rude chair that held his dying
bulk.

Thought images as well as words, Kriijorl had explained during their
flight so long ago in the helio. Language would be no barrier. Over
the head, like this ... and this switch--

She twirled the large dial from its setting, watched a slender thread
of light within a transparent sphere above it fluctuate in breadth as
the dial twisted. And when it was at its widest, she gambled that it
indicated the broadest transmitting beam of which the mentacom was
capable.

And then she marshalled her thoughts, carefully chose the simplest
words.

_Warning, Ihelos! There is an Earthman among you at work as a spy for
Thrayx! I am a captive._

Over and over, the same words, the same thought images which they
formed; of Cain, of this hell-planetoid itself.

The orange glow pulsated as though itself alive with the desperation
of her signal. And she heard the guard barely in time.

A howl of rage bellowed from him as she turned, twisted frantically
just outside his grasp, darted headlong through the door.

And she was quicker than those outside; she was beyond them, running,
the breath sobbing in her throat.

Away from the blood-soaked thing she'd left crumpled in death behind
her, and toward the jungle's edge. Toward some new horror, perhaps,
and toward a freedom that would be short-lived at best. For she had
killed Bruhlla, and she knew they would not stop now until she had
been run to earth.

* * * * *

The three men watched as the six ships landed in the jungle clearing;
emptied of the selected Thrayxite women who would in little more than
a day's time re-enter them, the breeders' seed within their bodies,
for the journey back to the mother planet.

It had been the same the day before, and the day before that, and in
the distance, they had watched similar craft descend toward other of
the many colonies with which the lush planetoid was dotted.

"Nuts!" Cain said. He turned to Mason. "What the hell else is there to
do? Sit here and rot? They won't kill us. They'll just let Nature take
its course--"

"There's more to be done than simply make a run for it to one of their
ships," Mason snapped. "The mentacoms on them, Kriijorl's said a dozen
times, haven't the necessary range."

"So what's your plan? Or don't I get to hear any of the details?"

Mason studied the big man's face. Captured in his attempt to rescue
the Earthwomen, he had said. His exp