"Die, traitor! Die for the Shamon and for Ulna!"
She blazed a ray straight for Xaymar's naked body.
Haral threw himself forward, between the two women. Desperately, he tried to knock Kyla's ray-gun up with one hand while he swept Xaymar from her cot with the other.
But his wound-stiffened shoulder caught. The ray-gun's energy bolt burst on his own chest-plate. Its impact smashed him down. For a split second he saw the crypt as a blazing kaleidoscope of action, a maelstrom swirling in on a pain-wracked vortex that was his brain. He caught the madness in Kyla's eyes; the sudden panic in the way that Xaymar fell. Beyond them, the space-raiders' faces merged in a weird blurred jumble.
Then Sark was roaring, "Now! Now! Seize them—!"
Frantically, Haral tried to tear clear of pain and shock and debris.
But before he could move, Xaymar caught the cord that hung beside her. Spasmodically, she jerked it down.
He knew, somehow, that it was an alarm, even though the sound of its signal was pitched too high and thin for human ears.
The sight that followed was one of the strangest he had ever seen.