Gordon started, and was aware that Lianna had turned to look at him. He felt his face turn hot, and he said with unnecessary sharpness, "Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Forgive me," Korkhann said. "You have been most studiously polite, and I don't wish to insult you, especially as I understand that yours is a purely instinctive reaction."
"Korkhann is a telepath," said Lianna. She added, "Quite a lot of the nonhumans are, so if what he says is true, John Gordon, you had better conquer that instinct."
"You see," said Korkhann, "well over half the worlds of our kingdom are nonhuman." His quick clawed fingers pointed them out-the tiny solar-systems with their motelike planets. "On the other hand, the uninhabited worlds that were colonized by your people, here and here..." Again the long finger flicked. "These are the planets with the heavy populations, so that humans outnumbered nonhumans by about two-thirds. You know that the princess rules with the aid of a council, which is divided into two chambers, with representation in one based upon planetary units, and in the other on population..."
Gordon was beginning to get part of the picture. "So one chamber of the council would always be dominated by one group."
"Exactly," Korkhann said. "Therefore, the opinion of the ruler is often the deciding one. You can see that because of this, the sympathies of the ruler are of more than ordinary importance in Fomalhaut Kingdom."
"There was never any real difficulty until about two years ago," Lianna said. "Then a campaign began to make the nonhumans believe that the humans were their enemies, that I in particular hated them and was hatching all sorts of plots. Complete nonsense, but among nonhumans as well as among humans there are always those who will listen."
"Gradually," Korkhann said, "a pattern emerged. A certain group among the nonhuman populations aspires to take over the rule of Fomalhaut Kingdom, and as a first step they must replace Lianna with a ruler more to their liking."
"Narath Teyn?"
"Yes," said Korkhann, "and I will answer your unspoken question also, John Gordon. No, Lianna, it is a fair question and I wish to answer it." The bright yellow eyes met Gordon's squarely. "You wonder why I support the human cause against my own kind. The answer is quite simple. It is because in this case the human cause is the just one. The group behind Narath Teyn talk very eloquently of justice, but they think only of power. And somewhere in all this there is something hidden, an evil which I do not understand but which frightens me nevertheless."
He shrugged, rippling the gray shoulder-plumes. "Beyond all that, Narath Teyn is..."
He stopped as someone rapped sharply on the door.
Lianna said, "Enter."
A junior officer entered and stood at rigid attention. "Highness," he said, "Captain Harn Horva respectfully requests your presence on the bridge, at once." His eyes flicked to Korkhann. "You too, sir, if you please."
Gordon felt the small shock of alarm in the air.
Only an emergency of considerable importance would bring such a request from the captain. Lianna nodded.
"Of course," she said, and turned to Gordon. "Come with us."
The young officer led the way. They followed him down narrow gleaming corridors and up a steep companionway to the ship's control-center, still archaically called "the bridge."
Aft was a long curving bulkhead filled with the massed panels of the computer banks, the guidance systems, the controls that governed velocity, mass, and the accumulator banks. Here under the steel floorplates the throbbing of the generators was as close and intimate as the pulsing of one's own blood. Forward a series of screens gave visual and radar images of space along a 180-degree perimeter, and at one side was the stereo-communicator. As they entered the bridge Gordon was aware of the complete silence, broken only by the electronic purlings and hummings of the equipment. The technicians all appeared to be holding their breath, their attention fixed half on their instruments and half on the taut little group around the radar screens, the captain, first and second officers, and radar men.
Harn Horva, a tall vigorous gray-haired man with very keen eyes and a strong jaw, turned to greet them. "Highness," he said. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but it is necessary."
To Gordon's untutored eye the screens showed nothing but a meaningless speckle of blips. He turned his attention instead to the visual screens.
The cruiser was approaching an area of cosmic drift. Gordon saw it first as a sort of tenuous dark cloud occluding the stars beyond it. Then as he looked he began to see its individual components, bits and pieces of interstellar wrack gleaming faintly in the light of far-off suns. Rocks as big as worlds, rocks as small as houses, and every size in-between, embedded in a tattered stream of dust that stretched for a parsec or two across the void. It was still a long way off. The cruiser would pass it on her port beam, with distance to spare. Nothing else showed. He could not understand what the excitement was about.
Harn Horva was busy explaining to Lianna.
"Our regular radar is picking up only the normal blips associated with drift. But the hot-spot scanners are getting some high-energy emissions that are not all typical of drift." His face was grim, his voice driving on to a harsh conclusion. "I'm afraid we'll have to assume that there are ships lying up in there, using the drift as a screen."
"Ambush?" asked Lianna, her own voice perfectly steady. And Gordon's heart jumped and began to pound. "I don't see how that could be possible, Captain. I know that you've been following the tactical evasion course required by security regulations, which means that you yourself have been improvising the coordinates at random intervals. How could anyone plan an ambush without knowing our course?"
"I could postulate a traitor," said Harn Horva, "but I think it highly unlikely. I would guess instead that telepaths are being used." His voice became even harsher. "Narath Teyn has the pick of them on his side."
He turned to Korkhann. "Sir, I would appreciate your assistance."
"You wish to know if there are indeed ships there," Korkhann said, and nodded. "As you say, Narath Teyn has the pick, and my race is not among them. Still, I'll do my best."
He moved a little apart and stood quietly, his yellow eyes going strange and unfocused. Everyone was silent, waiting. The generators throbbed and thundered.
Vagrant blips sparked and were gone on the hot-spot screens. Gordon's mouth was dry and his chest felt tight, and the rest of him was sweating.
At last Korkhann said, "There are ships. Narath Teyn's."
"What else?" asked Lianna. "What did you hear?"
"Minds. Human, nonhuman, a babble of minds on the edge of battle." His slim clawed fingers opened in a gesture of frustration. "I could not read them clearly, but I think... I think. Highness, they are waiting not to capture, but to kill."
4
Instantly there was an outcry in the bridge room, of anger and shock. Harn Horva quelled it with one sharp order.
"Quiet! We have no time for that." He turned again to the screens and studied them, his body taut as a drawn bow. Gordon looked at Lianna. Whatever she felt inside, she was showing nothing to the men but cool self-possession. Gordon began really to be afraid.
"Can't you message Fomalhaut for help?" he asked.
"Too far away. They couldn't possibly get here in time, and in any case our friends ahead there in the drift would attack instantly if they intercepted such a message. Which of course they would."
Harn Horva straightened, the lines deep at the corners of his mouth. "I believe our only hope is to turn and run for it. With your permission, Highness..."