Janina screamed.
The officer of the court, too, cried out in misery. Clearly the shot must have passed her.
“What shall we do, Commander?” called one of the men down the hall.
“Hold your fire,” said the gladiator.
Gerune, in her bonds, shrank down, small, in misery. She had been seen naked, at the feet of a man. What would be the consequences of that, when her identity might be established? Too, she had been paraded as a slave girl through the corridors, an object of lust and ridicule to hundreds of men.
“Move aside!” said the naval officer.
The gladiator stepped to the side, keeping his hands raised.
“The timer has been activated!” said the young officer. Then he cried to those with him, “Into the capsule!”
“Alert the gunners,” said a man down the hall.
One of their number lifted a communication device and began to speak rapidly into it.
The young naval officer then, carefully, fired four shots down the hall. Three of these shots struck targets. One fellow staggered back, his armor blackened and scarred; another lost part of his armor, it blasted away from him; he scrambled away; a third shot struck the helmet of a man at the side, half tearing his head from his body. The other shot, the barbarians having broken for cover, passed harmlessly down the corridor, until it subsided, and left a line of fire on the carpeting more than a hundred yards away.
“It seems we owe our lives to your presence, Princess,” said the young naval officer. Janina began to tremble.
The young naval officer then, his suspicions aroused, jerked away her hood. “You are not a princess,” he said. “I know you! You are a slave!”
He then looked down at Gerune. “Your hair,” he said, “shows you to be barbarian, and you are not ankleted, or braceleted, or collared, no mark of bondage is upon you, not even, it seems, a brand, so you must be free. Perhaps it is you who are the princess! Well, it does not matter. Many women, once barbarian princesses, are now slave girls in the empire. It is where such as you belong, at the feet of gentlemen.”
“My thanks to you, whoever you may be,” said the young naval officer to the gladiator. “We were not capable of bringing the escape capsule to the lock, the lift being inoperative. You have been of great help.”
He glanced at the timer.
“We must be leaving now,” he said.
Then he looked at the officer of the court, who was backed against the corridor wall, near the lock, on its left, as one would enter it.
He regarded her with contempt.
“I am a citizen,” she said. “I am of the blood!”
“You are a stupid, loud-mouthed bitch,” he said. “Your cries could have gotten us all killed. And why did you cry out? Are you so eager to be killed, or cast into the chains of a slave?”
“Sir!” she protested.
“Get in the capsule, bitch,” he said. She cast one wild glance at the gladiator and then, hurriedly, entered the capsule.
The timing needle was now close to the point at which the automatic launching sequence would be activated.
“How are we to escape?” asked the gladiator.
“Who are you?” asked the officer.
“He who defeated Ortog in the contest,” said the gladiator.
“The Otung?” said the officer.
“I know not the meaning of that word,” said the gladiator.
“You are the one Pulendius calls ‘Dog’?”
“Yes,” said the gladiator.
“You may be an Otung,” said the officer. “Surely you are not of the empire.”
“I have brought the capsule to the lock,” said the gladiator.
“My thanks,” said the officer.
“How are we to escape?”
The officer threw a quick glance at the needle.
“I have no time to trust you, or disarm you,” he said. He then, twice, pulled the trigger on the fire pistol, and the gladiator staggered backwards, the armor black with heat. He then, spinning about, fell to the side of the shaft, near the ladder. Another shot blasted him back into the open area of the shaft, by the ladder.
Janina screamed.
“I am sorry,” said the officer.
He regarded both the distraught Janina and the princess, who had scrambled back as she could, bound, and was now to the left of the lift entrance, as one might enter it from the corridor. She jerked madly at the bonds, but, of course, was held, perfectly.
“You will remain here, slaves,” said the officer to Janina and the princess.
Then he hastily leaped through the lock port a moment before it shut. He slid through the hatch on the capsule and secured it. A moment later the outer portal opened, and, an instant after that, the capsule burst free of the Alaria.
CHAPTER 14
The gladiator lay at the bottom of the lift shaft.
Janina fled to the ladder and climbed down, to crouch beside him.
He half sat up, then fell to the side.
“Master! Master!” she wept.
There was the sound of racing feet, approaching. The gladiator crawled from the bottom of the shaft, across the tracks on which the escape capsule had been moved, to the flooring of the hold.
Faces appeared at the opening to the lift shaft, above.
“Princess!” called a man. “Are you all right? Commander! Answer me!”
The gladiator sat up, awkwardly. The chest plate of the armor had taken three charges, two at almost point-blank range. It was loose on the left, half-unhinged. The gladiator tried to rise, but fell back.
“She lied,” he said. “She gave her word. But she lied.”
“Master!” whispered Janina, frenziedly.
“Princess? Commander?” called the voice again.
“She lied,” said the gladiator.
The gladiator slipped loose the fire pistol from its holster.
“We are lost!” wept Janina.
“Courage, Princess!” called the voice. “We are coming down immediately!”
“Stay where you are!” screamed Janina.
“That is not the voice of the princess!” said a man, from somewhere above.
“Commander! Commander!” called another voice.
“My helmet, remove my helmet,” said the gladiator, weakly.
Janina struggled to lift the helmet, and then put it to the side.
Within the collar of the armor, where it had been pressed back, under the helmet, there was blood.
The blaze of electric torches, from above, darted about the shaft.
The gladiator lifted the fire pistol weakly.
Then he put it down, beside him.
“She lied,” he said.
“Oh, Master, Master,” moaned Janina.
“Who are you, woman?” called a voice from above.
“Commander!” called a man, from above.
“It may not be a commander,” said another.
“Who is the captain of the Gelstane?” called down a man.
“Who is the subcaptain of the Borsa?” called another.
“Can you speak, Commander?” asked a man.
“Answer our questions, female,” demanded a voice.
“Here,” said another, “ungag this slave and beat her. She will speak!”
“Hurry!” said a voice, with authority.
The men drew away from the opening above.
“She is a beauty,” said a man.
“A not unattractive slut,” said another.
“I saw her earlier, in the corridors,” said another.
“I, too!” said another.
“She walked well on her leash,” said another.
“That she did!” laughed a man.
“Kneel her here, before me. Strike her,” said a voice.
There was in a moment the sound of a blow and a soft cry of muffled pain.
“Do you wish to be struck again, slut?” asked a man.