Then the first arm of the Gharrian lashed out, coiled about him like an octopus tentacle, drew him close, and a second sledged with a brutal scientific precision. He felt the hurt spreading in a racing wave over his body, tried to fight away the blanket of darkness. He heard Lura's scream, saw dimly that the Gharrian had caught her with his other arms.
Then the blackness became opaque and he could see nothing. He felt a second blow, and he was sinking into a funnel of darkness that had no bottom. He heard a faint echo of Lura's scream; then he knew no more.
He was on a boat, water slapping his face each time the boat rocked in the troughs of the spilling waves. He tried to sit, but nausea cramped his belly, and he felt the blackness knotting his mind again. He heard his name called again and again, but he did not have the strength to answer.
Then the curtain began lifting from his memory, and thoughts came flooding to his mind. He blinked dazedly, focusing his eyes grimly, saw that Lura was bent over him, a wet cloth in her hand.
"Some fight!" he tried to joke, and the pain of his head took all of the jolliness from his tone.
He leaned back against the pressure of her arm, saw that he had been lying on a crude bunk against the wall of an unfurnished room. He swung his legs to the floor, braced his head with both hands, gently explored the swelling bruise-knots that marked his skull.
"Never again," he said grimly. "Next time, I run."
Lura smiled gamely, worry shadows fleeing back into the depths of her violet eyes. She brushed back a stray lock of red-gold hair from her cheek, allowed her gaze to wander about the room.
"The Master brought us here and left a metal man on guard. You have been unconscious for hours."
Kimball Trent came groggily to his feet, bracing himself with one hand on the wall. Then he circled the room, stopping at the slit window, trying to see into the velvet night, going on to peer through the barred grille in the door at the expressionless inhuman face of the robot that stood at motionless guard across the hallway. Farther down the hall, on either side, he could see more doors with grilled openings.
"Yes," Lura answered from where she sat. "The Master brought us directly here."