hey were all so like those of his own kind that his mind at
first refused to believe that this was _not_ someone he knew. Yet as
the party moved toward his hiding place he knew that he was facing a
total stranger.

Stranger or no, Raf was sure that he saw a Terran. Had another ship
made a landing on this planet? One of those earlier ships whose fate
had been a mystery on their home world? Who--and when--and why? He
huddled as close to the grid as he could get, alert to the slightest
movement below as the prisoner faced his captors.

15

ARENA

The dull pain which throbbed through Dalgard's skull with every beat
of his heart was confusing, and it was hard to think clearly. But the
colony scout, soon after he had fought his way back to consciousness,
had learned that he was imprisoned somewhere in the globe ship. Just
as he now knew that he had been brought across the sea from the
continent on which Homeport was situated and that he had no hope of
rescue.

He had seen little of his captors, and the guards, who had hustled him
from one place of imprisonment to another, had not spoken to him, nor
had he tried to communicate with them. At first he had been too sick
and confused, then too wary. These were clearly Those Others and the
conditioning which had surrounded him from birth had instilled in him
a deep distrust of the former masters of Astra.

Now Dalgard was more alert, and his being brought to this room in what
was certainly the center of the alien civilization made him believe
that he was about to meet the rulers of the enemy. So he stared
curiously about him as the guards jostled him through the door.

On a dais fashioned of heaped-up rainbow-colored pads were three
aliens, their legs folded under them at what seemed impossible angles.
One wore the black wrappings, the breastplate of the guards, but the
other two had indulged their love of color in weird, eye-disturbing
combinations of shades in the bandages wrapping the thin limbs and
paunchy bodies. They were, as far as he could see through the thick
layers of paint overlaying their skins, older than their officer
companion. But nothing in their attitude suggested that age had
mellowed them.

Dalgard was brought to stand before the trio as before a tribunal of
judges. His sword-knife had been taken from his belt before he had
regained his senses, his hands were twisted behind his back and locked
together in a bar and hoop arrangement. He certai