me that."

Glaudot shrugged. "If you wish, my dear child, if you wish...."

The dual desire was gone now, truly gone. He knew that. For his will had
been threatened, more by his own foolish desire than by this innocent
girl. He had to think. Clearly. More clearly than he had ever thought
before. He needed the girl as an ally. Not as a slave. She had to be
willing. She had to co-operate. Give her a warped picture of the rest of
the galaxy? Convince her its governments were evil, totalitarian, when
in reality they were democratic? Convince her that he alone, given
unlimited power, could right the wrongs of a thousand worlds? She was
naive enough for that sort of approach, he thought. Besides, it would
strike her as something like creation--moral creation, perhaps. And
creation she would understand. Then, with her as his partner, he could
quickly build a war machine which the combined might of the galaxy
couldn't stand against. And that, he suddenly realized, would even
include an unlimited number of soldiers for occupation and policing
duties. This power would be unparalleled.

"I have something I want to tell you about," he said. "It will take a
long time and we must be undisturbed, which is why I asked you to bring
me here."

"What is it you want to tell me?"

Before Glaudot could answer, they heard a crashing, rending sound not
too far off in the woods. It sounded to Glaudot exactly as if trees were
being uprooted, boulders strewn carelessly.

"Cyclopes!" Robin screamed in terror, and began to run.

Glaudot ran after her, stumbling, picking himself up, hurtling in
pursuit. He couldn't let her get away. He had to follow her ...

Nothing living, he told himself as he ran, could uproot those huge
trees. Of course, there were the saplings, but even the saplings were
the size of full-grown oaks and maples on far Earth.

Something roared behind him. The sound was pitched almost too low for
human ears. He whirled. The earth shook, great clods of it flying. Bare
tree roots suddenly appeared, and a young tree the size of a towering
oak was lifted skyward.

Behind it, brandishing it and then hurling it away, was a naked man
whose head towered impossibly a hundred and fifty feet into the air.
Trembling, awestruck, Glaudot looked up at the great savage face. Wild
hair streaming, filthy beard matted with dirt and tree-branches, it was
the most ferocious face Glaudot had ever seen.

And it had only one eye, one enormou