"Is it not plain?" shrugged Xaymar. "You are a warrior, and I have need of such to lead my beetle hordes to battle."
"To battle—?"
"My day has come. In a little while I shall reach out and seize all Ulna. You know the ways of the aliens who now hold it, so you shall be in the van of my advancing legions. You'll show them when and where to strike; how best to meet the alien weapons."
Haral tried to probe the blankness that was her veil; to fathom the mind of this strange woman who hid her beauty behind its jewel-sprayed folds.
At last he said: "You've picked the wrong man, Xaymar. I'm a warrior, yes—but not such a fool that I'll try to lead your ground-bound hordes out to battle against space ships. The wars of the void are fought in the air, not down in the muck and mire of a pygmy planetoid. Sark would butcher your beetles from above before they'd marched a mile."
Xaymar's lips curved. The clash of cymbals, of swords and shields, was in her laugh.
"This one war will be different, blue man! We'll fight to seize and hold the ground till Ulna's taken. Then will be time enough to talk of ships that slash across the void, and battles for planets fought in deep space."
"But Sark's fleet—"
"Sark will have no fleet!" the woman slashed back fiercely. Her whole body swayed, and even here, in the full light of the blazing yellow sky, her hair showed black as a Martian koboc's sinister hood. "You came here seeking my secret, warrior. I mean that you—"