* * * * * A priestess.... He pondered. Already there was a bond between them, for she had a courage to match her beauty, and courage was one trait he gave full honor, no matter what the cause to which it rallied. And it had taken courage to stand in the bloody mud of that arena, defying Sark. Sark?... Haral smiled. Sark, too, would have a role to play before this game was done. Sark had pledged him death. Sark would keep that pledge, unless he fell before the might of Xaymar's vaunted secret. And as for himself, Haral--? The battle lines were drawn: On the one hand, power beyond his fondest dreams ... a living goddess ... a lovely priestess. On the other, Sark and the coleoptera, defeat and death. What more was there for a fighting man to ask? What better prize for a wanderer to strive for as he carved his way up from the asteroids' bleak want and bondage? He laughed aloud. His weariness fell away. Sitting up, turning, he once more gave attention to the swarming scarlet beetles far below him. Fear of his light-lance was upon them now, it seemed. They hung back, spread out in a menacing arc that centered on his side of the pillar. Directly below him, Kyla crouched as if frozen, the ray-gun ready in her hand. But as yet the beetles had not come close enough to find her. Haral shifted. Like lightning, a Q-ray speared up from an ebon crevice to one side of the shaft. The range was too great. The beam burned out yards short of Haral. But a flicker of movement betrayed that one of the monster insects now was climbing along the other side. The next ray might strike home. Again, Haral sought out the Triad, and the great arterial avenue that led to it. The nearest of the roadways lay within a hundred yards of this column that was his vantage-point. A pylon still thrust its weathered peak skyward on the far side of the thoroughfare. A pylon: the crumbling, truncated pyramid burned into Haral's brain like a beacon. The very sight of it sent recklessness surging through him. To Kyla, below, he cried, "Come round the wall, priestess! Come round! Quick!" Then, cat-like, he twisted, swinging his legs up and through the gap in the masonry. His body arched--catapulting out into space, hurtling groundward along the towering shaft's other face. But as he plunged, he shifted the light-lance. Bracing it against his body, he gripped its head between his feet and triggered it on, full strength. Its broad force beam blazed forth, straight at the ground below. Like a flexible, compressing shaft of radiant energy, it slowed his plunge. Balancing skillfully, he rode the beam on down. * * * * * The force of the landing made him wince. But at least, for the moment, he was free of the coleoptera, though even now he could hear the scurrying of their hairy feet in the dirt as they raced to head him off. Whirling, he ran along the base of the shaft.