ch the three raced.

They came to a stairway and as they tumbled into the pit, Mike looked
swiftly over his shoulder. He was thinking of Mertaan's weapon. But it
was not available. Mertaan had been lost in the mob of screaming
prisoners.

Mike snatched up an odd-looking instrument from a table he passed. He
knew nothing of its original use but it would make an excellent club.
He baptized it by catching a fleeing, terrified priest and splitting
his skull with one blow. This brought him within a few steps of where
Doree lay. She had been knocked to the floor as the desperate priests
sought to escape the wrath of their prisoners.

* * * * *

Mike's eyes were only for her. He did not see a guard nearby who
turned suddenly and charged him with the flat ugly sword gripped tight
in his fist. Mike knelt down to lift Doree. The sword plunged down.
But instead of going into Mike's back, it was driven deep into the
breast of M'Landa who had hurled himself forward.

Nicko, with a curse bellowed in some obscure dialect, leaped forward
and took the guard into his hands. He lifted the guard and held him
aloft with one hand. With the other he tore the man's throat out and
hurled him dying and bloody across the pit.

The whole building trembled at that moment, obviously from a bomb
hurled off a Baserite ship. But Mike and Nicko were scarcely aware of
this new thunder. Mike had set Doree on her feet and was now holding
the fallen H'Lorkan warrior in his arms. Gently he withdrew the sword.
There was a lump in his throat. He said, "Thanks, friend. You'll never
be forgotten. I will always remember."

M'Landa smiled. He spoke and Nicko interpreted. "This is a fine worthy
death. I could ask for no more. I die pleasantly, in the hope that the
Ptomenites are brought down forever."

Then he was dead and there was no time to mourn him. "Back upstairs,"
Mike said. "Your father is in a cell there. We've got to get him and
then find a way out of here and to the ship--if we aren't too late.
I've got a hunch McKee and Talbott will be heading in the same
direction."

Nicko had picked up Doree's robe. He threw it over her shoulders and
he and Mike formed a cordon in front and in back of the girl, Nicko
going first. They headed for a stairway while all about them bloody
slaughter was taking place.

The priests had found the exit doors mysteriously locked and what few
guards were in the pit proved to be helpless