Chapter XIII

Several times along the way they had been halted by sentry-patrols from some of the other outlaw caverns, who warned them that an unusual number of strong parties of troops from Gral-Thala were roaming the waste-land. However, they came without incident to a tiny outlaw hide-out. This was within half a mile of one of the caverns that was under the domination of the Lords of Gral-Thala.

Two hours later Larry and the others stood with a score of other people, in an air-lock in a great tunnel that led through the mountain range and into Gral-Thala. All these people were residents of the valley returning from a tour of duty in the caverns, and the four outlaws from Chotan had been furnished with forged documents that gave them the same identity.

The space suits had been removed and hung on numbered racks. The three men wore the tight tunics and loose trousers that were the customary dress within the valley, as distinguished from the loin cloth and cloak of the cavern outlaws. This was fortunate, for the trousers concealed the sturdy Earthly legs of Larry and Colton which would have stood out in sharp contrast to the typical spindly shanks of the otherwise well-built Lunarians. Diana wore a loose robe, with tight wrappings concealing her hair and a thin veil over her face.

A heavy guard of soldiers checked the papers of all the travelers before they let them through. These troops wore light armor, and each carried an electronic gun slung from his shoulder. The officers were evidently of the Invaders, cruel-eyed men cast in the same mold as Xylon. The men were Lunarians, generally of a rather debased type and drawn from among the worst element in the population. A heavy-featured trooper glanced at Larry's papers in a perfunctory manner, then handed them back.

"All right, all right!" he growled. "Get along. Don't block the way!"

The tunnel ended on the inner slope of the mountain range surrounding Gral-Thala, where many cars ran down the steep incline into the city below. It was a pleasant and smiling land that Larry Gibson saw before him, a sunlit and fertile valley so vast that even the lofty range on the far side was invisible over the horizon. Towns and villages dotted the plain. Farms lay among their fertile fields. A small river wound through the center. Directly below him, clustered against this part of the valley wall, was a mighty city.

"This is the city of Pandonaria," Diana's voice came softly through her veil, "capital city of Gral-Thala."

The city itself was a terraced mass of colored buildings cut by many streets and interspersed with gardens. Several towering palaces of white and gold, the abodes of the Lords of Gral-Thala, dominated the lower buildings. It was good to see real sunlight again! To see birds flying overhead! To smell the odor of flowers and growing things, in contrast to the flat and motionless air of the Lost Caverns! It was hard to believe that this pleasant spot was really the scene of such a brutal tyranny as he had been told. Then they rounded a bend in the sloping road and came to an abrupt halt.

* * * * *

At the side of the road stood a sort of gallows, made of strips of a ruddy metal bolted together. From it hung the nude body of a young Lunarian girl. She was suspended by her bound wrists high above her head, and her feet swung far off the ground. From the clotted blood at her bound wrists, and the way the eternal sun of the valley had burned her skin, Larry knew that she had hung there many hours. The girl was far gone but she was not yet dead. At intervals her drooping head moved feebly from side to side. A pair of armored soldiers leaned on their weapons below the gallows. Around the girl's neck hung a sign, lettered in the archaic English script that was the official language of Gral-Thala:

"THIS GIRL DARED STRIKE ONE OF THE NOBLES OF
GRAL-THALA WHO CONDESCENDED TO NOTICE HER."

Fierce anger filled Larry Gibson's heart, a consuming anger that set his clenched fists shaking. For some reason he thought of Diana. Though she stood only a few feet away from him, he visioned her hanging from such a gallows if the dissolute tyrants of this land ever stormed the Lost Caverns. Then Pyatt of Kagan laid a hand on his arm.

"Careful, my friend!" the Lunarian hissed. "Your anger shows on your face, and that is bad. We cannot help that poor girl now. Come!"

They went down into the city, avoiding the broad boulevards and keeping to the narrower streets where the poorer people were. As they passed by the base of one of the high palaces, they came to the body of a girl who lay crushed on the stones and had evidently been thrown or jumped from one of the upper windows. An aged man stood astride the body, leaning back and shaking his skinny fists at the white and gold bulk of the palace above him.

"Woe be upon the Lords of Gral-Thala!" he screamed in his shrill old voice. "Triple woe upon the tyrants and upon the decadent parasites who fawn upon them. Evil lies in wait for ye, lurking in your white palaces with your guards and your harlots! The hour of doom is not far away! The vengeance of Gorton and Laila may be long delayed, but it comes in the end! Woe to the Lords of Gral-Thala!"

An uneasy, sullen, murmuring crowd was gathered around the ragged old man although they left a broad circle of vacant space around him and the body of his granddaughter. A few troopers of the garrison were making a half-hearted effort to push the crowd back. They were uncomfortable in the face of the unspoken but obvious hatred of the throng. Larry and the others prudently kept to the back of the crowd. Even so, they were near enough to see what happened next.

Silver bells rang sharply, and lackeys called an arrogant summons to clear the way. In the midst of a circle of armed guards, porters carried a swaying gilt litter. On the cushions of the litter rested a man. It was one of the nobles of Gral-Thala, a perfumed degenerate in silken robes with a rouged and painted face. For a moment he stared at the crowds with his arrogantly scornful eyes. Then, as he saw the old man beside the girl's body and heard the curses he was shouting, his patrician face was distorted into a sneering frown.

The noble snarled an order, and one of his guards lifted his electronic rifle. There was a flash of blinding light! A sudden clap of miniature thunder, and a smell of ozone. The man-made lightning bolt struck the old man in the chest and knocked him sprawling across the body of his granddaughter. With a faint smile the noble leaned back on the cushions of the litter and waved languidly to his porters to move on again.

"Let us go, my friends!" Pyatt whispered hoarsely. "We cannot right all the wrongs of Gral-Thala at one stroke, and our mission is the most important thing at the moment."