Northwest of Earth by C.L. Moore

until they were two pinpoint sparks of light—a dagger stare under level brows …
    When the room steadied about him he was standing with slack arms, the gun hanging from his fingers, an apathetic numbness slowly withdrawing from his body. A dark smile curved smoothly on the Alendar’s mouth.
    The stabbing gaze slid causally away, leaving him dizzy in sudden vertigo, and touched the girl prostrate on the floor. Against the black carpet her burnished bronze curls sprayed out exquisitely. The green robe folded softly back from the roundness of her body, and nothing in the universe could have been so lovely as the creamy whiteness of her on the dark floor. The pit-black eyes brooded over her impassively. And then, in his smooth, deep voice the Alendar asked, amazingly, matter-of-factly,
    “Tell me, do you have such girls on Earth?”
    Smith shook his head to clear it. When he managed an answer his voice had steadied, and in the receding of that dizziness even the sudden drop into causal conversation seemed not unreasonable.
    “I have never seen such a girl anywhere,” he said calmly.
    The sword-gaze flashed up and pierced him.
    “She has told you,” said the Alendar.” You know I have beauties here that outshine her as the sun does a candle. And yet … she has more than beauty, this Vaudir. You have felt it, perhaps?”
    Smith met the questioning gaze, searching for mockery, but finding none. Not understanding—a moment before the man had threatened his life—he took up the conversation.
    “They all have more than beauty. For what other reason do kings buy the Minga girls?”
    “No—not that charm. She has it too, but something more subtle than fascination, much more desirable than loveliness. She has courage, this girl. She has intelligence. Where she got it I do not understand. I do not breed my girls for such things. But I looked into her eyes once, in the hallway, as she told you—and saw there more arousing things than beauty. I summoned her—and you come at her heels. Do you know why? Do you know why you did not die at the outer gate or anywhere along the hallways on your way in?”
    Smith’s pale stare met the dark one questioningly. The voice flowed on.
    “Because there are—interesting things in your eyes too. Courage and ruthlessness and a certain—power, I think. Intensity is in you. And I believe I can find a use for it, Earthman.”
    Smith’s eyes narrowed a little. So calm, so matter-of-fact, this talk. But death was coming. He felt it in the air—he knew that feel of old. Death—and worse things than that, perhaps. He remembered the whispers he had heard.
    On the floor the girl moaned a little, and stirred. The Alendar’s quiet, pinpoint eyes flicked her, and he said softly, “Rise.” And she rose, stumbling, and stood before him with bent head. The stiffness was gone from her. On an impulse Smith said suddenly, “Vaudir!” She lifted her face and met his gaze, and a thrill of horror rippled over him. She had regained consciousness, but she would never be the same frightened girl he had known. Black knowledge looked out of her eyes, and her face was a strained mask that covered horror barely—barely! It was the face of one who has walked through a blacker hell than any of humanity’s understanding, and gained knowledge there that no human soul could endure knowing and live.
    She looked him full in the face for a long moment, silently, and then turned away to the Alendar again. And Smith thought, just before her eyes left his, he had seen in them one wild flash of hopeless, desperate appeal …
    “Come,” said the Alendar.
    He turned his back—Smith’s gun-hand trembled up and then fell again. No, better wait. There was always a bare hope, until he saw death closing in all around.
    He stepped out over the yielding carpet at the Alendar’s heels. The girl came after with slow steps and eyes downcast in a horrible parody of meditation, as if she brooded over the knowledge that dwelt