself freedom of movement.
When the walls were a foot apart, a four-inch-wide crack opened the full length of the floor, and the small mountain of dust poured into it. A few minutes later the two walls met with a metallic bang.
A moment of silence! Then machinery whirred faintly, and there was a swift flow of upward movement. The movement continued for minutes on end before it slowed and finally stopped. But the machinery still whispered beneath him. Another minute, and then the cubicle in which he stood began to revolve slowly. A crack appeared before his face, a crack that widened into a rectangular hole through which he could see into a room.
The machinery stopped whining. There was silence again while Cross examined the room. There was a desk in the center of a highly polished floor, with walnut-paneled walls beyond. Some chairs and filing cabinets and the edge of a floor-to-ceiling bookcase; completed what he could see of the spare, businesslike room.
Footsteps sounded. The man who came in and shut the door behind him was magnificently built, grayed at the temples now, lines of age showing. But there was no one in all the world who would not have recognized that lean face, those piercing eyes, the ruthlessness that was written indelibly in those thin nostrils and line of jaw. It was a face too hard, too determined to be pleasant. But withal it was a noble countenance. Here was a born leader of men. Cross felt himself dissected, his face explored by those keen eyes. Finally, the proud mouth twisted into the faintest sneer.
Kier Gray said, "So you got caught. That wasn't very clever."
It was the words that did it. For with them came surface thoughts, and those surface thoughts were a deliberate screen held over a mind shield as tight as his own. No leaky tendrilless slan shield this, but an enormous fact. Kier Gray, leader of men, was a man who believed himself to be-
"A true slan!"
That one explosive sentence Cross uttered, and then the fluidity of his mind chilled into an ice of quiet thought. All those years that Kathleen Layton had lived with Kier Gray, and not suspected the truth. Of course she had lacked experience with mind shields, and there had been John Petty with a similar type of shield to confuse the issue, because John Petty was human. How cleverly the dictator had imitated the human way of thought protection! Cross shook himself mentally and, determined to get reaction this time, repeated:
"So – you are a slan!"
The other's face twisted sardonically. "That's hardly the right description for a man without tendrils who cannot read minds, but yes, I am a slan."
He paused, then continued earnestly: "For hundreds of years we who knew the truth have existed for the purpose of preventing the tendrilless slans from taking over the world of men. What more natural than that we should insinuate our way into control of the human government? Are we not the most intelligent beings on the face of the Earth?"
Cross nodded. It fitted, of course. His own deductions had told him that. Once he knew that the true slans were not, actually, the hidden government of the tendrilless slans, it was inevitable they would be governing the human world, for all Kathleen's belief and the tendrilless slam X-ray pictures showing Kier Gray to be possessed of a human heart and other nonslan organs. Somewhere here there was still a tremendous mystery. He shook his head finally.
"I still don't get it all. I expected to find the true slans ruling the tendrilless... secretly. Everything fits, of course, in a distorted fashion. But why antislan propaganda? What about that slan ship which came to the palace years ago? Why are true slans hunted and killed like rats? Why not an arrangement with the tendrilless slans?"
The leader stared at him thoughtfully. "We have tried on occasion to tamper with antislan propaganda, one such attempt being that very ship to which you have referred. For special reasons I was forced to order it down in the marshes. But in spite of that apparent failure, it succeeded in its main purpose, which was to convince the tendrilless slans, who were definitely contemplating their attack, that we were still a force to be reckoned with.
"It was the palpable weakness of the silver ship that convinced the tendrilless slans. They knew we could not be that impotent and so once more they hesitated and were lost. It has always been unfortunate, the number of true slans being killed in various parts of the world. They are the descendants of slans who, scattered after the War of Disaster, never made connection with the slan organization. After the tendrilless slans came on the scene it was, of course, too late to do anything. Our enemies were in a position to interfere with every communication device that we possessed.
"We tried our best, naturally, to contact such wanderers. But the only ones who really got through were those who came to the palace to kill me. For them we provided a number of easy passageways into the palace. My instruments tell me that you came the hard way, through one of the ancient entrances. Very daring. We can use another bold young man in our small organization."