"So?" The _kraedar_ laughed mockingly. "Yet if you had not these things, old man, you would be slaves again, is it not so? Well, then--" He turned and barked a command to his soldiers. Instantly bright weapons leaped from their belts to their hands. And it was with the barest warning the quintet of Solarites managed to scramble from the proximity of the cart as the blazing rays of a dozen ultrawave handguns spat flame upon the cart. In a moment of searing fire the vehicle was gone, blasted to oblivion by those frightful rays. "So," continued the captain, "having no chattels of your own, you are again slaves. _Tramir_ Chingru--herd me these cattle to the mart, and there get for me the best price you can. And mind," he added dangerously, "you bring me back _all_ the profits. Make no mistake as to the amount." A single warrior fell out of formation, gestured the quintet into a little knot before him, and pointed the way down a side avenue. The warrior captain, smirking with satisfaction, spurred his company on its journey. An hour later all five were parcels of merchandise in the slave mart of Imperial Khundru. CHAPTER XVIII The Control Tower Standing there in the slave mart of Imperial Khundru, Gary Lane realized--as millions of his human brethren had discovered in past ages--that it is one thing to experience an emotional uprising when _reading_ about a situation, but quite another to be involved in that situation yourself. In his university history classes Gary had read of the day when unenlightened Earthmen enslaved their human brothers, offering their flesh and services to hire on the auction block. From a purely rational standpoint he had disapproved of this barbaric custom, in this age happily abandoned. But now, here on a planet inconceivably far from the little world called Earth, he himself was not only _witnessing_ such a deal in human wares but was, indeed, one of the chattels to be auctioned! As his mind busied himself with abortive plot and speculation, his eyes roved covertly about his surroundings. He saw the raised central dais upon which a lean and hawknosed auctioneer singsonged the merit of a thick-thewed and filthy serf. He saw the encircling throng of bidders, Magogeans ranging through all walks of life from the lowest freedmen land-owners, through the merchantmen exporters, to the elaborately caparisoned lords and nobles who lolled in their scented boxes, raising listless fingers in token of bid when an offering took their fancy. What turn this _contretemps_ would take he could not guess. But he was not left long in wonderment. For the warrior into whose hands they had been placed was impatient to rejoin his troop; with a stern command that his charges await his return, he shouldered his way through the mob to the auction block. As soon as he had gone, Lark turned to Gary, a question in his eyes. "Make a break for it?"