I saw movement in the white foliage, and almost rushed to meet Kel Aran. But it was a Galactic Guard detachment, a score of men in red-and-yellow, running. I dropped beside the pool until they had passed. "The Falcon!" The panting words came back to me. "Fired the palace! Out here--with the Emperor's dancer!" The crimson dawn grew thicker. The smoke and flame gushed higher from the palace--it was a losing fight, against the conflagration. I crouched under the white leaves, waiting with a hand on my gun. "Barihorn!" Kel Aran had whispered my name, and I started as if a gun had cracked. He was standing behind me, at the brink of the pool. His arm was around a panting girl. Torn scraps of silken gauze clung to her slim white loveliness, and a deep splendor glowed at her waist. "I found her," he whispered triumphantly. "And the Stone!" He touched the great jewel at her waist--and I saw that indeed it had the shape of the diamond block, into which, as I slept, I had seen the eternal mind of Dondara Keradin transferred. I stared at the trembling, gasping woman. She was beautiful, yes. But something was wrong. And it was not that she was drugged. Her eyes were alert, watchful. Something in them was cold, calculating, hostile. "Verel!" Kel was whispering. "We'll make it--even though they got poor Setsi! And still I can't believe--Mine again, when I thought you must be dead!" He drew her white loveliness close. "Even the Stone!" "Kel!" she sobbed in his arms. "My darling Kel!" I heard a hoarse command, saw another squad of searchers break out of a white hedge toward the burning palace. Even as I touched the Earthman's shoulder, in warning, a booming challenge reached us: "Halt, Falcon! Yield yourself--or die!" Kel swung the girl toward the pool. "Dive!" he whispered. "We must swim into the valve." "Where?" Her cold eyes were staring at him, strangely. "Hurry!" His pleading voice held a sudden agony of doubt. "The ship is in the pool." * * * * * She crouched abruptly. Her white lithe body, marked with red scratches from the flight, was tensely pantherlike. Her eyes had a malific greenish luster. Thin and high, her voice shrieked out: "Here! Here's Kel Aran, the Falcon. Take him!" She leapt catlike at the Earthman, sweeping him back from the silver brink. He struggled with her. "Help me, Barihorn!" he gasped. "We must take her! Malgarth--She doesn't know herself." Shouts had answered the girl. White warning rays hissed above us. I saw two more squads rushing down upon us, beside the first. I tried to help Kel Aran drag the girl into the pool. But her slim white arms had a maniac strength. She picked us both up, carried us back again from the silver rim. "Strong!" Kel was gasping. "She's strong as a robot!" A choking sob of startled horror. "She is--"