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Red Orc's voice was impatient. "Come, come! Don't play games with me, Earthling! Say yes or say no, but be quick about it!"
"Yes! Provisionally, that is! It depends upon your other conditions!"
"I have only one." Red Orc coughed several times and then said, "And that is, that you and the others first help me catch the Beller!"
Kickaha was shocked, but a thousand experiences in being surprised enabled him to conceal it. Smoothly, he said, "Agreed! In fact, that's something I had wished you would agree to do, but at that time I didn't see working with you. Of course, you had no whip hand then."
So the Beller had either been caught by Orc's men and had then escaped or somebody else had captured him. That somebody else could only be another Lord.
Or perhaps it was another Beller.
At that thought, he became cold.
"What do we do now?" he said, unwilling to state the truth, which was, "What do you wish now?"
Orc's voice became crisp and restrainedly triumphant.
"You will present yourself at Mrs. Cambring's house as soon as possible, and my men will conduct you here. How long will it take you to get to Cambring's?"
"About half an hour," Kickaha said. If he could get a taxi at once, he could be there in ten minutes, but he wanted a little more time to plan.
"Very well!" the Lord said. "You must surrender all arms, and you will be thoroughly examined by my men. Understood?"
"Oh, sure."
While he was talking, he had been as vigilant as a bird. He looked out the glass of the booth for anything suspicious, but had seen nothing except cars passing. Now a car stopped by the curb. It was a big dark Cadillac with a single occupant. The man sat for a minute, looked at his wristwatch, and then opened the door and got out. He sauntered toward the booth, looking again at his watch. He was a very well-built youth about six-foot-three and dressed modishly and expensively. The long yellow hair glinted in the sun as if it were flecked with gold. His face was handsome but rugged.
He stopped near the booth and pulled a cigarette case from his jacket. Kickaha continued to listen to the instructions from the phone but he kept his eye on the newcomer. The fellow looked at the world through half-lidded arrogant eyes. He was evidently impatient because the booth was occupied. He glanced at his watch again and then lit his cigarette with a pass of the flame over the tip and a flicking away of the match in one smooth movement.
Kickaha spoke the code which prepared the ring on his finger to be activated for a short piercing beam. He would have to cut through the glass if the fellow were after him.
The voice on the phone kept on and on. It seemed as if he were dictating the terms of surrender to a great nation instead of to a single man. Kickaha must approach the front of the Cambring house and advance only halfway up the front walk and then stand until three men came out of the house and three men in a car parked across the street approached him from behind at the same time. And then...
The man outside the booth made a disgusted face as he looked at his watch again and swung away. Evidently he had given up on Kickaha.
But he only took two steps and spun, holding a snubnosed handgun.
Kickaha dropped the phone and ducked, at the same time speaking the word which activated the ring.
The gun barked, the glass of the booth shattered, and Kickaha was enveloped in a white mist. It was so unexpected that he gasped once, knew immediately that he should hold his breath, and did so. He also lunged out of the booth, cutting down the door with the ring. The door fell outward from his weight, but he never heard it strike the ground.
When he recovered consciousness, he was in the dark and hard confines of a moving object. The odor of gas and the cramped space made him believe that he was in the trunk of a car. His hands were tied behind him, his legs were tied at the ankles, and his mouth was taped.
He was sweating from the heat, but there was enough air in the trunk. The car went up an incline and stopped. The motor stopped, doors squeaked, the car rifted as bodies left it, and then the lids of the trunk swung open. Four men were looking down at him, one of whom was the big youth who had fired the gas gun.
They pulled him out and carried him from the garage, the door of which was shut. The exit led directly into the hall of a house, which led to a large room, luxuriously furnished and carpeted. Another hall led them to a room with a ceiling a story and a half high, an immense crystal chandelier, black and white parquet floor, heavy mahogany furniture, and paintings that looked like original old masters.
Here he was set down in a big high-backed chair and his legs were untied. Then he was told by one of the men to walk. A man behind urged him on with something hard and sharp against his back. He followed the others from the room through a doorway set under the great staircase. This led down a flight of twelve steps into a sparsely furnished room. At one end was a big massive iron door which he knew led to his prison cell. And so it was, though a rather comfortable prison. His hands were untied and the tape was taken from his mouth.
The beamer-ring had been removed, and the beamer-pen taken from his shirt pocket. While the big man watched, the others stripped him naked, cutting the shirt and his undershirt off. Then they explored his body cavities for weapons but found nothing.
He offered no resistance since it would have been futile. The big man and another held guns on him. After the inspection, a man closed a shackle around one ankle. The shackle was attached to a chain which was fastened at the other end to a ring in the wall. The chain was very thin and lightweight and long enough to permit him to move anywhere in the room.
The big man smiled when he saw Kickaha eyeing it speculatively and said, "It's as gossamer as a cobweb, my friend, but strong as the chain that bound Fenris."
"I am Loki, not Fenris," Kickaha said, gri
The big man raised his eyebrows and said, "Ah, yes. And you remember what happened to Loki?"
"I am also Logi," Kickaha said, but he decided that that sort of talk had gone far enough. He fell silent, waiting for the other to tell him who he was and what he meant to do.
The man did not look quite so young now. He seemed to be somewhat over thirty. His voice was heavy, smooth, and very authoritative. His eyes were beautiful; they were large and leaf-green and heavily lashed. His face seemed familiar, though Kickaha was sure that he had never seen it before.
The man gestured, and the others left the room. He closed the door behind him and then sat on the edge of the table. This was bolted down to the floor, as were the other pieces of furniture. He dangled one leg while he held his gun on his lap. It looked like a conventional weapon, not a gas gun or a disguised beamer, but Kickaha had no way of determining its exact type at that moment. He sat down on a chair and waited. It was true that this left the man looking down on him, but Kickaha was not one to allow a matter of relative altitude to give an-other a psychological advantage.
The man looked steadily at him for several minutes. Kickaha looked back and whistled softly.
"I've been following you for some time," the man suddenly said. "I still don't know who you are. Let me introduce myself. I am Red Orc."
Kickaha stiffened, and he blinked.
The man smiled and said, "Who did you think I was?"
"A Lord who'd gotten stuck in this universe and was looking for a way out," Kickaha said. "Are there two Red Orcs, then?"