Shorr Kan said, "I've considered that. I think we had better reconnoiter, and I think we had better be blasted careful about how we show ourselves." He pointed. "The town was off there somewhere."
They started along the edge of the forest, keeping a little way back within the trees for cover. The green plain out beyond them remained empty, rolling away to the horizon. There were a few odd birds and small animals in the forest, making small sounds, and the wind rustled the trees in a familiar way. But there was a quietness here that Gordon did not like. He handed the charge-chamber back to Hull.
"Put it back in the stunner," he said. "It isn't much, but it's something."
"What I don't understand," Hull said, while he did that, "is the why of it. Why did the H'Harn direct us into his ship by mental influence and then take us back with it to the Magellanic Clouds? What use would we be to it?"
"You and I would be no use at all," said Short Kan. "It dawns on me that the thing didn't just want a copilot. I think it wanted Gordon."
"Good Lord," said Gordon, and stared at him. In the stress of the moment he had not thought that far, but he knew what Shorr Kan was driving at. He broke out in a cold sweat. "But how would it... of course, it's attention was aroused when we killed the other H'Harn and started to escape. It would undoubtedly have probed our minds then, even though we were not conscious of it. That's how it came to be hidden in the ship."
"So... it probed your mind," said Hull. "What is there about you that would make it want you so badly?"
Shorr Kan smiled ironically. "Tell him, Gordon."
"Look, Hull," Gordon said. "You learned about me so recently, at Throon, that you haven't yet realized the implications of what you learned. The Emperor himself told you how I... that is to say, my mind... was in possession of the body of Prince Zarth Arn at the time of the star-king's great war against the League."
Hull said irritably, "I'm not likely to forget that. How it was really you who led the Empire fleet, and used the..."
He stopped abruptly. His mouth was still open and he forgot to close it.
"Exactly," said Gordon. "It was I, and not Zarth Arn, who used the Empire's secret weapon, the Disruptor."
"The Disruptor," said Shorr Kan, sharpening the point, "which was used by the Empire thousands of years ago, to repel the H'Harn when they first tried to invade this galaxy."
Hull closed his mouth and opened his eyes wider, looking at Gordon. "Well, of course. If the H'Harn could get their hands... or whatever they use in place of them... on anyone who knows the secret of the Disruptor, which only the Empire's royal family are supposed to know, they'd be awfully happy. Yes, I see. But..."
"I suggest," said Shorr Kan, "that you defer further discussion and take a look out there."
The edge of his voice cut them silent. They peered out of the trees at the great plain.
Miles out from the forest, and far away to their left, a group of specks moved across the surface of the plain. At first Gordon thought they were running game animals. But there was something wrong about their gait and pace and the way that they rose and fell a little above the ground.
The group swept along, not coming any nearer to the forest but heading in a straight line in the direction that Gordon thought of as north. As they passed by, he could see them more clearly. And he did not like what he saw.
The creatures were neither running nor flying, but doing a little of both. They were stubby-winged avian bipeds, much bigger than Korkhann's people, and lacking the civilized amenity of feathers. They had remained closer to the reptile; the equivalent, say, of the pterodactyl. Wings and body were leathery smooth, a gray or tan in color, and their heads were hideously quasi-human, with bulging skulls above long cruel beaks that seemed to have teeth in them. As with Korkhann's folk, the wings served also as arms, with powerful clawed hands.
Gordon got the impression that those hands were carrying weapons.
15
The yellow sunshine poured down, and a little breeze ruffled the green foliage of the trees around them, and it was all so much like a June day on Earth that Gordon could hardly believe he stood upon the planet of a distant star.
That was what made the winged bipeds out there so frightening. It was like encountering these grotesqueries in Ohio or Iowa.
"They're Qhallas," said Shorr Kan. "When Naath Teyn came to Aar to confer with Cyn Cryver, he brought a motley lot of his nonhumans along... and there were two of these brutes among them."
The men crouched and watched. The nightmarish group went on, looking neither right nor left, heading straight north. They became distant dots and vanished.
Shorr Kan shaded his eyes squinting. "There... in the distance," he said.
They could just see another group of flying, racing specks. They too were heading north.
In the same direction the men were taking. Not, Gordon thought, a comforting idea.
"At any rate," Shorr Kan said, "it confirms my belief that I saw a town of some kind. Probably a landing field there as well." He frowned, his eyes abstracted but very keen. "I think there'll be some of the count's ships arriving here soon, and the Qhallas are going to meet them. I think that this is part of the gathering of Narath's inhuman clans."
Something tightened painfully in Gordon's belly. "Gathering... for what?"
"For the long-planned attack," said Shorr Kan quietly, "by the counts of the Marches and Narath's hordes, on Fomalhaut."
Gordon sprang to his feet. He set his hands around Shorr Kan's neck. He was shaking, and his eyes were ferocious.
"Attack on Fomalhaut? You knew this and you didn't tell me?"
Shorr Kan's face remained calm. So did his voice, though it was difficult enough to get it out from between Gordon's throttling hands.
"Has there been one minute since I helped you escape from Aar when we didn't have all the trouble we could handle without borrowing more?"
His gaze met Gordon's steadily, and Gordon let go. But he remained tense, gripped by a terrible fear. And with the fear came an overpowering sense of guilt. He should never have left Fomalhaut, and the Princess Lianna.
He had known, from the time when Narath trapped them on Teyn, that this attack was inevitable. He should have stayed by her, to do what he could. She had reproached him once that he loved adventure more than he did her, and had been angry with her. But perhaps she had told the truth.
"How soon?" he asked. His voice was unsteady, so that he scarcely recognized it. He was aware that Hull was talking also, and that he looked agitated, but he could not spare attention for anything but Shorr Kan's answer.
And Shorr Kan shrugged. "As soon as the combined forces are ready... whenever that may be. Cyn Cryver didn't tell me all his plans. But the ships of the counts will go as a fighting escort for transports carrying the hordes of Narath Teyn."
"I see," said Gordon, and clenched his hands hard and forced himself to think. Panic now was not going to help either Lianna or himself. "What part are the H'Harn going to play in this?"
Shorr Kan shook his head. "I can't answer that. Cyn Cryver was very secretive about his relations with the H'Harn." He paused, and then said soberly, "My own feeling is that the H'Harn are using Cyn Cryver and all the others as cats'-paws, in some fashion. As, of course, I had planned to do myself."
"Have you ever played straight with anyone in your whole life?" demanded Hull Burrel.
Shorr Kan nodded. "Oh, yes. Often. In fact, I never use deceit unless there's something to be gained by it."
Hull made a sound of disgust. Gordon hardly heard them. He was walking back and forth, his mind whirling.
"We've got to get back to Fomalhaut," he said.