"Traitor!" Lura spat, turned to Trent. "He gave himself up to the Masters weeks ago, fleeing from a Connet colony he betrayed." The man drew himself up, glancing at the robot at his back, then turning to face the prisoners. Fear was in his eyes, but brutality masked his face. "I can order you killed," he said. "Don't drive me far." He glanced at the rifle and flame gun he carried. "Where did you get these weapons?" he asked Trent. "_Are_ they weapons?" Kimball Trent asked mockingly. "I don--the Master says they are." "Then they can talk?" Incredulity was in Trent's voice. "I thought they had no speech." "They do not speak, not the way we do; but they make themselves understood." Perspiration slid in greasy drops down the man's face. "Where did you get these weapons?" he asked again. The robot came into the room, staring glassily, tentacular arms swaying gently at its sides. Lura stiffened, pressed closer to Trent. He grinned, nodded at the metal man. "Your dog?" he asked. "_Dog?_" the man said puzzledly, turned his head. And Kimball Trent flowed into action, leaping with the grace and darting agility of a panther. His left hand reached out, caught the arm of the man, and his right hand chopped down in a vicious rabbit punch at the base of the other's neck. Bones snapped from the brutal power, and the man went utterly limp. The robot came driving forward with an incredible speed, tentacles of whipping steel lashing for Trent's throat. But even as the robot came swinging in, Trent whirled, spinning the rifle as a club, smashed the automaton squarely across the eyes. Glass popped and shattered, tiny shards flying through the air. Light flared intensely white in each eye socket, then died to red and vanished into blackness. Then the robot was but an eyeless machine methodically smashing its way about the room. It was a legged juggernaut, a ton of destruction that crushed the bunk to splinters with a double sweep of its heavy tentacles. Trent bent low, avoiding death by a fraction of an inch, saw that Lura had flowed into action almost as quickly as he. She stood at the door now, flame gun in hand, waiting for him. He dodged to her side, caught the door, slammed it shut, then locked it with a turn of the switch. He dropped the shattered rifle, caught the flame gun in his right hand. "This is it," he said briefly, led the way at a run down the corridor. They ducked about the corner of the hall, heard the battering sounds disappearing behind. Their breaths were hot in their throats, and the utter soullessness of the tower was a dank mantle that shrouded them. "Which way?" Lura said at the double door facing them at the end of the corridor. "This," Trent said shortly, pushed through a swing door.