So now he rode the filth-choked streets of this slattern town that served as Ulna's spaceport. And as he rode, beneath the blazing yellow sky, he smiled his thin, bleak, mirthless smile, and wondered how the motley mob that thronged these warrens would look if they realized his real mission. Then, at last, he came to the plaza and _Gar_ Sark. Sark, the renegade; Sark, the raider. Sark, who had looted Bandjaran. Sark, the butcher, with the blood of all Horla on his hands. Sark. A sinister figure, at best. At worst, a monster to strike terror across the void. Ulna was his today, for no creature dared to stand against him. His ships had blazoned the purple night with streaks of scarlet flame as they ramped; and his crews too had turned the town scarlet with their violence, till even the other lawless ones gathered here were cowed to sullen silence. This morning, the raiders had seized this ragged, unkempt tract that passed as a central park--that they might enjoy their own savage brand of sport, the rumor went. 'Sport?' Haral smiled his mirthless smile again. It was a good excuse, and Sark's own crews might even believe it. But for Sark himself, unless the day had come when tigers changed their stripes, grim business was mixed in with the pleasure. That was Sark's way; he made no move that did not offer possibilities of profit. But how? The blue man frowned; then shrugged and urged the _hwalon_ on. It was enough that Sark was here; that the _Shamon_ priest, Namboina, had made his murderous proposal. Something was in the wind. He'd have to bide his time and trust to luck for further details. * * * * * A shout went up, even as Haral reached the outskirts of the milling crowd that had gathered in the plaza--a shout and, through it, the scream of a soul gone mad with pain. The blue man pressed the _hwalon_ forward, trusting to the difference the armor made in his appearance to protect him from recognition by the members of last night's searching party. The crowd of town rabble and raider crewmen gave way before him, parting under the menace of the _hwalon's_ claws and collar and horrid, hook-beaked head. Sark's crews had set up an arena of sorts, with seats for their chiefs along one side. In front of the seats a crude ring was fenced in with posts and thin, resilient duraloid cable. Within the ring, they had an Ulno--one of the grotesque, two-headed primitives that were this planetoid's dull-witted subject people. And there, too, stood one of the scarlet coleoptera, the giant thinking beetles that were Ulna's plague. Now, as Haral reached the front of the crowd, the coleopteron stalked forward, towards the Ulno. Hideous and deadly, it stood nearly three feet tall at the thorax. Its protuberant multi-faceted eyes glittered evilly. Mandibles clacking, the misshapen head moved from side to side in short, menacing arcs. The crowd roared its blood-lust, its tension.