Corbulo's face flared dull red with fury. “Burrel, you're under arrest. By God, you'll take the space-walk with these two for your insubordination. Guards, seize him!”
Tall, swarthy Captain Val Marlann stepped forward and intervened.
“Wait, guards. Commander Corbulo, you are supreme officer of the Empire fleet but I am captain of the Ethne. And I agree with Burrel that we cannot summarily execute these prisoners.”
“Marlann, you're captain of the Ethne no longer!” raged Corbulo. “I hereby remove you and take personal command of this ship.”
Val Marlann stiffened in open defiance as he rasped an answer.
“Commander, if I'm wrong I'm willing to take the consequences. But by God, something about all this does smell to Heaven. We're going to Throon and find out what it is.”
Gordon heard the mutter of agreement from the other officers. And Chan Corbulo heard it also.
The baffled rage on his grizzled face deepened, and he uttered a curse.
“Very well, then-to Throon. And when I get through with you at the courts-martial there, you'll wish you'd remembered your discipline. Insubordination in high space. Just wait!”
And Corbulo turned angrily and shouldered out of the room, going forward along a corridor.
Burrel and the other officers looked soberly at each other. Then Val Marlann spoke grimly to Gordon.
“Prince. Zarth, you'll get the trial at Throon you asked for. And if you've not told the truth, it's our necks.”
“It must be the truth!” Hull Burrel declared. “I never could understand why Zarth Arn should murder his own father. And why would Corbulo be so wild to execute them if the commander had nothing to hide?”
At that moment, from the annunciators throughout the ship, broke a loud voice “Commander Corbulo, to all hands. Mutiny has broken out on the Ethne. Captain Val Marlann and his chief officers, my aide Hull Burrel, and Prince Zarth and Princess Lianna are the ringleaders. All loyal men arm and seize the mutineers.”
Hull Burrel's blue eyes flashed an arctic light. “He's raising the ship against us. Val, get to the annunciators and call off the men. You can convince them The officers plunged for the corridors leading up into the interior of the mighty battleship.
Gordon cried, “Lianna, wait here. There may be fighting.”
Then, as he ran with Hull Burrel and the others through the corridors, they heard a growing uproar somewhere ahead.
The great battleship was suddenly in chaos, alarm bells ringing, voices yelling from the annunciators, feet pounding through the corridors.
The spacemen who had rushed to obey the supreme commander's order were now bewildered by a clash of authority. Some, who tried to obey and arrest Val Marlann and his officers, were instantly attacked by those of their own comrades who remained loyal to the ship's captain.
In most of the ship, the crew had not had time to arm. Improvised metal clubs and fists took the place of atom-pistols. Battle joined and raged, swiftly in crew rooms, in gun-galleries, in corridors.
Gordon and Hull Burrel found themselves with Val Marlann in the midst of a seething, battling mob in the main middeck corridor.
“I've got to get through to an annunciator switchboard!” said Val Marlann. “Help me crash through them.”
Gordon and the big Antarian, with Verlin, the young communication officer, joined him and plunged into the crazy fight.
They got through, but left big Hull Burrel battling a knot of spacemen back in the mob.
Val Marlann yelled into the annunciator switchboard. “Captain Marlann to all hands. Cease fighting! The announcement of mutiny was a fake, a trick. Obey me.”
Verlin grabbed Gordon's arm as a distant whine of power reached their ears over the din.
“That's the stereo-transmitter going,” the young communication officer said to Gordon. “Corbulo must be calling for help from the other ships of the fleet.”
“We've got to stop that!” Gordon cried. “Lead the way.”
They raced forward along a corridor, then cross-ship and up a companionway to the top deck.
Val Marlann's orders thundering from the annunciators seemed to be rapidly quieting the uproar in the ship. Its crew knew his voice better than any other. Long habit brought them to obey, Verlin and Gordon plunged into a big, crowded stereo-room whose tubes and motor-generators were humming. Two bewildered-looking technicians were at the control panel.
Chan Corbulo, an atom-pistol gripped in his hand, stood on the transmitter-plate speaking loudly and rapidly.
“-command all nearby battleships to send boarding parties aboard the Ethne at once to restore order. You will arrest-”
Corbulo, from the tail of his eye, saw the two men burst into the room. He swung swiftly around and triggered his pistol.
The pellet that flew from it was aimed at Gordon. But, Verlin, plunging ahead, took it full in his breast.
Gordon tripped headlong over the falling body of the young Earthman. That stumble made Corbulo's quick second shot flick just over Gordon's head.
As he fell, Gordon had hurled himself forward. He tackled Corbulo's knees and brought him crashing to the floor.
The two technicians ran forward and hauled Gordon off the Commander. But their grip on him relaxed when they glimpsed his face.
“Good God, it's Prince Zarth Arn!” one of them said.
Instinctive respect for the ruling house of the Empire confused the two men. Gordon wrenched free from them and grabbed for the pistol in Verlin's holster.
Corbulo had regained his feet, on the other side of the room. He was again raising his weapon.
“You'll never go to Throon!” he roared.
“By-”
Gordon shot, from where he crouched on the floor. The atomic pellet, loosed more by guess than by aim, hit Corbulo's neck and exploded. It flung him backward as though a giant hand had hit him.
Val Marlann and Hull Burrel came bursting into the stereo-room with other officers. The whole great ship seemed suddenly quiet.
Marlann bent over Corbulo's blasted body. Dead.
Hull Burrel, panting, his face flaming, told Gordon grimly, “We've killed our Commander. God help us if your story is not true, Prince Zarth!”
“It's true-and Corbulo was only one of a score of traitors in Shorr Kan's hire,” Gordon husked, shaken with reaction. “I'll prove it all at Throon.”
The image of a dark, towering Centaurian battleship captain suddenly appeared on the receiver-plate of the stereo.
“Vice-Commander Ron Giron calling from the Shaar. What the devil is going on aboard the Ethne? We're coming alongside to board you as Commander Corbulo ordered.”
“No one will board this ship!” Val Marlann answered swiftly. “We're going at once to Throon.”
“What does this mean?” roared the Vice-Commander. “Let me speak to Commander Corbulo himself.”
“You can't-he's dead,” clipped Hull Burrel. “He was betraying the fleet to the Cloud. At Throon, we'll prove that.”
“It is mutiny, then?” said Ron Giron. “You'll stand by for boarding parties and consider yourselves under arrest, or we'll open fire!”
“If you fire on the Ethne, you'll destroy the Empire's only chance to foil Shorr Kan's plot!” said Val Marlann. “We've staked our lives on the truth of what Prince Zarth Arn has told us, and we're taking him to Throon.'
John Gordon himself stepped forward to make an appeal to the glaring Vice-Commander.
“Commander Giron, they're telling you the truth. Give us this chance to save the Empire from disaster.”
Giron hesitated. “This is all insane. Corbulo dead and accused of treachery, Zarth Arn returned-”
He seemed to reach decision. “It's beyond me but they can sift it at Throon. To make sure that you go there, four battleships will escort the Ethne. They'll have orders to blast you if you try to go anywhere but Throon.”