Phthor

Arlo is the son of Aton, conqueror and victim of a dreaded Minionette. Arlo has known no world but the cavern-world. When war comes to the caverns he is a confused spectator. Men, women, and other creatures bearing exotic weapons invade. The women fascinate Arlo—they seem disturbingly familiar to him. Well they might. For these beautiful, identical, fiery-haired and smokey-eyed savage warriors are minionettes—figures of terror and dread on all civilized worlds. And they are his kin. Arlo's fate is to battle them and the superintelligence of Chthon at once, to work out a destiny shaped by a god more ancient than mankind—the destiny of the galaxy as well as his own. The return to the caverns of Chthon! The planet Chthon was prison world of ruby caverns where rebels and outlaws were exiled to endless darkness. Aton's crime was loving a minionette, one of the sensuous woman warriors it was death to touch. His son Arlo was both minion and human. Arlo's destiny was war with the deadliest enemy of all--the very planet Chthon, which was alive and furious at the life forms within its depths Prolog Chthon Death War Tree Interlog Tree Thor Life Phthor Epilog