The High Mor threw a small metal mirror at him. Dazedly he stared at the grim, hard brown face and the cold blue eyes he saw mirrored on its surface. His flesh was brown, and great muscles swelled under it. The oar had put those muscles there, as the whip had put the scars on his ribs and back. "Only a split second of our time, Terran," said the High Mor. "But a year and five days in the worlds I made! I told you I had gifts! I have made a thousand million worlds for that subspace, in the eons that I have roamed the stars. I am a god!" Kael shook his head and his long hair flicked his naked arms. If he needed proof of the High Mor's words, his long-uncut hair was proof enough. He thought, _Tell him, and let him have his way! How can a man fight a god?_ The thought washed over him that he fought for all mankind, that the men and women of a thousand planets unknowingly depended on his fight. Women like the flame-tressed Flaith, men like his father and Captain Edmunds, who did their duty and died for it, all depended on what he did. He had to think, to go over this logically. What would be the thought processes of a god? A god was no mere mortal, to be judged and weighed by human wants and failings. In it there was no mercy, no thought for anything but itself. Kael pushed himself away from the floor to stand on long brown legs. _Courage, man of Terra! He shall not trap you so again!_ The Doyen voice gave him heart, but the High Mor sneered. "I heard it, too, Terran! The Doyen cannot help you. Not unless I strive by Doyen means to kill you. I need not do that, Kael McCanahan, need I?" The McCanahan shook his head like a dumb animal. He would never go back to that subspace where Noorlythin was a god in truth! To that hell, where a second was a year, where the Doyen themselves could not enter! "I could put you there again, Terran. I could forget you, let you live out your life for an eternity of seconds that are years! Would you listen to reason then? Would you like to test your will again against that of the Eye of Lirflane? Or feel once more the lash of Vigrette, the cat-woman? No, I read in your eyes that you would not! "Come, then. Tell me how you made the sfarri die!" _Speak, man of Terra! Tell Noorlythin what he seeks! Only then, as he absorbs the knowledge, can we reach him!_ The McCanahan shrugged the great shoulders that were scarred with the lash above the smooth roll of their bulging muscles. His head hung so that his uncut hair shielded his face. "The harp," he whispered. "On the harp of Brith Tsinan is a silver string. The d-note! I strung it with a silvern wire that I loosed from my father's wrist!" And as he spoke, he moved. As liquid as the falling waters in the Veil of Valmoora was the leap of the McCanahan. Full into the High Mor he hurtled, knocking him sideways. And as they went down together-- The Doyen struck!