Almost childishly, Roas Rui laughed the high-pitched whine of the Shaarn. His excitement mounted as he directed his. two pilots to prepare for descent on to the planet's surface.
'Prepare defence screens.' He sent out the traditional commands as a matter of course. Some of his orders were obeyed by the control operators before he even thought of them. 'Switch to gravity-resisters.' Machines moaned delicately throughout the huge bulk of the starship. 'Descend to two thousand feet.'
The Vondel plunged through the atmosphere of the new planet and hovered two thousand feet above its surface. Now the screens showed a vast landscape of forest land comprised predominantly of waving indigo fronds which stretched like, a sea in all directions, broken occasionally by clumps of taller vegetation coloured in varying shades of blue. It was beautiful. Roas Rui's long body shook with emotion as he beheld it. To the Shaarn all new planets were beautiful.
'Begin testing,' he said.
The computers began their intricate job of classifying all the components of the planet. At the same time, the sorcerers began to put themselves swiftly into trance-state, seeking to discover intelligent life of any kind, whether natural or supernatural, and also its attitude or potential attitude to the Exploratory Division.
The findings of computers and sorcerers were relayed instantly to Roas Rui, himself now in semi-trance. Both parts of his brain received the information and assembled it into an ever-increasing, detailed picture of the newly discovered planet.
Woui Nas:
I have found a mind. Bewildered. Uncertain. Passive. More minds. As before. New! Mind. High intelligence. Anger. Controlled. Urge to destroy very strong: directed at (possible) Rulers or Representatives. New! Mind. Low IQ. Misery. Bewildered. Passive. New! Something bad. Very bad. Evil here, but am finding resistance to probes.
Pause…
Power. Evil. Great resistance to probes. Am formed to fight or retreat. Require orders!
Pause…
Repeat. Require orders!
Roas Rui beamed a message to the controllers to continue recording the data and concentrated all his attention on making a full link with Woui Nas, who had 'pathed the urgent request.
'I am with you now, Woui Nas. Can you bring me in?'
'Unprecedented reaction, captain. Please absorb.'
Roas Rui could sense the frightened amazement of Woui Nas as he submerged himself in the other's mind and allowed the old sorcerer to guide him outwards towards the source of the emanations. Almost instantaneously, he felt the aura of disgusting malevolence, coupled with an intelligence more powerful than his own. Roas Rui was one of the most intelligent members of his race - his capacity for absorbing and relating knowledge was tremendous - but he had found more than his match in the mind which now sensed the presence of his own.
Roas Rui, under the direction of Woui Nas, probed further into the mind which he had contacted. He probed while his senses shrieked with danger and urged him to retreat.
Suddenly his brain throbbed as a thought came savagely from the contacted entity: 'Get out! We intend to destroy you, intruders'
There was no attempt to ask questions of the explorers. No tinge of curiosity. An order - and a statement.
Roas Rui and Woui Nas retreated from the malevolence and separated minds.
'What now?' Woui Nas asked from his cabin, a quarter of a mile away from the control room where Roas Rui sat shaking.
'Incredible,' the captain said. 'Quite unprecedented, as you remarked. There is a force here to equal the Shaarn - even to better it. But the evil!'
'I must admit that, as we neared the planet, I sensed it,' Woui Nas informed the captain. 'But it was difficult then to define it. These entities are capable of blocking off our most powerful probes.'
'Our ancestors would have been far more careful when making a new planet-fall,' Ross Rui said grimly. 'We are becoming too complacent, Brother Sorcerer.'
'Were,' Woui Nas remarked dryly. 'Perhaps this is the kind of shock our people need.'
'Possibly,' Roas Rui agreed. 'But now we are in danger of turning our immediate peril into a philosophical problem. Since this contact is unprecedented, and since the regulations state categorically that we should obey any culture which demands that we leave its environs, I would suggest to you that a group makes contact immediately with Headquarters on Shaarn and asks for instructions.'
'And meanwhile?' Woui Nas enquired.
'I do not wish to be destroyed. And neither, I think, do any other members of the ship's complement.' He beamed a quick order to his pilots. 'We are returning to Shaarn. This is an emergency.' He knew that his pilots would need no further orders.
Swiftly, the Vondel climbed into deep space and merged into hyperspace.
So the initial contact between the Shaarn and the Thron was made.
Another millennia of ignorance of each other's existence, the exploratory team which had come to a Thron-dominated world brought the two mighty cultures into contact at last It was inevitable.
And the war between Shaarn and Thron was also inevitable.
It was not a war like most wars. It did not hinge on economics. It only partially hinged on conflicting ideologies. It was simply that the Thron refused to tolerate the presence in the galaxy of another intelligent race, physically like themselves and almost as powerful.
They intended to destroy the Shaarn. To obliterate completely all traces of their civilisation. The Thron had not concentrated so much on the building of starships, but it did not take them long to build ships which almost equalled those of the Shaarn.
Thron controlled an Empire comprising twenty-six systems. The Thron themselves were comparatively few in number - but they had total dominance over their subject planets.
The Federation of Shaarn comprised some fifty systems and three hundred planets upon which intelligent races, like themselves, existed. When Shaarn informed them of the impending war, one hundred and sixty-two of those planets elected to join with the Shaarn. The rest claimed neutrality.
The war progressed. It was vicious and dreadful. And a month after it had begun the first planet was destroyed by the Thron - a neutral planet. And all life was destroyed with the planet.
Realising the danger was great, but unable to consider an alternative to continuing the struggle, the Shaarn directed their scientists to devise a means of stopping the war so that no more destruction of life should take place.
The scientists devised a means of removing the Thron from the galaxy, even from the very universe - a means, if it worked as they hoped, of forever exiling that malevolent and evil people.
They discovered the continuum-warp device which, they believed, would be capable of hurling the eleven Thron home-worlds out of their continuum and into another. This would efficiently halt the Thron's insensate aims of ruling the galaxy.
Soa squadron of ships, each armed with the device, reached the Thron home system of Yito and directed their beams on to the planets and their sun.
At first they succeeded only in shifting the planets through space, altering the position around the binary, resulting in the equidistant position they now occupied. The Thron retaliated and the Shaarn hurled the Thron warships effectively into another space-time continuum. Returning their attention to the system, they blasted it with warp rays time after time and, quite suddenly, it was gone - vanished from the Shaarn's space-time into another. The war was over.