“You can’t build up a concentration of carbon dioxide that easily,” muttered Gillbret. But he watched the visiplate intently.

            Biron suddenly hoped that it was the wrong world. He decided that he could wait no longer. It would have to be settled, now!

            It was a queer feeling.

            The artificial lights had been turned off and sunlight was coming in unhindered at the ports. Actually, it was the less efficient method of lighting the ship, but there was a sudden desirable novelty to it. The ports were open, in fact, and a native atmosphere could be breathed.

            Rizzett advised against it on the grounds that lack of carbon dioxide would upset the respiratory regulation of the body, but Biron thought it might be bearable for a short time.

            Gillbret had come upon them, heads together. They looked up and leaned away from each other.

            Gillbret laughed. Then he looked out of the open port, sighed, and said, “Rocks!”

            Biron said mildly, “We’re going to set up a radio transmitter at the top of the high ground. We’ll get more range that way. At any rate, we ought to be able to contact all of this hemisphere. And if it’s negative, we can try the other side of the planet.”

            “Is that what you and Rizzett were discussing?”

            “Exactly. The Autarch and I will do the job. It’s his suggestion, which is fortunate; since otherwise I would have had to make the same suggestion myself.” He looked fleetingly at Rizzett as he spoke. Rizzett was expressionless.

            Biron stood up. “I think it would be best if I unzipped my space-suit lining and wore that.”

            Rizzett was in agreement. It was sunny on this planet; there was little water vapor in the air and no clouds, but it was briskly cold.

            The Autarch was at the main lock of the Remorseless. His overcoat was of thin foamite that weighed a fraction of an ounce, yet did a nearly perfect job of insulation. A small carbon-dioxide cylinder was strapped to his chest, adjusted to a slow leak that would maintain a perceptible CO₂ vapor tension in his immediate vicinity.

            He said, “Would you care to search me, Farrill?” He raised his hands and waited, his lean face quietly amused.

            “No,” said Biron. “Do you want to check me for weapons?”

            “I wouldn’t think of it.”

            The courtesies were as frigid as the weather.

            Biron stepped out into the hard sunlight and tugged at the handle of the two-handled suitcase in which the radio equipment was stowed. The Autarch caught the other.

            “Not too heavy,” said Biron. He turned, and Artemisia was standing just within the ship, silent.

            Her dress was a smooth, unfigured white which folded in a smooth drape that fled before the wind. The semitransparent sleeves whipped back against her arms, turning them to silver.

            For a moment Biron melted dangerously. He wanted to return quickly; to run, leap into the ship, grasp her so that his fingers would leave bruises on her shoulders, feel his lips meet hers--

            But he nodded briefly instead, and her returning smile, the light flutter of her fingers was for the Autarch.

            Five minutes later he turned and there was still that glimmer of white at the open door, and then the rise in the ground cut off the view of the ship. The horizon was free of everything but broken and bare rock now.

            Biron thought of what lay ahead, and wondered if he would ever see Artemisia again--and if she would care if he never returned.

EIGHTEEN:

Out of the Jaws of Defeat!

Artemesia watched them as they became tiny figures, trudging up the bare granite, then dipping below and out of sight. For a moment, just before they disappeared, one of them had turned. She couldn’t be sure which one, and, for a moment, her heart hardened.

            He had not said a word on parting. Not one word. She turned away from the sun and rock toward the confined metal interior of the ship. She felt alone, terribly alone; she had never felt so alone in her life.

            It was that, perhaps, that made her shiver, but it would have been an intolerable confession of weakness to admit that it wasn’t simply the cold.

            She said peevishly, “Uncle Gil! Why don’t you close the ports? It’s enough to freeze a person to death.” The thermometer dial read plus seven centigrade with the ship’s heaters on high.

            “My dear Arta,” said Gillbret mildly, “if you will persist in your ridiculous habit of wearing nothing but a little fog here and there, you must expect to be cold.” But he closed certain contacts, and, with little clicks, the air lock slid shut, the ports sunk inward and molded themselves into the smooth, gleaming hull. As they did so, the thick glass polarized and became nontransparent. The lights of the ship went on and the shadows disappeared.

            Artemisia sat down in the heavily padded pilot’s seat and fingered the arms aimlessly. His hands had often rested there, and the slight warmth that flooded her as she thought that (she told herself) was only the result of the heaters making themselves felt decently, now that the outer winds were excluded.

            The long minutes passed, and it became impossible to sit quietly. She might have gone with him! She corrected the rebellious thought instantly as it passed through her mind, and changed the singular “him” to the plural “them.”

            She said, “Why do they have to set up a radio transmitter anyway, Uncle Gil?”

            He looked up from the visiplate, the controls of which he was fingering delicately, and said, “Eh?”

            “We’ve been trying to contact them from out in space,” she said, “and we haven’t reached anyone. What special good would a transmitter on the planet’s surface do?”

            Gillbret was troubled. “Why, we must keep trying, my dear. We must find the rebellion world.” And, between his teeth, he added to himself, “We must!”

            A moment passed, and he said, “I can’t find them.”

            “Find whom?”

            “Biron and the Autarch. The ridge cuts me off no matter how I arrange the external mirrors. See?”

            She saw nothing but the sunny rock flashing past.

            Then Gillbret brought the little gears to rest and said, “Anyway, that’s the Autarch’s ship.”

            Artemisia accorded it the briefest of glances. It lay deeper in the valley, perhaps a mile away. It glistened unbearably in the sun. It seemed to her, at the moment, to be the real enemy. It was, not the Tyranni. She wished suddenly, sharply, and very strongly that they had never gone to Lingane; that they had remained in space, the three of them only. Those had been funny days, so uncomfortable and yet so warm, somehow. And now she could only try to hurt him. Something made her hurt him, though she would have liked--

            Gillbret said, “Now what does he want?”

            Artemisia looked up at him, seeing him through a watery mist, SO that she had to blink rapidly to put him into normal focus. “Who?”

            “Rizzett. I think that’s Rizzett. But he’s certainly not coming this way.”

            Artemisia was at the visiplate. “Make it larger,” she ordered.

            “At this short distance?” objected Gillbret. “You won’t see anything. It will be impossible to keep it centered.”

            “Larger, Uncle Gil.”

            Muttering, he threw in the telescopic attachment and searched the bloated nubbles of rock that resulted. They jumped faster than the eye could follow at the lightest touch on the controls. For one moment, Rizzett, a large, hazy figure, flashed past, and in that moment his identity was unmistakable. Gillbret backtracked wildly, caught him again, hung on for a moment, and Artemisia said, “He’s armed. Did you see that?”

            “No.”

            “He’s got a long-range blasting rifle, I tell you!”

            She was up, tearing away at the locker.

            “Arta! What are you doing?”

            She was unzipping the lining from another space suit. “I’m going out there. Rizzett’s following them. Don’t you understand? The Autarch hasn’t gone out to set up a radio. It’s a trap for Biron.” She was gasping as she forced herself into the thick, coarse lining.

            “Stop it! You’re imagining things.”

            But she was staring at Gillbret without seeing him, her face pinched and white. She should have seen it before, the way Rizzett had been coddling that fool. That emotional fool! Rizzett had praised his father, told him what a great man the Rancher of Widemos had been, and Biron had melted immediately. His every action was dictated by the thought of his father. How could a man let himself be so ruled by a monomania?

            She said, “I don’t know what controls the air lock. Open it.”

            “Arta, you’re not leaving the ship. You don’t know where they are.”

            “I’ll find them. Open the air lock.”

            Gillbret shook his head.

            But the space suit she had stripped had borne a holster. She said, “Uncle Oil, I’ll use this. I swear I will.”

            And Gillbret found himself staring at the wicked muzzle of a neuronic whip. He forced a smile. “Don’t now!”

            “Open the lock!” she gasped.

            He did and she was out, running into the wind, slipping across the rocks and up the ridge. The blood pounded in her ears. She had been as bad as he, dangling the Autarch before him for no purpose other than her silly pride. It seemed silly now, and the Autarch’s personality sharpened in her mind, a man so studiedly cold as to be bloodless and tasteless. She quivered with repulsion.

            She had topped the ridge, and there was nothing ahead of her. Stolidly she walked onward, holding the neuronic whip before her.

            Biron and the Autarch had not exchanged a word during their walk, and now they came to a halt where the ground leveled off. The rock was fissured by the action of sun and wind through the millennia. Ahead of them there was an ancient fault, the farther lip of which had crumbled downward, leaving a sheer precipice of a hundred feet.

            Biron approached cautiously and looked over it. It slanted outward past the drop, the ground riddled with craggy boulders which, with time and infrequent rains, had scattered out as far as he could see.

            “It looks,” he said, “like a hopeless world, Jonti.”

            The Autarch displayed none of Biron’s curiosity in his surroundings. He did not approach the drop. He said, “This is the place we found before landing. It’s ideal for our purposes.”

            It’s ideal for your purposes, at least, thought Biron. He stepped away from the edge and sat down. He listened to the tiny hiss from his carbon-dioxide cylinder, and waited a moment.

            Then he said, very quietly, “What will you tell them when you get back to your ship, Jonti? Or shall I guess?”

            The Autarch paused in the act of opening the two-handed suitcase they had carried. He straightened and said, “What are you talking about?”

            Biron felt the wind numb his face and rubbed his nose with his gloved hand. Yet he unbuttoned the foamite lining that wrapped him, so that it flapped wide as the gusts hit it.

            He said, “I’m talking about your purpose in coming here.”

            “I would like to set up the radio rather than waste my time discussing the matter, Farrill.”

            “You won’t set up a radio. Why should you? We tried reaching them from space, without a response. There’s no reason to expect more of a transmitter on the surface. It’s not a question of ionized radio-opaque layers in the upper atmosphere, either, because we tried the sub-ether as well and drew a blank. N or are we particularly the radio experts in our party. So why did you really come up here, Jonti?”

            The Autarch sat down opposite Biron. A hand patted the suitcase idly. “If you are troubled by these doubts, why did you come?”

            “To discover the truth. Your man; Rizzett, told me you were planning this trip, and advised me to join you. I believe that your instructions to him were to tell me that by joining you I might make certain you received no messages that I remained unaware of. It was a reasonable point, except that I don’t think you will receive any message. But I allowed it to persuade me, and I’ve come with you.”

            “To discover truth?” said Jonti mockingly.

            “Exactly that. I can guess truth already.”

            “Tell me then. Let me discover truth as well.”

            “You came to kill me. I am here alone with you, and there is a cliff before us over which it would be certain death to fall. There would be no signs of deliberate violence. There would be no blasted limbs or any thought of weapon play. It would make a nice, sad story to take back to your ship. I had slipped and fallen. You might bring back a party to gather me up and give me a decent burial. It would all be very touching and I would be out of your way.”

            “You believe this, and yet you came?”

            “I expect it, so you won’t catch me by surprise. We are unarmed and I doubt that you could force me over by muscular power alone.” For a moment Biron’s nostrils flared. He half flexed his right arm, slowly and hungrily.

            But Jonti laughed. “Shall we concern ourselves with our radio transmitter, then, since your death is now impossible?”

            “Not yet. I am not done. I want your admission that you were going to try to kill me.”

            “Oh? Do you insist that I play my proper role in this impromptu drama you have developed? How do you expect to force me to do so? Do you intend to beat a confession out of me? Now understand, Farrill, you are a young man and I am disposed to make allowances because of that and because of the convenience of your name and rank. However, I must admit you have until now been more trouble than help to me.”

            “So I have been. By keeping alive, despite you!”

            “If you refer to the risks you ran on Rhodia, I have explained it; I will not explain it again.”

            Biron rose. “Your explanation was not accurate. It has a flaw in it which was obvious from the beginning.”

            “Really?”

            “Really! Stand up and listen to me, or I’ll drag you to your feet.”

            The Autarch’s eyes narrowed to slits as he rose. “I would not advise you to attempt violence, youngster.”

            “Listen.” Biron’s voice was loud and his cloak still bellied open in the breeze, disregarded. “You said that you sent me to a possible death on Rhodia only to implicate the Director in an anti-Tyrannian plot.”

            “That remains true.”

            “That remains a lie. Your prime object was to have me killed. You informed the captain of the Rhodian ship of my identity at the very beginning. You had no real reason for believing that I would ever be allowed to reach Hinrik.”

            “If I had wanted to kill you, Farrill, I might have planted a real radiation bomb in your room.”

            “It would have been obviously more convenient to have the Tyranni maneuvered into doing the killing for you.”

            “I might have killed you in space when I first boarded the Remorseless.”

            “So you might. You came equipped with a blaster and you had it leveled at me at one point. You had expected me on board, but you hadn’t told your crew that. When Rizzett called and saw me, it was no longer possible to blast me. You made a mistake then. You told me you had told your men I was probably on board, and awhile later Rizzett told me you had not. Don’t you brief your men concerning your exact lies as you tell them, Jonti?”

            Jonti’s face had been white in the cold, but it seemed to whiten further. “I should kill you now for giving me the lie, certainly. But what held back my trigger finger before Rizzett got on the visiplate and saw you?”

            “Politics, Jonti. Artemisia oth Hinriad was aboard, and for the moment she was a more important object than myself. I’ll give you credit for a quick change of plans. To have killed me in her presence would have ruined a bigger game.”

            “I had fallen in love so rapidly, then?”

            “Love! When the girl concerned is a Hinriad, why not? You lost no time. You tried first to have her transferred to your ship, and when that failed, you told me that Hinrik had betrayed my father.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “So I lost her and left you the field undisputed. Now, I presume, she is no longer a factor. She is firmly on your side and you may proceed with your plan to kill me without any fear that by doing it you may lose your chance at the Hinriad succession.”

            Jonti sighed and said, “Farrill, it is cold, and getting colder. I believe the sun is heading downward. You are unutterably foolish and you weary me. Before we end this farrago of nonsense, will you tell me why I should be in the least interested in killing you anyway? That is, if your obvious paranoia needs any reason.”

            “There is the same reason that caused you to kill my father.”

            “What?”

            “Did you think I believed you for an instant when you said Hinrik had been the traitor? He might have been, were it not for the fact that his reputation as a wretched weakling is so well established. Do you suppose that my father was a complete fool? Could he possibly have mistaken Hinrik for anything but what he was? If he had not known his reputation, would not five minutes in his presence have revealed him completely as a hopeless puppet? Would my father have blabbed foolishly to Hinrik anything that might have been used to support a charge of treason against him? No, Jonti. The man who betrayed my father must have been one who was trusted by him.”

            Jonti took a step backward and kicked the suitcase aside. He poised himself to withstand a charge and said, “I see your vile implication. My only explanation for it is that you are criminally insane.”

            Biron was trembling, and not with cold. “My father was popular with your men, Jonti. Too popular. An Autarch cannot allow a competitor in the business of ruling. You saw to it that he did not remain a competitor. And it was your next job to see to it that I did not remain alive either to replace or to avenge him.” His voice raised to a shout, which whipped away on the cold air. “Isn’t this true?”

            “No.”

            Jonti bent to the suitcase. “I can prove you are wrong!” He flung it open. “Radio equipment. Inspect it. Take a good look at it.” He tossed the items to the ground at Biron’s feet.

            Biron stared at them. “How does that prove anything?”

            Jonti rose. “It doesn’t. But now take a good look at this.”

            He had a blaster in his hand, and his knuckles were white with tension. The coolness had left his voice. He said, “I am tired of you. But I won’t have to be tired much longer.”

            Biron said tonelessly, “You hid a blaster in the suitcase with the equipment?”

            “Did you think I wouldn’t? You honestly came here expecting to be thrown off a cliff and you thought I would try to do it with my hands as though I were a stevedore or a coal miner? I am Autarch of Lingane”--his face worked and his left hand made a flat, cutting gesture before him--”and I am tired of the cant and fatuous idealism of the Ranchers of Widemos.” He whispered then, “Move on. Toward the cliff.” He stepped forward.

            Biron, hands raised, eyes on the blaster, stepped back. “You killed my father, then.”

            “I killed your father!” said the Autarch. “I tell you this so you may know in the last few moments of your life that the same man who saw to it that your father was blasted to bits in a disintegration chamber will see to it that you will follow him--and keep the Hinriad girl for himself thereafter, along with all that goes with her. Think of that! I will give you an extra minute to think of that! But keep your hands steady, or I will blast you and risk any questions my men may care to ask.” It was as though his cold veneer, having cracked, left nothing but a burning passion exposed.

            “You tried to kill me before this, as I said.”

            “I did. Your guesses were in every way correct. Does that help you now? Back!”

            “No,” said Biron. He brought his hands down and said, “H you’re going to shoot, do so.”

            The Autarch said, “You think I will not dare?”

            “I’ve asked you to shoot.”

            “And I will.” The Autarch aimed deliberately at Biron’s head and at a distance of four feet closed contact on his blaster.

NINETEEN:

Defeat!

Tedor Rizzett circled the little piece of tableland warily. He was not yet ready to be seen, but to remain hidden was difficult in this world of bare rock. In the patch of tumbled, crystalline boulders he felt safer. He threaded his way through them. Occasionally he paused to pass the soft back of the spongy gloves he wore over his face. The dry cold was deceptive.

            He saw them now from between two granite monoliths that met in a V. He rested his blaster in the crotch. The sun was on his back. He felt its feeble warmth soak through, and he was satisfied. H they happened to look in his direction, the sun would be in their eyes and he himself would be that much less visible.

            Their voices were sharp in his ear. Radio communication was in operation and he smiled at that. So far, according to plan. His own presence, of course, was not according to plan, but it would be better so. The plan was a rather overconfident one and the victim was not a complete fool, after all. His own blaster might yet be needed to decide the issue.

            He waited. Stolidly he watched the Autarch lift his blaster as Biron stood there, unflinching.

            Artemisia did not see the blaster lift. She did not see the two figures on the flat rock surface. Five minutes earlier she had seen Rizzett silhouetted for a moment against the sky, and since then she had followed him.

            Somehow, he was moving too fast for her. Things dimmed and wavered before her and twice she found herself stretched on the ground. She did not recall falling. The second time, she staggered to her feet with one wrist oozing blood where a sharp edge had scraped her.

            Rizzett had gained again and she had to reel after him. When he vanished in the glistening boulder forest, she sobbed in despair. She leaned against a rock, completely weary. Its beautiful flesh-pink tint, the glassy smoothness of its surface, the fact that it stood as an ancient reminder of a primeval volcanic age was lost upon her.

            She could only try to fight the sensation of choking that pervaded her.

            And then she saw him, dwarfed at the forked-rock formation, his back to her. She held the neuronic whip before her as she ran unevenly over the hard ground. He was sighting along the barrel of his rifle, intent upon the process, taking aim, getting ready.

            She wouldn’t make it in time.

            She would have to distract his attention. She called, “Rizzett!” And again, “Rizzett, don’t shoot!”

            She stumbled again. The sun was blotting out, but consciousness lingered. It lingered long enough for her to feel the ground jar thuddingly against her, long enough to press her finger upon the whip’s contact; and long enough for her to know that she was well out of range, even if her aim was accurate, which it could not be.

            She felt arms about her, lifting. She tried to see, but her eyelids would not open.

            “Biron?” It was a weak whisper.

            The answer was a rough blur of words, but it was Rizzett’s voice. She tried to speak further, then abruptly gave up. She had failed!

            Everything was blotted out.

            The Autarch remained motionless for the space it would take a man to count to ten slowly. Biron faced him as motionlessly, watching the barrel of the blaster that had just been fired point-blank at him. The barrel sank slowly as he watched.

            Biron said, “Your blaster seems not be in firing order. Examine it.”

            The Autarch’s bloodless face turned alternately from Biron to his weapon. He had fired at a distance of four feet. It should have been allover. The congealed astonishment that held him broke suddenly and he disjointed the blaster in a quick movement.

            The energy capsule was missing. Where it should have been, there was a useless cavity. The Autarch whimpered with rage as he hurled the lump of dead metal aside. It turned over and over, a black blot against the sun, smashing into the rock with a faint ringing sound.

            “Man to man!” said Biron. There was a trembling eagerness in his voice.

            The Autarch took a step backward. He said nothing.

            Biron took a slow step forward. “There are many ways I could kill you, but not all would be satisfying. If I blasted you, it would mean that a millionth of a second would separate your life from your death. You would have no consciousness of dying. That would be bad. I think that instead there would be considerable satisfaction in using the somewhat slower method of human muscular effort.”

            His thigh muscles tensed, but the lunge they prepared was never completed. The cry that interrupted was thin and high, packed with panic.

            “Rizzett!” it came. “Rizzett, don’t shoot!”

            Biron whirled in time to see the motion behind the rocks a hundred yards away and the glint of sun on metal. And then the hurled weight of a human body was upon his back. He bent under it, dropping to his knees.

            The Autarch had landed fairly, his knees clasped hard about the other’s waist, his fist thudding at the nape of Biron’s neck. Biron’s breath whooshed out in a whistling grunt.

            Biron fought off the gathering blackness long enough to throw himself to one side. The Autarch jumped free, gaining clear footing while Biron sprawled on his back.

            He had just time to double his legs up against himself as the Autarch lunged down upon him again. The Autarch bounced off. They were up together this time, perspiration turning icy upon their cheeks.

            They circled slowly. Biron tossed his carbon-dioxide cylinder to one side. The Autarch likewise unstrapped his, held it suspended a moment by its mesh-metal hose, then stepped in rapidly and swung it. Biron dropped, and both heard and felt it whistle above his head.

            He was up again, leaping on the other before the Autarch could regain his balance. One large fist clamped down on the other fist exploded in the Autarch’s face. He let the Autarch drop and stepped back.

            Biron said, “Stand up. I’ll wait for you with more of the same. There’s no hurry.”

            The Autarch touched his gloved hand to his face then stared sickly at the blood that smeared off upon it. His mouth twisted and his hand snaked out for the metal cylinder he had dropped. Biron’s foot came heavily down upon it, and the Autarch yelled in agony.

            Biron said, ‘.You’re too close to the edge of the cliff, Jonti. Mustn’t reach in that direction. Stand up. I’ll throw you the other way now.”

            But Rizzett’s voice rang out: “Wait!”

            The Autarch screamed, “Shoot this man, Rizzett! Shoot him now! His arms first, then his legs, and we’ll leave him.”

            Rizzett brought his weapon up slowly against his shoulder.

            Biron said, “Who saw to it that your own blaster was unloaded, Jonti?”

            “What?” The Autarch stared blankly.

            “It was not I who had access to your blaster, Jonti. Who did have? Who is pointing a blaster at you right now, Jonti? Not at me, Jonti, but at you/”

            The Autarch turned to Rizzett and screamed, “Traitor!”

            Rizzett said, in a low voice. “Not I, sir. That man is the traitor who betrayed the loyal Rancher of Widemos to his death.”

            “That is not I,” cried the Autarch. “If he has told you I have, he lies.”

            “It is you yourself who have told us. I not only emptied your weapon, I also shorted your communicator switch, so that every word you said today was received by myself and by every member of the crew. We all know you for what you are.”

            “I am your Autarch.”

            “And also the greatest traitor alive.”

            For a moment the Autarch said nothing, but looked wildly from one to the other as they watched him with somber, angry faces. Then he wrenched to his feet, pulled together the parted seams of his self-control, and held them tightly by sheer nervous force.

            His voice was almost cool as he said, “And if it were all true, what would it matter? You have no choice but to let matters stand as they are. One last intranebular planet remains to be visited. It must be the rebellion world, and only I know the co-ordinates.”

            He retained dignity somehow. One hand hung uselessly from a broken wrist; his upper lip had swollen ludicrously, and blood was caking his cheek, but he radiated the hauteur of one born to rule.

            “You’ll tell us,” said Biron.

            “Don’t delude yourself that I will under any circumstances. I have told you already that there is an average of seventy cubic light-years per star. If you work by trial and error, without me, the odds are two hundred and fifty quadrillion to one against your coming within a billion miles of any star. Any star!”

            Something went click! in Biron’s mind.

            He said, “Take him back to the Remorseless!”

            Rizzett said in a low voice, “The Lady Artemisia--”

            And Biron interrupted, “Then it was she. Where is she?”

            “It’s all right. She’s safe. She came out without a carbon-dioxide cylinder. Naturally, as the CO₂ washed out of her blood stream, the automatic breathing mechanism of the body slowed. She was trying to run, didn’t have the sense to breathe deeply voluntarily, and fainted.”

            Biron frowned. “Why was she trying to interfere with you, anyway? Making sure her boy friend didn’t get hurt?”

            Rizzett said, “Yes, she was! Only she thought I was the Autarch’s man and was going to shoot you. I’ll take back this rat now, and, Biron--”

            “Yes?”

            “Get back as soon as you can. He’s still the Autarch, and the crew may need talking to. It’s hard to break a lifetime habit of obedience....She’s behind that rock. Get to her before she freezes to death, will you? She won’t leave.”

            Her face was almost buried in the hood that covered her head, and her body was formless in the thick, enveloping folds of the space-suit lining, but his steps quickened as he approached her.

            He said, “How are you?”

            She said, “Better, thank you. I am sorry if I caused any trouble.”

            They stood looking at each other, and the conversation seemed to have burned itself out in two lines.

            Then Biron said, “I know we can’t turn time backward, undo things that have been done, unsay things that have been said. But I do want you to understand.”

            “Why this stress on understanding?” Her eyes flashed. “I have done nothing but understand for weeks now. Will you ten me again about my father?”

            “No. I knew your father was innocent. I suspected the Autarch almost from the start, but I had to find out definitely. I could only prove it, Arta, by forcing him to confess. I thought I could get him to confess by trapping him into attempting to kill me, and there was only one way of doing that.”

            He felt wretched. He went on, “It was a bad thing to do. As bad, almost, as what he did to my father. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

            She said, “I don’t follow you.” He said, “I knew he wanted you, Arta. Politically, you would be a perfect matrimonial object. The name of Hinriad would be more useful for his purposes than that of Widemos. So once he had you, he would need me no longer. I deliberately forced you on him, Arta. I acted as I did, hoping you would turn to him. When you did, he thought he was ready to rid himself of me, and Rizzett and I laid our trap.”

            “And you loved me an the time?”

            Biron said, “Can’t you bring yourself to believe that, Arta?”

            “And of course you were ready to sacrifice your love to the memory of your father and the honor of your family. How does the old doggerel go? You could not love me half so much, loved you not honor more!”

            Biron said, miserably, “Please, Arta! I am not proud of myself but I could think of no other way.”

            “You might have told me your plan, made me your confederate rather than your tool.”

            “It was not your fight. If I had failed--and I might have --you would have remained out of it. If the Autarch had killed me and you were no longer on my side, you would be less hurt. You might even have married him, even been happy.”

            “Since you have won, it might be that I would be hurt at his loss.”

            “But you aren’t.”

            “How do you know?”

            Biron said desperately, “At least try to see my motives. Granted that I was foolish--criminally foolish--can’t you understand? Can’t you try not to hate me?”

            She said softly, “I have tried not to love you and, as you see, I have failed.”

            “Then you forgive me.”

            “Why? Because I understand? No! If f were a matter of simply understanding, of seeing your motives, I would not forgive you your actions for anything I might have in life. If it were only that and nothing more! But I will forgive you, Biron, because I couldn’t bear not to. How could I ask you to come back to me unless I forgave you?”

            And she was in his arms, her weather-cold lips turning up to his. They were held apart by a double layer of thick garments. His gloved hands could not feel the body they embraced, but his lips were aware of her white, smooth face.

            At last he said in concern, “The sun is getting lower. It’s going to get colder.”

            But she said softly, “It’s strange, then, that I seem to be getting warmer.”

            Together they walked back to the ship.

            Biron faced them now with an appearance of easy confidence which he did not feel. The Linganian ship was large, and there were fifty in the crew. They sat now facing him. Fifty faces! Fifty Linganian faces bred from birth to unquestioning obedience to their Autarch.

            Some had been convinced by Rizzett; others had been convinced by the arranged eavesdropping on the Autarch’s statements to Biron earlier that day. But how many others were still uncertain or even definitely hostile?

            So far Biron’s talking had done little good. He leaned forward, let his voice grow confidential. “And what are you fighting for, men? What are you risking your lives for? A free Galaxy, I think. A Galaxy in which each world can decide what is best in its own way, produce its own wealth for its own good, be slave to none and master of none. Am I right?”

            There was a low murmur of what might have been agreement, but it lacked enthusiasm.

            Biron went on, “And what is the Autarch fighting for? For himself. He is the Autarch of Lingane. If he won, he would be Autarch of the Nebular Kingdoms. You would replace a Khan by an Autarch. Where would be the benefit of that? Is that worth dying for?”

            One in the audience cried out, “He would be one of us, not a filthy Tyranni.”

            Another shouted. “The Autarch was looking for the rebellion world to offer his services. Was that ambition?”

            “Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, eh?” Biron shouted back, ironically. “But he would come to the rebellion world with an organization at his back. He could offer them all of Lingane; he could offer them, he thought, the prestige of an alliance with the Hinriads. In the end, he was pretty sure, the rebellion world would be his to do with what he pleased. Yes, this was ambition.

            “And when the safety of the movement ran counter to his own plans, did he hesitate to risk your lives for the sake of his ambition? My father was a danger to him. My father was honest and a friend of liberty. But he was too popular, 80 he was betrayed. In that betrayal, the Autarch might have brought to ruins the entire cause and all of you with it. Which one of you is safe under a man who will deal with the Tyranni whenever it suits his purpose? Who can be safe serving a cowardly traitor?”

            “Better,” whispered Rizzett. “Stick to that. Give it to them.”

            Again the same voice called from the back rows. “The Autarch knows where the rebellion world is. Do you know?”

            “We will discuss that later. Meanwhile, consider instead that under the Autarch we were all headed for complete ruin; that there is still time to save ourselves by turning from his guidance to a better and nobler way; that it is still possible from the jaws of defeat to snatch--”

            “--only defeat, my dear young man,” came a soft interrupting voice, and Biron turned in horror.

            The fifty crewmen came babbling to their feet, and for a moment it seemed as though they might surge forward, but they had come to council unarmed; Rizzett had seen to that. And now a squad of Tyrannian guardsmen were filing through the various doors, weapons ready.

            And Simok Aratap himself, a blaster in each hand, stood behind Biron and Rizzett.

TWENTY:

Where?

Simok Aratap weighed carefully the personalities of each of the four who faced him and felt the stirring of a certain excitement within him. This would be the big gamble. The threads of the pattern were weaving toward a close. He was thankful that Major Andros was no longer with him; that the Tyrannian cruisers had gone as well.

            He was left with his flagship, his crew and himself. They would be sufficient. He hated unwieldiness.

            He spoke mildly, “Let me bring you up to date, my lady and gentlemen. The Autarch ‘s ship has been boarded by a prize crew and is now being escorted back to Tyrann by Major Andros. The Autarch’s men will be tried according to law and if convicted will receive the punishment for treason. They are routine conspirators and will be treated routinely. But what shall I do with you?”

            Hinrik of Rhodia sat beside him, his face crumpled in utter misery. He said, “Consider that my daughter is a young girl. She was led into this unwillingly. Artemisia, tell them that you were “

            “Your daughter,” interposed Aratap, “will probably be released. She is, I believe, the matrimonial object of a highly placed Tyrannian nobleman. Obviously, that will be kept in mind.”

            Artemisia said, “I’ll marry him, if you’ll let the rest go.”

            Biron half rose, but Aratap waved him down. The Tyrannian Commissioner smiled and said, “My lady, please! I can strike bargains, I admit. However, I am not the Khan, but merely one of his servants. Therefore, any bargain I do make will have to be justified thoroughly at home. So what is it exactly that you offer?”

            “My agreement to the marriage.”

            “That is not yours to offer. Your father has already agreed and that is sufficient. Do you have anything else?”

            Aratap was waiting for the slow erosion of their wills to resist. The fact that he did not enjoy his role did not prevent him from filling it efficiently. The girl, for instance, might at this moment burst into tears and that would have a salutary effect on the young man. They had obviously been lovers. He wondered if old Pohang would want her under the circumstances, and decided that he probably would. The bargain would still be all in the ancient’s favor. For the moment he thought distantly that the girl was very attractive.

            And she was maintaining equilibrium. She was not breaking down. Very good, thought Aratap. She was strong willed as well. Pohang would not have joy of his bargain after an.

            He said to Hinrik, “Do you wish to plead for your cousin too?”

            Hinrik’s lips moved soundlessly.

            Gillbret cried, “No one pleads for me. I don’t want anything of any Tyranni. Go ahead. Order me shot.”

            “You are hysterical,” said Aratap. “You know that I cannot order you shot without trial.”

            “He is my cousin,” whispered Hinrik.

            “That will be considered too. You noblemen will some. day have to learn that you cannot presume too far on your usefulness to us. I wonder if your cousin has learned that lesson yet.”

            He was satisfied with Gillbret’s reactions. That fellow, at least, sincerely wanted death. The frustration of life was too much for him. Keep him alive, then, and that alone would break him.

            He paused thoughtfully before Rizzett. This was one of the Autarch’s men. At the thought he felt a faint embarrassment. At the start of the chase, he had dismissed the Autarch as a factor on the basis of what seemed iron logic. Well, it was healthy to miss occasionally. It kept self-confidence balanced at a point safely short of arrogance.

            He said, “You’re the fool who served a traitor. You would have been better off with us.”

            Rizzett flushed.

            Aratap went on, “If you ever had any military reputation, I am afraid this would destroy it. You are not a nobleman and considerations of state will play no part in your case. Your trial will be public and it will become known that you were a tool of a tool. Too bad.”

            Rizzett said, “But you are about to suggest a bargain, I suppose?”

            “A bargain?”

            “Khan’s evidence, for instance? You have only a shipload. Wouldn’t you want to know the rest of the machinery of revolt?”

            Aratap shook his head slightly. “No. We have the Autarch. He will do as a source of information. Even without it, we need only make war on Lingane. There would be little left of revolt thereafter, I’m sure. There will be no bargain of that sort.”

            And this brought him to the young man. Aratap had left him for last because he was the cleverest of the lot. But he was young, and young people were often not dangerous. They lacked patience.

            Biron spoke first, saying, “How did you follow us? Was he working with you?”

            “The Autarch? Not in this case. I believe the poor fellow was trying to play both sides of the game, with the usual success of the unskillful.”

            Hinrik interrupted, with an incongruously childish eagerness, “The Tyranni have an invention that follows ships through hyperspace.”

            Aratap turned sharply. “If Your Excellency will refrain from interrupting, I would be obliged,” and Hinrik cringed.

            It really didn’t matter. None of these four would be dangerous hereafter, but he had no desire to decrease by even one any of the uncertainties in the young man’s mind.

            Biron said, “Now, look, let’s have facts, or nothing. You don’t have us here because you love us. Why aren’t we on the way back to Tyrann with the others? It’s that you don’t know how to go about killing us. Two of us are Hinriads. I am a Widemos. Rizzett is a well-known officer of the Linganian fleet. And that fifth one you have, your own pet coward and traitor, is still Autarch of Lingane. You can’t kill any of us without stinking up the Kingdoms from Tyrann to the edge of the Nebula itself. You’ve got to try to make some sort of bargain with us, because there’s nothing else you can do.”

            Aratap said, “You are not altogether wrong. Let me weave a pattern for you. We followed you, no matter how. You may disregard, I think, the Director’s overactive imagination. You paused near three stars without landing on any planet. You came to a fourth and found a planet to land on. There we landed with you, watched, waited. We thought there might be something to wait for and we were right. You quarreled with the Autarch and both of you broadcast without limitation. That had been arranged by you for your own purposes, I know, but it suited our purpose as well. We overheard.

            “The Autarch said that only one last intra-nebular planet remained to be visited and that it must be the rebellion world. This is interesting, you see. A rebellion world. You know, my curiosity is aroused. Where would that fifth and last planet be located?”

            He let the silence last. He took a seat and watched them dispassionately--first one, then another.

            Biron said, “There is no rebellion world.”

            “You were looking for nothing, then?”

            “We were looking for nothing.”

            “You are being ridiculous.”

            Biron shrugged wearily. “You are yourself ridiculous if you expect more of an answer.”

            Aratap said, “Observe that this rebellion world must be the center of the octopus. To find it is my only purpose in keeping you alive. You each have something to gain. My lady, I might free you of your marriage. My Lord Gillbret, we might establish a laboratory for you, let you work undisturbed. Yes, we know more of you than you think.” (Aratap turned away hastily. The man’s face was working. He might weep and that would be unpleasant.) “Colonel Rizzett, you will be saved the humiliation of court-martial and the certainty of conviction and the ridicule and loss of reputation that would go with it. You, Biron Farrill, would be Rancher of Widemos again. In your case, we might even reverse the conviction of your father.”

            “And bring him back to life?”

            “And restore his honor.”

            “His honor,” said Biron, “rests in the very actions that led to his conviction and death. It is beyond your power to add to or detract from it.”

            Aratap said, “One of you four will tell me where to find this world you seek. One of you will be sensible. He will gain, whichever one it is, what I have promised. The rest of you will be married, imprisoned, executed--whatever will be worst for you. I warn you, I can be sadistic if I must be.”

            He waited a moment. “Which one will it be? If you don’t speak, the one next to you will. You will have lost everything and I will still have the information I want.”

            Biron said, “It’s no use. You’re setting this up so carefully, and yet it won’t help you. There is no rebellion world.”

            “The Autarch says there is.”

            “Then ask the Autarch your question.”

            Aratap frowned. The young man was carrying the bluff forward past the point of reason.

            He said, “My own inclination is to deal with one of you.”

            “Yet you have dealt with the Autarch in the past. Do so again. There is nothing you can sell to us that we are willing to buy from you.” Biron looked about him. “Right?”

            Artemisia crept closer to him and her hand folded slowly about his elbow. Rizzett nodded curtly and Gillbret muttered, “Right!” in a breathless manner.

            “You have decided,” said Aratap, and put his finger on the correct knob.

            The Autarch’s right wrist was immobilized in a light metal sheath, which was held magnetically tight to the metal band about his abdomen. The left side of his face was swollen and blue with bruise except for a ragged, force-healed scar that seamed it redly. He stood before them without moving after that first wrench which had freed his good arm from the grip of the armed guard at his side.

            “What do you want?”

            “I will tell you in a moment,” said Aratap. “First, I want you to consider your audience. See whom we have here. There is the young man, for instance, whom you planned death for, yet who lived long enough to cripple you and destroy your plans, although you were an Autarch and he was an exile.”

            It was difficult to tell whether a flush had entered the Autarch’s mangled face. There was no single muscle motion upon it.

            Aratap did not look for one. He went on quietly, almost indifferently, “This is Gillbret oth Hinriad, who saved the young man’s life and brought him to you. This is the Lady Artemisia, whom, I am told, you courted in your most charming manner and who betrayed you, nevertheless, for love of the youngster. This is Colonel Rizzett, your most trusted military aide, who also ended by betraying you. What do you owe these people, Autarch?”

            The Autarch said again, “What do you want?”

            “Information. Give it to me and you will be Autarch again. Your earlier dealings with us would be held in your favor at the Khan’s court. Otherwise--”

            “Otherwise?”

            “Otherwise I will get it from these, you see. They will be saved and you will be executed. That is why I ask whether you owe them anything, that you should give them the opportunity of saving their lives by yourself being mistakenly stubborn.”

            The Autarch’s face twisted painfully into a smile. “They cannot save their lives at my expense. They do not know the location of the world you seek. I do.”

            “I have not said what the information I want is, Autarch.”

            “There is only one thing you can want.” His voice was hoarse--all but unrecognizable. “If my decision is to speak, then my Autarchy will be as before, you say.”

            “More closely guarded, of course,” amended Aratap politely.

            Rizzett cried out, “Believe him, and you’ll but add treason to treason and be killed for it in the end.”

            The guard stepped forward, but Biron anticipated him. He flung himself upon Rizzett, struggling backward with him.

            “Don’t be a fool,” he muttered. “There’s nothing you can do.”

            The Autarch said, “I don’t care about my Autarchy, or myself, Rizzett.” He turned to Aratap. “Will these be killed? That, at least, you must promise.” His horridly discolored face twisted savagely. “That one, above all.” His finger stabbed toward Biron.

            “If that is your price, it is met.”

            “If I could be his executioner, I would relieve you of all further obligation to me. If my finger could control the execution blast, it would be partial repayment. But if not that, at least I will tell you what he would have you not know. I give you rho, theta, and phi in parsecs and radians: 7352.43, 1.7836, 5.2112. Those three points will determine the position of the world in the Galaxy. You have them now.”

            “So I have,” said Aratap, writing them down.

            And Rizzett broke away, crying, “Traitor! Traitor!”

            Biron, caught off balance, lost his grip on the Linganian and was thrown to one knee. “Rizzett,” he yelled futilely.

            Rizzett, face distorted, struggled briefly with the guard. Other guards were swarming in, but Rizzett had the blaster now. With hands and knees he struggled against the Tyrannian soldiers. Hurling himself through the huddle of bodies, Biron joined the fight. He caught Rizzett’s throat, choking him, pulling him back.

            “Traitor,” Rizzett gasped, struggling to maintain aim as the Autarch tried desperately to squirm aside. He fired! And then they disarmed him and threw him on his back.

            But the Autarch’s right shoulder and half his chest had been blasted away. Grotesquely, the forearm dangled freely from its magnetized sheath. Fingers, wrist, and elbow ended in black ruin. For a long moment it seemed that the Autarch’s eyes flickered as his body remained in crazy balance, and then they were glazed and he dropped and was a charred remnant upon the floor.

            Artemisia choked and buried her face against Biron’s chest. Biron forced himself to look once, firmly and without flinching, at the body of his father’s murderer, then turned his eyes away. Hinrik, from a distant corner of the room, mumbled and giggled to himself.

            Only Aratap was calm. He said, “Remove the body.”

            They did so, flaring the floor with a soft heat ray for a few moments to remove the blood. Only a few scattered char marks were left.

            They helped Rizzett to his feet. He brushed at himself with both hands, then whirled fiercely toward Biron. “What were you doing? I almost missed the bastard.”

            Biron said wearily, “You fell into Aratap’s trap, Rizzett. “

            “Trap? I killed the bastard, didn’t I?”

            “That was the trap. You did him a favor.”

            Rizzett made no answer, and Aratap did not interfere. He listened with a certain pleasure. The young fellow’s brains worked smoothly.

            Biron said, “If Aratap overheard what he claimed to have overheard, he would have known that only Jonti had the information he wanted. Jonti said that, with emphasis, when he faced us after the fight. It was obvious that Aratap was questioning us only to rattle us, to get us to act brainlessly at the proper time. I was ready for the irrational impulse he counted upon. You were not.”

            “I had thought,” interposed Aratap softly, “that you would have done the job.”

            “I,” said Biron, “would have aimed at you.” He turned to Rizzett again. “Don’t you see that he didn’t want the Autarch alive? The Tyranni are snakes. He wanted the Autarch’s information; he didn’t want to pay for it; he couldn’t risk killing him. You did it for him.”

            “Correct,” said Aratap, “and I have my information.”

            Somewhere there was the sudden clamor of bells.

            Rizzett began, “All right. If I did him a favor, I did myself one at the same time.”

            “Not quite,” said the Commissioner, “since our young friend has not carried the analysis far enough. You see, a new crime has been committed. Where the only crime is treason against Tyrann, your disposal would be a delicate matter politically. But now that the Autarch of Lingane has been murdered, you may be tried, convicted, and executed by Linganian law and Tyrann need play no part in it. This will be convenient for--”

            And then he frowned and interrupted himself. He heard the clanging, and stepped to the door. He kicked the release.

            “What is happening?”

            A soldier saluted. “General alarm, sir. Storage compartments.”

            “Fire?”

            “It is not yet known, sir.”

            Aratap thought to himself, Great Galaxy! and stepped back into the room. “Where is Gillbret?”

            And it was the first anyone knew of the latter’s absence.

            Aratap said, “We’ll find him.”

            They found him in the engine room, cowering amid the giant structures, and half dragged, half carried him back to the Commissioner’s room.

            The Commissioner said dryly, “There is no escape on a ship, my lord. It did you no good to sound the general alarm. The time of confusion is even then limited.”

            He went on, “I think it is enough. We have kept the cruiser you stole, Farrill, my own cruiser, on board ship. It will be used to explore the rebellion world. We will make for the lamented Autarch’s reference points as soon as the Jump can be calculated. This will be an adventure of a sort usually missing in this comfortable generation of ours.”

            There was the sudden thought in his mind of his father in command of a squadron, conquering worlds. He was glad Andros was gone. This adventure would be his alone.

            They were separated after that. Artemisia was placed with her father, and Rizzett and Biron were marched off in separate directions. Gillbret struggled and screamed.

            “I won’t be left alone. I won’t be in solitary.”

            Aratap sighed. This man’s grandfather had been a great ruler, the history books said. It was degrading to have to watch such a scene. He said, with distaste, “Put my lord with one of the others.”

            And Gillbret was put with Biron. There was no speech between them till the corning of space-ship “night,” when the lights turned a dim purple. It was bright enough to allow them to be watched through the tele-viewing system by the guards, shift and shift about, yet dim enough to allow sleep.

            But Gillbret did not sleep.

            “Biron,” he whispered. “Biron.”

            And Biron, roused from a dull semi-drowse, said, “What do you want?”

            “Biron, I have done it. It is all right, Biron.”

            Biron said, “Try to sleep, Oil.”

            But Gillbret went on, “But I’ve done it, Biron. Aratap may be smart, but I’m smarter. Isn’t that amusing? You don’t have to worry, Biron. Biron, don’t worry. I’ve fixed it.” He was shaking Biron again, feverishly.

            Biron sat up. “What’s the matter with you?”

            “Nothing. Nothing. It’s all right. But I fixed it.” Gillbret was smiling. It was a sly smile, the smile of a little boy who has done something clever.

            “What have you fixed?” Biron was on his feet. He seized the other by the shoulders and dragged him upright as well. “Answer me.”

            ‘They found me in the engine room.” The words were jerked out. “They thought I was hiding. I wasn’t. I sounded the general alarm for the storage room because I had to be alone for just a few minutes--a very few minutes. Biron, I shorted the hyperatomics.”

            “What?”

            “It was easy. It took a minute. And they won’t know. I did it cleverly. They won’t know until they try to Jump, and then all the fuel will be energy in one chain reaction and the ship and us and Aratap and all knowledge of the rebellion world will be a thin expansion of iron vapor.”

            Biron was backing away, eyes wide. “You did that?”

            “Yes.” Gillbret buried his head in his hands and rocked to and fro. “We’ll be dead. Biron, I’m not afraid to die, but not alone. Not alone. I had to be with someone. I’m glad I’m with you. I want to be with someone when I die. But it won’t hurt; it will be so quick. It won’t hurt. It won’t hurt.”

            Biron said, “Fool! Madman! We might still have won out but for this.”

            Gillbret didn’t hear him. His ears were filled with his own moans. Biron could only dash to the door.

            “Guard,” he yelled. “Guard!” Were there hours or merely minutes left?

TWENTY-ONE:

Here?

The soldier came clattering down the corridor. “Get back in there.” His voice was sour and sharp.

            They stood facing one another. There were no doors to the small bottom-level rooms which doubled as prison cells, but a force field stretched from side to side, top to bottom. Biron could feel it with his hand. There was a tiny resilience to it, like rubber stretched nearly to its extreme, and then it stopped giving, as though the first initial pressure turned it to steel.

            It tingled Biron’s hand, and he knew that though it would stop matter completely, it would be as transparent as space to the energy beam of a neuronic whip. And there was a whip in the guard’s hand.

            Biron said, “I’ve got to see Commissioner Aratap.”

            “Is that what you’re making a noise about?” The guard was not in the best of humors. The night watch was unpopular and he was losing at cards. “I’ll mention it after lights-on.”

            “It won’t wait.” Biron felt desperate. “It’s important. “

            “It will have to wait. Will you get back, or do you want a bit of the whip?”

            “Look,” said Biron, “the man with me is Gillbret oth Hinriad. He is sick. He may be dying. If a Hinriad dies on a Tyrannian ship because you will not let me speak to the man in authority, you will not have a good time of it.”

            “What’s wrong with him?”

            “I don’t know. Will you be quick or are you tired of life?”

            The guard mumbled something and was off.

            Biron watched him as far as he could see in the dim purple. He strained his ears in an attempt to catch the heightened throbbing of the engines as energy concentration climbed to a pre-Jump peak, but he heard nothing at all.

            He strode to Gillbret, seized the man’s hair, and pulled his head back gently. Eyes stared into his out of a contorted face. There was no recognition in them, only fear.

            “Who are you?”

            “It’s only me--Biron. How do you feel?”

            It took time for the words to penetrate. Gillbret said, blankly, “Biron?” Then, with a quiver of life, “Biron! Are they Jumping? Death won’t hurt, Biron.”

            Biron let the head drop. No point in anger against Gillbret. On the information he had, or thought he had, it was a great gesture. All the more so, since it was breaking him.

            But he was writhing in frustration. Why wouldn’t they let him speak to Aratap? Why wouldn’t they let him out? He found himself at a wall and beat upon it with his fists. If there were a door, he could break it down; if there were bars, he could pull them apart or drag them out of their sockets, by the Galaxy.

            But there was a force field, which nothing could damage. He yelled again.

            There were footsteps once more. He rushed to the open-yet-not-open door. He could not look out to see who was coming down the corridor. He could only wait.

            It was the guard again. “Get back from the field,” he barked. “Step back with your hands in front of you.” There was an officer with him.

            Biron retreated. The other’s neuronic whip was on him, unwaveringly. Biron said, “The man with you is not Aratap. I want to speak to the Commissioner.”

            The officer said, “If Gillbret oth Hinriad is ill, you don’t want to see the Commissioner. You want to see a doctor.”

            The force field was down, with a dim blue spark showing as contact broke. The officer entered, and Biron could see the Medical Group insignia on his uniform.

            Biron stepped in front of him. “All right. Now listen to me. This ship mustn’t Jump. The Commissioner is the only one who can see to that, and I must see him. Do you understand that? You’re an officer. You can have him awakened.”

            The doctor put out an arm to brush Biron aside, and Biron batted it away. The doctor cried out sharply and called, “Guard, get this man out of here.”

            The guard stepped forward and Biron dived. They went thumping down together, and Biron clawed up along the guard’s body, hand over hand, seizing first the shoulder and then the wrist of the arm that was trying to bring its whip down upon him.

            For a moment they remained frozen, straining against one another, and then Biron caught motion at the corner of his eye. The medical officer was rushing past them to sound the alarm.

            Biron’s hand, the one not holding the other’s whip wrist, shot out and seized the officer’s ankle. The guard writhed nearly free, and the officer kicked out wildly at him, but, with the veins standing out on his neck and temples, Biron pulled desperately with each hand.

            The officer went down; shouting hoarsely. The guard’s whip clattered to the floor with a harsh sound.

            Biron fell upon it, rolled with it, and came up on his knees and one hand. In his other was the whip.

            “Not a sound,” he gasped. “Not one sound. Drop anything else you’ve got.”

            The guard, staggering to his feet, his tunic ripped, glared hatred and tossed a short, metal-weighted, plastic club away from himself. The doctor was unarmed.

            Biron picked up the club. He said, “Sorry. I have nothing to tie and gag you with and no time anyway.”

            The whip flashed dimly once, twice. First the guard and then the doctor stiffened in agonized immobility and dropped solidly, in one piece, legs and arms bent grotesquely out from their bodies as they lay, in the attitude they had last assumed before the whip struck.

            Biron turned to Gillbret, who was watching with dull, soundless vacuity.

            “Sorry,” said Biron, “but you, too, Gillbret,” and the whip flashed a third time.

            The vacuous expression was frozen solid as Gillbret lay there on his side.

            The force field was still down and Biron stepped out into the corridor. It was empty. This was space-ship “night” and only the watch and the night details would be up.

            There would be no time to try to locate Aratap. It would have to be straight for the engine room. He set off. It would be toward the bow, of course.

            A man in engineer’s work clothes hurried past him.

            “When’s the next Jump?” called out Biron.

            “About half an hour,” the engineer returned over his shoulder.

            “Engine room straight ahead?”

            “And up the ramp.” The man turned suddenly. “Who are you?”

            Biron did not answer. The whip flared a fourth time. He stepped over the body and went on. Half an hour left.

            He heard the noise of men as he sped up the ramp. The light ahead was white, not purple. He hesitated. Then he put the whip into his pocket. They would be busy. There would be no reason for them to suspect him.

            He stepped in quickly. The men were pygmies scurrying about the huge matter-energy converters. The room glared with dials, a hundred thousand eyes staring their information out to all who would look. A ship this size, one almost in the class of a large passenger liner, was considerably different from the tiny Tyrannian cruiser he had been used to. There, the engines had been all but automatic. Here they were large enough to power a city, and required considerable supervision.

            He was on a railed balcony that circled the engine room. In one corner there was a small room in which two men handled computers with flying fingers.

            He hurried in that direction, while engineers passed him without looking at him, and stepped through the door.

            The two at the computers looked at him.

            “What’s up?” one asked. “What are you doing up here? Get back to your post.” He had a lieutenant’s stripes.

            Biron said, “Listen to me. The hyperatomics have been shorted. They’ve got to be repaired.”

            “Hold on,” said the second man, “I’ve seen this man. He’s one of the prisoners. Hold him, Lancy.”

            He jumped up and was making his way out the other door. Biron hurdled the desk and the computer, seized the belt of the controlman’s tunic and pulled him backward.

            “Correct,” he said. “I’m one of the prisoners. I’m Biron of Widemos. But what I say is true. The hyperatomics are shorted. Have them inspected, if you don’t believe me.”

            The lieutenant found himself staring at a neuronic whip. He said, carefully, “It can’t be done, sir, without orders from Officer of the Day, or from the Commissioner. It would mean changing the Jump calculations and delaying us hours.”

            “Get the authority, then. Get the Commissioner.”

            “May I use the communicator?”

            “Hurry.”

            The lieutenant’s arm reached out for the flaring mouthpiece of the communicator, and halfway there plummeted down hard upon the row of knobs at one end of his desk. Bells clamored in every corner of the ship.

            Biron’s club was too late. It came down hard upon the lieutenant’s wrist. The lieutenant snatched it away, nursing it and moaning over it, but the warning signals were sounding.

            Guards were rocketing in upon the balcony through every entrance. Biron slammed out of the control room, looked in either direction, then hopped the railing.

            He plummeted down, landing knees bent, and rolled. He rolled as rapidly as he could to prevent setting himself up as a target. He heard the soft hissing of a needle gun near his ear, and then he was in the shadow of one of the engines.

            He stood up in a crouch, huddling beneath its curve. His right leg was a stabbing pain. Gravity was high so near the ship’s hull and the drop had been a long one. He had sprained his knee badly. It meant that there would be no more chase. If he Won out, it was to be from where he stood.

            He called out, “Hold your firer I am unarmed.” First the club and then the whip he had taken from the guard went spinning out toward the center of the engine room. They lay there in stark impotence and plain view.

            Biron shouted, “I have come to warn you. The hyperatomics are shorted. A Jump will mean the death of us all. I ask only that you check the motors. You will lose a few hours, perhaps, if I am wrong. You will save your lives, if I am right.”

            Someone called, “Go down there and get him.”

            Biron yelled, “Will you sell your lives rather than listen?”

            He heard the cautious sound of many feet, and shrank backward. Then there was a sound above. A soldier was sliding down the engine toward him, hugging its faintly warm skin as though it were a bride. Biron waited. He could still use his arms.

            And then the voice came from above, unnaturally loud, penetrating every corner of the huge room. It said, “Back to your places. Halt preparations for the Jump. Check the hyperatomics.”

            It was Aratap, speaking through the public-address system. The order then came, “Bring the young man to me.”

            Biron allowed himself to be taken. There were two soldiers on each side, holding him as though they expected him to explode. He tried to force himself to walk naturally, but he was limping badly.

            Aratap was in semidress. His eyes seemed different: faded, peering, unfocused. It occurred to Biron that the man wore contact lenses.

            Aratap said, “You have created quite a stir, Farrill.”

            “It was necessary to save the ship. Send these guards away. As long as the engines are being investigated, there’s nothing more I intend doing.”

            “They will stay just awhile. At least, until I hear from my engine men.”

            They waited, silently, as the minutes dragged on, and then there was a flash of red upon the frosted-glass circle above the glowing lettering that read “Engine Room.”

            Aratap opened contact. “Make your report!”

            The words that came were crisp and hurried: “Hyperatomics on the C Bank completely shorted. Repairs under way.”

            Aratap said, “Have Jump recalculated for plus six hours.”

            He turned to Biron and said coolly, “You were right.”

            He gestured. The guards saluted, turned on their heels, and left one by one with a smooth precision. Aratap said, “The details, please.”

            “Gillbret oth Hinriad during his stay in the engine room thought the shorting would be a good idea. The man is not responsible for his actions and must not be punished for it.”

            Aratap nodded. “He has not been considered responsible for years. That portion of the events will remain between you and me only. However, my interest and curiosity are aroused by your reasons for preventing the destruction of the ship. You are surely not afraid to die in a good cause?”

            “There is no cause,” said Biron. “There is no rebellion world. I have told you so already and I repeat it. Lingane was the center of revolt, and that has been checked. I was interested only in tracking down my father’s murderer, the Lady Artemisia only in escaping an unwanted marriage. As for Gillbret, he is mad.”

            “Yet the Autarch believed in the existence of this mysterious planet. Surely he gave me the co-ordinates of something!”

            “His belief is based on a madman’s dream. Gillbret dreamed something twenty years ago. Using that as a basis, the Autarch calculated five possible planets as the site of this dream world. It is all nonsense.”

            The commissioner said, “And yet something disturbs me.”

            “What?”

            “You are working so hard to persuade me. Surely I will find all this out for myself once I have made the Jump. Consider that it is not impossible that in desperation one of you might endanger the ship and the other save it as a complicated method for convincing me that I need look no further for the rebellion world. I would say to myself: If there were really such a world, young Farrill would have let the ship vaporize, for he is a young man and romantically capable of dying what he would consider a hero’s death. Since he has risked his life to prevent that happening, Gillbret is mad, there is no rebellion world, and I will return without searching further. Am I too complicated for you?”

            “No. I understand you.”

            “And since you have saved our lives, you will receive appropriate consideration in the Khan’s court. You will have saved your life and your cause. No, young sir, I am not quite so ready to believe the obvious. We will still make the Jump.”

            “I have no objections,” said Biron.

            “You are cool,” said Aratap. “It is a pity you were not born one of us.”

            He meant it as a compliment. He went on, “We’ll take you back to your cell now, and replace the force field. A simple precaution.”

            Biron nodded.

            The guard that Biron had knocked out was no longer there when they returned to the prison room, but the doctor was. He was bending over the still-unconscious form of Gillbret.

            Aratap said, “Is he still under?”

            At his voice the doctor jumped up. “The effects of the whip have worn off, Commissioner, but the man is not young and has been under a strain. I don’t know if he will recover.”

            Biron felt horror fill him. He dropped to his knees, disregarding the wrenching pain, and reached out a hand to touch Gillbret’s shoulder gently.

            “Gil,” he whispered. He watched the damp, white face, anxiously.

            “Out of the way, man.” The medical officer was scowling at him. He removed his black doctor’s wallet from an inner pocket.

            “At least the hypodermics aren’t broken,” he grumbled. He leaned over Gillbret, the hypodermic, filled with its colorless fluid, poised. It sank deep, and the plunger pressed inward automatically. The doctor tossed it aside and they waited.

            Gillbret’s eyes flickered, then opened. For a while they stared unseeingly. When he spoke finally, his voice was a whisper. “I can’t see, Biron. I can’t see.”

            Biron leaned close again. “It’s all right, Oil. Just rest.”

            “I don’t want to.” He tried to struggle upright. “Biron, when are. they Jumping?”

            “Soon, soon!”

            “Stay with me, then. I don’t want to die alone.” His fingers clutched feebly, and then relaxed. His head lolled backward.

            The doctor stooped, then straightened. “We were too late. He’s dead.”

            Tears stung at Biron’s eyelids. “I’m sorry, Oil,” he said, “but you didn’t know. You didn’t understand.” They didn’t hear him.

            They were hard hours for Biron. Aratap had refused to allow him to attend the ceremonies involved in the burial of a body at space. Somewhere in the ship, he knew, Gillbret’s body would be blasted in an atomic furnace and then exhausted into space, where its atoms might mingle forever with the thin wisps of interstellar matter.

            Artemisia and Hinrik would be there. Would they understand? Would she understand that he had done only what he had to do?

            The doctor had injected the cartilaginous extract that would hasten the healing of Biron’s tom ligaments, and already the pain in his knee was barely noticeable, but then that was only physical pain, anyway. It could be ignored.

            He felt the inner disturbance that meant the ship had Jumped and then the worst time came.

            Earlier he had felt his own analysis to be correct. It had to be. But what if he were wrong? What if they were now at the very heart of rebellion? The information would go streaking back to Tyrann and the armada would gather. And he himself would die knowing that he might have saved the rebellion, but had risked death to ruin it.

            It was during that dark time that he thought of the document again. The document he had once failed to get.

            Strange the way the notion of the document came and went. It would be mentioned, and then forgotten. There was a mad, intensive search for the rebellion world and yet no search at all for the mysterious vanished document.

            Was the emphasis being misplaced?

            It occurred to Biron then that Aratap was willing to come upon the rebellion world with a single ship. What was that confidence he had? Could he dare a planet with a ship?

            The Autarch had said the document had vanished years before, but then who had it?

            The Tyranni, perhaps. They might have a document the secret of which would allow one ship to destroy a world.

            If that were true, what did it matter where the rebellion world was, or if it existed at all.

            Time passed and then Aratap entered. Biron rose to his feet.

            Aratap said, “We have reached the star in question. There is a star there. The co-ordinates given us by the Autarch were correct.”

            “Well?”

            “But there is no need to inspect it for planets. The star, I am told by my astrogators, was a nova less than a million years ago. If it had planets then, they were destroyed. It is a white dwarf now. It can have no planets.”

            Biron stared. “Then--”

            Aratap said, “So you are right. There is no rebellion world.”

TWENTY-TWO:

 There!

All of Aratap’s philosophy could not completely wipe out the feeling of regret within him. For a while he had not been himself, but his father over again. He, too, these last weeks had been leading a squadron of ships against the enemies of the Khan.

            But these were degenerate days, and where there might have been a rebellion world, there was none. There were no enemies of the Khan after all; no worlds to gain. He remained only a Commissioner, still condemned to the soothing of little troubles. No more.

            Yet regret was a useless emotion. It accomplished nothing.

            He said, “So you are right. There is no rebellion world.”

            He sat down and motioned Biron into a seat as well. “I want to talk to you.”

            The young man was staring solemnly at him, and Aratap found himself gently amazed that they had met first less than a month ago. The boy was older now, far more than a month older, and he had lost his fear. Aratap thought to himself, I am growing completely decadent. How many of us are beginning to like individuals among our subjects? How many of us wish them well?

            He said, “I am going to release the Director and his daughter. Naturally, it is the politically intelligent thing to do. In fact, it is politically inevitable. I think, though, that I will release them now and send them back on the Remorseless. Would you care to pilot them?”

            Biron said, “Are you freeing me?”

            “Yes.”

            “Why?”

            “You saved my ship, and my life as well.”

            “I doubt that personal gratitude would influence your actions in matters of state.”

            Aratap was within a hair of laughing outright. He did like the boy. “Then I’ll give you another reason. As long as I was tracking a giant conspiracy against the Khan, you were dangerous. When that giant conspiracy failed to materialize, when all I had was a Linganian cabal of which the leader is dead: you were no longer dangerous. In fact, it would be dangerous to try either you or the Linganian captives.

            “The trials would be in Linganian courts and therefore not under our full control. They would inevitably involve discussion of the so-called rebellion world. And though there is none, half the subjects of Tyrann would think there might be one after all, that where there was such a deal of drumming, there must be a drum. We would have given them a concept to rally round, a reason for revolt, a hope for the future. The Tyrannian realm would not be free of rebellion this side of a century.”

            “Then you free us all?”

            “It will not be exactly freedom, since none of you is exactly loyal. We will deal with Lingane in our own way, and the next Autarch will find himself bound by closer ties to the Khanate. It will be no longer an Associated State, and trials involving Linganians will not necessarily be tried in Linganian courts hereafter. Those involved in the conspiracy, including those in our hands now, will be exiled to worlds nearer Tyrann, where they will be fairly harmless. You yourself cannot return to Nephelos and need not expect to be restored to your Ranch. You will stay on Rhodia, along with Colonel Rizzett.”

            “Good enough, “ said Biron, “but what of the Lady Artemisia’s marriage?”

            “You wish it stopped?”

            “You must know that we would like to marry each other. You said once there might be some way of stopping the Tyrannian affair.”

            “At the time I said that I was trying to accomplish something. What is the old saying? ‘The lies of lovers and diplomats shall be forgiven them.’ “

            “But there is a way, Commissioner. It need only be pointed out to the Khan that when a powerful courtier would marry into an important subject family, it may be motives of ambition that lead him on. A subject revolt may be led by an ambitious Tyrannian as easily as by an ambitious Linganian.”

            Aratap did laugh this time. “You reason like one of us. But it wouldn’t work. Would you want my advice?”

            “What would it be?”

            “Marry her yourself, quickly. A thing once done would be difficult to undo under the circumstances. We would find another woman for Pohang.”

            Biron hesitated. Then he put out a hand. “Thank you, sir.”

            Aratap took it. “I don’t like Pohang particularly, anyway. Still, there is one thing further for you to remember. Don’t let ambition mislead you. Though you marry the Director’s daughter, you will never yourself be Director. You are not the type we want.”

            Aratap watched the shrinking Remorseless in the visiplate and was glad the decision had been made. The young man was free; a message was already on its way to Tyrann through the sub-ether. Major Andros would undoubtedly swell into apoplexy, and there would not be wanting men at court to demand his recall as Commissioner.

            If necessary, he would travel to Tyrann. Somehow he would see the Khan and make him listen. Given all the facts, the King of Kings would see plainly that no other course of action was possible, and thereafter he could defy any possible combination of enemies.

            The Remorseless was only a gleaming dot now, scarcely distinguishable from the stars that were beginning to surround it now that they were emerging from the Nebula.

            Rizzett watched the shrinking Tyrannian flagship in the visiplate. He said, “So the man let us got You know, if the Tyranni were all like him, damned if I wouldn’t join their fleet. It upsets me in a way. I have definite notions of what Tyranni are like, and he doesn’t fit. Do you suppose he can hear what we say?”

            Biron set the automatic controls and swiveled in the pilot’s seat. “No. Of course not. He can follow us through hyperspace as he did before, but I don’t think he can put a spy beam on us. You remember that when he first captured us all he knew about us was what he overheard on the fourth planet. No more.”

            Artemisia stepped into the pilot room, her finger on her lips. “Not too loudly,” she said. “I think he’s sleeping now. It won’t be long before we reach Rhodia, will it, Biron?”

            “We can do it in one Jump, Arta. Aratap had it calculated for us.”

            Rizzett said, “I’ve got to wash my hands.”

            They watched him leave, and then she was in Biron’s arms. He kissed her lightly on forehead and eyes, then found her lips as his arms tensed about her. The kiss came to a lingering and breathless end. She said, “I love you very much,” and he said, “I love you more than I can say.” The conversation that followed was both as unoriginal as that and as satisfying.

            Biron said after a while, “Will he marry us before we land?”

            Artemisia frowned a little. “I tried to explain that he’s Director and captain of the ship and that there are no Tyranni here. I don’t know though. He’s quite upset. He’s not himself at all, Biron. After he’s rested, I’ll try again.”

            Biron laughed softly. “Don’t worry. He’ll be persuaded.”

            Rizzett’s footsteps were noisy as he returned. He said, “I wish we still had the trailer. There isn’t room here to take a deep breath.”

            Biron said, “We’ll be on Rhodia in a matter of hours. We’ll be Jumping soon.”

            “I know.” Rizzett scowled. “And we’ll stay on Rhodia till we die. Not that I’m complaining overloud; I’m glad I’m alive. But it’s a silly end to it all.”

            “There hasn’t been any ending,” said Biron softly.

            Rizzett looked up. “You mean we can start allover? No, I don’t think so. You can, perhaps, but not I. I’m too old and there’s nothing left for me. Lingane will be dragged into line and I’ll never see it again. That bothers me most of all, I think. I was born there and lived there all my life. I won’t be but half a man anywhere else. You’re young; you’ll forget Nephelos.”

            “There’s more to life than a home planet, Tedor. It’s been our great shortcoming in the past centuries that we’ve been unable to recognize that fact. All planets are our home planets.”

            “Maybe. Maybe. If there had been a rebellion world, why, then, it might have been so.”

            “There is a rebellion world, Tedor.”

            Rizzett said sharply, “I’m in no mood for that, Biron.”

            “I’m not telling a lie. There is such a world and I know its location. I might have known it weeks ago, and so might anyone in our party. The facts were all there. They were knocking at my mind without being able to get in until that moment on the fourth planet when you and I had beat down Jonti. Do you remember him standing there, saying that we would never find the fifth planet without his help? Do you remember his words?”

            “Exactly? No.”

            “I think I do. He said, ‘There is an average of seventy cubic light-years per star. If you work by trial and error, without me, the odds are two hundred and fifty quadrillion to one against your coming within a billion miles of any star. Any star!’ It was at that moment, I think, that the facts got into my mind. I could feel the click.”

            “Nothing clicks in my mind,” said Rizzett. “Suppose you explain a bit.”

            Artemisia said, “I don’t see what you can mean, Biron.”

            Biron said, “Don’t you see that it is exactly those odds which Gillbret is supposed to have defeated? You remember his story. The meteor hit, deflected his ship’s course, and at the end of its Jumps, it was actually within a stellar system. That could have happened only by a coincidence so incredible as to be not worth any belief.”

            “Then it was a madman’s story and there is no rebellion world.”

            “Unless there is a condition under which the odds against landing within a stellar system are less incredible, and there is such a condition. In fact, there is one set of circumstances, and only one, under which he must have reached a system. It would have been inevitable.”

            “Well?”

            “You remember the Autarch’s reasoning. The engines of Gillbret’s ship were not interfered with, so the power of the hyperatomic thrusts, or, in other words, the lengths of the Jumps, were not changed. Only their direction was changed in such a way that one of the five stars in an incredibly vast area of the Nebula was reached. It was an interpretation which, on the very face of it, was improbable.”

            “But the alternative?”

            “Why, that neither power nor direction was altered. There is no real reason to suppose the direction of drive to have been interfered with. That was only assumption. What if the ship had simply followed its original course? It had been aimed at a stellar system, therefore it ended in a stellar system. The matter of odds doesn’t enter.”

            “But the stellar system it was aimed at--”

            “--was that of Rhodia. So he went to Rhodia. Is that so obvious that it’s difficult to grasp?”

            Artemisia said, “But then the rebellion world must be at home! That’s impossible.”

            “Why impossible? It is somewhere in the Rhodian System. There are two ways of hiding an object. You can put it where no one can find it, as, for instance, within the Horsehead Nebula. Or else you can put it where no one would ever think of looking, right in front of their eyes in plain view.

            “Consider what happened to Gillbret after landing on the rebellion world. He was returned to Rhodia alive. His theory was that this was in order to prevent a Tyrannian search for the ship which might come dangerously close to the world itself. But then why was he kept alive? If the ship had been returned with Gillbret dead, the same purpose would have been accomplished and there would have been no chance of Gillbret’s talking, as, eventually, he did.

            “Again, that can only be explained by supposing the rebellion world to be within the Rhodian System. Gillbret was a Hinriad, and where else would there be such respect for the life of a Hinriad but in Rhodia?”

            Artemisia’s hands clenched spasmodically. “But if what you say is true, Biron, then Father is in terrible danger.”

            “And has been for twenty years,” agreed Biron, “but perhaps not in the manner you think. Gillbret once told me how difficult it was to pretend to be a dilettante and a good-for-nothing, to pretend so hard that one had to live the part even with friends and even when alone. Of course, with him, poor fellow, it was largely self-dramatization. He didn’t really live the part. His real self came out easily enough with you, Arta. It showed to the Autarch. He even found it necessary to show it to me on fairly short acquaintance.

            “But it is possible, I suppose, to really live such a life completely, if your reasons are sufficiently important. A man might live a lie even to his daughter, be willing to see her terribly married rather than risk a lifework that depended on complete Tyrannian trust, be willing to seem half a madman--”

            Artemisia found her voice. She said huskily, “You can’t mean what you’re saying!”

            “There is no other meaning possible, Arta. He has been Director over twenty years. In that time Rhodia has been continually strengthened by territory granted it by the Tyranni, because they felt it would be safe with him. For twenty years he has organized rebellion without interference from them, because he was so obviously harmless.”

            “You’re guessing, Biron,” said Rizzett, “and this kind of a guess is as dangerous as the ones we’ve made before.”

            Biron said, “This is no guess. I told Jonti in that last discussion of ours that he, not the Director, must have been the traitor who murdered my father, because my father would never have been foolish enough to trust the Director with any incriminating information. But the point is--and I knew it at the time--that this was just what my father did. Gillbret learned of Jonti’s conspiratorial role through what he overheard in the discussions between my father and the Director. There is no other way in which he could have learned it.

            “But a stick points both ways. We thought my father was working for Jonti and trying to enlist the support of the Director. Why is it not equally probable, or even more probable, that he was working for the Director and that his role within Jonti’s organization was as an agent of the rebellion world attempting to prevent a premature explosion on Lingane that would ruin two decades of careful planning?

            “Why do you suppose it seemed so important to me to save Aratap’s ship when Gillbret shorted the motors? It wasn’t for myself. I didn’t, at the time, think Aratap would free me, no matter what. It wasn’t even so much for you, Arta. It was to save the Director. He was the important man among us. Poor Gillbret didn’t Understand that.”

            Rizzett shook his head. “I’m sorry. I just can’t make myself believe all that.”

            It was a new voice that spoke. “You may as well. It is true.” The Director was standing just outside the door, tall and somber-eyed. It was his voice and yet not quite his voice. It was crisp and sure of itself.

            Artemisia ran to him. “Father! Biron says--”

            “I heard what Biron said.” He was stroking her hair with long, gentle motions of the hand. “And it is true. I would even have let your marriage take place.”

            She stepped back from him, almost in embarrassment. “You sound so different. You sound almost as if--”

            “As if I weren’t your father.” He said it sadly. “It will not be for long, Arta. When we are back on Rhodia, I will be as you knew me, and you must accept me so.”

            Rizzett stared at him, his usually ruddy complexion as gray as his hair. Biron was holding his breath.

            Hinrik said, “Come here, Biron.”

            He placed a hand on Biron’s shoulder. “There was a time, young man, when I was ready to sacrifice your life. The time may come again in the future. Until a certain day I can protect neither of you. I can be nothing but what I have always seemed. Do you understand that?”

            Each nodded.

            “Unfortunately,” said Hinrik, “damage has been done. Twenty years ago I was not as hardened to my role as I am today. I should have ordered Gillbret killed, but I could not. Because I did not, it is now known that there is a rebellion world and that I am its leader.”

            “Only we know that,” said Biron.

            Hinrik smiled bitterly. “You think that because you are young. Do you think Aratap is less intelligent than yourself? The reasoning by which you determined the location and leadership of the rebellion world is based on facts known to him, and he can reason as well as you. It is merely that he is older, more cautious; that he has grave responsibilities. He must be certain.

            “Do you think he released you out of sentiment? I believe that you have been freed now for the same reason you were freed once before--simply that you might lead him farther along the path that leads to me.”

            Biron was pale. “Then I must leave Rhodia?”

            “No. That would be fatal. There would seem no reason for you to leave, save the true one. Stay with me and they will remain uncertain. My plans are nearly completed. One more year, perhaps, or less.”

            “But Director, there are factors you may not be aware of. There is the matter of the document--”

            “For which your father was searching?”

            “Yes.”

            “Your father, my boy, did not know all there was to know. It is not safe to have anyone in possession of all the facts. The old Rancher discovered the existence of the document independently in the references to it in my library. I’ll give him credit. He recognized its significance. But if he had consulted me, I would have told him it was no longer on Earth.”

            “That’s exactly it, sir. I am certain the Tyranni have it.”

            “But of course not. 1 have it. I’ve had it for twenty years. It was what started the rebellion world, for it was only when I had it that I knew we could hold our winnings once we had won.”

            “It is a weapon, then?”

            “It is the strongest weapon in the universe. It will destroy the Tyranni and us alike, but will save the Nebular Kingdoms. Without it, we could perhaps defeat the Tyranni, but we would only have exchanged one feudal despotism for another, and as the Tyranni are plotted against, we would be plotted against. We and they must both be delivered into the ashcan of outmoded political systems. The time for maturity has come as it once came on the planet Earth, and there will be a new kind of government, a kind that has never yet been tried in the Galaxy. There will be no Khans, no Autarchs, Directors, or Ranchers.”

            “In the name of Space,” roared Rizzett suddenly, “what will there be?”

            “People.”

            “People? How can they govern? There must be some one person to make decisions.”

            “There is a way. The blueprint I have, dealt with a small section of one planet, but it can be adapted to all the Galaxy.”

            The Director smiled. “Come, children, I may as well marry you. It can do little more harm now.”

            Biron’s hand tightly enclosed Artemisia’s and she was smiling at him. They felt the queer inward twinge as the Remorseless made its single precalculated Jump.

            Biron said, “Before you start, sir, will you tell me something about the blueprint you mention, so that my curiosity will be satisfied and I can keep my mind on Arta?”

            Artemisia laughed and said, “You had better do it, Father. I couldn’t bear an abstracted groom.”

            Hinrik smiled. “I know the document by heart. Listen.”

            And with Rhodia’s sun bright on the visiplate, Hinrik began with those words that were older--far older--than any of the planets in the Galaxy save one:

            “‘We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America....’“