"I came to tell you, Kyla--to warn you! Sark has found him! They say the torture is already under way to make him tell where Xaymar lies--" Unspeaking, Haral looked to Kyla. Her mouth was working. New tears had come to her eyes. Now, of a sudden, they overflowed and spilled down her cheeks. Harshly, Haral slashed: "What now, priestess? Do we wait here while Sark tears out Namboina's heart, then goes and wakens your mad woman-goddess Xaymar?" Slowly, the hand that held the ray-gun lowered, till the weapon hung loose against Kyla's side. Her shoulders, too, slumped. In the stillness, her falling tears made tiny splatting sounds as they hit the floor. "Kyla, Kyla--!" the other priestess whispered. "You dare not linger! Sark seeks you, too. That is why I came to warn you--" * * * * * Again the silence echoed. Then, wearily, Kyla straightened. She shook away the tears. Her mouth stopped quivering. Never had she been more lovely. She turned to the blue man: "Haral...." It came to him, with a queer sort of shock, that it was the first time she had ever called him by his name. "Yes, Kyla...?" "I've lost. I wanted Xaymar's secret for my people--this world of ours, this Ulna. But now, that cannot be. The most I can hope is that Sark, at least, shall never have it." "Yes, Kyla." "She--Xaymar--lies in the dead land--the land infested by the great thinking beetles, the coleoptera. The road to her crypt is a dangerous road." "I've traveled dangerous roads before." "Yes. Danger is in your blood, you aliens. And we of Ulna are weak, so weak...." Gently, Haral said: "There's little time, Kyla. Namboina may be babbling all he knows already." "Yes, and the way is long." Wearily, then, the girl held out the ray-gun to him. "You'll need this more than I, along the road that we must travel." She sighed. "You see, Haral? Destiny is on your side. In the end, you are the winner." CHAPTER IV The coleoptera were drawing their noose ever tighter now. A killer cordon, they ringed in Kyla and Haral. The rustle of their giant wing-sheaths, borne on the night wind, whispered of death. The great, flesh-rending mandibles clacked like the distant rattle of dry bones. Flat on his belly amid this rubble that once had been a mighty city, the blue warrior let his head sink forward onto his arms. He closed his eyes, and weariness welled up in him, a dull, relentlessly-rising tide. Pain throbbed along his whole left side, and blood still dripped from his numb left hand. Silently--absently, almost--he touched the shoulder-plate of his armor, probing the perforations and the wound. Then a sound of spilling gravel came through the darkness. He looked up sharply. A dozen yards to one side, one of the great scarlet beetles was clambering atop a heap of crumbling stone. Its wing-sheaths scraped harshly--a rasping, off-key note.