Where would it end, this madness that ever drove him on? What prize lay in power, that he must waste his life away searching, groping, striving for it? Why could he not live and love and die like other men, unplagued by the fierce surge of insane ambition that still pursued him--even here, even now? _Even here, even now._ That was the acid that gnawed his vitals. What had it brought him, all his striving? He'd carved a crimson course across half a solar system, till that very system itself disowned him. He'd drenched the warrior worlds in blood to no avail. And the road ended here. Was this, then, his destiny--to hide here, rotting, beyond the reach of the Federation, till at last the _kabat_ took its toll? Must he sink lower and then still lower into the slime of this ugly outlaw world of Ulna, harassed at will by such scum as Sark? But at least, there'd be no woman-murder. Not yet; not for a while. Even five hundred _samori_ could not drag him down that far. A new spasm of fury shook him, and he cursed Namboina aloud with the vilest epithets a dozen tongues could offer. But the inner sickness still lingered with him. Bitterly, he stumbled to his feet, wondering in the same instant what had led the _Shamon_ priest to lie--why he had really sought to have the woman called Kyla killed. It was then he felt the weight in his side pocket. Dully, he fumbled to find what it might be; then, puzzled, pulled it out into the open. But it was only a bag ... a worn, somehow familiar bag. A bag heavy with five hundred glittering _samori_.... CHAPTER II He rode out at high noon astride the great, blue-scaled Mercurian _hwalon_ dragon that in itself struck terror into lesser men. The wars of the void had burned his own skin blue with searing krypton radiation, and long years of battle service had dulled the polish of the heavy copronium armor that he wore. Few knew his name, nor whence he came. He'd buried himself too deep for that. But then, they did not need to know, for those were unimportant things in this brutal, brawling world of Ulna, where death walked so close on every hand. It was a world of dangerous men, this Ulna; an outlaw world, tumultuous haven for the hunter and the hunted. The scum of the spaceways had gathered here, dregs of the void--rabble quick to anger, quick to kill. _Pervods_ of Venus brushed shoulders with Earthmen. _Chonyas_ and _Malyas_ stalked among strange mutants, weird life-forms drawn from a dozen far-flung planets. Yet none came forth to challenge Haral. For those who eyed and measured him gave special attention to the slender, deadly, light-lance that was his weapon. Then, wordless, almost too quickly, they turned away.