saw," Tragor said.

"If I did her no harm, why are you angry?"

"Your orders were to bring her into the ship without making love to her."

"But you gave no orders—"

"They are permanent orders. All captive women are to be brought to me first. I will decide who is to claim them."

The warrior nodded. "I am sorry," he said.

"You had better be. Turn now and walk away from me."

The warrior-caste Martian took a slow step backwards. He began to tremble. "You will not—"

"You heard what I said. Walk away from me."

The Martian turned without a word and walked away from Tragor along the deck.

Tragor removed a small metallic box from his three-pocketed waist jacket, opened it, and withdrew the dart projector from its sterile container. He raised the projector to eye level and took careful aim.

The dart struck the warrior-caste Martian at the base of the neck and went completely through his skull, passing upward through his brain to emerge at the top of his head.

He did not die standing up. The needlelike sliver of metal severed a cerebral nerve that controlled the functioning of his muscles and his entire body went flaccid, so that he slumped to the deck without uttering a sound, but with a conclusive shudder that would have been pitiful to watch if Tragor had been capable of compassion or remorse.

But Tragor felt only dark, terrible, anger, ebbing away a little now that he had found a target for his ire and had laid that target low.

He turned and walked to where the slender woman was lying. He was more shaken than he would have cared to admit even to himself. He had never experienced a rage quite so uncontrollable and he knew that it did him no credit. Jealousy? No, that was insane. How could he be jealous of a brutish, warrior-caste Martian?

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