“How do you know we don’t?”

  “Few Crians have been to space, and most of those who went have returned as traitors like yourself,” said Sharr. I went to see what power this Galactic lord of yours has elsewhere. I had my own ship and I used my own eyes. I saw that no other world had ever heard of him. I saw machines doing the same sort of things which you do here, seemingly by the power of your god, to impress the ignorant—building your churches overnight, scattering gold from nowhere, turning one metal into another; I saw creatures of horrible aspect which read minds—Oh, I began to see what your god really was. When I came back, I did a little investigation, I had my spies here and there—I know you for the cold-blooded liars you are.”

  “Why should we lie? What is the point in preaching a false religion?”

  “Power, glory—I can think of many reasons, but my personal belief is that you are agents of the Evil Ones, sent to destroy the great Crian crusade before it got started. Had all of this planet been pure in faith, the All-Father would have aided us and we would have swept the Galaxy before us into his fold—now we must first get rid of the false Galactic lord and then slowly, by prayer and repentance, win back our worthiness.”

  The archbishop smiled, a curiously chilling smile. “And how will you go about it?” he asked softly.

  “I have taken care that all priests of the true faith know what I do,” said Sharr. “It won’t help you to kill me. We will tell the truth to the people. We have prepared machines which will duplicate a number of your miracles.” Sharr lifted a clenched fist and his voice shook with triumph: “I came, really, to warn you—if you’re wise, you will leave this planet at once!”

  The expected dismay did not appear. The archbishop said calmly and implacably: “You might be better off doing that. Surely you don’t think we didn’t foresee this?”

  With a sense of dawning horror, Sharr stood in the singing gloom while the white birds circled far overhead. He heard the steady, relentless voice continue:

  “I doubt if your machines will work. You never heard of an inhibitor field, but we have our projectors ready to generate one over the whole planet if need be. But it will not stop certain other devices we have had in preparation. If you blaspheme against the Galactic lord, major miracles will be in order. The lord himself might appear, ten kilometers tall with lightning blazing around him. Can your god do that?”

  “Then”—Sharr spoke out of a dry, constricted throat—“you admit it is true—?”

  “If you like,” said the archbishop cheerfully. “But try to get anyone to believe that.”

  * * *

  Slinh had a room—more accurately, a den—in one of the old abandoned sewers under the city. The little stony niche was dank and slimy and vile-smelling, but it was at least fairly safe from the police who were rounding up all aliens. Wing Alak sat hunched on the floor and cursed the day he was born.

  “This hideout may be saving my life,” he grumbled, “but I wonder if life is worth saving on such terms.”

  The little reptile coiled before him leered complacently. “It’s all I can offer the great Patrolman,” he gibed. His eyes glistened in the dim glow of the radiant heater that was his sole article of furniture. “If you don’t like it—”

  “Never mind, never mind.” Alak tried to get down another mouthful of the fishy mess the Rassalan called food but decided it involved too great a risk of losing what he already had eaten. “Now about this deal you offered to make—we have to act fast. Already we’re too late to prevent the war but it’ll take the Luanian battle fleet a few days to get started for Marhal, or the Marhalians a few days to get to us. In that time we have to stop the war. Once battle is joined, it’ll be pretty hopeless before several million have been killed.”

  “Never mind the pious platitudes,” said Slinh coldly. “A being who makes deals with sivva peddlers can’t afford to moralize. The point is that I’m running a terrific risk in helping you and will expect a commensurate reward.”

  “Such as—?”

  “How about a million League credits? That’s a good round number.”

  “Done.” Alak reached for his checkbook. “Only I’ll give you my personal check. Then if I’m killed and you escape”—he grinned in the sullen red light—“it’ll do you no good, because I haven’t near that much in my account. But if we both survive, the Patrol will transfer a million to me and you’ll get ’em.”

  “How do I know you won’t welsh?”

  “You don’t. But if you think back, you may recall that the Patrol has that much honor. Not that we have any notions about the sacredness of oaths—I’ve committed perjury often enough when the occasion called for it—but we don’t want to antagonize allies such as yourself. You, for instance, get around. You have contacts. We may have other jobs for you in the future.”

  “I may be a sivva runner,” said Slinh contemptuously, “but I haven’t yet sunk to being a Patrolman.” He took the check and laid it carefully in the purse worn about his neck. “Very well. Now I’ve given you a hideout, but you can’t stay here long. So I’ll help you along further in case you can find a way for us both to get off this planet.”

  “If I complete my job, we both will,” replied Alak. “If I don’t, it’ll be too bad—for me at any rate.” He looked into the dripping gloom of the tunnel. The light was like blood on his thin pale face.

  Slinh shivered. “You’re crazy as well as a crook,” he said. “Two hunted, weaponless beings against an armed system—Starfire, even stereofilms don’t indulge in that kind of trash any more.” He huddled closer to the heater. “Why doesn’t your glorious Patrol just bring its great battle fleet over here and tell the Luanians there’ll be peace or else? What kind of policeman is it that makes deals with criminals and skulks in old sewers?”

  Alak ignored the complaint. Presently he stirred, holding cold hands over the red glow. “Voal is officially only premier of Luan and its colonies on other planets,” he said. “But he has influence enough to swing events as he wishes.”

  “Unfortunately, he believes in what he says. You can’t bribe him.”

  “No, maybe not. Unless the price was sufficiently high—Look, he’s married. He has two little children and I don’t think those pictures of him playing with them are all posed.”

  “If you’re thinking what I’m thinking—” began Slinh. “Anyway, the secret service guards—”

  Alak took the vibrosphere out of his pocket. “I fooled them with this once,” he said. “It’s a secret Patrol weapon and it may fool them again. It has to!” Briefly, he explained its operation. Then he went on, his voice rising with excitement:

  “Voal has a private estate in the country, about fifty kilometers from here. His family should be there—and you can carry a three-year-old child—”

  * * *

  They sneaked out of the tunnel after dark, emerging in a narrow alley of the Old City. Crouching back into the shadows, they strained their senses—no, no vigilance beyond routine patrols and the tension that lay like a shroud over the whole planet, the expectation of death from the skies. The whole capital huddled under its force dome, waiting for the hammer blows of hyperatomic bombs and gravity snatchers, the silent murder of radiodust and biotoxin and all the synthetic hell which could lay waste a world in hours. Whether or not the enemy bombardments could penetrate that shield was an open question—it was the business of the navy to see that the matter was never decided, by going to Marhal and blowing the system open before the Marhalians took off for Luan.

  Alak and Slinh went along the darkened walks. Not many beings were abroad, though the taverns shook with an unnatural hysterical merriment. It was no trick to find a parked ground-air car and appropriate it with the help of Alak’s key. The difficulty would lie in escaping from the city.

  The Patrolman sent the car whispering into the sky toward the dimly glowing force-field. In moments, the call screen was buzzing and blinking an angry red. Alak switched over to the police band, keeping his face cowled and shadowed. An indignant helmeted head glared out of the screen at him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” demanded the policeman.

  “Officer, I’ve got to get out of the city,” said Alak. “My wife and children—”

  “The screen isn’t lowered for any civilian in wartime. One second without protection and— Now get back on the ground where you belong.”

  “Be reasonable, officer. If the Marhalians were within ten lightyears you’d be alerted. I…I wasn’t expecting war. I left my family up at North Pole Resort—that’s no place for them to be in wartime. They’ll recall my wife anyway, she’s an electronician—”

  “How many times must I—”

  “Of course, I could take it up with my old friend Jeron Kovals,” said Alak, naming the city police chief, “but I didn’t think he’d want to be bothered—”

  “Well, there’s a lot of military and government traffic tonight. Wait till the next official car comes along, then you can go out with it.”

  “Thanks.” Alak snapped off the screen and let his body relax, muscle by muscle. It was as much as he’d dared hope for. But if his theft was discovered while he waited—

  It wasn’t. The stolen car slipped past the lowered force-dome together with a long sleek black flier bearing several stars. Alak took a direct north course until the city was behind the horizon, then opened the car up and swung in a screaming arc for the Premier’s estate.

  Nighted countryside slipped beneath him. The numbers representing position co-ordinates changed on the car’s dashboard. He let the autopilot take over, and studied the landscape below.

  “Mostly agricultural,” he said.

  “But…wait, there’s a pretty big region of forested hills. We’ll hide there.”

  “If we escape to hide,” said Slinh gloomily.

  When they were within a kilometer of Voal’s home, Alak halted the car and hung motionless on its gravity beams. “They’d detect a metal object coming any closer,” he said. “I’ll wait here for you, Slinh.”

  Wordlessly, the reptile opened the door. His leathery wings flapped and the night swallowed him.

  The servants were wakened by a shout and the sound of falling bodies. A blaster roared in the dark. Someone screamed and there was heard a beating of wings out the nursery window.

  When order of a sort was restored, it was found that—something—had come into the room, rendering several guards unconscious on the way; one, who had had a brief glimpse at which he had fired, swore it was a devil complete with tail and bat wings. Be that as it may, Alia, youngest daughter of the Premier of Luan, was missing, and a note addressed to her father lay on the floor.

  He read it with his cheeks whitening:

  Bring ten thousand League credits in unmarked bills tomorrow night at 0100 hours to that island in the Mortha River lying one hundred and three kilometers due south-southwest of your country house. Do not tell police or make any attempt to use tracer beams or otherwise trail us, or you will not see your child again.

  The Zordoch of the Branna Kai was dead, and over the whole planet Cromman and such other planets of the system as had been colonized, there was mourning; for the hereditary chief of the most powerful of the clans had been well loved.

  Duwan stood at the window and looked out over the great estate of his fathers. Torches bobbed through the dusk, a long ceremonial procession approached the castle with the slowness of ancient ritual. The weird skirl of pipes and the rolling thunder of drums rose in the evening, breaking in a surf of sound against the high stone walls, surf that sent its broken spindrift up to the ears of Duiwan. He savored the sound, hungrily.

  The Zordoch of the Branna Kai was dead; and the chiefs of the clans were coming with their immemorial ceremonies to give the crown to his eldest son.

  A slave entered, genuflecting before the tall arrogant figure, purple-robed and turbaned, that stood before the window. “Your pardon, lord,” he said fearfully, “but a stranger desires admittance.”

  “Eh?” Duwan scowled. The castle was closed to all but the slowly approaching chiefs. The old rituals were not to be disturbed nor did Duwan wish distraction in his greatest of hours. He snarled his gathering anger: “I’ll have the warders’ heads for this.”

  “Sire,” mumbled the slave “he did not come in by the gates. He landed on the roof in an airship. He is not of Cromman, but from some strange world—”

  “Hm-m-m?” Duwan pricked up his ears, and an ominous tingle ran along his spine. He could not imagine a Galactic having much interest in as newly discovered and backward a system as this. Later, of course, after a progressive had held the Zordochy for a few years—but now—“Send him in.”

  The stranger came so quickly that Duwan suspected he had been on the way while the slave went ahead to get permission. The Crommanite recognized him as terrestrial, though he did not have the look of a Solarian—probably some colonist. What was more to the point, he wore the blue uniform of the League Patrol.

  The human bowed formally. “Your pardon,” he said, “but I am on an urgent mission.” He glanced out the window at the approaching torches. “In fact, I am almost too late.”

  “That is true,” replied Duwan coldly. “I must ask you to leave before the chiefs reach the castle’s gates.”

  “My business can be accomplished in less time. I am, as you see, a representative of the Patrol—here are my credentials, if you wish to see them.”

  Duwan barely glanced at the papers. “I am familiar with the like,” he said. “After all, Cromman has been in the League for almost a century now, though we have had little outside contact.” He felt, somehow, irritated at the compulsion, that he must explain the fact: “When we were introduced to spaceships and the like, we naturally wished to develop our own planet and its sisters first before venturing into other worlds. Also, most of the Zordochs were conservatives. But a newer generation of leaders is arising—I myself, as you see, am about to become head of the most influential clan—and we will see some changes now.”

  “That is what I came about,” said the Patrolman. “It may seem strange, but I will make it short: I bear a most urgent request from Galactic headquarters that you refuse the crown when it is offered you tonight and direct that it be given to your younger brother Kian.”

  For a moment the sheer barefaced effrontery of it held Duwan paralyzed. Then the black rage that made him grab for his sword was throttled by a grim control, and when he spoke his voice was unnaturally level: “You must be mad.”

  “Perfectly sane, I assure you. But hurry, please, the procession will be here soon.”

  “But what imaginable reason—Why, Kian is more hopelessly conservative than even my father—And the League constitution specifically forbids interference in the internal affairs of member planets—” Duwan shook his head, slowly, slowly. “I can’t comprehend it.”

  “The Patrol recognizes no laws save those of its own making—otherwise there is only immediate necessity,” said the human cynically. “I will tell you why we wish this later, if you desire, but there is no time now. You must agree at once.”

  “Why…you are just crazy—” The rage came again, bitter in Duwan’s throat: “If you try to impose your will forcibly on Cromman, you’ll find that our boast of being a warrior race is not idle.”

  “There is no question of force. It is not necessary.” The Patrolman reached into his portfolio. “You traveled quite a bit through the Galaxy some years ago. And the moral code of Cromman is stern and inflexible. Those two facts are sufficient.”

  With a horrible feeling of having stepped over the edge of the world, Duwan watched him extract a bundle of stereofilms, psychographs, and other material from his case. “When the chiefs arrive with the crown,” said the Patrolman smugly, “I will explain that, while the League does not wish to meddle, it feels it to be a duty to warn its member planets against making mistakes. And the coronation of a Zordoch who had been guilty of, shall we say, moral turpitude in the fleshpots of the Galaxy, would be a definite mistake.”

  “But—” With a feeling of physical illness, Duwan looked at the pictures. “But…by the Spirit, I was young then—”

  “So you were. But will that matter to Cromman?”

  “I…I’ll deny—”

  “Stereofilms could be faked, yes, but not psychographic recordings, and there are plenty of scientists on Cromman who know that. Also we could produce a Crommanite or two who had been with you—”

  “But—Oh, no!—Why, one of those Crommanites was a Patrolman who…who took me to that place—”

  “Certainly. In fact, just between us—and I shall deny it on oath if you repeat it in public—the Patrol maintains that house and others like it and makes a point of persuading as many influential and potentially influential beings as possible to have a fling there. The records we get are often useful later on.”

  Duwan reached for his sword. The Patrolman said evenly: “If I fail to report back, this evidence will be made public. I think you will be wiser to refuse the Zordochy for reasons of…well, ill health. Then this information can safely gather dust in the Patrol’s secret files.”

  For a long, long moment Duwan stared at the sword. The tears blurring his eyes seemed like a film of rust across the bright steel. Then he clashed it back into its sheath.

  “I have no choice,” he said. “But when the League breaks its own laws, and employs the filthiest blackmailers to do the job, then justice is dead in the Galaxy.”

  * * *

  Three days later, Alak’s agreed code call went over the Luanian telescreens. Slinh received it and lifted the stolen car into the air. “Now be quiet,” he told the dirty, tear-faced child with him. “We’re going back to Daddy.” He added to himself “Of course, it’s possible that Daddy had Alak drugged or tortured to give the signal. That’s what I’d have tried. But if so, it’s only what the Patrolman deserves for leaving me in charge of this brat.”