So now, at last, he knew the truth--the secret behind Zenaor's dark dream of conquest. Only now was too late. Now was a nonexistent second between the moment of the chief of barons' flight and the time when he'd lay down his challenge to a hundred, a thousand, other planets, backed by the horrid, devastating threat of the ourobos. And Narla-- * * * * * Slowly, desolately, Craig turned to look at her ... to see again the helpless anguish stamped on her lovely, horror-blanched face. "Now you look to my daughter for solace, Earthman?" Again, it was Zenaor speaking. "You seek to drown the bitterness of death and failure in the knowledge that she, at least, will live because you came in and surrendered?" New tendrils fluttered in Craig Nesom's belly. He swung back; stared at his lean, merciless captor. "Shall I tell you more, alien--another thing you did not know?" The chief of barons bared his teeth in a grin that belonged on a bleaching skull. He leaned forward, voice dropping lower: "Though I raised her as such, Narla is not my daughter!" The very walls rang with shock. Even the cold-eyed guards went rigid. Zenaor said: "Her father was of the Baemae, alien--and I lusted after the Baemae wife who bore his daughter, Narla. So I slew him, and took wife and child alike into my harem." "Father--Zenaor...." Narla's poise was cracking. Ruthlessly, the other pressed on: "She is not of my blood, alien. No ties coerce me to forgive her treason. So she dies here with you--with you, and all my enemies, Baemae or baron!" A madness seized Craig Nesom. Savagely, he hurled himself at his tormentor. But the guards were too quick, too strong. Brutally, they jerked him back. He writhed helpless, raging. Only then a voice--a woman's voice, low and gentle as the hiss of the asp is gentle: "Your enemies, Zenaor--like me, perhaps?" Craig went rigid. The guards, too; Zenaor; Narla. A hanging moved aside. Dark Vydys the Cruel stood framed in a doorway--fire-gun in hand, liveried warriors behind her. "_Vydys--!_" Zenaor's color was draining. The woman laughed softly. "Surely, my lord, my coming does not surprise you? By way of a test, I injected some of the fluid you gave me into a serfman, then sent him out to meet the ourobos. But they swallowed him up as they would any other, so I came here to discuss it." Airily, she gestured. "Of course, there was some small difficulty with your men at the gates. My troops had to slay them--" Zenaor sucked in air. Vydys said, "Your plans for the spaceships--they please me. The fleet shall blast for Odak according to schedule." A pause. A cat's smile. "Of course, you'll not be with it. It's better that you stay here with the Baemae." "Vydys, in the name of our ancestors--our common blood as Kukzubas--" "I remember it, Zenaor. You shall not stand unprotected." Vydys brought a flat object from beneath her waist-cape, tossed it onto a table. "Here. I leave you this weapon."