The Star Kings

'Run away and let them think I murdered Arn Abbas?' cried Gordon. 'No! We're going back to the palace at once!'

Lianna, her face pale, swiftly supported him. 'You must return. Arn Abbas' murder will shake the whole Empire!'

Gordon had turned with her to start back down the gangway. But Them Eldred, his green face wearing a hard, taut expression, suddenly whipped out and extended a little glass weapon.

It was a short glass rod on whose end was mounted a glass crescent that had two metal tips. He darted it toward Gordon's face.

'Zarth, it's a paralyzer. Look out!' cried Lianna, who recognized the menace of the weapon where Gordon did not.[6]

The tips of the glass crescent touched Gordon's chin. Lightning seemed to crash through his brain with a paralyzing shock.

He felt himself falling, every muscle frozen, consciousness leaving him. He had a dim sensation of Lianna's voice, of her staggering against him.

There was only darkness in Gordon's mind then. In that darkness he seemed to float for ages before finally light began to dawn.

He became aware that his body was tingling painfully with returning life. He was lying on a hard, flat surface. There was a steady, loud droning sound in his ears.

Gordon painfully opened his eyes. He lay on a bunk in a little metal cabin, a tiny lighted room with little furniture.

Lianna, her face colorless and her eyes closed, lay in another bunk. There was a little porthole window from which he saw a sky of blazing stars. Then Gordon recognized the droning sound as the throb of a star-ship's powerful atomic turbines and drive-generators.

'Good God, we're in space!' he thought. 'Them Eldred stunned us and brought us-'

They were in the Markab, and from the high drone of its drive the light cruiser was hurtling through the galactic void at its utmost speed.

Lianna was stirring. Gordon stumbled to his feet and went to her side. He chafed her wrists and face till her eyes opened.

The girl instantly became aware of their situation, with her first glance. Remembrance came back to her.

'Your father murdered!' she cried to Gordon. 'And they think you did it, back at Throon!'

Gordon nodded sickly. 'We've got to go back. We've got to make Them Eldred take us back.'

Gordon stumbled to the door of the cabin. It would not slide open when he tried it. They were locked in.

Lianna's voice turned him around. The girl was at the porthole, looking out. She turned a very pale face.

'Zarth, come here!'

He went to her side. Their cabin was near the bows of the cruiser, and the curve of the wall allowed them to look almost straight forward into the vault of stars into which the Markab was racing.

'They're not taking us toward Fomalhaut Kingdom!' Lianna exclaimed. 'Them Eldred has betrayed us!'

Gordon stared into the blazing jungle of stars that spread across the sky ahead.

'What's the meaning of this? Where is Them Eldred taking us?' Gordon asked.

'Look to the west of Orion Nebula, in the distance ahead of us!' Lianna exclaimed.

Gordon looked as she pointed through the round window.[7] He saw, far away in the starry wilderness ahead of their racing ship, a black little blot in the heavens. A dark, brooding blotch that seemed to have devoured a section of the starry firmament.

He knew instantly what it was. The Cloud! The distant, mysterious realm of semi-darkness within which lay the stars and planets of that League of the Dark Worlds of which Shorr Kan was master, and that was hatching war and conquest for the rest of the galaxy.

'They're taking us to the Cloud!' Lianna cried. 'Zarth, this is Shorr Kan's plot!'

11: Galactic Plot

The truth flashed over Gordon's mind. All that had happened to him since he had taken up the impersonation of Zarth Arn had been instigated by the cunning scheming of that master plotter who ruled the Cloud.

Shorr Kan's plots had reached out to involve him in gathering conflict between the giant galactic confederations, through many secret agents. And one of those agents of the powerful master of the Dark Worlds must be Them Eldred!

'By Heaven, I see it now!' Gordon exclaimed, to the stunned girl. 'Them Eldred is working for the Cloud, and has betrayed Commander Corbulo!'

'But why should they do this, Zarth? Why implicate you in the murder of your own father?'

'To compromise me hopelessly so that I can't return to Throon!' gritted Gordon.

Lianna had paled slightly. She looked up at him steadily, though.

'What is going to happen to us in the Cloud, Zarth?' she asked.

Gordon felt an agony of apprehension for her. It was his fault that she was in this deadly danger. She had been trying to help him, and had incurred this peril.

'Lianna, I knew you shouldn't have come with me! If anything happens to you-'

He stopped and swung around, as the door slid open. Them Eldred stood there.

At sight of the tall Sirian standing and regarding them with a cynical smile on his pale green face, Gordon started forward in an access of hot rage.

Them Eldred quickly drew one of the little glass weapons from his jacket.

'Please note this paralyzer in my hand,' he advised dryly. 'Unless you want to spend more time unconscious, you'll restrain yourself.'

'You traitor!' raged Gordon. 'You've betrayed your uniform, your Empire!'

Them Eldred nodded calmly. 'I've been one of Shorr Kan's most trusted agents for years. I expect to receive his warmest commendations when we reach Thallarna.'

'Thallarna? The mysterious capital of the League?' said Lianna. 'Then we are going to the Cloud?'

The Sirian nodded again. 'We'll reach it in four days. Luckily, knowing the patrol-schedules of the Empire fleet as I do, I am able to follow a course that will prevent unpleasant encounters.'

'Then Arn Abbas was murdered by you League spies!' Gordon accused harshly. 'You knew it was going to happen! That's why you were in such a hurry to get us away!'

The Sirian smiled coolly. 'Of course. I was working on a schedule of split-seconds. It had to look as though you had murdered your father and then fled. We just pulled it off.'

Gordon raged. 'By heaven, you're not to the Cloud yet! Corbulo knows I didn't commit that murder! He'll put two and two together and be out to track you down!'

Them Eldred stared at him, then threw back his head in a roar of laughter. He laughed until he had to wipe his eyes.

'Your pardon, Prince Zarth, but that's the funniest thing you've said yet!' he chuckled. 'Corbulo after me? Why, haven't you guessed yet that Corbulo himself planned this whole thing?'

'You're mad!' Gordon exclaimed. 'Corbulo is the most trusted official in the Empire!'

Them Eldred nodded. 'Yes, but only an official, only Commander of the fleet. And he has ambitions beyond that post, has had them a long time. For the last few years, he and a score of others of us officers have been working secretly for Shorr Kan.'

The Sirian's eyes gleamed. 'Shorr Kan has promised that when the Empire is shattered, we shall each of us have a star-kingdom of our own to rule. And Corbulo is to have the biggest.'

Gordon's angry incredulity somehow faded a little, before the ring of truth in the Sirian's voice.

Horrified, Gordon realized that it might be true! Chan Corbulo, Commander of the Empire's great navy, might be a secret traitor for all he knew.