At the mention of Moosko's title, Sov arose, for an ongyan is one of the oligarchy and a great man. "Greetings, Ongyan Moosko!" he cried. "So you have brought us a Vepajan? Is he a doctor, by chance?"

"I do not know and I do not care," snapped Moosko. "He is a cutthroat and a scoundrel; and, doctor or no doctor, he dies."

"But we need doctors badly," insisted Sov. "We are dying of disease and old age. If we do not have a doctor soon, we shall all be dead."

"You heard what I said, did you not, Friend Sov?" demanded Moosko testily.

"Yes, Ongyan," replied the officer, meekly; "he shall die. Shall I have him destroyed at once?"

"Friend Hokal tells me that you have a slower and pleasanter way of dispatching villains than by gun or sword. I am interested. Tell me about it."

"I referred to the room of the seven doors," explained Hokal. "You see, this man's offenses were great; he made the great Ongyan a prisoner and even threatened his life."

"We have no death adequate to such a crime," cried the horrified Sov; "but the room of the seven doors, which is the best that we have to offer, shall be made ready."

"Describe it, describe it," snapped Moosko. "What is it like? What will happen to him? How will he die?"

"Let us not explain it in the presence of the prisoner," said Hokal, "if you would reap the full pleasure of the room of the seven doors."

"Yes, lock him up; lock him up!" ordered Moosko. "Put him in a cell."

Sov summoned a couple of soldiers, who conducted me to a rear room and shoved me down into a dark, windowless cellar. They slammed down and locked the heavy trap door above me and left me to my gloomy thoughts.

The room of the seven doors. The title fascinated me. I wondered what awaited me there, what strange form of horrible death. Perhaps it might not be so terrible after all; perhaps they were attempting to make my end more terrible by suggestion.

So this was to be the termination of my mad attempt to reach Mars! I was to die alone in this far-flung outpost of the Thorists in the land of Noobol that was scarcely more than a name to me. And there was so much to see upon Venus, and I had seen so little.

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