Glayne felt a sudden fear and a sudden hunger as he looked at her. He could not bear the thought of failure--and the consequent fate of Niala Chodred. His cheek twitched nervously and he reached for her, gathering her into his powerful arms and drawing her face to his. Her breath was hot against his cheek and he could feel her heart pounding heavily against his chest. Willingly she responded to his kisses. "Here's to luck," he breathed. "And plenty of it," she replied. V Try as he might, Glayne could never accustom himself to these Sectors which lay far out on the edge of the galaxy. Neighboring stars were hundreds of light years apart while the great belt of stars that was in the Main Galaxy revealed itself only as a faint haze twenty thousand light years distant. He could not shake off the loneliness that settled over him like a shroud, separating him from everything he knew. He was accustomed to the vast star clouds of Sagittarius; it was there he had spent the first ten years of his Guardianship. A dry and thirsty wind seemed to suck the moisture from his body as he waited by the after lock with Niala. It swept across the hard surface of the space-port and sang dolefully around the mass of the grounded _Algol_; it even seemed to characterize the Delbans themselves. A lonely people out on this forsaken edge of the galaxy, they hungered and thirsted after wealth and power. The Guardian sympathized with them to some extent, yet at the same time realized the awful threat to civilization they represented with the mysterious, titanic broadcast power at their disposal. Again Glayne felt inner qualms as he considered the odds against them. Grimly he crushed them out and touched with almost superstitious reverence the tiny blaster at his hip--for ornamental purposes only. More confidently he hefted the weight of the heavy Cardy at his arm-pit. The small surface-jet which had set out for the _Algol_ immediately after the mushrooming blasts of its landing jets subsided now drew up at the tiny waiting dock formed by the _Algol's_ after lock. The lack of formality, Glayne knew, was as blatant an insult as the Delbans could manage. He smiled mirthlessly to himself. They couldn't please him more if they tried. The less pomp and ceremony attached to him, the more smoothly his plan would work. A single Delban emerged from the surface-jet, evidently a civilian judging from his dress. He was incredibly tall and thin and made Glayne very uncomfortable because he had to tilt his head back to get a good look at him. "Captain Glayne," began the emissary in a high, sighing nasal, "on behalf of His Imperial Excellency, Ruler of Ten Thousand Suns, Master of the Cosmos, and Supreme Overlord of the Delban Empire, Gort Bro-Doral, I humbly welcome you to Sterle II." He bowed very low.