"Of course we bought slaves!" A note of hysteria crept into the silver woman's laugh. "Power, you talked about. Why would anyone buy slaves in a universe where power is free? What we sought was life--life in a form we could drink up, before our bodies finally died!" She came close to Shane, her pale face smooth and glowing, the violet eyes afire. "Look at me, Earthman! Look closely! How old would you guess me? How many of your Earth years?" Shane did not speak. "A hundred years, Earthman? A thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand?" Again she laughed--wildly, up and down the scale. And then, steady once more: "Shane, I first drew breath a million years ago! Our science has kept me as I am--young in body and mind and heart. But without new life--without the living slaves we buy--I would wither and die in months. This child,"--and she gestured to the limp, dead body of the _Chonya_ girl--"what did she know of life? What did she care? I played with her, and comforted her, and she was happy; and then I sucked the life out of her body, and you hate me for it. But was it so wicked, really? Was it not better that I should live, I who have learned to love life through a million endless year, than she, who would have wasted that life and thrown it away in some dull corner of the asteroid belt?" * * * * * Shane shifted; stared down at the dead child for a long, long moment, then back at the woman again. "You are thinking, 'Is there no other way?'" Kyrsis whispered. Her pale hand touched the Earthman's arm. "I tell you, Shane: there is none. How many years have our scientists sought it? How many eons of spatial time? But always, the answer is no. We must have life itself--humanoid life, like that of this girl here. No other can be transmuted to our bodies." "If life is an element, as you say, a thing that wells up with creation, out of the birth of a planet, then you could have moved to another planet," Shane said in a dull, flat voice. "If life is gone from Gadar, then you could have migrated, picked a new home." "It sounds so easy, does it not?" the silver woman taunted. "But where life exists, there life forms evolve. We could have taken such a planet only by conquest. Would your worlds have liked that, Shane? Would they have been willing to see us come in and seize their homelands? You fought out of pride, for the belt the _Chonya_ chieftains gave you. Would the worlds of your system do less if we tried to invade them?" Shane stood mute. Kyrsis' arm slipped about him. The rich purple lips came close to his. "Come with us, Shane! Join us!" she whispered. "For a million aching years I have sought a man like you. Do not leave me, now that I've found you...." A weakness crept through Shane's body. With a tremendous, savage effort, he hurled the silver woman from him. "You'd steal my life as Quos Reggar stole my belt!" he shouted. Stark murder was in his eyes. "No, Shane--! No!"