She smiled quietly. And now he saw how tired her face and eyes were. Like the face of a child that has worked too hard. "I think not," she answered him simply. "Gunnar is always talking about fate. I do not believe in such. But all day I have felt that the end is drawing near. Remember, I still have my Kalis. With them I could have been a huntress on some greener planet--another Diana, perhaps. Oh!" She stamped her foot in worriment. "We held creation in our grasp out here. We could have forced the last secrets from her. Yes, I will say it! We could have been as gods. And where is it ending? A mad chase after a madman. And for all the years and all the lives that have been spent on these two ships, time and space are the only winners." * * * * * Nea went back to the lab. Odin and Ato continued their study of the maps. Gunnar was putting a fine edge to his broadsword. Then the warning buzzer sounded its alarm. Odin dived for the screen and turned on the controls. A long procession of mauve shadows was approaching. Already inside the barrier, they came single-file and slowly circled The Nebula. Even in the pale weird light, they certainly seemed to be men. Ato ordered "Battle-Stations" and sirens sounded all over the ship. * * * * * But the circling host made no offer to attack. Odin turned the receiver up to its highest point, and speaking brokenly in the language of the Brons a voice came through. "Men of the strange ship. Men of the strange ship--" "Yes," Odin answered. "Good. You hear me. We are those who have been driven out of the city. We would visit you in peace. We are called Lorens." Within a few minutes, a dozen of the strangers had been brought aboard The Nebula. Ato summoned Nea and the rest of the captains. The leader of the visitors was a man by the name of Val. He was a tall, lean man with a Norman nose and his dark skin was drawn so tightly about his face that he looked a bit like a mummy. Val was over sixty, Odin judged, and though his wrists were skinny the tendons and muscles on his arms stood out like taut lengths of cable. He and his men were dressed alike--a sleeveless shirt of walnut-brown plastic, dark peg-bottomed trousers of corduroy, and footgear that looked like engineer's boots with rippled soles. The tops of the boots were tight-fitting and the peg-bottomed trousers were drawn snugly over them. Odin learned later that what had appeared to be green moss out there on the weathered plain was a kind of thistle with cat-claw thorns. Each man wore a heavy black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fitted to a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like an over-sized toadstool.