The street telescreens were showing a parade of the Palanthian Guard, rank upon brilliantly uniformed rank of the system’s crack troops, and the brassy rhythm of their bands pulsed in the veins and shrieked in the head. Beat, beat, beat, yelling bugles and rolling drums and the heart-stopping slam of a thousand boots landing simultaneously on the pavement. Swing and crash and tramp, aircraft snarling overhead with their sides afire in the sun, banners flying and trumpets roaring and the long wild charge of heroes to vengeance and glory. All Luan went crazy and shouted for blood.

  Alak reflected tautly that the danger to Marhal was no less threatening other systems. The Luanian battle fleet could get to Sol, say, in three weeks, and if Voal suspected just how strong the Patrol really was—or wasn’t—

  Alak had seen the dead planets swinging on their lonely way. Their seas mourned on ashen beaches, and the ash blew inland on whining winds, in over the dusty plains. Their suns were a dim angry copper-red, smoldering in skies of scudding dust and ash. Only the wind and the dust stirred, only the empty heavens and the barren seas had voice. At night there might still be an evil blue glow of radioactivity, roiling in the ash storms or glimmering out of the fused craters. Here and there the wind might briefly uncover crumbling skeletons of once sentient creatures, with only dust now stirring in their hollow skulls, with the storms piping through their ribs. A few snags of broken buildings still stood, and now and then there were acid rains sluicing out of the birdless skies. But no life stirred anywhere. War had passed by, and returned to the remotely shining stars.

  He made his way through the jammed avenue into a quieter side street. Any moment, now, he could expect the hunt to start. He went with careful casualness over to a parked private car, a fast little ground-air job. He had a Patrol key, which would open any ordinary magnetolock, and with it he let himself into the vehicle and got started. Car stealing was a minor offense compared to what he was wanted for.

  As he drove, he scowled in thought. That Voal’s police had known him for what he was indicated that the leader’s interests and spy system reached well beyond the local stars. He must have agents on Maxlan IV, which lay seventy lightyears from Luan’s sun. If he had known the name of the Patrol’s agent, it would indicate that he knew a lot more about the Patrol itself, and this supposition was supported by Voal’s mention of fully verified cases of League perfidy. Though it was no secret that the Patrol used corrupt methods, the details were carefully suppressed wherever possible.

  What was more to the immediate point, the police must have followed all Alak’s movements. So now his underworld contacts must be arrested, leaving Alak stranded and alone on Luan. And a League agent who had associated himself with some of the worst crooks on the planet could expect no particular mercy.

  Headquarters underestimated the danger, thought Alak. They took this to be just another obscure squabble between frontier systems, and now Luan turns out to be a highly organized, magnificently armed power spoiling for a fight. I suppose slip-ups are bound to occur in trying to co-ordinate a million stars and this is one of the mistakes—and I’m in the middle of it.

  He drove aimlessly, trying to collect his thoughts. Six weeks of careful work in the Luanian underworld were shot. His bribes and promises had been getting a program of sabotage under way which should have thrown plenty of sand in the gears of the war machine. He was on the point of contacting ambitious officers who were ready to overthrow the elected government and establish their own dictatorship—one amenable to the Patrol as long as it had free access to the public treasury. Only—Cosmos, he’d been finding it too easy! The police had been stringing him along, giving him enough rope to hang himself several times over and now—

  Wing Alak licked his lips. A lot of Patrolmen got killed on the job, and it looked as if he would be another name on the list, and he personally much preferred being a live coward to a dead hero. He did not have a single lethal weapon, and he was alone on a planet out to get him. It didn’t look good.

  * * *

  The hall was old, a long dim structure of gray stone, where only the leaping ruddy flames broke the chill dusk and where the hollow echoes were like voices of the dead centuries which had stirred bloodily here. Many a council had been held in the great chamber, the results being announced with screaming war-horns and the clash of arms and armor, but perhaps none so dark as the secret meeting tonight.

  The twelve earls of Mordh were seated at the head of the huge ancient table. Red firelight seemed to splash them with blood, throwing their grim bony faces into eerie visibility against the sliding misshapen shadows. Outside the windows, the mighty autumn wind flung sleet and rain at the castle walls and roared about its towers.

  Dorlok, who had called the meeting, spoke first. His deep voice was low, and the storm snarled over and around its rumble: “To me, at least, the situation has become intolerable. When so-called honor clashes with basic instincts—and just how much honor does our dead king have left?—there is only one choice if we wish to remain sane. The king must go.”

  Yorm sprang out of his seat. The light gleamed bloodily on his slitted yellow eyes. Three of his fists were clenched, the fourth half drew his dagger from its sheath. “Treason!” he gasped.

  “As you like.” Dorlok’s scarred face twisted in a snarl. “Yet I would say that we have a higher duty than our oath to the king. As earls of Mordh, which now rules the entire planet and thus our entire species, we are pledged to preserve the integrity of our race and traditions. This the king, corrupted by the she-devil Franna, has lost. He is no longer a warrior, he is a drinker and idler in his palace—the swords of Mordh rust, the people cry for battle, and he sits under the complete dominion of his mistress. This won’t be the first time a king has been deposed—and we will be driving her off the throne rather than him.”

  More than half of the earls nodded their heads in dark agreement. Valtan murmured: “I wonder if she is of this planet at all? Could she not be some devilish robot invented by the Patrol’s unholy agents? Her very nature is alien to all we know.”

  “No, no, my agents have checked very carefully on her background,” said Dorlok. “She is the daughter of a Mordhan spaceman who sold her on Sol III after he had run up a great gambling debt—sold her to a man of the very Patrol which seeks to destroy slavery, or says it does! Franna was educated in the Solar System, apparently with the ultimate object of becoming the king’s mistress. I have reason to believe plastic surgery was used to make her the most beautiful of our race, and certainly her education in the arts of love—At any rate, she did come back here, enslaved the king, and now for ten years has run the country—the planet—the system! And—undoubtedly on behalf of the cursed Patrol!”

  “It was an evil day that the Galactic explorers landed here,” said Valtan glumly.

  “To date, yes,” answered Yorm. “Of course, it was more or less accidental. If they had known we are a carnivorous people to whom combat is a psychological necessity, they would probably have left us in our feudal state. As it was, the introduction of Galactic technology soon enabled Mordh to subjugate the rest of the planet.” His yellow eyes flamed. “And now…now we could go out and fight on a more glorious scale than the old heroes dreamed…go out conquering among the stars!”

  “Except that Franna holds the king slothful while we eat our hearts in tameness and kill ourselves in silly little private duels for lack of better occupation,” said Valtan. “But we are sworn by our honor to obey the king. What to do? What to do?”

  “Kill her,” snarled another.

  “Little use—the king would know who had done that, and have us all slain—and soon the Patrol would find some other agent of control,” said Dorlok. “No, the king must go, too.”

  Yorm shook his head. “I won’t do it. No one in my family ever broke his word and I won’t be the first.”

  “It is a hard choice—” mused Valtan.

  In the end, seven of the great earls of Mordh were prepared to assassinate the king. The others held back but Dorlok had, before calling this meeting, sworn them to secrecy about it. They would not help in the killing, but they would not hinder it and be glad enough to see it done.

  Dorlok swept his cloak about him.

  “I’ll let you know my arrangements tomorrow,” he said.

  He went to a certain remote room in the castle and let himself in with a special key. She was waiting, and his heart turned over at her loveliness.

  “Well?” she asked.

  His voice was thick as he gave her the names of the rebellious earls. She nodded gravely. “I’ll see that they are arrested tonight,” she said. “They’ll have their choice—exile to the second planet or suicide.”

  Dorlok sat down, burying his head in two brawny hands, the other two hanging limp in his lap. “Now I’m forever damned,” he groaned. “I really, deep inside, believe in what I told them when I was provoking them. Those ‘weak links’ were actually the hope of Mordh. And I’ve sold them—for you.” He lifted desperate eyes. “And I’m even betraying my lord the king, with you,” he said hopelessly. “I love you—and I curse the day I saw you.”

  Franna stroked his mane. “Poor Dorlok,” she murmured softly. “Poor, helpless, honest warrior.”

  * * *

  Alak abandoned his car in an alley near the spaceport and set out on foot through the dark tangle of narrow streets and passageways which was the Old City. The decayed district clustered on the west side of the port and its warehouses, and had become the hangout of most of the city’s criminal elements. It was not wise to go alone after dark through its dreary huddle, and twilight was beginning to creep over the capital. But Alak had no choice—and he had become used to such thieves’ quarters.

  Presently he located Yamen’s tavern and slipped cautiously past the photoelectric doors. The place was crowded as usual with the sweepings of space, including a good many nonhumans from remote planets, and he was grateful for the dim light and the fog of smoke. There was a live show performing on a tiny stage, but even its nudity was no recommendation and Alak did not regret having to sit with his back to it in order to watch the door. He sat at a small table in a dark corner and slipped a coin in the vendor for beer. When it arrived from the chute it was warm and thin, but it was at least alcoholic. He sipped it and sat gloomily waiting for something to happen.

  That didn’t take long. A Rassalan slithered into the chair opposite him. The reptile’s beadlly glittering eyes searched under the man’s cowl. “Hello,” he said. “You might buy me a drink. Wouldn’t snub an old friend, would you?”

  “Hardly, when the old friend would let out a squawk as to my identity if I did,” said Alak wryly. He set the vendor for the acrid and ultimately poisonous vurzin to which he knew the Rassalan was addicted, and put in the coin. “How are things, Slinh?” he asked.

  “So-so.” The little dragonlike creature shrugged his leathery wings. “But the sivva-peddling racket is getting unsafe. Voal’s narcotics squad is cracking down. I can’t complain—made my share on this planet—but I’m about to leave Luan.” His black passionless eyes studied Alak’s foxy face. “I suppose you are, too.”

  “Why so?” asked the Solarian cautiously.

  “Look Sarb Duman—I might as well stick to the alias you’ve been giving around here, though the police have been broadcasting a certain other name for the past half hour or more—let’s be sensible. When an unknown with apparently limitless resources starts organizing the crooks of a planet for something big whose nature he won’t reveal exactly, a being who’s seen something of the Galaxy begins to have suspicions. When the police suddenly pick up all this stranger’s contacts and start televising ‘Wanted’ notices for him with a different name and occupation appended—well, any high-grade moron can guess the story.” Slinh sipped his drink, adding smugly, “I consider myself a step above moron. Seems I have just now heard rumors of arrests in the army, too. Seems there has been a revolutionary tendency—Could the mysterious stranger have any connection?”

  “Could be,” said Alak. He didn’t inquire into the nature of the so quickly spreading rumors, or how they had got started. Someday the Patrol must investigate the evidence hinting at some race in the Galaxy which had not chosen to reveal its telepathic abilities but to use them instead for private advantage. At the moment there was more urgent business.

  “I might have a little trouble leaving this planet,” said Alak. “You might, too.”

  “I can always find a hiding place and go into hibernation for a few years till they forget about me,” said Slinh. “But a human at large might have difficulties even staying alive. I doubt if any Luanian crooks would help a”—he lowered his hissing voice—“Patrolman now that there’s a war on. In such times, the mob hysteria officially known as patriotism infects all classes of society.”

  “True. But illogical. Patrolmen are more tolerant toward lawbreakers than local police.”

  Slinh shook his scaly head in some bewilderment. “I never could figure out the Patrol,” he said. “Even its members of my own race I can’t understand. Officially it exists to coordinate the systems of the Galactic League and to enforce the laws of the central authority. But after a while I quit paying attention to the stories of fabulous raids and arrests by Patrolmen and began watching for myself and speaking to eyewitnesses. And y’know, I have not been able to verify one case of the Patrol acting directly against a crook. The best they ever do is give the local police some technical advice, and that’s rare. I’m beginning to suspect that the stories of the huge Patrol battle fleet are deliberate lies and the stereographs of it fakes—that though the Patrol makes big claims, it’s never yet really arrested a criminal. In fact”—Slinh’s claws tightened about his glass—“it seems one of the most corrupt organizations in the Galaxy. Voal’s speech today was—true! I know of more cases where it’s made alliance with crooks, or supported crooked governments, or engaged in crooked political deals, that I could easily count. Like in this case here—first the Patrol on the feeblest ‘right of discovery’ excuse, awards Lhing to the Marhalian System—Lhing, that was a Luanian development from the first—and then it seeks to overthrow the democratically elected Luanian government and set up some kind of revolutionary junta that’s sure to empty the public coffers before running for a distant planet. I don’t blame Luan for seceding from the League!”

  “You could turn me in,” said Alak. “There must be a reward.”

  “Not I,” said Slinh. He grinned evilly. “The police don’t approve of sivva or those who sell it. Also, what’s Luan to me? They could blow up the planet for all I care—once I’m off it. And finally—it’s barely possible we could make a deal.”

  Alak ordered another beer and vurzin. “Pray continue,” he said. “You interest me strangely.”

  * * *

  Despite his purpose, despite the knowledge he had and the implacable hostility which seethed within him, Sharr felt a stirring of awe as he entered the cathedral. The long nave loomed before him, a dusky immensity lit with the wonderful chromatic sunlight that streamed through the stained-glass windows; the vaulted ceiling was lost in a twilight of height through which fluttered white birds like living benedictions; the heavy languor of incense was in the cool dark air, and music breathed invisible beauty about him from—somewhere. Here, he thought, was peace and security, rest for the weary and hope for the grieving—

  Aye, the peace and security of death, the resting from duty, and a false cold-bloodedly manufactured hope which destroyed souls. The magnificent shell of the cathedral covered a cosmic rottenness that—

  The archbishop stood waiting for him near the great altar, resplendent in the dazzling robes of the new church. He was of this planet, Crios, but tall and impressive, with the cold wisdom of the Galaxy behind his eyes—the upper clergy of the new god were all Crians educated on League planets. Sharr was acutely conscious of his own shabby dress and his own ignorance of the cynical science that made miracles to order. No wonder all Crios was turning from the old faith to this lying devil who called himself a new god.

  “Greeting, my son,” said the archbishop sonorously. “I was told by my angel you were coming hither and—”

  “I am not your son,” said Sharr flatly, “and I happen to know that your ‘angel’ is a creature from the stars who has to live in a tank but has the unholy power to read men’s thoughts—”

  “That is blasphemy,” said the archbishop mildly, “but since you have been misled all your life, even to the extent of becoming a high priest of the false god, you will be forgiven this time.”

  “Oh, I know your artificial thunderbolts—you must have some, all your other miracles are artificial—could smite me where I stand,” said Sharr wearily. “No matter. My knowledge will not die with me.”

  The archbishop’s eyes narrowed. Sharr hurried on: “When the strangers first came from beyond the stars, they brought a great hope to Crios. They cured us of many ancient ills, they gave us machines which produced more abundantly than slaves ever could…oh, yes, all the nations of Crios were glad to unify and join their Galactic League as a whole planet. But now I see all this was but the mask of the Evil Ones.”

  “In what way?” asked the other. “Before, there was only one faith on Crios. Now all gods can compete equally. If the stronger—that is, the truer—gods drive the weaker from the hearts of the people, what harm? Rather it is good. If your god is true, let him produce miracles such as ours.”

  “Let us not mince words,” said Sharr. “There is no one here but us. All Crios rejoiced at the possession of spaceships, for now we could bring the true faith to other worlds, saving countless souls from the Evil Ones. But no sooner had we begun organizing a great crusade than you appeared—and your sly words and your false miracles and your machine-made magnificence turn more and more Crian hearts to the god in which you yourselves do not believe.”