"Good," Zenaor nodded. "Leave the serf with me, and return to your quarters." The guard in charge stared. "Leave him with you--alone?" "Alone." The guard shot the Lord Zenaor a quick, sidelong glance. Then, saluting smartly, he about-faced and left the chambers, followed by his fellows. Curiosity flickered in Narla's grey eyes. "Father--" He turned on her, stony-faced. "You, too." "I--?" "You go to your chambers--and stay there. I wish to be alone with the prisoner." The girl opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Flushing slightly under her father's cold, impassive gaze, she stepped through the light-wall into her own quarters. Now, at last, Zenaor faced the shackled Baemae. "You know, of course, that you are doomed to die?" Mutely, the youth nodded. "Yet there are ways and ways of dying. Slowly, painfully. Quick, clean, easy." The serf said nothing. "There are things I would know--things that have to do with Baemae treason." Zenaor's lips drew thin. The black eyes were never colder. "What is this nonsense of someone coming from across the void, from the Federation? You know there are no grounds--that the Federation holds no jurisdiction!" All the fire seemed to have gone out of the youth. He shrugged sullenly. "All I know is that a one called Tumek learned of some new weapon you planned to use against the free Baemae in the djevoda lands to the south. Secretly, then, he sent word to the Federation, saying that if you ever used the thing you planned, it would imperil all other worlds as well as ours." No flicker of emotion showed in Zenaor's lean, high-boned face. "And do you believe him?" "Who am I to know or judge? Baemae are only good for dying!" The youth gave vent to a bitter laugh. "But at least the far Federation thought the peril was worth a starship." "And the man--the one they send to weigh the facts here?" "His name is Craig Nesom. I know no more than that about him." Silence. An eddying sort of silence that crept in from the walls and up from the floors and down out of the ceiling. Then, abruptly, the Lord Zenaor laughed. "So you'll die," he clipped. "But at least you shall go knowing that you're the only man, Baemae or baron, to learn the truth about my weapon. You shall judge it for me with your dying breath--prove to me that it can truly give me power and strength for conquest...." He was striding away even as he spoke--striding across the room to a wall set off with a delicate interlay of panels. One slid aside beneath his hand. Beyond lay a chill, bleak laboratory chamber. Still smiling, Zenaor led the shackled Baemae forward ... shoved him through a port-like door into a transparent cubicle mounted on a stand. "Now ... one moment...." With quick efficiency, the chief of barons closed the cubicle's door and sealed it. Then, taking a tiny glass ampule from the nearest bench, he dropped it into a slot atop the cubicle and brought down a crusher valve upon it.