Front matter (continued 2)

"Jarl...."

He clipped: "We're going to the space-port, rey Gundre's carrier waits for us there."

"And then—?"

"We blast for Womar."

"Jarl—!"

He strode on faster—hurrying, giving her no answer. There were too many things to say ... too many words he could not utter.

They left the alley for another, broader. A dau brushed past them in the murk. Two bulbous Thorians parted, moving out of their way. Curious, glowing eyes of llorin watched them from an entryway.

Then, around another turn, the buildings thinned. The odor of Rogek gas and rocket fuel grew stronger.

And, ahead, a shadowy group moved from one looming bulk of structure to another.

Jarl jerked Sais back into the blackness that rimmed a cone-like Pervod dwelling.

"Jarl—"

He clapped a hand across Sais' mouth. "Quiet! Bor Legat's men may still be here before us!"

Jarl felt a tremor run through her. Ghost-silent, he led the way along the building; then, after a moment's pause, ran on swiftly to an ancient Fantay structure.

The shadow-group ahead was breaking up spreading out in a thin black line of menace.

Tight-nerved, Jarl drew Sais to the right, parallel to the skirmish line, along the crumbling Fantay spire ... then on through the burrow-like workings of spider men of Rhea, past flat-roofed habitat of the llorin.

They came out into another alley.

But ahead, here, too, he caught a glimpse of motion, the hint of a far-flung raider cordon.

They tried again, by another alley—the one down which Jarl had come when he left the carrier. He almost imagined he could make out the ship's slim silver form far off in the vastness of the port, in spite of the obscuring night.

But again, between them and the sprawling ramping-place, stood sinister figures.

Jarl rested his shoulders against the wall of a rambling fala hostel. He felt old beyond belief; incredibly weary. His muscles ached with tension.

Sais touched his arm. "Jarl...." Her voice was a ragged whisper.

He sucked in air. "Wait here a moment."

Once more, in dead silence, he moved forward, skirting the pool of greenish glow that marked the hostel's entry. Cat-footed, taut, he made his way along the wall towards the port, the shadow-figures.

Only then, without warning, a spear of light lanced through the darkness. An energy-bolt splintered stone bare inches from his shoulder.

He dived back by instinct; landed running.

In the same instant a cry went up—the wild hunting-cry of Bor Legat's raiders.

Jarl caught Sais' hand and dashed for the corner of the building.

From behind them came a pelting rush of feet, a babble of fierce, life-thirsting voices. The night blazed with the fire of raider weapons.

Barely in time, they made the corner. Panting, they lunged on into the maze of alleys.

But then, ahead of them, rose other voices. New figures loomed; new weapons flamed and echoed.

Jarl catapulted Sais into an entryway. Savagely, he kicked at the door's lock.

The door burst open. Beyond lay the blackness of an ebon sack, thick enough to cut. The air that puffed out was stale and dead, heavy with a musty smell of age, abandonment, disintegration.

Jarl pushed inside and heeled the door shut. The clamor of the alley faded.

Breathing hard he groped through the room. Thick dust scuffed up beneath his feet. Sais clung to his hand, fingers slick with icy sweat. "Which way—?" She was half-sobbing.

"Up!" Jarl clenched his teeth. "There's got to be a stair, a ladder!"

They felt their way through another room. Another, and another.

Then: "Jarl—! I've found it!"

Jarl wheeled, moving to her. He touched the edge of worn stone steps. "Come on!"

They climbed through the murk, and Jarl thought of quirsts and hwins—a thousand deadly, crawling, nameless horrors. But there was no other way, no faintest chance. Tight-jawed, he shoved his thoughts back and stumbled higher.

Three levels they climbed. Then the stone steps ended. Numb, rigid, Jarl felt his way to an outer room.

Stars shone faintly through a window. Sais still at his heels, he crossed to the casement and looked out.

Far below, the shouts and curses of Bor Legat's men still echoed.

But Jarl paid them no heed. He had eyes only for the flat-topped llorin dwelling that crowded next to this structure in which he had found temporary haven.

The llorin-pile's roof rose to within short feet of the window. Beyond it lay another; then a Fantay spire....

Again he said, "Come on!" and levered open the window.

New agitation gleamed in Sais' eyes, but she moved forward, wordless.

Cat-like, Jarl dropped to the llorin roof. After a moment's hesitation, Sais followed.

Silent, nerves raw with tension, they picked a path along the beams to the next building and crossed to it.

Here even the beams were rotten, sagging. Testing with his foot at each step, Jarl led the way around the outer wall to the spire beyond.

Even at its lowest point, the edge of the Fantay peak was feet above Jarl's head, across a yawning two-foot gap that plunged chasm-like to the ground so far below.

Bleakly, Jarl studied it; measured the distance with his eye. "Up, Sais...." He lifted her; tottered precariously against the rim of coping while, whole body atremble, she balanced on his broad shoulders.

She whispered, "Jarl, I'll never make it...." Her words died in a quavering sound of pure hysteria.

A trickle of sweat dripped from Jarl's chin. He dug his fingers into her ankles till her blood spurted and ran down his nails. "You'll make it...."

"No, Jarl—! No! I can't—!"

The sweat dripped faster. Jarl could feel Sais' terror. It crawled in her voice and breath and body, quaked and quivered in the very air.

But behind there was only the tender mercy of Bor Legat's raiders.

Ahead, at least they had a faint, slim chance to reach the carrier.

The carrier ... so near, and yet so far.

Through clenched teeth, he said, "You'll make it—or I'll drop you down the crack!"

He tilted her forward.

For an instant she hung there. He could hear a scream rising in her throat.

Jarl Corvett died a thousand deaths.

Then out she swung, high over the chasm. Instinctively, her hands shot out ... caught the Fantay spire's low-dipping edge ... clung there....

He said tightly: "Pull yourself up! I'll help you!" Bracing himself, straining every muscle, he lifted her higher ... higher ... till her feet were at arm's length above his head.

Panting, crying, she pulled herself half onto the spire.

He let go her feet.

She gasped in new panic. But her grip held firm. Twisting, spasmodically, she swung her feet up and lay there, sobbing.

Jarl's muscles went weak as water.

But he did not dare to hesitate. Stiffly, he swung onto the knee-high coping; crouched there.

The chasm below drew his eyes like a magnet. He tore them away; forced himself to look up, instead, to the spire. Sucking in air, he poised himself, tensing.

Sais stared down at him. Something close akin to horror was in her eyes.

With all his might, Jarl leaped upward, outward, straining to reach the other wall.

One hand touched—and slipped.

The other hooked round the edge of the stone ledge above.

Sais clutched his free hand and tried to lift him. With a desperate effort, he twisted and lunged again, hanging there in space.

This time he got a grip on the ledge's inner edge. Sais tugged at his tunic's collar. Gasping for breath, he levered himself higher, up onto his elbows. A final surge carried him out of the chasm.

Sais sank down beside him. For a long moment they lay there—both panting, both shaking.

But there was no time for weakness. Lurching to his feet, Jarl began working his way around the rim.

They moved on to new buildings—one, two, half-a-dozen ... always striving in the direction of the port.

Then, at last, they reached a final, ramshackle structure only one level high.

Beyond it, the ramping-place stretched off through the flare-sparked blackness of the night.

Jarl peered down into the flanking alleys. But this time he could find no shadow-cordon, no trace of Legat's raiders.

Sais brushed against him. Once more, he caught the half-forgotten fragrance of her hair.

He pressed her hand. "It looks good, Sais. Legat never thought about the roofs. His men are farther back in the quarter."

"Then—?"

"We'll chance it."

Her lips touched his cheek. It was her only answer.

Together, hand in hand, they slipped down a rickety outside ramp to the ground. In silence, they made their way across the sprawling port's scorched cinders.

As they walked, Jarl felt the surface tension leave him. The heavy, mixed smells of Rogek gas and rocket fuel were perfume in his nostrils. His job was done, here at Ceresta. He'd rescued Sais and learned the truth about Ktar Wassreck.

Now, he could almost laugh when he thought of Legat.

But underneath, a stronger conflict plagued him. Because, again, it was his destiny to go forth to battle ... to lead good men, good friends, to die for the cause of the raider worlds, and loyalty.

Frowning, he thought of Wassreck and of Womar ... the giant robots. Of Ungo and Ylana.

As for himself, how long could his luck hold? When, at long last, would fate decide to down him?

Shrugging, he veered his course in the direction of a massive marker pylon. What did it matter, when he fell? As Legat had said, death came to all raiders.

For now, it was enough that he should carve his way and do his duty.

Beside him, Sais asked, "How far is it, Jarl? I—I'm so tired."

"Only a little way. Just beyond the pylon." He put his arm about her.

"I'm glad...." She leaned upon him.

Jarl veered again. They rounded the corner of the marker.

"Where is it, Jarl?" Sais asked in a weary voice. And then: "Jarl! What's the matter?"

But Jarl hardly heard her. He stood stock-still, staring—unable to move, unable to speak.

"Jarl—!"

He jerked free of the spell of shock; peered this way and that in a frenzy of desperation. Once again, his heart was pounding.

But the cindered ramping-place stayed bare and echoing and empty.

Carrier and crew alike had vanished!

CHAPTER VII

Jarl picked Tas Karrel's ship, the Knife. Unswerving, Sais at his side, he stalked up her ramp.

A grim, slim, deadly craft, the Knife, black as the heart of her mutant master. The fastest ship in all the raider fleet, with a killer crew drawn from the scum of the whole wide solar system.

The guard at the hatch was such a one—an Earthman, long fled from his own home planet. Slouched at his post below the scarlet signal light, thumb hooked in belt, he stared bleakly off across Ceresta's port and puffed at a chang cigarette of Venus.

Jarl's footsteps echoed. The guard swung round.

The next instant he was whipping up his blaster. The cigarette fell from his lips, forgotten. "Jarl Corvett—!"

Jarl laughed, a cold and mirthless laugh, and raised his empty hands. "Put your blaster down. I've come to see Tas Karrel."

"He's not aboard." The Earthman's blaster did not waver.

"I know it. I'll wait."

The guard's brow furrowed. For a moment he stood hesitating, wordless.

Heedless of the menace in the cold blue eyes, Jarl brushed on past him. Chill arrogance in his stance, he strode down the echoing corridor to the crewmen's day-room.

A knot of lounging raiders looked up as he entered, then snatched for weapons. Again his name rang: "Jarl Corvett—!" "It's Corvett!"

And again Jarl laughed his reckless laugh. "That's right. It's Corvett."

A Pervod pushed forward. Jarl recognized him as one of Tas Karrel's chief lieutenants.

The creature's chill reptilian eyes flicked from Jarl to Sais, then on to the Earthman guard who had followed them in. "What brings these two here? Where did they come from?"

"How should I know?" the Earthman shrugged. "They say they want Karrel—and I know he wants them."

"Yes. They find it easier to come than to leave us." The Pervod laughed harshly and swung back to Jarl. "You, Corvett! We know you! What do you want here?"

Bleakly, Jarl met the reptilian's glare. Feet wide apart, hands on hips, he stood straight and steady, surveying the crewmen who crowded around him.

"I want you!" he slashed harshly.

"Me—?" He could see the lean Pervod stiffen.

Jarl let his voice ring. "Yes, you—and all of these others. The Knife, too...."

He grinned as he said it, and looked from one hard-bitten face to another—measuring each raider, timing his pause to their grim, deadly potential. He knew them so well, these outlaw crewmen. Chonya and Malya; Pervod and Earthman; dau, fala, Fantay—they were one with him. When his eyes met theirs, it was almost as if he could see their restless minds working.

A silence built up in the echoing day-room. Before it could break, he spoke again to them:

"I need a ship!" he said boldly. "A fighting ship, fast enough to break through the Federation's own cordon. And"—he paused—"that ship must have a crew that fears neither man nor devil."

The silence echoed louder.

He said: "The Knife is the fastest ship in the raider fleet—and a crew that will raid with Tas Karrel would spit in rey Gundre's own eye!"

Still, for a moment, the silence hung upon them. Then, slowly at first, but rising, a ripple of wry, bleak laughter ran through the crowd.

He knew that he had them, then. He leaned forward ... let his voice drop to a confidential note. "What does a raider want most, my comrades? Loot? Kabat? Women—?"

He grinned again, as he said 'women', and lifted a hand to dark Sais' velvet shoulder.

She twisted. The laughter rippled louder.

Jarl planted his foot on a chair; rested elbow on knee. "Yes, we all want them, my comrades. But"—he dropped his voice still lower—"so do other men."

The raiders crowded closer, craning and straining to hear him.

"Then where's the difference, between us and those others—?" Abruptly, he straightened and brought up his fist. He threw his words at them, in a fierce, ringing challenge: "The difference—? I'll tell you, comrades! It's not loot that we raid for, nor kabat, nor women; not really! It's freedom we are after—the freedom to roam the void as free men should, and to hell with the thrice-cursed tyrants of the Federation!"

Now the crewmen, too, shouted, in wild exultation. The din echoed and deafened.

"Are you with me—?" Jarl roared.

But the Pervod leaped forward. "You dogs! What of Karrel?"

The shouting died down. Again all eyes came to Jarl Corvett.

He held the smile on his face. "Yes. What of Tas Karrel?"

The Pervod's claws crept towards his gun-butt. The bony wings whispered in the sudden stillness.

Very softly, Jarl said, "There's the law of the raiders. A chieftain must meet any man who dares challenge." And then: "You, Pervod! Will you fight hand-to-hand for Tas Karrel?"

The reptilian's eyes glinted. His claws touched the ray-gun.

Scorn rang in Jarl's laugh. "I said hand-to-hand, by the law of the raiders! I came here unarmed, to fight Karrel to the death for his chiefship!"

A low mutter rose from the crewmen. The Pervod's eyes wavered.

Jarl said: "Know my pledge, comrades! Not booty, but freedom! If you blast with me, we may all die on Womar. If that doesn't suit you, kill me now, before I meet Karrel!"

The Pervod lieutenant's eyes sought out the crewmen. They shifted, not speaking.

Jarl laughed without mirth. "You see, chitza—? They want blood—mine, or Tas Karrel's!"

The reptilian looked away—past Jarl, to the doorway. His claws were atremble.

Then, visibly, he stiffened.

Jarl spun around.

Tas Karrel himself stood framed in the entry. His tiny, round, lidless eyes flamed green murder. "You starbo—!"

Tas Karrel, the mutant. Broad, tall, heavy-bodied. Hairy as a dau, and with a dau's bulging muscles. But his face was the blank, hairless face of the Fantay ... without nose, without cheekbones.

"Welcome, Karrel!" Jarl laughed again, loud and reckless. "I'm claiming the Knife and your chiefship, by the law of the raiders!"

"A fight to the death—?" The other's lipless gash-mouth twisted awry. The green eyes were smouldering. "A pleasure, Jarl Corvett!"

The huge mutant stripped off his tunic, his gun-belt.

His Pervod lieutenant cried, "Raiders! A death-ring!"

The crewmen fell back, and linked arms, formed a circle.

Knee-long arms swaying, their chief shambled forward.

Jarl pushed Sais back. The circle parted to pass her.

Karrel's mouth worked. "Jarl Corvett...."

"Yes."

"If you die, I claim the woman!"

Jarl's heart pounded. "If I die, you can have her!" He did not dare look at Sais.

The mutant moved into the circle. His prehensile fingers flexed and worked. His blank, grey-white face was a bleak mask of menace, the more fearsome for its very lack of expression.

Slowly, they moved around, ever facing—each searching for an opening, seeking some hint of weakness. The tension climbed higher, in a throbbing crescendo.

Jarl could feel the sweat come to his palms. His pulses hammered.

Then, suddenly, arms flailing, Tas Karrel sprang forward.

Jarl leaped back; jarred against the Pervod lieutenant.

Karrel lunged again. Again, Jarl tried to leap aside.

But a clawed Pervod foot hooked out and tripped him. He sprawled on the floor.

In a flash, Tas Karrel was upon him. A bulging dau arm bore down on his windpipe.

Writhing, Jarl tried to tear free. But the arm would not let him. The prehensile fingers gouged at his eye-balls.

He twisted; rocked back. Bit down on a finger.

Karrel jerked. Jarl bit harder. Lunging, he bucked the mutant forward ... hooked a hammering heel up and around, into the blank Fantay face.

It was Karrel's turn to rock back. The hairy arm lifted.

Jarl brought his chin forward, sucking air in great, choking gulps. He drove a savage blow home below the other's rib-casing.

Karrel tottered. Jarl broke clear; staggered upright.

The mutant threw himself round; started to lunge up.

Jarl kicked him in the face with all his might.

Karrel's head snapped back. His hand clutched for Jarl's ankle.

Savagely, Jarl stomped down on the fingers. He smashed rights and lefts to the grey-white mask face. A cut opened. Grey-green ooze spurted.

Jarl kicked for the belly.

An incoherent cry burst from the gash-mouth. The mutant threw himself over, tumbling towards the edge of the circle.

A hoarse murmur rose from the crewmen. Wolf-like, arms still linked, they hunched forward.

Jarl's arms dragged like anchors. His ears rang; his lungs burned. Dimly, he glimpsed Sais' panic-straught face at the edge of the circle. The sour stink of his own sweat rolled up in his nostrils.

But he dared not hold back. If Karrel rose, he was finished.

He dived in for the kill.

But the mutant was twisting. His feet smashed at Jarl's breast-bone.

Jarl crashed back, clear to the other side of the circle.

Tas Karrel surged upright. "A knife—!" he roared harshly.

The Pervod flipped him a dagger. Swaying, he caught it ... lunged for Jarl.

It was over. Jarl knew it. There was nothing he could do now.

Nothing but die.

The frenzy of death alone brought him to his feet. He hurled himself at the mutant.

Tas Karrel swayed aside, green eyes burning. Jarl hurtled past him; landed sobbing against the Pervod.

The reptilian laughed shrilly. Letting go of the arms of the raiders who flanked him, he caught Jarl ... shoved him back at Tas Karrel.

Blindly, Jarl clutched the Pervod's belt. His weight carried them both to the circle's center.

Cursing, Karrel slashed for him.

Jarl wrenched to one side. The knife laid open the Pervod's side.

The reptilian screamed. His bony vestigial wings flailed.

In the same instant, Jarl caught Karrel's knife-hand. With his last ounce of strength, he wrenched it till the bones cracked.

The knife fell.

Jarl scooped it up. The Pervod scrambled from his path.

Tas Karrel stumbled backward. Fear flared in the green eyes.

Teeth bared now, Jarl followed.

The mutant sagged. Then, with a wild cry, hairy body shaking, he whirled and threw himself over the linked arms of his crewmen, out of the circle. In a mad dash, he lunged for the exit.

"No—!" A raider whipped up his blaster. "Death to you, coward!"

He fired. Tas Karrel sprawled on his face in the doorway.

The circle broke into chaos.

Jarl spun about, seeking the Pervod.

The reptilian was backing away, slinking towards another door.

"You chitza—!"

The Pervod stopped short.

"Take your knife with you!" Jarl shouted. He drew back the blade.

Face contorted, the Venusian clawed for his ray-gun.

Like lightning, Jarl hurled the dagger. It sank to the hilt in the Pervod's throat. Threshing in his death-throes, the creature spilled forward.

Jarl gripped a stanchion. "To your stations!" he shouted. "We're blasting for Womar!"

Order came from the chaos. Sub-chiefs bellowed commands. Crewmen boiled out of the doorways.

Sais ran to Jarl's side. Her white cheeks were tear-smudged, but she smiled through her tears.

There was a ringing of bells, a clanging of hatches. A fala cried, "All's ready!"

"For Womar—!" Jarl echoed.

A muffled roar cut him short. The room rocked with the shock of the takeoff as the Knife slashed its way up from the port, out from Ceres.

Jarl threw one arm around Sais—more for support than from feeling. It was all he could do to stand upright.

She braced him. "You mean it—? We're going to Womar...?" All at once her voice trembled.

Shrugging, Jarl rested against her. "You heard my orders."

"But ... what of Bor Legat ... rey Gundre...?"

"We'll face that when we meet it." With an effort, Jarl straightened. "Now, I've got to rest."

"Of course, Jarl...." She moved close beside him, helping him as he limped to Tas Karrel's quarters.

Then they came to the cabin, and she, too, would have entered. But he barred her way. "No, Sais."

"Jarl...."

"No." He shook his head, closed the door. Heavily, he stumbled to a couch and dropped down.

But though Sais stayed behind, his own dark thoughts would not.

It was madness, this venture; what other name could a man find for a wild dash for Womar?

Yet what else could he do, with time running out on him? At best, he had three slim Earth days to save Ceres.

Three slim days, less the travel....

And Womar.... What might he find when at last he ramped there? Suppose Wassreck was wrong, and there were no robots? Or if the metal monsters still lay hidden there, how much chance had he to find them?

As for fitting them for battle, mastering the controls that sent them forth....

He shuddered, and his brow seemed suddenly burning hot, as with a fever. Then he chilled. Shaking, drawing covers close about him, he wondered if his wounds had drained him, sapped his strength too low.

But what chance did he have, unless he went on to Womar?

What chance indeed, when even his own kind turned against him!

His own kind, the raiders. He knew them so well—how they felt, the twist of their reckless, ice-edged thinking. And because he knew, it was not in him to hate them or betray them. No; at worst, he could only strive and fail.

And if he failed—? He cursed and twisted. rey Gundre would surely blast the raider fleet. The outlaw worlds would die.

Freedom would die with them.

Wassreck, too.

Three days only ... for freedom, and for Wassreck....

Perhaps he slept, then. Or perhaps it was only delirium's distorted screen that drew the twisting patterns across his mind.

Whatever it was, it lifted brain from body ... moved him up from Tas Karrel's couch—out of the room, the ship itself ... across the void, through space and time. The hideous, shining masks of Womar's primitives hurtled down upon him out of swirling mists. Madly, he battled strange life-forms in a world he'd never seen.

But he was not alone, for now other faces revolved past him slowly, crying fearful words he could not hear ... Ungo's face; Ylana's....

Ylana—! The red lips smiled and mocked him as she beckoned, and her hair was a rippling pool of purest gold. There was the softness of her body pressed against him; the grey eyes, shadowy as silver pools.

Ungo. Ylana. Where were they? Why had they left him to die back there on Ceres? What could have taken them away?

Now Bor Legat's face came sweeping towards him, basilisk orbs twin mirrors of craft and malice. His body plates were rattling with his laughter—the merciless, cacophonic laughter of the Mercurian who sees his enemy fall and die.

Then another voice was calling, close beside him, and this time he could hear the words, even if he could not understand. They pulled him back across the void, up from the death and tumult of the unknown alien world.

Straining, struggling, he sought to place the tones, the timbre, and as he fought, it dawned upon him that it was Sais' voice, and that his eyes were closed.

His lids were leaden weights, but he dragged them up. Numbly, he forced Tas Karrel's room back into focus.

Sais stood beside him, face strained and drawn. Her words took on meaning: "Jarl—! Quick! Wake up—!"

He lurched from the couch. "What's the matter? What is it—?"

"Quiet—!" Panic was in her raw whisper. "You slept so long, Jarl! We're coming down now, ramping on Womar...."

He pushed back his hair; shook the haze from his eyes. "Then what—?"

"It's the crewmen." He could feel a tremor pass through her. Her eyes would not meet his. "I—I told them too much, Jarl. About Womar ... the robots. Now they have sent for Bor Legat—"

"Bor Legat—!"

"Yes. They don't trust you. They plan to seize you and hold you...."

Jarl cursed. "No! It can't be—"

"What can I say, Jarl?" Her mouth quivered. "Beat me, if you want to—"

"No." His hands shook, but he fought down his fury ... even forced a thin smile. "Maybe this way is better, Sais...."

Spinning round, he snatched up a belt heavy with dead Tas Karrel's weapons and girded it about him.

The woman clutched his arm, eyes wide with new fear. "Jarl! What are you doing—?"

"What can I do?" He laughed harshly. "I'll drop down when we ramp and go on alone."

"No, Jarl—!"

"Yes! Stay in here. Lock the door, so they'll still think they've got me."

"No! You can't leave me!" Her voice rose. She was sobbing. "Please, Jarl! Take me with you—"

Jarl gripped her smooth shoulders fiercely; shook her. "Sais! Listen!" And then, as she quieted: "Sais, once before, I came down on Womar. I've seen the primitives." Involuntarily, he shuddered. "Believe me, Sais, no matter what the crew does to you, it can't match the work of those creatures."

"No, Jarl—"

A dim roar filled the room—the roar of a ramping. Walls and floor vibrated.

"Jarl, I'm going with you!"

The vibration stopped. The cabin echoed with sudden stillness as the great ship came to rest.

"Jarl...."

For the fraction of a second, Jarl hesitated. From afar, he could hear orders shouted. Once again, a knot drew tight in his belly.

"Please, Jarl...."

Pivoting, he stared down into Sais' tense, strained face.

Even now, she was lovely....

But he'd made his decision. There could be no other.

"Sais, I'm sorry...." He drove his clenched fist to the point of her jaw—a short, jarring blow.

He could see the shock glaze her eyes as her head snapped back. Her knees buckled.

"I'm sorry, Sais," he said again, even though he knew she could not hear. Ever so gently, he lowered her limp body to the couch.

He wondered if he'd ever see her again.

But it was no time for wondering, or thinking. He had a job to do, out there in the stretching, scorching, windswept deserts.

Silently, he eased open the cabin door.

The passageway outside was echoing, deserted.

Quick, quiet, he pulled the portal closed behind him and ran cat-footed for the nearest exit hatch.

A Callistan paced to and fro close by it, on guard.

Jarl waited till the creature turned, then leaped and clubbed it down with the barrel of his ray-gun. In seconds, he was spinning back the hatch-bolts.

The hatch swung wide, and night poured in ... the blistering, dust-choked desert night, pale with the light reflected by looming Venus' unbroken mists and billowing cloud-banks.

Somewhere, out there, were primitives in hideous metal masks, so fierce that even the almighty Federation at last had forbidden this satellite to all men.

Perhaps, too, here were robots ... towering metal monsters from beyond the stars, brought down by destiny in its strange workings to save the outlaw worlds.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps this seared and storm-swept ball held only the end of Wassreck's dreams ... and death.

Jarl Corvett smiled a thin, wry smile. At least, he'd know the answer soon.

Breathing deep, he swung out through the hatch and dropped down on Womar....

CHAPTER VIII

Morning on Womar.

The hot winds were flames whipping at Jarl's face, and the driven sand slashed and burned like pelting needles. Slowly, the night died and, off to his right, the sun rose—fiery, incandescent. Venus, to his left, stretched in a great, shining arc as far as the eye could see. Dust swirled about him in smothering clouds. He wallowed through a sea of powdery, ankle-deep grit where rocks shoved up in hidden reefs to trap him. Hollows loomed in his bloodshot eyes like chasms, and hillocks grew to mountains up which he toiled on hands and knees, choking and gasping. His cheeks were rasped raw now, his lips all parched and cracking.

Still he lurched onward—lost and disoriented, without destination.

But not without goal.

A goal—? He laughed aloud—the muddled, drunken laughter of a heat-twisted brain. Yes, he had a goal; but it was the goal of utter madness.

For somewhere in this blazing waste, Womar's primitives lay waiting. He knew; he'd seen them charge before. How they sensed an alien's coming was a secret no stranger had ever fathomed. But sense it they did; so they'd hide and wait, till at last the sun and dust and slashing wind had done their work and the invader fell and could not rise.

Then, and then only, they would come, from whatever dark, hidden maze they came from. Their blood-thirsting screams would rise above the howling wind, and their hideous metal masks would flash like mirrors of madness in the white flame of the sunlight.

And after that ... Jarl choked on his parched, swelling tongue. After that, there would come other things ... things no alien being had survived, rites so awful as to make this blazing wilderness seem a cool Elysium.

What was left, they'd spread out in neat display as their own black warning to other straying strangers.

That was his goal: that the primitives should seize him.

Yet now, as the moment neared when he would fall to rise no more, he knew of a sudden how mad it was. Not even Ceresta and the raider fleet were worth it; not even freedom. Nothing could be worth it.

But now, there was no turning back. He'd come too far; he'd pressed his luck one time too many.

Swaying and staggering, he came to another, deeper hollow, where bare rock showed through the dust and sand along the slopes in serrate ledges. At the bottom, the drifting grit lay in smooth-swept whorls like a hill-bounded cove where ripples had somehow been trapped in motion, frozen into the surface of the water.

He laughed once, wildly, and lurched ahead; then slipped and pitched forward, tumbling headlong. Rocks gashed at him as he fell—tearing, clutching, as if even they shared the primitives' hatred for all aliens.

Stunned, choked, half blinded, he came to rest at last at the edge of the pool of rippled sand. Here, away from the sweep of the wind, the heat bore down like a smothering blanket. Jarl's brain reeled. He could draw no strength from the air that scorched his lungs. He knew instinctively that no being of his race could long survive the drain and pressure.

Frantically, he dragged himself up and wallowed forward, out onto the sand.

Even as his feet sank into the sifting dust, he knew he should have gone the other way, back up the slope. But by then it was too late. Deeper he sank, and deeper, till the loose sand was thigh-high about his legs.

Desperately, he threw himself flat, trying to spread the weight of his body. But the grit gave way beneath him, sliding and swirling, hungrily sucking him deeper. Dust clogged his nostrils. When he tried to open his mouth to suck air, sand flooded in.

He floundered wildly, and the thought flashed through his mind, Do I die here—here, in this whirlpool of shifting grit, swallowed up, buried alive, before I even find the primitives...?

He struggled again to rise, and could not. The choking dust swirled higher. His senses dimmed. The blazing sun began to darken.

And then they came.

They came with a rush, across the crest, their metal masks blurred to blinding flashes. Out of the clefts of the rocks they came, and up from the sand-pool's edges, howling like the screamings in a nightmare, the wailings of banshees.

Their bodies were brown as the sun-blistered rocks, their shoulder-plumes scarlet as heart-blood. Their girdles were scarlet, too, and the plumed bands that circled wrists and ankles. Monstrous footgear, broad as their lean, hard bodies, sprayed sand as they charged. Light flared in iridescent splendor from strange, outré weapons.

Desperately, Jarl tried again to rise. But again, the eddying grit gave way beneath him.

Then they were upon him—seizing him, dragging him up and out of the powder-dry morass that held him. The great webbed shoes they wore did not sink in, but, rather, skimmed the surface.

Vainly, Jarl struck out and sought to struggle. But he was as a child in the grip of giants. The primitives' hands were like shackling bands of steel upon him.

He let himself go limp. After all, was this not the very thing he'd come for?

Unless they killed him here and now....

But they carried him back bodily to the sand-pool's edge, to a place where the serrate rocks rose in lowering, brooding ledges. A crevice yawned. Swiftly, they shoved him between the saw-toothed boulders, down into it.

Now other hands reached up from the depths of an inner cavern to receive him. He found himself lifted into the black emptiness of a narrow tunnel.

Then he was on his own feet once more. But the hands still gripped his arms, pushing him along as he stumbled through the ebon passage. Dimly, he became aware of a strange odor in his nostrils—a sweet yet musty scent he'd never smelled before.

The passage led on, ever downward. Steadily it grew cooler. Jarl began to lose the sense of draining pressure. His captors jabbered in the darkness. But their speech was like no tongue he'd ever heard before, all consonants and gutturals.

It seemed they hurried on for miles. Then, at last, a dim light showed ahead.

The party halted. Someone clamped a heavy metal mask upon Jarl's head—a mask with neither eye- nor ear-holes. It shut him off in a throbbing private night, through which the guttural voices drifted only as dim whispers.

Once more, the primitives shoved Jarl ahead, and as they moved forward, he had a sudden feeling that they had left the tunnel and come out into a larger room.

Then they were lifting him again; laying him down flat on some smooth surface; holding him there, rigid.

He clenched his teeth, bracing himself for the torture that he knew would sooner or later be his lot.

But no pain came. Instead, of a sudden, the surface on which he lay was vibrating, moving. Air whipped at him. With a shock, he realized that he and the others were hurtling through Womar's heart at jarring speed on some strange transport unit.

It made his spine crawl, just a little. How primitive were these primitives? Had all the worlds been wrong about them? What dark secrets did they hold hidden, here in these black caves that honeycombed the rock beneath this satellite's blazing deserts?

And what of the robots? Where were they hidden?

Or did they exist at all—?

But he had no time to ponder, for as suddenly as the motion had begun, it ended. The rush of air slowed, then halted. Once more, the primitives' hands were lifting him, dragging him forward.

But this time the passageway through which they moved led upward.

The heat rose as they climbed, till Jarl was sweating and choking inside the helmet. Then the slope leveled off again, and he sensed that they had come out into another, larger room. New voices joined the dim whisperings of his escort, till their volume swelled to a tremendous, throbbing chorus. Bodies buffeted against Jarl, milling about him. Hands clawed at him—clubbing, tugging, scratching. He could feel the crowd's hot hate crushing in upon him. The musty, cloying, sweetish odor he'd smelled before grew even stronger till he was sick and dizzy, ready to vomit.

His captors pressed on, not hesitating. Roughly, they led Jarl stumbling up a flight of steps.

At the top, there was a brief halt. Then the faint squeal of massive hinges.

A blast of heat struck Jarl a hammer blow. He reeled under its impact.

From behind, someone gave him a savage shove. He lurched forward.

A new burst of sound smashed at him, even through the metal helmet—a wild shout, torn from a thousand throats, fierce and welling in its hatred. The heat and smell were great sledges, pounding at him.

In spite of all of his control, Jarl felt a sudden rush of panic. Stumbling, staggering, he came upright—fists clenched, braced to meet the fury of those about him even in his helplessness, his blindness.

But again hands seized him before he could strike a blow. Someone fumbled at the catches of the shrouding helmet.

The metal mask came away. Sound, light, heat, stench, smashed in on Jarl.

He jerked back and threw his hands up across his eyes, trying to shut out the blinding blaze of Womar's sun.

But other hands jerked down his own. Blinking, half blinded, stiff with shock, he stared out incredulously upon a sight such as he had never seen before.

For he stood in the prow of a great space-ship—a ship vast beyond the belief of mortal man.

It was old, this ship—old with an age that staggered Jarl Corvett's mind. Eons were in the sagging plates and splitting arches. The crystals that glinted in the dull, warped metal spoke of untold ages here on Womar. The hull was smashed and shattered, too, and the blazing sun poured in through a thousand great jagged holes and rifts. One whole end of the craft was crumpled, buckled, where it had plowed deep into the rocks and sand as it crashed here.

And it was alien. A thousand differences stood out in line and structure and material. The size alone would have been enough to mark it as having come from outside this solar system. Yet without bulkheads, without bracing, the mass of it loomed as one incredibly vast and far-spreading room—an engineering feat to stagger man's imagination.

And here, too, were the primitives, heirs to Womar's scorched, windswept deserts. A thousand strong—ten thousand—they packed the huge hold in a screaming, seething mass, metal masks hideously aglint in the streaming sunlight.

But for Jarl Corvett, ship and primitives alike were mere incidentals. Swaying, staring, he could find eyes only for one thing: the robots.

The robots—! He rocked—incredulous, unbelieving.

But here they were—metal monsters that towered rank on rank in this great hold, like monstrous originals of the figures in Ktar Wassreck's workshop. Like a forest they rose ... a forest of utter, malign menace.

Their feet alone stood higher than a tall man's head; and the glinting orientation-slots of the great head-units towered so far above the crowd as to have been beacon lights on distant mountains.

Chill, unmoving, they stood here in the hull of this shattered ship as they had stood for ages. But where ship and fittings were decaying, these mighty warriors still shone resplendent, fabricated of some different, finer metal. Strength gleamed in every line of their orange-gold figures. The screaming primitives were only ants that crawled and danced and raged upon them.

Staring at them, Jarl Corvett could only choke and tremble. There was room for but one thought within his reeling brain: Wassreck was right—! He was right! He was right...!

It made this whole mad gamble worth the while. Even if he died here, all his efforts unavailing, it would still be worth it.

And what could not an army of these giant automatons accomplish? What chance would even the mighty Federation stand against them?

It was destiny. More surely even than he knew his name, Jarl knew that destiny had brought him here ... the strange, dark destiny of courage and fighting men that ever seemed to ride on the side of the outlaw worlds, and freedom.

But now that he was here, destiny would need a strong right arm to implement it.

His arm.

He swung round, then, with his old, bold coat of arrogance upon him—surveying his captors, searching for some faintest hint of hidden weakness.

But the primitives did not waver. Their eyes stayed cold, leering out at him from their metal masks, grim as the day of judgment.

Those masks.... With a sudden rush of recognition, it came to Jarl that their stylized patterns were modeled after the head-units of the towering robots.

Such a little thing, that recognition. Yet again, Jarl felt his tension lift a fraction. He smiled a thin, wry smile and waited.

But now, to one side of the stage-like platform on which he and his escort party stood, there was a sudden stir of motion. A new door opened in what had been a bulkhead barring the way to another part of the ancient, fallen ship.

A cry went up from the seething multitude. The mass of primitives surged forward, close against the platform.

Slowly, creaking and groaning, a great stone slab was wheeled forth. Its sides were deep-graven with carved figures ... strange, hideous figures that writhed in ecstasy and anguish. Stains smudged its upper surface. Heavy metal clamps, long age-corroded, were set into each corner.

With a sickening jolt, it came to Jarl that it was an altar.

Straining and grunting, a crew of primitives tugged it into position in the platform's center.

Jarl's captors gripped his arms.

The panting group by the altar straightened and hurried back through the door in the bulkhead. Rattling sounds came forth. A moment later, the primitives reappeared, rolling out a monstrous, shining metal tub on wheels, big as one of the kettledrums of the spider men of Rhea. Its sides were graven with the same contorted figures as the altar.

The din of the crowd swelled louder. Masked primitives leaped and screamed in impassioned frenzy.

Tight-jawed, Jarl waited.

The wheeled tub was set in place beside the altar. It moved easily and smoothly. Then, again, the altar-crew retreated through the bulkhead.

This time, when they returned, they bore a living, struggling creature.

Man-sized, the thing was like no animal Jarl had ever seen before, with brown, bead-like skin and tiny brain-case. Off-hand, he judged it to belong to some desert species native to this grit-drifted hell-hole, Womar.

The primitives carried it to the altar; clamped its spradled body face up atop the stone with the ancient shackles. The din of the crowd was deafening.

Somewhere on high, a great gong sounded. The shouts and screaming died away.

In the same instant, a new door opened in the bulkhead. Another primitive stepped forth; paused, posing.

This creature's garb was different from the others! His metal mask was ebon. So were his plumes, his girdle. A great scarlet jewel was set in the forehead of the dead-black helmet. His hands were gloved in sleek jet gauntlets.

Now, while Jarl watched, the posing primitive's arms came up, till the gloved hands were high above his head, displayed, as if they were a symbol.

The throng below stood frozen, rigid.

The black-masked primitive strode forward, to a spot between the altar and the shining metal tub. Swiftly, he lifted the lid that capped the drum-like vat.

Two of the altar-crew rushed forward and held it open for him. Another held out a strange implement that, to Jarl, looked like some crude sort of grease-gun.

The black-masked figure dipped the nozzle of the thing into the tub and worked a plunger, then turned to the struggling life-form shackled to the altar. Deftly, he stabbed the snout of the tool into a spot below the creature's breast-bone.

The captive tried to jerk away, to no avail. With smooth precision, the primitive in black pressed home the plunger.

A gusty sigh ran through the throng about the platform. It came to Jarl that he was cold as ice despite the heat and blazing sun. The musty, sweetish smell he'd caught before swirled about him, even stronger.

The black-masked figure straightened. With quick, sure movements, he twisted at a fitting, then lifted away the tool. The nozzle he left sticking in the creature on the altar. It thrust up from the hollow below the breast-bone like the hilt of a deep-plunged dagger.

The two primitives by the wheeled tub let the lid fall back. Turning, one darted to the bulkhead door. When he came out, he bore a flaring torch.

New silence fell upon the crowd, so complete that the altar-crewman's footsteps rang and echoed in the stillness.

He passed the torch to his black-masked fellow.

Black-Mask swung the flaming brand on high and, turning, faced Jarl Corvett. His voice thundered, harsh and guttural.

Jarl stood rock-rigid. The words he could not understand. But the threat, the menace—they needed no translator.

Pivoting, the primitive stepped back from the altar; thrust out the torch till its flame touched the tip of the nozzle protruding out of the shackled prisoner's chest.

Of a sudden Jarl's whole body was drenched with icy sweat. He could not move; he could not breathe. The tales of horror he'd heard so many times swirled through his brain.

For an instant, nothing happened.

Then, all at once, there was a puff of sound, a flash of flame above the captive. A great black jet of smoke shot high into the air, out of the nozzle.

The life-form on the altar gave one shrill cry that was agony, incarnate. Its body jerked and twisted, lashing against the shackles in a frenzy.

The primitives went mad. The huge room rocked with their howls and screamings.

But Jarl Corvett hardly heard them.

He'd seen cruel death before, on a dozen far-flung planets.

But this....

For while he watched, thin lines of fire were racing along the doomed sacrifice's writhing body. In a spreading network, the flesh itself was bursting open, flames leaping up in a thousand places.

In a searing flash, the truth came to Jarl: The creature's blood was burning!

He sagged in his escort's grip, and retched—shock-stunned, sick with horror.

But the primitives who flanked him jerked him upright. An open hand stung his face with brutal slaps.

The spell that gripped Jarl broke. Numb, tight-jawed, he forced himself to look again upon the altar.

The shackled creature lay there still, a charred, contorted horror.

While Jarl watched, the monster in the ebon mask stepped back and passed the torch to the altar-crewman who had brought it. Other primitives unclamped the gyves and dragged the corpse away.

Again Black-Mask brought up his hands. Again the crowd's tumultuous hubbub faded.

Black-Mask's hands came down. He swung about till he faced Jarl. Imperiously, he gestured.

Jarl's captors dragged him forward. The torch-bearer stepped quickly back, out of their path.

Fear was in Jarl Corvett, then—a fear that verged on shrieking terror. His body seemed like a thing apart—a statue carved from living ice, with no relation to his being.

But hate came with the terror, a flaming hate that grew at every step, till its white-hot fire ate up the fear and burned away his sickness and his trembling. Of a sudden he was himself again. He sucked in air. Without volition, his muscles stiffened against the digging fingers of his savage escort.

They jerked him up short before the altar. The black-masked figure shook a jet-gloved fist and shouted guttural imprecations.

The last shreds of Jarl's terror vanished, washed away in the flood of his tormentor's fury. Out of nowhere, a thing that Wassreck once had said came flashing to him: Hate is the face of fear, not courage.

That hate which showed in the primitive's every line and gesture—it, too, was born of terror ... a welling fear of all and any beings who came down from the skies to Womar.

Jarl laughed aloud, it was so funny—that he and this other should face each other so, in deadly menace, when within they were only quivering twins of terror.

And as he laughed, his own hate died the same swift death to which his fear had fallen. A grim, bleak poise replaced them both. For if the primitives, in their hearts, felt the self-same fear that he had, there was still a chance for recklessness to blaze a path through this wilderness of desperation.

His laugh cut short the black-masked figure's shouting. The primitive stared at him, as if unbelieving.

Cold-eyed, cold-nerved, Jarl drew himself to his full height. Rigid, he probed for some—for any—last wild gambit.

But Black-Mask, too, was straightening. He cried out fiercely to his helpers.

They shoved Jarl forward.

As they did so, the primitive beside the huge, wheeled tank lifted up the lid.

Jarl glanced down into it.

The vat was full. The awful broth almost lapped the brim. From it, in sickening waves, rose the sweetish, cloying fumes Jarl had come to associate with the primitives.

Black-Mask leaned forward. Shouting again, he lashed out. His jet-gloved fist raked at Jarl's face.

Instinctively, Jarl rocked back. New tides of black despair washed through him. What could he do, locked in his captor's grasp, hemmed between tank and torch-bearer, black-masked fiend and blood-drenched altar?

Tank—and torch-bearer—!

That link ... in an instant it grew to a searing, surging flame, hotter even than these creatures' own hell-fire brew.

Spasmodically, Jarl twisted round.

The primitive with the blazing brand still stood statue-like at the corner of the great stone slab.

Black-Mask snarled another order. His henchmen jerked Jarl back—lifting him, swinging him upward, till he hung suspended above the altar.

By instinct, Jarl wrenched against them; felt them, too, stiffen in the face of his resistance.

But if he could not fight them, perhaps there was another way....

Before they could lower him to the slab, he let himself go limp, loose-limbed and unresisting as any corpse.

It broke their balance. He hit the stone with a sodden thud ... lay there unmoving, head lolled back.

For the fraction of a second their grip relaxed.

It was Jarl's moment.... Savagely, then, he lashed out with all his might, in a violent spasm of arms and legs and torso. His feet smashed the metal mask into one primitive's face. His elbow sank fist-deep in another's midriff.

The restraining hands fell from him.

Desperately, he threw himself across the altar, toward the torch-bearer. Before the creature could recoil, Jarl was upon him—smashing him down with fists and knees and shoulders; snatching the flaming brand out of his hands.

Falling over each other in their haste, the others lunged to seize Jarl.

But instead of fleeing, he leaped back onto the altar. There was a prayer in his heart—his heart in his mouth. With a wild curse, he hurled the torch straight for the vat of hell-broth.

It struck the open lid, then plunged on down into the liquid.

But even as it fell, the fumes were flaring. Flame and smoke leaped up in a roaring column. A cloudburst of liquid fire sprayed out in all directions.

The cries of the primitives exploded into one great scream of pain and terror. As Jarl threw himself flat, with the altar-stone between him and the tank, he glimpsed the reeling, flame-cased figure of his jet-masked tormentor—stumbling, falling.

Then the black smoke billowed out in nauseous, all-obscuring murk that swallowed even the thundering holocaust that still roared around what had been the tank of liquid.

Jarl rolled from the wheeled platform on which the altar rested. Bent double, he raced through the choking haze for the bulkhead. In seconds, he was fumbling his way along it to the nearest doorway ... slipping through and ramming the heavy bolt home behind him.

Ahead, a shaft and spiral stairway loomed. Panting, he sprinted upward, past level after level.

The stairway ended against another metal door.

The outlined figure of one of the mighty warrior robots was blazoned on it.

Jarl's heart pounded harder.

Shoving open the hatch, he half-fell inside and locked it, too, behind him.

He found himself now in a control room. Panels thick with dust lined three of its walls. The fourth was a single massive, transparent, plastic plate through which occupants could look out across the great hold where the robots were massed ... where brief moments before Jarl Corvett had stood face to face with hideous death.

Stumbling to it, Jarl stared down upon the smoke-smirched scene below. Flames still were leaping about the platform. Here and there, he could catch dim glimpses of primitives' hurrying figures as they ran among the metal monsters.

Overhead, the dense black smoke almost hid the roof. Eddying, slowly rising, it swirled out through the cracks and rifts in the ancient hull, up into the blazing, sunlit heat of Womar's desert sky.

Of a sudden Jarl was weak to the point of sickness. Numbly, he turned and surveyed the rest of the control room with a closer scrutiny.

Bank after bank of dials and indicators marked with strange symbols leered down at him like a host of huge blank eyes. Against the far wall, units with focussing plates like the viziscreens of his own solar system were ranged in a precise row.

And everywhere—on every panel, every instrument—were stamped neat, stylized images of the warrior robots.

The numbness in Jarl grew. He knew instinctively, without question, that this was the place sought by Ktar Wassreck—the brain, the nerve center, for the shining metal monsters that were to have saved the warrior worlds.

But now that he was here, what could he do? His own ignorance was a tight-drawn, all-concealing blindfold.

With time enough, and skill and patience, he might perhaps have worked his way through to an understanding of how the robots were controlled. But time was the one thing he did not have. Second by second, the precious hours were ticking by. As far as he was concerned—lacking knowledge, training, understanding—he might as well have been on Venus.

And so the warrior worlds would die. The Federation fleet would sweep down on Ceresta.

Already, the three days given by rey Gundre were running out....

Jarl shook in the grip of helpless, frustrating fury. He had come so far; yet now that he was here, he could do nothing.

He cursed aloud; and as he did so, a new sound drifted to him.

A familiar sound ... the sound of a space-ship's blasting rockets.

He whirled; leaped back to the broad expanse of transparent plastic panel.

He reached it just in time to see a great section in the top of the hull above the hold suddenly buckle and crash down. Sunlight streamed through smoke and dust.

The roar of the blasting rockets echoed louder. A moment later, another huge chunk of hull tore loose and fell. Then another, and another, till the hole showed like a spreading canopy of sky above the robots.

Below, the last of the primitives were fleeing. Breathing hard, pressed tight to the observation panel, Jarl watched and waited.

The rocket-roar took on the peculiar whistling sound that went with ramping. Before Jarl's eyes, a ship dropped down stern-first into the hold and rocked to a landing amid the debris and towering robots.

Now the ship, as well as the sound, was suddenly familiar.

Too familiar.

It was the flagship of High Commissioner rey Gundre's mighty Federation fleet!

CHAPTER IX

Jarl Corvett lay flat on his belly on the floor of the room that housed the brain of the warrior robots, staring bleakly down into the hold below.

Then, again, he twisted, shifted. This endless waiting—it was enough to drive a saint to murder.

How long had it been—two hours—or two eons?

It was a time for thinking—because there was nothing else to do but think. Escape was not even a thing to dream about by daylight, with primitives still roving through these warrens. Tonight, perhaps, a man might find a way; but for now there was only ... thinking.

So Jarl lay there on the floor, sweating and shifting. Narrow-eyed, he studied the motionless bulk that was the flagship, and asked himself a thousand questions.

Questions he could not answer.

Why would rey Gundre, of all the players in this mad drama, come roaring down on Womar? What did he seek? How had he found his way here?

Above all, what was he waiting for this way—jets dead and hatches still unopened?

And for him to pick the robot-hold of this ancient ship to land in....

Unless, by some wild chance, Ktar Wassreck had escaped—

Even the thought made Jarl's heart leap.

But then it quieted down again, drained by the dark, dull hopelessness within him.

The time for dreams was dead and gone. For all his bravado and boasting he, Jarl Corvett, had failed the man who'd come for him on Horla. By now, at best, Ktar Wassreck lay a corpse in the chill horror of Venus' slan-chambers.

Pain welled up in Jarl, and with it came new sickness. Choking, he buried his face against his arms and cursed the day his mother bore him.

But his mind would not stay still. Drearily, he thought about the others.

About Ungo and Ylana, Bor Legat, Sais....

It only brought new anguish. For he'd failed them, too; failed them one and all ... Ungo, friend of friends, who'd trusted him beyond all others ... Ylana, vision of golden loveliness—betraying her world and her own father just to save him ... Bor Legat of Mercury, murderous and merciless, yet loyal in his twisted way to the raider cause.

And Sais.

Dark Sais, Ktar Wassreck's daughter. Even in this place, Jarl could recapture the fragrance of her hair, the pulsing pressure of her perfect body. She was all woman....

And all Jarl Corvett's.

So he'd brought her down to this wild world and left her to the mercies of Tas Karrel's raider rabble.

Cursing again, he writhed about and once more stared up at the banks of panels.

But that was all that he could do. He did not even dare to rise and experiment with the controls spread out before him, for fear someone below would glimpse the movement.

Then, from the hold, there rose a sudden clatter.

Jarl swung back to the plastic window, craning and peering.

Below, the main hatch of rey Gundre's ship was opening. Blue-uniformed Federation crewmen poured out, weapons glinting, and took up positions amid the debris.

In the same instant, the high whine of a light, fast-traveling carrier cut through the hold.

A moment later, a slim, swift craft dropped through the gaping hole in the ancient hull and set down for a landing.

Its prow was marked with Bor Legat's black lightning-flash insignia.

Incredulously, Jarl dug his nails into the plastic.

The carrier came to rest. Its hatch swung open. A burly dau leaped out.

Instantly, the Federation crewmen came to their feet and crowded round.

But the dau ignored them. Turning, he gestured to someone still inside the carrier.

Another figure dropped down ... a figure with shimmering golden hair and a scarlet tunic that emphasized the slim, ripening womanhood of the one who wore it.

Ylana—!

Jarl caught his breath. His palms were suddenly slick with sweat, the muscles of his chest constricted.

While he watched, the girl moved calmly to the Federation flagship.

The dau swung back aboard the carrier. The hatch clanged shut. A moment later, the craft was in the air again, lancing out of the ancient hull and away.

Ylana disappeared into the flagship.

Jarl sank back, trembling. Brow furrowed, lips dry, he tried to make sense of this new maneuver.

It was plain now what had happened to the girl, and Ungo. Bor Legat had captured them that night, back on Ceresta. Now he was carrying out his plan to trade her life for time, and the desperate chance that somehow Ceresta might be defended.

But why should he meet rey Gundre here? What had led the two of them to choose this shattered hulk for their rendezvous?

Jarl looked down once more.

More crewmen were hurrying from the flagship—clearing the debris from around the ramping-spot; setting up a perimeter studded with heavy weapons.

They planned to stay a while; that much was plain.

But why? Why, why, why—?

The question rang in Jarl's brain like a tolling bell. But he still could find no answer.

Another hour dragged by. Slowly, the shadows of ship and robots lengthened. Hunger gnawed at Jarl's belly. He moved this way and that, trying to work the ache from his weary muscles.

Down in the hold, the crewmen moved more slowly. Yet even up here, high above them, Jarl could sense a rising tension. It showed in the way they kept looking towards the burrows into which the primitives had fled ... their sudden starts, their readiness with their weapons.

He hunched forward, narrow-eyed, resting his weight upon his elbows.

Then there was a flurry about the hatch as a Thorian officer barked orders. The crewmen snapped to smart 'attention'.

A moment later rey Gundre himself strode down the ramp, a lean, imposing figure. Ylana followed, close behind him.

Together, they moved about the perimeter's defenses, then started back towards the great ship's hatchway.

But now Ylana hesitated, and there was a brief moment of discussion. The golden hair rippled as she shook her head and gestured.

Her father's shoulders lifted in a shrug. Pivoting, he went on up the ramp without her.

Ylana turned. Almost aimlessly, she wandered out among the robots; paused and leaned back against a gigantic metal foot, watching the blue-uniformed crewmen as they toiled and sweated.

The shadows grew longer. The crewmen ceased to heed her presence.

She moved, then, swiftly, silent as the deepening dusk—sliding around the foot in one quick motion; darting past an unmanned post of the perimeter defenses to a spot out of view amid the tangled debris.

Jarl went rigid. Twisting, he worked his way along the observation plate to a place where he again could see her.

But already she was on the move again, creeping on hands and knees, farther and farther from the flagship.

Where was she going? Why had she broken out of the circle?

And what if the primitives should catch her?

The thought brought Jarl to his feet, shuddering.

Besides, with the thickening gloom down in the hold, perhaps this time he could get an answer to his questions.

With one last glance to chart the course that the girl might follow, he ran to the door and threw back the bolt; then slid out and felt his way down the black well that was the spiral stairway.

In seconds he was at the bulkhead door. Opening it a crack, he weighed his chances.

The crewmen still were busy with their tasks inside the network of defenses. The pools of shadow hung all-enshrouding. Flat on his belly, he wriggled forth and crept along the wall in the same direction he'd seen Ylana take.

Out here, once more he caught the cloying, sweetish scent of the hell-broth, mixed with smoke, and the knot in his belly tightened. The shadows loomed like grim reminders of the primitives' dark fury.

He moved faster.

Back around the ship, a ring of blinding lights came on as if to emphasize the death that lurked in the outer darkness. Jarl surged to his feet. Stiff with tension, he searched the gloom for some hint of Ylana.

Off to the right, close by the bulkhead, a dull sound rang, as of some object striking metal.

Groping, Jarl found a broken brace-bar to serve him as a weapon. Wary, taut-nerved, he worked his way towards the spot from which the noise had come.

But he found nothing. Grim recognition of the hopelessness of his task crept through him.

He fought it down. Swinging round, deliberately, he kicked a crystalizing metal plate fallen from the great hull's roof.

The sound echoed, loud and startling in the silence. Jarl stood stock-still, straining his ears for some reaction.

So close at hand it made him jerk, there was a sudden rasp of movement.

Heedless now of noise, Jarl sprinted towards it. In a mighty leap, he cleared a heap of black-scorched litter.

Ylana crouched beyond it. Face a white blotch in the murk, she started up as he made the hurdle. Her mouth came open. He could hear the first whisper of a scream rising in her throat.

Savagely, he jammed his open palm across her mouth and swept her to him, smothering her kicks and blows and struggles. Lips close to her ear, he rasped, "Ylana! It's me—Jarl...."

He could feel her muscles contract, her body stiffen. Then, suddenly, she was limp in his arms—clinging to him, half-sobbing.

"Quick! We've got to move!" He dragged her with him, on along the bulkhead, then off amid the black mass of the debris.

Halting, finally, once more he strained his ears, listening for any hint that they'd been heard and followed.

But none came. At last, relaxing, he let go of her and slumped down into the drifted sand and litter.

He could feel the girl's eyes on him. But he held his silence.

"Jarl Corvett ..." she choked. And then, in a rush: "Thank the Gods you came, Jarl; so glad...."

She dropped down close beside him, her shoulder pressing against him, her hand on his.

Turning, he studied her.

The grey eyes were black-shadowed, her lovely face deep-lined.

Of a sudden he wanted nothing so much as to embrace her.

But there were so many questions to be answered....

He flung them at her bluntly: "Why did they come here, Ylana—your father; Bor Legat? What brought them down to Womar—to this ship?"

He could see her soft lips quiver. For an instant the grey eyes wavered.

But then they raised again and met his gaze. She said: "My father is a traitor, Jarl Corvett—a traitor to himself and all the things he believes in, and to the Federation."

Jarl stared, unspeaking.

The girl's mouth worked. Her fingers gouged his hand.

"Jarl—oh Jarl...." Agony was in her voice. "Before, I told you how he'd loot Ceresta. Now—now he's gone the whole way. He dreams of still more power—of carving out an empire, destroying the Federation with its own fleet. His orders—I learned today they were to arrange a truce and spare Ceresta, give the asteroids their freedom and bring them into the Federation on even terms. But he's beyond that. All he can think of is loot and power, destruction. He's mad—mad, Jarl; stark, raving mad...."

The girl's voice broke. Sobbing, she buried her face against Jarl's shoulder.

Hard-jawed, tight-lipped, he held her close. But he did not dare let feeling touch him. Not now, with time so short; so much at stake.

If the asteroids could hold their freedom, even in the Federation; if Ceresta and the raider fleet were only spared....

"And you—?" he clipped. "Where were you going? Why did you try to run away?"

Ylana lifted a tear-smudged face. All at once her chin was firm, and her lips no longer trembled.

She said: "Once I would have betrayed him for you alone, Jarl Corvett. This time, I came to do it for the Federation—and for freedom."

"You mean—?"

Her laugh held bitterness and pain. "The fleet commanders do not know my father's orders. I thought to reach Bor Legat's ship and warn them."

"Then Legat—"

"He came here only to bring me to my father, in hopes that he could save Ceresta. He'd channel a message through his viziscreen."

Jarl's breath came faster. There was a pricking and tingling along his spine.

He let go of Ylana; surged to his feet.

The girl rose, slim and straight beside him. "Yes, Jarl—?"

Jarl laughed, deep in his throat. Suddenly hunger and fatigue and pain were nothing. He saw only his dreams, his goal. "I'll get to Legat, Ylana! By all the gods of the void, I swear it!"

Her words came, swift and eager: "And I'll go with you—"

"No, Ylana—"

"Yes!" Fists clenched, face tight with strain again, she stepped back from him. "I've earned the right, Jarl! You can't leave me!"

For a long, long moment, he looked deep into her eyes. There were so many things to see there—courage, and anguish; fierce loyalty, determination, pain.

She hurled words at him—commanding and entreating: "You'll need me, Jarl! You can't find Legat's ship without me. It's close—it and the Knife. We can reach them by the time it dawns, if we go together—"

Still Jarl stared into her eyes, unspeaking.

She broke off. Her hand came up, swept back the rippling golden hair. Her throat was a smooth-carved ivory column, her face a lovely mirror of the things that shone deep in her eyes.

Slowly, Jarl smiled. He knew there was no need for other answer. And words could be such futile, empty things.

Her hand in his, together they crept on through the debris; up through a broken port set high in the side of the ancient hull.

Then they were out at last, into the windswept wastes of Womar's deserts ... stumbling on through the sand and rocks, mile after mile. They had no breath for talk, no time for resting. A pause might bring the primitives down upon them.

Jarl gripped his brace-bar club and prayed.

Then light came dimly, herald to another blazing desert day. But with it, too, rose the lance-sharp outlines of the prows of two great raider ships, ramped amid a wilderness of jutting crags.

Jarl's heart leaped. Quick jubilation surged within him. "Ylana—!"

The girl screamed.

Jarl whirled—club up, fists clenching. "What—?"

But again, there was no need for words, for the girl was pointing back across the endless, dust-deep waste through which they'd come to an ominous moving figure.

The figure of a mighty warrior robot, a metal giant that loomed like a monstrous, man-made nightmare against the clear blue of the morning sky.

Jarl rocked—incredulous, unbelieving. His club-arm sagged down to his side.

With every fleeting second, the metal monster towered still larger, closer. Its massive legs swung out in wallowing, league-long strides, closing the gap between them.

Ylana cried out again. She darted to Jarl; clung close against him, shaking like a slim reed in a wind.

He tore free from his shell of shock and frozen-fascination. Sweeping the girl up, he raced for the nearest outcropping of jagged rock.

The giant from beyond the void stalked nearer. The clanking of the great joints rolled down on them like distant thunder.

Ylana sobbed, "My father—he must have found that I was gone—"

Jarl did not answer. Drawing her down behind the rocks, he waited, as for the Juggernaut of fate itself.

The monster thundered closer, great feet grinding stones to powder with every stride. The rising sun's rays transformed the mighty, gleaming torso to a living statue carved in orange-gold fire.

Ylana shook with a new wave of paroxysmal panic. It took every ounce of Jarl's control to hold himself from leaping up and running—tearing his heart apart in one last frantic, desperate flight.

But what good would it do to run, when this monstrous menace could overtake and pass him in a single stride?

Heart in his throat, he pulled Ylana close against him and waited in rigid, aching tension for his doom.

Another clanking step ... another; and the robot towered above them, mountain-high.

Jarl's straining muscles cramped with pain. In awful fascination, he felt the robot's shadow fall across them; watched as a gigantic foot came down. The very ground shook. Dust spurted in a smothering cloud.

It was as if death, personified, looked down upon them.

And then, incredibly, the ponderous leg swung out again—swept over them, past them, and crashed to earth again beyond.

Another step. The shadow lifted.

Jarl raised his head; stared, still not believing.

But the robot was still moving on—on, through the bleak crags and the wastelands.

On, towards the place where the prows of the space-ships stood out against the sky.

Straining his eyes, Jarl could see tiny figures running, the headlong rush of panic in their stride.

But the robot was striding faster.

A roar of rockets echoed dimly. As one, the Knife and Bor Legat's Lightning blasted up into the sky.

But already the robot was leaping, pivoting, with hideous, awkward grace that spoke of awful strength beyond man's feeble understanding. Great, gleaming metal hands shot out and seized the Lightning in mid-air. A lance of light blazed from the force-spot in the forehead and blasted the Knife to shattered fragments before it cleared the rocks.

And even as the light-beam struck, the mighty arms were levering. The Lightning's hull-beam cracked and splintered. The body parted in a spray of shattered shards and clawing, falling crewmen.

Then it was over. With savage force, the robot hurled the broken ship to the ground ... trompled the shattered hull-sections into the dust.

Ylana clung to Jarl—choking, crying, whole body shaking. Tight-lipped, holding her close, he pressed back against the rocks, so hard the ridges gouged his flesh like blunt-edged bayonets.

The metal giant was turning, now. Again its great feet clanged and thundered. Back it came once more, along the same road that had brought it to its terrible festival of carnage and destruction. Again, its shadow swept past Jarl and Ylana, not even pausing. Slowly, the thunder of its footsteps faded. The massive hulk grew smaller, smaller, in the distance.

Then it was gone. Heavily, Jarl Corvett struggled to his feet. Slowly, grimly, he turned.

Ylana's reddened eyes met his. "Jarl—! Where are you going?"

He shrugged; made himself ignore the new panic in her voice. "You can guess that, can't you?"

"No, Jarl! No—!" Eyes wide, lips quivering and parted, she came up, clutching at his tunic.

He pushed her hands away, not daring to let the tenderness he felt show in face or action. His words came raw and harsh, in a voice he could hardly recognize as his own: "What else is there to do? The ships are gone. There's no other way that we can get in touch with Venus, fleet headquarters."

"No, Jarl...."

"But your father's got a ship." He bit his words off, clipped and hard. "He's got the robots, too, it seems—may the gods of the void protect us all! But if he should die...."

He let his voice trail off; stared out across the crags and desert wastes.

"Then I'll go, too—"

"No." He pushed her back again—grim, unrelenting. "A few of Bor Legat's men didn't get aboard the ship. Some may still live. Go stay with them till I come." And then, bleakly: "If I come...."

Turning without a backward glance, he plodded off through the scorching sand, following the course of the giant robot—

The course to rey Gundre and his flagship.

CHAPTER X

Womar's blazing day—barely half as long as that of Earth—had waned again before Jarl reached his destination.

Then, at last, he was crawling through the dusk on hands and knees, up to the shattered hull of the ship from beyond the void. The sun had burned his face to a tortured mask, and his feet were raw, leaden lumps of flesh that left a trail of blood behind him.

Breathing hard, staggering weak from hunger and fatigue, he dragged himself up out of the dirt to the broken port. He did not even wonder what he would find within. He didn't care. He only knew that whatever he was to do, he must do quickly, before the last remnants of his draining strength were spent and he fell, to rise no more.

And what was he to do?

Drunkenly, he laughed. Who was he to say? His world was a blur of star-splotched black, and sometimes—too often—he saw stars that he knew weren't there. The time was past for schemes and planning.

At best, below, he'd die tonight.

But perhaps he might take rey Gundre with him.

rey Gundre, Ylana's father.

Her father—! No wonder her golden loveliness was shadowed. The real wonder was that madness hadn't claimed her.

But at least, this way, her sire's death would not be on her conscience. No one could claim that hers had been the hand to slay him.

Down in the hold, the Forspark lights were blazing. With a tremendous effort, Jarl pulled himself through the port. Half-sliding, half-falling, he skidded down into the dirt and debris; lay there for a moment, resting, dizzy and straining for breath to fill his lungs.

Then, lurching to his feet, he stared across at the ring of light; the flagship, ramped amid the forest of towering robots.

What turned a man like rey Gundre from the call of duty? Where did it start, that insatiate lust for power and booty?

And how, so quickly, had the high commissioner learned the secret of controlling the metal giants?

Had Ktar Wassreck talked before he died? Could he have sought to buy his life, at the last, with this final, priceless treasure?

But now, to think took too much effort. Now—Jarl swayed—he only knew that he must kill ... that such power as this was too great to be trusted to any man, be he of the Federation or the raiders.

Yet how to reach him, there in the ship, while armed crewmen paced to and fro in the ring of light, on guard against the primitives?

The primitives....

Jarl leaned against the hull, and laughed his drunken laugh again.

The primitives: they held the answer.

Shuffling and stumbling, he worked his way through the piles of debris to the charred ruins of the altar platform. On hands and knees, he searched the trompled sand, probing amid the stinking litter.

Then, at last, his fingers touched the scorched, stiff corpse of a dead primitive, still sprawled in the dirt where the creature had fallen. Fumbling, he stripped off his own garments; replaced them with the corpse's shoulder-plumes and girdle, ankle- and wrist-bands, sandals. Unclamping the hideous metal mask, he clamped it on his own head ... smeared his body thick with sand and ashes.

Then it was done and he was ready, save for a weapon.

A weapon.... He frowned. What weapon was there that he could carry past the guards who paced their posts about rey Gundre's ship?

Wearily, he sagged back on his haunches and let sand trickle through his fingers while he tried to prod his aching brain to action.

The grit piled up in a little heap between his knees, a dusty cone symbolic of this whole thrice-cursed desert world of Womar. It was everywhere, that grit and dust, underfoot and in the air alike. It rasped and smothered, choked and blinded.

And—it came to him in a sudden flash—it was the weapon he was seeking!

Scooping up the sand, he stuffed it between the girdle and his belly in sifting handfuls, till he could pack in no more.

And as he did so, his weariness fell away a little. A tiny spark of his old fire came alive again. A thread of the strength he'd thought was gone flowed slowly through him.

He found that he could even stand straight without staggering.

Bleakly, he laughed.

Then, breathing deep, throwing back his head, he howled the wild, harsh howl the charging primitives had uttered—pushed it out with all the volume he could muster.

He could see the guards jerk, in the light-ring round the ship. A ray-gun blazed.

Jarl crouched behind a pile of debris. After a moment, when the guards' first excitement had subsided, he moved in closer; howled again.

This time, the crewmen showed less tension. Grim, purposeful, they crouched by their weapons, watching and waiting.

Jarl moved still closer. He shouted—a guttural, clacking diatribe that went on for half a minute.

Two officers came to the nearest point of the defense perimeter. Uncertainly, they peered out into the echoing sea of darkness.

Again Jarl shouted; kept up the stream of clacking sound still longer.

One of the officers stepped back; gestured. A Forspark light swung round and focussed on the area where Jarl lay hidden.

Jarl scraped his palms against his legs. Drum-like, his heart pounded. His belly writhed as he weighed the odds against this madman's gamble.

But there was no other way.

Once more he shouted; kept the clatter running.

And as he did so—slowly; open hands upthrust and empty—he rose to full height. Still shouting, he moved step by step into the beam of searching light.

He was close to the perimeter, now—close enough to hear the guards' excited babble.

Still no shot came; no ray-beam lanced out to burn him down.

Boldly, he strode forward, straight towards the defenses.

Crewmen moved up to meet him—cold-eyed, weapons leveled.

He reached the edge of the perimeter; stood there, waiting.

A Fantay officer came out. Ray-gun in hand, throat-sac aquiver, he circled Jarl, uncertainty and puzzlement written on his ugly face.

Jarl threw out more of the meaningless, clacking syllables. The mask distorted them even further. They came out a guttural rattle like nothing ever heard on any planet.

A Pervod said, "Better take him in to the commissioner. Maybe the vocodor can make something of his gabble."

The Fantay nodded briefly. His pad-like hands moved over Jarl, probing the plumes, the wrist-bands, the girdle.

A trickle of sand spilled to the ground.

The Fantay brushed it off, unheeding. He reached up; started to fumble at the catches of the metal mask.

Jarl's heart leaped. He knocked away the officer's hand and hurled an angry cascade of gutturals at the creature.

The Fantay fell back a step, startled and even more uncertain; and an Earthman clipped, "Leave that tin hat alone, Beyno! This thing's a primitive. Maybe he thinks it's bad luck or something to take off his mask in front of strangers."

"Yes; that could be it." The officer swung around. "Gundre will be up in the control section. Let's take this chitza there."

Taking Jarl's arm, he led him forward, centered amid the little knot of crewmen. Across the spreading ring of light they moved, and up the ramp into rey Gundre's mighty flagship ... through echoing corridors ... in and out of a lift that whisked them a dozen levels higher in as many seconds ... down still another gleaming metal passage, till at last they faced the door of the craft's control section.

The officer let go of Jarl and stepped forward; touched the signal button.

The intercom plate glowed. rey Gundre's voice blared: "Yes! What is it?" He sounded tense and angry.

The Fantay clipped, "Sir, we've got one of the primitives. He came in of his own free will, but we can't understand what he's trying to say. We thought maybe you'd want to put him on the vocodor."

"A primitive—!" There was a moment's hesitation. Then: "All right. Just a minute."

The intercom plate went blank.

Jarl's knees were suddenly weak again. He swayed a little. Already, so soon, he was here. It had been incredibly simple.

But the next step—

Abruptly, the door to the control section opened part way. The high commissioner himself looked out. His lean, handsome face was haggard, the dark hair so rumpled that the white blaze was almost lost.

His deep-set eyes flicked to Jarl Corvett. Then he snapped, "Two guards will be enough," and drew back a fraction to let them enter.

They filed in—first the Fantay officer, then Jarl. The guards brought up the rear.

Behind them, rey Gundre closed and locked the door.

It was a bare, bleak room—the navigation unit, with its globes and astrocharts and viziscreens. Through a half-open door to the right, Jarl could see the switches and dial-studded panels of the operating cubicle; the empty pilot-chair.

Tight-drawn as a llorin's bow-string, he shifted, seeking the spot best suited to his purpose. Wry, mocking words Ktar Wassreck once had spoken rang in his brain: "You'll live longer if you pick a place to run to before you have to run."

Even now, as he faced certain death, it was good advice. Disregarding the others, he moved almost to the cubicle's doorway.

For the first time, then, as he swung round to face his captors, he saw the plate of the long-range viziscreen.

Saw it ... rocked ... almost cried out.

For there, in stark detail, were the familiar outlines of tiny Ceres: the bare expanse that was Ceresta's sprawling port ... the geometric patterns of the town.

And there, too, in the upper scanner, shone clusters of tiny, crawling pinpoints—the mighty Federation fleet hurtling through the void, poising in this moment to lance down upon their distant prey.

It dragged through a thousand years, that awful instant; an instant so terrible that it made the navigation room swim and dissolve before Jarl Corvett's eyes.

Why had his fate brought him here at this final moment? Why must he take his stand just in time to see the Federation fleet blast his one last dream?

Desperately, fists clenched and sweating, he tried to calculate how long it would take the racing ships to reach a range where they could use Wassreck's deadly force projectors. Five minutes—? Three?

But what did it matter? Whatever the time, it still would be too short.

Unless fate had brought him here now for a purpose; unless the gods of the void themselves were riding at his side....

His stomach writhed. With a will born of utter frenzy, he tore his eyes from the screen.

The guards and the Fantay officer still stood waiting. rey Gundre was studying him with narrowed eyes.

Cold as death, Jarl made himself stride forward. Thrusting stiff hands between the girdle and his belly, once again he spat a stream of crackling gutturals at his foes.

But then, the high commissioner was suddenly tensing, backing. "What is this?" he cried sharply. "You're no primitive!" His voice went high and raw. "Guards! Seize him—!"

The Fantay lunged. The guards clawed for their ray-guns.

But already Jarl was pivoting, whipping a fistful of sand into the officer's eyes. He leaped back as he threw it, so that one guard was between him and the other. Savagely, he hammered home a blow; crowded close and caught the ray-gun's barrel as it cleared the holster, levering it up till it tore free from the creature's tortured grasp.

Then the other guard was upon him, smashing him to his knees.

But the metal mask broke the force of the blow. Jarl triggered the ray-gun. The beam lanced out, struck home at the base of the bulging jaw.

The guard fell backward.

Jarl fired again. The Fantay died.

But now rey Gundre's own weapon was out. The remaining guard came charging in.

Jarl dropped flat as the high commissioner fired. The beam passed over him; blasted the lunging guard.

Jarl shot for rey Gundre's weapon.

The ray-gun flew out of the high commissioner's hand.

Panting, Jarl lurched to his feet. His whole body trembled. For an instant he thought he was going to faint.

Then, out of the depths of his will, new strength came. He leveled the ray-gun; held it steady.

rey Gundre went white to the lips. Unsteadily, he moved backward, till his body, the palms of his hands, were pressed flat against the wall. He could not seem to tear his eyes from the hideous metal mask Jarl wore.

"Is the high commissioner afraid, then—?" Jarl laughed harshly. "Forget it, Gundre, I've things for you to do before you die."

"Jarl Corvett—!" The commissioner's eyes went wide with shock, mirror-bright with fear.

Jarl laughed again, a bleak and mirthless sound. With his free hand, he unclamped the mask; dropped it to the floor.

Tightly, he said: "Get a cross on your fleet, Commissioner. Give them their true orders—that Ceres is to be spared."

The panic that flared in rey Gundre's eyes was a frightful thing to see. His face sagged, grey as lead. "No, Corvett—! Not that! I can't—!"

"Then you can die," Jarl said.

He raised the ray-gun.

The high commissioner's mouth worked. "No, no...." Tottering, he stumbled towards the viziscreen.

Jarl followed him, grim as death.

The clustered pinpoints were closer to Ceres now, slashing through the void like streaks of light.

With trembling fingers, rey Gundre fumbled at the dials.

"Faster!" Jarl clipped. "Your life depends on it, Gundre! If they strike, you die!"

A new voice, behind them, said, "No, Jarl."

By sheer reflex, Jarl whirled.

A man stood in operation unit's doorway ... a tall man with a gaunt, pain-twisted body, and high-domed head, and burning eyes.

A man Jarl Corvett knew so well—

"Wassreck—!"

"Yes, Jarl. Wassreck." The other's voice was almost gentle. The wry mouth twisted with the thin ghost of a smile.

Jarl's knees went weak as water. His gun-hand sagged. He clutched a chair to keep from falling.

Still smiling, Ktar Wassreck moved forward, into the navigation room. "Did I surprise you, Jarl?"

"I—thought you dead."

"And Sais, too—?" The other chuckled softly, and half-turned. "Come, my dear...."

And of a sudden, there was dark Sais, framed in the open doorway—radiant, lips half-parted, eyes aglow.

Ktar Wassreck said, "I know how much she means to you, my comrade. I brought her here, from Karrel's ship, to wait till you should come." His pain-warped shoulders twisted. "Because I knew you'd come, Jarl, sometime. Loyalty is a thing you understand."

"I called him on the Knife's screen, Jarl," Sais broke in. Her voice was warm and eager. "The crew didn't think to guard me. After that, I ran away, into the desert, and waited till the flagship came."

Jarl swayed. His brain was reeling, and everything had a queer, distorted look. He wondered if perhaps he'd finally fainted ... if this were all a dream, somehow, or death.

But he made himself speak, because he had to learn the truth ... find answers to the questions that kept tumbling and jumbling....

"You ... were aboard the flagship—?"

"Of course, Jarl," Wassreck nodded. "I wasn't captured, nor yet did I surrender. All this has been a careful plan, worked out between the high commissioner and me."

"A—plan—?"

"Yes!" Ktar Wassreck's voice rang. With sudden eagerness, he leaned forward, and his eyes burned with a strange new light. "Jarl, with the power that's in these robots, the universe is ours to rule! What force is there that can stand against them? What planet could defy their might?"

"But the high commissioner...." Jarl gestured, stumbled. "Why would he aid the outlaw worlds—?" And then, in sudden panic, whirling: "Quick—! The Federation fleet—it's headed down for Ceres! We've got to stop them! It may already be too late!"

But Wassreck's voice said, "No, Jarl."

It was flat this time, no longer gentle.

Slowly, slowly Jarl turned from the scanner, with its clustered, crawling pinpoints. A seeping emptiness was rising in him—an ugly, hollow feeling he'd never felt before.

Wassreck still stood in the same spot as before. But now, his right hand was at waist-level.

It held a blaster.

In a voice not even remotely resembling his own, Jarl asked, "What do you mean?"

Wassreck's eyes were burning coals. His gaunt face seemed even thinner than before.

He said: "I mean the outlaw worlds must die!"

Jarl nodded slowly. "I guessed that would be it."

"Don't you see, Jarl—?" Sais cried, coming to him. "The raiders will never lose their idiot dreams of freedom! Always, everywhere, they'll make trouble! It would be madness to leave them with Ceresta and their fleet. The Federation planets know what it means to bow before a ruler—"

Wordless, Jarl looked down at her.

Hand on his arm, she rushed on—glowing, eager: "At first my father thought of you as dangerous. But always, I've loved you. That's why I came to you on Ceres, saying he was captured—so that you would prove your loyalty to him. Now, he knows; and the two of you can rule together. You and I—we'll have each other...."

She pressed against Jarl—body warm, hair soft and fragrant.

Wassreck broke in: "Jarl, you saw what happened today when I tried out that robot on Bor Legat's ships! And once the raider fleet is smashed, there'll be no opposition."

The numb emptiness filled Jarl to overflowing. "And if I say no—?"

He could see the other stiffen.

"Is there a choice?" Wassreck's laugh was suddenly savage. "Your ray-gun's down, and my blaster's on you. Even if you could kill me, the crew knows you're here; they'd be waiting for you."

And Sais whispered, "Jarl, why should you die for nothing? What can it gain you, or anyone else?" Her cool fingers caressed him. "Jarl, don't you understand? I love you! I want us to be together, now and forever...."

Jarl stood very still.

How many nights had he lain in a chill, lonely bunk far out in space, and dreamed of Sais beside him? How many times had he cursed the raider way, the blood and iron, and longed instead for power and booty?

Now he could have those things. What made him hang back? Why did he hesitate?

Why indeed, when refusal meant death without gain, without meaning?

Only then he thought of other things, and pain came in a rush to fill the emptiness.

For he thought of those who lived, and those who'd died, whether they lived or died for good or evil. Of Bor Legat and Ungo, Tas Karrel and Ylana, a thousand fallen crewmen.

Of Ceresta's teeming hives, and Pallas, and of the raider fleet.

Of freedom.

Perhaps there was still a place in this mad universe for a man who did not fear to die.

Again, he looked down into Sais' dark, lovely face. Again, her hair's fragrance rose like perfume in his nostrils.