Return to the Stars

7

Outside, in the light of the flying moons, the old kings of Fomalhaut stood and dreamed in stone. All the way from the far-flung lights of the city up to this massive palace the great avenue of statues ran, eleven dynasties and more than one hundred kings, all towering up much larger than life so that the envoys who came this way would feel a sense of awe. No one came at this hour, all was silent, but in the changing light of the racing moons, the stone faces seemed to change, to smile, to glare, to brood.

In the vast darkness of the throne hall, looking out at that mighty avenue, John Gordon felt small and insignificant. From the shadowed walls other pictured faces looked down at him, the faces of further great ones in the long history of Fomalhaut Kingdom, and it seemed to him that that there was contempt in their glance.

Man of Earth, man of the old twentieth century that is now two hundred thousand years ago... what do you here out of your own place and time?

What indeed? And again that question came to plague him... reality or dream? With the question came fear, and the overwhelming desire to run for the security of Keogh's office and the calm voice explaining away all his problems. He felt a passionate homesickness for the old drab familiar world in which he had spent most of his life, and a terrifying sense of alienation took him by the throat.

He fought it, as he had had to fight it before. Sweat was on his forehead and his whole body trembled. At the same time he could jeer at himself savagely. All the while you were in that nice familiar world, you did nothing but whine and cry to get back here.

He was not aware that Korkhann had come into the hall, and started violently at the sound of his voice.

"It is strange, Gordon, that you tremble now, when there is no danger... at least for the present."

Korkhann was so vague in the shadows that he might have been human. Then his feathers rustled and his beaked face and wise eyes pushed forward into a bar of the shifting moonlight. It was hard to be angry with Korkhann, but Gordon managed it.

"I've asked you before not to read my mind."

"You do not yet understand telepathic powers," Korkhann said mildly. "I have not violated your mental privacy. But I cannot help receiving your emotions." After a moment he added, "I am to bring you to the council. Lianna sent me."

The black mood was still on Gordon, and Lianna's name brought a fresh surge of anger. "What does Lianna need of me?" After that moment of closeness, when she had been a frightened girl he could hold in his arms, she had become again the princess, remote, aloof, beautiful, and very busy with affairs of state. She seemed, in fact, to be deliberately avoiding him, as though she were ashamed of that lapse and did not wish to be reminded of it. And after all, damn it, he was still the stranger, still the primitive lout.

"In some ways," said Korkhann, this time shamelessly reading his thoughts, "you are. Lianna is a woman but she is also a reigning princess, and you must remember that your relationship is as difficult for her as it is for you."

"Oh, hell," said Gordon. "Now I get advice to the lovelorn from a... a..."

"From an overgrown mynah bird?" said Korkhann. "I assume that is some creature of your own world. Well. The advice is still good."

"I'm sorry," said Gordon, and meant it. He was behaving like a petty child. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "It's just that every once in a while..."

"You feel lost. This is natural. You have chosen a very strange road, John Gordon. It will never be an easy one. But you knew that. Now... will you come?"

"Yes," said Gordon. "I'll come."

They left the vast echoing hall and went along spacious corridors. It was late and there were few people about, but Gordon had a feeling that there was tension in the silence that enwrapped the palace, a brooding sense of danger. He knew that that was in his own mind, the danger was not here, not yet. It was still in the Marches of Outer Space, the far frontier of the galaxy. Yet the fact that the council of Fomalhaut Kingdom was meeting this late at night, only hours after the cruiser had landed on the throne-world, was evidence enough of how gravely that danger was regarded.

In the small paneled room they came to, four faces looked up at Gordon with expressions between irritation and hostility. Korkhann was the only nonhuman member of the council, and Lianna, at the head of the little table, nodded to Gordon and spoke the names of the four men.

"Is this necessary?" asked the youngest of them, a middle-aged man with burly brows. He added bluntly, "We've heard of your attachment to this Earthman, Highness, but I fail to see why..."

"I'm afraid," said Gordon pleasantly, "that I also fail to see why. Nevertheless, I was sent for."

Lianna said quickly, "It is necessary, Abro. Sit down, John Gordon."

He sat down at the far end of the table and bristled inwardly until Korkhann whispered, "Must you be so fighting?" That startled Gordon into a brief smile, and he relaxed a little.

The man called Abro spoke, ignoring Gordon in a way that was a studied insult.

"It stands thus. The attempt that Narath Teyn made against you, his daring to use force against the sovereign of Fomalhaut, shows that he's dangerous. I say, hit him. Send a squadron of heavy cruisers to Teyn to teach him and his Gerrns a lesson."

Inwardly, Gordon rather agreed. Anyone who would call in an ally like the Gray One deserved destruction. But Lianna shook her pale-golden head slowly.

"My cousin Narath is not the danger. He has long conspired to replace me, but with only his wild, barbaric nonhumans to call on he could do nothing. But now, he is simply being used as a pawn by others... among them, Cyn Cryver, a count of the Marches of Outer Space."

"Hit the Marches, then," said Abro harshly. Gordon began to like this blunt, tough character who had given him such a hostile greeting. But Korkhann spoke, in his hesitant, whistling voice.

"There is something hidden here, some veiled, unknown forces working behind Cyn Cryver and Narath Teyn. One such was at Teyn and would have destroyed us if the Gerrn had not changed sides. Who or what the creature was we could not tell, but it is powerful beyond belief... and is the true leader. Cyn Cryver is also a pawn."

"Use force against Cyn Cryver and we'll find out who or what is behind him," said one of the other councilors. "Abro is right."

"I think you are forgetting something," said Lianna. "The counts are allies of the Empire."

"So are we," said Abro, "and better and more dependable allies!"

Lianna nodded. "I agree. But all the same, we can't go into the Marches without first taking the matter up with Throon."

They didn't like it, Gordon saw that. Like most of the citizens of the smaller star-kingdoms they had an inordinate amount of pride, and asking anyone's permission went against their grain. But all the same, the Empire was the Empire, the greatest single power in the galaxy, ruling an inconceivable vastness of suns and worlds and people from the imperial world that circled the mighty sun Canopus. Like it or not, they would ask.

Lianna succeeded in silencing them for the moment. She added, "I'm sending Korkhann to discuss it with them. John Gordon will go with him."

Gordon's heart gave a great beat of excitement. To Throon! He would see it again...

An angry protest had already formed on Abro's lips, but it was Hastus Nor, oldest of the councilors, who voiced the objection. He looked down the table at Gordon and then turned to Lianna.

He said, "It is no concern of ours if you have favorites, Highness. But it is our concern if you let them meddle in statecraft. No."

Lianna stood up, her eyes blazing. The old man did not flinch from her anger. But before she could speak, Korkhann interrupted so smoothly and swiftly that it hardly seemed like an interruption at all.

"With your permission, Highness, I would like to answer that," he said. He looked around the hostile quartet of faces. "You all know, I think, that I have certain powers and that I have not often been wrong in stating a fact."

"Get to it, Korkhann," growled the old councilor.

"Very well." Korkhann's wing unfolded and his clawed hand rested on Gordon's shoulder. "I will say this, as a fact. No one... I say, no one, in the whole galaxy, would have as much influence in the councils of the Empire than this Earthman, John Gordon."

Gordon looked up at him, astounded. "So you have been mind-reading?" he muttered. "Or did she tell you..."

Korkhann ignored him, and looked steadily at the councilors. In their faces, hostility faded into puzzlement.

"But why... how?" demanded Abro.

Korkhann did the odd shrugging movement that made his feathers ruffle as in a wind.

"I have given you the fact. I will not explain."

They stared, frowning and curious, at Gordon, until he was sorely tempted to shout at them, "Because for a time I was your emperor!" But he did not, and finally old Hastus Nor rumbled, "If Korkhann says so, it must be true, even though..." He stopped, then went on decisively. "Let the man Gordon go."

Gordon said softly, "Thank you. But has anyone asked me whether I want to go?"

He was mad clear through at being treated like a pawn, being argued over and challenged and defended, and he would have gone on to say so, but Lianna spoke very firmly.

"Gentlemen, the council is ended."

They went out with no more said, and when they had gone, Lianna came toward Gordon.

"Why did you say that?" she asked. "You want to go."

"Why should I?"

"Don't lie," she said. "I saw the eagerness in your face when it was suggested that you go to Throon."

She looked at him, and he saw the pain and doubt in her clear eyes.

"For a little while, after death had just passed us by at Teyn, I thought we had come closer," she said. "I thought it would be as it had been before with us..."

"So did I."

"But I was wrong. It's not I you care about."

"That," said Gordon angrily, "is a fine thing to say to a man who risked his life to get here to you. All I know is, you treat me like a..."

She did not let him finish. "Did you risk your life to reach me, John Gordon? Was it I you remembered and longed for, back in that distant age of yours, or was it the adventure, the starships, all that our age has that yours had not, that you really longed to return to?"

There was just enough truth in the accusation to take the anger out of Gordon, and the moment of half-guilt he felt must have shown on his face, for Lianna, looking up at him, smiled a white and bitter smile.

"I thought so," she said, and turned away. "Go to Throon, then, and be damned."