The girl gestured helplessly. "What can I say, when not even the fate of our world can touch you?"
"Our world—this puny dot that men call Lysor?" Zenaor laughed aloud. "This planet of ours means nothing, Narla! By using the slime-things, the ourobos, I can reach out across the void till even the far Federation's chiefs will tremble! Nothing can stop me! Nothing!"
"I see." Narla's face was pale now, and her lips quivered. But she stood proud and erect. "Then I have no choice, father. My loyalty is to Lysor. I shall fulfill it."
"Even against me?"
"Even against you."
"So Vydys was right...." The chief of barons' coal-black eyes gleamed hard and bitter. "Very well, then. As of this moment you shall be treated as a prisoner—"
The clang of a com-box bell cut in upon him. Zenaor left his sentence hanging; flicked the switch. "Yes?"
"My lord, a starship seeks to land here."
"A starship—?" Zenaor stiffened.
"Yes, my lord. The message says it bears an envoy from the Federation."