Suddenly we heard a scream from the other side of the hatch. Then a cry of rage. Then we heard pounding, frightened, on the other side of the steel. "Help! Help!" we heard. "Let us in! Let us in!" There was more frenzied pounding. "We surrender! we heard. "Please! Please!" There were more screams. We heard something sharp strike against the steel. We heard a dart-firing weapon discharge its bolt. "We surrender! We surrender!" we heard. "Let us in!"

"It is a trick," said Drusus.

"It is certainly a convincing one," I averred.

We heard another man scream with pain.

Then, from the other side of the steel, we heard a voice call out. It spoke in the language of the People. I could understand very little of it.

Imnak beamed, and ran to the wheel. I did not stop him. He turned the wheel. The large, squarish hatch, some ten feet in height and width, studded with bolts, slid slowly to the side.

Ram let forth a cheer.

Outside, on the dim, polar ice, many on sleds, drawn by sleen, were hundreds of the People, men, and women and children. More were arriving, visible in the reflection from the moons on the ice. Karjuk stood near the entranceway, his strung bow of layered horn in his hand, an arrow at the string. Other hunters stood about. Men from the complex lay scattered on the ice. From the backs and chests of several protruded arrows. Red hunters stood about. Some of the men from the complex had been downed by lances. A few cowered, their weapons discarded, herded together by domesticated snow sleen, ravening and vicious, on the leashes of their red masters. Some men of the complex were thrown to their stomachs on the ice. Their hands were jerked behind them and were being tied with rawhide. Then, their suits were being slit with bone knives. "We will freeze!" cried one of them. The red hunters were putting their enemies completely at their mercy, and that of the winter night.

Karjuk called out orders. Red hunters streamed in, past me. Imnak handed the dart-firing weapons to some of them. hastily explaining their use. But most simply hurried past him, more content to rely on their tools of wood and bone. The men with the domesticated snow sleen passed me. I did not envy those on whom such animals would be set. Drusus, with a dart-firing weapon, joined one contingent of hunters, in their vanguard, to cover them and match fire with whatever resistance they might encounter; Ram, seizing up a weapon, joined another contingent I looked outside the hatch, or port. Even more of the People, women and children as well as hunters, were making their way across the ice to the complex. They were detaching many of the snow sleen from the sleds, to be used as attack sleen.

Karjuk continued to stand by the port and issue orders, in the tongue of the red hunters.

"There must be more than fifteen hundred of the hunters," I said.

"They are from all the camps," said Imnak. "There are more, before they have finished coming, than twenty-five hundred."

"Then it is all the People," I said.

"Yes," said Imnak, "it is all the People." He grinned at me. "Sometimes the guard cannot do everything," he said.

I looked at Karjuk. "I thought you an ally of the beasts," I said.

"I am the guard," he said. "And I am of the People."

"Forgive me," I said, "that I doubted you."

"It is done," he said.

More red hunters streamed past us.

I saw two men from the complex being prodded through the halls, toward a room. Their hands were bound with rawhide, behind them. A woman was being dragged along by the hair. Her clothing had been removed. Already her captor had put bondage strings on her throat.

"I would alter the garments you wear, if I were you," said Imnak, "for you might be mistaken for one of the men of the complex."

I removed the suit I had worn. I donned boots and fur trousers. I did not wish to wear a shirt or parka in the complex, because of its heat.

More hunters came past us. Imnak explained to some of them the nature of the dart-firing weapons.

The prisoners, captured outside, shuddering, half-frozen, were herded within the complex, bound.

"Go to where it is warmer," I told the girls shivering in the recessed room.

Arlene, Audrey, Barbara, Constance, and the others, hurried to a place of greater shelter.

Karjuk went then to direct the operations within the complex. He was accompanied by Imnak.

I stepped outside, into the arctic night, though bare-chested, to survey the rear of our position.

I checked the ice cliffs, the ice about, to see if any organized sortie might be obvious. I saw nothing. If men of the complex fled the complex I did not think they would last long in the arctic night. The power units in their suits would eventually be exhausted, and they would then be at the mercy of the snow and ice.

I looked about, and, suddenly, saw that the port to the complex was being slowly closed. Swiftly I re-entered. The Lady Rosa, startled, turned toward me, from the wheel which controlled the panel. She backed away, shaking her head. Her mouth had been on the wheel.

Not speaking I went to her and put her to her knees. With my knife I cut a length of her hair, about a foot in length, and crossed and tied together her ankles. I then dragged her by the arm across the steel, out through the portal, and onto the ice. "No," she screamed, "No!" I left her on her side on the ice. "No!" she screamed.

I returned within the complex and, with the wheel, closed the heavy, sliding hatch.

I heard her screaming on the other side of the steel. "Let me in!" she cried. "I demand to be let in!" Her cries could be heard with some clarity. She had doubtless twisted and squirmed frenziedly, until she must be, on her knees, just outside of the steel.

"I am a free woman!" she cried. "You cannot do this to me!"

I did not think she would last long outside in the arctic night, silked as she was.

She had tried to kill me.

"I will be your slave," she cried.

She did not know if I were still on the other side of the door or not.

"I am your slave!" she cried. "Master, Master, I am your slave! Please spare your slave, Master!" She wailed with misery and cold. "Please spare your slave, Master!" she wept.

I turned the wheel, opening the hatch.

She fell inward, across the threshold, shivering. I drew her within the room, and spun shut the hatch.

I looked down at her, shuddering at my feet. She looked up at me, terrorized. "What manner of man are you, my Master?" she asked. I looked down at her. She struggled to her knees and put her head down, to my feet. She began to kiss them, desperately, in an effort to placate me. "Look up," I said to her. She did so. "You will be whipped severely," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. "I tried to kill you."

"You did that when you were a free woman," I told her. "I discount it."

"But then why would you have me whipped?" she asked.

"You kiss poorly," I told her.

"I beg instruction," she said.

"I will have a girl try to teach you some things," I told her. Experienced slave girls are often useful in teaching a new girl, fresh to her condition, how to please men.

"I will try to learn my lessons well," she said.

I threw her to my shoulder, to carry her within the complex to a holding area. "You will learn your lessons well," I told her, "or you. will be thrown to sleen for feed."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"The complex is secure," said Ram, "save for the chamber of Zarendargar, Half-Ear. None has entered there."

"I shall go in," I said.

"We can blast our way in," said Ram. "Let us do that," said Drusus.

I walked down the long hail toward the chamber of Zarendargar. Behind me, some hundred yards or so, were Ram, and Drusus, and Karjuk and Imnak, and numerous red hunters.

I carried a dart-firing weapon in my hand. It seemed a long way down the hall. I had not remembered it as being that far. The overhead track system stopped some forty feet or so from Zarendargar's chamber. I looked at the monitor lens in the ceiling. Doubtless my approach had been observed on it. The interior of the chamber, though it contained monitors, was not itself monitored.