Her gaze sobered. “That raises questions within me. If you intend to take me to Malkh, I must reveal its location, which is secret. How do I know you Parlion-adepts are Her friends? I cannot dare assist one who may be My Lady’s foe …”
“Let me allay your fears. Come.”
He led her forward into the sleek, low-ceilinged control cabin. Softly-glowing panels of winking lights lined the metal walls and there was a faint humming of concealed engines. At his touch, the cabin darkened. Another touch to a panel, and a misted arch of light sprang into being. It spanned the dimness like a curved wing of granulated luminance, and Lurn recognized it as a miniature simulacrum of the Carina-Cygnus Arm of the Galaxy … a cunning illusion, cast in three dimensions.
“This, you know, is the Galactic Arm wherein we are now,” Calastor said. “Watch.” One star flashed scarlet. “This is Scather, this red spark here at the edge of the Rift between Carina-Cygnus and the outer, Perseus Arm. The Rovers cut a bloody swath through the Rift-worlds, those lonely planets scattered in the gap between the two arms—then struck at Scather, only weeks ago.”
A second star flashed red.
“This is Argion, the next world at which they struck. See how it lies inwards towards the depths of the Orion Spur from Scather, which lies on the edge of the Rift.”
A third and fourth star flashed into crimson light, like tiny novas of sanguine radiance. And between the four red stars a thread of crimson light sprang, bridging them.
“This third star is the planet Xulthoom, the World of Mists. I was privy to their secrets in my guise as Perion the Piper just long enough to find that all Parlion’s direst predictions were true, and that Xulthoom was the next target for their conquest after they complete the loot of Argion.”
“And this fourth star?” Lurn asked.
“Notice how the three worlds, Scather, Argion, and Xulthoom, lie in a straight line pointing inwards of the Orion Spur?” he asked, by way of reply. “See the red line of light connecting them? The fourth star is directly in line with their last three conquests—although they have yet to leave Argion and hurl their fleets against the Planet of Mists. At all costs, I must keep them from dabbling their bloody hands on that fourth world …”
Calastor, brooding on the image of the arch of stars, did not notice how suddenly, as if recognizing that fourth world, Lurn blanched, color draining from her face. Faintly, she sank into one of the pilot chairs, shuddering as with some mysterious terror. But Calastor’s attention was turned from her.
Recovering her composure, the girl said, “Well?”
The vision vanished, and soft lights filled the cabin once again. Calastor seated himself across from her and lit another blue cigaret.
“Eight centuries ago, the Barbarian legions extinguished the last flickering torch of the mighty Carina Empire … and ours is still an Age of Darkness. During all these years, the nomad fleet of the Rovers has drifted from world to world at whim, looting, wrecking, smashing the fabric of civilization. No central authority has arisen to restore the web of Imperial power. What have we instead? On your birth-world, space-technology has almost become a lost art: as the old Imperial machines wear out, there are none to repair them or to replace them with new. On Argion, a whole planet has slid back into a feudal age of peasant-and-lord, slavery has arisen again, old forgotten gods have returned … Within a generation, Argion will be a savage world, stumbling through the darkness, bereft of science, lost in superstition and barbarism. And this is true of other worlds as well, of Shazar and Netharna, Valthome and Bellerophon, Ormish and Prydain, Chorver, Pharvis … half the worlds among the Near Stars are decaying into feudal savagery, forgetting what fragments they yet retain of Civilization.
“Only Parlion holds out against the Night of Chaos falling slowly over the Galaxy. Our little world was settled in the high noon of the Empire, as an outpost of science. There, on that rocky, barren little world, the White Order strives to serve The Light. The Adepts have mastered the forgotten science of historiodynamics: the exact prediction of social changes. Over the centuries, our Order has struggled to keep alight the torch of technological civilization on many worlds. We are few, and weak in physical force. We have no fleet, no navy, no battery of mighty weapons with which to oppose the Barbarians. Instead, agents such as I battle against the Darkness with a forgotten weapon the Imperial Ancients called Psychowarfare.”
“The war of mind against mind?” Lurn hazarded.
He nodded soberly. “Our weapons are suggestion … terror … mystery. We are vague, formless shadows, striking from the darkness and vanishing. Slowly, remorselessly, we are eroding the morale of the Rovers, playing on the superstitions that rule the Barbarian mind … trying with secret and subtle tactics to wreck them psychologically. But now our secret war has come into its final phase, and now we are fighting not just the Barbarians, but time itself.”
She watched him with curious, fascinated attention.
“The Masters of my Order work towards one glorious goaclass="underline" the creation of a New Empire. Weighing and measuring the balance and inner dynamics of socioeconomic forces, we have determined that only one world is perfect to become the Nucleus of this Empire we intend to guide into birth. This world is the fourth red star you saw flame on the projection.”
Lurn’s hand flew to her lips as she fought back a gasp of astonishment. But, again, Calastor’s attention was elsewhere and he did not notice.
“If the Star Rovers are not turned from their course, they will strike next at Xulthoom, and whelm it swiftly, as the Hooded Men of Xulthoom have no armaments of defenses capable of holding off the Rover-fleets. And then, when they have looted the jewel-mines of the Misty World, they will strike on … and the Nucleus-World around which we shall build the New Empire lies directly in their path, only two parsecs further on into the Spur. I must stop them, and soon!”
His face a hard mask of determination, Calastor turned grimly to the girl.
“These are the secrets of Parlion. But I am revealing them freely to you, an agent of the Queen of Green Magic. We urgently need Her help. If She is truly opposed to Drask and his Star Rovers, as Her actions in secreting you as spy within his court would seem to suggest, then perhaps She will lend us more direct aid. Yes, I will take you to Malkh, the Green World—if you will join me in pleading for Her assistance!”
Lurn’s dim purple eyes flashed with excitement.
“Yes! Oh, yes, Calastor! She is … strange and superhuman, sometimes frightening and enigmatic, I know—but She is kind and good as well. I know she will help, if you say to Her the things you have been saying to me! Come, show me your charts—”
He sprang to his feet and seized her white hand.
“Good girl! I knew I was right in trusting you! But we must hurry—speed is of the essence now, for Drask will very swiftly leave Argion for the World of Mist. His prestige has been injured when I escaped so easily from his grasp, and to recover from this humiliation in the eyes of his men, he must give them another rich conquest—and fast! Anyone who knows psychology can read him that well! And I must be on Xulthoom before his fleets begin their siege … I don’t know just what I can do to frustrate his plans there, but with the aid of the Goddess Niamh—”
A shrill alarm cut across his exuberant words. Face tensing suddenly, he sprang to the panels, riveting his attention on the glowing detector-screens. Lurn joined him, laying a slim hand on his rigid arm, gazing up into the frozen mask of his face, weird in the light of the screens.