"It is true," hissed V'ril. "This man used the Disruptor without knowing anything of its nature. It is incredible..."
Into Gordon's whirling mind came a remembrance of a time when Shorr Kan had said contemptuously that the H'Harn, for all their powers, were stupid.
He knew now, from sharing the mind of a H'Harn, that it was true. The race that sought to conquer galaxies was a low, stupid, detestable species which in the ordinary course of events would have come to nothing. But the possession of one key power, the telepathic power of mental probing, mental compulsion, had given these creatures dominance over races far superior to them.
Gordon had always feared the H'Harn. He began now to hate them with a bitter hatred. They were leechlike, unclean, intolerable. He knew now why long ago Brenn Bir of the Empire had taken the chance of riving space itself to destroy these creatures.
As his mind cleared, Gordon found that the guards had pulled him back to his feet. V'ril had put on the robe and cowl again and Gordon thanked God for that. He did not want to see that ghastly body. He felt defiled to the soul by the sharing of that creature's mind and memories.
V'ril raised a shrouded arm and pointed at Gordon. "This man must die at once," he said. "Because of the Fusion, he now knows where our fleet is hidden. Kill him!"
Cyn Cryver nodded and the guards stepped back and raised their weapons. Still hardly able to take it in, Gordon flashed at last a look at Lianna.
Lianna had sprung to her feet. "No!" she exclaimed. She swung around to Narath. "If this man is killed, I will not cede the throne to you, Narath Teyn!"
Cyn Cryver laughed harshly. "A lot of difference that will make! Narath will be king in any case."
But the dreaming smile left Narath's face and it became troubled. He raised a hand to the guards who were aiming their weapons at Gordon, and said, "Wait!" He spoke then to Cyn Cryver. "My cousin must formally cede the throne to me, before the people, or all will not be lawful. I must have this submission from her. I have waited so long for it. I must!"
His handsome face was quivering now, and storm clouds gathered in his eyes. Cyn Cryver looked at him narrowly, and then said to V'ril, "The ceremony is important to our brother Narath. We had better let the man live."
Looking at Cyn Cryver's flinty expression as he stared fixedly at V'ril, Gordon was absolutely sure that he was adding, in thought, "Until the ceremony is over. Then we'll kill him at once?"
For V'ril made no objection. He whispered, "Very well. But there are messages that must be sent to our brothers in the fleet."
V'ril looked toward the other two H'Harn. Gordon thought he could guess what the message would be. "Warn the fleet that the Empire armada is searching for them! Tell them to strike now at Throon!" The two H'Harn bobbed and glided away out of the hall.
Narath took Lianna by the hand, in as courtly a fashion as though he were leading her to a ball.
"Come, cousin. My people are waiting."
Lianna's face was stony, expressionless. She walked with Narath, out onto the great balcony.
The others followed, the four guards keeping their weapons trained upon Gordon and Shorr Kan. But when they were out on the balcony, Narath turned and spoke with sharp annoyance.
"Not beside me, Cyn Cryver... this is my triumph. Stay back."
A crooked smile crossed Cyn Cryver's face but he nodded. He and V'ril and the guardsmen remained at the back of the balcony.
Shorr Kan made as though to join them but Cyn Cryver shook his head. "Oh, no," he said. "Keep your distance, so that we can shoot you down without danger to ourselves."
Shorr Kan shrugged and fell back. And now Narath had led Lianna to the front of the balcony, and the white sun of Fomalhaut blazed down on his glittering figure. He raised his hand.
A tremendous roar went up. From where he stood at the back of the balcony, Gordon could see that the palace grounds were crammed with the grotesque hordes of the not-men, a heaving sea of them that lapped against the walls and swirled up onto the columns of the stone kings, where leather-winged creatures perched and screamed. Mingled with them were the lesser number of humans who wore the uniforms of the counts of the Marches.
He wondered what Lianna was thinking as she looked out on that roaring crowd. None of her own people were there; the people of Hathyr city were dispersed, hiding or slain. And the human and inhuman conquerors shouted and cheered, and the old kings of Fomalhaut looked down with calm faces upon the end of all that they had wrought.
Again Narath raised his hand, and the roaring acclaim swelled up in a greater cry than before. He had reached the summit of his life, and the not-men whose fanatical devotion he had won were hailing him, and his whole bearing expressed his joy and his pride, and his great love for these his people.
The wave of sound died down, and Narath said, "Now, cousin."
Lianna, her figure rigidly erect, spoke in a clear, cold voice that Gordon could hardly recognize.
"I, Lianna, Princess Regent of Fomalhaut, do now cede my sovereignty, and recognize and affirm that sovereignty to have passed from me to..."
The thin whistling of small missiles interrupted her, and then Gordon saw Cyn Cryver and his guardsmen reel and fall as tiny atomic pellets drove into their bodies and flared there, blackening flesh and garments.
Gordon swung around. In the otherwise empty hall behind the balcony stood Hull Burrel and Korkhann, and they held the weapons that had just been fired, cutting down all but the H'Harn. V'ril, warned by some telepathic flash at the last moment, had darted aside in time to escape.
Narath turned around angrily. "What... ?"
Korkhann fired, his yellowbird-eyes clear and merciless. The tiny missile went deep into Narath's side.
Narath swayed, but did not fall. It seemed that he refused to fall, refused to admit death and defeat. He turned with a strangely regal movement to face the crowd below... a crowd unable to see what was happening above them. He tried to raise his arm, and then fell forward across the balcony rail and hung there. A silence began to spread across the gardens and down the Avenue of Kings.
Hull Burrel cried abruptly, "No!"
Korkhann, his eyes now glazed and strange, was swinging his weapon around to point at the Antarian.
Gordon saw V'ril, and knew instantly what was happening. He rushed forward over the smoking bodies of the Mace-men. He grasped the robed H'Harn in his arms... and he ran forward and hurled it out over the rail, swiftly, before it could think to stop him. In the brief seconds of its fall, mental force, not directed this time, merely projected as an instinctive reflex, slammed at him. It was cut short with shocking finality, and Gordon smiled. The H'Harn, it seemed, feared most dreadfully to die.
Korkhann lowered his weapon, unfired.
Down below the silence had become complete, as though every throat held breath, and the crowd stared up at the glittering figure of Narath Teyn doubled over the low rail, his bright hair streaming, his arms outspread as though he reached down to them in an appeal for help.
In that frozen moment, Shorr Kan acted with a lightning swiftness that Gordon was never to forget.
Shorr Kan rushed to the front of the balcony. He threw his arms skyward in a wild gesture, and he shouted to that stunned crowd in the lingua-franca of the not-men of the Marches.
"The counts have killed Narath Heyn! Vengeance!"
Gerrn and Andaxi and Qhalla, all the nameless others, the inhuman faces, looked up toward him. And then it sank in.
Narath was dead. Narath of Teyn, he whom they worshipped, whose banner they had followed, had been slain. A heart-stopping cry of rage and sorrow went up from them the coming led cry of all those thousands of inhuman throats, growling, hissing, screeching.
"Vengeance for Narath! Kill the counts!"
The crowd exploded into violence. The not-men fell, with fang and talon, beak and claw, upon the men of the Marches who a moment before had stood beside them as allies.
The cry of sorrow and of vengeance went out from th
e palace, spreading until it seemed that from the whole city of Hathyr there came a great inhuman baying.
Hull Burrel had run forward, while Korkhann still stood a little dazed by the H'Harn assault that had almost made him kill his comrade.
"This way," cried Hull. "Quickly! They'll be up here in minutes. Korkhann knew all the secret passages in the palace and that's how we saved ourselves when the palace fell. Hurry!"
Gordon took Lianna by the hand and ran with her. Shorr Kan delayed long enough to pick up weapons from the dead guards, one of which he tossed to Gordon He was chuckling.
"That set them going, didn't it? They're not too bright, those nonhumans... begging your pardon, Korkhann... and they reacted beautifully."
A seemingly solid section of the wall at the side of the great hall had been swung open, revealing a passageway. They crowded through and Shorr Kan slammed shut the panel behind them.
Lianna was sobbing, but Gordon paid no attention to her. He cried to Korkhann, "Can you take us to a communications center. I must send a message..."
Korkhann, unused to violence, seemed still a little dazed. "A message to the... the barons... ?"
"A message to Zarth Arn and the Empire fleet!" snapped Gordon. "I know where the H'Harn armada is, and I must get that word through!"
25
Korkhann led them down by narrow, twisting ways buried within the walls of the palace, illuminated dimly by an occasional bulb. He brought them at last through another concealed door, into a long corridor.
"The palace Communications Center," said Korkhann. "The fourth door ahead."
There was no one in the hallway, and they went down it rapidly, Gordon and Shorr Kan in the lead. And now, even through the massive partitions of the palace, they could hear a growing uproar above them.
"The horde is inside the palace," said Korkhann. "They will be killing all the counts' men..."
"And us too, if they find us," said Hull Burrel.
They flung open the fourth door. Beyond it was the large room filled with the instruments of galactic communication. They went in very fast. A man who wore the uniform of the Mace sat at the bank of controls, which he touched with a curious uncertainty. Behind him stood two robed H'Harn, the ones V'ril had sent with the message for the H'Harn fleet. The man froze with his hands in mid air. The H'Harn turned swiftly, and died with the motion uncompleted.
Gordon aimed his weapon at the frightened operator. "Did you send that message for the H'Harn?"
The man's face was greasy with sweat. He looked down at the small gray crumpled mounds and shivered. "I was trying to. But they use different frequencies... modulations... all different from ours, and that takes time. They told me they'd take me over and hurt my mind if I didn't hurry, but I couldn't..."
The stupid H'Harn running true to form, thought Gordon. Use all other peoples simply as tools, and break them if they do not instantly perform.
He turned to Hull Burrel. "You were in touch with Zarth Arn's fleet until the attack came. Reach them now."
Hull threw the operator out of the chair and began punching buttons and turning vernier controls.
The uproar in the palace above them was penetrating more loudly to this level. Shorr Kan closed the door of the Communications Center and locked it.
"They'll get down here eventually," he said. "But it may hold them for a while."
Gordon watched the door, sweating, until Hull established contact with the fleet. Telestereo was not possible at such distances, but Gordon could hear the voices of the fleet communications officers as they acknowledged and cut through channels to the top, and presently the voice of Zarth Arn was speaking to him.
"Just beyond the end of the Vela Spur," said Gordon. "That's where the H'Harn fleet is lying. They've got some new form of radar-concealment." He went on to give every scrap his memory recalled, from the time his mind was twinned with V'ril's. "I don't know," he finished, "if even this will help you to pin them down, but at least it's something."
"I'll tell you, Gordon," said Zarth Arn, "we'll give it a damned good try!"
The contact was instantly broken.
So that was done. Everything was done that they could do. They looked at each other, not saying anything, and Gordon went over and took Lianna in his arms.
The uproar in the palace was louder and closer. They could hear doors being smashed in. There were screeching and yowling and barking voices, the flap of wings and the clatter of running hooves, always coming closer.
"It looks to me," said Shorr Kan, "as though we're getting near to all this heroic dying you've been dwelling on in such a morbid fashion." He shrugged. "Oh, well. At least Cyn Cryver got his. I could have forgiven the man his rascalities, but oh God, what a bore he was!"
Suddenly a new sound penetrated the palace. It was less a sound than a deep bass vibration, growing rapidly stronger, shaking the whole fabric of the great building, then passing overhead and away.
Shorr Kan's eyes flashed. "That was a heavy battle-cruiser! Now I wonder..."
A second mighty ship went over the palace, shaking it till it trembled, and then a third.
Then, upon the telestereo plate, there appeared the image of a man... an elderly man, hard-faced and cold-eyed, wearing on his cloak the flaring emblem of the Hercules Cluster.
"The Baron Zu Rizal speaking," he began, and then saw Lianna and said, "Highness, I rejoice that you are safe!"
Shorr Kan had instantly turned his back to the tele-stereo, an action that did not surprise Gordon in the least.
"We smashed the counts' fleet in the Austrinus Shoals," Zu Rizal was saying, "and we are now over Hathyr with our full forces and what is left of the Fomalhaut Navy. Your city is obviously occupied by Narath's hordes... shall we blast them?"
"No, wait," said Lianna. "Narath Teyn and Cyn Cryver are dead, and I think..."
Korkhann stepped forward and spoke to her in a low voice. She nodded, and then spoke again to Zu Rizal.
"With Narath dead, I think the horde will return to its own worlds, if they know that destruction is their alternative. Korkhann has said that he will offer them the terms."
"Very well," said Zu Rizal. "We will cruise on standby until further word from you."
The image disappeared, and only then did Shorr Kan turn around again.
A sudden silence had fallen on the palace. The great warships were still thundering by overhead, but the screech and yowl and crying of the horde had faded away. It seemed that the coming of the ships had sent them scurrying outside, as though they felt that the palace had become a possible trap. They wanted running room.
"I think," said Korkhann, "that they will listen to me, because I am not human either." He pointed to the communicator panel. "Get word to the officers of the counts' transports, to be ready to receive these peoples and take them back to the Marches."
He started away and then stopped for a moment and said, "One more thing, Highness. I regret to say that Abro was killed in the attack on the palace."
Gordon felt a sense of loss. Abro had disliked him thoroughly, but he had respected the man even so.
Hull Burrel remained with his ear to the instrument on whose wave-length he had communicated with the faraway Empire fleet His face was gray and lined with strain.
"Nothing yet," he said. "There may be nothing for a long time."
If ever, thought Gordon. The H'Harn were powerful. If they should strike first, from their refuge of invisibility, and destroy the ship that carried Zarth Arn and the Disrupter...
He forced himself not to think of that.
The hours went by, and the great ships thundered past above, and Gordon and Lianna and Hull Burrel waited. At one point, Gordon realized that Shorr Kan had quietly disappeared.
Long later, Gordon would learn the story of what happened beyond the rim of the galaxy. Of the Empire fleet, with Zarth Arn's flagship in its van, racing toward the Vela Spur. And of how Zarth Arn had unloosed the terrible force of the Disruptor, time after time, bra
cketing with cold precision an area of space where there was nothing to be seen, until the continuum itself was bent and twisted and torn and all the stars along the rim quaked in their orbits, and the force that had concealed the H'Harn fleet was shattered. And still the Disruptor struck its vast invisible bolt, now aimed unerringly at the fleeing ships, until the H'Harn fleet had vanished forever from the universe.
All Gordon knew now was that these were the longest hours of his life, until the shaken voice of Zarth Arn came through.
"It's done. The H'Harn are smashed, and what's left of them are in flight, back to the Lesser Magellanic."
For a moment, none of them could speak. Then Gordon, remembering the foulness of the life he had briefly fused with, muttered a heartfelt, "Thank God!"
"They will not come again." Zarth Arn's voice, thready with distance, held an iron resolve. "We shall gather a force from all the star-kingdoms, to go after them and smash them on every world where they rule."
He added, "Gordon?"
"Yes?"
"I know now what you meant when you told me how using the Disruptor shook you. I've known about the thing all my life, but I never used it till now. I hope I never have to again."
When the contact was broken, they looked at each other, too exhausted to drained of emotion to feel much of anything. The relief, the joy, the triumph... all that would come later. In the meantime, it was enough to be alive and know that hope lived too.
Lianna led the way out of the room, up the ways of the palace, all empty now.
They came out onto the great balcony and in their faces was the diamond flare of Fomalhaut, setting toward the horizon. Across the ravaged city its brilliant rays struck down into the streets, and everywhere the hordes were moving out, out across the plain to where the transports waited.
Down the great Avenue of the Kings, away from the palace, went a little troop of the Gerrn, not running now but walking slowly. They went apart from the others, as a guard of honor, and across the back of their giant leader lay the body of a man in glittering garments. Narath of Teyn was going home.
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