Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/114

114 lings, opened the door and motioned him inside.

"There's a bed there," he said surlily. "Use it."

Dirk stepped into the room, saw a bunk in the corner and headed for it. His head was aching, and the effects of the Martian brandy had not completely worn off. Stretching out on the bunk he relaxed completely. He wondered idly for an instant about the peculiar place he had landed. The fences, the air of unfriendliness, the armed guards all added up to a big question mark in his mind. But he was too tired to worry about it. Even if he had been perfectly fresh, it is doubtful whether Dirk Temple, billionaire playboy, would have bothered about it. In a few seconds he was asleep.

WO things awakened him. The first was a burning thirst, the result of his three-day binge on Martian brandy. The second was a dull thumping noise that seemed to be a part of the ground itself. It was rhythmic and unchanging, jarring slightly the supports of the bunk on which he was lying.

With some difficulty he struggled to a sitting position. Although his head still ached, it had cleared of the fuzzy alcoholic cobwebs. Except for a general muscular stiffness, he was as good as new. Which didn't signify much, he told himself wryly.

He stood up and walked to the door, wondering where he could get a drink. It was dark outside, but floodlights situated at the corners of the stockade provided adequate illumination.

Stepping through the doorway he became aware that the pounding noise emanated from out the stockade. The heavy steel main gate was open, he noticed. Hands in his pockets he strolled across the stockade and peered curiously through through the gate.

He saw then what caused the throbbing, tramping noise.

It was a group of men; row after row, slowly moving on the march. They passed silently past the stockade gate moving like robots. Dirk saw that they were shackled together by four-foot lengths of chain at the ankles. He was within twenty feet of the slowly moving lines of men, but not one man glanced in his direction. Their heads drooped forward, their shoulders slumped, they shambled along like walking dead men.

Somehow the spectacle gave Dirk a strange chill. If they had looked at him, or spoken, it might have been different. But their expressionless faces and silent, machine-like strides brought the hackles up on the nape of his neck.

For several minutes Dirk watched the rows of silent men file past him. Then he scratched his head and shrugged. It looked funny, but after all, it wasn't any of his business.

Turning he retraced his steps. He had not traveled more than fifty feet beyond the rows of wooden dwellings when a low, urgent voice sounded suddenly in his ear.

"Please! Please help me!"

Dirk halted abruptly, staring about.

"Here. Over here," the soft voice said anxiously.

IRK turned, and following the sound of the voice, cautiously approached a darkened one-room dwelling which he had just passed. The building was somewhat in the shadow of the stockade lights but in the dim light he could make out a figure at the window of the dark hut.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Please believe me," the figure at the window said imploringly, "you're in serious danger. You must get away from here at once. Send the Federation Police back here, if you can. It's