"Think a moment! Thrayxite is a matriarchy, something we of Ihelos
never suspected. And therefore we erred further--what we believed to
be a labor planetoid is not, of course!"

"Breeders!"

"Exactly. And if we can make it to one of their mentacoms, perhaps our
problem will be solved. Except that--" His voice hesitated, and Mason
saw doubt in the sudden frown. "I--I have no right to sacrifice your
life nor those of your women. If we were to get to a mentacom it would
be to contact my people, to inform them of the planetoid's true
nature, so that we may even the score for what was done to our own
breeders, and perhaps even form a plan to take prisoners to replace
them. But such a message would be intercepted, of course."

"Hell, we could dodge 'em long enough--"

"Perhaps we could, Lieutenant. But the ships I summon will be fighting
their way through a trebled Thrayxite guard--and once within range of
our enemy's breeder satellite, they will have little time to seek us
out and effect our rescue. Destruction will have to be immediate. Now
do you understand?"

Mason wet his lips. He understood. Death for the breeders. For the
Earthwomen. And for themselves.

"Nuts!" he clipped out. "That means that as far as you're going to be
concerned, I'm just another Ihelian private first class for awhile,
not a space-neurotic Earthman! And our girls ... well, I think--I
think they'd prefer anything to the living death in store for
them--the rotting away of their lives in some infested alien jungle.
Anyway, somebody's got to be judge. So let's get this damned thing
doped out!"

The Ihelian began a reply, but the words were stopped in his throat by
the sudden pressure of acceleration as powerful engines fumbled
suddenly to throbbing life and lifted the Thrayxite craft quickly
toward the eye of a great white sun.

* * * * *

For the second time in her life, Judith Kent watched the warp
configurations of the Large Magellanic Cloud from the far side of the
Rim; somehow it frightened her, as though some awful deadliness must
lie within it.

Helplessly, she carried out Cain's orders, and as hopelessly, wondered
of the fate of Lance and Kriijorl. Captives, with the Earthwomen, in
the Thrayxite ship with which Cain was so rapidly closing? Or lying
dead somewhere, as she more than half believed, in the chill wilds of
northern Canada? The odds had been so great. She knew that to hope
without reason wa