Return to the Stars

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