His throat all at once too tight to speak, Craig waved back and spiraled his own disc upward. But as he did so, another saucer swept down--a saucer ridden by a woman he'd never seen before, a woman with an anguished, strain-taut face. "Alien!" Her voice broke ragged. "Where is Bukal?" "Here, T'clar!" He glided up beside her. "What is it? Is there trouble?" "The village--" Again her voice broke, and for a moment Craig thought she was going to faint. Then, rallying, she burst out, "Bukal, the men from the estate of Lady Vydys--" "Yes, T'clar--?" "They were her guards, not of the Baemae." A numb horror gripped Craig. He hardly heard the rush of words between them. But ... he had to know. He blurted: "The woman who was with me--Narla--" And then, the answer: "Alien, it was she they came for. Now they are gone again--and she is with them!" CHAPTER VI Morning. Pale green morning, and the vast estate of dark Vydys the Cruel. Bukal begged, "Give it up, Craig Nesom. There is no hope. Besides, this is between the Kukzubas, the barons. Vydys seized your Narla only as a weapon against Lord Zenaor. She will not harm her." Craig cursed him. The bronzed Baemae's lips drew thin. "What would you have us do, then, alien? Throw our discs against her defenses? Gut ourselves on her guards' weapons?" Bleakly, Craig stared up at the shining ramparts. Bitterness seethed in him. And yet ... was it his right to be bitter? These were brave men, dedicated to the Baemae's fight against the barons. But Narla was not of them. The things she meant to him lay between two only. He said, "Forgive me, Bukal. You and your people--you have troubles enough. I could not give you more." "Then what--?" "I'll go alone." The hot light left Bukal's eyes. He gripped the Earthman's arm. "No, Craig--" "Yes, Bukal." Craig pulled free of the other's hand. "But--" Of a sudden Craig was weary of argument, of empty phrases. Tilting his disc, he raced away from the Baemae leader, skimming out as the swallow swoops, straight for the gates of Vydys' shaft-like Tower of Cadilek. But green fire blazed from the port-slots. Veering sharply, Craig sped away again, climbing along the wall in the shelter of the angle bastion. Then he had topped the lowest level's battlements. Leveling off, he glided across the roof to a point beyond the central obelisk where none could see him. There, at last, he brought his disc to rest. But no attack from above would baffle Vydys. Not after that night of blood of Torneulan. Ignoring the roof-ports, Craig crossed quickly to the parapet along the rear wall. A coil of rope, stripped from his waist, gave him a line down. In seconds he was upon the ground. Fire-gun in hand, then, he moved along the wall to a deep-set, shrubbery-shrouded postern. The door opened at his first pressure. A dim-lit, stone-walled corridor loomed, inviting. An invitation to death, perhaps....