"Out of the way, _Malya_! Let him see me!" The very repression that echoed in the giant's words was infinitely more fearsome than roars or rantings. A webbed fist lashed out backhanded at the slave girl, and the force of the blow sent her careening almost to Shane's side. "Remember me, Earthman? Remember?" Shane did not move. He did not speak. The creature standing there walked on two legs like a human. Its thumbs were opposed. It spoke through its mouth instead of a throat-sac. * * * * * But the great lobed eyes that saw in the dark were pure _Fantay_, and the scaly roughness of the mottled skin was _Pervod_. The bulge of the skull went with Mars; the peculiar, pad-footed stride with the swamplands of Io. Hybrid, mongrel, the thing was a queer, off-trail mixture of all the races of Mars and Earth and Venus, and the gods of the far stars knew where else. And there, at its waist, hung the belt of the _Chonyas_. "I remember," Shane said. "You're Reggar, Quos Reggar--the slaver, the _theol_-peddler." Deliberately, insultingly, he spat on the floor. "Or are you running light-guns to Mimas this time?" The creature that was Reggar chuckled, but the sound held no mirth. "Your memory's good, you _chitza_! Maybe it even goes back to the days when you passed the word through the spaceports that you'd feed my heart to the _kiavis_ if I ever ramped ship in the asteroid belt again." "I said it; I meant it." Shane's eyes were bleak. He stood unyielding, jaw outthrust, and his words slashed. "When the _chonya_ chiefs came in and struck their banners and picked me, an Earthman, as _gar_ of the asteroids to lead them, I swore on the star-stone of Hiaroloch that I'd stop scum like you--" "Only now I'm back," Reggar cut in harshly. "I'm bigger this time, Shane; big enough to make up for all the years I've had to stay away. My fleets are stronger than yours, and my brain is better. Today, when you broke free and fled, I said to myself: 'Where would the Earthman go? What will his first thought be?' And I know the way you think so well that I was here in Kyrsis' rooms before you!" "So?" "So I've taken your belt, and now I'm going to take your _yodor Chonyas_, too. I'll hit the asteroids, one after another, and clean them out, till there isn't a _Chonya_ anywhere left free." The great lobed eyes glittered balefully. The alien voice struck a deeper note. "And you're going to help me, Shane!" "You're mad as a _ban_, Reggar," Shane said tightly. "Mad? You call me mad?" There was a sort of obscene glee in the other's chuckle. "Is it mad to strive for power, great _gar_--the kind of power you've held these years? Is it mad to hunt slaves for a market that pays triple prices and begs for more? No! That's why I brought you here--"