Big Ungo whispered hoarsely, "This one's locked!"
It was the door at the end ... the door to the room that had once been Sais'.
Jarl pressed against it. Sheathing his knife, he brought out a light-gun and pressing its muzzle against the lock, squeezed the trigger.
The silent beam blazed forth. The lock's bolt fused and fell away.
The raiders pushed into the room.
A girl lay in the bed, asleep. Quick, tight-lipped, Jarl crossed to her side.
She was a vision of slim blonde loveliness, this woman. A golden vision from a far-off world. As he looked at her, the thought flickered through Jarl Corvett's mind: She's almost as beautiful as Sais.
Dark Sais, Ktar Wassreck's daughter....
Yet even while the girl slept, a deeper, darker mood seemed to shadow her loveliness, as if she held some brooding secret locked within her. Or perhaps it was only that a strain of clouded alien blood ran in her veins, from her mother—blood of Titan, or Io, or Venus.
"Is this her, Jarl?" big Ungo whispered. "Is she Ylana? Time's running short...."