"The bar – how is it fixed?"

He squatted, stunner in hand, to study the locking barrier and project the picture of it. So – and so – and so.

"Locked by persona!" flashed back an answer when he had done. "Now – "

But what she might have added was interrupted by a flash from the smux.

Toggor had dropped away from the cabin, was coming back down the handhold. The two in the control cabin were on the move, apparently descending to the next level. Farree himself skittered down the ladder and took refuge temporarily by the door of his own cabin. If they came that far, he might duck inside.

The odor of the sleep gas was gone from the level of Lady Maelen's prison. Perhaps they had some way of filtering it out of the air.

"We come." The united mind touch of Bojor and Yazz reached the hunchback. Swiftly he countered their suggestion. Neither animal could make a swift and easy ascent of the ladder, and they both would be too easy for the crewmen to pick off with either stunners or the fatal laser beamers.

Farree listened with his ears as well as his mind. Toggor had not withdrawn to this level. Instead, those eyes on stalks were watching the ladder near a closed door, which might mark the cabin of the Lord-One. Would the crew members believe that Krip was the one who held the information they must have?

"Care – " A single word from the imprisoned man. Farree had a fleeting impression that the Lord-One suspected these two had in their power some way of judging or listening to mind speech. Farree swiftly closed that channel but he kept his thread of contact with Toggor. It might well be true that the enemy could sense a human thought exchange but would not suspect it between their prisoners and the animals.

He heard above the vibration in the ship's walls, which remained a steady hum, a metallic clatter, and then voices came down the well of the ladder.

"Don't try anything, Thassa. We have a mind lock. We also have these. Those hands of yours – how would you like a roasted finger? Or a charred ear – that should be enough to scramble your thoughts, wouldn't it. Come out and get up to the control cabin. We want that tape pocket opened – and right now!"

"Persona set." That was Quanhi. "Clever, aren't you? But what has been set can be unset just as quickly. Get moving!"

They had the Lord – One with them – there followed the clip of magnetic boots on the ladder. But it was the Lady Maelen who had set that lock! How soon would they leam that and return for her – perhaps leaving the Lord-One maimed as the spacer had suggested?

Farree's anger burnt as it had before during his short life. Before he had had to stifle it – had been helpless against those who aroused it. Now – now there surely was something he could do! He had the weapon to hand and Toggor to run scout for him.

"And us. And us – "

That quick assurance came from below, surprising him again with the eager anger which moved Bojor and Yazz. The bartle – could the beast force the lock across the Lady's door, releasing her?

"I come." Bojor's only half-sensed message, which Farree had to strain his mind below the usual channel to intercept, was almost as angry as a vocal growl.

"Not yet." The bulk of the animal and its difficulty with the ladder might cause too much of a delay. Farree tapped his stunner against the step above where he crouched and tried to think.

Once more he made his way back to the level where the Lady Maelen's door was barred. Holding the stunner and continually glancing from ladder to door, Farree ran his hand across it at his chin level. It was easy to feel the thumb indentation of the persona lock was made to answer to one of the crew and him only.

He had closed his mind, nor would he try to open to the Lady lest they be checked upon by those others. Farree stationed himself near the upper ladderway, his attention for all that was above. Then he dared to give the signal to the impatient two below.

The passage of the thick-bodied bartle was a tight one and preceded by a number of grunts and half-voiced growls. Then the heavy shoulders and the tufted head appeared, and a moment later Farree retreated up a step, leaving full possession of that level to Bojor.

Long talons were unsheathed and wound about the bar. Farree watched the shoulders tense until their thick covering of bristly hair stood erect, and knew the animal was exerting its full strength.

At that same moment from overhead came an alert from the smux: "One comes!"

Perhaps the enemy had already learned that only the Lady had the true answer to their riddle and would bring her up to taste their method of coaxing. Farree clung to the ladder, wedging himself as best he could to the centermost part of it where the steps were the widest. He lifted the stunner with both his hands on the firing pin and waited.

Legs in dull gray spacer uniform appeared – then the rest of Pitor Dune. There was nothing of the disreputable Limits crawler about him now. Rather he swung down as if he were the master of the ship.

Farree fired. He had not aimed at the head, but for the center of the body, and a moment later the man folded in upon himself and tumbled forward before the hunchback could get out of the way. He heard the shout the half-paralyzed man gave even as the body knocked him flat, both of them landing against the shaggy flank of the bartle, who growled and showed fangs.

The hunchback wriggled out from under the bruising weight of the crewman and pushed him aside, farther along the floor, toward Bojor. The bartle used teeth now as well as talons to fight the stubborn hold of the bar.

A sudden thought caught Farree as he struggled away from the man screaming oaths at him. He fought to enter the bartle's mind with the plea to stand clear for a moment. Then he pushed and shoved the inert but cursing man to the position before the door and hooked up one of his hands to press the thumb in the hollow. There was a fifty-fifty chance of this one being the warden.

But the bar did not yield, and Bojor, irritated at being disturbed during his own efforts, swept both Farree and the crewman aside with a powerful blow. The helpless man slipped through the opening at the center of the ladder well and was gone before the hunchback could move to stop him.

There came a shout from aloft: "What's to do? Is the witch bitch out? Answer me. Dune." When there was no answer, the ray of a laser clipped into molten droplets part of the hand rope, seaming a line across the steps.

At the same time Farree tried to urge Bojor back out of the line of fire. The creature gave a last deep grunt and the stubborn bar loosened a fraction. Prying at that end, the bartle was able to pull it fully free and allow the door to open.

The Lady Maelen stood just within. She had a second stunner in one hand, and there was a look of grim purpose on her face. But she did not speak nor mind send an order – rather signed with one hand. The bartle rumbled deep in his throat once again and then moved cautiously back and onto the ladder, pushing his bulk through the level opening to descend. Farree, also obedient to that signal, set his crooked back to the wall and waited for orders, his own stunner ready.

"One of them is gone?" Her question came not mind to mind but in a whisper so faint that it barely reached him. He nodded and pointed down the ladder well.

"Listen, witch bitch," came a shout from above. "Do you want your fancy man here to fry?"

"Do you wish," she called back, "to planet where we have friends and then strive to explain where we are? Our voyage is already past the turn point. Whether you would or no, you are now bound by the ship's tape, and nothing save a destruction of the whole guide system will prevent it carrying out its instructions. Do you wish to die in a drifting derelict?"