Ceresta: Port Royal of the void; sprawling, anarchical capitol city of the outlaw worlds. Here were burrows of Rhea's spider men, and _Pervod_ cones, and _Fantay_ spires. Hive-like Mercurian domes rose amid the flat-roofed dwellings of the _llorin_. Throbbing _Transmi_ drums beat out their savage rhythm, echoing over voices that spoke in Pluto's clacking accents and the reptilian sibilances of creatures from the ammonia-and-methyl swamplands of Saturn and the Rings. There was the acrid smell of Rogek gas and rocket fuel--and the stink of the bulbous, grub-like _Mah'ham_ that fed on their own dead. Here a rover could dine on t'krai of Callisto, or haggle over the price of one of Neptune's fire-jewels ... or have his brains beaten out with a genuine Torod mace. For this was a warrior's city, haven of the wild, blood-lusting raiders who made the asteroid belt their home. Fighting men from half-a-hundred satellites and planetoids and planets, they gathered here by their own choice, drawn together in one vast cutthroat brotherhood of booty. Old names, old fames, were left unmentioned. The hulls of the battered ships that ramped in the vastness of the sprawling port bore no Federation registration symbols. Now, in the shadowy dusk that characterized this strange, warped world of Ceres, the carrier of High Commissioner _rey_ Gundre came limping down. Jarl Corvett brought the craft in himself. He waited till the shadows verged on darkness, enough to hide the carrier's insignia; then picked a spot far off from the tower, out where the port bordered on the old native quarter, and let the ship drop down her gravicomps dead like another, blacker shadow. The carrier rocked in to a silent landing. Rising from the control seat, he strode to the hatch. But Big Ungo was already there before him--blaster on hip, massive shoulders straining at the fabric of an appropriated Federation tunic. "Jarl, you can't go alone...." Jarl Corvett smiled thinly. "I've got to, Ungo." "But there may be trouble...." The Jovian brought up his one hand in an angry gesture. "I know. That's why you can't go. I need you here on board more than I do with me." Jarl dropped his voice; jerked his head towards the cabin where Ylana lay. "Stay with her, Ungo. We can't afford to lose her." "The men--" "Would you chance it? Would you trust that much to them?" For a moment their eyes clashed. But the questions held their own bleak answers. Muttering, half-sullen, the big Jovian moved aside. Jarl said: "I'll be back, Ungo." Silently, he dropped out the hatch to the ground and strode towards the dim lights that marked the ancient, scabrous buildings which fringed the port. But every step was a coal for the dull fire of tension that burned within him. Would he really be back? Would he ever see the carrier again, or Ungo? Or Ylana.... He wondered. * * * * *