CHAPTER I

Jarl Corvett selected the group--himself, Ungo, and five crewmen.

They left their great ship on the far side of Vesta; came down with the night in a fast raider carrier.

A hollow offered shelter. Like dust settling, they landed. Abandoning the craft, they pressed on towards their target. The hills fell behind. The final cordon was bypassed.

Then, at last, bleakly, they stared down at the sprawling building that had been Wassreck's workshop.

But lights beat on the white walls. Guards paced the parapets. The commissioner's own carrier thrust up in the courtyard.

Frowning, Jarl Corvett crouched deep in the shadows. Tension crawled his spine like a leather-footed _palau_. His own black thoughts pressed relentlessly in upon him: _Is this where it ends, warrior? Is this the place, here under the Federation's dazzling Forspark lights on a tiny astroidal speck that men call Vesta?_

Beside him, the darkness rustled. Scales brushed his arm. One-armed Jovian Ungo's hoarse whisper echoed over-loud in his ear: "Give it up, Jarl! Wassreck's gone, and they're ready. It's hopeless!"

"It was hopeless before," Jarl Corvett said tightly. "It was hopeless at Horla. But Wassreck came for me."

The Jovian's scaly hand gripped his shoulder in the darkness. "I know, Jarl. You're loyal. But this time--"

"Could you face Sais without trying? Could you tell her you'd left him?"

Ungo grunted, half-sullen. "Will it help if you're killed, too? Will it make her feel better?" He cursed in his own tongue. "Me, I still like living. I'm not ready to die yet."

Jarl threw off the Jovian's arm. His words slashed, raw and savage, in spite of his efforts: "You can leave if you want to! I ask no man to risk his neck against his will!"

Dimly, against the sky, he could see Ungo's head sink down between the great, horny shoulders. "Don't gall me, you _chitza_! I go where you go! I always will!"

Jarl clenched his fists. He thought: _Yes, Ungo will always go where you go, Jarl Corvett. He proved that when he left one arm on Pluto for you. That's what's wrong with loyalty. It traps you, tears you two ways. Because whichever road you take, good men, good friends, must die._

And Sais would be waiting....

* * * * *

He cursed aloud and crawled forward, away from big Ungo, digging in knees and elbows with savage force, taking out his fury on the rocky ground.

Ahead, just outside the blazing lake of light around the building, the air-vent loomed. Wriggling to it, he jerked out his knife and pried at the grilled lid's seal.

But then, once again, Ungo was beside him. "Here, let me at it, Jarl!" Heedless of danger, the Jovian surged to full height. His talon fingers splayed through the grill. The broad back, the mighty shoulders, strained and heaved.

There was a thin _spang!_ of metal parting. The lid tore free.

Jarl gripped his comrade's arm. "Ungo...."

"Forget it, Jarl. I understand. Our job is down below."

A tightness came to Jarl Corvett's throat. Wordless, he swung his legs over the edge of the vent, lowered himself to full arm's length, and let go.

It was a six-foot drop into blackness so ebon that it made the outer night almost seem bright. Twisting, he crawled a few feet along the horizontal conduit that ran from shaft to building.

Ungo's gruntings drifted down as he wedged his great body through the hole. Then, with a thud, the Jovian, too, had landed. The other five followed, one by one.

"This way!" Jarl whispered. "The tube leads straight to the blower room."

Ghost-silent, they crept through the murk for what seemed miles. Fine dust rose about them in a choking haze, and there was an acrid stink of tanaline and _jeol_. Tiny _bulaks_ chattered their fright, scampering from the raiders' path. The suction of the Banx unit at the tunnel's other end tugged at hair and tunics in a gusty, whistling gale.

Then, feeling ahead, Jarl touched a screen. He halted; half-turned. "We've made it. We're inside." Twisting, he ran his hand over the tube's side wall till he found the cleaning hatch. His searching fingers touched the bolt. He worked it round.

The hatch swung open on creaking hinges. Knife in hand, Jarl slid out into the blower room, with its looming bulk of Banx unit transmuters and converters and compressors.

A dim rectangle on the right marked the ramp to the floor above.

Cat-footed, flat to the wall, Jarl moved up the incline, the raiders at his heels.

A faint scuff of sound whispered in the stillness. Ahead, out of a cross-corridor, a Martian _fala_ in the blue tunic of a Federation guard moved into view.

Jarl froze, not daring to breathe.

The guard crossed the ramp, not pausing, and went on down the corridor out of sight. The shuffle of his steps faded and died.

Jarl slid forward again till he reached the passage, then halted. Taut-nerved, he waited, listening.

Voices came dimly. Jarl lowered himself to the floor. Ever so cautiously, he peered around the corner.

* * * * *

Far down the hall, the guard stood chatting with one of his fellows. A moment later, breaking off, he turned and started back towards the ramp again.

Jarl drew back. Rising, he wiped the sweat from the palm of his knife hand, then crouched waiting.

The sound of the _fala's_ footsteps drifted to him, closer and closer.

Jarl sucked in air.

The scuffing echoed through the silence. The guard stepped out onto the ramp.

Jarl leaped forward--catching the _fala's_ chin from behind, jerking back the ugly head, slashing at the throat.

The guard's cry died in bubbling purple blood. He wrenched spasmodically, hands and feet threshing; then went limp.

Jarl dragged him backward--out of the corridor, down the ramp. Breathing hard, he lowered the sagging corpse to the floor.

Ungo touched his arm, gestured questioningly.

Jarl whispered: "The living quarters are upstairs. They'll have her there."

The Jovian nodded, not speaking.

Again Jarl dropped flat and wormed forward, searching the corridor.

No one was in sight.

Surging to his feet, he swung right down the hall to the next ramp, his crewmen behind him. Swift, silent, he raced to the second floor.

There were no guards here--only echoing stillness and blank, closed doors.

The first room was empty. In the second snored a sleeping _dau_ captain from the Federation fleet.

Big Ungo whispered hoarsely, "This one's locked!"

It was the door at the end ... the door to the room that had once been Sais'.

Jarl pressed against it. Sheathing his knife, he brought out a light-gun and pressing its muzzle against the lock, squeezed the trigger.

The silent beam blazed forth. The lock's bolt fused and fell away.

The raiders pushed into the room.

A girl lay in the bed, asleep. Quick, tight-lipped, Jarl crossed to her side.

She was a vision of slim blonde loveliness, this woman. A golden vision from a far-off world. As he looked at her, the thought flickered through Jarl Corvett's mind: _She's almost as beautiful as Sais._

Dark Sais, _Ktar_ Wassreck's daughter....

Yet even while the girl slept, a deeper, darker mood seemed to shadow her loveliness, as if she held some brooding secret locked within her. Or perhaps it was only that a strain of clouded alien blood ran in her veins, from her mother--blood of Titan, or Io, or Venus.

"Is this her, Jarl?" big Ungo whispered. "Is she Ylana? Time's running short...."

Jarl shook off his mood. "Yes. She's the one, the commissioner's daughter." He caught the girl's shoulder and jerked at it roughly, one hand to her mouth, in case she should scream.

* * * * *

She came awake with a start, grey eyes flaring wide in sudden panic. Her whole body convulsed as she saw the raiders.

Jarl threw himself on her, bearing her down. Fiercely, he whispered, "Quiet, if you wish to live!"

Her struggles ceased. Lips pale, breasts heaving, she lay stiff and unyielding.

He said: "Relax, woman! We're not going to hurt you."

Her lips moved on his palm. He raised his hand a fraction.

"Who are you?" Her voice shook. "What do you want here?"

"They call me Jarl Corvett."

The girl clutched her throat. "Jarl Corvett, the raider? The ally of Wassreck--?"

Jarl smiled at her thinly. "Ally, friend, comrade, brother. That's why I've come here. I needed a hostage."

"A hostage--?"

"For Wassreck. He's a prisoner. You'll buy his freedom."

The grey eyes distended. The girl breathed fast and shallow, ripe lips half-parted. "You madman--!" she whispered.

Jarl Corvett laughed harshly, and there was ice and fire in it. "Some say so. But Wassreck saved me at Horla. Tonight I've come here to pay back what I owe him."

"Jarl!" Ungo broke in, raw-voiced and urgent. "Quick! Hurry! They will find that dead guard any minute!"

"Yes." Jarl raised up. He spoke again to the girl--bleak, cold, rock-steady: "You're coming, Ylana. As to how--you do the choosing. But even if we have to tie you and gag you and carry you, you're coming!"

The girl's grey eyes probed his. Color came to her lips; they no longer trembled. "You mean--you really believe you can storm in here and take me? That your handful of raiders can fight through the cordon--?"

"Freemen have done more."

"Freemen--?" Ylana's laugh was tight, bitter. "What do you and your outlaws know about freedom? To you, it means nothing but freedom to murder, to plunder!"

Her words stung like gas-hail slashing down upon Pluto. Jarl felt his breath quicken. "Who are you, to talk of the outlaw worlds and their plunder?" he lashed back at her fiercely. "What of your father's own fleet; your thrice-cursed Federation?"

The girl blazed. "The Federation brings order!"

"And what is your order but another name for plunder--the great planets' power to take what they choose from the lesser?" Jarl choked on his anger. "To you, I'm a pirate, because men like me sweep the void in our own raider ships to keep our people from starving. What else can we do, living on these barren rocks in the Belt, charred fragments of worlds that should never have been colonized? But your father--with no right on his side but the Federation fleet's might, he's named high commissioner--sent out to tear even our bleak asteroids from us by conquest--"

"Jarl--!" burst out Ungo.

"I'm coming!" Jarl towered over Ylana. "Get ready!"

* * * * *

The girl sat up in her bed. Her fists gripped the covers. "I warn you, Jarl Corvett: You'll curse the day that you took me--"

"Because of your father?" Jarl laughed, short and curt. "I'll still chance it."

"No." The girl's grey eyes seethed, dark and dangerous. "Because of me, Ylana _rey_ Gundre! Because I'll see you and your men die in torment, a thousand times worse than the flame-death at Horla--"

"I'll chance that, too." Jarl jerked back the covers.

Wordless, disdainful, the girl tossed her head. The golden hair rippled. Rising, she took a gown from a chair and pulled it about her slim, perfect figure.

"That's better." Jarl turned to Ungo. "We'll go down through the workshop. There's less chance there to trap us."

In hair-triggered silence, they moved back through the hallway, the girl boxed among them. A different ramp yawned. The door at its foot let them into the workshop, the place of the robots.

Wassreck's robots.

A name to conjure with, _Ktar_ Wassreck. Master of robots, master of raiders. The brain of a genius in a pain-shriveled body. A mind that had fathomed the key to the star-stones; courage to strike even through Oyo's flame-death, staking his soul for Jarl Corvett at Horla.

And here were his robots--towering metal monsters, set shoulder to shoulder. He dreamed of them, lived for them. More even than dark Sais, they were his children.

_Children of a nightmare_, Jarl thought as he led the way past them. Bleakly, he wondered why Wassreck had made them--what dark, twisted drive had spurred their creation.

They came to a door. Jarl faced his raiders. "The hallway's outside. The third ramp to the left leads down to the blowers."

He turned to the girl, the commissioner's slim daughter. "Stay with me, Ylana. And forget about running or screaming."

She moved closer, not speaking. The grey eyes were unfathomable.

He stepped into the passage, the girl close behind him. The crewmen followed.

Then, as they came abreast the second ramp, he heard voices--a harsh, angry crackle that rose louder each second.

Jarl stopped in his tracks and spun round to the crewmen. "Quick! up the ramp--!"

Gripping Ylana's wrist, he half-dragged her with him.

Barely in time, they crowded into the entry. Down the hall, by the blowers, someone cursed loudly. More footsteps pounded. Metal banged metal.

Big Ungo burst out, "It's that guard, Jarl. They've found him--!" He clutched at his blaster--head down, geared for battle.

Now new steps hurried towards them, from the way they had come.

Jarl whipped out his light-gun. "We're not done! The commissioner's carrier is out in the courtyard. We'll blast our way to it!"

"Which way--?"

"Back up this ramp! We'll drop from a window!"

* * * * *

They sped up the incline to the second level, then down the corridor. But before they could reach a room that opened on the inner court, tumult broke out on this upper floor also. Guards shouted. There was a beat of feet; the clamor of men rushing towards them.

Jarl leaped for a doorway. "In here--on the double!"

His men crowded past him. Shoving Ylana before him, Jarl followed. Inside, he half-closed the door.

Like statues, they waited. The hurrying guard squad came closer.

Jarl gripped Ylana tight, her slim body hard against him. He cupped his hand over her mouth. The golden hair brushed his cheek. He could feel her heart pounding.

The first of the blue-uniformed Federation fighters ran past the half-open door.

Jarl poised his light-gun.

In the same instant, lance-sharp pain stabbed through the hand he held over Ylana's mouth.

He jerked back by instinct--and knew of a sudden even as he did it that the girl had bitten him.

But his flinching left Ylana's mouth clear for an instant. She screamed, shrill and piercing.

Jarl cursed. He tried to throw her aside.

But she clutched his belt, clinging. Snatching his razor-edged knife from its sheath, she slashed at him.

He rocked backward, off balance.

The girl twisted. He glimpsed her face--teeth bared, features strain-straut. Back-handed, she lashed at his temple with the knife-haft, her full strength behind it.

It struck home as the first guards burst through the doorway....