 Who are the Karna?
Number two suffered from some sort of emotional block that left him continually on the horns of one dilemma or another. No two men were alike, and yet there sometimes seemed to be an eternal sameness about all men. Out there was the terrible emptiness of interstellar space—a great, yawning, infinite chasm capable of swallowing men, ships, planets, suns, and whole galaxies without filling its insatiable void. Somewhere out there, the ships of Earth were ranged against the ships of the alien Karna in the most important war that Mankind had yet fought. The Saarkkada themselves were humanoid in physical form—if one allowed the term to cover a wide range of differences—but their minds just didn't function along the same lines. To have shown himself to one of them would have meant instant loss of prestige. The Occeq of Saarkkad himself was never seen except by a handful of picked nobles, who, themselves, were never seen except by their underlings. To violate the rigid social setup of Saarkkad would mean the instant closing off of the supply of biochemical products that the Saarkkadic laboratories produced from native plants and animals—products that were vitally necessary to Earth's war, and which could be duplicated nowhere else in the known universe. Not the worst ones, of course; there were places in the galaxy that were less important than Saarkkad to the war effort. "A special communication for you has been teletyped in from Earth. Miss Drayson stood there calmly, her face a mask; her emotions were a secret.
 The Karna are the second most powerful race in the galaxy. They are skilled negotiators.
 The Karna are the second most powerful race in the galaxy. They are skilled negotiators.  The Karna are a race of warriors bent on destroying the Earth.  The Karna are a peaceful species trying to negotiate a surrender to Earth.  The Karna are a predator race who are trying to invade the Earth, to use humans as a food source.