"No!" exclaimed Lianna angrily. "I will not leave here! Send them away..."
"Look out!" yelled Shorr Kan. "Those aren't your men!"
Gordon saw that the men who came pouring out of the open hatch wore, not the insignia of Fomalhaut but the rearing symbol of the Mace. They ran across the balcony toward the little group.
They had not drawn their weapons, apparently counting on sheer physical numbers to overwhelm the three. But Shorr Kan, dropping into a sort of gunman's crouch, drew and fired, cutting down the front rank of the attackers with exploding atom-pellets.
Gordon pulled out his own weapon, cursing the unfamiliarity of the thing as he tried to thumb off the safety. It went off in his hand. He saw that he had fired high and he triggered again more carefully and saw the pellets explode among the men of the Mace.
Those who survived kept right on coming. They were still not shooting, and it dawned on Gordon that Lianna was their target and they wanted to take no chance of killing her.
They came fast, reinforced by more men from the hover-car. They spread out in a ragged half-moon that closed rapidly into a circle, and they were so close now that neither Gordon nor Shorr Kan dared to shoot because the back-flare of the pellets would engulf them and Lianna also. Gordon shortened his grip on the weapon and used it as a club, flinging himself at the men and laying about him furiously, shouting all the while to Lianna to run back into the palace. He heard Shorr Kan roaring, "Guards! Guards!" But Shorr Kan was smothered under a press of bodies, roughed and battered, wrestled to the ground, and Gordon found himself going the same way; there were too many hands, too many boots and bony knees. He could not see whether Lianna had made her escape, but he did see that from the great hall inside the balcony a file of Lianna's guards were running desperately toward them.
The men who remained in the hover-car had no compunction at all about shooting the guards, since that did not endanger Lianna. They shot them with stunning efficiency, using heavy-caliber mounted guns that swiveled and poured crashing fire, powdering the men to nothing, along with spouting dust and powdered glass. It got quiet again, and then the whole scene spun slowly around Gordon and flowed away into darkness, accompanied by the ringing of his skull as something struck it, hammer-like.
He woke, lying on the balcony. His head no longer rang, but simply ached. Nearby he saw Shorr Kan standing. His face was bloody. The men wearing the Mace stood around them, grim and tense.
"Lianna!" muttered Gordon, and tried to sit up.
Shorr Kan jerked his head toward the inner hall, beyond the tumbled bodies of the guards. "There. Not hurt. But the palace is theirs. That car was only the first of a fleet tricked out with the sign of Fomalhaut." One of the men struck Shorr Kan across the face, bringing more blood. Shorr Kan forbore to wince, but he stopped talking. Gordon became aware now, as his senses cleared, of a vague, inarticulate roaring, like the beating of the sea upon rocky cliffs. Then, as he was jerked to his feet, he looked out over the low rail of the balcony and saw the source of the sound.
The city had fallen. Fires still rose redly from many points, but there was no more firing, no more sounds of battle. The whole area around the palace seemed filled with the nonhuman hordes... the Gerrn, the Qhallas, the Andaxi, all the grotesque, nightmarish mobs, capering in triumph smashing the gardens, howling, roaring, gesticulating.
But the loudest roar came from a solid, tremendous mass of creatures making its way down the Avenue of the Kings. They voiced their frantic joy in hissing, purring, squawking voices. And they looked ever at one human man who rode ahead of them upon the black-furred back of a giant Gerrn-Narath Teyn, with his handsome head held high as he rode to claim his kingship.
23
The big hall, the one that opened onto the balcony, was quiet. Gordon stood, with guards behind him, and Shorr Kan stood beside him. The men who wore the Mace stood also, their weapons prominently displayed.
But Narath sat, as befitted a king.
He sat very straight, and there was a dreaming smile on his face. His brown hair fell to his shoulders, and he wore a glittering, close-fitting garment, He looked royal, and he looked mad.
Lianna sat a little distance from him. There was no expression at all on her face, except when she looked at Gordon.
"Soon," said Narath gently. "We will not have to wait much longer, cousin, for the Count Cyn Cryver and the others."
And Gordon knew who "the others" would be, and the skin crawled between his shoulders.
From the open doors that gave onto the great balcony, threads of acrid smoke drifted into the room. There came also from outside a distant, confused sound of voices, but not the roaring clamor of before. The bodies had been cleared away, both Lianna's men and Narath's. And now Gordon heard the soft hum of a hover-car descending.
Then Cyn Cryver came.
His bold, arrogant face blazed with triumph as he looked at them. He looked longest at Shorr Kan.
"It's well," he said. "I was afraid they might have killed you. And we don't want you to die too soon."
Shorr Kan made a derisive sound. "Do you have to be so damned theatrical? That was the most boring thing about my stay with you, listening all the time to your meaty, crashing statements."
Cyn Cryver's smile became deadly, but he did not answer. Narath had risen to his feet and was speaking in his gentle voice, "You are welcome, my brother of the Marches. Very welcome. And where are our friends?"
"They are here," said Cyn Cryver. "They are coming." He looked at Lianna and his smile deepened. "You're looking well, Highness. Remarkably well, considering that your world is in our fist and your fleet is being hammered to pieces in the Shoals."
He did not, Gordon thought, seem to know yet about the Hercules barons. Not that the barons' coming would make any difference to them now...
Three shapes, robed and cowled, glided silently into the hall. The H'Harn had come.
It was curious, the different reactions to them, Gordon thought. Shorr Kan looked at them with frank open disgust. Lianna paled a little, and Gordon was pretty sure he himself did the same. Even Cyn Cryver seemed a trifle ill at ease.
But Narath Teyn bent toward the cowled figures with the same dreaming smile, and said, "You come in good time, brothers. I am to be crowned."
It was only then Gordon realized the depth of alienation in Narath's mind. He, whom the not-men worshipped, who greeted the Magellanians as brothers, was less human than anyone here.
The foremost of the H'Harn spoke in a sibilant whisper. "Not yet, Narath. There is something first to be done, and it is most urgent."
The H'Harn came, with its curiously limber, bobbing gait, to stand before Gordon. And it looked up at him from the darkness of its cowl.
"This man," it said, "possesses knowledge that we must have, at once."
"But my people are waiting," said Narath. "They must hear my cousin Lianna cede the throne to me, so that they can acclaim me king." He smiled at Lianna. "You will do that, cousin, of course. All must be right and fitting."
Cyn Cryver shook his head. "No, Narath, this must wait a little. V'ril is right. The H'Harn have helped us greatly, isn't that so? Now we must help them."
A bit sulkily, Narath sat down again. The H'Harn called V'ril continued to look up at Gordon, but Gordon could see nothing of the face that was hidden by the cowl and did not much want to see it. All he wanted was to be able to run away. With an effort he restrained himself from an hysterical attempt to do so.
"A while ago," said the H'Harn, "I went secretly to Throon in the ship of Jon Ollen, one of our allies. While I was there I probed the mind of one named Korkhann."
That was no news to Gordon, but it made him think of Korkhann for the first time since recovering consciousness. What had become of him? Dead? Probably... and probably Hull Burrel also, for they were not here.
"I learned," said the whispering voice, "that this man called John Gordon had in the past undergone a transfer of minds with Zarth Arn, so that for a time
he dwelt in Zarth Arn's body. And during that time he operated the Disruptor."
Here it came again, Gordon thought. The damned Disruptor and the secret of it that everyone thought he knew... the curse that had dogged him all through both his visits to this future time, and was now about to drag him to his death.
Or worse. The H'Harn moved closer to him, a swaying of gray cloth.
"I will now," it whispered, "probe this man for the secret of the Disruptor. Be silent, everyone."
Gordon, in the clutch of ultimate terror, still tried to turn his head and give Lianna a look of reassurance, to tell her that he could not give away something he did not possess. He never finished the movement.
A bolt of mental force hit him. Compared to the mental attack of the H'Harn in the ship, this was a thunderbolt compared to an electric spark. Gordon passed into the darkness between heartbeats.
When he recovered, he was lying on the floor. Looking up dazedly, he saw Lianna's horrified face. Narath, sitting near her, looked merely bored and impatient. But Cyn Cryver and the H'Harn called V'ril seemed to be arguing.
The voice of the H'Harn had risen to a high, whistling pitch. Never before in his brief contacts with the creatures had Gordon seen one display so intense a passion, "But," Cyn Cryver was saying, "it may be that he just doesn't know any more."
"He must know more!" raged V'ril. "He must, or he could not have operated the mightiest weapon in the universe. And I will tell you what I did learn from his mind. The main fleet of the Empire is outside the galaxy, searching for our fleet. Prince Zarth Arn is with them... and the Disruptor."
That seemed to stagger Cyn Cryver a little. Presently he said, "But you told me they could never locate your fleet..."
"They cannot," said the H'Harn. "But now they are forewarned, and when we attack Throon and the key worlds, then they will know where we are! And they may use the Disruptor, even though in doing so they sacrifice some of their people. So now it is more important than ever that we know the range and working principles of that weapon before we move!"
Narath stood up and said firmly, "I have had enough of this. Settle this matter later. My people are waiting out there to acclaim me king..."
V'ril's cowled head turned toward Narath. Narath went gray, and suddenly sat down and was silent.
"An expert telepath could have hidden the key knowledge deep in this man's mind," said V'ril, looking at Gordon. "So deeply, so subtly, that he would not be consciously aware of it even though he used the knowledge... so deeply that even a powerful mental probe would not reveal it. But there is one way to search it out."
Gordon, not understanding, saw that for the first time, when they heard this, the other two H'Harn moved and wavered and tittered a little, as though in sudden mirth. Somehow that mirthfulness chilled him with a horror deeper than anything before.
"The Fusion," whispered V'ril. "The merging of two minds, so that nothing in either mind can be hidden from the other when they are twinned. No mental trickery can hide a secret from that."
The creature hissed a command to the guards, "Force him to his knees."
The men grabbed Gordon's arms from behind and forced him down. From their quick breathing, Gordon thought that even though they were men of the Mace and allies of the H'Harn, they did not like this.
The robed creature now stood with his head a little higher than Gordon's.
Then V'ril began to unwind his robes, and they came away, and also there came away the cowl which was part of them, and the H'Harn stood naked.
Glistening, moist-looking, like a small skinned man with gray-green flesh, and a boneless fluidity in the arms and legs. The damp gristly flesh seemed to writhe and flow of its own accord. And the face...
Gordon wanted to shut his eyes but could not. The head was small and spheroid and the face was blank and most horrible in its blankness. A tiny mouth, nauseatingly pretty, two holes for breathing, and big eyes that were filmed over, dull, obscurely opalescent.
The blank face came toward Gordon, bending slightly. It was as though the H'Harn bent to kiss him, and that completed the horrifying abnormality of the moment. Gordon struggled, strained, but was held firmly. He heard Lianna cry out.
The eyes were close to his, the cool forehead touched his forehead.
Then the eyes that had become his whole visible universe seemed to change, the dull opalescence in them deepened into a glow. Brighter and brighter became the glow until it was as though he looked into a fiery nebula.
Gordon felt himself falling through.
24
He was John Gordon of old Earth.
He was also V'ril of Amamabarane.
He remembered all the details of Gordon's life, on Earth and then in this future universe.
But he also remembered every detail of his life as one of the people of Amamabarane, the great hive of stars which the humans called the Lesser Magellanic.
Utterly bewildering, was this double set of memories, to the part of him that was Gordon. But the part of him that was V'ril was accustomed to it.
The memories came easily. Memories of his native world deep in the star-cloud Amamabarane. The cherished planet where the mighty and all-conquering H'Harn had first evolved.
But they had not always been mighty. There had been a time when the H'Harn had been only one of many species, and by no means the cleverest or the strongest. There were other races which had used them contemptuously, had called them stupid, and weak.
But where are those races now? Gone, dead, wiped out by the little H'Harn... a great and satisfactory vengeance.
For the H'Harn had found that deep in their minds they had the seed of a power. A power of telepathic force, of mental compulsion. They had not understood it and they had used it at first in petty ways, to influence others stronger and quicker than themselves, to protect themselves from predators.
But in time, they realized that the power could achieve much more if they could strengthen it. There began a secret, earnest attempt to bring about that goal. Those of them who had more of the power were allowed to mate only with those of a similar grade. Time went by, and their power grew and grew, but they kept it secret from others.
Until they were sure.
And then a great day came. A day when the despised H'Harn revealed their mastery of mental compulsion, using it on those they hated. Breaking them, mastering them, driving them mad, hurting and hurting them until they died.
The triumph of the H'Harn, the golden legend of our race! How good it was to see them writhe and scream as they died!
Not all of them. Some were spared to be the servants of the H'Harn. And among these were the clever ones who had built cities and starships.
They were used now, these clever ones and their starships, to take the H'Harn to other worlds. And so began the glorious saga of H'Harn conquest, that did not stop until all the desirable worlds of Amamabarane were under the H'Harn yoke.
But there were still other worlds, far off, in the great galaxy which was like a continent of stars, to which Amamabarane was merely an off-shore island. There were countless worlds there, where countless peoples lived who did not serve the H'Harn. This was intolerable to contemplate, so vast had become the H'Harn appetite for power. So the preparations for conquest were begun.
The subject peoples of Amamabarane were forced by the H'Harn to labor until they died, preparing an armada of ships. And after a time, that armada departed, to bring many H'Harn to the galaxy which was to be taught to accept its masters.
But then... the one great catastrophe, the dark and ugly scar that marred the glory of H'Harn history. The peoples of that galaxy, with incredible impudence, resisted the H'Harn. And with a weapon that disrupted the space-time continuum itself, they annihilated the H'Harn armada.
That had been long ago, but no H'Harn had ever forgotten it. The wickedness of men who dared to resist the H'Harn, who dared even to destroy them, must be punished. The black scar of defeat must be healed with their blood.
> Through thousands on thousands of years, the subjects and servants of the H'Harn, in all Amamabarane, were driven to toil on this project. Their cleverest minds were set to devise new weapons, new ships of a swiftness hitherto unknown. But the project lagged. The servant peoples often preferred to die rather than to serve the H'Harn longer. They did not realize that they were mere tools which the masters used, and that it mattered not at all if the tool were broken.
But when thousands of years had passed, the time came when the H'Harn were ready again. Its mighty fleet of invasion had weapons and speeds and devices hitherto undreamed-of, including a shield of cunning force that hid the ships, and which no detection device could penetrate. Secret, unseen, the fleet approached the galaxy.
And secretly, unsuspected, it waited now outside the galaxy, beyond the end of what the humans called the Vela Spur. For the moment had not yet come.
Agents had gone ahead from Amamabarane, to foment war and trouble in the galaxy. War would bring the main forces of the Empire and the star-kings far from their capitals.
And when that happened, the H'Harn would strike.
Secret, unseen, unsuspected, their ships would land upon the greatest worlds of the star kings, upon Throon where the Disruptor was still kept against a day of adversity. Taken unaware and more or less defenseless, the people of Throon would fall an easy prey, and the Disruptor would be in the hands of the H'Harn. The Emperor could hardly use it in his own defense, since it would mean the destruction of Throon itself, with its sister planets and its sun.
Only now the picture had changed. This contemptible human had given a warning, and the Disruptor was in space, once more a threat of destruction to the H'Harn. It was vital to know the range and nature of the Disruptor's force, so that means could be found to neutralize or combat it.
But...
But...
Astonishment and anger and a sudden ripping apart of the mental fusion, and John Gordon, again quite alone within himself, looked dazedly into the raging eyes of the H'Harn.
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