“That's all we ask!” Gordon said. “One more word of warning. A League attack may come at any time now. I know it is coming, and soon.”
Commander Giron's towering figure stiffened. “The devil you say. But we've already taken all possible dispositions. I'll call the Emperor and report all this to him.”
The image disappeared. Through the portholes, they saw four big battleships move up and take positions on either side of the Ethne.
“We start for Throon at once,” Val Marlann said swiftly. “I'll give the orders.”
As the officer hurried out, and annunciators and bells started buzzing through the ship, Gordon asked a question.
“Am I to consider myself still a prisoner?”
“Blazes, no!” Hull Burrel said. “If you've told us the truth, there's no reason to keep you a prisoner. If you haven't told the truth, then we're due for court-martial and execution anyway,”
Gordon found Lianna in the corridor, hurrying in search of him. He told her rapidly what had happened.
“Corbulo dead? One great danger removed!” she said. “But Zarth, now our lives and the Empire's fate depend on whether we can prove to your brother that our story is true.”
At that moment the mighty Ethne began to move ponderously through the void, as its great turbines roared loud.
In a few minutes, the big battleship and its four grim escorts were hurtling headlong across the starry spaces toward Throon.
Chapter XXII. Galactic Crisis
HUGE, glaring white Canopus flared in the star-sown heavens in blinding splendor, as the five great battleships rushed toward it at rapidly decreasing speed.
Once again, John Gordon looked from a ship's bridge at the glorious capital sun of the Empire and its green, lovely world. But how much had happened since first he had come to Throon! “We dock at Throon City in two hours,” Hull Burrel was saying. And he added grimly, “There'll be a reception committee waiting for us. Your brother has been advised of our coming.”
“All I ask is a chance to prove my story to Jhal,” declared Gordon. “I'm sure I can convince him.”
But, inwardly, he had a sickening feeling that he was not entirely sure. It all depended on one man, and on whether Gordon had correctly judged that man's reactions.
All the hours and days of the headlong homeward flight across the Empire, Gordon had been tortured by that haunting doubt. He had slept but little, had scarcely eaten, consumed by growing tension.
He must convince Jhal Arn. Once that was done, once the last traitor was rooted out, then the Empire would be ready to meet the Cloud's attack. His, John Gordon's, duty would be fulfilled and he could return to Earth for his re-exchange of bodies with the real Zarth Arn. And the real Zarth could come back to help defend the Empire.
But Gordon felt an agony of spirit every time he thought of that re-exchange of bodies. For on that day when he returned to his own time, he would be leaving Lianna forever.
Lianna came into the wide bridge as he thought of her. She stood beside him with her slim fingers clasping his hand encouragingly as they looked ahead.
“Your brother will believe you, Zarth-I know he will.”
“Not without proof,” Gordon muttered. “And only one man can prove my story. Everything hinges on whether or not he has heard of Corbulo's death and my return, and has fled.”
That tormenting uncertainty deepened in him as the five big battleships swung down toward Throon City.
It was night in the capital. Under the light of two hurtling moons glimmered the fairylike glass mountains and the silver sea. The shimmering towers of the city rose boldly in the soft glow, a pattern of lacy light.
The ships landed ponderously in docks of the naval spaceport. Gordon and Lianna, with Hull Burrel and Captain Val Marlann, emerged from the Ethne to be met by a solid mass of armed-guards.
Two officers walked toward them, and with them came Orth Bodmer, the Chief Councilor. Bodmer's thin face was lined with deep worry as he confronted Gordon.
“Highness, this is a sorry homecoming,” he faltered; “God send you can prove your innocence.”
“Jhal Arn has kept our return and what happened out there off the Pleiades, a secret?” Gordon asked quickly.
Orth Bodmer nodded. “His Highness is waiting for you now. We are to go at once to the palace by tubeway. I must warn you that these guards have orders to kill instantly if any of you attempt resistance.”
They were swiftly searched for weapons, and then led toward the tubeway. Guards entered the cars with them. They had seen no one else, the whole spaceport having been cleared and barred off.
It seemed a dream to John Gordon as they whirled through the tubeway. Too much had happened to him, in too short a time. The mind couldn't stand it. But Lianna's warm clasp of his hand remained a link with reality, nerving him for this ordeal.
In the great palace of Throon, they went up through emptied corridors to the study in which Gordon had first confronted Arn Abbas.
Jhal Arn sat now behind the desk, his handsome face a worn mask. His eyes were utterly cold and expressionless as they swept over Gordon and Lianna and the two space-captains.
“Have the guards remain outside, Bodmer,” he ordered the Councilor in a toneless voice.
Orth Bodmer hesitated. “The prisoners have no weapons. Yet perhaps-”
“Do as I order,” rasped Jhal Arn. “I have weapons here. There's no fear of my brother being able to murder me.”
The nervous Chief Councilor and the guards went out and closed the door.
Gordon was feeling a hot resentment that burned away all that numb feeling of unreality.
He strode a step forward. “Is this the kind of justice you're going to deal the Empire?” he blazed at Jhal Arn. “The kind of justice that condemns a man before he's heard?”
“Heard? Man, you were seen, murdering our father!” cried Jhal Arn, rising. “Corbulo saw you, and now you've killed Corbulo too.”
“Jhal Arn, it is not so!” said Lianna. “You must listen to Zarth.”
Jhal Arn turned somber eyes on her. “Lianna, I have no blame for you. You love Zarth and let him lead you into this. But as for him, the studious, scholarly brother I once loved, the brother who was plotting all the time for power, who struck our father down-”
“Will you listen?” said Gordon furiously. “You stand there mouthing accusations without giving me a chance to answer them.”
“I have heard your answers already,” rasped Jhal Arn. “Vice-Commander Giron told me when he reported your coming that you were accusing Corbulo of treachery to cover up your own black crimes.”
“I can prove that if you'll just give me a chance!” Gordon declared.
“What proof can you advance?” retorted the other. “What proof, that will outweigh the damning evidence of your flight, of Corbulo's testimony, of Shorr Kan's secret messages to you?”
Gordon knew that he had come to the crux of the situation, the crisis upon which he would stand or fall.
He talked hoarsely, telling of Corbulo's treacherous assistance in helping Lianna and him escape, of how that escape had been timed exactly with the assassination of Arn Abbas.
“It was to make it look as though I'd committed the murder and fled!” Gordon emphasized. “Corbulo himself struck down our father and then said he'd seen me do it, knowing I wasn't there to deny the charge.”
He narrated swiftly how the Sirian traitor captain had taken him and Lianna to the Cloud, and briefly summarized the way in which he had induced Shorr Kan, by pretending to join him, to allow him to go to Earth. He did not, could not, tell how, his ruse had hinged on the fact that he was really not Zarth Arn at all. He couldn't tell that.