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 oninto 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
'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.
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.
