Pao Chung chuckled evilly. "Do that. The record of Khaljean's background and illegal activities is in my safe. My will provides for publication of all such papers upon my death."
The voice hesitated. "It might be worth humiliation or disgrace to be rid of you permanently."
"It might," agreed Pao Chung. "Many people have thought so. I wonder if Khaljean will be one of them."
With a scrape of bare metal, bolts retreated into sockets and the chain was removed. Crack widened enough to permit entrance.
"Come in, then," Teucrete said wearily. "I will let my father decide when he returns. For tonight, you can stay. But I won't answer for your safety. The animals are roused and nervous. I am not sure I can control them with strangers here."
Beastly cacophonies greeted the entrance of the fugitives. An atmosphere of alien and indescribable uneasiness pervaded the vast compound with its rows and piled banks of cages. The atmosphere was the emotion of night-hauntings, and the sound was its voice.
No sign above the gate proclaimed, _Here Dwells Nightmare_, nor, _Through These Portals Pass the Most Incredible Life-Forms in the Known Universe_. There was no circus atmosphere. Just a nameless blending of sounds and smells and alien vibrations that stirred the imagination like evil flames licking at forgotten folk memories. On Venus, the term _unearthly_ has naturally lost meaning, but here was a hint of dreadful abysses beyond even the exotic fecundity of the cloud-veiled planet. Here were half-audible chords beyond all the known octaves. Here, in the troubled darkness one sensed symbols of instincts, minds and feelings that man was never meant to know or understand. Here was the final question mark of evolution--whence, and to what dreadful purpose?
What incredible virtuosity of the Unknown Creator had brought these unthinkable beings into multiform existence? And why? What purpose did they serve in the plan of Creation? Or was there any purpose? Was there even a plan?
Bat Ferris remembered such thoughts from his lonely, monastic youth on Mars, and during the schooling period on Earth. One had time for long unhappy thoughts in such a segregated childhood and some of them still reverberated deep inside him.