"You are getting near the city," said Morzach. His tones were deep, with the chill ringing of struck steel in them. "It is time for the next stage." "I thought you saved some of us deliberately," said Donovan. "_Us?_" Valduma's lips caressed his cheek. "Them, Basil, them. You don't belong there, you are with Arzun and me." "You must have projected that game where we could spot it," went on Donovan, shakily. "You've kept us--them--alive and enabled us to march on your city--on the last inhabited city left to your race. You could have hunted them down as you did all the others, made sport of them with wild animals and falling rocks and missiles shooting out of nowhere, but instead you want them for something else. What is it?" "You should have guessed," said Morzach. "We want to leave Arzun." "Leave it? You can do so any time, by yourselves. You've done it for millennia." "We can only go to the barbarian fringe stars. Beyond them it is a greater distance to the next suns than we can cross unaided. Yet though we have captured many spaceships and have them intact at Drogobych, we cannot operate them. The principles learned from the humans don't make sense! When we have tried to pilot them, it has only brought disaster." "But why do you want to leave?" "It is a recent decision, precipitated by your arrival, but it has been considered for a long while. This sun is old, this planet exhausted, and the lives of we few remnants of a great race flicker in a hideous circumscribed drabness. Sooner or later, the humans will fight their way here in strength too great for us. Before then we must be gone." "So--" Donovan spoke softly, and the wind whimpered under his voice. "So your plan is to capture this group of spacemen and make them your slaves, to carry you--where?" "Out. Away." Valduma's clear lovely laughter rang in the night. "To seize another planet and build our strength afresh." She gripped his waist and he saw the white gleam of her teeth out of shadow. "To build a great army of obedient spacegoing warriors--and then out to hunt between the stars!" "Hunt--" "Look here." Morzach edged closer, his eyes a green glow, the vague sheen of naked steel in his hand. "I've been polite long enough. You have your chance, to rise above the human scum that spawned you and be one of us. Help us now and you can be with us till you die. Otherwise, we'll take that crew anyway, and you'll be hounded across the face of this planet." "_Aye--aye--welcome back, Basil Donovan, welcome back to the old king-race.... Come with us, come with us, lead the humans into our ambush and be the lord of stars...._"