Free The Best of Planet Stories, No. 1 by editor Leigh Brackett

young. If Starke guessed right, the youth was nearer to two centuries old. That's how you lived and looked when you were under the Red Sea. Something about the emanations of it kept part of you young.
    Starke lidded his yellow hawk's eyes thoughtfully. "You've got all aces. You'll win. But what's Crom Dhu to you? Why not just Rann? She's one of you; you hate her more than you do the Rovers. Her ancestors came up on land; you never got over hating them for that . . ."
    The shepherd shrugged. "Toward Crom Dhu we have little actual hatred. Except that they are by nature land-men, even if they do rove by boat, and pillagers. One day they might try their luck on the sunken devices of this city."
    Starke put a hand out. "We're fighting Rann, too. Don't forget, we're on your side!"
    "Whereas we are on no ones," retorted the green-haired youth, "Except our own. Welcome to the army which will attack Crom Dhu."
    "Me! By the gods, over my dead body!"
    "That," said the youth, amusedly, "is what we intend. We've worked many years, you see, to perfect the plan. We're not much good out on land. We needed bodies that could do the work for us. So, every time Faolan lost a ship or Rann lost a ship, we were there, with our golden hounds, waiting. Collecting. Saving. Waiting until we had enough of each side's warriors. They'll do the fighting for us. Oh, not for long, of course. The Source energy will give them a semblance of life, a momentary electrical ability to walk and combat, but once out of water they'll last only half an hour. But that should be time enough once the gates of Crom Dhu and Falga are open."
    Starke said, "Rann will find some way around you. Get her first. Attack Crom Dhu the following day."
    The youth deliberated. "You're stalling. But there's sense in it. Rann is most important. We'll get Falga first, then. You'll have a bit of time in which to raise false hopes."
    Starke began to get sick again. The room swam.
    Very quietly, very easily, Rann came into his mind again. He felt her glide in like the merest touch of a sea fern weaving in a tide pool.
    He closed his mind down, but not before she snatched at a shred of thought. Her aquamarine eyes reflected desire and inquiry.
    "Hugh Starke, you're with the sea people?"
    Her voice was soft. He shook his head.
    "Tell me, Hugh Starke. How are you plotting against Falga?"
    He said nothing. He thought nothing. He shut his eyes.
    Her fingernails glittered, raking at his mind. "Tell me!"
    His thoughts rolled tightly into a metal sphere which nothing could dent.
    Rann laughed unpleasantly and leaned forward until she filled every dark horizon of his skull with her shimmering body. "All right. I gave you Conan's body. Now I'll take it away."
    She struck him a combined blow of her eyes, her writhing. lips, her bone-sharp teeth. "Go back to your old body, go back to your old body, Hugh Starke," she hissed. "Go back! Leave Conan to his idiocy. Go back to your old body!"
    Fear had him. He fell down upon his face, quivering and jerking. You could fight a man with a sword. But how could you fight this thing in your brain? He began to suck sobbing breaths through his lips. He was screaming. He could not hear himself. Her voice rushed in from the dim outer red universe, destroying him.
    "Hugh Starke! Go back to your old body!"
    His old body was — dead!
    And she was sending him back into it.
    Part of him shot endwise through red fog.
    He lay on a mountain plateau overlooking the harbor of Falga.
    Red fog coiled and snaked around him. Flame birds dived eerily down at his staring, blind eyes.
    His old body held him.
    Putrefaction stuffed his nostrils. The flesh sagged and slipped greasily on his loosened structure. He felt small again and ugly. Flame birds nibbled, picking, choosing between his ribs. Pain gorged him. Cold, blackness, nothingness filled him. Back in his old body. Forever.
    He didn't want that.
    The plateau, the red fog vanished. The flame birds, too.
    He lay once more on the