which had peered at us.

"And Venta?" I prompted.

"Her father—No, I guess it's her grandfather—he's a leader on Venus. Religious leader, or something. He and some others have escaped to a Forest City. Curtmann had Venta. Venta says he's just trying to make her love him—make her see how wonderful he is. Curtmann, the Man of Destiny—I can't wait to meet him!"

He had taken Venta on one of his forays to Earth, and she had escaped from him. "An' they got us along with her," Jim finished wryly. "Damned lucky we didn't get killed. We will yet, most probably."

A little rasp here in the darkness made us turn. A doorslide had opened; a man's heavy-featured face scowled in at us.

"At last you have recovered," he said to me. His voice was the heavy, guttural timber of a mid-European. He was a villainous-looking fellow, his slack-jowled face bluish with a week's growth of beard.

"Yes," I said. "Fortunately for me. Are you Curtmann?"

"He's Frantz," Jim put in. "He's been feeding me."

"Tell your master I want to see him," I said. "And take me to the girl, Venta."

The fellow leered. "You talk like you own the ship," he commented.

The doorslide closed. His footsteps retreated, but presently they came back. He opened the door. "The Great-Master says, bring you," he said with an ironic grin. "Come on. You can both come."

Silently we followed him down a narrow metal corridor.

"This way—" I saw our captor now as a bulky six-foot fellow clad incongruously in a crudely plaited robe of dried vegetable fibre, draped upon him like a Roman toga. He stood aside at an oval doorway; and Jim and I went into a small triangular room. Starlight filtered into it from a side bull's-eye.

Clad still in her brief garment, Venta sat on a square pad on the floor. As we entered she flung me a look, and then stared straight ahead.

"So? This is the fellow who thought he would steal my little Venta? Come in, Frane. Stand over there; I want to look you over."

Karl Curtmann. He was seated in a small, straight-backed armchair. He was a smallish, slim fellow, not over forty perhaps. A vivid blue 

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