The Lord Zenaor, high chief of all Kukzubas barons.
The lean face was set in cruel lines now, the jet eyes narrowed to black diamonds beneath their heavy brows.
"So, alien...." His voice rasped, thick with menace. "At last you come to me, begging for mercy—"
"Mercy? From you?" Craig Nesom shrugged in spite of the guards' restraining hands, the shackles. "No, Zenaor. I beg nothing of you, neither life nor lenience. The things I've done I'd do again. I've given up only to stop this senseless slaughter."
"An altruistic gesture, alien," Zenaor chuckled. "But a trifle late."
He rose as he spoke and stepped to a paneled wall behind his seat. A carved section slid back at his touch, revealing a bleak, compact laboratory chamber.
A transparent, closet-sized cubicle stood on a stand in the compartment's center ... a cubicle whose every inch and crack and crevice seethed and eddied with the swirling grey slime of ourobos.
In spite of himself, Craig Nesom stiffened; caught the whisper of Narla's quick-drawn breath.
Zenaor pivoted, still chuckling. "You see, alien? Here we have ourobos!"
Craig nodded slowly.