Return to the Stars

told the truth.'

'When does the fleet leave Teyn?' Gordon asked.

'Obd Doll couldn't narrow that down too definitely. He said it would depend on when the last contingents of nonhumans came in... and they've been coming in, from all over the Marches, in answer to Narath Teyn's summons.'

The words evoked in Gordon's mind a swift, ominous vision... of those alien hordes from worlds that had no human tradition at all, the scaled ones, the winged ones, the hairy ones, streaming through the Marches to foregather for an assault on a great star-kingdom. Yes, they would come at the call of Narath Teyn. Narath was mad. Gordon was sure of that. But there was some quality in him that had made him a leader of not-men such as the galaxy had never seen before.

'But from what Obd Doll told me of the forces that have already gathered,' Shorr Kan was saying, 'I'd hazard a guess that they'll leave Teyn very soon, probably in the next few days, on their way to Fomalhaut.'

'What about the H'Harn,' asked Hull Burrel. 'Where do they come into this?'

Shorr Kan shook his head. 'Obd Doll swears he doesn't know. The H'Harn have no fleet in this galaxy. He says that only Cyn Cryver and one or two others know what part, if any, the H'Harn will play.'

Gordon, desperate and tense, tried to clear his mind of emotion and think calmly.

'Hull, will the communication equipment of this ship reach as far as Fomalhaut?' he asked.

Hull Burrel went into the little communications room behind the bridge. After a few minutes he came out again.

'It'll reach, but the power is so limited it would have to be audio only, not telestereo.'

Shorr Kan said sharply, 'You're planning to warn Fomalhaut by communicator?'

'Of course,' said Gordon. 'You must see it yourself... the time element, and the very strong possibility that we won't make it to Fomalhaut.'

'Before you leap to the transmitter, think of this. Teyn and the Count's fleet are between us and Fomalhaut. They will be bound to pick up our transmission. They'll have fast cruisers after us at once...'

Gordon made a brusque gesture. 'We'll just have to take our chances. Fomalhaut has got to be warned.'

'You didn't let me finish,' said Shorr Kan. 'The counts are liable to hit Fomalhaut right away, before any strong defenses can be organized. In their position, that is what I would do.'

Gordon had not thought of that possibility. He was racked by doubt.

Hull said, 'I'm with Gordon. Warn them, and gamble. The counts, praise be, have neither your guts nor your gall.'

'I am touched,' said Shorr Kan softly. 'But what about us?'

'Take your chances, as Gordon said.'

'What chances? They'll have us cut off within minutes after they pick up our transmission.'

'I have an idea about that,' said Hull.

He touched a control. On the big chartplate a sectional chart of the whole region of the Marches slid into view.

'All right,' said Shorr Kan. 'Look here.'

Even Gordon, unused to reading the charts, could see when Shorr Kan pointed out their relative position that they could hardly hope to get past the fleet at Teyn once it was alerted. Not even by a miracle.

But Hull put his finger on a massive swarm of red flecks-a great reef, as it were, marked in the color of danger. The reef lay equally between them and Fomalhaut, one curving wing of it reaching out almost to Teyn.

'We could take a short-cut,' Hull said, 'through here.'

Shorr Kan stared at him astonished. 'Through the Broken Stars?' Then he uttered a short laugh. 'I revise my opinion of you, Hull.'

'What,' asked Gordon, 'are the Broken Stars?'

Hull said, 'Did you ever stop to think why the Marches of Outer Space are such a mess of debris?'

'I haven't had very much time to consider cosmic origins.'

'The scientists tell us,' said the Antarian, 'that long ago two fairly large star-clusters were on a collision course. When they met, of course the looser parts of the swarms simply went through each other with only a minimum of actual hits. But even those few were enough to strew debris all along the Marches.

'However, in each cluster there was a much tighter, denser core of stars, and those high-density cores collided. The result was terrific. Stars tore each other up in such a high incidence of collisions that they formed a spinning mess of half-stars, bits of stars, shattered planets, whole planets... you name it. Scarcely anyone ever risks going into that jungle, but at least two scientific survey ships have in the past crossed through it. If they had a chance, so do we.' As a sort of afterthought he added, 'I don't have to tell you how thin it is.'

Gordon said, 'Take it.'

'Do I have a vote?' asked Shorr Kan.

With one voice, Hull and Gordon answered, 'No.'

Shorr Kan shrugged.

Gordon said to the Antarian, 'When you send your message, tell Fomalhaut what we know about the counts and the impending attack, but don't mention Shorr Kan. They'd never believe that story, and they might put the whole warning down as a fake.'

Hull nodded. 'Since you're persona grata at the court of Fomalhaut, I'll send it in your name. Have you any recognition signal, so they can be sure it's you?'

Gordon thought. 'Tell them it's from the man who once called Korkhann, their Minister of Nonhuman Affairs, an overgrown mynah bird. Korkhann will know.'

The little dispatch cruiser crawled on the chart until it was close to that ominous reef of red dots. Only then did Hull Burrel send his message.

That done, they plunged headlong into the Broken Stars.

18

The place was like a star-captain's nightmare.

To the eye, the Broken Stars would have seemed only a region where the points of starry light were somewhat denser, through which the small ship seemed to creep.

But the radar and sensor instruments saw it differently. They saw a region where the debris of shattered suns, long, cool, and dark, whirled in small ovaloids, in spinning little maelstroms, in cones and disks and nests of wreckage. Splintered stones and dust that had once been planets lay in drifts. And the many surviving suns of the wrecked star-clusters flared out fiercely as background.

The computers that took the radar impulses and directed the cruiser's flight along the chosen course were clacking like the chattering teeth of hysterical old women. Hull Burrel, hunched over the board, listened to that uproar and watched the rapidly changing symbols, only occasionally reaching out his hand to give the computers a new course. But when he did so, it was done with all the speed of which he was capable.

Gordon and Shorr Kan, standing behind him, looked at the viewplate which showed only the swarming points of light through which they seemed barely to move. They looked then at the flashing radar screen, and were awed.

'I was in Orion Nebula once, but that was child's play compared to this,' said Gordon. 'Have we got a chance at all?'

'We have,' said Hull, 'if we don't run into a bit of it too complicated for the radar to sense in time. But I'll tell you how you can improve our chances about a hundred percent.'

'How?'

'By getting off my neck!' Hull roared, without turning. 'Go and sit down. I can fly this damned suicide mission better without jawbone help.'

'He's right,' said Shorr Kan, and nodded to Gordon. They drew back. 'There's nothing you and I can do now... but wait! Yes, there is one thing we can do. Back in a minute.'

He went aft. Gordon sat down wearily in one of the chairs at the rear of the bridge that were intended for