"And what is the ourobos?" Zenaor was gloating now, caught up in the excitement of his own revelation. "It is what your science would term a thallophyte, Earthman—a semi-intelligent thallophyte, a sort of deadly, highly-mobile fungus for which no specific weapon has been discovered!"
"A fungus—!"
"Yes, alien! That's why no weapon prevails against it! Blast it, even with fire, and still asexual spores fly out, each to form the nucleus for another of its kind, a new ourobos!"
Craig's lips were dry. His voice shook. "Then—this planet, Lysor—"
"Lysor is doomed, you mean?" Triumph rang in the chief barons' voice. "Indeed it is, alien! Now that I've brought the ourobos from Xumar, nothing can stop them! Your sacrifice is wasted! There's barely enough tanagree oil to treat a handful of our barons!"
Craig choked. "No, Zenaor! Not even you could doom a whole race—"
But Zenaor still was speaking: "This is my answer to the free Baemae, Earthman! They wanted Lysor—they shall have it! As for the rest of us—my friends among the Kukzubas, a few loyal serfmen—I have ships already ramped to take us off to Odak, third planet of our system."
Craig stood numb, unable to move or speak.
So now, at last, he knew the truth—the secret behind Zenaor's dark dream of conquest.
Only now was too late. Now was a nonexistent second between the moment of the chief of barons' flight and the time when he'd lay down his challenge to a hundred, a thousand, other planets, backed by the horrid, devastating threat of the ourobos.