No one saw him enter the city. He threaded the tortuous alleys of the squalid section with his heart hammering in his ears. At last he was stopping across from a large, five-story building. It was a ponderous, gabled affair full of reminiscences of former glory--elaborate cornices crumbling away, great, metal doors green with age, once white walls now streaked with black and gray. In carved Venusian characters, a plaque over the door lamented: "Hall of Justice." Lolan was thinking of that sad commentary as he ascended to the top floor. Justice--when the man who once ruled this entire planet now lived on crusts in a tiny room in the tower! It was Princess Mora whose hand opened the door at his knock. In the dim light of the room, her face showed sad and accusing. "What?" she asked bitterly. "Haven't you done with persecuting us for one night?" Atarkus looked up from a table where he had been poring over old Venusian books, a pair of spectacles perched on his beak-nose. "Well, speak!" he shrilled finally. "What miserable errand brings you here?" Lolan's face was hard. He kept his glance on Mora's widening eyes as he took off Ars Lugo's bracelet and extended it to her. "Ars Lugo died trying to hide this," he growled. "I thought you might like to save it. But as a favor--would you mind taking the black cross off my quarters?" III Atarkus was on his feet, shaking. Mora let the Martian place the bracelet in her hand before she gasped: "You--you knew! And didn't tell! Why?" Lolan lowered himself into a chair. He sighed despondently: "I don't know. If I'd valued my own life I'd have turned it over to Arzt. But I've had my fill of watching you Venusians tortured." The girl's eyes glowed. She said softly: "That was your only reason?" Lolan's heart thumped. His face flamed, and he tried to hide his embarrassment by springing to his feet and pacing to a window. "It's reason enough," he muttered. He swung suddenly to face them across the room. "But that isn't why I came here tonight. It's something more important than that. You've got to leave Areeba immediately!" Atarkus' face folded into grim lines. "You mean Arzt has decreed our death?" "That's it. You might have expected something like this for being seen with men like Ars Lugo." Mora looked up into the officer's face. "I can't understand you, Lolan. You're supposed to be second in command of the race that oppresses us. Yet you risked death to hide that bracelet, and undoubtedly you've taken the same risk to come here." "Don't try to understand me. Simply do as I say. Arzt has appointed me to execute you within four days. I--I can't do it, that's all. So I'm going to try to dodge the issue by letting you escape. Beyond the city there's a pursuit ship loaded with food and a pair of pistols. With that outfit you can make it to Lyna or some other settlement where you won't be known. But you've got to do it tonight!"