8

All the way to Canopus, Gordon spent his waking time in the bridge of the fast scout. Through the windows that were not really windows, he watched the star-groups rise up and change and fall behind. After the arid years on little Earth, he could not get enough of stars.

The titanic jumble of suns that was Hercules Cluster, the seat of power of those mighty barons who looked on star-kings as mere equals, dropped past them to the west. The vast mass of faintly glowing drift that was known as the Deneb Shoals, they skirted. They plunged on and now they were passing through the space where, that other time, the space-fleets of the Empire and its allies had fought out their final Armageddon with the League of the Dark Worlds.

Gordon looked and dreamed. Far, far off southward lay the sprawling blotch of deeper darkness that was the Cloud, from which the armadas of the Dark Worlds had poured in their prideful menace. He remembered Thallarna and he remembered Shorr Kan, the master of the League, and how he had surrendered to defeat.

"You think too much of past things and not enough of the present ones," said Korkhann, watching him shrewdly.

Gordon smiled. "If you know as much about me as I think you know, can you blame me? I was an impostor. I hardly knew what I was doing in that battle, but I was there, and who could forget that?"

"Power is a heady wine," said Korkhann. "You had it once, the power of a universe in your hand. Do you long for it again?"

"No," said Gordon, startled by the echo of Lianna's accusation. "I was scared to death of it when I had it."

"Were you, John Gordon?"

Before Gordon could frame an irritated answer to that, Korkhann had gone away from the bridge.

His irritation faded and was forgotten as, in the time that followed, the heart-worlds of the mighty Mid-Galactic Empire brightened far ahead.

The stunning blue-white flare of Canopus was arrogant in its hugeness and intensity. And as the scout rushed on, there came into view the planets that circled that truly royal sun. Gordon's eyes clung to one of those planets, a gray, cloud-wrapped sphere. Throon . . .

He was remembering how he had first seen it, amazed and bewildered by this future universe, playing a part for which he had no preparation, a pawn in the hands of cosmic political powers whose purposes he could not dream.

Was he anything more than that right now? Wasn't he brought here to Throon so that Korkhann might exploit his supposed influence with Jhal Arn, sovereign of the Empire? Yes, he thought, it's true. But it's not just for Fomalhaut policies, it's for Lianna and against whatever mysterious, menacing things was hatching out in the Marches that threatened her most immediately.

The planet rose up to meet him, its gray-green bulk immense, the sprawling continents starred with glittering metropoli that flared in the white sunlight. Then a mighty ocean, and then, far head, what his gaze leaped to meet, the dazzling radiance that almost blinded the eye, the Glass Mountains of smooth silicates flinging back the sunset light in shaking spears and fans and banners of glory. They went over that radiance, through it, and ahead of them there loomed the cluster of fairylike glass towers that was the greatest capital of the galaxy.

Over its starport, the traffic was of tremendous volume. Gordon had forgotten how many ships came and went to this center of the Empire. Clocked smoothly in by the director-computers, the bulky arrogant liners from Deneb and Aldebaran and Sol came down to the inport like a parade of giants, while the smaller craft poured like a cataract of shining midges. But their own craft, being official, skirted all this and descended toward the naval port, where the giant warships of the Empire loomed like dark thunderclouds above their docks.

An hour later, they stood in the huge building that was the seat of dynasty and the administrative center of the Empire.

Zarth Arn came to meet them, a tall figure, his dark face breaking into a smile and then becoming serious as he took Gordon's hand.

"I could wish your return to Throon had been on another occasion than this," he said. "Yes, my brother knows why you have come. You're not the first on this errand."

Korkhann asked quickly, "The others are worried about the Marches, Highness?"

Zarth Arn nodded. "They are. But that's to be talked of later. To hell with diplomacy, Gordon and I have some drinking to do!" He led Gordon to a smoothly gliding motowalk. It carried them on into another hall, a vast chamber whose glass walls were adorned with flattened reliefs of dark stars, burned-out cindery suns, ebon cosmic drift, and overpowering impression of gloom and majesty. Gordon remembered this somber magnificence, and he remembered also the equally splendid hall beyond it that seemed encompassed by the glow of a flaming nebula. The motowalk bore them upward on a smooth slant.

Everywhere, courtiers and chamberlains bowed deeply to Zarth Arn. It seemed to Gordon that they looked a little askance at him, walking familiarly with a prince of the Empire.

"Does it seem strange to you?" he asked Zarth Arn. "To walk with me, knowing that once we inhabited each other's bodies?"

Zarth Arn smiled. "Not to me. You must remember that I crossed many times before, and dwelt in many other bodies on those occasions. But I suspect it is very strange to you, indeed."

They came to Zarth Arn's chambers, that Gordon so well remembered, high-ceilinged and austerely white except for their silken hangings. The racks of thought-spools still stood at one side of the room. He went to the tall open windows and out onto the balcony that was like a small terrace jutting from the side of the huge, oblong palace. He looked again across Throon City.

It might have been that other time all over again, he thought. For Canopus was setting, flinging a long, level radiance across the fairylike towers of the metropolis, and the heaving green ocean, and the Glass Mountains that now were a rampart of dazzling glory.

Gordon stared bemused, until Zarth Arn's voice woke him from the spell.

"Do you find it the same, Gordon?" he asked, handing him a tall glass of the brown liquor called saqua.

"Not quite," muttered Gordon.

Zarth Arn understood. "Lianna was here that other time, wasn't she? I hadn't meant to ask yet, but now . . . tell me, what of you two?"

"We haven't quite quarreled," Gordon answered. "But we seem to go on being strangers, and . . . she seems to think it wasn't for her I came, but for . . . this."

And his gesture took in the whole vista of the magnificence of the great city, the flashing radiance of the mountains, the majesty of the starships rising from the distant starport.

They were interrupted by the opening of the door. The man who entered was tall and stalwart, dressed in black with a small blazing insignia on his chest. His eyes were level and searching as he came toward Gordon.

Gordon knew him. Jhal Arn, the elder brother of Zarth Arn, and the sovereign of the Mid-Galactic Empire.

"It is strange," said Jhal Arn. "You know me, of course, from that other time. But I see you . . . the physical you . . . for the first time."

He held out his hand. "Zarth has told me that this was the gesture of greeting in your time. You are welcome in Throon, John Gordon. You are very welcome."

The words were quiet and without emphasis, but the handgrip was strong.

"But more of this later," said Jhal Arn. "You've brought a problem to Throon. And not you alone. We have important visitors from some of the Empire's strongest allies, and they too are troubled."

He went over and looked thoughtfully out at the city, whose lights were coming on as the sunset faded into dusk. Two moons shone out in the twilit sky, one of them warm golden and the other one ghostly silver in hue.

"A whisper has gone through the galaxy," said Jhal Arn. "A murmur, a breath, a sourceless rumor. And it says that in the Marches of Outer Space there is a mystery and a danger. Nothing more than that. But the very vagueness of it has disturbed some who are high in the star-kingdoms, while others scoff at it as mere fancy."

"It wasn't fancy that we encountered at Teyn," said Gordon. "Korkhann can tell you . . ."

"Korkhann has already told me," said Jhal Arn. "I sent for him, straight after you two arrived. And . . . I don't like what I heard."

He shook his head. "Later on, tonight, a decision will have to be taken. It is one that could shatter the political fabric of the galaxy. And yet we must make it, knowing so little . . ." He broke off, and turned to leave, and at the door he turned round and gave Gordon a crooked smile. "You sat in my place once, for a little while, John Gordon. I tell you that it is still a painful place."

When he had left, Zarth Arn said, "I'll take you to the suite assigned to you and Korkhann. I saw that it was close to this one. We have much to talk about."

He parted from Gordon at the door of the suite. Gordon went in, and was surprised by the luxury of the big room he entered. By comparison Zarth Arn's was spartan. But Zarth Arn had always been more the austere scholar-scientist than anything else.

He noticed the back of a feathered head above a metal chair, and saw that Korkhann sat by the open window looking out at the flashing panorama of lights, the brilliant lights of Throon City and the distant lights of great star-liners coming down across the star-decked sky.

Gordon walked toward the window and around the chair, saying, "I don't like what I've been hearing, Korkhann. I . . ."

Then Gordon stopped, and suddenly he shouted.

"Korkhann!"

The feathered one sat in unnatural immobility. And his face, the beaked face and wise yellow eyes that Gordon had first tolerated and then come to like, was strangely stony. The eyes were as opaque as cold yellow jewels, and they had not the faintest flicker of expression in them.

Gordon gripped Korkhann with his hands, feeling the astonishing slightness and fragility of the body beneath the feathers.

"Korkhann, what's happened to you? Wake up . . ."

After a moment, there was something in the eyes . . . a passing ripple of awareness. And of agony. A damned soul looking out for a split second from a place of everlasting punishment might have such an expression.

Sweat stood on Gordon's forehead. He continued to shake Korkhann, to call his name. The agony reappeared in the eyes, it was as though there was a mighty straining of the mind behind those eyes, and then it was as though something snapped and Korkhann huddled in Gordon's hands, sick and shaking, his wings quivering wildly. Inarticulate whistling sounds came from his throat.

"What was it?" cried Gordon.

It was a minute before Korkhann could look up at him, and how now his eyes were wild.

"Something that I, and you, have experienced before. But worse. You remember how the Gray One at Teyn hammered us with the power of his mind?"

Gordon shivered. He was not likely ever to forget.

"Yes," whispered Korkhann. "Whatever they are, one of them is here. Here, I think, in this palace."

9

The imperial palace of Throon throbbed and glittered in the night. Out of hundreds of windows poured soft light and drifting music and the hum of many voices. The arrival of dignitaries of other star-kingdoms was occasion for a state ball, and in the great halls a brilliant throng feasted and drank. Nor was that throng all human. Scale and hide and feather brushed against silken garments. Faces humanoid but not human, eyes slitted and saucer-like and pupil-less gleamed in the light. Gargoyle shapes walked the dark gardens in which glowed great plantings of luminous flowers of Achernar.

As though in grim reminder that the Empire was not all a matter of pleasure-making, the music and hum of voices were drowned by a vast, thunderous bellowing as a full score of warships went up into the starry sky. The smaller scouts and phantoms had already screamed heavenward and now the great battle-cruisers lifted, dark bulks against the constellations, out-bound toward the Pleaiades and the big fleet-bases there.

Gordon had seen little of the festive part of the palace. He had walked with Zarth Arn behind Jhal Arn as the sovereign made an appearance there, and then they had come up here to the private chambers of Jhal Arn.

He had noted the curious gaze that the throng below had directed against himself. They were wondering, he knew, why an untitled Earthman should accompany an emperor.

He said now, "I feel I should have stayed with Korkhann. He was pretty badly shaken."

"My own guards are watching over him," said Jhal Arn. "He'll be here soon for the meeting. And there's someone else I've sent for, whom I think you'll remember, Gordon."

Presently a man entered the chambers. He wore the uniform of a captain in the imperial space-fleet, and he was a big, burly man with bristling black hair and a craggy, copper-colored face. At sight of him, Gordon leaped to his feet.

"Hull Burrel!"

The big officer looked at him puzzledly "I can't remember that we've met . . ."

Gordon sank back into his chair. Of course Hull didn't recognize him. To both his best friend and the woman he loved he was a stranger. He felt bitterness at the impossible situation he had put himself in when he came to this age in his own physical body.

"Captain Burrel," said Jhal Arn. "Do you remember that when the League of the Dark Worlds attacked the empire, and attempted assassination had already stricken me down, so that my brother acted as ruling regent in that crisis?"

A glow came onto Hull Burrel battered coppery face. "Am I likely to forget it, Highness? It was Prince Zarth Arn we followed when we smashed the League, in that last battle of Deneb!"

Jhal Arn went on. "When Shorr Kan sent the armadas of the League to attack us, he broadcast a galaxy-wide propaganda message. I want you to see a tape of part of that."

As Zarth Arn touched a button beside his chair, against an opposite wall appeared a sterovision picture of lifelike vividness. The picture was of a man speaking. Gordon tensed in his chair. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, his black hair clipped short, his eyes keen and flashing. His voice cut like a sword blade, and the whole impact of that ruthless, amoral, mocking personality came through even in this reproduction.

"Shorr Kan," whispered Gordon.

He was not likely to forget the dictator of the League, the utterly cynical, utterly capable leader with whom Gordon had struggled for the fact of kingdoms.

"Listen." said Jhal Arn.

And Gordon heard it again and seemed transported back to that terrible moment. Shorr Kan was saying, "The Empire's regent, Zarth Arn, is not really Zarth Arn at all . . . he is an impostor masquerading as Zarth Arn. Star-kings and barons, do not follow this imposter to defeat and doom!"

The sterovision scene vanished. Hull Burrel turned, looking puzzled, and said, "I remember that, Highness. His accusation was so ridiculous that no one paid any attention to it."

"The accusation was true." Jhal Arn said flatly.

Hull Burrel stared at his sovereign with incredulity written large on his face. He started to speak, then thought better of it. He looked at Zarth Arn.

Zarth Arn smiled. "Yes. Shorr Kan spoke the truth. Few know it, but in past years I used scientific means to exchange minds with men of other worlds and times. One such experiment was with the man beside you . . . John Gordon of Earth. It was Gordon, in my body, who was regent of the Empire at the moment of crisis. And Shorr Kan had found it out."

He touched a control again and said, "You'll remember that after the League fleet was smashed, the men of the Dark Worlds admitted defeat and asked for truce. This was their telestero message of surrender, which you've seen before."

Another scene flashed into existence against the wall, one that was etched forever in Gordon's memory. In a room of Shorr Kan's palace appeared a group of wild-looking men, and one of them spoke hoarsely.

"The Dark Worlds agree to surrender on your terms, Prince Zarth! Shorr Kan's tyranny is overthrown. When he refused to surrender, we rose in rebellion against him. I can prove that by letting you see him. He is dying."

The scene switched abruptly to another room of the palace. Behind a desk sat Shorr Kan. Men around him had their weapons trained on him, and his face was marble-white as he clutched at a blackened wound in his side. His dulled eyes cleared for a moment and he grinned weakly.

"You win," he said. "Devil of a way to end up, isn't it? But I'm not complaining. I had one life and used it to the limit. You're the same way, at bottom." His voice trailed to a whisper. "Maybe I'm a throwback to your world, Gordon? Born out of my time? Maybe . . ."

And he sprawled forward across his desk and lay still, and one of the grim-faced men bent to examine him and then said, "He's dead. Better for the Dark Worlds if he'd never been born."

The reproduced scene snapped out. After a moment of stunned silence, Hull Burrel spoke in a voice that echoed his stupefaction.

"I remember that. I couldn't understand what he meant by addressing Prince Zarth as 'Gordon.' None of us could." He swung around until his dazed eyes stared into Gordon's face. "Then you were the one who was with me in that struggle? You . . . the one who defeated Shorr Kan?"

Zarth Arn nodded. "It is so."

Gordon drew a long breath, and then he held out his hand and said, "Hello, Hull."

The Antarian . . . for Hull Burrel was a native of a world of Antares . . . continued to stare dumbly, then seized Gordon's hand and began to babble excitedly. He was cut short by the entrance of Korkhann.

To a question from Jhal Arn, Korkhann answered, "Yes, Highness, I am quite recovered."

Gordon doubted that. The yellow eyes were haunted, and there was a fear in the beaked face he had not seen there before.

"The palace has been searched and no trace of this mysterious attacker has been found," Jhal Arn was saying. "Tell us exactly what happened."

Korkhann's voice dropped to a whisper. "There's little I can tell. It was the same sensation of overwhelming mental impact I felt at Teyn, but stronger, more irresistible. I could not fight it this time, not even for a second. I knew nothing, then, until Gordon's shouting and shaking of me brought me back to consciousness. But . . . I believe that while I was held in that grip, my mind was being examined, all my memories and knowledge ransacked, by a telepath compared to whom I am as a child."

Jhal Arn leaned forward. "Tell me, when this power seized you, was there a sensation as of mental cold?"

Korkhann looked astonished. "How could you guess that, Highness?"

Jhal Arn did not answer, but between him and his brother flashed a look that was grim and somber.

A chamberlain entered the room, announcing dignitaries whom Jhal Arn greeted with formal protocol. Gordon, hearing the names of some and recognizing others, felt a sharp wonder.

No fewer than three star-kings had come to this secret meeting . . . young Sath Shamar of Polaris, the aging long-regent of Cassiopeia, and the dark, crafty-looking sovereign of the Kingdom of Cepheus. There were chancellors of two other kingdoms present, and also one of the mightiest of the powerful Hercules Barons, Jon Ollen. His domain stretched so far from the Cluster to the edge of the Marches that it was actually bigger than some of the smaller kingdoms.

He now looked like a worried man, his cadaverous face gloomy in expression. Gordon remembered his galactography well enough to realize that every realm represented here lay near the Marches of Outer Space.

Jhal Arn began without preamble. "You've all heard the rumors that certain of the counts of the Marches are preparing some mysterious and dangerous aggression. It threatens all of you but first it threatens Fomalhaut, which is why Korkhann and my friend John Gordon have come here."

Jhal Arn emphasized the word "friend," and the men who had ignored Gordon until this moment, glanced at him sharply.

Jhal Arn went on, "Tell them what happened at Teyn, Korkhann."

Korkhann told them. When he finished, there was a silence. Then young Sath Shamar said troubledly, "Of mysterious cowled strangers we have heard nothing. But lately the counts of the Marches have become highhanded with us at Polaris, and have threatened us with powers they say could destroy us."

The tight-faced ruler of Cepheus added nothing, but the old regent of Cassiopeia nodded confirmation. "There is something in the Marches . . . never have the counts been so insolent with us."

Korkhann looked at the baron and said softly, "You have something more than this, Jon Ollen? It seems to me that you are withholding something from us."

Jon Ollen's cadaverous face flushed dull red with anger and he exclaimed, "I will not have my mind read, telepath!"

"And how," asked Korkhann deprecatingly, "could I do that when you have kept a guard upon your thoughts since you entered this chamber?"

Jon Ollen said sullenly, "I don't want to hunt for trouble. My barony is close up against the Marches, closer than any of your domains. If there is danger, I am most vulnerable to it."

Jhal Arn's voice rang decisively. "You are an ally of the Empire. If danger attacks you, we come in with you at once. If you know anything, say it."

Jon Ollen looked undecided, worried, troubled. It was a minute before he spoke.

"I know but little, really. But . . . inside the Marches, not far from our frontier, is a world known as Aar. And mysterious things have happened that seem to focus on that world."

"What kind of things?"

"A merchant ship returned to my barony from the Marches, traveling on an insane course. Our cruisers could not understand its behavior. They ran it down and boarded it. Every man aboard it was raving mad. The automatic log-recorder showed that the ship had touched down last at Aar. Then another ship that passed near Aar sent off a distress call that was suddenly smothered. And that ship was never heard from again."

"What else?"

Jon Ollen's face lengthened. "There came to my court Count Cyn Cryver of the Marches. He said that certain scientific experiments had made Aar dangerous and suggested we order all ships to avoid it. But "suggested" is hardly the word . . . he ordered me to do this."

"It would seem," muttered Jhal Arn thoughtfully, "that Aar is at least one focal point of the mystery."

"We could send a squadron in there to find out quickly," said Zarth Arn.

"But what if there's nothing really there?" cried Jon Ollen. "The counts would hold me responsible for the incursion. You must understand my position."

"We understand it," Jhal Arn assured him. And to his brother, "No, Zarth. The baron is right. If there's nothing there we'd have angered the counts by an invasion of their domain, to the point of starting a border war all through the Marches. We'll slip a small unmarked scout into the Marches with a few men who can investigate the place. Captain Burrel, you can lead them."

Gordon spoke up for the first time in that meeting. "I will go with Hull. Look, I'm the only one except Korkhann, who's not fitted for this kind of mission, to have seen one of the counts' cryptic allies. At Teyn, remember."

"Why am I not fitted for such a mission?" Korkhann demanded, his feathers seeming to ruffle up with anger.

"Because no one else is so well fitted to be Princess Lianna's right-hand man, and she mustn't lose you," said Gordon soothingly.

"It's a risky thing," muttered Jon Ollen. "I beg of you one thing . . . if you are caught, please don't implicate me in this."

"Your concern for the safety of my friends is overpowering," said Jhal Arn acidly.

The baron disregarded the sarcasm. He got to his feet. "I shall return home at once. I don't want to be mixed up in this affair too much. Your Highnesses . . . gentlemen . . . good night."

When he had gone out, Sath Shamar uttered an oath. "It's what I'd have expected of him. In the battle with the Dark Worlds, when the other barons gave the galaxy an example of space-fighting it can never forget, he held back until sure that Shorr Kan was defeated."

Jhal Arn nodded. "But the strategic position of his domain makes him valuable as an ally, so we have to put up with his selfishness."

When the star-kings and chancellors had left, Jhal Arn looked a little sadly at Gordon.

"I wish you were not set on going, my friend. Did you come back to us, only to risk your life?"

Gordon saw Korkhann looking at him, and knew what was in his mind. He remembered Lianna's bitter farewell, her accusation that it was the danger and wild beauty of this wider universe that had drawn him back here, and not love for her. He stubbornly told himself it wasn't true.

"You have said yourself," he reminded Jhal Arn, "that this danger most threatens Fomalhaut. And whatever threatens Lianna is my affair."

He was not sure that Jhal Arn believed him, and he was quite sure that Korkhann did not believe him at all.

Three days later a very small ship lay at the naval starport of Throon. It was a phantom scout, with all the insignia removed. The small crew did not wear uniforms, nor did Hull Burrell, who was to captain it.

In the palace, before he left, Gordon had a final word from Zarth Arn.

"We hope you come back with information, John Gordon. But if you don't . . . then in thirty days three full Empire squadrons will head for that world of Aar."

Gordon was surprised and a little appalled. "But that could lead to war in the Marches. Your brother admitted it."

"There are worse things than a border war," Zarth Arn said somberly. "You must remember our history that you learned before. You remember Brenn Bir?"

The name rang in Gordon's memory. "Of course. Your remote ancestor, the founder of your dynasty . . . the leader who repelled the alien invasion from the Magellanic Clouds outside the galaxy."

"And who wrecked part of the galaxy doing it," Zarth Arn nodded. "We still have his records, archives that the galaxy knows nothing about. And some detail in the description you and Korkhann gave of the cowled stranger at Teyn made us look into those archives."

Gordon felt a terrifying surmise, and it was verified by Zarth Arn's next words.

"The records of Brenn Bir described the Magellanian aliens as having a mental power so terrific that no human or nonhuman could withstand it. Only by disrupting space and hurling them out of this dimension were those invaders defeated. And now . . . it seems that after all these thousands of years, they are coming back again!"

10

The Marches of Outer Space had been, originally, an area only vaguely delimited. Early galactographers had defined it as that part of the galaxy which lay between the eastern and southern kingdoms, and the edge of the island universe. For when, in the twenty-second century, the three inventions of the faster-than-light sub-spectrum rays, the Mass Control, and the stasis-force that cradled men's bodies so that they remained impervious to extreme speeds and accelerations . . . when these made interstellar travel possible and the human stock poured out from Earth to colonize the galaxy, it had been toward the bigger star-systems they had gone, not the rim. Millennia later, when distant systems had broken away from Earth government and formed independent kingdoms, hardy adventurers in those kingdoms had gone into the starry wilderness of the Marches, setting up small domains that often were limited to one star and one world.

These counts of the Marches, as they called themselves, had always been a tough, insolent breed. They owed allegiance to no star-king, though they had a nominal alliance with the Empire which prevented the other kingdoms from invading their small realms. The place had long been a focus of intrigue, a refuge for outlawed men, an irritation on the body politic of the galaxy. But each jealous star-king refused to let his rivals take over the Marches, and so the situation had perpetuated itself.

"And that" thought Gordon, "is too damned bad. If this anarchic star-jungle had been cleaned up, it wouldn't harbor such danger now." He wondered how many of the counts were in the conspiracy with Cyn Cryver. There had to be others, because Cyn Cryver alone could not provide enough ships for any significant action. If a significant action was what they had in mind.

The little phantom scout was well inside the Marches now, moving on a devious course. By interstellar standards, the phantom's speed was slow. Its defensive armament was almost nonexistent and its offensive weapons were nothing more than a few missiles. But it possessed a supreme advantage for such a stealthy mission as this one . . . the ability to disappear. That was why there were phantoms in the fleet of every kingdom.

"It'd be safer to dark-out," said Hull Burrel, frowning. "But then we'd be running blind ourselves, and I don't like doing that in this mess."

Gordon thought that if it was a mess, it was an impressive one. Scores of stars burned like great emerald and ruby and diamond lamps in the dark gloom. The radar screen showed shoals of drift between these star-systems, and here and there the Marches were rifted by great darkness, loops and lanes of cosmic dust.

He looked back the way they had come, at the Hercules Cluster that blazed like bright moths swarming thick about a lamp, at the far dimmed spark of Canopus. He hoped they would live to go back there. He looked ahead and his imagination leaped beyond the stars he could see to those out on the Rim, the spiral, outlying arms of stars that fringed the wheeling galaxy, and beyond which there was nothing until the distant Magellanic Clouds.

"It's too far," he said to Hull. "Zarth Arn must be wrong; there can't really be Magellanians in the Marches. If they had come they wouldn't have come as stealthy infiltrators, but in a great invasion."

Hull Burrel shook his head. "They came that way once before, so the histories say. And they got annihilated, when Brenn Bir used the Disrupter on them. They might try a different way, this time." The big Antarian captain added, "But I can't believe it, either. It was so long ago."

For a long time the little phantom threaded its way into the Marches, skirting great areas of drift that flowed like rivers through space, tacking and twisting its way around enormous ashen dark stars, swinging far wide of inhabited systems.

Finally there came a time when, peering at the viewer, Hull Burrel pointed out a small, bright orange star glittering far away.

"That's it. The sun of Aar."

Gordon looked. "And now?"

"Now we dark-out," grunted the Antarian. "And from here on it'll be cursed ticklish navigation."

He gave an order. An alarm rang through the ship. The big dark-out generators aft began droning loudly. At that moment all the viewer-screens and radar-screens went dark and blank.

Gordon had been in phantoms before, and had expected the phenomenon. The generators had created an aura of powerful force around the little ship, which force slightly refracted every light ray or radar beam that struck it. The phantom had become completely invisible both to eye and to radar, but by the same token those in it could see nothing outside. Navigation now must be by the special sub-spectrum radar by which the phantom could slowly feel a way forward.

In the time that followed, Gordon thought it was remarkably like a twentieth-century submarine feeling its way through ocean depths. There was the same feeling of blindness and semi-helplessness, the same dread of collision, in this case with some bit of drift the straining radar might not catch, and the same half-hysterical desire to see sunlight again. And the ordeal went on and on, the sweat standing out in fine beads on Hull Burrel's forehead as he jockeyed the little ship closer toward the single planet of the orange star.

Finally, Hull gave an order and the ship hung motionless. He turned his glistening face toward Gordon.

"We should be just above the surface of Aar, but that's all I can say. I hope to God we don't come out of dark-out right over our enemies' heads!"

Gordon shrugged. "Jon Ollen said there wasn't much on this world, that it was mostly wild."

"One thing I love is an optimist who has no direct responsibility," growled the Antarian. "All right. Dark-out off!"

The droning of generators died. Instantly there poured into the bridge through the viewer screens a flood of orange sunlight. They peered out tensely, blinking in the brilliance.

"I apologize, optimist," said Hull. "It couldn't be better."

The little ship hung level with the top foliage of a golden forest. The plants . . . Gordon could not think of them as trees, although they were that big . . . were thirty to forty feet high, graceful clusters of dark-green stems whose branches held masses of feathery golden-yellow leaves. They bore a remote but disquieting resemblance to the trees of Teyn and Gordon shivered, hoping it was not an omen. As far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but the roof of the forest glittering in the light of the orange sun.

"Take her down fast," ordered Hull. "We could just be ranged by radar up here."

The phantom dropped through the masses of lacy gold and landed in a grove of clustered stems, upon soft ground covered with a copper-colored brush that bore black fruits.

Gordon, peering fascinated through the viewer, suddenly shouted. "Something!"

The Antarian jumped to his side. "What?"

"It's gone now," said Gordon. "Something small, almost invisible, that darted away under the brush."

The other looked doubtful. "In the star-log, this world Aar is listed as uninhabited. An attempt was once made to colonize it but the colonists were driven away from it by dangerous conditions. This could be some formidable creature."

Gordon was doubtful. "It seemed too small."

"Nevertheless, we'd better have a look around before we go thrashing through these forests," the Antarian said decisively. He spoke to the crewmen in the bridge. "You and I will go out, Varren. Full armor."

Gordon shook his head. "I'll go with Varren. One of us has to stay to complete the mission if something happens to the other . . . and the one who stays had better be the one who can navigate the ship back out of here."

When Gordon and Varren stepped out of the ship they wore the suits that did double duty as space suits and defensive armor, complete with helmets. They carried guns.

Looking uncertainly around, Gordon began to feel a bit foolish. Nothing moved except the golden foliage high above, waving in the breeze. His helmet sound-pickup brought no sounds except the faint sounds of a forest.

"Where was this thing you saw?" asked Varren. His voice was very polite.

"Over this way," Gordon said. "I don't know . . . it could have been a leaf blowing . . ."

He suddenly stopped, looking upward. Twelve feet above the ground, fastened solidly inside a crotch of one of the trees, was a curious structure vaguely resembling a squirrel's summer nest. Except that this was no ragged thing of twigs and leaves but a solid little box of cut wood, with a door in its side.

"It was going toward this place," said Gordon. "Look."

Varren looked. He looked up for a long time and then he remarked quietly that he would be damned.

"I'm climbing up there to take a look," said Gordon. "If it's what I thought I saw, it won't be too dangerous. If not . . . cover me."

The climb would not have been difficult if it had not been for the clumsy suit. But he was sweating by the time he reached a crotch on which he could stand with his face level with the little box.

Gently, Gordon pushed at the little door. A faint snapping told of a tiny catch breaking. He continued to push but it was difficult . . . something, someone, was holding the door on the inside.

Then the resistance gave way, and Gordon looked inside. At first he could see nothing but a purple gloom. But the hot orange sunlight pouring in through the open door revealed detail as his eyes adjusted.

Those who had been trying to hold the door against him now cowered in terror at the far side of a little room. They were not much more than a foot high and they were quite human in shape. They were naked, one man, one woman, and the only strange thing about them apart from their size was the fact that their bodies were semitransparent, as translucent as plastic. He could see details of the wall-surface right through them.

They cowered, and Gordon stared, and then he heard the man speaking in a tiny voice. He could hardly hear, but it was not a language he knew.

After a long moment he slid back to the ground. He pointed upward and said to Varren, "Take a look. Maybe you can understand their language."

"Their what?" said Varren. He looked at Gordon as though he doubted his sanity. Then he too climbed up.

It was a long time before Varren came back down. When he did, he looked sick.

"I talked with them," he said, and then repeated that as though he didn't quite believe it. "I talked with them. Oh, yes, I could understand them. You see, a few thousand years ago they were our own people."

Gordon looked at him incredulously. "Those creatures? But . . ."

"The colonists," said Varren. "The ones Captain Burrel read about in the log, who were driven away from here by harmful conditions. They didn't all go away. Some had already become victims of the danger . . . a chemical constituent in either the air or the water here which, after a few generations, makes the human body evolve toward smallness."

Varren shook his head. "Poor little beggars. They couldn't tell me that but I could guess it from the few scraps of legend they did tell me. It's my guess that they mutated toward that semi-transparency as a camouflage defense against other creatures here."

Gordon shivered. There was beauty and wonder in the stars, but there was also horror.

"One thing I learned." Varren added. "They're terribly afraid of something out there in the west. I got that out of them, but no more."

When they went back to the ship, it was the last statement that interested Hull Burrel the most.

"It checks," he said. "We've been making a sweep with the sub-spectrum radar and it definitely showed large metal constructions several hundred miles to the west. On this world, that can only be the place we're looking for."

The Antarian thought for a little, then said decisively, "We'd never make that distance on foot. We'll have to wait until night and move the ship closer. If we hug the treetops, it might fool their radar."

Night on Aar was a heavy darkness, for this world had no moon. The phantom purred along over foliage glistening in the light of the stars, the scattered, lonesome stars of the Marches. Hull Burrel had the controls. Gordon stood quiet and watched through the viewer-window.

He thought he saw something, finally, something far ahead that glinted a dull reflection of the starlight. He started to speak, but Hull nodded.

"I caught it. We'll go down."

Gordon waited. Instead of going down at once, the little ship slipped onward, he supposed in search for a clear opening for descent into the forest.

He put his eye to the 'scope and peered. The glint of metal ahead sprang closer, and now he could see that the vague metal bulks were the buildings of a small city. There were domes, streets, walls. But there was not a single light there, and he could see that long ago the forest had come into this city's streets, and its ways were choked with foliage. Without doubt, this would have been a center of that tragically doomed colony of many centuries ago.

But there were a few hooded lights beyond the city. He touched the 'scope adjustment. He could see little, but it appeared that the old spaceport of the dead city had lain beyond it, a dark flat surface that the forest had not yet been able to overwhelm.

Gordon could just descry the glint and shape of a few ships parked there. They were small Class Five starships, not much bigger than the phantom scout. But there was one ship that had something queer about its outlines.

He turned to say so to Hull Burrel, and as his eye left the 'scope, he saw that their craft was still gliding straight forward and had not begun to descend.

Gordon exclaimed, "What are you doing? Do you figure to land at their front door?"

The Antarian did not answer. Gordon took hold of his arm. Hull Burrel yanked it free and knocked Gordon sprawling.

But in that moment, Gordon had seen Hull's face. It was stony, immobile, the eyes vacant of all emotion or perception. In a flash, Gordon knew.

He bunched himself and launched in a desperate spring at the Antarian. He knocked Hull away from the controls, but not before the Antarian had managed to give them a hard yank in his desperate attempt to cling to them. The phantom scout stood suddenly on its head and then dived straight down through the foliage.

Gordon felt the metal wall slap him across the temple, and then there was only darkness in which he fell and fell.

11

In the darkness Gordon heard the voice of a dead man speaking.

"So that's what he looks like," said the voice. "Well!"

Whose voice was it? Gordon's pain-racked brain could not remember. Then how did he know that it was the voice of a dead man? He did not know how he knew, but he was sure that the man who spoke had died.

He must open his eyes and see who it was that spoke after death. He made an effort. And with the effort, the pain and blackness rolled back across his mind more strongly than before and he did not know anything.

When he finally awoke, he felt that it was much later. He also felt that he had one of the biggest headaches in galactic history.

He did get his eyes open this time. He was in a small metal room with a solid metal door. There was a very tiny window with bars, and orange sunlight slanting through them.

Across the room from him, Hull Burrel sprawled like one dead.

Gordon got to his feet. for a while he stood perfectly still, hoping that he was not going to fall. Then he moved painfully to the Antarian and knelt beside him.

Hull had a bruise on his chin, but no other perceptible injuries. Yet he lay like a man in deathly coma, his coppery face no longer like the side of a rough rock but gone all slack and sagging. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was open and spittle dribbled from it.

Gordon took him by the shoulders and said, "Hull," and all of a sudden the living log turned into a maddened wildcat. Hull scrambled up, thrusting Gordon away, glaring at him as if he were an attacking enemy.

Gradually Hull's eyes cleared. His muscles relaxed. He stared stupidly at Gordon and said. "What's the devil's the matter with me?"

"You were slugged," said Gordon. "Not with a club, but with mental force. You were taken under control when we were nearing this place."

"This place?" Hull Burrel looked around, at the small, dusty metal room. "I don't remember," he muttered. "This looks like a prison."

Gordon nodded. "We're in the dead town of the old colonists. And you can't have a town without a jail."

His head ached. And more than his head was hurt. His pride was severely bruised. He said, "Hull, I was a sort of hero back in that other time, when I lived in Zarth Arn's body . . . wasn't I?"

Hull stared. "You were. But what . . ."

"I was going to be a hero all over again," said Gordon bitterly. "To show that I could be good as John Gordon, too. I've done fine haven't I? Throon, Lianna . . . they'll be proud of me."

"You weren't leading this mission, I was," growled Hull Burrel. "It was I who fell on my face." He went to the little window and looked at the street choked with golden foliage. He turned around, his brows knitted. "Mental force, you said. Then there must be one of those damned Magellanians here."

Gordon shrugged. "Who else could do a thing like that? We've been taken like children. They were sitting here waiting for us."

Hull suddenly shouted loudly. "Varren! Kano . . . Rann. . . are you here?"

There was no answer from the crewmen whose names he had shouted.

"Wherever they are, they're not within earshot," muttered Hull, plainly worried. "What next?"

"Next, we wait," said Gordon.

They waited for more than an hour. Then the door opened without warning. Outside it stood a supercilious young man whose black uniform bore in silver the design of the Mace.

"The Count Cyn Cryver will see you now," said the young man. "You can walk, or be dragged."

"All right, we'll walk," said Gordon. "I've enough headache already."

They walked out into the hot sunlight, and along a street that had once been wide. But time and weather had cracked its pavement and seeds had lodged to grow into the feathery trees, so that now it was more like following a path in a forest.

The corroded metal fronts of buildings showed through the foliage, silent and dead. And Gordon glimpsed a statue, the figure of a man in space dress, looking proudly down from the middle of the street. It would be, he thought, the star-captain who had led the ill-fated colonists here, in the long-ago centuries.

Look and be proud, star-captain. All that you wrought died long ago, and the last descendants of your people are the furtive little hunted things in the forest. Be proud, star-captain, be happy, for your eyes are blind and cannot see . . . .

They were taken into a building that looked like a municipal center. In a shadowy big hall, Count Cyn Cryver lounged in a chair at a table, drinking a tawny-colored liquor from a tall goblet. He wore black, with his insignia arrogant on his breast, and he looked at Gordon with amused eyes.

"You kicked up quite a stir at Teyn, but it seems we have you safe now," he said. He drank and put the goblet down. "A word of advice . . . never trust a coward. Like Jon Ollen, for instance."

A light burst upon Gordon. "Of course. That's why you were waiting for us. Jon Ollen is one of you."

Nothing else could explain it. The cadaverous baron was a traitor, and it was a safe assumption that the super-telepath who had come to Throon had been hidden in Jon Ollen's ship.

Hull Burrel demanded harshly, "Where are my men?"

Cyn Cryver smiled. "We had no need of your men or your ship, so they have been destroyed. As you will be destroyed when we no longer have any use for you."

Hull's fist clenched. He looked as though he was about to spring at Cyn Cryver, but the men with the stunners stepped forward.

"You will be examined later," Cyn Cryver said. "You are here now only because an old friend of yours wishes to see you. Tell their old friend that they are here, Bard."

One of the men went through a door at the rear of the hall. Gordon felt his skin crawl as he heard steps returning a moment later. He thought he knew what was coming.

He was wrong. It was not the cowled shape he feared that came into the hall. It was a man, broad-shouldered and tall, black-haired, tough-faced and keen-eyed, who stopped and look at them, smiling.

"By God," said Hull Burrel. "Shorr Kan!"

"Oh, no," said Gordon. "Can't you see, it's an impersonation they've got up . . . Lord knows why. We saw Shorr Kan die, killed by his own men."

The man who looked like Shorr Kan laughed. "You thought you saw that. But you were deceived, Gordon. And if I do say so myself, it was a neat piece of deception, considering how little time we had in which to dream it up."

And it was the voice of Shorr Kan. It was also the voice of a dead man speaking in the darkness and saying, "So that's what he looks like!"

He came closer and spoke earnestly, as one explaining something to a friend. "I was in the devil of a spot, thanks to you. Your damned Disruptor had shattered our fleet, and you were coming on toward the Dark Worlds, and my faithful subjects had got wind of it and were rioting in the streets. It was my neck, if I didn't think of something pretty quick."

He grinned. "It took you all in, didn't it? I still had a few faithful officers, and when they sent out that stereo-vision message of surrender, they could show you poor old Shorr Kan, with a big fake wound in his side, putting on a death scene I'm really proud of."

He burst into laughter. Stupefied, because he did not want to believe this and was beginning to do so, Gordon exclaimed, "Shorr Kan's body was found in the ruins of his palace!"

The other shrugged. "A body was found. The body of a dead rioter, who was my size and wore my uniform and decorations. Of course there wasn't too much left to identify because we fired the palace before we got the devil out of there . . . which little incendiary feat was blamed on my rioting subjects."

Gordon could no longer disbelieve. He stared at Shorr Kan at this man who had made himself master of the Dark Worlds and then, with their power, had almost shattered the star-kingdoms.

"And you've been hiding here in the Marches ever since?" he cried.

"Let me say instead that I've been making an extended visit to certain of my old friends here, among whom I number first the Count Cyn Cryver," said Shorr Kan. "When I heard you were among us, the Gordon whom I had never physically seen but whom I had known only too well . . . well, I had to give you a greeting for old time's sake."

The insolent brass of the man, his complete, mocking, light-hearted cynicism, had not changed.

Gordon said, between his teeth, "Why, I'm glad you saved your neck . . . even though it's a comedown from master of the League of the Dark Worlds, to hang onto the coattails of a Cyn Cryver. Still, it's better than dying."

Shorr Kan laughed, in honest enjoyment. "Did you hear that, Cyn? Do you wonder I admired this chap? Here he is at the end of his rope, and he tries to slap my face in a way that'll make bad blood between you and me!"

"Look at him, Hull," said Gordon mockingly. "Isn't he the one to put a brave face on? Lord of the Cloud, master of the Dark Worlds, almost the conqueror of the Empire itself . . . and now that he's reduced to skulking in the Marches and mixing up in filthy plots with ragtag one-world counts, he still stays cheerful."

Shorr Kan grinned, but Cyn Cryver got up and came over, looking at Gordon with livid hatred.

"I've heard enough of this," he said. "You've seen your old enemy, Shorr, and that's that. Bard, shackle them to those pillars. The Lord Susurr will come this evening and examine their minds for what they may contain of value, and after that they can be tossed on a dunghill."

"The Lord Susurr," repeated Gordon. "That would be one of your creepy little allies from Magellan, would it? Like the one we so sadly disappointed when we foxed you at Teyn?"

The rage left Cyn Cryver's face and he smiled in a deadly fashion as Gordon and Hull Burrel were shackled each to one of the slender ornamental metal pillars that ran in two rows down the hall.

"Even for you," said Cyn Cryver, "I had still a spark of pity, considering what will happen to you soon. But now it is gone." He turned his back on Gordon and told the young captain, "Guard them until the Lord Susurr comes. It will be some hours, for the lord likes not the sunlight."

Shorr Kan said brightly, "Well, lads, I fear it's goodbye now. I can see you're going to meet your end like men of courage. I've always said, 'Die like a man . . . if you can't find any way of avoiding it.' And I don't think you can avoid it."

Hull Burrel continued to swear, using profanity from a dozen different worlds. "That devil-born fox! All these years the whole galaxy has thought him dead, and now he bounces up here to laugh at us!"

"It's all history now," said Gordon. "Of more concern is what happens tonight, when the Lord Susurr who does not like the sunlight comes to visit us."

Hull stopped swearing and looked at him. "What's the creature going to do to us?"

"I imagine you could call it mental vivisection. I think it will take our minds and turn them inside out for every scrap of information we possess, and that it'll be only two mindless wrecks who are killed later."

Hull shivered. After a little silence he said, with an age-old hatred edging his voice, "Small wonder that Brenn Bir blasted the Magellanian invaders out of the universe, that other time."

No more was said, for there was nothing to say. Gordon stood against the pillar, with the shackles cutting his wrists behind him, and looked out through the open doorway as the long hours of afternoon crept away. The orange rays of sunlight that cut down through the interstices of the branches slanted and shifted. The breeze ruffled the leaves like autumn aspens on faraway, long-ago Earth. Beyond the trees the metal star-captain stood stiff and valiant, staring forever across his ruined city.

The guards lounged and shuffled in the doorway, glancing in now and then at the two captives. But Gordon could hear no sound of any activity from the dead city around them. What was going on here at Aar? That it was a focus for the intrigue that had hatched between the counts and Narath Teyn and the aliens from outside, he had no doubt. But it could not be a vital center of their plot, or the treacherous Jon Ollen would not have named the place and baited them to it.

Had Jon Ollen been setting a trap, not just for Hull Burrel and himself and their little ship, but for the main squadrons of the Empire? Jhal Arn had said that those squadrons would come here, if they did not return with information. If that was so, he and Hull had really messed it up. Lianna would be proud of him when she heard of it.

He thought of Lianna, and how they had parted at Fomalhaut. He did not want to think of her, and he made his mind go blank, and in a kind of stupor watched the rippling golden leaves outside. The time slipped slowly by.

The gold dulled. Gordon woke from his stupor to see that twilight had replaced the sunlight. And the guards in the doorway were now looking nervously along the street. As the dusk deepened they stepped farther away from the doorway, out into the street, as though they were doing everything possible to keep from being too near this room when the Lord Susurr came to do what he would do to the captives.

The hall was darkening, faster than the outside street. Gordon suddenly stiffened against his shackles. He heard a sound approaching.

Something was in the shadowy hall with them, something that came softly toward them from behind.

12

The skin between Gordon's shoulders crawled. He heard the sound shift position as whoever had stealthily entered moved softly around in front of them.

Then, close in front of him and silhouetted against the last twilight of the open doorway, he saw the profile of Shorr Kan.

"Listen, and keep your mouths shut," whispered Shorr Kan. "You'll be dead, and worse than dead, before morning comes unless I get you out of here. There's a chance I can do it."

"And why would you do a thing like that?" asked Gordon, keeping his voice well down.

"He loves us, that's why," muttered Hull Burrel. "He's so full of loving kindness that he just can't bear to see us hurt."

"Oh, God," whispered Shorr Kan, "give me a smart enemy rather than a stupid friend. Look, I may have only minutes before the cursed H'Harn comes."

"H'Harn?"

"What you call the Magellanians. The H'Harn is the name they call themselves. The Lord Susurr is one of them and when he comes here, you're through."

Gordon did not doubt that. But all the same he asked dubiously, "If the creature is such a terrific telepath, won't he know that you're here right now?"

There was contempt in Shorr Kan's answer. "You people all think the H'Harn are omnipotent and omniscient. They're not. In fact, they're a bit on the stupid side in some ways. They do have tremendous parapsychical power, but only when they concentrate it on one object. They can't spread their mental power to encompass everything, and it fades out at a certain distance."

Gordon knew that from his own experience at Teyn, but he made no comment. Shorr Kan jerked his head around to peer at the guards who waited uneasily out in the dusky street, and then continued in a hurried whisper.

"I have to be quick. Listen . . . I've been here in the Marches ever since the defeat of the Dark Worlds. I figure that sooner or later I could manipulate these popinjay counts the way I wanted to . . . set them against each other, get them to fighting, and when the smoke cleared away, Shorr Kan would be king of the Marches. And I would have done it, but for one thing.

"The agents of the H'Harn came from outside the galaxy, and made contact with Cyn Cryver and Narath Teyn and certain other counts. The H'Harn took a beating when they tried to invade long ago and it's taken them all that time to recover from it, but they're strong again and they still mean to come into our galaxy, in a different way."

"What way?" asked Gordon.

"I don't know," answered Shorr Kan. "I'm not sure that even Cyn Cryver knows. I do know that the H'Harn are preparing something big out there in the Magellanic Clouds, something against which our galaxy will be defenseless. What it is, I haven't the slightest idea."

He went on. "Those of the H'Harn who have come here so far, like Susurr and others, are agents sent ahead to make alliance with the counts and prepare the way for some kind of assault. The H'Harn have assured Cyn Cryver and the others that they'll be given half the galaxy for their aid. And the bloody fools believe it!"

"But you don't?"

"Look, Gordon, did you find me an idiot when we fought each other in the old days? The H'Harn are inhuman, so inhuman that they take good care not to show themselves bodily least they scare off their allies. Of course they'll use the counts, and of course they'll brush them aside when they've succeeded in their plans, and what will their promises be worth?"

"About as much," muttered Gordon, "as the promises of Shorr Kan."

Shorr Kan chuckled briefly. "I asked for that. But no matter. I've had to guard my thoughts carefully. The moment that damned alien gets suspicious and probes my mind I'll be through, and I can't keep my guard up forever. I've got to get out of here. But one man can't operate a ship. Three men could. That's why I need you." His whisper was emphatic. "Give me your word that you'll go where I want to go, once we get a ship, and I'll free you right now!"

"Give our word to Shorr Kan?" said Hull. "That would really be a brilliant thing to do . . ."

"Hull, listen!" said Gordon swiftly. "If Shorr Kan double-crosses us the moment we're out of this room, we'd still not be as bad off as when that alien gets through with us. Give him your word. I do."

The Antarian sullenly muttered. "All right. It's given."

Shorr Kan produced something from under his coat that glistened dully in the last light from the doorway. It was a heavy semi-circular metal hook whose inner cutting edge was serrated.

"I've no key to your shackles but this should cut them," he whispered. "Hold your hands wide, Gordon, unless you want one of them sliced off."

He slipped around behind the pillar and began sawing at the shackle. The sound seemed loud to Gordon's ears but the shadowy figures of the guards out in the street did not move.

"Almost through," muttered Shorr Kan after a few moments. "If you'll . . ."

His whisper suddenly stopped. The sawing stopped and then there was a stealthy sound of rapid withdrawal.

"What . . ." Gordon began, and then his heart throbbed painfully as he saw.

Out in the dusk-wrapped street that was still not as dark as the interior of the hall, the guardsmen were moving away, shrinking back until they met the wall of a building on the opposite side and could go no farther.

And a cowled, robed figure of shimmering gray, not quite as tall as a man, appeared in the doorway. In complete silence it moved, with that horridly fluid gliding motion that Gordon had seen once before, into the darkness of the hall toward them.

Gordon's whole body stiffened involuntarily. He heard a sharp indrawing of breath from the Antarian, who had not seen one of the H'Harn until now. There was a moment in which the shadowy figure seemed to hesitate between them, and then the choice was made and it swayed toward Gordon and he waited for the blasting mental force to burst into his brain.

A shadow skittered in the darkness, a low anguished hissing came from the H'Harn, and its body swayed unsteadily aside. And against the dim oblong of the doorway, Gordon saw Shorr Kan's silhouette as he dug the serrated hook deep, deep into the Gray One's back.

In an access of revulsion, Gordon strained violently and the almost-severed shackle snapped.

He could not see clearly the nightmare that was going on now in the dark hall. The H'Harn seemed to be tottering away, mewing and hissing, as Shorr Kan stabbed and stabbed.

"Help me kill it!" panted Shorr Kan. "Help me . . .!"

There was no weapon, but Gordon grabbed up the chair beside the table. He rushed and struck. The mewing thing went down.

Pain. Pain. It shot the terrible waves though Gordon's brain, coming consciously or unconsciously from the stricken alien. He staggered, fell to his knees.

A wave of black agony swept over him and receded. He got up, shakily. He glimpsed the dark figures of the two guards in the street, running now toward the doorway of the building. There they hesitated.

"Lord Susurr?" called one, his voice high-pitched and shrill.

Shorr Kan's stunner buzzed in the dark and the two men in the doorway dropped.

"Saw Burrel's shackle, and hurry," said Shorr Kan hoarsely, handing him the hook that was now wet to the hilt.

As Gordon worked, he saw Shorr Kan stoop and tear open the robe of the huddled heap on the floor, but he could not see what the dead H'Harn looked like. He heard a sharp sound from Shorr Kan.

The shackle parted. Shorr Kan hurried them toward the rear of the hall.

"This way. I don't think we have all the time in the world."

The little spaceport beyond the dead town lay dark and silent under the stars, when they reached it. Shorr Kan led them toward one small ship that lay apart from the others. Its black bulk loomed before them, and to Gordon it seemed oddly strange in outline, with thick vanes sprouting from its sides such as he had seen on no other starship.

"It's the ship in which the four H'Harn agents came to this galaxy," said Shorr Kan, fumbling with the lock-catch. "The other three went to Teyn and other worlds, but the ship was left here with Susurr. From what I've heard, it's far faster than any ship we know of, so if we get away in it, they'll never catch us."

When they had got inside and the hooded lights in the control-bridge were on, Hull Burrel uttered a grunt of astonishment.

"Well, don't stand there," said Shorr Kan impatiently. "You're the professional spaceman here. Get busy and take us the devil out of here."

"I never saw a control-board like this," Hull objected. "Some of those controls don't seem to mean a thing. They . . ."

"Some of the controls are familiar to you, aren't they?"

"Yes, but . . ."

"Then use the ones you know, but take off!"

Hull Burrel, his professional soul outraged by the sloppiness of such a suggestion, nevertheless took the pilot chair. It was far too small for him and his knees came almost to his chin as he poked and prodded and pulled.

The little ship went away from Aar very fast, bursting out of the darkness of the night side of the planet into the brilliant sun.

"What course?" demanded the Antarian.

Shorr Kan gave him the bearings. Hull Burrel cautiously set them up, swearing at the unfamiliarity of the calibrations.

"I'm not setting a course, I'm just making an educated guess," he grumbled. "We'll likely pile up in the drift somewhere."

Gordon watched the lonely stars ahead, as they rushed, and his shakiness left him.

"We're heading out toward the Rim of the galaxy?" he asked, and Shorr Kan nodded. "Where will we swing back in, then?"

"We won't swing back in," answered Shorr Kan calmly. "We're going right on."

Hull swung around. "What do you mean? There's nothing but intergalactic space beyond . . . nothing!"

"You forget," reminded Shorr Kan. "There are the Magellanic Clouds . . . the worlds of the H'Harn."

"For God's sake, why would we want to go there?"

Shorr Kan laughed. "I feared this would be a shock to you. But I have your word, remember. It stands thus: The H'Harn are preparing something out there, with which to strike at our galaxy. So . . . we go out on a reconnaissance. We find out what it is. And we bring back that knowledge so the star-kings can prepare against the H'Harn. After all . . . isn't that the mission on which you two came?"

"But why should you risk your neck to save the star-kingdoms?" Gordon demanded.

Shorr Kan shrugged. "The reason is simple. I couldn't stay much longer with the counts without betraying my suspicions of their H'Harn allies . . . and the moment any H'Harn saw that in my mind, I'd be dead. But I couldn't go back to the star-kingdoms . . . they'd hang me for certain when they found out I was still living."

Gordon was beginning to see the light.

"But," Shorr Kan continued, "if I risk all to go to the Magellanic Clouds and come back with a warning of the H'Harn plans, the past will be forgotten. I'll be a hero, and you don't hang heroes. I gamble that I'll be on a throne again in a year."

Hull Burrel appealed to Gordon. "Do we let him take advantage of the fact that we've given our word to do this?"

Gordon answered thoughtfully, "We do. Hull. Not just when he reminds us that this is our mission."

Hull Burrel uttered a loud curse. "You're a fool, John Gordon, but I'll go along with it. I've lived long enough anyway, so I might as well commit suicide going on an impossible mission with a damned fool and the biggest villain in the galaxy!"