Slowly but surely, Vard found himself getting horny; the craving for sex grew slowly stronger within him. This time, however, he realized what was happening and was able to keep something of a detached mind. But he was aware that the peaceful, lethargic feeling was still with him, as well. The Kah'diz strategy was now apparent: the combination of the relaxing, quasinarcotic "high" and the powerful sexual stimulation created a single-minded behavioral attitude on the part of the people below.

Vard could see that the crowd below was beginning to react. People were seeking out members of the opposite sexes -- and, in a few cases, the same sex -- and congregating in sexual groups of four.

Now Vard felt a third urge superimposed on the first two: the urge for privacy, to get away, to walk to a place of concealment, of safety, of solitude. The great mass below was slowly breaking up, moving off, away, in almost all directions.

Vard stopped and shook himself as he realized that he, and most of the others on the platform, had been walking around the platform area in circles.

Many of the others, looking dreamily into a fog of their mental creation, continued to do so.

The quadrisexual groupings of the walkers below was unmistakable. There would be some orgies, and perhaps some new family groupings, before this day was out!

Still some remained, of course -- those with strong family ties on which the induced reactions and desires only reinforced their will to go home. But these numbered in the hundreds now, hundreds among the thousands of deserted cars; they could be handled directly by the authorities.

Baathiax gave them a powerful urge to obey authority, a will to follow any command given them. Since the only real authority figure around was represented by its own figure on the platform, Baathiax picked up a public address microphone and began speaking, stepping up urgings to obedience as it talked. Vard had gone all the way to the far end of the platform and stopped up his ears. He wanted to be around after the finish.

"Fraskans," crooned the dead voice of the Kah'diz host, "return to the city.

Your families and loved ones are being cared for. They have been informed of your safety, and the government guarantees that safety. You are to be good citizens of the new government, and return to the place of your last night's lodgings, remaining there until further notice. The government, of course, will reimburse you for any expenses. In this way can you best help us -- and you want to help us, don't you?"

The crowd felt it really did want to help the government. It would do anything for the government. It would die for the government "Go, now," Baathiax exhorted them, and, obedient as trained animals, they went. Within five minutes the entry/exit port below was the largest used car lot on Fraska, but without a single customer. Even a number of Conquerors, Vard noted with some amusement, were in the process of obediently walking away.

Baathiax turned to the few remaining Conquerors on and near the platform.

"Do you think," it asked acidly, "that clearing the rubble below would be beneath your powers, means, or dignity?"

Having no taste for an additional treatment of the creature's power rod, which still glowed softly in its hand, the few remaining Conquerors practically fell over each other in their rush to get to work.

Baathiax relaxed and disconnected the rod, then idly flipped on the transceiver.

"Baathiax here. North Lock cleared and operational in twenty or thirty minutes, maybe sooner if we can get a few wreckers in here."

"Ah, no wreckers available right now, sir, but do your best. It's really bad at West," came the reply.

"All right," the Kah'diz replied, "we've done our part."

It switched off the radio. Suddenly it heard a noise behind it, and whirled.

Why, that Fraskan was still here! With more respect, Baathiax motioned Vard closer.

"I congratulate you on your self-control," it told him. "Such a strong will will be a true asset to the new empire. Now, what was it that you wanted?"

Vard bowed slightly. "My only wish, noble sir, is to serve the new empire. I must leave the city to identify the suspect Vard in the mountains."

"Oh, yes, yes," Baathiax muttered with annoyance. "I shall open the lock."

Vard emerged from the elevator and chose the cruiser nearest the lock. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself. Starting the car, he moved slowly and confidently into the lock area. None of the wrecking crew took any notice.

Baathiax closed the "A" lock compartment behind the cruiser and began pumping the atmosphere back into the Dome. As soon as the atmospheric pressure dropped below proper levels, the cruiser's internal air and pressurization kicked in, much to Vard's relief. Until then, he had not thought to check and see if it even had such devices.

There was a pop in his ears and then the cruiser's atmospheric controls blasted in. Soon it was a comfortable 250 Kelvin.

The "B" lock opened noiselessly in front of him; and Vard moved the cruiser forward as soon as be had enough clearance.

He was out of the city.

Vard glanced down at the outside temperature gauge. It was hot enough here to melt oxygen!

The cruiser sped onward through the twilight-lit desert stretching out before it, seemingly to infinity.

The little whine in his head changed, became more of a direction finder.

He turned the car in the direction of the strongest signal, confident that the ship had not deserted him and that he was away free.

Hours later, he was in the middle of the desert, heading for a small lifeboat sent down on auto to pick him up. He pulled up next to the small airlock.

It was fortunate that his race could withstand a vacuum and warmer-than- normal temperatures for short periods, for he had no spacesuit or other protection. Shielding his eyes from the red sun's dull rays, and taking a breath, he depressurized the cruiser and opened the door, bolting as fast as he could into the lifeboat airlock.

The boat's lock closed behind him and he could feel air and temperature being introduced and brought up to Fraskan normal. After what seemed to be about two minutes longer than he could hold his breath, a buzzer sounded. He exhaled, then took in great amounts of air.

Opening the second lock, he went over to the pilot's control couch, strapping himself in but not touching the control helmet. This would be an automatic operation. Quickly, without any sensation felt inside the little craft, it was speeding out into space.

"You will have to live in the lifeboat until we reach Valiakea," an alien, metallic voice told him. "The conditions inside our ship would kill you instantly.

We have several more pickups; then we will all go to Valiakea for Adaption Procedures necessary for Haven. The proper food for you and some reading matter are supplied. Should you want or need anything we can supply, simply speak up. I shall be monitoring you."

"Thank you, nothing now but some sleep, I think," he answered, and relaxed fully for the first time since the long day had begun. Adaption. He hadn't considered that angle. Funny, he thought, no matter how cosmopolitan, old, and experienced you are, you still tend to think of everything in terms of your own normal existence. And yet the universe was a collection of the diverse. Physically, anyway.

He did not like the idea of Adaption. It seemed to cut him off completely from his own people and homeland, as miserable as those now were.

He was thinking these thoughts as he drifted off into a dream-filled but lengthy sleep.

3.

IT WAS NEARING dusk and a gentle, warm wind was blowing the fields below in wave-like patterns, carrying the scent of new-mown grasses toward the loess caves in the distance, the rich blue sky was giving way to hues of orange, and magenta reflected off the clouds, creating a wondrous artist's palette of beauty. The inhabitant of one of the caves barely noticed the sight, but the scent from the fields was driving her almost mad with hunger.

As the last rays of the setting sun vanished in the east, she came carefully out of her refuge, looking warily around her with caution born of weeks of being a fugitive.

Standing just outside the cave, sniffing the wind for more fearsome scents, perhaps of sentient beings, she presented a sight that would have been strange to any alien to this quiet, agrarian world. She stood about 150 centimeters high, a squat humanoid body begun with a squared head looking something like a blue gorilla's but with short-cropped silver hair now dirty and disheveled after weeks of hiding. Her head rested on a thick wrestler's neck and a tough, muscled torso covered with very fine, thin, bluish hair. Her arms were thick and bulging with sinew; She could easily lift twice her own weight. Two large blue-black breasts, firm and well positioned, were left uncovered by the blue hair, which close to the waist became much more coarse, long and curly, going down to and covering even the tops of her feet, which despite rudimentary toes, were hard and more like hooves. Her stance, due to the unusual nature of the feet, gave her the appearance of being on tiptoe; and she seemed about to become unbalanced and fall.

Nostrils flared as she tested the wind and found it empty of anything but nature's own aroma.

Satisfied, she turned and made her way circuitously down the slopes, trying to leave no telltale tracks in the soft earth. Her short, bushy tail was kept straight as she moved with amazing speed down the now familiar pathways.

Although she looked awkward and ungraceful at rest, she was capable of sprints of up to sixty kilometers per hour.

Reaching the fields below, she started pulling up some of the grain and grasses and shoving them into her mouth. Her people were herbivores and usually prepared all manner of exquisite and highly seasoned dishes from the plants they favored. But simple fare would have to do this time: hunger overcame civilized custom. Having had nothing since the previous evening, she gorged herself on what she could get.

The stars were out in full glory by the time she had finished, and she lay back in the grassy field looking up at them. So distant, so devoid of hope. She thought back in time, as she did almost constantly, of the good times, the happy times, the times of hopes not crushed by despair. The times before "they" came.

Her name was Gayal.

Her race was, like Aruman Vard's, an ancient one. Unlike Vard's, it had never gone beyond orbital space. Her planet, Delial, which meant "Mother," was the sole planet of its sun; It had no moon, and the next nearest star was over seven light-years distant -- too huge a jump when it had to be your first time.

Her culture was dull by some standards, but it suited her people just fine.

Their botanical sciences were second in the galaxy, but an era of feudal wars had killed off the excess population that threatened Delial just as effective birth control had been developed. As a result, her people were remarkably long-lived but comparatively few in number, and the population was almost totally stable.

There was little government on a national or world scale, merely a few coordinators of things like trade that the local regions could not do for themselves. Delial had no large cities; the population was almost wholly agrarian, and it clustered about the thousands of small towns that were the centers ot trade and commerce. Long ago, orbital flight had led to huge space stations circling the globe. It was there that the heavy manufacturing was done, almost entirely by machine, and ferried to well placed spaceports.

Because an average of ten females were born for every male, a polygamous society had been the norm since civilization evolved on the planet.

Gayal's herd-husband had been an old man named Fala, to whom she had been wedded while still an infant. Fala was teacher, guide, and overseer of the large plantation where they lived. From him she had learned to read and write, and to attain the skills needed to work and run the huge farm along with her sisters. Gayal had been an excellent student and Fala had sent for some of the best scholars to come and tutor her. History and theology had particularly fascinated her, and the pride and sense of accomplishment she felt when her first book of philosophical essays was publisbed was almost as great as her bearing a son to the herd.

She remembered one stern, pessimistic scholarly teacher, whose soul was empty and devoid of sensitivity to the beauty around and in the life of the world Gayal loved. They had been discussing the gods, and immortality of the soul, and had quickly gotten into a heated argument.

"There is nothing beyond this life," she could bear the teacher's voice saying, distantly, ghost-like in the rippling across the darkened fields. "We go out like a candle."

"I must disagree," she recalled her own youthful voice protesting. "All around us is a world of life interacting with life, in position around the sun at precisely the correct orbit for us to survive. Out there in space are the stars, with other such planets; and beyond them the galaxy itself -- one of many, all functioning according to precise natural laws like an orderly machine. Surely this proves the existence of the gods."

The old teacher had shaken her head sadly, and replied as one would to a retarded child. "Galaxies crash, suns explode, civilizations rise and fall. The nar- bug is eaten by the flkkil, who is in turn eaten by the dros, and good people worldwide are visited with undeserved afflictions.

"No, do not look for civilizing influences," the old one continued, and she had taken the young Gayal's arm and brought her over to a window. The sky was ablaze with stars, exactly like this night. "When all is said and done, you will find no paradise out there -- only a jungle of stars."

The teacher, Gayal reflected, must have felt very smug and self-righteous when the invaders came, in their great black ships, settling down and burning acres of grain and grass.

She had heard the news on the television and on her wall had seen tapes of the great ships landing and disgorging their weirdly alien troops. There had been no army to oppose them, no ships in which to flee.

A new order had been established planetwide: henceforth, they were to provide food first for the conquering hordes. What was left over was for themselves, if they worked particularly hard and if they increased production as well.

Fala had called her in, shortly after. He looked particularly old and very, very tired.

"Gayal, my favorite of all," he began, his voice cracking with emotion, "it is time to show you some things that must be shown, and to do what must be done."

"You have heard, then, of the invaders?" she asked innocently.

"I have known of them since only a few years after I was born," he told her.

"I have feared this day, though I knew it would come. An army travels on its stomach, always, and The Bromgrev has a huge army."

She looked puzzled. "Who or what is a Bromgrev?" she asked, and he told her: of the Kreb, of the Union of Souls, of the great battle for the minds and hearts of the galaxy that was then being waged.

"I was taken early, when I was but three or four, to an alien world far from here. How I was chosen, or why, I know not -- although it was with the approval of the Agent-in-Charge here before me, who was then old and dying, lucky him!

"I was raised both on and off-planet by the agent and by the greater organization of beings that he served. A great installation lies below our feet, with charts of the battle and the great starfield. It has kept me in contact with them for many years, and I have friends of strange races, many of whom I have never seen.

Even so, none foresaw our conquest this quickly though we could do little with simple handguns against such a powerful horde. Now they are here and my job is complex."

"What sort of job, my husband?" she asked, curious and apprehensive.

"My organization is activated. It will, by its actions, attempt to deny, at least for a time, that which the enemy seeks. Our beloved world is to be placed in ruins by my own hand."

His voice gave completely, and he dissolved for a time in tears. Finally, he composed himself.

"There are key missions that I have not been able to verify which must be carried out," he explained, "and we have a very little time to do them. I must see that they are done, personally, if there is no other way. The least of them is dangerous enough. Thus, someone must be here to do my job."

He had shown Gayal the wondrous communications equipment, and the rudiments of operating it. He had told her what to say and how to say it; how to interpret the sabotage reports that would come in and how to report these to the unseen agency far off in space. Had she been any less of an intellectual, it would have been too much to grasp; as it was, her head still reeled with it.

The final shock was the little surgeon with tiny, shifty eyes who had planted something, painlessly and invisibly, in her head.

"When you have lost contact with me and my principal people, you are to destroy this place as I have shown you and use the signal to get picked up, in order to flee the planet."

"But," she had protested, "what about you? I would rather stay, as you would, and fight these monsters."

Sadness had tinged his voice as he replied. "I will stay because I expect to die. If I somehow live, I will join you, I promise. But you must survive, for I have made certain that within your brain are the moral and intellectual foundations of our race. One day, these monsters will be defeated. Live for it! Work for it, and then you must come back and make our people free again!"

He had taken her head in his hands, and together they had coupled for the last time. In the morning, he was gone.

Gayal had done as instructed, and from the reports she learned just how utter the destruction was. Bacteria had been released by Delialians that killed the grain crops in most areas; by signals, they had destroyed their orbiting factories.

Retaliation had been swift, although the Conquerors' first attempt, public hangings, did not work: the Delialians had neck muscles too strong to allow them to be choked by rope. The enemy therefore settled on public torture of old men and children -- particularly children. The planet caved in.

After nine days, reports from Fala ceased and all attempts to raise him failed.

Slowly, too, a horrible pattern of conquest developed. Kah'diz were dropped in the key regions and made the "adjustments" in the locals. The emotion-masters could turn hatred into love, horror into worship; they methodically started work on key towns and plantations across the planet. And there appeared to be an endless supply of them for the job. Their task was the most difficult thing in warfare: pacification of captured indigenious populations.

Slowly, very slowly, but quite efficiently, the Kah'diz turned the bulk of the population from heartsick resisters into willing and loving slaves.

Word came one day, that it would soon be the turn of Gayal's plantation for the treatment; word sent at grave risk by as yet "unaltered" relation.

The Kah'diz bad entered haughtily, mounted on the back of a Delialian, and demanded to see the man in charge. One of Gayal's sisters -- all the females in a herd were called "sisters" -- had explained that be had gone away and had not been seen or heard from since.

The Kah'diz had nodded, and demanded an inventory of stock, farm reserves, tools -- and people.

Gayal and her sisters had talked of killing the creature, but then decided that this would only bring more, and perhaps death and ruin for them and their children. They agreed to go along with the Kah'diz, but do as little as possible for the conquerors.

Then the true horror had begun.

She and her nine sisters had been sitting around talking of the heartbreak and bleak future that must surely await them, when the intercom buzzed.

"Send in Maral," the Kah'diz's dead voice commanded.

Maral, the plantation's voice, and overseer of the business end of the operation, was not surprised; she had gotten used to being summoned whenever the Kah'diz was unhappy over something, which was always.