And it was alien. A thousand differences stood out in line and structure and material. The size alone would have been enough to mark it as having come from outside this solar system. Yet without bulkheads, without bracing, the mass of it loomed as one incredibly vast and far-spreading room--an engineering feat to stagger man's imagination. And here, too, were the primitives, heirs to Womar's scorched, windswept deserts. A thousand strong--ten thousand--they packed the huge hold in a screaming, seething mass, metal masks hideously aglint in the streaming sunlight. But for Jarl Corvett, ship and primitives alike were mere incidentals. Swaying, staring, he could find eyes only for one thing: the robots. The robots--! He rocked--incredulous, unbelieving. But here they were--metal monsters that towered rank on rank in this great hold, like monstrous originals of the figures in _Ktar_ Wassreck's workshop. Like a forest they rose ... a forest of utter, malign menace. Their feet alone stood higher than a tall man's head; and the glinting orientation-slots of the great head-units towered so far above the crowd as to have been beacon lights on distant mountains. Chill, unmoving, they stood here in the hull of this shattered ship as they had stood for ages. But where ship and fittings were decaying, these mighty warriors still shone resplendent, fabricated of some different, finer metal. Strength gleamed in every line of their orange-gold figures. The screaming primitives were only ants that crawled and danced and raged upon them. * * * * * Staring at them, Jarl Corvett could only choke and tremble. There was room for but one thought within his reeling brain: _Wassreck was right--! He was right! He was right...!_ It made this whole mad gamble worth the while. Even if he died here, all his efforts unavailing, it would still be worth it. And what could not an army of these giant automatons accomplish? What chance would even the mighty Federation stand against them? It was destiny. More surely even than he knew his name, Jarl knew that destiny had brought him here ... the strange, dark destiny of courage and fighting men that ever seemed to ride on the side of the outlaw worlds, and freedom. But now that he was here, destiny would need a strong right arm to implement it. His arm. He swung round, then, with his old, bold coat of arrogance upon him--surveying his captors, searching for some faintest hint of hidden weakness. But the primitives did not waver. Their eyes stayed cold, leering out at him from their metal masks, grim as the day of judgment. Those masks.... With a sudden rush of recognition, it came to Jarl that their stylized patterns were modeled after the head-units of the towering robots. Such a little thing, that recognition. Yet again, Jarl felt his tension lift a fraction. He smiled a thin, wry smile and waited.