Return to the Stars

2

Consciousness returned to Gordon very slowly. He had at first only a confused memory of fear, terror, gut-wrenching, mind-shattering panic that was somehow combined with the sensation of falling right off the world into a state of not-being. He thought that he could hear himself yelling, and he wondered wildly why Keogh did not hear and come to save him. Then he heard other voices, familiar, unfamiliar, far away. A liquid slid coolly down his throat and exploded into white fire in his stomach. He opened his eyes. There was a blank wash of light out of which images emerged gradually. Large forms, walls and windows and furniture. Small forms, close at hand, bending over him.

Faces.

Two faces. One was just a face, male, intent, anxious. The other was his own face...

No. Now wait a minute. His own face was square and blue-eyed and brown-haired, and this face above him was dark-eyed and aquiline, so it could not possibly be his own. And yet...

"Gordon. Gordon!" the face was saying.

The other face said, "One moment, Highness." Gordon felt his head raised. A hand holding a glass appeared out of the mist. Gordon drank automatically. Again there was the explosion of white fire inside him, very pleasant and invigorating. The mist began to clear.

He looked up into the dark handsome face, and after a moment he said, "Zarth Arn."

Strong hands gripped him. "Thank God. I was beginning to be afraid. No, don't try to get up yet. Lie still. You were in shock for a long time, and no wonder, with the atoms of your body driven right through the time-dimension. But it's done now. After all these years of work, finally, success!" Zarth Arn smiled. "Did you think I had forgotten you?"

"I thought..." said Gordon, and closed his eyes. Keogh. Keogh, he thought, I need you. Am I truly mad and dreaming? Or is this real?

Real, as I knew all along, as I never stopped knowing in spite of all your careful logic!

Real.

He struggled to sit up, and they let him. He looked around the laboratory room. It was just the same as the first time he had seen it, except that some new and very elaborate equipment had been installed, a panel of incomprehensible controls at one side and in the center a tall structure like a glass coffin set on end and suspended between two power grids that were like nothing in Gordon's experience. Enormously fat cables snaked out of the room, presumably to a generator somewhere beyond.

The room was octagonal, with tall windows in each side. Through them poured the clear and brilliant sunlight of high altitudes, and through them Gordon could see the mighty peaks of the Himalayas. Old Earth was still here, outside.

He looked down at his hands, at his familiar body. He felt the solidity of the padded table on which he sat, the texture of the sheets, the movement of air across his naked back. He reached out and took hold of Zarth Arn. Bone and muscle, flesh and blood, warm and alive.

Gordon said, "Where is Lianna?"

"Waiting." His nod indicated that she was close by, in another room. "She wanted to be in here with us, but we thought it better not. As soon as you feel strong enough..."

Gordon's heart was pounding. Reality or dream, sanity or madness, what did it matter? He was alive again, and Lianna was waiting. He stood up and laughed as Zarth Arn and the other man caught him and shored up his buckling knees. "It was a long time," he said to Zarth Arn. "I got a little confused. But it's all right now. Whatever this is, I'll settle for it. How about another helping of that hellfire, and some clothes?"

Zarth Arn looked at the other man. "What about it, Lex Vel? Gordon, this is Vel Quen's son. He's taken his father's place with me. If it hadn't been for him I couldn't have solved the insoluble problems that have been driving us both mad ever since you returned to your own time."

"Why be modest?" Lex Vel said. "It's true." He shook Gordon's hand, grinning. "And the answer is no, not yet. Rest awhile and then we'll talk about clothes."

Gordon lay down again, reluctantly. Zarth Arn said, "You'll find quite a welcome at Throon when you get there, Gordon. My brother Jhal is one of the few who know the whole story and he understands what you did for us. We can never repay you, really, but don't think that we've forgotten."

Lying there, Gordon remembered the day when Jhal Arn, ruler of the Empire in the place of his murdered father, had been himself struck down by a would-be assassin, leaving the vast burden of Empire diplomacy and defense upon his, Gordon's, totally inadequate shoulders. By the grace of heaven and sheer fool luck he had bulled it through.

He smiled and said, "Thanks," and then unexpectedly he slept for a while.

When he woke the sunlight was dimmer, the shadows of the high peaks longer. He felt fresh and rested. Zarth Arn was not there but Lex Vel ran a check on him, nodded, and pointed to some clothing draped over a chair. Gordon rose and dressed, feeling shaky at first but rapidly recovering his strength. The suit was of the silky fabric he remembered, sleeveless shirt and trousers in a warm shade of copper, with a cloak of the same material. He stood before a mirror to adjust the cloak, and he had never seen his own self before in this attire, which had looked natural and right on Zarth Arn but which made him smile now and feel as though he were dressed for a costume ball.

And then it hit him like a thunderbolt. Lianna had never seen him. She had fallen in love with him as Zarth Arn, a different Zarth Arn to be sure, and she had understood later that the personality she loved belonged to John Gordon of Earth. But would she still love him when confronted with his physical actuality? Or would she be disappointed, would she find him plain and dull-looking, perhaps even repulsive.

Gordon turned to Lex Vel. He said desperate, "I really do need some more of that stimulant..."

Lex Vel glanced at his face and brought him a glass immediately. Gordon drank it down, as Zarth Arn came in and then hurried toward them.

"What is it?"

"I don't know," said Lex Vel. "He seemed all right, and then all at once..."

Zarth Arn said gently, "Perhaps I can guess. It's Lianna, isn't it?"

Gordon nodded. "I suddenly realized that she'll be seeing me for the first time... a total stranger."

"She's somewhat prepared. Remember, I've been able to describe you to her, and she's asked me to do so at least ten thousand times." He put his hand on Gordon's shoulder. "It may take her awhile to get used to the change, Gordon, but be patient and never doubt how she feels about you. She has spent far too much time here, away from her kingdom. Many times when she should have been at home attending to affairs of state, she was here instead, waiting for the day when we could say we were ready to try." Zarth Arn shook his head, his eyes serious. "She has ignored repeated messages from Fomalhaut, and of course she wouldn't listen to me. Now that you're here and safe, I'm hoping she'll listen to you. Tell her, Gordon. Tell her she must go home."

"Is there trouble?"

"There's always trouble when the head of state isn't attending to business," said Zarth Arn. "How much or how serious it is I don't know because she hasn't told me. But the messages from Fomalhaut were coded URGENT at first. Now they're IMPERATIVE. You will tell her?"

"Of course," said Gordon, rather glad at the moment that he had something besides himself to worry about.

"Good," said Zarth Arn, and took him by the arm. "Take heart, friend. Remember, I've described you. She's not expecting an Apollo."

He looked at Gordon in such a way that Gordon had to grin briefly. "My friend," he said, "thanks a lot."

Zarth Arn laughed and led him out. But Gordon still felt afraid.

She was waiting for him in a small room that faced the sunset. Beyond the window the snow peaks caught the light and flamed a glorious hot gold, and below them the gorges were filled with purple shadow. Zarth Arn left Gordon at the doorway, and the two were alone. It was quiet there. She turned from the window to look at him and he stood where he was, afraid to move, afraid to speak. She was as lovely as he remembered, tall and slim and graceful, with her ash-blonde hair and her clear gray eyes. And now finally Gordon knew once and for all that this was true and no dream, because no man could imagine what he was feeling in his heart "Lianna," he whispered. And again, "Lianna..."

"You are John Gordon." She came toward him, her eyes searching his face as though for some tiny scrap of familiarity by which she might know him. He wanted to take her in his arms, to hold her and touch her and kiss her with all the stored-up hunger of the lonely years, but he did not dare. He could only stand rigid and miserable while she came closer, searching, and then she stopped. Her gaze dropped and she turned away a little, her red mouth uncertain.

Gordon said, "Is it so much of a shock?"

"Zarth Arn told very truly how you would look."

"And you find me..."

"No," she said quickly, and turned to meet his gaze again. "Please don't think that." She smiled, rather tremulously. "If I were meeting you for the first time... I mean, really for the first time, I would think you a most attractive man." She shook her head. "I mean, I do find you attractive. It isn't that at all. It's just that I will have to learn to know you all over again. That is," she added, her eyes very steady on his, "if you still feel toward me as you did."

"I do," he said. "I do," and he put his hands on her shoulders. She did not draw away, but neither did she yield toward him. She only smiled uncertainly and repeated Zarth Arn's words to him. "Be patient with me."

He took his hands away and said, "I will," trying to keep all trace of bitterness out of his voice. He went over to the window. The flaming peaks had darkened and the snowfields were turning to pure blue, as the first stars pricked the sky. He felt as cold and empty and forlorn as the wind that scoured those snows.

"Zarth Arn tells me that you have trouble at home."

She brushed it aside. "Nothing of importance. He wants you to tell me to go home, doesn't he?"

"Yes."

"And I will, tomorrow, on one condition." She was close beside him again, the last of the daylight showing her face pale and clear as a cameo in the dusk. "You must come with me."

He looked at her and touched his arm. "I've hurt you," she said softly. "And I didn't mean to, I didn't want to. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course, Lianna."

"Then come with me. A little time, John Gordon-that's all I need."

"All right," he said. "I'll come." I'll come, he thought fiercely, and if I have to woo and win you all over again, I'll do it so good and damn well that you'll forget there was ever a time when I looked like somebody else.