"Possibly," said Shorr Kan, with a courtly wave of his hand. "But tell me, what the devil was it like, that past time you came from? I asked you that before, but then you were lying to me and I couldn't believe a word of it."
"To tell you the truth," said Gordon, "it's getting just a little vague in my own mind." He drank and considered. "There was a man named Keogh who told me that this future I had been in before was all a dream. I just hated the Earth as it was, he said, so I made up fantasies about star-kingdoms and great wars beyond the suns. Of course at that time we didn't have anything approaching star-flight, so it must have all seemed pretty wild to him."
"We have a name for people like that," said Shorr Kan. "Planet-huggers. Hang tight to your mother-world's apron strings, because if you get away from it you might find something awfully nasty and upsetting."
Gordon glanced forward again. "Right at this moment," he said, "I'm not so sure that people who take that view are so awfully wrong."
Seen past the dark, hunched silhouette of Hull Burrel, the scene in the viewplate had slowly changed.
The points of fire that were suns seemed to be closer together. It was as though the ship was moving toward a rampart of suns, and surely they were not going to try to go that way. Hull would surely change course soon.
But time went on and he did not. Gordon drank again. The mighty blazing rampart of suns seemed closer, and still Hull did not alter course. Gordon felt a growing impulse to go and pound on Hull's arm, to make him veer off, but he fought it down. He didn't know a bloody thing about piloting a starship, and they had put the ship and themselves into Hull's hands and there was nothing to do but wait.
Shorr Kan seemed to understand how he felt. He said, "Less drift between the suns. Their attraction tends to gather up a good bit of debris. That's why he's going that way."
"Thank you for reassuring the nervous novice," said Gordon. "It's good of you."
Shorr Kan smiled. "I'm an awfully sympathetic person. Have another."
They sat, and drank, and Gordon tried not to look at the viewplate again or listen to the computers clacking. Time seemed to run on forever and it was almost a painful shock of change when the viewplate showed that they were out of the star-swarm and into the dark, clear deeps of open space.
Hull Burrel's great paw slammed down on the automatic pilot control. The big Antarian turned to them and for the first time in that flight they saw his face.
It was wild, exalted, and his voice came to them as a kind of hoarse triumphant shout.
"By God, I did it! I ran the Broken Stars!"
And then, as he looked at them, sitting with the nearly-emptied flasks in their hands, the wildness and excitement left him. He came back and stood over them, towering.
"I'll be everlastingly damned." he said. "While I did it, you two have been sitting here and drinking your heads off!"
Shorr Kan answered calmly, "You asked us not to bother you. Well, have we?"
Hull's craggy face turned scarlet. His chest heaved, and then he roared with laughter.
"Now," he said, "now I've seen everything. Get me one of those flasks. I think I want to get a little drunk myself."
They were out of the Marches, and the pure white fire of Fomalhaut gleamed like a beacon ahead.
It was many hours before Hull Burrel came back to the bridge, stretching and yawning. He started laughing again as he looked at Gordon and Shorr Kan.
"Through the Broken Stars with two topers," he said and shook his head. "Nobody will ever believe it."
"The whole fleet of Fomalhaut is on alert," he told them. "We're to land at the royal port on Hathyr."
"Any message for me?" asked Gordon.
The Antarian shook his head.
So that, Gordon thought, was that.
The radar screen showed ships far out from Fomalhaut cruising in stand-by formation.
"It's a good fleet," muttered Hull. "It's awfully good, and proved it in the fight off Deneb. But it's not very big, and the counts will eat it up."
The diamond sun swept toward them, and then the growing sphere of its largest planet. Hull brought the ship down over the far-spread towers of Hathyr City, toward the vast hexagonal mass of the royal palace. They landed in the small port behind it.
It seemed very strange to Gordon to step out and breathe natural air again, and look at a sun without a filter window in between.
A party of officers awaited them. They bowed and escorted them toward the huge bulk of the palace. Others boarded the cruiser to take charge of Obd Doll and his crew.
The old kings of Fomalhaut coldly looked down once more at Gordon, and this time he felt like snarling up at them.
"I know my place now," he wanted to tell them. "So the hell with you!"
But Shorr Kan strode along with a approving smile on his dark face, as though he were a visiting royalty who found the palace small but rather nice.
Despite his despair, Gordon had cherished a little hope. He did not know he had until suddenly it died, and that was when they three came into a small room where Lianna and Korkhann waited for them.
She was as beautiful as ever and her face was cold and hard as marble when she looked at him.
He started to say something, but before he could speak Lianna had looked beyond him and her eyes went wide with shock.
"Shorr Kan!"
Shorr Kan bowed magnificently to her. "Highness," he said, "it gladdens me to see you again. True, you and I have had a few small bothers and fusses, but that's all in the past, and I can say that it's forgotten now."
Lianna stared at him, absolutely stunned. Gordon felt an unwilling but tremendous admiration for Shorr Kan at that moment. Raise up the armadas of the League of the Dark Worlds, smite the Empire and its allies, bring about an Armageddon of the whole galaxy, and then dismiss it all lightly as a few small bothers and fusses!
"I have to state," Gordon said, "that Shorr Kan... who, as you can see, did not die at Thallarna but escaped to the Marches... was the one who rescued us and enabled us to give warning of the counts' coming attack."
He added forcefully, "I have promised Shorr Kan, because we owe him our lives, that he is safe here."
She looked at him, quite without expression. Then she said tonelessly, "If that is so, you are welcome, Shorr Kan, as our guest."
"Ah, a return of hospitality," said Shorr Kan. "It was not so long ago that you were my guest at Thallarna, Highness."
This grandly-spoken reference to the time when Gordon and Lianna had been Shorr Kan's prisoners brought a cough from Hull Burrel, who sounded as though he were choking on suppressed laughter.
Lianna turned to him. "Captain Burrel, we have been in touch with Throon. Jhal Arn has told me that elements of the Empire fleet are already on their way here."
Hull shook his head. "I'm afraid that will do no good, Highness. The counts and Narath Teyn will know that they must strike at once."
All this time Korkhann had said nothing, peering at Gordon with those wise yellow eyes that seemed to pierce straight through to the brain. Now he stepped forward, feathers rustling as his wings swept up and the delicate clawed hands at their tips caught Gordon's arm.
"But the Magellanians?" he cried.
"The H'Harn?" said Gordon startled.
"Is that what they call themselves?" Korkhann had an intensity about him that Gordon have never seen before. "Listen, John Gordon. Before I left Throon, the emperor and his brother, Zarth Arn, let me read the old records of Brenn Bir's time, when the Magellanians came to this galaxy before. They must not come again. What I read..."
He stopped, his voice quavering out into silence. When he spoke again, it was in a low, carefully controlled tone.
"You know that I am a telepath. Not one of the strongest ones, but... I have felt a shadow over the galaxy... a shadow that deepens with each hour, dark, cold...."