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.
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.
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.
'It is true,' hissed V'ril. 'This man used the Disruptor without knowing anything of its nature. It is incredible...'
Into Gordon's whirling mind came a remembrance of a time when Shorr Kan had said contemptuously that the H'Harn, for all their powers, were stupid.
He knew now, from sharing the mind of a H'Harn, that it was true. The race that sought to conquer galaxies was a low, stupid, detestable species which in the ordinary course of events would have come to nothing. But the possession of one key power, the telepathic power of mental probing, mental compulsion, had given these creatures dominance over races far superior to them.
Gordon had always feared the H'Harn. He began now to hate them with a bitter hatred. They were leechlike,
