Revulsion touched Haral. But he gave the sadistic show no heed beyond it. Bleakly, he looked across the ring, to Sark himself. Sark: a smirking, bulbous, obscene thing; half humanoid, half reptilian. _Gar_ of the space-raiders, king of killers. He sat in his famed Uranian riding-chair like some mad, monstrous potentate upon a throne. Eyes murder-bright beneath their reptilian lids, gross rolls of fat aquiver, he leaned far forward, watching the bloody battle unfold before him. Here, looking at the raider chief for the first time, a wave of incredulous loathing, disillusion, rose up within Haral. Was this gross slug the best the warrior worlds could offer? Could a creature as soft and slack as this wield the power that had shaken half the void? The bitter ashes of his own thwarted drive for empire ate at the blue man. The world swam with a crimson haze of hate and fury. Then that mood passed, and Haral noticed other things. For the raider's fat-rimmed eyes were never still, and the lights that gleamed deep in them told of craft and savage cunning. There was a brain behind those eyes--a brain so lightning-fast and wary that against it mere physical strength alone meant nothing. That was how he ruled this pack; that was why none lived to challenge. And now, as he watched, Haral observed another thing: though the webbed fingers of Sark's left hand splayed out along one tree-like leg, kneading and clenching as if he were at one with the coleopteron, thirsting for the Ulno's very life, his right hand never moved from a switch set in the chair-arm. * * * * * Narrow-eyed, the blue man shifted for a better view. As best he could see, a cable led from the switch down to what appeared to be a bulky, black, cymosynthesizer box slung beneath the seat. Frowning, Haral pondered. Almost unconsciously, he caressed his light-lance. Then a new shout from the crowd drew his attention back to the arena. In the ring, the wild-eyed, shaking Ulno was retreating before the giant beetle. One of his four hands already was shredded beyond all recognition. Blood gushed from a wound in another arm, slashed open to the bone. His two heads turned jerkily this way and that, desperately seeking some avenue of escape, some sign of mercy. But no sign came. No path appeared. The beetle poised. The point of its dagger-like antenna dropped a fraction lower. With a shrill cry, the Ulno darted along the interlinked cables that bounded the arena in a last frantic effort to escape. The coleopteron lunged. Beetle and primitive crashed together in wild, paroxysmic conflict. Then, suddenly, the Ulno was reeling, falling. Again, his awful scream of pain and terror rent the air. Like great, saw-toothed pincers, the coleopteron's mandibles stabbed in. The Ulno's cry cut off in bubbling death. The crowd shrieked savage exaltation. Once more, contempt, revulsion, gripped Haral. Thin-lipped, he worked his way around the ring towards Sark.