"With it, you can be a butcher and a tyrant!" the girl slashed in upon him. He could see the lines of strain and inner tumult etch deeper into her face. "You can carve your bloody way like Sark himself, till some worse monster topples you from your throne!" Haral clenched his fist. He threw his words like thundering boulders. "Strength rules the void, woman! Give me the strength to carve my way and I'll ask no more!" The girl's face whitened. Her lips trembled. Passion echoed in her voice: "But ... is strength enough? Can you find the things you really seek in strength alone?" "With power, I can do anything!" "No! Power is not enough--" "It is! It is!" He could not hold down his heat, his fervor. But how could he tell her? How could he make her understand? And why did he care? He clutched the saddle and stared bleakly off across the crags. A flood of memories washed through him. And because their roots struck so very deep, he knew before he spoke that in spite of all his efforts, his words were going to come out as cold and hard as the stones of these barren mountains. He said tightly: "I was born on Pallas. My ancestors came out to the asteroid belt from Earth as colonists, in the days when Earth still was mighty." He could see the girl's eyes widen. "Then ... you are of Earth--?" "Of Earth?" Haral laughed harshly. "Call it that if you will. But what place is there for any colonist, anywhere, when the mother planet falls? The first of my people came out three hundred years ago. But by the time Earth at last was vanquished, no one cared from whence they came, or what happened to them. They were left on their own, to stay and face their troubles. The weak died; the strong survived." He broke off, and looked away. The memories were roaring now. Emotion choked him. But it was as if he were a witness, speaking out in behalf of all his hopeless, derelict kind. Coldly, brutally, he forced himself to speak on: "I grew up watching the _Malyas_ come, and the _Chonyas_, and a hundred mongrel raiders. When I was twelve, Ibarak's killers cut my father down, so Ibarak could add my mother to his harem." * * * * * He heard Kyla's low gasp of horror, and the shock that was in the sound stabbed him with a feeling that held both pain and, somehow, a fierce, vindictive pleasure. He said harshly: "It was his mistake. She slit his throat, and then her own." "Oh, no--!" "Yes!" He swung round, and looked squarely into the slim, lovely _Shamon's_ eyes. "I swore an oath that day, my priestess--because that day I saw that nothing mattered save the power to take and hold. Love, honor, duty--what did they count? What had they done for my father, my mother, a million others like them? So I swore I'd live to see the time when no living creature in all the universe would dare to strike a blow against me. I swore I'd have the might to smash them, one and all!"