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Cross of Empire by Christopher Lampton

PROLOGUE

The waning afternoon sun glowed fiercely in the depths of the Lilanian sky, burning scarlet streaks across the clumps of bluish cloud that scudded low along the horizon. Beyond the clear glass of the pressure dome, stretching away on all sides of the Malovian Environmental Complex, the sands of the desert smoldered with a ruddy incandescence. Here and there great columns of stone rose abruptly above the plain, extending toward the heavens like ominous pointing fingers.

It looks like Hell, thought Austin Fairfield. Or what Hell should look like, if the universe is truly just.

From his seat on the roof of the Terran Embassy, Fairfield could see desert for countless kilometers in every direction. There had been a time when he had found the view breathtaking, but no longer. He had watched the Lilanian sunset almost every evening for the previous eight and a half months and he was growing frankly tired of it, majestic though it may be. And yet there was nothing else to do on the planet Lilani, not even when you were Terran Ambassador, and at least the sunset had a certain drama to it. That was more than he could say for the rest of Lilanian life.

The tall scar-faced Lilanian courier stood rigidly at attention beside Fairfield’s chair. The ambassador shuffled through a small sheaf of data printouts that the courier had placed on the table in front of him, pulling one away from the rest and laying it carefully on top of the pile. He squinted down at it, then scowled.

“So the Hraka have taken three more of our warships, eh? Damnation, Luxor! I suppose they’ll be expecting us to surrender now that they’ve demonstrated their obvious superiority to our fleet.”

The Lilanian nodded almost imperceptibly. His eyes, buried deep in the sockets of his gaunt, craggy face, betrayed little or no emotion. He gestured noncommittally with a raised hand. “The Hraka have a great respect for the Terran military capacity, sir. I know this. I served under Hrakan command for three years during the Pleiades Campaign.”

“But—you don’t understand, Luxor!” Fairfield slapped his flattened palm against the table. “We’ve lost twelve of our ships within as many months and we haven’t so much as touched one of theirs. They’re devastating us. They know all of our moves before we make them.”

“Spies, sir?”

“Obviously. What else could it be? But our security’s so tight! How in the world could the Hraka have smuggled a spy into the Terran Defense Network? And if they have, how could he smuggle information out? It would seem to be a practical impossibility.”

“Seeming is not the same as being.”

Fairfield smiled mirthlessly. “No. I’m afraid it’s not. Somehow the Hraka have managed to infiltrate our security, despite our best efforts…” He felt the anger rising inside himself, like a tide of bitter acid.

He leaned back into his chair, his heart thumping loudly inside his chest. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, calmly. It wouldn’t help to get himself worked up over something that didn’t concern him any longer. Not at his age. They had warned him that his heart could stand only so much exertion. That was why he was sitting on his butt on this Godforsaken planet; that was why they had cashiered him out of the Star Fleet. The idiots! He had been the best officer they had, better than any ten of those fair-haired pantywaists they were pulling in from the universities. He had experience, thirty years of it; he had fought in more wars than those sniveling kids had lived through and that was something no amount of education could make up for. So what if he had a bad heart? He had gone into the fleet fully prepared to die in the service of his Empire—and it wouldn’t have mattered if that death had come for him on the parade ground rather than the battlefield. At least he would have died in uniform, not in the starched white suit of a Terran Ambassador.

He sighed and pushed the data sheets into the center of the table. It wasn’t worth getting upset over. The Star Fleet was a thing of his past and he had vowed to leave the past alone. He had no business worrying himself over this affair with the Hraka. And yet, he was tired of just sitting still and doing nothing…

The Lilanian courier plucked the papers from the table, bowed again, and strode silently from his presence. Fairfield watched as he disappeared into the building below. Could Luxor be a spy? The Lilanian was an ex-mercenary and had by his own admission served under Hrakan command. He could as well owe his allegiance to the Hraka as to anyone else.

But no; the comings and goings of the courier were monitored as thoroughly as those of a rat in a laboratory maze. He could no more send a message off-planet without the Terran authorities being aware of it than he could breathe vacuum. If he made so much as one suspicious move he would be shipped to the opposite edge of the inhabited galaxy; security was that tight. No, Luxor was as innocent as Fairfield himself.

And yet, somehow, the Hraka had infiltrated the Terran Defense Network…

He rose and stood at the railing that lined the roof’s edge. The pressure dome seemed only inches in front of his face, though in reality he knew that it was about half a kilometer farther on. It covered a complex of some fifteen buildings, protecting Terran and Lilanian alike from the harsh, poisonous atmosphere beyond its air locks. But it was featureless and from where Fairfield stood there was no sense of perspective to it; it might have been an inch or a kilometer or even a thousand kilometers away.

The sun was almost eclipsed now by the distant blue line of the horizon; only a thin red sliver still showed above it, shimmering and rippling in the rising waves of heat. Long shadows clustered in the hollows between the dunes. High above, the sky had turned a deep rich indigo.

Something moved…

Fairfield saw it from the corner of his vision, but when he turned to look it was gone. Could he have imagined it? He stared at the ragged assortment of stones that lined the crest of the long sloping hill where the movement had been, but saw nothing. The rocks, he had been told, were the remains of an ancient Lilanian city, a relic of that remote time when the surface of the planet had been fertile and inhabitable. Could someone—something—be lurking in those ruins?

The movement came again. A tiny patch of darkness detached itself from a larger patch of darkness and disappeared into even thicker shadows before Fairfield was fully aware that it had been there at all. He tightened his grip on the railing. Leaning forward, he strained to catch another glimpse of the fleeting shape, but it had vanished into the dusk.

What could it have been? The Lilanians never went outside and no one in the embassy had filed for exploratory privileges that afternoon. Who in their right mind would want to venture out into that infernal wasteland?

There! It moved again. A distinctly humanoid figure darted across the face of a stone outcropping, then hunkered down into its shadow.

Fairfield felt a sudden uncontrollable burst of excitement. For a moment he forgot his frustration at being cooped up in the Terran Embassy: here was adventure, mystery, right on his doorstep. Oh, it wasn’t much, really, but his existence on Lilani was so blasted monotonous that even the smallest break in routine was welcome. Suddenly, in his imagination, he was back on Regulus V again, guiding two hundred soldiers through an embattled pass while snipers waited to cut them down from above. That was the life he wanted to lead—and the devil take this ambassador business! He felt the electric tingle of adrenalin in his blood.

He started to ring for one of the embassy guards, but a sudden impulse made him hesitate. Instead he activated the emergency elevator and took it down to the sub-levels of the complex.

The ground level formed the interface between the dome city and the vast underground warrens of the Lilanians underneath. Harsh and utilitarian in design, it served as a parking garage for the rarely used exploratory vehicles: the dune buggies, as they were known colloquially. Coming out of the elevator, Fairfield counted the row of buggies parked against the opposite wall. They were all there. He turned to the guard who stood watch at the access tunnel and asked, “Has anyone left the complex today?”

The guard shook his head. “No, sir. Not a soul.”

So, thought Fairfield, whoever was prowling around outside had either come from another dome or had discovered an exit that no one else knew about. Unless, of course, the prowler had just arrived from off-planet, which seemed even more unlikely. He let out a long, contemplative breath. Any way he looked at it, it seemed suspicious. Interplanetary travel was highly restricted here, at the edge of the war zone; any incoming ships would have been announced well in advance of their arrival. And a legitimate traveler between cities would hardly be skulking about in the rocks like that. No, something was obviously wrong, obviously amiss…

He was beginning to enjoy himself…

From his private equipment locker, Fairfield pulled a battered but serviceable looking pressure suit. With trembling fingers he slipped his arms and legs into its lightweight, flexible armament; then, almost as an afterthought, he clipped a small laser pistol to one of the hooks on the belt. Through a loop on the opposite side he passed a long handled flashlight.

He turned to look at himself in a full length mirror about fifteen yards away. He looked awkward, clumsy, impossibly bulky.

It made him feel almost human again.

The dune buggy coughed itself to life as Fairfield turned the thin key in its ignition. It was no more than the skeleton of a vehicle: all chassis and engine, with a single, contoured seat mounted in its center. At first glance it looked almost flimsy, but it was all that was needed to navigate the treacherous, changing contours of the Lilanian landscape. He threw it into gear and guided it up the ramp toward the tunnel door.

The guard leaned forward and waved him to a halt. “Are you registered to go outside, sir?”

“I’m the ambassador,” Fairfield growled. “I make the rules. I don’t have to follow them!”

The guard nodded reluctant agreement. “Whatever you say, sir,” he replied. He passed his hand across a series of buttons and the door fluttered open. Fairfield gunned the buggy past him and into the tunnel.

The door slid closed behind him. He knew, without being able to hear the hiss of the vacuum pumps, that the air was being sucked from the chamber around him. By the time he reached the far end of the tunnel it would have been replaced by the harsh, toxic atmosphere of the wastelands; then he would be expelled from the tunnel into the desert beyond.

Far ahead, the outer door fluttered open. He raced the buggy up the rough, concrete ramp and brought it to a sharp halt at the threshold, letting the engine idle for a moment as he stared out into the twilight. The evening sky had turned a deep cerulean since he had seen it from inside the dome. The sun was gone and the scarlet glow of the sand was fading to a rich maroon. The shadows gathered and thickened among the dunes; ahead of him a great, rocky crag, barely visible against the darkening sky, rose ominously into the heavens.

He shivered, despite the sharp rise in temperature that struck him as he rolled the buggy out of the entranceway. For a moment he was sorry he had come; the world outside the dome was stark and forbidding, even more so at night than during the day. Pressing down the rising fear in his gut, Fairfield switched on the searchlight, beam mounted between the front wheels and cast it up the long slope into the ruins.

The light, powerful as it was, barely touched the rocks it was aimed at. Fairfield cursed lightly under his breath. He had misjudged the distances involved; the rocks were a good half kilometer farther away than he had imagined. Well, it was a natural enough mistake. He had been outside the dome only once before and that was when he had first arrived on Lilani. The terrain was still strange and unfamiliar to him. He gunned the dune buggy forward across the shifting sands.

There was a low howling sound off in the distance, like a demonic chorus barely muffled by the metal plating of his helmet. He looked toward the east and thought that he could see the tall, black clouds of a dust storm sweeping across the horizon, but in the darkness he could not be sure. The sound of it made him shudder, though he knew he would be back inside the dome before it reached him.

The buggy ground its way slowly up the dunes. Fairfield played the searchlight beam across the tumbledown assortment of rocks where the mysterious figure had disappeared, but nothing moved. He realized now that there were a thousand nooks and crevices where the prowler could be hiding; nevertheless he continued uphill until the vehicle reached the edge of the rocks.

The great, fingerlike stone loomed menacingly above his head. He brought the buggy to a halt at its base, but even after the engine had died his hands still trembled at the wheel. I can’t be afraid, he thought solemnly to himself. I wanted adventure, excitement. Now I’ve got them. I should be enjoying myself, not shivering in my boots.

Hesitantly, he slung his legs over the side of the buggy and lowered himself to the ground. He pulled the flashlight from the loop on his belt, aiming it into the dark areas between the rocks. There was no sign of movement.

Taking the key from the ignition and dropping it into a small pocket on the exterior of his suit, Fairfield headed up into the ruins. They seemed strange, alien, as he walked among them. But of course, he reminded himself; they were alien. Gutted and reshaped as they were, these stones had been fashioned centuries earlier by beings that had never heard of the human race, much less the Terran Empire. The eyes of a thousand generations of Lilanians seemed to stare down at him as he moved through the shadows…

Metal glinted in the beam of his flashlight.

Fairfield froze. Standing rigidly, he swung the light back to where he had seen the reflection, but it was gone. His jaw muscles tightened imperceptibly. Holding his breath for fear of missing some telltale sound, he stepped forward.

He had seen something, he was sure of it. The light had reflected off highly polished metal and that certainly had no business being in these ruins. His heart tripped tightly inside his chest. Climbing atop a mottled, timeworn boulder he shot the flashlight beam down into the valley beyond.

A dark figure raced across a dune about fifteen meters below him and disappeared behind a massive stone outcropping. Fairfield bounded after it, flashlight held stiffly in front of himself. He struck a stone and stumbled forward, but he caught his balance before he fell. Reeling almost drunkenly, he grabbed at the stone outcropping and pulled himself after the trail of the running figure. His breath came in short, ragged gasps.

The figure was gone…

“No!” he shouted, startling himself by speaking aloud. “He can’t have gotten away. He can’t!

Fairfield dashed wildly forward. Great columns of stone rose up around him like the remnants of some ancient promenade. He played the beam of the flashlight around him, but only shadows stirred, dancing in his wake like ghosts aroused from their eons-long sleep by his passage. He shouted coarse epithets into the echoing confines of his helmet, grimacing at the harsh sound of his own voice.

The pain caught him by surprise. It came as he plunged through a massive stone arch, shooting up from his chest and into his neck, filling his throat with sharp, acrid bile.

Suddenly dizzy, he grabbed for one of the mottled stone columns. It wavered miragelike and unreachable just out of his grasp. His legs seemed to melt from beneath him like mounds of warm butter. His knees thudded to the ground. He was choking to death!

He knew what was happening. It had been much the same during his first attack, back when he was still in the Star Fleet, but then there had been a doctor nearby to give him emergency treatment. Now there was no one to turn to. They had prescribed something for it then, something that he was to place under his tongue when the palpitations came, but he had left it back in the embassy. He had been insane to come out here without it. He had been insane to come out at all. They had warned him that even a little exertion could kill him, but he hadn’t listened.

A sudden bitterness rose up in his gut. He was an old fool. It, was a hard admission to make, but it was true and he couldn’t escape it. He had been clinging to the dreams of his past, acting like a headstrong adolescent. He was too old to be chasing shadows, pretending that he was still a young soldier. Now he might find himself condemned to death for his stupidity.

Damn it! he thought. I can’t let myself die like this!

He heard the approach of the figure more through his hands and feet than through his ears. With a sharp jerk of the head he looked up to see something that made him forget the pain in his chest, made him forget even the mutinous disintegration of his heart. It stood about two and a half meters tall, towering over him like some primitive totem, its massive bulk encased in a dark green pressure suit. Across its left shoulder was emblazoned the image of a scarlet thunderbolt. Fairfield shot the flashlight beam into its helmet and two huge, catlike eyes stared back out at him, burning with an intense amber glow. Fairfield recognized those eyes, as any Terran soldier would. He grasped deperately for his gun…

He never reached it. A great arc of electricity lashed out from the belt of the dark figure’s suit, hurling Fairfield backwards across the sand. He screamed as the sizzling energy crackled into his flesh, but he barely heard the sound of his own voice. Inside his chest his heart swelled, balloonlike, until it seemed to crowd its way into his throat. Darkness spread, covering him like a shroud…

Within minutes the material of his pressure suit had split open to expose the crisp black flesh underneath; but by that time his heart had already exploded and his eyes had fluttered open to stare lifelessly at the dark Lilanian sky. The massive figure kicked at the corpse twice, and when no movement came, it turned and disappeared once more into the twisted configurations of stone.

Hours later the dust storm swept over the ruins and buried Fairfield’s remains beneath the shifting scarlet sands.

CHAPTER 1

Ilium! I have come to you across forty light-years of hyperspace and now you are mine!

Derek Sullivan, newly arrived on the freighter Pole Star from the planet Greensward, stood on the street of the Seven Planets and breathed happily of the crisp, thick air of New Troy.

It was Festival time on Ilium. Already the winding, vehicle-free streets had begun to fill with revelers, though the month-long festivities had begun only hours before. High above the Square of the Resurrection, in a sky so blue that it seemed to Sullivan it must have been carved from iridescent gemstones, the sun hung just short of noon. A rocket trailed thin gray smoke into the air, disappearing for a moment in the intense glare of the sunlight, then bursting into a thousand multicolored fragments even as he stood gaping at the sky.

It’s beautiful! he thought, like a thousand sparkling stars unafraid to come out in the day!

Ahead of him, a tight circle of onlookers had gathered in the center of the square, gazing up after the dwindling cinders as they smoldered their way slowly back to the ground. A gentle rustling of applause wafted toward him across the street.

The rocket, he knew, signaled the beginning of an entertainment. He took a tighter grip on the small green suitcase that he had carried with him for three weeks and stepped quickly through the angular chrome archway that bordered the edge of the square. He was a tall lanky man, in his mid-twenties, with a smooth, beardless face that could have belonged to a boy in his teens. As he walked, his bones seemed to shuffle restlessly inside his loose clothing, his muscles bobbing with a kind of fluid grace.

A fountain of flame shot into the air above the crowd, then subsided. Pushing his way through the rearmost bystanders, Sullivan caught a glimpse of three men in brightly patterned silk robes standing in a small circular arena, juggling carved wooden clubs above their heads. He craned forward to get a better view. The one in the center—evidently the leader, judging from the fiery red sash he wore about his waist—launched a single black club into a soaring arc over the square. As it began its descent, a column of fire spurted from the juggler’s mouth, igniting the club in a burst of flame.

Pyrotics! thought Sullivan. Men who control fire with the power of their minds! He shivered with more than a little awe: the control of fire was a rare talent indeed. He had never seen a pyrotic in action; probably few people had. The citizens of Ilium must have gone to great expense to bring three of them together here in New Troy. But, of course, a thing like that would matter little to the Iliumites; their festival came only once in every decade, on the anniversary of the founding of the Terran Empire, and their extravagances were legendary. The pyrotics were probably no more than an appetizer for what was yet to come.

He looked around. Most of the crowd was human, but there was a fair sprinkling of aliens among them; more, certainly, than he had encountered during his twenty-four years on Greensward. His experience with aliens had been limited to the few who had arrived on the twice-yearly ship from Triplanetary Suppliers, Inc., and those he had glimpsed only briefly while working as a dispatcher’s assistant at the spaceport. They had held a sort of exotic fascination for him then and he felt it again now, a quickening of the pulse as he glanced at the bizarre, non-human faces around him.

To his left he recognized the tall, thin being in the billowing orange caftan as a Spingarian—and a shiver of excitement raced through him. He had read about the Spingarians years before, in school; he knew how they had been grafted together from human and alien stock sometime during the Halloran Dynasty and how they had forged out a kind of communal existence on a planet near the Coal Sack. He had never actually seen one before…

In the crowd to his left he spotted a Zzaran, his tiny mandibles working uselessly in the empty air. Farther down toward the stage were a Mayerii and Lilanian; and there, soaring high above the square on wide brown wings, was a Daedalite. To his surprise Sullivan found warm tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. He had a sudden sense of joy, of presence, of being in a place in which he was meant to be.

In the arena the pyrotics gathered their clubs and disappeared from the stage. The crowd applauded wildly and Sullivan joined them, caught up in the pure excitement of the moment. He turned to leave, but from somewhere above him a crisp male voice came booming out of concealed loudspeakers.

He looked up to see a bulky telescreen floating high above the square, buoyed on suspensor beams. A square-jawed announcer smiled out at the crowd below. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted. “From Galactic Central, his Highness, Emperor Ehrenborg!”

The scene shifted. A tall, handsome man with a close-cropped black moustache sat casually on the edge of a plush armchair, one hand placed nonchalantly on his knee. He leaned forward with the air of one engaged in friendly conversation, his lips curved into a subdued smile. Sullivan recognized the face, of course. Any Terran would.

“Greetings, citizens of the Terran Empire,” he began. “I deem it a privilege to welcome you to our capital city. I know that many of you have traveled great distances to be here today and—as representatives of the peoples of New Troy, as well as the rest of Ilium and the Empire— I’d like to welcome each and every one of you to our festival. As you’re probably aware, the festival will continue through the entire month of Pan-Galactic September; it is my sincere desire that you will take advantage of the opportunities for your personal enjoyment that we have provided.”

His smile faded and he drew himself erect in the chair. “I regret, however, that there will be a shadow hanging over these festivities. The war with the Hrakan Empire has gone on now for more than three years and there is little likelihood that it will be terminated at any time in the next twelve months. I believe in being honest with my fellow Terrans; I realize that the war means a personal hardship for every citizen. Therefore I would like to remind you that it is only through the continued cooperation of you, the individual, that the eventual Terran victory will be achieved. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, child or adult, human or otherwise. The Terran Empire needs your support. The Hraka have infiltrated spies into our cities, agents of disruption and chaos into our industries and armed forces. It’s your duty, as a Terran citizen, to report all suspicious occurrences, all unusual or unexplained activity on the part of friend and stranger alike, to your nearest Empire way-station.” He took a pipe from the table at his knee and lit it with a small lighter, then smiled again at the audience. “If this war is to end soon, every Terran citizen must do his part. Remember: The Galaxy is only big enough for one Empire! Death to the Hraka!”

The crowd came to life with a jolt, as if someone had simultaneously jerked the strings on a thousand marionettes. “Death to the Hraka!” echoed a frail balding man directly in front of Sullivan. “Death to the Hraka!” Within seconds the rest of the crowd had taken up the chant: “Death to the Hraka! Death to the Hraka!” Sullivan found himself chanting too, screaming those four words mindlessly toward the screen, until he was breathless and flushed with excitement. The Emperor’s face remained smiling for several more seconds, then, abruptly, the screen flickered to darkness. The crowd continued the chant until it had become an incoherent roar.

Something brushed against Sullivan’s right arm. He turned and saw a diminutive human figure disappearing into the thickly packed mob that surrounded him.

He looked down. His suitcase was gone.

“Hey!” Sullivan shouted, but his voice was swallowed almost instantly by the mindless roaring of those around him. “Come back with that!”

He reached automatically after the fleeing figure—and ran headlong into a bulky alien behind him. Murmuring his apologies, he disentangled himself and hurried after the vanishing thief. The crowd parted reluctantly. When he had shouldered his way back out of the street, he saw the tiny figure scurrying away into the distance, the suitcase tucked firmly under one arm. He paused for an instant to catch his bearings, but only for an instant. Gathering his strength and courage about him like protective, energizing armor, he ran breathlessly in pursuit.

“Somebody stop him!” he gasped. “He’s got my suitcase!”

He saw quickly that yelling was useless; nobody was reacting. Bystanders stood back and stared, making no attempt to give Sullivan any kind of assistance. Why wouldn’t they help him? he wondered. Couldn’t they see that the little man was a thief?

The tiny figure ducked between two buildings, into an alleyway so narrow that Sullivan was not sure at first if it were there at all. Only seconds later he entered it himself, but the little man was gone. Sullivan looked about in confusion; the thief had not had time to reach the far end and there were no other alleys branching off this one. His heart sank. He plunged on toward the far end, looking for a place where the little man could have hidden, but he found none.

He felt suddenly very lonely and depressed. The suitcase had contained everything he owned in the world, everything that he had been allowed to carry with him through hyperspace, except for the money in his wallet. He had carefully packed away his belongings in that suitcase before he had left his homeworld—and now they were gone, with no way to get them back.

There was the sound of shouting from somewhere nearby.

Sullivan looked around, startled. Two voices—one deep and rumbling, the other high-pitched and mouselike— were arguing loudly, so loudly that they seemed only feet away. And yet there was no one in sight.

Sullivan discovered a curtainlike tarpaulin, hanging along the wall next to him, so soiled and dirt-encrusted that he had failed to notice it before. He pulled it away and behind it was a door. He tapped on it lightly; it swung open.

In the dimly lit, ill-furnished room beyond stood a huge mound of a man in a faded blue suit. His flesh shook visibly as he spoke; his voice had the timbre and pitch of an erupting volcano. Sullivan’s teeth rattled as the man roared at someone on the far side of the room.

“You scrawny little imbecile!” he bellowed. “You thought you could sneak out and pilfer tourists without telling me, didn’t you?”

“But Cadwallader,” came the squeaking, mouselike reply. “I didn’t mean—”

“You can’t talk your way out of it this time, Ratstooth! How many times do I have to tell you that stealing isn’t our business? Those sticky fingers of yours could ruin everything. Look at me when I talk to you, you scrawny excuse for a human being!”

“But… but, he was hardly more than a kid! What could it matter?”

A sudden excitement came over Sullivan, as he stood quietly in the doorway. Scarcely even daring to breathe, he squeezed his way into the room, slipping around in back of the fat man until he could see the source of the other voice. There, his neck clutched tightly in the big man’s massive fingers, was the tiny thief, his face red and engorged with blood, his feet dangling inches above the floor. And to his right, atop an untidy pile of junk heaped on a table, Sullivan saw the suitcase.

He could reach it in four, perhaps five steps. But if they should hear him…

“What could it matter?” the fat man bellowed, waving his free hand threateningly in the air. “I ought to throw you to those scavengers over on the Avenue of the Hercules Cluster, you feeble-minded freeloader! They’d eat you for breakfast. It would serve you right, too!”

“But Cadwallader,” the little thief whined. “It was only a suitcase!”

Sullivan crept forward. The fat man was too worked up to notice him at the moment—or at least Sullivan hoped that he was. With trembling fingers he reached out and took a tight grip on the small leather handle of the case. Easing it silently from the table, he took a cautious step back toward the door.

“Cadwallader!” screeched the tiny man. “Behind you!”

The fat man swiveled around, so abruptly that the floor seemed to vibrate beneath him. “You there!” he bellowed. “Where do you think you’re going with that suitcase?”

Sullivan jerked to attention, the case locked convulsively in his fingers. His heart seemed to stop in mid-beat. He groped desperately for words.

“Ah… well….”

The fat man’s eyes flashed stormily. “Another scrawny thief eh? Put that down and get out of here, boy, or I’ll heave you out personally.”

“But… but, sir!”

” ‘Sir,’ is it? Speak up, boy, or I’ll kick you back into the wormhole you crawled out of. I don’t have to put up with two of you worthless guttercrawlers.”

“The suitcase, sir! It’s… it’s mine!”

“Yours? Why you… !” His eyes softened suddenly and he frowned down at the little man in his fingers. “Is that true, Ratstooth? Did you take that suitcase from this young man?”

The little man paled. “Yes, Cadwallader. He’s… he’s the one.”

“He is, is he? Okay, boy. Take your suitcase and get your carcass out of here before I grow genuinely angry. But if I see you poking your nose around here again, I’ll have your hide, I will.”

“Y… yes, sir! Thank you, sir!”

Sullivan needed little urging to leave that noxious, ill-kept hole in the wall. Flinging the door closed behind him, he dashed down the alleyway and back out into the street. He didn’t stop running until he had reached the Square of the Resurrection.

Sagging against a low retaining wall, he realized—without too much surprise—that he was trembling.

CHAPTER 2

The incident rankled. Sullivan crossed the public square, took a seat on a secluded bench and sulked. A cool wind blew up from between nearby buildings.

Well, at least he had the case back. That was the important thing. He slouched down into his seat, the suitcase clutched tightly in his arms, and let out a long explosive sigh. He should be happy, he knew, for the way things had worked out, but the theft bothered him. He had never had any experience with criminals before; he wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to react. Perhaps he had led a sheltered life—and on reflection he realized that he must have—but on Greensward such incidents were few and far between. Crime had rarely paid on his homeworld, the Greenswardians being a notoriously close-knit people. Wrongdoers, those few that dared to exist, were forcibly ejected from their communities by the Family Councils: harsh justice indeed, since it was almost impossible for those condemned by a council to find others willing to take them in. They could always seek out their fellow pariahs, of course, but that was the sort of company that only a desperate person sought. Small wonder that so few Greenswardians had been attracted to the criminal life.

He shuddered and wrapped his fingers more tightly around the handle of the case. He thought of the fat man and that started him trembling again; that and the memory of his rumbling voice bellowing, “Speak up, boy, or I’ll kick you back into the wormhole you crawled out of.” That had really rankled and not simply because it had been intended as a threat. People had been calling Sullivan “boy” for as long as he could remember and they hadn’t stopped when he had turned twenty-one. Now he was twenty-four and they still treated him as if he were a child. It was his face, of course; it was far too young for his years. Once he had tried to grow a beard to make it look more masculine and mature, but the hair had come out in spotty patches, most of it no darker than the light-colored down on the back of his arms. He was condemned, it seemed, to an eternal childhood, at least until he was senile and doddering.

Ah, well he had the suitcase now; he could forget about the way the thieves had treated him. He should probably find, some law-enforcement officials and tell them about what had happened, but that could wait. He had more important things to do.

He stood and surveyed the buildings on the far side of the avenue. He would have to find a hotel to spend the night in; that was something he couldn’t put off any longer. The next day, when he could get an early start, he would look for an inexpensive room where he could stay for the rest of the month. The spaceliner for New Oxford wouldn’t be leaving until the first of October; until then he would have to make Ilium his home.

The Olympus Hotel headed a block of undistinguished but clean-looking buildings in the far-northern part of town. Sullivan let his suitcase rest on a small sofa in the front lobby—the first time it had been out of his hands since the theft—and read the small rate sheet that dangled from the ceiling. A single room was forty credits a night. Well, thought Sullivan, it wasn’t the best price he’d heard of, but it wasn’t exorbitant and he was bone weary from searching every hotel north of the spaceport.

The girl behind the desk leaned forward and smiled. “Are you looking for a room?” she asked, her voice soft and friendly.

Sullivan found it a pleasant sound. The clerk at the last hotel had come close to biting his nose off after he had suggested that the room rates had the flavor of space piracy about them. Too exhausted to continue the argument, Sullivan had ducked back out onto the sidewalk while the clerk reviled him loudly from the other side of the desk. The juicy string of insults had echoed after him for at least two blocks.

“I’ll take a single, I guess,” said Sullivan finally. “What have you got?”

The girl smiled—and the sight of it caught Sullivan by surprise. She was very pretty, he realized; as pretty as any girl he had known on his homeworld. Her hair was dark and shiny in the harsh light from the ceiling lamp and her eyes sparkled brightly as she looked up at him. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-one or twenty-two. Maybe she was still in her teens. Well, he had heard that Iliumite girls were among the best looking in the Galaxy, but he hadn’t given it much credence since it had been an Iliumite who told him so. Perhaps there was something to it after all.

She picked up a sheet of paper from the desk in front of her and ran her pencil across a line of figures. “It looks like we’ve got a single room open on the second floor,” she said. She frowned for a moment, then laughed softly under her breath, adding, “… and on the third floor and fourth floor as well.” She looked up at Sullivan. “I’m afraid we’re not very full at the moment. It looks like you’ve got your pick of the house.”

Sullivan realized with chagrin that he was staring. He glanced down at the desk and said, “The one on the second floor sounds fine. Sorry to hear that business isn’t that good. You’d think with the festival and all it would be better.”

“Oh, the festival will bring in the customers, I’m sure, but we’re quite out of the way here and they won’t get to us until the second or third week. Then they’ll pack up and disappear on the first of the month. That doesn’t mean a lot of extra business for us.” She smiled. “That’s what I’m told, anyway. I wasn’t working here during the last festival. I was too young.”

She handed Sullivan a card and a pencil to fill it out with. He took them from her and printed his name in large black letters across the top, watching the girl out of the corner of his eye as he did so. He felt an instinctive liking for her, an urge to get to know her better, but he felt awkward, unsure of how to go about it. It would be nice to have a friend on Ilium, someone he could talk to, relate to. They were silent for a moment as he scribbled on the card. He tried to think of something else to say.

He could have saved himself the effort. The girl looked up at him curiously and asked, “Where are you from? You look very tired.”

“I am, but not from the trip. I’ve been doing a lot of walking this afternoon; I just got off the ship a few hours ago from Greensward. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it.”

“Afraid not.”

‘That’s okay. I doubt that many people have, not around here, anyway. It’s in the Gemini Sector, near Pollux. Not too many ships go there, except freighters.”

“It sounds kind of nice. Sometimes life gets a little too exciting on a planet like Ilium. It must be pleasant to live on an out-of-the-way sort of world like that.”

Sullivan smiled. “Actually, I always thought it was kind of boring. Until today, that is…”

“Oh? Did something happen today?”

He started to reply, then hesitated. For a moment he seemed to see the fat man’s face in front of him again, with the scrawny little thief clutched tightly in his fingers. The incident still bothered him and he wasn’t sure that he felt like talking about it yet, even with this girl.

“Nothing, really,” he said. “Just, ah, an accident that happened after I left the spaceport. Nothing you’d want to hear about.”

“Oh,” she said, seeming to understand. “I guess big-city life must come as something of a shock the first time around.” She waved her hand in front of her, as if to wipe the subject away. “Is this your first trip off of your home planet?”

“Uh huh. I’m afraid it is.”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of it. I’ve never been off of Ilium. My parents won’t even let me leave New Troy. I’d give anything to see another world, even if it was only Greensward.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged it off. “I guess that’s how I felt too,” he said. “I used to think that I’d spend the rest of my life on Greensward. My father was training me to take over his farming business, but when he died the state repossessed the farm and there wasn’t any business to take over. And on Greensward, if you’re not a farmer you’re not anything.”

“Couldn’t you go to work for somebody else?”

“Sure. There were plenty of neighbors willing to take me in, but it just wouldn’t be the same. Anyway, I have this rich uncle who convinced me that I should go back to school and study to be an engineer. Since he agreed to pay for my education I could hardly refuse. Like I said, I thought Greensward was kind of dull. So I’m stopping off here on Ilium to wait for the liner to New Oxford. I’ll be going to the university there.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s very impressive,” she said, without sarcasm. “The New Oxford Academy is supposed to be a tough school to get into.”

Sullivan blushed. “Well, my grades were pretty good back on Greensward and with my uncle’s money…” He looked embarrassedly down at the card in front of him, picking the pencil back up and signing it with more of a flourish than he had intended. The girl reached over and plucked the card from his fingers.

“I guess I’d better get you checked in,” she said. “Let’s see. Your name’s Derek Sullivan, right?”

“Uh, yeah. I don’t think I got yours.”

“I don’t think I gave it,” she laughed. “I’m Cindy Robbins. My father’s Anthony Robbins, the owner of the hotel.”

“I’m glad to meet you, Miss Robbins,” Sullivan stammered. The girl smiled and turned back to the beaten-looking typewriter at her side, typing a few words across the bottom of the card. Reaching up to a small overhead rack, she pulled down a latch key and dropped it into Sullivan’s palm.

“The key to your room,” she said. “Number 201. The best suite in the house.”

“Thanks, er, Miss Robbins. I’ll be seeing you later…” Grabbing his suitcase from the chair, Sullivan backed across the lobby and bounded up the stairs to the second floor. He had gone halfway down the corridor before he realized that he had passed his room. Backtracking, he found the door, inserted the key and stepped inside, dropping his suitcase into a molded-plastic armchair. The room was narrow and cramped, but it would do, he decided. The furniture was clean and well-kept, if a little old, and in the corner of the room stood an ancient holovision unit, about thirty years past its prime. He pulled the heavy drapes to both sides of the window and was surprised to find an excellent view of the park across the street.

Next to the lavatory hung a tiny cleansing unit. Sullivan stripped off his clothing, carefully draping his pants and shirt over the back of a chair, and ran the flat rubber nozzle over his body. Afterwards, as he stood waiting for the misty beads of soap to dry, a feeling of contentment swept over him, somewhat unexpectedly. Only hours before he had been alone and friendless, with no place to go, his suitcase stolen. Now he had his possessions back, a room to call his own, a friend of sorts.

He thought about Cindy Robbins. He liked her, there was no doubting that, even though he hardly knew her. Maybe, if he had an opportunity later that evening, he would ask her out to dinner. It might well be his only chance, since he wouldn’t be staying in the hotel for more than a night and he had no idea where he’d be living for the rest of the month. He wondered if he would get up the nerve.

After the cleansing, Sullivan felt languorous and relaxed. He sat on the edge of the bed, the suitcase flat across his knees, and pressed his thumbs against the safety catches. As he did so, however, the feeling of well-being passed and he had a sudden premonition that something was wrong, something that he could sense but not explain.

He flipped open the top of the case. His clothing, the familiar belongings that he had expected to find, were not there. In their place were books, papers, electronic instruments…

It was not his suitcase. The realization came to him slowly, painfully. He stared into the tiny case, then dumped the contents onto the bedspread, feeling ill. He had never seen this stuff before in his life. He picked up a thin notebook with the letter “ARR-DEP” inscribed on the cover, but the contents—graphs, tables, cryptic notations—were meaningless gibberish as far as Sullivan was concerned. He threw it to the floor, exasperated. Rummaging through the rest of the pile he picked up the two or three strange instruments that had been in the case, but they told him nothing.

He muttered harshly under his breath. It was obvious what had happened. In his haste to get out of the thieves’ den he had grabbed the wrong suitcase—it was as simple as that. He probably should have checked its authenticity while he was still there, but it seemed unlikely that the fat man would have given him the chance. He had been lucky to get out of there with his skin intact. His suitcase must still be back in that noxious little room—and at that moment, he realized with mounting frustration, the little thief was probably pawing through it as though it belonged to him.

He rose abruptly to his feet, his blood steaming with righteous anger. He would storm down that alley and take the suitcase back by force if he had to do so. That would teach them to play games with him!

As quickly as the anger had come over him it faded. He sagged back into the bed and stared at the untidy pile in front of him. He was tired and hungry, in no shape to do any storming. What could he hope to accomplish before he had rested or eaten?

He thumbed through a few of the notebooks and papers, but there was nothing to indicate the identity of the previous owner. Maybe it belonged to the thieves; more likely they had stolen it from some unfortunate tourist. Glancing back over the equipment he spotted something that he recognized: a geloid communicator, a long-distance walky-talky barely larger than a book of matches. It was a standard piece of equipment for officers in the Star Fleet, since it broadcast over great distances by tachyon wave, sending messages between stars in weeks, rather than years. He had seen pictures of such instruments before, though he had never actually touched one. He picked it up and turned it over in his fingers. The frequencies marked on the dial weren’t the ones that he had expected to find, but perhaps it operated on a non-standard wavelength.

He placed it on the bed beside him and shoveled everything else back into the suitcase. Clicking it shut, he propped it against the side of the bed and considered what his next move should be. It was obvious that he would be in no shape to solve the problem until he had eaten. With a sigh, he donned the clothes he had taken off only moments before and dropped the communicator into his shirt pocket for later examination. Then he went back down to the desk.

“There’s a small Mayeiian restaurant about ten blocks from here,” Cindy told him, when he asked her to recommend an inexpensive place to eat. “I’ve been going there for years. The food’s great and the service is, well, exotic. I think you’ll like it.”

He was too tired to make the trek to the restaurant on foot, but he was anxious to show the dark-haired girl that he trusted her judgment, so he stood at the corner of the hotel and waited for a transit vehicle to arrive. The sky was still light, but a cool breeze blew in from the north. The tiny moon of Ilium was just rising above a low building to his left. He felt a chill creep through him as he stood at the intersection. The transit vehicle arrived about ten minutes later, and grateful for the warmth, he took a seat far to the rear, away from the drafty front door. As the vehicle lurched forward into the light, early evening traffic, he pulled the communicator from his pocket and examined it in the dim light of the overhead lamp. He thumbed a tiny stud barely visible against the dark plastic casing.

To his surprise, the tiny instrument responded almost immediately. Loud static crackled out of the miniscule speakers, filling the narrow interior of the vehicle with sound. He fumbled for a volume knob, but found nothing. A few seats ahead of him a middle-aged woman turned her head and stared at him in open annoyance. Across the aisle an elderly man made irritated grumbling sounds.

Sullivan reached for the activator stud, but before he could switch the communicator off a nasal voice came jabbering out in a language he did not understand. The voice rattled on for several seconds, not with the rhythm of a newscaster or storyteller, but with the air of someone engaged in polite but urgent conversation. The sound of it grated against his ears. The consonants were harsh and guttural, the vowels flat and unmusical. And yet he had heard the language before, he was sure of it, though it hadn’t been for some time.

He jumped suddenly forward in his seat. Of course he had heard the language before: It was Hrakan! A deathly chill swept over him. No wonder he hadn’t heard it recently; no one in the Terran Sector would dare to speak Hrakan, not with the war on, and any Hrakan broadcast would certainly be jammed by the government monitors.

Unless it was being broadcast on a non-standard wavelength…

He pushed quickly at the stud, clicking the communicator to silence, but the voice seemed to echo in the air around him for long seconds afterward. It occurred to him, with a sense of growing uneasiness, that the incident could be misinterpreted, that it would look very bad if someone saw him receiving an Hrakan broadcast, especially here in the capital of the Empire.

Looking up, he saw the middle-aged woman staring at him with shocked, disbelieving eyes. He jabbed urgently at the call-button over his head, standing up as the vehicle jerked to a halt. Grabbing the back of the seat in front of him, he hauled himself up the aisle, turning only briefly to look at the woman as he passed. Her eyes stared daggers of suspicion at him, following him until he had stumbled through the door and out onto the sidewalk.

The bus pulled away. He sagged against a signpost along the curbside, his breath coming out as a light mist in the chill night air. His hands were trembling, and as he looked at them, he broke suddenly into laughter. The whole thing was ridiculous; he had received a broadcast in Hrakan on a radio that had fallen into his hands by accident and an old lady had given him a dirty look. Hardly worth getting upset over.

And yet the trembling continued. He pulled the communicator from his pocket and started to throw it into the gutter, but thought better of it. He should probably show it to the authorities and tell them how he had come across it. If he got rid of it now it might be found, with his fingerprints all over it. No; better that he turn it in himself.

A transit vehicle paused at the curbside and swung open its doors, but he waved it on. He had lost his appetite suddenly; he was no longer anxious to visit Cindy’s Mayeriian restaurant. He needed something else—a drink, perhaps.

Halfway down the block a sign flashed the message:

ODYSSEY ROOM

Lounge and Club

He cocked his head, strangely enticed. He had never been in a bar before, though there had been a number of them on his homeworld. When he had turned twenty-one a group of his friends had taken him to a popular nightclub to celebrate, but the doorman had refused to believe that a smooth-faced youth like Sullivan could possibly be of age and had turned them away. He had never gone back.

Now, for the first time since his secondary school days, he felt the urge to have a drink. It might be just what he needed to calm his nerves.

He would only stay for a few minutes…

The seedy-looking doorman sniffed suspiciously as Sullivan entered, but said nothing. Well, he thought, that was a victory of sorts. A pleasant change, after a largely unsuccessful day.

It was dark inside. Soft music poured out of concealed speakers. A scantily dressed waitress brushed past him as he crossed the small dining area, giving him an appraising glance.

Feeling more assured, he took a seat at the bar between two middle-aged men, one stocky and athletic-looking, the other small and rumpled. The bartender, an android, nodded in Sullivan’s direction. He nodded back and ordered a Scotch-and-water, not because he liked it particularly, but because it had been his father’s favorite. And, to be honest, because it was the only drink with which he was familiar.

The rumpled man nudged Sullivan lightly on the elbow and grinned up at him. “You’re making a mistake,” he said. “The Scotch here tastes like iodine. You’ll hate it.”

Sullivan turned toward the little man, but before he could reply the man on his right leaned forward and said, “Come off it, Henderson. Just because they wouldn’t give you a refund on that gimma juice you spilled last week doesn’t mean you have to badmouth the place to everyone who comes in.”

Henderson frowned. “I’m not badmouthing, Corey. Just giving this young man a piece of friendly advice, that’s all.”

“Sure,” laughed Corey. “Anything you say, old friend. Anything you say.”

Sullivan watched the conversation dart back and forth between the two men, waiting for an opportunity to say a few words of his own. He felt like being friendly, talkative; after the scare on the bus he felt a need for human companionship, the urge to make a few new acquaintances.

The android waiter deposited Sullivan’s drink on the counter in front of him and Sullivan took a sip. He grimaced at the bitterness of it.

“What did I tell you?” said Henderson. “I can see by the look on your face that you’re not a Scotch man. Well, that’s okay with me, friend. Scotch is for women. What you need is a drink that a man can sink his teeth into.” He leaned forward. “Waiter!”

“Th… that’s okay,” stuttered Sullivan. “I’d really rather not—”

“No problem, friend. Waiter! Get this young man a bubonus fizz with a twist of kava melon. And take back this foul concoction you’ve placed in front of him.”

The android buzzed in annoyance. “Sir, I am not programmed to—”

“I don’t care if you’re programmed to wash dishes,” Henderson replied. “Get this young man a decent drink. And be quick about it!”

The waiter gave a mechanical shrug and plucked Sullivan’s drink from the table. “Yes, sir,” it replied unenthusiastically.

Sullivan stared at the rumpled man in disbelief. “You really didn’t have to—”

“There, there, friend. You don’t have to thank me. Glad to be of service. Jacob Henderson’s the name. My friend Corey and I are in town for the festival—and, not incidentally, for the System-Wide Conference of Laser Manufacturers and Repairmen. I don’t think I got your name.”

“I, um, don’t think I gave it,” he replied, remembering how Cindy had answered the same question earlier. “I’m Derek Sullivan. From Greensward. I’m stopping off on Ilium on my way to New Oxford.”

“Ah! A scholar!” Henderson extended his hand and Sullivan shook it briskly. He noted that the rumpled man’s breath smelled heavily of liquor, but he seemed to hold it well; at least he was not obviously inebriated. The stocky man, in turn, introduced himself as Leonard Corey. Sullivan exchanged pleasantries with him and turned back to the bar as the waiter returned with his drink.

He took a sip. It wasn’t bad.

“What did I tell you?” beamed Henderson. “Delicious, right? The true nectar of the gods, friend! Don’t you forget it.”

“Thank you. I won’t. I—”

“Say nothing of it. The least I could do.”

The stocky man chuckled and winked at Sullivan. “Don’t expect to finish many sentences while Henderson’s around. He has this thing about getting in the last word.”

“I’ve noticed,” said Sullivan wryly.

An hour later he had learned that the two men were from Hesperus, the next planet out from Ilium’s sun, were married to shrewish wives they seemed to have a great deal of affection for, and were co-owners of a company that manufactured holographic devices for military use. After being initially put off by the small man’s impulsive behavior, Sullivan found himself gradually warming to the pair and their idiosyncracies. They had a certain charm, a kind of… likability.

“As I was saying,” Henderson rambled, drink in hand, “the war has put quite a crimp in interplanetary shipping, but it’s sure done wonders for our business. Wouldn’t you agree, Cory?”

“I sure would, Henderson. I sure would.”

“In fact,” Henderson said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “I wouldn’t mind if this war went on forever.”

Corey raised his glass in a toast to Henderson’s remark, then apparently thought better of it. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’d better not say things like that, old friend. Somebody might, ah, misunderstand. I mean, that could be interpreted as a traitorous remark.”

“Traitorous?” blurted Henderson. “That’s nonsense. Who’s to misunderstand? No one heard me say it except for this young…” He looked at Sullivan, suddenly apprehensive.

For a moment Henderson and Corey glared suspiciously at the young man between them, as if they were unsure of what side he might be on, while Sullivan fidgeted nervously. Finally Corey smiled.

“Of course not,” he said.

“Of course not,” echoed Henderson. “Mr. Sullivan here could hardly be a government agent. He… he’s obviously a man of refinement.”

“Of course he’s not an agent,” chimed Corey. “He’s practically still a kid. No offense, of course.” He grabbed Sullivan’s arm and gave it a friendly shake.

“Sorry, Mr. Sullivan,” added Henderson. “You know how nervous everybody is these days, with all this talk of spies and such.”

Sullivan smiled weakly. “I didn’t realize it was quite so bad.”

“Are you kidding? Remember those two men who were taken in by the authorities last week? That happened just down the block from us.”

“I wasn’t around here then, I’m afraid. Did I miss something?”

“I suppose you could say that. Two young men put up a soapbox on the corner in front of the Immigration Bureau and began telling everybody how great the Hraka are, how we should lay down our arms and surrender to their superior power. Every law enforcement officer in the city must have come down on that pair. They drove them away in a confinement vehicle and nobody’s heard from them since. Rumor has it that they were sent to the discorporation chambers that same evening. There certainly wasn’t any trial.”

“No trial? Isn’t that illegal?”

“Not in time of war. They call it ‘martial law.’ If the government decides that the risk is great enough they can execute a suspected traitor on the spot, without even asking his name.”

Sullivan shuddered. “That’s terrible.”

“Damn right! But that’s the government for you. Give them an excuse and they’ll walk all over you. Take the new tax law for example…”

Sullivan stopped listening. With a chill, he recalled the tiny communicator and the Hrakan broadcast it had picked up. It might not be such a good idea to turn it over to the authorities after all, he decided. Perhaps he should find a large rock and grind the communicator into very fine particles.

He looked up to see Henderson and Corey staring at something on the far side of the room. A hush seemed to have fallen over the lounge; the subtle but pervasive buzzing of voices had stopped. Just inside the doorway stood four men in the uniforms of law enforcement officers. They seemed to stare into the darkness for a moment, then one stepped forward. The others followed.

“What the—?” whispered Corey. “They’re coming this way!”

A sudden unreasoning terror swept over Sullivan. There were about ten other men at the bar, but all at once he knew, with a fearful certainty, that he was the one the officers were after.

“I didn’t mean to say it,” muttered Henderson. “It was just a joke.”

Sullivan scarcely heard him. He turned back to the bar and stared into his drink, trying to ignore the sound of plodding footsteps from behind him. He felt the harsh glare of eight unblinking eyes burning into the skin on the back of his neck.

A massive hand clamped down on his shoulder. He began to shake.

“Turn around,” said a rumbling voice not far from his ear. “We’d like to get a good look at you.”

He obeyed. For a moment the whole world seemed to pivot around him. He felt as though he might lose all control of his nervous system, that he might fall from the stool and sprawl helplessly across the floor.

The four law enforcement officers stared at him with expressions chiseled from granite. “He matches the description,” said a bulky redhead.

Another man, slender and pallid, produced a tiny box with a cuplike antenna from a satchel and pointed it toward Sullivan. He ran the box quickly along Sullivan’s body, from his shoes to his head, then down again. As it passed over his chest it made a loud chittering noise. Before Sullivan could move, the man reached out and snatched the communicator from his vest pocket.

“Here it is,” he said. “That’s all the evidence we’ll need.”

The redhead took the communicator and rolled it around in his fingers. “An Hrakan transmitter,” he said. “Headquarters will be very glad to see this.”

The remaining two men, hulking goons who had not yet spoken, stepped to both sides of Sullivan’s stool and grasped him tightly by the shoulders. He stood up and tried to wrench himself free, but as he did so the two men tightened their hold. Bolts of pain shot down through his arms.

“Wait a minute!” he shouted, eyes blurring with tears. “I haven’t done anything! There must be some—”

“Mistake?” the redhead finished. “Probably; but I doubt that it’s ours. Come on, boy. You’re under arrest.”

CHAPTER 3

The two goons pulled Sullivan toward the door. A dozen or so faces looked up in stunned curiosity as he was dragged through the lounge, then looked away guiltily as he passed.

He felt confused, frightened. Was the transmitter alone sufficient evidence for his arrest? Obviously it was, but surely they would let him go after he had given his explanation. They couldn’t possibly believe that he was really a spy.

He paused for a moment and glanced back at Henderson and Corey, sitting rigid and unbelieving on their barstools. One of the hulking men at his shoulders tightened his grip and yanked him through the front door.

“Get moving,” he growled.

They stepped outside. A confinement vehicle—a blocky, trucklike automobile with a chamber in the rear for prisoners-—was parked halfway up onto the curb, its back door flung open to the street. The two goons threw him against the side of the vehicle and frisked him, removing his wallet and a few other items, then tossed him brutally into the dark interior. The door clanged shut behind him.

He lay stunned for several seconds, a hurricane of muddled thoughts storming inside his head. The floor felt moist and grimy beneath his cheek. Through the tiny window a few feet above his head came a confused babble of voices. He fought his way to a standing position, reeled dizzily against one of the thickly padded walls.

At least they hadn’t tied him. There were no handcuffs on his wrists, no ropes. He pressed his face against the tiny window, wrapping his fingers around two of the bars that ran vertically across it, and breathed in the cool air from outside. The redhaired man stood at the curbside, talking with a passerby on the sidewalk.

“Hey!” shouted Sullivan. “I wasn’t kidding. There really has been a mistake!”

The redhead looked up briefly, shrugged, then turned away. Sullivan pressed more closely against the window.

“I found that communicator this afternoon. It was an accident; I didn’t even know what it was. You’ve got to believe me. I had no idea who it belonged to or where it came from…”

The redhaired man nodded to the passerby and walked away, pointedly ignoring the pleading voice behind him. Sullivan slumped defeatedly back to the floor, exhausted and trembling.

In the dim light from the window he could tell little about the chamber in which they had thrown him. He guessed that it measured about two meters by three, but he could not be sure. When he stretched out across the width of the vehicle his head brushed against one wall and his feet against the other. Above him, the ceiling seemed dark and far away.

He lay still for a moment, his heart galloping inside his chest, and thought of what Henderson had said about the two men who had been arrested the week before: “If the government decides the risk is great enough they can execute a suspected traitor on the spot, without even asking his name.”

His throat tightened. If the authorities had executed those two men simply for disseminating Hrakan propaganda, how much worse would he fare now that they had discovered the communicator on him? In the eyes of the government the tiny transmitter would be prima facie evidence that he had been broadcasting Terran secrets to the Hraka. For that, death would be far too mild a punishment.

From somewhere to his left there came the sound of an engine choking itself to life. The walls around him shuddered, then the vehicle lurched forward into the night. He tried to stand again, but the rocking motion of the chamber and his own unsteadiness conspired against him, and he sagged back to his knees. He lay quietly for a moment. Street lamps peered in through the tiny window, sending darting images across the opposite wall before they disappeared. Finally he gave a sigh of resignation and rolled himself into a compact ball in one of the rear corners of the chamber.

Everything seemed to be falling apart now, he thought. Twenty-four hours earlier he had been safe, secure; things had appeared to be stable. He had been en route between Greensward and New Oxford, about to make a stopover on Ilium, headed toward a future that had seemed bright and promising. And now…

Tires squealed. The vehicle cut sharply around a corner, screaming wildly toward some unknown destination. Inertia pulled Sullivan toward the center of the chamber, held him there for a moment, then pulled him back to where he had been.

Minutes later—or hours; Sullivan’s sense of time was hopelessly twisted by fear—the tires screamed again and the confinement vehicle slid to a halt. The engine sputtered to silence. When it was gone there was only emptiness, eerie and foreboding.

He came slowly to a crouch. Somewhere outside he heard footsteps scrape against the pavement, circling around to the rear of the vehicle. A key scraped in the rusty lock. Seconds later the door groaned open. The goons stepped inside and gripped him under the armpits, tossing him out into the street where he landed on the pavement.

Muscular fingers tightened around his collar. One of the goons pulled him to his feet, shaking him until he came to attention. The redhaired man stood in front of him with a bulky laser pistol in his hand.

“End of the line, spy!” The redhead smiled cryptically.

“Where are we?” asked Sullivan, feeling foolish even as the words came out of his mouth. He looked around himself. They were in a dark alley, apparently alone. Old crumbling buildings clustered nearly unseen in the shadows. From somewhere above them dim moonlight filtered down, barely reaching the street. Mounds of garbage stood rotting on all sides, spilling into the street from overturned trashcans. About fifteen meters ahead of them a pile of discarded mattresses blocked the rest of the alley from traffic.

The redhead waved the pistol in Sullivan’s face. “Headquarters says we don’t have to bother bringing you in, Hraka-lover. They don’t want scum like you dirtying up their nice clean floors. We get to take care of you ourselves.”

Sullivan shivered as the redhaired man’s lips curved into a skull-like grin, but his mind refused to accept the meaning of his words. Take care of him themselves? What was he trying to say?

The redhead gestured to the other three officers. “Leave him to me, men. I can handle this creep.” The slender man shrugged and walked back to the front of the vehicle. The goons remained where they were, eyes fixed and expressionless in their granite faces.

“Come on,” the redhead said, pointing the gun toward the deserted end of the alley. “Get moving.” Sullivan stared blankly into the darkness, trying to figure whom the officer was talking to. It was several seconds before he realized that the order had been meant for him.

“I don’t think—” he began.

“Good. Let’s keep it that way. Now shut up and move.”

Sullivan hesitated, then followed the redhaired man’s gesture. His brain began to function again. The very fear that had frozen his mental faculties suddenly allowed them to operate again, as though he had reached a point where even his overload mechanism refused to work.

They were going to kill him, he realized. They were going to murder him in this deserted alleyway, without a trial, without even asking for an explanation. They were going to give him a traitor’s due without even bothering to find out if he were really a traitor. He had to do something if he were going to survive and he had to do it fast.

“You know something?” the man behind him said. “You spies are all alike. Idiots! Every one of you! If you hadn’t taken that transmitter with you today you probably would have gotten away, but you had to keep it in your pocket, like a baby with a security blanket. What you didn’t know was that we’ve got a gadget that zeroes right in on those communicators; all we have to do is come within fifty feet of one. That’s the kind of information your Hrakan friends would pay a lot to know.”

Sullivan made no reply. Without warning, he struck an unseen obstacle with his knee and plunged headfirst into the darkness. His hands sunk into soft pliable rubber.

“Come on!” shouted the redhead. “Get up, you clumsy fool! Keep moving!”

He muttered an inane apology and rose to his feet. Looking down at where he had fallen he saw the pile of mattresses lying in his path. He took a giant step and came down on the other side.

Something clicked.

Without turning, he brought his heel up sharply beneath the top mattress, flipping it backwards toward the man with the gun. He put all of his strength into the motion, all of the power that his pumping adrenalin could provide There was a shout and a sharp sizzling noise.

He turned. Smoke billowed up from where the laser sliced through the mattress; the fabric turned brown, then black. But the redhaired man had fought his gun hand free.

Sullivan grabbed the next mattress from the stack and, holding it between himself and the gun, threw himself into the officer’s arms. The two of them tumbled backwards, landing on the ground in an awkward heap. Laserfire crackled up through the layers of rubber and wire.

Searing heat blistered Sullivan’s left arm, but he ignored the pain and slammed the law enforcement officer’s head against the pavement with all the strength he could muster. Again and again he slammed it, until he was satisfied the man would harm him no longer. The laserfire stopped.

The entire action had taken no more than ten seconds, but when the law enforcement officer’s body went slack beneath him, Sullivan felt as if he were coming out of a long trance. From the direction of the confinement vehicle he heard the pounding of footsteps, sharp and ringing. He sprang to his feet and fled desperately into the darkness. The hulking goons, he realized, were only a few meters behind him.

A thin crimson beam flashed within centimeters of his shoulder. Sullivan stumbled into a row of ancient trash cans, grabbed one of them in his arms and tossed it blindly into the alleyway to his rear. A bulky silhouette stumbled into it, throwing it aside. Another beam flashed out of the darkness, barely missing Sullivan.

Damn it! he thought. Why hadn’t he taken the redhaired man’s laser pistol? It had been only centimeters from him.

He scowled to himself. It was too late now. He would have to make do with what he had. Which was nothing. No; that wasn’t entirely true. He had the darkness; at the moment it was the best weapon available. He couldn’t see the two men who pursued him, but neither could they see him. The advantage was ever-so-slightly his.

Something struck his face. Bolts of silent lightning shot across the darkness; his hands slapped against cold brick. He slumped against the obstacle in front of him, turning as he fell. As he dropped to the ground he could see the two men behind him, dimly silhouetted against the light at the far end of the alley. They shuffled back and forth for a moment, as if they were unsure of where he had gone.

Sullivan held his breath. With hands stretched out on both sides, he groped slowly to his right, then to his left. As far as he could tell in the near total darkness, he had come to some kind of dead end. Behind him was a brick wall. Far to his left he found another wall running perpendicular to the one he was leaning against. He was boxed in.

He might be able to slip past the goons, he thought, but then they would have the advantage, being able to see him against the distant light. Perhaps if he remained silent they would give up and go away.

One of them fanned his laser back and forth about one meter above the ground, burning a brown swath across the wall. Sullivan pressed himself against the pavement, letting the beam pass scant inches above his head, praying that the dim light would not expose his position.

Somewhere in the piles of junk and trash that surrounded him, he heard a large animal move. Another beam shot out. The animal screamed and died, flopping wildly through the debris.

One of the men bent down and examined the furry corpse. With a sigh of disgust he kicked it back into the shadows.

Sullivan felt the silence pressing in from all sides like a physical force, suffocating and oppressive. He was frightened. It occurred to him, suddenly, that his life depended on what he did in the next few moments.

The goons nodded to one another and walked to opposite sides of the alley. Neither spoke. Sullivan felt a certain awe for their bizarre efficiency, the unspoken communication that seemed to exist between them, as if they were part of some dangerous, well-oiled killing machine.

One of them began a rapid sweep along the wall to his left, raking long fingers across the bricks, kicking the debris with wide sweeps of his right leg. On the far side, the other did the same. Sullivan edged toward the center, aware that he was being hemmed in.

There must be a way out, he thought. He could make a break between the two of them, while they were on opposite sides of the alley, but he would probably get himself cut down for his trouble. No; he had to stand and fight, strike out somehow at his pursuers.

Above him, barely outlined against the distant night sky, a length of twisted metal piping descended from the otherwise featureless wall. He stared at it for a moment, then reached up for it, gripping it gently and hauling himself bodily into the air. The pipe groaned under his weight.

The nearer of the two goons paused and looked up, sniffing at the air like a bloodhound. Sullivan froze, dangling inches above the ground. His heart pounded loud alarms into the night; blood screamed underneath his eardrums.

The goon came nearer.

Sullivan pulled himself higher onto the pipe, arms aching with unaccustomed fatigue. He fought not to gasp down air. In school he had been good for two chin-ups, three at the outside, but he was going to have to break that record tonight.

The goon hesitated not far from where Sullivan hung.

It seemed for a moment that he could feel the hulking officer’s breath against his face, like a hot fetid wind. He was about two meters away.

Shoving off from the wall, Sullivan propelled himself into the massive figure in front of him. He brought his legs up as he swung, hands still wrapped tightly around the pipe, and struck the goon’s shoulders with his knees. Above him the pipe groaned and snapped.

The goon slammed against the pavement with a sharp exhalation of breath, Sullivan on top of him. Sheer momentum drove the bottom end of the pipe down onto the goon’s face; Sullivan threw his weight against it, giving it a sharp twist, as if it were a screwdriver. The man on the ground moaned and threw up his arms in pain, flailing them mindlessly in front of himself. Sullivan plucked the laser from his stunned fingers and aimed it back down at the man’s chest. The laser crackled. The goon screamed.

Sullivan swiveled around to face his other pursuer, but before he could locate him in the darkness another flash of crimson shot between the fingers of his left hand. He threw himself to one side, scrambling for cover in the debris. Another burst lanced briefly over his head. He shot back blindly.

Silence. Sullivan flattened himself against the ground, scuttling forward like a soldier crawling through mud. He hauled himself up onto a heavy wooden packing crate and looked toward the spot in the darkness where the goon’s last shot had come from, but saw nothing. It was conceivable, he thought, that he had killed him with his last shot, but it seemed unlikely. The goon could be trying to fake him out, bluff him. If Sullivan eased his guard, tried to get out of the alley, the goon would have him. And yet he couldn’t wait there all night; reinforcements would be arriving soon. By now the slender man, the only one left back at the confinement vehicle, would have radioed word of Sullivan’s escape back to headquarters.

The stillness rang ominously in Sullivan’s ears.

He stared into the darkness, hoping for a sign of movement, a clue to the goon’s whereabouts, but there was nothing.

Then, behind him came the gentle creaking of rusty hinges, a sharp sighing noise in the secluded stillness of the alley.

A doorway!

He wanted to laugh. Of course there would be doorways! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Just because it was a dead end didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be some way to get into the surrounding buildings. All he had to do was crawl about five meters, slide over the threshold—and he was home free!

But it wasn’t as simple as all that: if he could hear the hinges creaking, so could the goon. And the goon, who was no stranger to situations like this, would have his pistol already trained on the doorway, waiting for him to make his move.

And yet that was no reason to give up hope. If the goon could stay one step ahead of Sullivan, why couldn’t Sullivan stay one step ahead of the goon?

He reached out into the darkness, groping for pieces of trash, whatever came into his hands. He found something large and rubbery about one meter from where he was lying. It felt like a small plastic waste can, the kind that some people used in place of garbage destructor units. It was exactly what he needed, light but bulky, likely to make a lot of noise under the right conditions.

He took it in his arms and inched slowly back toward the door. Rising silently on his haunches, he glanced back across the alley to where he had last seen the other man fire his pistol.

He rolled the can in the direction of the open door with a quick snap of his wrist, not waiting to see it bounce over the threshold. The crimson flash of the laser came about two meters to the left of where the goon had disappeared. Sullivan jumped to his feet, firing frantically at the source of the rapidly vanishing sliver of light.

The goon let out a bloodcurdling yell.

Sullivan kept firing for a good thirty seconds, until he had drained the last ounces of power from the tiny energy cell inside the pistol.

The goon thrashed around for a few seconds, but at last he gave up and lay still. Sullivan stood quietly for another thirty seconds after the beam had flickered to darkness, gulping down the thick night air like a kitten gulping down cream… and trembling.

Within the last five minutes he had killed three men— three more than he had killed before in his life. He tried not to think about what he had done, but the thoughts came just the same. Once again he heard the shattering sound as the redhaired man’s skull collapsed; saw the first goon’s face; heard the second goon scream into the deserted alley.

He was sick. If he had eaten dinner, he would have lost it then; even so he vomited the drinks he had ordered at the bar, untold centuries earlier, and what was left of his nearly forgotten lunch. Afterwards, he leaned against the cold brick wall and shivered.

There was the roar of an engine in the distance. Looking up, he saw headlights speeding toward him down the alley, bright and urgent in the murky darkness. Without thinking he leaped for the doorway, catapulting himself into the even thicker darkness beyond.

CHAPTER 4

It was almost midnight when he reached the northern part of town. The Olympus Hotel seemed deserted and ghostly in the last pale rays of vanishing moonlight, the image of the setting moon peered back at him from row after row of windows. As he put his hand on the doorknob, he paused and considered the odds of his being captured once he stepped inside the lobby.

They were not as good as he would have liked.

But did he have a choice? He had considered the alternatives during the trip across town. He could stay at large in the city, try to stay out of the hands of the authorities, but he had no place to sleep, no money to buy food with—and if he moved around too much he would probably be captured by morning. Besides he was too tired to keep going.

The other alternative was to find someone who could help him, someone he could trust.

He opened the door. Cindy was still sitting at the front desk, face turned down toward her lap, apparently engrossed in a book. He stepped inside and she looked up at him, eyes widening with surprise as she realized who he was.

He started to speak, but she motioned him to silence. She seemed to waver for a moment, unsure of what to do; then she pointed toward the staircase that led to the second floor.

Muffled voices approached from the other side of the fire door. An unseen hand gave the doorknob a sharp turn. Acting instinctively, Sullivan hurled himself toward the far side of the room, dropping to a defensive crouch behind an oversized armchair. Peering cautiously over the headrest, he saw two law enforcement officers—one short and chunky, the other moderately tall and massive— step out of the stairwell and walk into the center of the lobby. One turned to Cindy and said, “We’ve left two men upstairs in his room, in case he manages to slip back inside. We’ll be watching for him out front, but remember: if he should slip past us and into the building, let us know immediately. Don’t try to stop him yourself. He’s very dangerous.”

She nodded to the man without speaking. The two officers crossed the room and opened the door through which Sullivan had entered only second before, stepping out into the darkness.

Sullivan rose slowly, cautiously, placing his hands on the back of the chair. Cindy Robbins stared at him from behind the desk.

There was fear in her eyes, as if she were afraid of him, unsure of his motives.

“I’d… I’d better explain,” he began.

“Come here,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. You’d better hide beneath the counter. If you stay in the open they might see you through the window.”

He stepped across the lobby and, without speaking, entered the enclosed area behind the registration desk, crouching next to the girl’s chair. She knelt on the floor beside him. With a hesitant motion, she reached out and touched his arm.

She looked briefly into his eyes, then her expression hardened with concern. “Your nose!” she exclaimed. “You’ve been hurt!”

Reflexively, he brought his hand up to his face. His nose was skewed sideways, canting off at an angle to the rest of his features. As he touched it, tentacles of pain shot through his head and neck.

Cindy pulled a box of tissues from the top of the counter and dabbed one against Sullivan’s cheek. “You’re bleeding,” she said. “Hold still.” He looked up at her, but she glanced away. He shrugged, closing his eyes.

After an awkward moment of silence, she spoke at last. “They told me you were dangerous, that you killed three men. Is that true?”

“Not… exactly.”

“What is true, then?”

He leaned back against the wooden paneling and sighed. He had to tell the story to someone and this was as good a time as any. In a long gush of words, he related the events of the previous twelve hours. Afterwards, as he slumped on the floor in a kind of cathartic exhaustion, she looked at him with a strange light in her eyes.

“I believe you,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Is there any way I can help you?”

He closed his eyes, concentrating for a moment on the dull light behind the lids. “Yes. I guess. I… I’m very tired now.”

“Oh, of course.” She rose to her knees and took his hands in hers. “The authorities are upstairs, so you won’t be able to go back to your room, but there’s a special suite in the basement. You can stay there.”

“That sounds fine,” he said.

She helped him to his feet. He followed her swiftly across the lobby, wary of the eyes that might be gazing in through the front window, and through a rear exit he hadn’t noticed before. They went down a flight of stairs, into a narrow hallway. She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked a heavy wooden door.

“My brother used to sleep here, before he left home,” she said. “You can have it for the night. I won’t tell my father you’re here, but you should be okay. He never comes down here.”

Sullivan entered the room and took a seat on the edge of the bed. The girl disappeared, returning a few minutes later with clean sheets and a few items of clothing.

“These were my brother’s, too. He was about your size. I hope you won’t mind wearing them.”

“No. Not at all. Thank you.”

She left, but a few minutes later she returned again, with a small plate of food. Sullivan wolfed it down greedily, surprised at his hunger. Afterwards, he lay back in the bed, fully dressed.

He lingered for several moments on the edge of sleep, not pushing it too hard, just letting himself fall slowly over the edge and down into the hole. He felt safe in the basement of the hotel, as safe as if he were locked in a vault below the ocean, with the heavenly hosts themselves to guard the door.

He had someone to protect him now, someone to watch out for him.

“DERRY!” his father shouted. Sullivan dreamed. In a thick cloud of mist his father came to him, face worried and stern. “I have to talk with you.”

“Yes, father,” Sullivan said. “I’m listening. I want to hear—”

“It’s important,” his father said. “You are in trouble, I know. A great deal of trouble. But I must tell you—”

“Yes, father?”

“I must tell you—”

“Please, father. Tell me!”

“I must—”

The abyss opened. Great clouds of swirling gas spun round the old man’s face, grasped him with roiling, steaming fingers, pulled him down.

And then he was gone. Sullivan reached out for him, shouted after him, sought him in the great arms of the roaring maelstrom.

But he was gone.

“Mr. Sullivan!” the voice shouted. “Derek!”

It was not his father’s voice. No, his father had vanished, been sucked down into the land of the dead. This voice was sweet, feminine, wholly familiar.

“Cindy?” he murmured.

“You’ve got to get up,” she shouted. “They’re searching the hotel. They’ll find you if you wait too long.”

He rolled over onto his side, barely able to make out the blurred image of the tiny lamp beside him through sleep-filled eyes. He remembered where he was.

“Something’s happened?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, hovering over him urgently. “The Minister of Law Enforcement has ordered the hotel searched. They think you might be hiding here someplace. They’re going through all the rooms upstairs. They don’t know about this one yet, but it won’t be long before my father tells them.”

Sullivan wiped at his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Four in the morning.”

He stumbled out of the bed. Catching sight of himself in the mirror, he realized that he was still wearing the clothes he had worn the night before. He looked down at the fresh garments Cindy had brought him earlier, lying neatly folded in a chair.

“Do I have time to change?” he asked.

She looked frightened. “I… I think so, but hurry.”

When she left the room, he quickly stripped off the limp sweat-damp clothing he had worn since early the previous day. Naked, he leaned against the bureau and examined his reflection. The eyes were sunken, the face pale and haggard.

It was not the way he would have liked for Cindy to see him, but he had no choice. He wished, now, that he had seized the opportunity and taken a bath the previous evening, freshening himself while he could. Now it was too late.

Would he ever be able to stop running?

It didn’t seem likely, not in the near future. When he found what he believed to be a safe haven, it was taken from him. The hotel was a moment’s respite, nothing more. The authorities had arrived and the pursuit had begun once again.

Groggily, he tugged on the fresh underwear and donned the pants and shirt. They were small for him, more than a little tight around the waist and chest—but tight clothing was the style on Ilium that year and he doubted that it would make him conspicuous. God help him, he was conspicuous enough already.

He turned out the light when he had finished dressing and slipped out into the hall. Cindy was waiting for him.

“This way,” she whispered.

She led him back up the stairway and down a different hallway than they had used the night before. Soft voices drifted in from the lobby. Sullivan quickened his step.

Cindy handed him a jacket from a wooden pole in the back room.

“Wear this,” she said. “It’s my father’s, but he won’t miss it. He has others.”

“If you’re sure it’s all right…”

“It’s all right.”

She took another coat from the pole and donned it herself; then she walked to the back doorway, flipped the latch, and stepped out into the alley behind the hotel.

“Where are we going?” Sullivan whispered.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I thought if I could just get you out of there for a few hours, they might go away. Then you could come back.”

“What if they leave a guard behind?”

“Then I don’t know.”

She ran ahead of him, not looking back. He hastened after her, his white breath curling around his face like spectral smoke, the cold air burning as it entered his lungs. They emerged from the alley into the sharp glow of a street lamp. Shunning the harsh light they hurried on, until they were lost in the thick shadows between buildings.

Cindy stopped and stood quietly in the darkness. Sullivan came up beside her and reached out to take her arm, but as he touched her she jumped. Her eyes came up to meet his. It was the first he had seen of her face since she had awakened him.

She had been crying. Her eyes were limned in red, with black shadows clustering high on her cheeks. Her expression was dark, fearful.

“Is something wrong?” Sullivan asked and felt absurd for doing so.

“I… I’ve been worried.”

“Worried? About what?”

“About you, damn it!”

Her eyes flashed briefly with something like anger; then a tear fell, carving a moist trail along the rim of her face. Sullivan reached out and gathered her into his arms. She collapsed against his chest.

“I’m sorry I brought you into this,” he said. “I didn’t think.”

“No… no,” she murmured. “You needed help. You didn’t have any choice. I was the only one you could turn to. I’m glad you did, really.”

He reached out and cupped his fingers along the gentle curve of her hair. The touch was stunning, electric. Involuntarily, his hand moved across her neck, her shoulders, brushing the skin with a rhythmic caress.

She turned her face up to his. He brought his lips lightly to her forehead, then to her mouth. She clung to him for a moment, not moving, responding slowly.

A siren moaned in the distance. Far down the street, nearly obscured by the early haze, a confinement vehicle flashed its searchlight and disappeared around a corner. Cindy broke away from Sullivan’s arms; he grabbed her hand and together they fled into a narrow cross street.

“Are you sure there’s no place we can go?” he asked.

“I can’t think of any,” she replied. “But I don’t know.”

“Do you have any friends we can trust, any relatives?”

“Maybe. It’s not easy to be sure.”

He put his hands on her shoulder and stared into her eyes. He felt a new strength surging through his veins, a hardness, a confidence in his own ability to survive. “Think about it, okay? We can’t stay here until the sun comes up. I’m sure my face and description have already been on every television, holovision, and radio station in New Troy and by dawn I’ll be in every newsfax. There won’t be a person in this city who won’t recognize me the moment I step out into the street. That’s why we’ve got to find a place to hide.”

“Well,” she said, “there may be a place, but I’ll have to make a phone call first.”

“Sure. Let’s find a booth.”

They started for the intersection together hand in hand, but before they had gone fifty meters a buzzing, sawing noise sliced the air above them, so loudly that it rattled the windowpanes in the buildings alongside the street.

Sullivan looked up. “What in the world?”

It was a hopter, a flying vehicle propelled by bursts of compressed air from the long blowers that extended handlelike to both sides of the cockpit. It dropped from the sky like a falling stone, slowing its descent a few meters above the street and cushioning itself to a gentle landing about half a block in front of them.

Sullivan took hold of Cindy’s arm and pulled her toward the far end of the alley, but before they could reach the adjoining street, another craft hissed to a landing in front of them, cutting them off. A tall figure in a silver suit clambered out of the hatch and waved a hand toward the two fugitives.

“Stop!” he shouted.

“This way!” Cindy cried. “There’s a door!”

About ten meters to their right stood an office building, dark and shuttered for the evening. They bolted awkwardly up the front stairs, Cindy in the lead. Sullivan paused in front of the door, long enough to kick in the glass pane with a booted foot, then the two of them plunged inside.

Aware that their pursuers would be after them within seconds, they raced up a winding stairwell and broke wildly through the doorway to the fourth floor.

“They’ll never find us here!” Sullivan panted. “The building’s too large.”

They ran along a twisting corridor, into a stairwell, and up two more floors. Finally Sullivan sagged against a window sill, gasping for air. Outside the two hopters sat peacefully in the darkness, like silent squatting statues. Or malignant demons.

He moved away from the opening, suddenly conscious of his increased visibility. Cindy took his hand.

“When you kicked open the door,” she said, “wouldn’t that have set off an alarm somewhere?”

Sullivan laughed. “Sure. But why worry about it? The authorities are already here.”

“It might bring more of them. Shouldn’t we be looking for another way out?”

He nodded, regretting the truth of her words.

They staggered forward breathlessly, into yet another hallway. The corridors of the building were long—almost endless, it seemed—and lined with smoothly polished chrome walls. As they moved, a multitude of images moved with them, reflected over and over to both sides, to distant infinity.

Like a huge funhouse, thought Sullivan. A hall of mirrors.

They chose the west end of the building as the most likely route for escape. At the end of a long hallway they entered an elevator and pressed the button for the second floor, deciding they would find another elevator there to take them to the first.

When they reached the second floor the doors swung open. The man in silver stared back at them.

“Hello,” he said.

Sullivan threw himself back into the cage, jabbing desperately at the button for the first floor, but it was too late. The man pulled a small white ball from his belt, tossed it onto the floor between Sullivan and Cindy. It burst as it struck, flooding the elevator with thick, foul-smelling gas.

There was no time to stop breathing. Sullivan reached out for Cindy’s hand and she reached out for his, but they never touched. The gas burned its way into Sullivan’s lungs numbing his senses, his mind.

He fell to his knees. For an instant he felt the weight of Cindy’s limp body as it sagged against him, then a hole seemed to open in the smoke, drawing him into its depths.

CHAPTER 5

He became aware of the room by degrees.

First he saw the light: it filled up what had returned of his consciousness. Then, as his awareness increased, it became the soft diffused glow of a recessed ceiling lamp, shielded by a frosted glass panel. He was on his back, apparently, looking up toward it. He blinked his eyes, tried to shut it out.

The second thing he became aware of was the ceiling around the lamp. It was beige, a little dirty, covered with tiny holes that seemed to form a pattern. He stared at it for long moments, trying to fit the pieces of that pattern into a coherent whole, but failed to do so. Either there was no message or he was unable to discern it through the walls of mental fog.

After the ceiling, he moved his gaze down toward the walls. His mind was clearing now, the walls seemed more real than had the ceiling, more tangible. Next to the walls stood rows of equipment, esoteric bits of machinery designed for purposes Sullivan did not know, could not guess.

Finally he became aware of the man. He sat primly on the edge of a chair, poring over a newspaper that lay folded across his lap, his eyes obscured by a pair of hornrimmed glasses. It was the same man who had earlier worn the silver suit, only now he wore a brown jacket with a black turtleneck underneath. A pencil-thin moustache, carefully trimmed, ran across his upper lip.

Sullivan sighed quietly to himself. So the chase was over; the authorities had caught him at last. This time, he was certain, they would not make the same mistakes as before. He would be carefully guarded in advance of his execution; they wouldn’t let him get away again.

He shuddered.

He was fully awake now. He revolved his head and looked around himself again, careful not to draw the man’s attention to the fact that he was no longer unconscious. He was lying prone on some sort of table, he decided, thick leather straps running across his chest and legs, his arms free at his sides. To his right there was another table, identical to the one he was on.

Cindy was strapped to the top of it, still unconscious.

“Mr. Sullivan?”

He turned and saw the man with the moustache hovering over him. His voice was clipped and precise, slightly effeminate. He stared down at Sullivan with a curious expression.

“The metabolic sensors indicated that you were awake. Is there anything I can get you?”

Sullivan shrugged, as best he could beneath the straps. “Does it matter?” he said.

The man with,the moustache sighed. “How do you like your coffee?” he asked. “Black? With sugar? Cream?”

Sullivan remained silent. The man walked to a small metal console amid a cluster of intricate-looking tubing.

“Personally,” he said, “I prefer it black. I hope your tastes are similar.” He punched two buttons and a dark liquid squirted out of a plastic tube into a paper cup.

The man returned and placed the cup in Sullivan’s fingers, cranking up the top end of the table until his prisoner was in a sitting position. Sullivan stared at the cup for a few moments, then took a tentative sip.

The liquid was warm, filling.

The man stepped to the end of the table and placed his hands to both sides of Sullivan’s legs. He leaned forward.

“I regret the inconvenience,” he said, indicating the straps that bound Sullivan to the table, “but before we can allow you to go free there are a few questions that must be asked.”

Sullivan’s head jerked upright, his eyes flashing with an unexpected surge of hope. “Go… free?”

“Oh, you won’t be able to go back into the city again, for reasons that should be obvious, but you can certainly have the run of the ship. We’ll be lifting off in a few hours, anyway.”

“We’re… we’re inside a spaceship?”

The man looked puzzled. “Why, yes. I thought you would have realized that by now.” He waved his hand toward the equipment that lined the wall.

Sullivan shook his head.

“How silly of me,” the man laughed, “This is the cruise-liner Elliot Holmes. Privately owned, of course.” He smiled, as if the statement had been a joke. “I’m Lyander Knox, by the way, but I suppose you recognized me. You’re in the sick bay now. I’m afraid you and your friend had a rather nasty reaction to the gas I used. I’d like to apologize for that.”

“That’s okay,” muttered Sullivan, his head spinning with too many questions to feel resentful.

“Incidentally,” added Knox, “our physicians discovered that you were suffering from some minor physical damage, but they took steps to remedy this while you were unconcious. Your nose, for instance, was badly broken.”

Sullivan stared at him curiously. “You said you had to ask me something.”

“Oh, yes. We’ve been told by an, ah, reliable source that you’re an Hrakan spy. Is that true?”

His prisoner stirred uneasily. “I… I don’t know where you could have heard that.”

“That’s no answer.”

“Of course I’m not!” he snapped. “I’m a loyal Terran citizen. Your informant must have made some kind of mistake.” He fidgeted restlessly against the straps.

“Really?” said Knox, frowning. “Are you sure? Then there must have been—”

He broke off. From behind him came a buzzing sound, followed by a soft hissing as a door slid open on concealed tracks.

A massive figure stepped through.

Sullivan looked up at him as he entered. The newcomer was about two and a half meters tall. He stooped to negotiate the cramped door to the sick bay as he came through. Apparently the craft had not been designed for one of his height, but that was not surprising.

He wore a uniform of dark green and, on his left shoulder, there was a circular emblem, in the center of which had been painted the image of a bright red thunderbolt. Sullivan glanced immediately at the intruder’s face and was stunned by his eyes. They were large and staring, almond-shaped—like the unblinking eyes of a cat. Even so, they were almost lost in the vast expanse of his round, fur-covered head.

The newcomer was an Hrakan.

For a moment Sullivan felt as if someone had reached inside his chest and given his heart a squeeze. He understood the implications immediately. He had believed previously, with a certain amount of logic, that he had been captured by the Terran authorities, but he saw now that the Hraka themselves had sought him out, believing him to be one of their own, thinking that they were saving one of their agents from capture and death.

And, indeed, it seemed as if they had saved his life. Except that he had just told them that he was a loyal Terran citizen.

His head spun dizzily. Had he made a fatal mistake? If the Hraka found out that he was a wrongly accused Terran and not one of their agents, would they be forced to execute him before he could reveal any knowledge he had picked up concerning their whereabouts, erase him as they would any other unfortunate mistake?

It seemed all too likely.

And yet what could he do? If he told them that he was one of their spies, would they believe him? Or would his cover fall apart as soon as they radioed their home base— wherever that was—for verification of his credentials?

He couldn’t tell them the truth; that would mean instant death. But how well could he sustain the lie?

The Hrakan stepped from the doorway and into the center of the room. His voice, when he spoke, came out as a tinny growling, amplified to a mind-numbing volume by a small speaker implanted in his clothing.

“Have you spoken with the Terran?” he bellowed. “Is he a spy for us or them?”

Knox looked concerned. “I don’t know, sir. He… he denies being a spy at all.”

The Hrakan spun to face Sullivan. “I will question him, then.” His eyes seemed to glow feverishly as he leaned forward. “The Iliumite authorities claim that you’re one of our agents, Terran. Is this true?”

Sullivan felt his lips tremble, his vocal chords freeze as he tried to speak. “W… why,” he stammered finally, “yes, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t tell Mr. Knox here, but I… I didn’t know if he could be trusted. But… but now that you’re here, sir…” Sullivan felt long rivulets of sweat wash down his cheeks, drip softly into his mouth.

The Hrakan hesitated, then turned to Knox. There was the sound of coughing from the small speaker. Sullivan had the uneasy feeling that the massive alien was laughing.

“Not bad,” he said. “Not bad. Perhaps the Terran is right, Mr. Knox. Perhaps there are people in this ship who cannot be trusted.” He stared pointedly at his companion for about five seconds, then turned and stalked back out through the narrow doorway.

Knox stood silently for a moment, his face reddening. He cast an irritated glance toward Sullivan, started to say something, then apparently thought better of it. He walked to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup, taking a long sip before speaking again.

“You had me worried for a moment,” he said finally, his anger apparently under control. “I thought we’d made a mistake. A rather serious one.” He threw a meaningful look in Sullivan’s direction.

Sullivan shivered at the implications of the man’s last words. At that moment, he resolved to maintain the lie for as long as possible. “I’m sorry if I gave you a bad time,” he said. “I was rather thrown, I guess, when I woke up here. I really wasn’t expecting it.”

“I understand. That was my error. I expected you to recognize me, I suppose, but then—you’ve probably been on Ilium for quite a while now. The last time you had direct contact with the home office I suppose Jewison was still the Regional Director.”

“Uh, yes,” said Sullivan. “I suppose he was.”

“Then it’s not surprising that you don’t know me. I’m in charge of the Taurus and Aurigan Sectors now. I grew up on Hesperus, in fact, so it was only natural that I should be Jewison’s successor. He left for a position in the capital nine months ago.” Knox extended his hand to Sullivan. “Let this be our formal introduction.”

“Sure. Listen, I’d appreciate it if you could remove these straps.”

Knox laughed. “Oh, yes! I’m sorry. Here, let me…”

He pressed a button next to Sullivan’s thigh and the straps receded. As Sullivan rose to a sitting position, massaging his legs to restore their circulation, Cindy let out a small moan.

“Your friend seems to be coming around,” said Knox. “I’d better unstrap her, too.”

Sullivan turned and watched the girl squirm restlessly as she returned to consciousness. There was, he realized, going to be a problem when she awoke. How was he going to justify her presence on the ship to Knox? He could always claim that she, too, was a spy—but would Cindy go along with the game?

She opened her eyes and looked around herself in apparent confusion, gradually coming to a full awareness of her surroundings.

“Derek?” she whispered.

‘I’m here, Cindy. Don’t worry. Everything’s all right. This man is our… friend.”

He looked to Knox, waiting for his reaction. He wondered if there were any way to guarantee the girl’s safety without jeopardizing his own?

Knox smiled. “She’s one of us, I presume.” It was half question, half statement.

“One of… us?” Cindy asked, groggily. “Derek, what’s this man talking about?”

Knox looked puzzled. “She is one of us, isn’t she? We assumed, since we found her with you…” He turned to Sullivan, imploringly.

“Who is this man?” Cindy asked, eyes round and frightened. “Derek, this isn’t the Ministry of Law Enforcement, is it?”

“No,” said Sullivan, feeling the panic returning, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Not exactly.”

“A far cry, I should think,” bellowed Knox. A look of consternation glistened behind his eyes. “I think that explanations are in order.”

Sullivan waved him to silence. “Listen, Cindy,” he began, “we’re inside a space ship now. These people are going to take us away from Ilium, away from New Troy, so that we’ll be safe from the Terran authorities.”

“But why?” she gasped. “Why do they want to help us?”

“Like I told you: they’re our friends. Mr. Knox here is working for—” The words seemed to squeeze their way tightly through his throat. “—the Hraka.”

“The Hraka?” Pain and confusion flashed across her eyes. “You mean… you mean we’re being kidnapped?” She seemed to waver for a moment, teetering as if she were on the verge of fainting.

Knox drummed an angry fist against the table. “I’m afraid you don’t understand, young lady. Mr. Sullivan here is one of our agents. Until now, I had believed you to be one as well.”

Cindy gasped and seemed to crumple under the weight of Knox’s words. She looked up at Sullivan, then away. “You told me…” she whispered, “you told me that you weren’t…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m sorry, Cindy. I couldn’t tell you the truth.”

“Oh, God.” The girl collapsed, burying her face in folded arms. Sullivan dropped his gaze in despair. The lies came painfully, shamefully. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to tell her the truth, but he knew that it would mean their lives.

Knox glared at him, his pale skin radiant with anger. “So who is this piece of baggage? Some trollop you picked up in New Troy for a night’s entertainment?” He shook his head in frustration. “It’s my fault. I should have followed orders. I was to pick you up and bring you here, but I thought—fool that I am!—that the girl might be important as well. Of course, she’ll have to be disposed of now.”

“But she is important,” blurted Sullivan. “She’s no… no trollop. Give me a chance to explain.”

Knox started to frame a retort, then held himself in check. He nodded for Sullivan to continue.

“She works for the… the Ministry of Shipping and Export. She has access to schedules, information on Star Fleet maneuvers.”

Knox cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Tell me more.”

Sullivan looked at the girl. She stared up at him for a few seconds with curious, doleful eyes. “I befriended her,” he went on, “hoping to get the information out of her. But then my cover was blown. I convinced her that I wasn’t a spy and she believed me—until you picked me up.”

“Well, we had no choice,” said Knox defensively. “The Terran authorities would have had you within a few hours. The Hrakan Intelligence Network takes care of its own.”

“I understand. Your actions were excusable. Besides, the girl can still be interrogated. The information isn’t lost.”

“That’s true. I’ll take her to the interrogation chambers as soon as we—”

Sullivan waved his hand. “No, no, I’d rather take care of her interrogation myself.”

“Don’t bother,” said Knox. “There’s no need for that. We have trained personnel on board ship.”

“But I want to. There are personal reasons. You understand?”

“Mr. Sullivan, that’s highly irregular.” Knox stared across the room at him for a moment, then relented. “But I suppose it’s your prerogative. Do you have interrogation experience?”

“Why, of course.”

“Then you shall have full use of the chambers.” He stood, with a vaguely sour look on his face, and stepped to the door. “I’ll see to it that you’re shown to your rooms.”

Sullivan watched him leave, then sagged back onto the table, exhausted from the long exchange. He glanced across at Cindy. She was still turned away from him, her shoulders trembling slightly, as though she were weeping.

“Cindy!” he hissed. He looked around the room, expectantly. There could be microphones anywhere: there was no telling who was listening.

She stirred uneasily. “Go away!” she replied.

So she still believed that he was a spy, even though he had told Knox the lie about her working for the Ministry of Shipping and Export. She had obviously realized that he was doing it to protect her, but must have thought him simply a soft-hearted secret agent, trying to shield her from his own people. At least she hadn’t contradicted him while Knox was standing there.

And yet in the end his lies would probably come to nothing anyway. They were only stopgap measures, ways of postponing the inevitable reckoning. It wouldn’t be long before the Hraka discovered that they had no spy named Derek Sullivan—and that Cindy knew nothing about Star Fleet maneuvers.

But a stay of execution was better than nothing.

He turned back to the girl. “I’m sorry, Cindy, but—” Dare he take a chance? He couldn’t bear to have her despise him. “I’m not…”

The words froze in his throat; if he spoke them aloud it might condemn both of them.

Cindy seemed to sense what he was trying to say. She turned slowly and gave him a venomous glance. “You’ve told me enough lies already,” she hissed. “I don’t want to speak with you any more.” She turned back toward the wall. He thought he heard her crying again.

He gave up. It was no use risking both their lives to save his reputation—or the shreds of a romance that could have been.

A few minutes later a man and a woman, wearing the uniforms of ship’s stewards, entered the sick bay and accompanied Sullivan and Cindy to separate chambers. Sullivan felt a moment of intense sadness as he saw the girl disappear down the corridor; then the steward opened a portal and led him into a small cabin. The quarters seemed cramped, but by shipboard standards they were fairly spacious. There was a narrow bed that folded into the wall, a chair and a writing desk, even a cleansing unit.

Sullivan sat on the bed for a while, thinking about the situation that he was in. He was sorry that Cindy had become involved and, looking back, realized that it was entirely his fault. Which meant that her welfare was his responsibility.

With a sigh, he stripped off his clothing and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 6

He woke in free-fall.

Lift-off must have occurred while he slept. He found himself floating halfway between the bed and the roof, the sleeping-straps hanging neglected and unbuckled in the air below him. Remaining calm, he pushed away from the ceiling and drifted slowly to the floor.

A buzzer sounded—once, twice, then three times. A voice crackled from a concealed loudspeaker on the wall opposite the bed. He looked up to see Knox’s face staring out of a small television screen.

“Mr. Sullivan,” he began. “Will you be having breakfast in the Captain’s Lounge?”

Sullivan rubbed his eyes. “I guess so,” he mumbled. “What time is it?”

“Eight hundred hours Friday, ship’s time. You’ve slept around the clock.”

“Around the… ?” He glanced at his watch, noting the date. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“No apologies necessary. You were tired. I just wanted to tell you that a few of us will be getting together at 0835 hours and we thought you might like to talk with us over a cup of coffee.”

“Sure,” said Sullivan. “Give me time to get ready.”

“Don’t hurry,” said Knox. “Breakfast is served until twelve.”

The screen blinked to darkness. Sullivan stood and ran the cleansing unit over his body, letting the tingling bring him slowly back to full awareness. Afterwards, he located a set of ship’s fatigues in the top drawer of the desk and put them on.

Well, he thought, it looked as if his spy story was going to have its second test that morning. It seemed likely that Knox had scheduled this little get-together in the Captain’s Lounge for the express purpose of letting a few other crew members get a look at the supposed Hrakan agent.

He wondered just how far Knox trusted him.

At 0835 he pressed the button next to the lounge door and stepped into a small circular chamber with three tables spaced at even intervals around the floor. At the table opposite the door sat Knox, a tube of coffee clutched in his fingers. As Sullivan entered he raised a hand and motioned him to a seat.

Across the table sat two Hraka and a third human. Sullivan fidgeted uneasily as they watched him strap himself into the seat.

“This is Mr. Sullivan,” Knox intoned. “As you’re probably aware, he ran into a few problems on Ilium and we were forced to remove him from harm’s way.” He chuckled self-consciously. “Not a moment too soon, either.”

He gestured toward the three on the other side of the table. “Mr. Sullivan—Derek?—I’d like you to meet Troop General Vrostag and Personnel Major Zzyri.” He indicated the two Hraka, the first of whom was the one who had come to the sick bay the previous morning. “—and one of our fellow Terran turncoats, Paul Westfield.” The other human nodded. “I realize,” Knox went on, “that it’s unusual for Hrakan officers to participate in an espionage operation, but the general and the major are along to review our intelligence capabilities. Ilium’s the third planet we’ve visited so far—lucky for you, I might add.”

“So you’re one of our agents, eh?” Westfield smiled and thumbed a cigaret from a small dispenser in the center of the table. “I’ve done some field work myself, but I’m semi-retired. Desk job. I’m not young enough for the strenuous stuff any more.”

Sullivan looked at the man with more than a little curiosity. He looked to be in his late thirties. His skin was tanned and weather-beaten—an unusual combination on board a starship—and his short-cropped hair was just beginning to show signs of gray around the temples. He had the even, pleasant features of a matinee idol, but his eyes seemed out of place among them: they were cold, lifeless, almost cruel.

The face of a man who had betrayed his empire, thought Sullivan. What could drive men like Knox and Westfield to sell out their heritage?

“We’ve radioed central about you,” said Knox. “it’s just a formality, of course. They’ll be forwarding your records to us as soon as they receive our message, which will be in a few weeks. We should intercept their reply while we’re on Lilani.”

“Lilani?” asked Sullivan.

“Our present destination. One of our major jumping-off stations is located there—but of course you know that already. We’ll be there for about a month; sort of an inspection tour, you might say.” Knox put the tube of coffee to his lips and took a small sip. “You’ll be wanting breakfast, I suppose. Here. Just press one of these buttons and the food will be prepared automatically in the galley, then delivered to you through these tubes.”

Sullivan reached out to the bank of controls in front of him and pressed the buttons marked Eggs and Sausages. There, was a chittering of relays from somewhere nearby, followed by a soft humming sound.

He glanced nervously at the Hrakan officers opposite him. They sat silently, without moving, staring at him.

Westfield waved his cigarette in Sullivan’s face, exhaling a cloud of smoke that disappeared quickly into an overhead suction vent. “You’re the one who came in with the girl, aren’t you? I got a look at her when they took her down to the conditioning ward last night.” He smiled approvingly.

“Quite a piece. I wouldn’t mind interrogating that one myself.”

Sullivan sat up with a start. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about her like that.”

“Oh? Sorry, friend.” Westfield flashed a grin of artificial comradery. “I forgot. You’re supposed to be her, ah, ‘personal’ friend.” He threw Knox a knowing glance, but Knox looked away.

One of the Hraka cleared his throat. The noise was sharp and grating; all three of the Terrans looked up simultaneously. “I find your human customs fascinating,” said the one called Zzyri, “but you will please discuss them at another time, yes?” He glanced coldly around the table, his catlike eyes smoldering with a strange inner fire. “I’d like to talk with Mr. Sullivan, if you please.”

“I’m sorry,” said Westfield nervously. “Go right ahead.”

Sullivan waited uneasily as the massive alien studied him from across the table. Finally the Hrakan said, “I’d like to discuss a few things that the others—” he indicated Knox and Westfield, “—have been too circumspect to mention. We have no proof that you are one of our agents, Mr. Sullivan, nothing more than your own word and the word of the Terran authorities. These are, of course, meaningless. You could be a double agent, a ‘plant,’ as they say. The Terran government could have lured us into taking you on board our ship.”

He paused for a moment, staring off into empty space. “That is as it may be. We doubt seriously that the Terrans would be so foolish as to think that we would be diverted by such a simple ruse. When the word comes back from our Central Command, we will know whether or not you are one of our spies. If you are, then there is no difficulty. If you are not, then you shall be put to death. Until then, you shall be given the full use of all facilities on board this vessel. Any information that you may obtain thereby will be useless to the Terrans, inasmuch as you will be unable to transmit it beyond the confines of the hull. And, of course, your whereabouts will be known to us at all times.” The corners of his mouth drew up into a hideous parody of a smile. “Until the confirmation arrives,” he continued, “may you have an enjoyable stay.” He took a sip from a small tube of juice anchored to the table in front of him, then stood to go. Along with the other Hrakan, he spoke a few words of farewell and strode decisively into the corridor.

A few moments later Sullivan’s breakfast arrived, but his appetite was gone.

DAYS passed; the Elliot Holmes crawled slowly between the stars. For long hours Sullivan hung in the free-fall netting beneath the viewport and stared out at the clouds of gas and dust that stretched endlessly between solar systems, like soiled sheets of gauze.

There is a certain excitement, he thought, in being on board a starship, but it palls quickly. Free-fall is a novelty at first—propelling yourself along the hallways by grasping a series of rings fastened tightly to the walls, strapping yourself to chairs whenever you sit down—but soon it becomes merely an inconvenience. A ship’s day, that arbitrary thirty-hour period during which crew members carry out their business much as landside workers carry out theirs, is no different from any other kind of day, though it may be duller than most. The corridors of the Holmes were cramped and narrow, oppressively similar. There was a small recreation chamber, but it contained only the most rudimentary equipment necessary for keeping the human body exercised and fit.

Sullivan had found the ship’s library—a glorified term for a small cabinet filled with microfiche—woefully inadequate, stocked with an eye toward the enlightenment of the crew members rather than the entertainment of a passenger.

So early on he had gravitated to the viewroom, where he could watch the magnificent vistas of interstellar space. But after a few days, though it frightened him to admit it, even that was beginning to bore him.

He had seen Cindy twice since the ship had left Ilium. One of the stewards had brought her to the tiny interrogation chamber and left the two of them alone, Sullivan with a console full of equipment designed to shock and pummel his prisoner into submission. He had gone through the motions of asking her questions—leaving the equipment untouched—for the benefit of anyone who might be listening in, Cindy had simply lain on the floor without speaking, without looking at him, without even acknowledging that she was aware of his presence. Afterwards, he had told Knox that the girl was on the verge of breaking, of giving him the information that he claimed she possessed, and it was only a matter of time before it was in his hands. So far, Knox had gone along.

The days had passed slowly, agonizingly. At night Sullivan strapped himself onto the free-fall couch and fought against his own dreams.

The nightmares came with increasing frequency. Over and over he relived those hideous hours on Ilium: the incident of the two thieves, the fight in the alleyway, the murder of the redhead and the two goons. His sleep came in fitful spurts; every few hours he would awaken in a pool of sweat, trembling, his tortured mind churning with the memory of what had happened in New Troy. And of what would happen to him—and Cindy—when the message came back from the Hrakan Central Command.

After the nightmares came the dreams about his father. They were the same as before. The old man would raise his head to face Sullivan, then tell his son that he had an important message for him. And there the dream would end. In a way, the dreams about his father were worse than the nightmares; he would awaken from them in agonized frustration, reaching out to grasp his father from the pit of death, to learn the message that the old man had spanned the very barrier of mortality to reveal to him.

But of course they were only dreams, he reminded himself. And yet he knew that even dreams could have meaning.

Mornings, after a night of exhausting sleep, Sullivan would go to the viewport and watch the stars crawl by.

THEY had been out of port a week and a half before he discovered the ship’s computer. There was a small terminal in his cabin; one of the stewards pointed it out to him while she changed the linen. When she left he picked it up and examined it; there were six buttons across the face of it and a square-shaped configuration of holes that seemed to indicate a microphone.

He pressed the red button marked OPEN. There was a crackling noise from the speaker in the wall.

“Communication lines are open,” droned an atonal, sexless voice. “Please speak clearly and distinctly. Address all questions into the hand console.”

Sullivan sat back on the bed and stared at the device in his hand. The steward had told him that it was a direct link to the Commandcomputer that controlled the starship’s movements, but the voice that had spoken to him—uncanny though it sounded—could hardly belong to a machine. Or could it?

He spoke hesitantly. “Who am I talking to?” he asked.

“This is Cybernetic Reaction-Control Unit model four four zero sub one one decimal three.”

Sullivan shook his head in amazement. “I… I’d like to find out how I can obtain some, ah, information.”

“Speak clearly and distinctly,” the droning voice repeated. “Address all questions into the hand console.”

“Where are we?” asked Sullivan numbly. “I mean, where is the ship located at the moment?”

“The starship Elliot Holmes is en route at this moment to the planet Lilani, orbiting the star UGC-47. Are precise coordinates required?”

“No. Can you… can you tell me anything about Lilani?”

“Of course. How many units of information do you wish to obtain?”

“Just some basic facts, I guess. A few paragraphs worth.”

“Please stand by for printout,” the computer warned. There was a chattering of typewriter keys somewhere behind the bulkhead. A small slot appeared in the wall and a long sheet of yellow paper rolled out. Sullivan waited until the printing had stopped, then ripped the paper across the serrated edges of the slot.

The crackling of the computer link ceased. Sullivan sat on the edge of the bed, paper gripped in his fingers, and spread it across his lap. The information he had requested had been typed in a long, unbroken column down the center of the sheet. Sullivan glanced at the first paragraph:

LILANI: Type VII planet orbiting UGC-47, a class G star of the 5th magnitude in the Aurigan Sector, Diameter: 13.5 thousand km. Gravity: app. 1.147 Terran Standard. Atmospheric Composition:

Sullivan skimmed over the next several lines, stopping when something in the third paragraph caught his eye.

… was deflected from its original orbit circa 2038 A.D. when an immense planetoid body passed near the southern hemisphere. The present orbit brings the planet, at perihelion, within less than one hundred million kilometers of the primary. The surviving Lilanians, formerly city dwellers, were forced to take residence in subterranean burrows, hivelike environments extending, in some places, more than sixty kilometers beneath the surface. No form of animal or vegetable life is known to exist, unprotected, in the Lilanian atmosphere. During the summer, temperatures have been recorded in excess of 150 degrees centigrade…

Not a pretty picture, thought Sullivan—but a nightmare world seemed an appropriate destination for the nightmare cruise he found himself on. He glanced farther down the page.

Politically, the Lilanians have remained neutral in the Hraka-Terra conflict, but physically the planet falls just inside the Terran sphere of influence. There is a Terran embassy in the domed city known as Malovia and, unknown to either Terran or Lilanian, an underground Hrakan military base approximately one hundred kilometers to the northeast. All Hrakan activities are performed under cover of the newly developed holoscopic vision/radar deflector, a device which…

He put the printout aside. So that was the planet he was headed for: a scoured-out world where people were forced to live underground, where Terran and Hraka existed side by side without even realizing it.

A bizarre world. A frightening world. He wondered whether to anticipate his arrival there—or dread it.

Two days later Westfield came to his room. The visit was unexpected. Occasionally the two men encountered one another in the lounge or the recreation chamber, but aside from an exchange of inconsequential pleasantries, they rarely spoke. Sullivan had been put off by the older man the first day they had met, when he had made the remarks about Cindy. And Westfield showed no interest in knowing Sullivan any better than he already did.

But this time he seemed more outgoing and open than usual. When he pressed the buzzer outside the cabin door, Sullivan was lying on the bed, reading a computer printout on starship navigation. He crumpled the paper and threw it into a nearby waste chute, then pressed the release switch for the door.

“How’s it going?” said Westfield, his mouth fumbling its way around a tentative smile. “I haven’t seen too much of you lately. Thought you might want to talk.”

Sullivan shrugged. “Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing much.” Westfield settled into the small chair in front of the writing desk. “We’re in the same business; we probably have a lot in common. Seemed to me we should get to know each other better.”

“Well,” said Sullivan, trying to conceal his uneasiness, “I guess that’s a pretty good idea.”

Westfield grinned. “So I wondered how you got into this, ah, line of work. Are you Terran by birth?”

“Yes…”

“Then what made you come over to the Hraka? It’s not a common decision. I know that well.”

Sullivan shuffled nervously on the free-fall couch. “It’s just the way things worked out. The Terran Empire didn’t have much to offer me. The Hraka did.”

“I see,” said Westfield. “That’s the way it was with me. I was a mercenary. A ‘soldier of fortune,’ as they say in the old novels. I was working for the Hraka when the war broke out. We’d known it was coming for some time, but somehow I never bothered to switch my allegiances back to the side I was born on. When the Holovee incident occurred—and Ehrenborg announced that the Terrans were going to retaliate—the Hraka made me a pretty good offer to stay, because of my knowledge of the enemy I accepted it because I owed Terra nothing; I didn’t have a family or anything like that.”

Westfield raised his eyes and stared at Sullivan for a moment. Sullivan wondered—briefly—why the older man was telling him all this, but the thought passed.

“I worked undercover on Hokum’s Planet,” Westfield continued, “until the Terran authorities caught on to me. They kept me in the interrogation chambers for two days and they were going to kill me, but I got away. Not soon enough, though. They’d done their damage.” There was pain behind his eyes, but it was far away, dimly remembered. It passed as quickly as it had come.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Sullivan. “That’s pretty rough.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Westfield replied, waving Sullivan’s concern away with a whiplike motion of his hand. “Now tell me your story. No reason to keep quiet among friends.”

“What’s to tell?” said Sullivan, sweat breaking out in tiny beads around his neck. “I had a rough life. My parents threw me out when I was twelve—”

“Funny. You don’t look like you’ve had it tough. Truth is, kid, you look like things have been pretty soft on you. Here.” He bent over and took one of Sullivan’s hands in his own, turning it so that the palm faced up. “No calluses, see. These are the hands of a kid who’s had things done for him all his life, a kid with servants.”

Sullivan started to reply, but he felt the words catch in his throat. It was true: he had had farmhands to do the heavy work back on Greensward. He and his father had handled the administrative end. This Westfield was sharp.

“I… I didn’t say I did much work,” Sullivan improvised. “I said I’d had it rough. There’s a difference.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, I fell in with a group of bad sorts. Delinquents, you know? I was arrested a few times. I finally had to get off-planet for a while, until things, ah, cooled down. I finally ended up in the Hrakan Empire. You know how it is.”

Westfield sniffed loudly. “Yeah,” he said. “I know how it is.” The hardness had returned to his eyes, the piercing coldness. “Listen, kid, I want you to know why I came to your room today and why I told you things I did. I want you to know how I feel about the Hraka.”

He stood and began pacing the narrow confines of the cabin. “I owe a lot to the Hraka. When the Terrans caught me, it was the Hraka who helped me to get back out. If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be here today; I almost wasn’t. I told you before that I didn’t owe the Terran Empire anything when the war broke out. Well, I owe them even less now. I hate everything they stand for. I want to see them crumble. Before, it didn’t matter. I went with whichever side paid me the most. But now it’s a personal thing.”

“Why do you want me to know all this?”

“Because you’re supposed to be one of our spies, a guy who sold out the Terrans. Well, if that’s what you are, I say bully for you, you’ve done the right thing. But if you’re not. …” His eyes narrowed, became fierce pinpoints. “If you’re a double agent, selling out the Hraka while pretending to sell out Terra, I hope you rot in hell!”

Sullivan shuddered. Westfield stepped toward the door.

“By the way, I think your story stinks. You never ran with any gang of delinquents, you’re not the type. Too soft, too weak. And that girl of yours—” A sneering smile touched one corner of his mouth. “Knox tells me that you spend a lot of time in the interrogation chamber with her.

If I find out that you’re a Terran agent, I’m going to take over her interrogation—and I’ll do with that little slut as I please, because you won’t be around to stop me.”

Sullivan rose to his feet, anger and rage overpowering his fear, but Westfield grabbed the doorknob and, with a single fluid motion, stepped out into the hallway, clicking the door shut behind him.

Rage boiling inside him, Sullivan started to fling the door open and follow him. But the fear returned—fear of Westfield and fear of discovery.

He sagged defeatedly back into the chair.

CHAPTER 7

THE FIRST INTRA-GALACTIC WAR: Begun in 2878, when the Hrakan freighter Naranda fired on and destroyed the Terran passenger liner Raven Holovee. The declaration of armed conflict between the two sprawling empires climaxed a long period of uneasy relations and continued debate over shipping privileges and right-of-access along the Hraka-Terra interface. The two empires—the first radiating outward from the planet Kaya-Hraka, the second from Earth—had been engaged in programs of mutual expansion and aggrandizement for years until the eventual collision of their burgeoning spheres of influence brought them into an inevitable state of conflict.

Emperor Gustav Ehrenborg of the Terran Empire, 14th ruling member of the powerful Ehrenborg Dynasty, has declared Terra’s intentions as “the immediate and total annihilation of the insidious Hrakan threat.” Speaking from his palatial family manor on the planet Ilium, capital of the Terran Empire since the unfortunate destruction of old Earth in an accidental nuclear catastrophe, Ehrenborg avowed that he “will not be satisfied until all traces of Hrakan influence and power have been eradicated from the Galaxy.” Grand Presidor Holsti of Kaya-Hraka replied in kind: “The Hraka desire nothing less than the end of Terran Imperialism and the destruction of the Empire itself.”

Sullivan lay back on the couch, placing the yellow printout on his chest, and listened to the harsh roar of the landing rockets reverberate through the body of the ship.

A soft gong sounded from the opposite wall. The voice of the computer announced, “Ninety seconds until touchdown. All passengers will please remain in assigned safety positions until further notice. Thank you.”

The roaring of the engines became a whining and the whining rose in pitch until it seemed to cut through Sullivan’s brain. The thin mattress beneath him vibrated wildly; the entire starship rattled around him as if it were trying to shake itself back into its component atoms. Deep in the pit of his stomach there was the sensation of falling, a feeling he remembered experiencing in rapidly plunging elevators.

The lights blinked.

For a moment—seconds actually—he was in darkness. He threw his hands out in front of himself, fighting a sense of helpless panic, then they flickered on again.

“We are experiencing a temporary power drain,” droned the computer. “Please remain calm. All systems are operational.”

Sullivan’s heart thumped loudly. He had been through a starship landing only once previously and it had been much smoother than this. But spy ships, he supposed, suffered inconveniences not usually experienced by commercial vessels.

There was the deep echoing sound of metal clanging against metal and the vibrating stopped. The lights flickered again, briefly, and the whining of the engines wound down until it was little more than a distant whistling.

He unclenched his muscles, one by one.

“All passengers will please report to the central exit cylinder. Safety positions may now be abandoned.”

With a sigh, he reached down and pressed a tiny button on the underside of his couch. The free-fall straps disengaged themselves and fell loosely to his sides.

Directional blinkers in the corridor directed him toward the center of the ship. The rest of the passengers and crew—those not required for post-flight maintenance—had gathered outside of a small elevator tube. Sullivan took his place in line; one by one they entered the tube through a narrow sliding door.

When Sullivan’s turn came, he stepped through onto a small circular disc. As the door slid closed it shot downwards, carrying him with it. Seconds later, another door slid open and Sullivan walked out into a wide, hemispherical concourse.

There was a door straight ahead of him and two more to each side. From one of the latter a familiar figure raised a hand and shouted to him.

“Mr. Sullivan,” Knox yelled. “Over here.”

Sullivan sprinted across the concourse and followed Knox through a pair of paneled glass doors into the chrome-lined corridor beyond. He felt cramped somehow by the nearness of the walls; machinery throbbed rhythmically in the distance.

“We’re about fifteen meters below ground,” said Knox. “The Holmes set down on the surface and you came down through an umbilical tube attached to its belly. Welcome to Lilani Base One, prime nexus of the Hrakan offensive.”

Sullivan repressed a shudder. “How big is this place?”

“Oh, it’s hard to say. It’s grown organically over the last few years, by shoots and branches. There must be better than a hundred kilometers worth of corridors here, plus the offices, weapons bays, assembly halls, garages—”

“Quite an operation.”

“No expenses were spared. This is the key to our success, the decisive advantage we hold over the Terrans. All espionage operations are controlled from here.” He gave Sullivan a quick glance from the corner of his eye. “Of course, there’s no reason for me to tell you all of this; I’m sure that you’re aware of it already.”

“Well, yes, but… I’ve never been here before.”

“That’s not unusual. Most of our Ilium personnel came through Epsilon Base.” He paused, reached over to take a key from a long rack on the wall. “Here. Let’s find you a room. How’s H-1 109 sound?” He dropped the key into Sullivan’s hand.

“Fine. How do I get there?”

“There’s a direction finder on the key. Follow it and you won’t get lost. There’ll be a change of clothing waiting for you when you get there. I’ll contact the supply crew now. See if you can be dressed and ready by 1500 hours. You’re to see the base commander himself this afternoon.”

At 14:55 Sullivan was dressed in sparkling new dress blues, a pleasant change from the ship’s fatigues he had worn on board the Holmes and the undersized clothing Cindy had given him back in New Troy.

Cindy! He had almost forgotten about her, if such a thing were possible. She would be somewhere in Lilani Base now too, though he didn’t know where. He would have to find out; perhaps Knox would be able to tell him. She might already be on her way to the interrogation chambers.

He shivered at the thought. Looking around himself, he studied the room Knox had assigned him, trying to calm his nerves, distract himself from unpleasant thoughts. It was useless, though; his quickened pulse refused to slow down.

Still, it was an attractive room, he thought, spacious compared to his cabin on board the starship. It was divided into two sections: an entrance foyer that served as a sort of quasi-living room, and a bedroom just past it. The furniture was sleek and modernistic, the facilities ample.

He sat on the small sofa in the entrance foyer and waited for Knox to arrive. At precisely 1500 hours—one in the afternoon by Lilanian reckoning—the entrance chime rang.

“I’ll take you on a brief tour first,” said Knox, as the two of them strode down the hallway to a nearby elevator. “You’ll be staying here for several weeks, so you’ll want to know your way around.”

The elevator dropped twelve floors into the bowels of the underground structure. Sullivan’s stomach bobbed queasily. They emerged into another concourse, larger than the one they had entered the base through earlier. It was about three or four stories tall, perhaps two hundred meters in length and half again as wide. Lush tropical vegetation grew thickly out of soil-filled ditches. Water gurgled down unseen streams, sprang upwards from a small fountain. Hraka and human alike—and a smattering of aliens Sullivan did not recognize—mingled along the narrow brick aisles, some hand in hand, some sitting on small benches.

“Our local park,” said Knox, smiling. “There are three of them in the base. For psychological purposes.”

“I like it,” said Sullivan. “I may spend a lot of time here.”

“Feel free.”

Passing through the park, they entered another corridor, which emptied into a medium-sized theater. The seats were arranged in a circle around a small stage. As Sullivan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness within he watched a holographic performance in progress, projected from a small booth suspended several meters above the stage. It was apparently an adaptation of some ancient drama, judging from the dialogue. They remained in the doorway for about thirty seconds.

“As you can see,” whispered Knox, “we have all the comforts of a regular city, without many of the drawbacks. You won’t find slums on Lilani Base—or urban riots, traffic congestion, high suicide rates, crime. But you will find full entertainment facilities, a hospital, shopping arcades, community services—just about anything you could find back on Ilium.” He took Sullivan by the arm. “There’s one more thing I’d like you to see.”

They left the theater together and found another elevator. This time Knox punched the button for the top level; the corridors, when they emerged, were quiet and strangely hushed. Knox flashed an ID to a guard in the hallway.

“The top level is a restricted area,” he told Sullivan. “Authorized personnel only, just to make sure no one leaves the base without permission. A few months ago one of the maintenance crew went out for a ride in the desert and was spotted by one of the officials in Malovia—that’s the Lilanian city to the southwest of here. He escaped, but the Terran ambassador was killed in the process. There was a great deal of fuss about it, the upshot of it all being that nobody goes up-and-out without authorization in triplicate. Fortunately, the one who caused the trouble was Hrakan. If he had been human, there would have been hell to pay when the Presidor found out.”

Knox smiled wryly and shoved open a pair of swinging doors. Sullivan followed. Inside was a large auditorium with roughly twenty rows of seats. Scattered individuals sat quietly staring at the wall opposite.

It was, indeed, something to stare at. The wall was constructed largely from tinted glass, supported by vaulting steel beams, and beyond it lay the scarlet sands of Lilani itself.

Sullivan gazed out over the landscape for long seconds before he realized that he had stopped breathing. He caught his breath in a long appreciative gasp. Knox, hearing the sound, looked at him and smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s an impressive sight. That’s why we keep the seats here, so that anyone who can obtain the proper permission can watch. I’d let you stay here now, in fact, but we have to be at the commander’s office in thirty minutes.”

“That’s okay,” said Sullivan. “Just give me a few more seconds.”

He slouched luxuriously into one of the softly padded seats. It was midafternoon, Lilani time, and the sun had barely crept below the top of the view-wall. When its harsh light shone through, the glass darkened in response, so that its mind-numbing glare was not destructive to the eyes of the watchers. The sands were red: screaming red, dazzling red. Wild, wind-carven rocks rose up at intervals across the rolling dunes, some of them small and barely noticeable, others massive and towering. The sky was an intense bluish green, almost cloudless.

It was beautiful, stunning. It made Sullivan’s flesh crawl.

“You can come back later,” said Knox. “I’ll see that you get a pass to visit this level sometime tomorrow. Later tonight, if you’d like. I’m afraid we have to leave now.”

Reluctantly, Sullivan rose from the seat and let Knox lead him through a different door, exiting from another side of the room. They emerged on a narrow catwalk spanning a bay filled with peculiar vehicles. Sullivan paused and asked Knox what they were for.

“Those,” he replied, “are the sand rovers. They’re modified tractors, actually, for transportation outside of the base. They’re not used much anymore. Not too many people go outside.”

“Could I?”

“Could you what? Go outside? I should hardly think you’d want to. It may look attractive through the viewport, while you’ve got a sheet of leaded glass between you and the elements, but it’s not much fun when you’re in the middle of it, with nothing but a pressure suit to protect you. It gets hot out there. Extremely. I’ve been out twice, once in the daytime and once at night, and believe me, sometimes the heat can be too much even for your personal refrigeration unit. Stay out there long enough and no equipment can save you. On top of all that, you’d probably get lost. The desert changes constantly; there are no permanent landmarks, what with the wind and the heat and all. You’d need top-flight navigation equipment to find your way around—or an excellent sense of direction.”

“Sorry I asked.”

“Don’t be.”

They stepped up a short flight of metal stairs and back out into the hallway. Knox pushed the button for the elevator and they descended once more into the depths.

The base commander’s office, when they finally arrived, was bright and sparkling. The furniture was new and well-kept, in the style that Sullivan had heard referred to as Hrakan Modern: all curves and curlicues, at once soothing and stimulating to the eye. From the center of the ceiling hung an abstract, multi-sectioned mobile. As it turned in the slow breeze from the air-circulation system it emitted soft melodic tones, as if each piece were a separate musical instrument, with its own distinctive timbre.

The base commander sat at a wide curved desk. Not surprisingly, he was Hrakan.

Sullivan sat across from him and Knox took the seat at his side. The commander leaned forward and stared expressionlessly at his two visitors.

“Greetings, Mr. Sullivan,” he said. “Word has come down to us of your deeds. I have heard that you are a hero of the Hrakan people, that you almost gave your life for our intelligence effort on Ilium.”

Sullivan’s face reddened. “Nothing quite like that, sir. I mean, what happened was that I almost got caught, that’s all.”

“You are modest,” boomed the Hrakan. “I am told that you put up a brave fight against the Terran law enforcement authorities. You killed three of them—is that not true?—when they tried to take you into custody.”

“Yes. That’s true.”

“What more could any hero of the Empire be expected to do? Of a soldier on the battlefield we could not ask more. Three of our enemy are dead and our hero still lives. You will see a medal for this, young human. There is no doubt of that.”

“Thank you,” Sullivan replied, a little embarrassed by the Hrakan’s praise. At his side, Knox smiled dimly.

“Now,” said the commander, “what of the girl who arrived with you? Is she of great importance?”

“She knows shipping schedules, sir, and, ah, information on Terran troop movements. I think it’s only a matter of time before she can be made to divulge what she knows.”

“She has been under interrogation?”

“Yes, sir—”

“Mr. Sullivan has been interrogating her, sir,” interrupted Knox.

“Oh?” said the Commander. “That’s unusual. Have you had any results?”

“No, sir; but, as I said, it’s just a matter of time.”

“I think, though, that it might be prudent to place the girl in the hands of trained interrogators.”

“But… sir!”

“Yes?”

“I’ve… I’ve been coming along so well with her, sir. I’d hate to stop now, with results quite obviously forthcoming.”

“Where is your proof, Mr. Sullivan? Have you obtained any tangible results so far?”

“Well, no… but if you’ll just give me a few more days.”

“To me this seems a waste of valuable time,” said the Hrakan, “but if you insist…”

“I do, sir.”

“Very well. You shall be assigned to permanent interrogation duty in regards to the girl, er, Cynthia Anne Robbins. Hopefully, you will have some hard data to place in my hands within a few days. A month from now, when the Elliot Holmes departs for Hraka Central, you will be on board. We will begin your debriefing within the week; Central will continue it.”

“And the girl?”

“When the interrogation is complete, she will be disposed of, after which you will be reassigned. Any further questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Apologies, then, for my holding you so long. You and Mr. Knox may depart now, yes?”

Sullivan nodded. The two men mouthed a few ritual farewells and left.

In the corridor, he and Knox went their separate ways. Once safely in his chambers, Sullivan lay on the bed and began to tremble, gently at first and then with savage tremors.

He knew that there were only days left before the lie fell apart, before they found out that he was only playing a game. The communication from Hraka Central should be arriving soon—how soon, he did not know—and every day his story became less and less airtight. He wasn’t sure that Knox and the commander believed him at all any more, but at least they seemed to tolerate him, in case his story actually turned out to be true.

And when the inevitable truth came out, that would be the end. He and Cindy would be placed in the hands of real interrogators and tortured until they had revealed their last ounces of information, information that neither of them really possessed.

And then they would be of no use to anyone.

HE ran into Westfield that evening in the Fourth Level Restaurant.

The dining area was divided into two sections, one for humans and one for Hraka. Food was served in a kind of automated cafeteria, with each dish prepared mechanically and delivered through a separate tube. Sullivan pushed buttons, gathered his dinner onto a tray and found a seat at a long table. As he ate, a tall figure sat across from him.

A voice said: “Hello friend. Mind if we break bread together?”

Sullivan looked up into familiar cold eyes. He took a bite of gristly meat from his fork and did not speak.

“I’ll take your silence as approval. Haven’t seen you for a week or so. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were avoiding me.”

“I was,” Sullivan grumbled.

“Too bad. I’m fascinating company—or so I’m told. I’m sure you’d like me if you gave me a chance.” He chuckled lightly under his breath.

Sullivan picked up his tray and moved to leave. “Hey,” Westfield shouted. “I’m only joking. Put your tray back down and don’t act childish. I wasn’t kidding about us being friends. I’d like to apologize about the other night.”

Sullivan gave him a cold stare.

“No. Really. There’s no sense in the two of us being enemies. We’ll be leaving together on the Holmes in four weeks and it’s a long way back to central. That’s an awful lot of time for two people to be cooped up together, especially when they’re not talking to each other.”

Westfield extended a friendly hand across the table.

Regarding the older man’s intentions with suspicion, Sullivan turned back to the food on his tray and pointedly ignored the offer of friendship.

It might not be the right thing to do, he thought, but he disliked Westfield more every time the two of them crossed paths.

Finally, Westfield shrugged and said, “All right. Be that way. I’ll try not to hold a grudge against you.” He took a sip of thick liquid from a cup in front of him. “One thing you ought to be aware of, though. Your friend Knox holds a bigger stake in your future than you realize. He’s in trouble, has been for a while. He fumbled his last assignment pretty badly, and he needs a chance to recoup. If it should turn out that you’re not what you claim to be—” His eyes flickered brightly for a moment. “Rescuing you in the first place was Knox’s idea. Though he didn’t realize it at the time, he was putting his career on the line. If it turns out that he made a mistake, the Hraka will have his head on a platter, unless he does something to make up for it pretty damned fast!” Sullivan looked up without thinking. “I see that we’re on the same wavelength,” Westfield laughed. “If word comes back that your credentials don’t hold water, Knox is going to wring you for everything you’re worth: Terran secrets, intelligence plans, the names of the people you work under—the whole show. And if he can’t get all of that out of you, he’ll make sure that you suffer.”

Westfield turned to leave. “So if you’re a Terran agent,” he added, “—and I’m not saying that you are—you’d better pray that somebody’s done some awful hard work faking your background, because if they didn’t, you’re going to have two of us on your tail, me and Knox. And when we’re finished with you there won’t be much left for the Hraka to dispose of.”

Westfield spun and marched from the room. Sullivan stared dizzily into his meal. Time was running out…

The next morning they called him to the interrogation chambers. Cindy was already there when he arrived. They had her spread-eagled on an elevated table, her arms, legs and torso held down by tight metal bands. She wore a simple, white, institutional robe, formed from a single piece of fabric. She lay rigid and immobile; if her eyes had not been open and staring at the ceiling, Sullivan would have thought she was unconscious.

The interrogation chamber was a wonder of sophisticated technology. An attendant showed him the vast rows of switches and knobs, briefly explaining the purpose of each (“These are the electrode stimulators. You can increase the voltage with this potentiometer… “) and pointed out the impressive array of chemicals that could be injected into the prisoner simply by pushing a button.

Cindy remained unmoving. Sullivan asked the attendants to leave, explaining that he could handle the interrogation without assistance.

When he was finally alone, he stood in the center of the room and watched the girl on the table with the intensity of an astronomer gazing at the stars. She looked pale and drawn, almost emaciated. The robe—and presumably her flesh—clung so tightly to the bone that he wondered if she had eaten at all during the trip to Lilani. Deep circles had formed beneath her eyes and she seemed to stare vacantly into space. Lines of despair etched their way across her forehead.

“Cindy,” Sullivan whispered.

She did not reply. He glanced up at the life functions indicator above her head and saw that she was, indeed, conscious. But if she were aware that he had spoken, she gave no sign. He repeated her name, whispering it, forming the syllables carefully with his tongue—but there was no response.

A hole opened somewhere in his gut.

He couldn’t bear to see her like this. She seemed to have no will to live, no desire to survive. He had to get her away from there, into the hands of someone who could help her, but how? The sight of her wasting away without hope, without even the knowledge that anyone else was on her side, ate away at his soul like corrosive acid.

He loved her.

There was no doubt of it; none at all. The knowledge had come to him slowly, almost painfully, on the trip out from Ilium. This girl he hardly knew, who had saved his life once on another world—this was the person he loved. Her face haunted his dreams, his nightmares, half of his waking thoughts.

He stepped to the console and went through the motions of an interrogation, for the benefit of whatever eyes were studying them through the hidden cameras that had to be concealed somewhere in the room. At one point, he even pushed a button to inject her with a mild drug, but the action sickened him so that he could not repeat it.

For three fruitless hours he pretended to grill the girl for information he knew she did not possess, then had her wheeled back to her room, reporting to the attendants that victory was close at hand.

He went bade to his room and, for the first time since he had been a child, broke down and cried.

THE Lilanian sunset was an explosion of color in the desert sky. The last dazzling rays of the sun burned across the landscape like liquid fire. Sullivan sat in the auditorium and watched his second afternoon on Lilani wane with a burst of splendor.

Step by step, he planned his escape.

Earlier, he had talked Knox into giving him a security pass for the upper floor. The older man had acquiesced and Sullivan had carefully scouted out all the surface-level exits under the pretext of sightseeing.

He didn’t like what he saw. There were four ways to get out of the base. Two direct portals led out into the desert from the maintenance bays, but he doubted that they would do him any good. He wouldn’t get far on foot, not if things were half as bad as Knox had described them. Even in a pressure suit—and particularly with Cindy at his side—he didn’t stand much chance of getting anywhere worth going.

He could take the umbilical tube back up to the Holmes, but what then? He couldn’t fly the ship himself, wouldn’t have the slightest idea of what he was doing. Furthermore, he had no knowledge of the planet’s geography and wouldn’t be able to find a spaceport if his life depended on it—which it would. Of course he could try to make it to another planet altogether, but the thought of navigating between star systems chilled his blood.

That left only one way out: the sand rovers. He had only gotten a glimpse of them the day before, but they didn’t look as if they would be difficult to handle.

Quietly, so as not to disturb the few individuals seated around him, he slipped out into the aisle and down toward the front of the room. He stepped through a heavy metal door and out onto the catwalk on the far side.

The sand rovers were still there. Five of them. From where he stood, about four meters above them, their controls looked no different from those of a standard automobile. There was a steering wheel directly in front of the driver’s seat, a gear shift, an ignition slot—probably foot pedals as well, though they were not visible from where he stood.

He had learned to drive years before, when he was very young. He hadn’t done much of it—fuel was scarce on Greensward and most of it was used for agricultural purposes—but there had been no regulations, as there were on other worlds, preventing him from learning to drive shortly after he had learned to walk.

No; he shouldn’t have much trouble with the sand rovers.

Ahead of the five vehicles was a short ramp and a corrugated metal wall that would apparently lift out of the way at the push of a button—though where that button was he couldn’t tell.

It didn’t look as ff it would be very hard to get out into the desert; there was nothing to stop him. The question was what he would do when he got there.

But he couldn’t leave Cindy behind. And, if what Knox had told him was true, their fate in the desert could be every bit as bad as what awaited them if they stayed.

In the desert, though, they at least had a small chance. If they stayed they would have none.

That night in his room he worried over the remaining details of his plan. He would take Cindy to the interrogation chamber as usual, he decided, then tell the attendants that something unexpected had come up, that he had to accompany her to her room—alone. There was no need for him to give a detailed explanation; they would expect that later, but by then he would be gone. Once they had gotten away from the attendants they would head for the upper level. He had not returned the security pass to Knox. He could improvise his way past the guards, he thought. Or, if it became absolutely necessary, he could use force. It had worked in the past.

But when would he do it? He knew that the sooner the two of them escaped, the better their chances would be. And yet there were so many things that could go wrong.

Not too surprisingly, he found ways of postponing the inevitable. That morning, when he joined Cindy in the chamber, he made no attempt to get away. For two hours he went through the motions of plumbing the girl for information, then returned to his room and collapsed.

When? he asked himself. When could he bring himself to make his bid for freedom?

It was Westfield, oddly enough, who supplied the answer.

CHAPTER 8

It was a field like no field that had ever existed, on a planet unlike any Sullivan was familiar with. It stretched away in every direction, for as far as the eye could see, an unbroken expanse of softly blowing grass. There were no hills or depressions to mar the perfect circularity of the horizon, no trees, no shrubbery—only grass. And every blade seemed exactly as long as every other blade. Roughly ten centimeters, Sullivan estimated.

He was alone.

The breeze sighed quietly through his hair, through his clothing. There was no sound, only the mildest hint of a whisper as air rushed past his ears.

He began walking. The grass spread aside as he moved through it, bowed down to become a soft carpet beneath his feet.

The air was warm, the sky friendly and blue. He began to run.

The figure appeared unexpectedly at the very limit of his vision. At first it was no more than a point, a black dot at the juncture of earth and sky. Instinctively, he ran toward it and it, in turn, rushed toward him.

It grew. Bit by bit it swelled in proportion until it became a recognizable human figure, became an old man hobbling on weakened, trembling legs…

… became his father.

Sullivan ran toward him, extending his arms, and gathered the old man into his embrace. The wizened figure collapsed against him, sagged to the ground. His breath was an audible wheeze, his limbs weak and shaking.

“Father,” Sullivan whispered.

The old man held out his right hand and gripped the crest of his son’s skull, running his fingers deep into the thatch of thick black hair.

“I’ve been away, Derry. Very far away. I’ve come a great distance to be with you.”

“Lie down, father. Here. On the grass.”

“No. There’s no time. I’ve come to tell you things. Urgent things. We must talk about them now.”

“All right, father. I’m listening.”

“Do you remember a time many years ago, Derry, when you were a boy? I brought you to a field, thick with grass, like this one, only there were trees and rocks. And we talked.”

“I think so. It was a long time ago.”

“Indeed. You’ve come a long way since then. I’m proud of you, son.”

“Thank you, father.”

“But you need me now. That’s why I’ve returned. I had to leave you for a time, but that’s over now. I hope you forgive me.”

“Forgive you? Of course I do, father. Of course.”

“That’s good. And now—” He raised his head, lifting his eyes to the sky. “What’s that, Derry?”

“What’s… what, father?”

“That noise. It seems… it seems so very loud.”

“Noise, father? I don’t—” But no, there was a noise, a rumbling noise. And it was loud, so loud that it seemed to rattle deep inside the pit of his stomach. The ground itself began to tremble beneath them.

Sullivan tried to stand. He reached out both hands to his father, trying to help the old man to rise, but the trembling was so great that it brought both of them to their knees.

“Father!”

The crack seemed to start at an arbitrary point along the circle of the horizon and race straight for them, bisecting the circle into two perfect hemispheres. Sullivan saw his father plunge into the wide black maw that opened behind him and he reached out to him, grasping desperately for his hand. But before he could save the old man from the pit, he found himself toppling over the edge as well.

They plummeted, together yet intolerably apart, into the abyss.

THE rumbling continued. No, it wasn’t a rumbling. It was a buzzing. No, not that either. More of a ringing, a chiming.

He opened his eyes. They were thick with moisture, tears.

He threw out an arm, tossing the covers off his body. The entrance chimes rang again, then again. He stumbled groggily through the foyer and leaned against the door, pressing his eyes to the viewhole.

It was Westfield.

“What do you want?” Sullivan asked, his voice heavy with sleep.

“I have something to tell you. Something that I think you should hear.” His face remained impassive, unblinking.

“Couldn’t it wait until later? I just got up.”

“Sorry.” He started to add something else, but apparently thought better of it.

Sullivan wiped the grit out of his eyes with a badly manicured finger and remained silent for several seconds. “All right, Westfield,” he said at last. “Give me a minute.”

He stepped back into the bedroom and threw on the slacks and shirt he had worn the night before. Returning to the foyer, he let the man in. Westfield looked to be in good spirits. Too good, thought Sullivan.

“Have a seat,” he said, indicating the small sofa. “Do you think you can make this fast?”

The other man smiled. “Sure, if that’s the way you want it. I’ve got something for you.” He plucked a sheet of yellow computer printout from his shirt pocket. “This came while I was in the communications center. I don’t think anyone else has seen it yet.”

Sullivan snatched it out of his hands. Holding it under the cone of light from a nearby lamp, he read the miniscule print:

XXXHRAKAXCENTRALXXX—COMM-CON— LILANI-BASE-ONE-1/4/81-1580AM—IN RE DEREK SULLIVAN: NO SUCH AGENT EXISTS CENTRAL FILES REPEAT NO SUCH AGENT EXISTS CENTRAL FILES STOP SULLIVAN MUST BE CONSIDERED TERRAN LOYALIST STOP IMMEDIATE ELIMINATION RECOMMENDED STOP REPEAT NO SUCH AGENT DEREK SULLIVAN EXISTS CENTRAL FILES STOP ENDIT— XXXHRAKAXCENTRALXXX—1581 AM

Without thinking, Sullivan crumpled the paper in his fingers and flung it aside. “What kind of trick is this?”

“No trick at all. That was the carbon of the message, of course. I have the original in my room.”

“You’re bluffing. I’ll bet you typed that message yourself.”

Westfield sighed. “You and I both know the truth, Sullivan. You’re a spy, a piece of Terran scum. You know damned well that the message is real—and I know you know. You’ve been expecting it for weeks, so let’s not kid one another.”

Tensing his muscles, Sullivan sank slowly into a chair. “Suppose it is the truth,” he said tentatively. “Why bring it to me? Has the base commander seen it yet? It seems to me that he’s the first one you’d take it to.”

“No, the base commander hasn’t seen it yet. And if you’re a good boy, he might never see it.”

Sullivan felt a wave of hope spread through him, underscored by a dark current of fear. “I don’t follow. You told me you hated Terrans, Westfield, that if I turned out to be a double agent you’d see me rot in hell—those were your words, weren’t they? Did you change your mind?”

A sardonic smile touched the other man’s lips. “Not exactly. But I would like to make a deal with you, strike a bargain. It concerns the girl—”

“Hold on, Westfield!”

“Hold on yourself, Sullivan! You’ll be in the interrogation chambers within sixty seconds after that message reaches the base commander’s office. If you’re smart, you’ll hear me out.”

Sullivan slumped forward in the chair, hands clenched tightly against his knees to disguise their trembling. “Go ahead. Make your proposition.”

Westfield grinned. “My offer is this: I want you to contact the interrogation crew and have the girl brought up to the chambers immediately. You’ll go meet them yourself, tell them to get lost, then I’ll join you. I’ll want the girl to myself for about an hour and a half.”

Sullivan fought to control his anger. “And what will I be doing all this time?”

“That’s the good part,” replied Westfield nacously (SP?). “You’ll get to watch.”

With no regard to consequences, Sullivan lunged at the man opposite him. Westfield whipped a small laser pistol from his pocket.

“Hold on, Sullivan. I’m giving you the only chance you’ve got. Don’t blow it now.”

“I’ll kill you,” Sullivan hissed. “You bastard.”

“I doubt that. What’s the girl to you anyway? She’s nothing but a slut; all women are sluts at heart. You think I don’t know what goes on in that interrogation chamber? Spread the wealth around, my friend. Don’t be so greedy.”

Sullivan opened his mouth to reply, but the words came sluggishly, painfully. He sat back down, his knuckles whitening as his hands clenched into fists. “I wouldn’t cooperate with you,” he whispered, “if I were—”

“Watch your words, boy! A spy should value his life more highly. I’d have taken an offer like that in a minute if the Terrans had given it to me—and been glad for it.”

Sullivan exhaled slowly through clenched teeth. Blood ran hot through his veins, then cold. The man’s offer was absurd, insane. There was no way at all that he could accept it.

And yet what was he to do? His story was blown, he and Cindy were condemned to a certain death if he didn’t cooperate, perhaps even if he did. He had procrastinated too long with his escape plans and now might well pay the price.

But what, he wondered, if he only pretended to consider Westfield’s proposition?

“If I do go along, what do I get in return?” he asked.

“An hour’s head start. I don’t know how you could get out of this place and frankly I don’t care, but if you do as I say I’ll give you an hour to find out. Then I turn the message over to the base commander.”

Sullivan leaned back for a moment, apparently lost in thought. Finally he said, “No. Your offer isn’t acceptable, Westfield. I can’t even consider it.”

“Suit yourself.” The other man stood as if to leave. “It’s out of my hands, then.”

“Wait! We might be able to work something out between the two of us—”

“No deal. I told you my terms. Either you take them or you don’t.”

“All right!” he shouted, closing his eyes as though he were battling furiously with his conscience. “You win. I’ll call the interrogation people now.” He rose slowly and stepped into the bedroom.

He punched a few numbers into the wall communication unit, then spoke briefly to the face that appeared in response. Westfield stood in the doorway, waiting.

“Fine,” he said. “Real nice. Now you’ll go down and clear out the chamber for us, okay? I’ll be around in a few minutes and I want to find everything in place, including the girl. If anything goes wrong…”

“It won’t.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.” He waved the gun in front of himself, motioning Sullivan toward the door. “Hurry up, now. I don’t have all day.”

“Hold on a second.” Sullivan turned away from him, eyes scanning the room for something he could use as a weapon. “I have to get a… a chair.”

“A chair?”

Spinning wildly on his heels, Sullivan grabbed a small wooden chair from the middle of the room and hurled it into Westfield’s arms. The pistol discharged, its crimson beam sizzling into the wood. Caught by surprise, Westfield stumbled backwards into the foyer. Sullivan plunged after him, knocking him to the floor. The gun skittered away.

“You damned Terran fool—!”

Sullivan brought a clenched fist down into Westfield’s face, striking him again and again until blood spurted from his nostrils. The man on the floor slumped into unconsciousness, his head sagging to one side. Sullivan scuttled across the room and picked up the gun.

One shot and Westfield would cease to be a threat. Forever.

He tightened his finger on the firing stud, trying to discharge the tiny pistol’s lethal beam, to end the other man’s destructive existence, but he could not. He had killed three men in an alley back on Ilium, but he was still not a murderer, could not kill in cold blood.

He jammed the gun into his pocket. If that was how it had to be, he would allow Westfield to live. The man was obviously going to remain unconscious for some time; time enough, hopefully, for him to effect his escape.

He stepped over the unmoving form, opened the door and emerged into the hallway. There was no time to gather supplies for his trip into the desert, no time to change into more suitable clothing; he had to find Cindy and run.

The interrogation crew would probably have her at the chamber by now, he thought; all he had to do was think of some excuse, invent a story, get the girl away.

But—Dear God!—what was he going to tell them?

He punched for the elevator. The car took only seconds to arrive, but to Sullivan it seemed like hours, eons. Time stretched insanely. He thought of Westfield lying in the foyer of his room, slowly returning to consciousness.

Should he have restrained him somehow, tied him to the bed, locked him in the wash cabinet? Or should he have swallowed his compunctions and killed the man anyway, as he had lain there helplessly?

Sullivan forced the thoughts from his mind and stepped into the elevator cage. He jabbed the button for the thirteenth level, bracing himself for the vertigo-inducing plunge. Seconds later he stepped out into a corridor identical to the one he had just left.

The green-clad attendants were wheeling Cindy into the chamber as he arrived. He forced his way past the one at the door and grabbed the edge of the metal table she lay on.

“I have to take her back to her room,” he shouted, his breath coming in quick spurts. “It’s an emergency. No time to explain now.”

“By whose authority?” one of the attendants asked. “Do you have a requisition from the commander?”

“Yes,” he gasped. “I mean, it’s not on me now. There’s no time, I tell you. I’ll take over—”

“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that,” another attendant replied, apologetically. “If you’ll let us make a call to the commander’s office—or at least to Mr. Knox.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? There’s an emergency!”

“I don’t understand,” said the first attendant. “If you have permission from the commander—”

He never finished the sentence. There was a sharp shrilling noise from an overhead speaker, followed by an oscillating siren.

Sullivan grabbed desperately at the table. “Listen,” he shouted, “I don’t care if you give me your cooperation or not—” The nearest of the green-clad figures put out a hand to grasp his shoulder, but he knocked it away.

The alarm ceased. A voice echoed down the hallway and into the entranceway where they stood.

“Alert alert alert!” droned the voice. Alert alert alert! All personnel are urged to assist in the apprehension of Derek Sullivan, suspected Terran agent. Repeat: All personnel are urged to assist in the apprehension of Derek Sullivan.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then Sullivan felt the blocky form of one of the attendants careen into his chest. With feverish strength, he laced the fingers of his hands together and brought them up powerfully under his assailant’s chin. Stunned, the attendant staggered back against the wall.

A laser pistol flashed bright red fire past Sullivan’s shoulder. He threw himself backwards into the hallway, landing sharply on the base of his spine. His arm stung as the laserfire ate at the fabric of his shirt.

He yanked the tiny pistol from his pocket and fired into the doorway behind him. One of the attendants grabbed his arm, screaming, and tugged the door closed.

Sullivan plunged to his feet, grabbed at the door handle.

It was locked.

Damn it, Cindy was inside! The attendants had her captive and there was no way he could reach her, no way at all. He stood back from the doorway and fired the laser pistol toward it, but the highly reflective metal barely glowed under the onslaught.

He couldn’t stay in the hallway; surely the attendants would have reported his whereabouts by now. Sweating furiously, he turned and raced toward the elevator.

The elevator car arrived. He hurled himself inside, struck the far wall, caught his balance. He slapped the button for the top level with a savage ferocity.

As the elevator rose he seemed to lose consciousness for a moment. His knees sank; his head fell against the softly padded wall at his back. His eyelids drooped closed, pulled down by the massive weight of circumstance that was piling against him, then fluttered open again.

He couldn’t leave without Cindy, he thought. His escape, if he succeeded in it—would be hollow, meaningless. And yet it would do her no good if he stayed.

He had only one alternative: commandeer a sand rover and flee to Malovia, the Lilanian city to the southwest. There, perhaps, he could find help.

The door slid open. The guard, not recognizing him, asked for his security pass.

He fumbled in his pants pocket. Let it still be there, he thought. Please let it be there!

His fingers closed on a slip of paper. He pulled it out, flashed it briefly under the guard’s nose. Alarms sounded in the distance.

“That’s enough, isn’t it?” asked Sullivan. “Now if you’ll let me go, I have urgent business waiting.”

“Just a second,” said the guard. “I’d like another look at that if you don’t mind.”

Nervously, Sullivan handed it back. The guard squinted at the small print.

“Uh, I’m sorry,” he said. “But this expired yesterday. These things are only good for twenty-eight hours, you know.” He leaned toward the telephone on the wall behind him. “I’ll call Mr. Knox for you, Mr., ah—” he glanced at the name on the pass “—Mr. Sullivan.”

It took the better part of a second for the name to register. As he looked back up, Sullivan brought the butt of the pistol down on his unprotected forehead.

The guard fell backwards, slid gradually down to the floor. Blood trickled along the bridge of his nose.

Sullivan fled. There was shouting in the corridor behind him, but he ignored it, concentrating instead on reaching the doorway to the garage. He raced up beside it, grabbed the door handle to brake his uncontrolled momentum and flung himself inside. Off-balance, he rolled down the flight of stairs, striking his head against the guard rail that ran along the catwalk. Dizzily, he groped his way to his feet.

He threw himself off the catwalk and slid down a long pole into the garage below.

The sand rovers were waiting.

He grabbed a pressure suit from a rack on the side of the room, wrestled his way inside it, then climbed into the driver’s seat of the nearest vehicle, gripping the steering wheel tightly in his hands. He stared blankly at the dashboard. How was he supposed to start the thing? Did he need a key or a special combination? Was there a switch?

Desperately, he groped at the control panel. He pushed one button and nothing happened, threw a switch and nothing happened, pulled on a choke…

The engine roared. He reached beneath the dashboard and removed the brake. As he threw the vehicle into gear, it lurched forward.

He brought it to a squealing halt. Ahead of him, the corrugated metal doorway sat squarely across his path. He jumped from the seat, bulky and awkward in the pressure suit, and searched for a switch, a button, but could find none.

Stooping into a low crouch, he grasped the bottom of the door and pulled upwards. It refused to give. Frustrated, he turned back to the sand rover.

There had to be a way to open the door.

On an impulse he pressed the horn knob on the steering wheel. There was a deafening howl from deep within the engine and a loud click from somewhere overhead. The door slid upwards, disappearing into the ceiling.

Beyond it lay a long ramp. He gunned the vehicle forward. Behind him there was a clamoring sound, as of many footsteps; crisp laser fire struck the concrete at his side. Then, as he glided beneath the door, it slid closed again, shutting him off from his pursuers.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Dare he believe that he had actually gotten away?

The outer door slid open and the light of the Lilanian day poured in. He turned his head away, squinted his eyes, even as the faceplate of his helmet darkened in response. He brought the sand rover up to the edge of the desert.

The morning sun scorched the heavens with an arrogant ferocity. Sullivan felt the light as a physical force, an explosive pressure that descended from the sky like rain. For a moment he almost let it push him back down the ramp, into the bay, back into the arms of his pursuers. But with a burst of reckless energy he allowed the vehicle to carry him forward onto the sands.

Heat!

Even through the pressure suit he felt it, heavy and oppressive. He located a small dial on his arm and turned it clockwise. Cool air pulsed through the suit’s ventilation system.

Turning back he saw the low dome of Lilani Base behind him, rising no more than a few meters above the ground. Its metallic shell was painted a rusty red color to camouflage it against the sand. Just above surface level he could see the view wall; in the auditorium beyond curious figures pressed against the glass, watching him.

A voice boomed raspily over the radio in his helmet: “We know you’re out there, Sullivan, and we could follow you, but we won’t. You’re dead already. Lilani won’t let you get away.”

The crackling of the carrier wave faded. He sat quietly for a moment, then gunned the sand rover out across the waiting dunes.

The scarlet sands stretched away to the horizon. There was no sign of life. The landscape was harsh, forbidding.

Lilani waited patiently for its victim.

THE sand rover crawled over the dunes at a steady twenty-five kilometers per hour. Sullivan kept his foot pressed heavily on the accelerator pedal, his hands locked on the wheel. On board the Holmes, the computer had told him that the nearest city, Malovia, was roughly a hundred kilometers to the southwest, which meant that he might be able to reach it in a little less than four hours.

If he was headed in the right direction.

He leaned forward and checked the small compass welded to the top of the control panel. It still pointed southwest, but that was no surprise. He checked it almost once a minute, fearing even the slightest deviation from his course.

A hundred kilometers, he thought. A little more than an hour’s drive on a paved road, but in the desert…

Two hours out from Lilani Base, he caught the first radio signals from Malovia. They were barely discernable through the receiver in his helmet but obviously had never been intended to carry that far out into the desert.

His breath quickened with joy. The signal meant that he was headed in the right direction and that was the best news that he could have had. Like an ancient airplane pilot following a radio beam through the murky skies of night, he steered the sand rover toward the distant pulsing waves.

An hour later he began to lose it. It had grown stronger for a time; once he had almost been able to discern words, but then it began to fade. Now it was a thin crackling, barely as loud as when he had first detected it.

Could he have been traveling in the wrong direction all that time? Or was the wandering of the signal the result of some atmospheric disturbance?

He brought the vehicle to a halt. Should he continue steering the sand rover to the southwest, using the compass as his guide and hoping that the signal would regain its strength? Or should he change his course, see if the beam grew stronger to the north or south of him?

If he lost the beam altogether, he might become hopelessly lost. He would try to the north, then.

His choice turned out to be the correct one. Within half an hour the signal was as powerful as ever and his spirits were high. Fifteen minutes later, however, it had faded again and he steered the vehicle back toward the southwest in an attempt to regain it.

THE storm came in from the west.

At first it was no more than a distant humming, a vibration that came across the dunes, through the sand rover and up through the shoes of his pressure suit. He heard it while making a brief stop, as he reconnoitered for a better signal.

There was a slight darkness on the horizon.

Darkness. It seemed strange to see anything dark out there in that stark brightness. The sun seemed to bleach the color out of everything; after half an hour even the scarlet sands had begun to seem white to his sun-dazzled eyes.

But as he turned to the west he saw a low dark cloud hugging the horizon, like the first edge of a devastating thunderstorm. As from a great distance he could hear a barely audible rumbling, the mildest hint of a low-pitched howling.

There was no sign of Malovia…

According to his calculations he had been driving for almost four hours, time enough—under ideal conditions— to travel from Lilani Base to the nearest city, but his constant tracking back and forth must have slowed him down. Now he had no idea how far away Malovia might be; he could only follow the radio signal and hope to establish a visual sighting.

The thunder of the storm grew louder. Within another half hour it was impossible to ignore. Even with the engine on, it was audible; before long he could barely hear the chugging of the sand rover over the howling of the oncoming storm.

Dust blew across his faceplate like wind-driven rain.

He held out his gloved hand, palm up, and watched it fill with fine grains of sand. Each grain was red, one small portion of the vast desert that surrounded him.

Sandstorm!

He looked back toward the west and saw that the dark cloud now obscured more than a third of the sky. Above him the sun shone as brightly as ever and the sky was almost startlingly clear, but where the cloud approached there was only blackness, dark as the sunless nebulae between stars.

Where was Malovia?

It could be just over the next rise, he thought, or kilometers away in the wrong direction. The radio signal—still strong the last time he had been able to hear it—was inaudible over the growing roar. Locking the wheel onto the course he had been following for some minutes, he pushed ahead.

Wind buffeted him. The sand made a sharp grinding noise as it blew over the skin of his suit, streaming more thickly by the minute. The black cloud was almost directly overhead. Suddenly, as though a massive hand had reached out and taken the sun in its grasp, darkness fell. A sharp-edged shadow raced past him, hurrying eastward.

The topology of the landscape changed even as he watched. Great ripples rolled across the desert like waves across an ocean. Dunes appeared and disappeared; for a moment the control panel in front of him vanished beneath the clinging red dust. Working furiously, he wiped it away, but minutes later it had accumulated again.

His pressure suit, he realized, was becoming encrusted with the stuff. Without warning he found himself blinded, his faceplate obscured by sand several millimeters thick, and when he brushed it away he found the once-clear glass smudged and scratched.

The sand rover wheezed to a halt.

Sullivan stomped on the pedal, but the engine vibrated feebly in response. Dust and sand must have found their way into the machinism, into the gears. Not bothering to attempt a repair, he reached into the rear of the vehicle and grabbed a small emergency pack attached to the back of his seat. He threw the leather straps over his shoulder, buckling them in front, and—with the aid of a small tool he found under the dashboard—pried loose the compass from its mounting. Then he clambered to the ground.

It was dark beneath the great cloud of sand; late twilight had arrived mysteriously in the middle of the Lilanian day. He had staggered no more than ten meters from the sand rover before the vehicle disappeared into the dust behind him. Holding the compass as close to his faceplate as possible, he set his course for the southeast, stumbling as the wind whipped against him.

He was lost…

No! He couldn’t allow himself to think that. He had lost the sand rover, he was unable to hear the radio signal that was to guide him across the unmapped desert, but he wasn’t lost, not yet. If he continued bearing southwest— the direction he had been traveling before the storm hit—he still had a good chance of surviving.

Or so he reasoned. The only alternative was to lie down and wait for the sands to bury him—and he found the idea repugnant. Who could tell how long the storm might last? Minutes, hours, days? It might well end before he had gone half a kilometer from the sand rover—or he might wander around in it for the better part of the week.

Except that he only had air enough for another twenty hours…

That was his deadline, then. God help him, he couldn’t let himself get lost, he had to find the city by early the next morning or it would mean his life.

He hurried on into the darkness. An hour passed. Two hours. Three.

He had long ago grown used to the constant thundering of the wind. Now he barely heard the storm at all, only took note of occasional changes in its intensity. Periodically—perhaps every one or two minutes—he reached up and scraped the accumulated sand from the faceplate, then brushed clean the small compass in his hand. It had hardly mattered any more if he could see clearly or not; there was nothing left to see.

Walking was an awkward affair, but he was beginning to get the hang of it. He was headed southwest and the wind was coming in from the west, pushing him ever farther to the east, so he learned to lean into the storm, a process that would normally have caused him to pitch over sideways, except that the wind would not allow him to fall.

Another hour passed. He played mental games to keep his mind from wandering off into dreams. For a while he sang songs, but he was too wind-deaf to hear his own voice. He remembered books that he had read, holofilms that he had seen, and reviewed their plots almost word for word. He recalled mathematical puzzles that his father had taught him as a child and he worked his way through their labyrinthine complexities as if his sanity depended on it.

Chipping at the layers of debris on his suit chronometer, he read the time: five hours since he had left the sand rover.

He stumbled into an outcropping of rock, catching his balance on a large boulder beyond. He remained still for a moment, then walked on.

Was it smart to keep moving? he wondered. He could have passed within twenty meters of Malovia and never have been aware that it was there. And yet if he didn’t find the city in fifteen hours, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

The wind howled. He looked down and realized that he had stopped moving again. Sand had piled up around his feet like drifting snow; already it was up to his ankles. Nearly panicking, he yanked his feet free, feeling a powerful suction as the ground tried to reclaim him.

Ten hours passed. What little light had managed to filter down through the dust cloud was gone and the reddish twilight of day had given way to the oily blackness of night. How he had managed to keep his sanity all these hours he did not know. Once he lost his footing and pitched forward; exhausted, he had lain there for almost a minute before he realized that the sand was covering his arms and legs. He sprang to his feet, shaking the sand from his limbs, heart pounding raucously.

The coming of night had swept away the suffocating heat of the day. Sullivan’s refrigeration unit had worked valiantly for hours; he had dreaded its failure, but when the night arrived he knew that it would last. Or hoped that it would.

He fought against fatigue. What had the computer on board the Holmes said about Lilani’s gravity? That it was 1.147 Terran standard? His home world had only been .94 Terran Standard and he was badly out of shape from the weeks he had spent in gravity-free starship environments. His muscles ached, his legs felt stiff and reluctant to go on.

Eleven hours. He fell again, scrabbling hastily to a standing position before the sands could cover him. He began to experience waking dreams, visions of green fields, trees, lakes. Once he found himself carrying on a conversation with a friend he had known on Greensward, only to recall that the friend had been dead for ten years.

Twelve hours. Auditory hallucinations drifted in and out of his consciousness. He heard songs that he had learned in his childhood, popular melodies from his teenage years, holiday carols. Once he heard his mother calling to him, as from a great distance.

At thirteen hours he lost the compass. During a particularly vivid dream he unthinkingly, relaxed his fingers and let it tumble to the ground. Within seconds it had been swallowed up without a trace. It didn’t matter. The city could be on any side of him now. He could have passed it hours earlier. It might be only centimeters away.

Fourteen hours. Green fields. Waving grass. A perfectly circular horizon. He wasn’t in the desert any longer, he thought excitedly. He had gotten away somehow. No, no, wait—there was still sand, still wind. It was a dream…

Sixteen hours. His legs gave out. He fell to his knees, then to his chest; yet in his mind he continued walking, like an unstoppable juggernaut. Though his eyes were closed he could still see the sand, blowing over top of him like dirt being thrown into a freshly dug grave. In his terror he managed to raise himself to his knees. At last his legs responded and he started forward again.

And slumped back to the ground. He struggled to his knees one more time, but his legs refused to carry him farther, refused to lift him free of the killing dust. How many minutes, he wondered, before he was buried underneath a dune? Ten? Fifteen? Palms outstretched, he leaned forward on all fours, waiting…

… until he became aware of what he should have realized minutes before: the storm was abating, the shifting of the dunes had ceased. Sand no longer streamed past him in great sheets.

He wiped the crust from his faceplate. There was a hill in front of him, a low slope crested with strange patterns of stone.

He was about halfway to the top. With a superhuman effort he dragged himself forward, legs outstretched uselessly behind him. As exhaustion engulfed him, like a black wave, he reached the summit.

The Malovian dome glowed like a fiery pincushion of light in the Lilanian darkness. Sullivan reached out for it, as if his arms could bridge the full kilometer’s distance that stretched between them.

With his last bit of strength he pitched forward down a long alley of stone. Sleep claimed him before he had come fully to rest on the ground.

CHAPTER 9

Strong hands. Gentle hands. They came for him in the morning, shortly after the first light of dawn exploded over the eastern horizon.

Sullivan only half-heard, half-felt them. They were something from a dream, a piece of delirium. Uncomprehendingly, he allowed them to strap him to the rear of a skeletonlike vehicle and carry him from the low sand hill where he had lain. Above him, he watched the clouds twist slowly in the bluegreen sky.

Then the sky was gone. The vehicle angled downwards, into a narrow tunnel. Behind them, a door fluttered closed.

Darkness. Once again he slept.

When he awoke he was no longer wearing his pressure suit. Soft hands stroked him, removed his sweat-sodden clothing, replaced it with cool robes. A needle pricked his arm and he slept yet a third time, dreaming of red blowing sand, stale suffocating air, endless walking.

Hours later (days? weeks?) he was wheeled from the sterile antiseptic room where he had first been brought, into a cheerful pastel-colored bedroom. They placed him on a soft mattress and pulled a sheet to his neck. He floated, like a child unborn, in the womblike environment of the bed, until he could sleep no more.

Food was brought to him on trays. He ate greedily. A woman in white—the small badge on her lapel said that her name was Glori—gave him books, music cassettes, a holoviewer; when his strength returned, she led him to a small exercise room where he did mild calesthenics.

After two days in Malovia, they came to question him. A man of about sixty years of age with a gray moustache sat in the room’s sole armchair with his hands folded in his lap. Sullivan lay across from him on the bed and Glori stood quietly in the corner.

“Good morning, young man,” said the visitor. “I hope you’re feeling up to a little talk today. My name’s Lawrence Sheed and I’m the Terran Ambassador to Lilani, have been ever since my predecessor met with an unfortunate accident a few months ago. I’m told your name is Derek Sanford—”

Sullivan shifted uneasily at the use of the name, but he made no attempt to correct it. Sanford was the name he had given Glori the previous afternoon, afraid that any announcement of his true identity might cause complications.

“That’s right,” he said, finally.

“Well, Mr. Sanford, you can understand why we’d like to ask you a few questions. You appeared rather mysteriously the day before yesterday, right out of the desert. There aren’t any cities within eight hundred kilometers of here and you didn’t even have a dune buggy. There’s a great deal of curiosity in Malovia as to just how you got here and from where.”

Sheed leaned back in his chair and waited, obviously expecting Sullivan to respond. And respond he would. He had been preparing his story for days—during the entire trip from Lilani Base and his recovery afterwards. Even during his delirium he had reviewed the tale he was going to tell and at times had almost come to believe it himself.

He spoke hesitantly. “I… I didn’t come from one of the cities you’re familiar with, Mr. Ambassador. I came from approximately one hundred kilometers to the northeast of here.”

“But that’s in the middle of the desert—”

“No, it’s not. There’s a military base there, operated by the Hraka.”

Sheed’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Even Glori, wonderfully impassive Glori, emitted a small gasp. The results of his bombshell were every bit as gratifying as Sullivan had expected them to be.

“But—Good God, man! This is practically the Terran Empire! There can’t be Hraka here!”

“There can and are. This is a major jumping-off point for Hrakan espionage and reconnaissance missions. They operate under cover of something called a holoscopic vision/radar reflector, which probably explains why you weren’t aware of their activities. The installation is called Lilani Base One, though I haven’t seen any evidence that there’s a Lilani Base Two.”

Sheed was aghast. “Do… do you realize what this means?” His shock and confusion lasted only for seconds, however, then were replaced by an abrupt coldness. “And how,” he asked, “do you happen to be aware of all this?”

Sullivan told him. The story wasn’t precisely the truth, but it was accurate enough to pass. He had learned by this time that honesty wasn’t always the best policy.

He told Sheed that he had crashed on Lilani in a small, privately owned starship and had been rescued—along with his fiancée Cindy Robbins—by the Hraka. They had been made prisoners at Lilani Base. According to the Hraka they were never to be allowed to return to their homeworld—or to any other part of the Terran Empire. Unwilling to abide by the Hraka’s restrictions, he had devised a scheme for their escape, but his fiancée had been detained in the process and he had been forced to go out into the desert alone, to find whatever help he could.

“I almost didn’t make it,” he concluded. “A sandstorm struck when I was three or four hours out and my vehicle broke down. It’s a miracle that I arrived here before my oxygen gave out.”

Sheed clucked his tongue sympathetically. “Yes, the sandstorms are savage here. Beastly things. But to be captured and held prisoner by the Hraka—that must have been far, far worse.” He leaned forward in his chair, intent on showing Sullivan the extent of his commiseration.

“Yes, it… it was.”

“We’ll be glad to help you rescue your fiancée if in turn you’ll assist us in the extermination of this… this blight on Lilanian soil!”

“Of course,” said Sullivan. “It was a horrifying experience. I’d like to see them suffer for what they did to us.”

Sheed nodded his head emphatically. He stood to leave, obviously disturbed by the story Sullivan had told, and motioned for Glori to take care of her patient’s needs.

An hour after Sheed had come to his room, Sullivan was summoned to the office of the Senior of Malovia, a position roughly corresponding with that of the Terran mayor. The Senior was Lilanian, which is to say that he was tall, almost supernaturally thin, with reddish flesh and beady dark eyes in large round sockets. His name was Skriar and he sat behind a massive stone desk, evidently carved from the same rock out of which the underground city had been dug.

Sullivan took a chair just inside the door of his office. To his right sat Ambassador Sheed and beyond him another Lilanian, this one with a savage scar across his left cheek. Sheed looked worried, as did the two Lilanians.

The Senior laced his long fingers together and brushed the knuckles against his chin. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sanford,” he began, “but you will excuse me if I ignore the customary pleasantries. Mr. Sheed gives me distressing news, word that you have come from the Hraka to report that they have built a base here, unknown to us, on Lilani. As you are probably aware, we of Lilani have adopted a position of neutrality in regards to the Terran-Hraka Conflict, but it is still disturbing to find that our planet is being used for purposes of covert military aggression. I am sure that Mr. Sheed will forgive me if I ask to hear this distressing information with my own ears, rather than secondhand. Is the story true?”

“It is,” Sullivan replied solemnly.

“You can, perhaps, tell me of this unfortunate circumstance in somewhat geater detail?”

Sullivan complied. He told Skriar essentially the same story he had told Sheed, adding a few details concerning the layout of Lilani Base and the structure—what he knew of it—of the Hrakan espionage establishment. Afterwards Skriar asked questions and Sullivan answered as many of them as he could.

“And you came there quite by accident?” he asked at last.

“Yes,” Sullivan replied, “and the frustrating part is that it was an accident that could have been avoided. We knew that we shouldn’t have made the trip without a professional pilot, but we thought that we could handle the ship ourselves.”

“You crashed?”

“That’s correct. If we had crashed only two hundred kilometers to the southwest, we would have been rescued by the Malovians rather than the Hraka. Things didn’t work out that way.”

“And if you had crashed two hundred kilometers to the northeast of where you did, you would still be wandering in the desert—if you were alive at all. No, it is good that things worked out as they did. You survived your crash and we learned of the existence of the Hrakan base. Your accident was a fortuitous one indeed.”

Sullivan shook his head. “Not for me. Don’t forget, they still have my fiancée.”

The Senior looked thoughtful. “That is not hard to understand. I have a wife and children—our marital customs on Lilani are not unlike your own—and I would sooner die spitted on a sword than see them in the hands of one whom I call enemy.”

“I took the liberty,” interrupted Sheed, “of assuring Mr. Sanford our full cooperation in the rescue of his fiancée.”

“Very good,” said Skriar. “Very good. We have a small militia here in Malovia. Not large, by Empire standards, but combined with those of our sister cities it should be formidable enough to cow the inhabitants of this Lilani Base. We shall give them a chance to surrender honorably, of course. Since they are obviously in violation of the Vashara Treaty, such a show of force will not abrogate our avowed neutrality. It is no less than we would do to the Terrans if circumstances were different.”

“Of course,” replied Sheed warily.

“Enough talk, then,” said the Senior. “Mr. Sanford is surely anxious to see his fiancée removed from danger, as we are to rid our planet of this threat. If you will be patient, then—” He glanced at Sullivan. “—I shall perform the necessary preliminaries. An operation of this size would ordinarily require considerable time and expense to mount, but in an emergency such as this…” He opened the palms of his hands in a hopeful gesture.

Sullivan rose, stepped to the desk and shook the Senior’s hand. Sheed and the other Lilanian came up beside him and accompanied him back out the door.

In the hallway, Sheed turned to Sullivan and said, “I’d like you to meet Luxor, Derek. He’s a courier attached to the Terran Embassy. Lilanian, of course, but loyal to the cause of our Empire.”

The Lilanian nodded in silence. Sullivan took his hand, squeezed it briefly, then let it drop.

“Since you’ll probably be here for a few more days,” Sheed went on, “I thought you two should get to know one another. Luxor can show you around Malovia, help you to keep your mind off your problem.”

“Thank you,” Sullivan muttered. “I appreciate the gesture.”

The Lilanian’s face remained impassive. At last he replied, “I shall be honored.”

Sheed disappeared, pleading unfinished business. Sullivan and Luxor stood side by side in the corridor for a moment, until finally the Lilanian spoke again,

“I hope you do not think me rude, Derek Sanford, in that I show little enthusiasm for my charged task. That is just my way. When I say that I shall be honored, I am that in truth. But I am not one to whom the display of emotion comes easily.”

“I understand,” replied Sullivan.

Without speaking or gesturing, Luxor plunged forward down the hallway. Sullivan, taken by surprise, hurried after him.

Thirty seconds later the Lilanian paused and drew the Terran’s gaze toward a map affixed to the right-hand wall. Sullivan pressed close in front of it and examined the layout of the city: seen from above, the underground warrens were roughly circular in design. That is, they consisted of a series of concentric circles, at the center of which was the dome on the surface. They now stood approximately seven levels underground and three circles out from the center.

“Below the dome,” said Luxor, pointing toward the middle of the chart, “are the assembly chambers, the athletic arenas and the plazas. On the outer corridors are the offices and living quarters.”

Across the concentric circles ran an X-shaped formation of corridors. Luxor tapped the nearest with a long finger, then turned and began walking again.

At the cross-corridor they went left, toward the center of the building. After a few hundred meters they came to a door, which Luxor opened.

The arena beyond must have descended for three or four floors below them. There was a circular sports area at the center, surrounded by concentric tiers of seats. The stands were empty as they entered, but on the playing floor a pair of athletes, one Lilanian and one human, passed a small inflated ball back and forth between themselves. One of them dribbled the ball for a moment as the other pressed close against his right flank, then shot it toward a basket suspended at one end of the court. It struck the rim and bounced back to the floor.

“A very ancient game,” said Luxor. “One of the librarians found a mention of it in a very old history tape and it has undergone a mild revival here.” He waved his hand toward a second doorway at the edge of the arena. “Come,” he said tersely.

They entered a narrow elevator tube and shot downwards, stopping briefly on each floor below. Directly beneath the arena was a sprawling garden, not unlike the “park” that Knox had shown Sullivan back at Lilani Base. The vegetation was exotic and unfamiliar—examples of pre-holocaust Lilanian flora, Luxor explained. Still farther underground was a circular auditorium, occupied at the moment by a small lecture class in applied exobiology. Sullivan watched for a moment, fascinated, before they moved on to the next level. A few seconds later they stepped out into an “open air” market, where tradesmen hawked wares recently imported from off-planet.

Sullivan expressed his admiration at the diversity of interests served by the Malovian community, but the Lilanian shrugged the compliment away. “We are a city,” he replied, “just as any other. Such diversity is to be expected.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Sullivan and Luxor explored ever deeper into the bowels of the underground city. Then, circle by circle, they made their way to the outermost rings. Four hours after they had Degun, exhausted from their exploration, they dined together in a spacious restaurant.

“So tell me of your world, Derek Sanford,” said the Lilanian, somewhat less reticent than he had been that morning.

“What can I tell?” Sullivan asked. “It was so ordinary. Compared to a city and a planet like this, where people live in artificial environments kilometers beneath the surface, my planet is absolutely… prosaic.”

For the first time that day, Sullivan thought he saw the Lilanian attempting to smile. “To me,” Luxor began, “Malovia is the most prosaic of places in the universe. You must understand: I was born in one of the domed cities of Lilani, though the city of my birth is many kilometers from this one. It seems marvelous to me that there are worlds where the cities are not constructed beneath the domes, where beings can live on the surface and breathe free air, not the recycled kind. What you see as ‘ordinary,’ seems to me one of the marvels of the galaxy.”

“You’ve never been off Lilani, then?”

“Oh, no! I have been to many other worlds. I was… a mercenary in the days before the Galactic War, a hired combatant in small military actions.”

Sullivan’s interest stirred. He was reminded of a conversation he had had with Westfield some weeks earlier. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Can you tell me more about it?”

“It was a long time ago,” the Lilanian replied, as if the subject were of little consequence. “I was younger then, healthier. Now I am old and I run messages for the Terrans. I have no time for the foolishness of my youth.”

“But surely you must have stories.”

“Yes, but I do not wish to recall them. I asked you before, Derek Sanford, to tell me of your homeworld—”

“Oh. Well… it was a world made up of farms and practically nothing else. My father owned one. Almost everyone did, except the workers who hired out as farmhands. Greensward supplied food for about fifty planets. It’s one of the largest farming worlds in the galaxy. Supply ships would arrive in our community twice a year to collect the harvest.”

The Lilanian smiled again, though it had passed almost before Sullivan had noticed it was there. “You see,” he said, “your world is not ordinary at all. I find the idea of such a planet wondrous and inspiring of awe. As you can see, there are few places on Lilani where food can be grown. There are hydroponic gardens, of course, but not enough to supply our needs. Most of our food comes from places like Greensward. It must have been wonderful to live there.”

“Yes,” Sullivan said with obvious feeling. “It was.”

AT twenty hundred hours Luxor brought Sullivan to the great Malovian dome, where they watched the sunset. With the full 360 degree view that the dome afforded, Sullivan found the sight even more staggering than it had seemed from Lilani Base. For a moment it looked as though the horizon were being devoured by flame.

Afterwards, Sullivan returned to his room to find Sheed waiting for him there, along with a man he had not yet met. The Ambassador sat on the edge of the bed and the newcomer perched on the armchair, hunched forward pensively. He was about fifty years old and wore a smart blue uniform with the emblem of the Terran Star Fleet on the shoulder.

Sullivan froze. His first thought, as he stood with one hand clutching the cold metal of the doorknob, was that his true identity had been discovered, that they had come to arrest him as an Hrakan agent. For perhaps a full second he considered slamming the door and making a wild break for freedom, then he realized that the Ambassador was smiling at him, his even white teeth bared like the fangs of a hungry wolf.

“Welcome back, Mr. Sanford,” he beamed. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“I… I’m sorry if I kept you waiting. If I’d known you were here…”

“That’s quite all right, quite all right. Admiral Holstead and I have been having a most instructive conversation. But let me introduce you: Mr. Sanford, this is Admiral Victor Holstead of Star Fleet Command. He was, ah, sojourning here on Lilani when word of your arrival and the Hrakan problem came. Admiral Holstead, this is Derek Sanford, the young man who wandered in out of the desert two days ago.”

The two shook hands briskly. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” said Holstead. “That’s an interesting story you’ve brought with you, son, and I’d like to hear more about it.”

Sullivan took a small folding chair from a corner and opened it in the center of the room. “There’s not much I haven’t told already,” he said.

“Well, I’d like you to reconsider that, son. We’re interested in finding out more about the military capacity of the Hrakan Base, to determine their retaliatory ability.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know too much about it. They didn’t discuss the subject with me.”

Holstead frowned. “But surely you must have noticed something. Guns? Warships?”

“There weren’t any warships there—not that I was aware of, anyway—but—” he closed his eyes, rummaging back through his memory “— there might have been guns. On the top level. I remember something.”

Holstead leaned forward. “Yes? What was it you saw?”

“Some large, tubelike devices. In one of the maintenance bays.”

“What did they look like?”

“It’s hard to say. I only saw them briefly, while I was trying to find a way out. They were black, cylindrical, about five meters long.”

“How wide were they?” asked Holstead eagerly.

“About a meter or so in diameter, I guess. Why?”

The Admiral ignored his question and turned to Sheed. “It sounds like a tactical laser, Mr. Ambassador. That should give the Lilanians a bit of a hard time.”

“That’s perfect,” Sheed replied. “You couldn’t have asked for better.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sullivan. “I thought that the Terrans and the Lilanians were on the same side in this thing. Why should you be happy to find out that the Hraka are armed?”

Holstead’s features darkened. “It’s hard to explain, Mr. Sanford. I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested. It’s for, ah, strategic reasons.”

“That doesn’t hold water, Admiral. Are you—” he hesitated for a moment “—are you on the Hraka’s side?”

The Admiral and the Ambassador exchanged covert glances, then Holstead placed his hands on his knees and stared Sullivan sharply in the eye.

“Never say that, Mr. Sanford. Don’t even think it. Mr. Sheed and I are loyal Terran citizens and it is for that reason that we are interested in seeing the Lilanians thwarted in their misguided attempt to cow the Hraka into a peaceful surrender. Are you a loyal Terran, Mr. Sanford?”

“Y… yes.”

“Then I must ask you never to repeat a word of what I’m going to say to you. Will you cooperate?”

“I guess so.”

“That’s not good enough. The security of the Empire is at stake and I must ask that you consider my request a direct command. Now, will you swear never to repeat the information that I’m about to give you?”

Sullivan shrugged. “All right. I swear.”

“Then the answer to your question is that we’re not on the side of the Hraka, but we would like to see proper retaliatory ability in their hands. You spoke with the Senior this morning. You know that he plans to force the Hraka into an unconditional surrender.”

“Yes.”

“We of Terra do not share his views. We’d like to see this Lilani Base obliterated and all of the equipment, personnel and weapons in it destroyed. Lilani must serve as an example to the Hraka, an object lesson of what Terra will do to any and all Hrakan spy bases discovered on neutral or friendly soil.”

“But the Lilanians will never go along with that!”

“Oh, yes, they will. If they’re forced to. If the Hraka retaliate they’ll have no choice but to blast Lilani Base off the face of this planet. When they fire those lasers you saw, the Hraka will be signing their own death warrants.”

Sheed placed a hand against one of the bed posts. “You may be able to help us in this, Derek. Would you like that?”

“I… I guess so, sir, but remember my fiancée is in there.”

‘Oh, don’t worry about her. We’ll see to it that she gets out. This is your chance to get revenge against the Hraka, Mr. Sanford. I know you’ve been thirsting after that for some time.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t see how I fit into all this, though.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll find out in good time. In good time.” He stood and walked toward the door, placing a comforting hand on Sullivan’s shoulder as he passed.

“We’ll talk about it again in a few days,” said Holstead. “In the meantime I want you to think about what we’ve told you.”

Together the two men walked to the door and stepped silently out into the hall. Bewildered, Sullivan folded his chair and sat on the edge of the bed.

And realized that he had no desire at all to get revenge against the Hraka, though he wasn’t at all sure why.

CHAPTER 10

Before it had even truly begun he was aware that it was a dream and with that revelation he almost awoke. But exhaustion from his long exploration—and his still-weakened condition—pulled him down deeper into sleep, into the bizarre landscape of dream.

A great arm of twisted metal swept past his head, extending toward a gunmetal gray sky. From its ragged contours hung sheets of mangled iron, scarred steel and copper skeletons, hunks of half-melted plastic. Below him, falling away into a deep pit of blasted ground, lay a vast panorama of scorched and pitted rubble. Around the crater, scarlet sand stretched away to gray eternity.

Slowly, cautiously, he descended into the ruins.

Smoke still rose from the scene of destruction. Thin wisps floated up from still-smoldering coals far beneath him, ascending eerily into the heavens. He smelled the sharp odor of fresh ash on the wind and underneath it the hint of something bittersweet yet vaguely terrifying. Charred flesh, perhaps.

An old man stirred slowly, crouching sullenly among the debris, and turned a soot-blackened face toward the sound of approaching footsteps.

It was several seconds before Sullivan recognized the face as that of his father, though he had been expecting to see it there.

A feeble arm reached out for him, trembling. Sullivan took it firmly in his grasp, then knelt at the old man’s side.

“This” whispered his father, through cracked lips,, “is what I wished to warn you, of. This is what I wanted to prevent.”

Sullivan gazed into his eyes, watching the bright flecks of color swirl slowly in the vortex of his pupils. “Could it have been prevented?” he asked, surprised at his own words. “Wasn’t it inevitable?”

“Of course it could have been prevented!” the old man snapped. “Nothing is inevitable. You’ve been running toward this all along—any fool could have seen that—but you could have turned aside while there was still time.”

“How? It all happened so… so fast, so irresistibly. I was caught up in a rolling juggernaut and there was no way I could stop it.”

“You don’t remember what I told you, do you? After all these years, you’ve forgotten. Well, no matter. There’s always a way, Derry. There’s always…”

Standing cautiously, his father leaned forward and coughed, his lungs rattling asthmatically. Sullivan reached out to him, but the old man raised a hand to hold his son away. Finally, when the spasm had passed, he placed a palm on the boy’s shoulder and rose slowly to his feet.

With an outstretched forefinger, he beckoned for Sullivan to follow.

Together they negotiated the journey down into the depths of the smoldering crater. The old man stumbled once, but his son grasped his arm and kept him afoot.

As they neared the bottom the old man paused, stooped and rummaged with both hands through the thick rubble. With an unexpected burst of strength he uprooted a long, smoke-blackened wooden board.

Beneath it lay a corpse.

Sullivan turned away instinctively, his gorge rising violently inside his throat. The corpse was that of a man—or woman—who had been savagely burned in the holocaust, his flesh charred until it neared the blackness of pure ash, like a log pulled from the heart of a roaring fire.

Nauseated by the thick odors that wafted up from it, Sullivan leaned against a hunk of still warm metal.

A wizened hand touched his shoulder.

“You must see, Deny. You must look closer and learn what I have learned.”

Sullivan hesitated, his mind and flesh rebelling at the thought of looking again at the corpse, but the old man’s insistence won out. Steeling himself, he turned and knelt beside the unmoving form, following the direction of his father’s pointing finger.

He looked toward the scorched and shriveled face.

The shock brought him erect in his bed, one hand, flailing wildly for the switch of the lamp next to his head.

As the small comforting cone of light engulfed him he fell back onto the pillow, sweat puddling thickly on his brow.

The dream faded quickly, as dreams do. Five minutes later he remembered nothing of it except the final horrifying image, the last glimpse of the corpse’s features, but that was enough to keep him awake until half of the long Lilanian night had passed and exhaustion claimed him once again.

The face had been his own.

A WEEK after he arrived in Malovia, the army appeared.

At nine hundred hours he sat in a reviewing stand on the roof of the Terran Embassy, the Ambassador on one side of him and Admiral Holstead on the other, with roughly three dozen members of the Terran and Lilanian militaries to both sides of them.

Beyond the glass dome five hundred soldiers in full combat gear stood in long columns across the sand.

Even inside the city Sullivan could hear the rumbling of the great machines of war that rolled over the dunes. To the south came a line of bulky tanklike vehicles—ten of them, by his count, and beyond them a huge cannon mounted on the rear of a flatbed truck. At the head of the line waved the red and green colors of the Lilanian flag.

“There’s not enough,” whispered Holstead. “The Hraka will laugh in their faces.”

“And if they do?” Sullivan asked quietly.

Holstead turned and stared intently at him for a moment, then looked away.

Sullivan turned his gaze back out toward the desert. The sun was a searing explosion in the cool depths of the sky.

IT was even worse once they were outside the dome.

The caravan moved slowly across the desert. Sullivan sat in the spacious command vehicle, along with Holstead, Luxor, a handful of officers and the Lilanian commander. He wore a lightweight pressure suit, the helmet detached and in his lap. The heat was stifling.

The commander, whose name was Flaru, paced back and forth across the unsteady floor. From time to time he paused to shout orders into a small communicator held protectively in his gloved hand, then paced again.

Sullivan unhooked his harness and made the precarious journey to the front of the vehicle, where he pressed close against the forward viewplate. They had been traveling for several hours—how many he was not precisely sure—and he was uncomfortably aware that the low dome of Lilani Base could not be far away.

Nervously, he returned to his seat. There was a knot of fear in his stomach that refused to contract and his dread seemed to be spreading, slowly but inevitably, to. those around him.

“You are frightened?” asked Luxor, his impassive Lilanian eyes made even more inscrutable by the jutting overhang of his brow. “You worry that we will be there too soon?”

“Yes,” Sullivan replied. “I’m afraid because we’re almost there.”

“You wish to save your fiancée, do you not?”

“Yes, Luxor. I do.”

He sank back into the soft contours of the seat, the thought of Cindy sending a fresh wave of tension through the muscles of his chest. He feared for her safety—more so since Sheed and Holstead had spoken to him five days earlier. He wasn’t even sure that she was still alive inside Lilani Base, though some gut-level feeling told him that she was. And yet by now she would have been-in the hands of the interrogators and he knew well the powers that they could wield over human souls. Would she have cracked by now, gone insane as the Hraka forced her to reveal information she didn’t even know? Or would she have revealed his ruse, told them that she didn’t actually work for the Ministry of Shipping and Export? If she had, he doubted that they would believe her.

Or would she have played along?

That was her only hope, his only hope as well. If she had given them false information, pretended to give in to their probing, that might have bought her the time she needed. The Hraka would find out in time that the information was worthless, but until then she would be allowed to live—and it was for that possibility that Sullivan prayed.

“Objective sighted!” shouted a crisp voice from the roof of the vehicle. “Artificial dome-shaped structure on the northern horizon!”

The commander stopped pacing. “Mr. Sanford!” he snapped. “Go topside and verify.”

Automatically, Sullivan sprang to his feet and clambered up the skeletal ladder that led through the roof of the vehicle. At the top, he poked his head through a round opening and emerged into a shallow glass bubble, beneath which crouched two soldiers, one Lilanian and the other human.

The Lilanian pointed a bony finger to Sullivan’s left. “There,” he said. “Is that the dome you spoke of?”

Sullivan squinted into the brilliant sunlight. Rising above the dunes—though just barely—was a low red blister that could almost have been sand, if its color had not been ever-so-slightly wrong.

“Yes,” he replied, nodding. “That’s Lilani Base.”

The Lilanian soldier turned away. Wrenching his eyes from the dome, Sullivan lowered himself slowly back down the ladder.

The commander roared another string of orders into the communicator, then hurried topside himself. Sullivan settled back into his chair, adrenalin pumping coldly through his veins.

“It will be over soon,” Luxor said. “You must steel yourself now, Derek Sanford.”

Yes, thought Sullivan. It would be over soon, but perhaps not as soon as the Lilanian thought.

The commander reappeared through the hole in the roof and lowered himself back to the floor. Holstead waved for his attention.

“I think we can raise the Hraka now,” he said.

The commander stepped to the transmitter panel on the left side of the vehicle and pushed three buttons. A young Lilanian officer hastened to his side.

Hollow static echoed out of the speakers. Someone touched a knob and the noise faded. The commander took a microphone off of a small hook, stepped back from the panel and seemed to gather his thoughts before he spoke.

“Lilani Base,” the commander began, his voice controlled but firm. “This is Commander Flaru of the Lilanian High Command. You will please acknowledge our signal.”

The officer pressed a button on the transmitter and the static returned. Not too surprisingly, there was no reply to the commander’s ultimatum.

“The Hraka will play for time,” muttered Holstead under his breath. “They won’t come out unless we smoke ‘em out.”

“Lilani Base!” Flaru repeated, a slight edge of anger to his voice. “You are advised to acknowledge your presence or suffer the consequences! You will be given five minutes to acknowledge.”

Sullivan glanced at his watch. The second hand swept around with excruciating slowness. Through the front viewplate he could barely make out one end of the Hrakan dome.

Flaru repeated his message twice more, then slumped into the command chair. The minutes crept by gradually, ponderously. Impatient, Sullivan chafed nervously against the seat harness.

Finally, after what seemed the better part of the afternoon, the commander rose and barked orders to the gun operators behind them. There was a loud clanking of machinery from somewhere outside the vehicle. Sullivan remembered the large cannon he had seen roll past the dome that morning.

The commander shouted further orders and the clanking stopped. There was a long moment of silence until…

About twenty meters to the right of the low dome of Lilani Base the earth crumbled, then rose upwards into the air. Almost simultaneously there was a muffled rumbling from the cannon to their rear, followed seconds later by the sound of the explosion itself. The command car vibrated beneath them.

The commander walked to the transmitter panel and took the microphone back in hand. ‘That was a warning!” he declared. “You will please give us an immediate reply or we shall be forced to take more drastic measures!”

In the silence that followed, tension crackled through the interior of the vehicle like summer lightning. Someone coughed—and the sound of it was like a second explosion. The heat, now that the vehicle was no longer moving, had grown oppressive, unbearable.

And then the world fell into fragments.

There was no time to cry out, no time to find any kind of shelter. Before Sullivan was aware that the vehicle was under attack, he found himself nearly thrown from his seat, dangling sideways in his harness. Then the seat came up beneath him again and struck him hard on the base of his spine. He settled back into it with a sharp exhalation of breath.

“Good God!” exclaimed Sheed.

Moaning, the commander pulled himself up from where he had fallen, but before he could reach the safety of his seat there was a second impact and the vehicle rocked precariously in the opposite direction, with such ferocity that it nearly broke the straps that bound Sullivan to his chair.

“The Hraka have opened fire!” Holstead shouted. “Blow the bastards to Hell while we’ve still got the chance!”

The commander fought his way to his feet, grabbing the microphone from where it dangled.

“Open fire!” he shouted. “All offensive units must now be deployed against the Hrakan Base!”

Without thinking, Sullivan held out his arm in warning. “Cindy!” he shouted, the name coming spontaneously to his lips.

Holstead placed a hand on his chest. “Calm down, son. Your girl will be all right.”

“How do you… ?” He never finished the sentence. Behind them, the cannon roared to life and less than a second later great clouds of smoke and flame burst against the dome of Lilani Base. Sullivan jumped forward, struggling against the harness, but when the cloud dissipated he saw that the scarlet shell remained unharmed.

“As I thought,” whispered Holstead. “The Hraka were prepared for our attack. It’ll take more than a few tons of explosive to crack that shell.”

“Deploy lasers,” the commander shouted into the communicator. Sullivan tensed again as a high-pitched electronic whining rose up from somewhere behind them. Then, with an almost ethereal silence, a thin red beam lanced through the desert air and struck the dome just below the crest. Seconds later it was joined by another beam and then another.

And yet after a full minute had passed the dome remained unscratched.

The beams flashed off. Holstead frowned at the view plate.

“They’ve got shields,” he announced. “You won’t be able to get through that dome with anything less than nuclear armament, commander.”

“So,” the Lilanian growled, “what do you suggest we do?”

“Nothing. Try to hail them again on the—”

Sullivan saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. A sudden rectangle of darkness appeared on the side of the dome, the front end of a coal-black muzzle visible behind it. Holstead saw it too and with a desperate urgency shouted, “Raise the screens, damn it! They’ve got lasers too.”

Flaru shouted his orders into the communicator scant seconds before the Hrakan weaponry dropped into position. Five beams flashed simultaneously through the narrow aperture, one of them striking directly in front of the viewplate of the command vehicle. Sullivan turned away less than a second after it struck, but the afterimage had already burned deeply into his cornea.

“Shields are up,” someone yelled. The commander sagged wearily into his chair.

The barrage continued for about thirty seconds, then mercifully lifted. Around him, Sullivan heard the soft humming of the shield generator. One by one he unclenched the muscles in his hands.

“It looks like we’ve got a stalemate on our hands, commander,” said Holstead calmly. “The Hraka have us matched weapon for weapon. Unless they pull another rabbit out of their hat, neither one of us can do a thing.”

“Then I ask once more,” said Flaru, “what you suggest that we do, Admiral Holstead.”

“I suggest that we raise the Hraka on that radio of yours and start negotiations. I suspect that if we talk reason with them, they’ll be ready to parley.”

“And what kind of reason do you expect them to listen to?”

“The reason of power, commander. If they don’t come out of that hole waving white flags within the next couple of days, we’ll have half of the Terran Star Fleet down on top of them. And Star Fleet weapons’ll crack that dome like a rotten egg shell. Here—” he unbuckled his harness and sprang free of the seat”—let me do the talking.”

The commander started to reply, then shrugged sullenly back into his seat and extended the microphone into Holstead’s hand. The Admiral brought it to his lips and signaled to the officer at the panel.

“Hear this, Hraka,” he began. “This is Admiral Victor Holstead of the Terran Star Fleet and I’ve got a few things to tell you that my Lilanian friend was too polite to mention. There’s an armada of Star Fleet war vessels en route to Lilani at his moment—and they’re expected to arrive within the week. When they do, we fully intend to invoke Article Ten of the Vashara Treaty and blow you mud-diggers off the face of this planet.”

There was a moment of silence, then Holstead spoke again.

“So we’re going to give you one more chance out of the deep and abiding generosity of our Terran hearts. We want to parley with you, to talk terms. We’ll settle for nothing less than unconditional surrender, of course, but we’re willing to discuss the details. It’s your turn now, Hraka. This will be the only chance you have to answer. Speak up—or forever hold your peace!”

There was another silence. This time it went unbroken for a good five minutes. No one spoke inside the command car; no one dared so much as move.

Finally, when the tension had become almost physically painful, a thickly accented Hrakan voice—Sullivan.thought that he recognized it as the base commander’s—crackled out of the speaker.

“Terrans,” it began, rolling the syllables with a guttural harshness. “We listen. Make your offer.”

“You heard our offer,” Holstead replied. “Unconditional surrender. Nothing less.”

“Unacceptable,” the base commander growled. “We will not make concessions to Terran scum.”

“It seems to me that you’re in no position to make arrogant pronouncements.” Holstead smiled slightly. “You know as well as I that Lilani Base won’t stand under the force of an all out Terran attack. What matters now is whether you want to live or not. I’m willing to bet that you do.”

“You presume much, Terran. A true Hrakan loyalist would sooner die than concede surrender to the avowed enemy of his people. Sooner would I betray the flesh of my flesh than I would give myself into your hands. I spit upon you, Terran.”

Holstead sighed. “Then would you like to discuss it? I’m sure we could come to some sort of truce.”

“Nothing less than unconditional surrender,” the Hrakan repeated, mockingly. “Those were your words, were they not?”

“Yes, damn it, but that doesn’t mean we won’t make some concessions. Are you willing to talk with us or not?”

“It is hard to discuss matters of such importance with a man whose face I cannot see. Come out of your little metal womb, Terran, so we can speak eye to eye.”

The admiral raised a hand to his head, wiping away the streaming beads of sweat. “I can’t come out myself, Hrakan, but I’m willing to send representatives into Lilani Base. Will you accept them in peace and good will?”

“Of course,” the base commander replied. “The Hraka are an honorable people.”

“All right, then. I’ll send two spokesmen into your base, immediately, to discuss terms. One of the spokesmen will be Lilanian, of course, and the other Terran.”

“That is acceptable. What are their names?”

“The Lilanian’s name,” he began, “is Luxor. He’s from the Malovian Dome.” He glanced up at the tall figure to Sullivan’s left. Luxor’s face remained—as always—expressionless, with only a slight twitch around the edge of his lips to betray his surprise.

“And the Terran,” Holstead went on, “is named Derek Sanford.”

The silence inside the command car was nearly total. For a moment Sullivan found himself too startled to reply, too shocked to do more than stare dumbly at the man who had just ordered him sent back into the hands of his former captors.

The transmitter operator, himself startled by Holstead’s unexpected announcement, abruptly realized that he had forgotten to switch his instrument from Transmit back to Receive. With a chagrined frown he turned back to the panel and punched the necessary buttons. The base commander’s voice chattered out of the speaker already in mid-sentence:

“… acceptable if you insist. We wish to know, however, who these people are and why they have been chosen for this, ah, honor.”

“Very well,” said Holstead, unruffled by the flurry of excitement he had created. “The former is a Lilanian courier attached to the Terran Embassy. His diplomatic experience is extensive and he’s worked with the Hraka in the past. The other, Mr. Sanford, is someone you should know already.”

“Sanford?” the base commander rumbled. “I am familiar with no Sanford.”

“That’s unlikely, seeing as how you kept him as your house guest for almost a week. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’m sending them out in half an hour, fully pressure-suited, for admittance to Lilani Base. I expect them to be accorded full honors as peaceful represenatives of Terra and Lilani and in no way harmed during their stay. If you should touch one hair on their bodies, however, the Terran Star Fleet will show you no mercy whatsoever when they arrive. Is that understood?”

“Of course it is, Admiral. Your words are very plain.”

“All right, then. Remember: they’ll be waiting for admission to Lilani Base in one half hour.”

“We shall remember,” replied the Hrakan, then the static crackled once more.

The officer flicked the transmitter to silence. Sullivan stared blankly at Holstead, his mouth working soundlessly.

“W… why,” he stuttered, “did you… ?”

“I told you that you could help us, son. This is how.”

“But… but you must have more experienced officers.”

“Probably. But you know the Hraka. You’ve had the most recent experience with them. I want somebody in there who understands the enemy and who knows something about the grounds where the negotiations are to be performed.” He glanced around himself. “Commander, is it possible that I can speak with Mr. Sanford alone?”

Flaru stirred uneasily. “I see no reason—”

“It’s the prerogative of a general to speak with his soldiers before he sends them into battle. I’d like to claim that prerogative with Mr. Sanford here.”

“If it must be,” replied the commander grudgingly, “then it must be.” Without speaking, he stood and led the other Lilanians up the ladder and into the bubble on the roof. Seconds later Sullivan found himself alone with Holstead and Sheed.

“All right,” said the Admiral, finally. “I have to confess. I did have an ulterior motive in arranging to send you to Lilani Base, but I couldn’t tell you what it was while the Lilanians were eavesdropping. I don’t think they’d approve.”

Sullivan watched Holstead warily. Sheed paced back and forth with a nervous air.

“I’m waiting,” Sullivan said.

“You won’t repeat a word of this?”

“To whom?”

“To the Lilanians. To the Hraka. To anyone except the ambassador and myself.”

Sullivan sighed. “I won’t repeat anything.”

“Good. You’ll be interested to hear, then, that what I told the Hraka was only a bluff. There won’t be any Terran armada arriving within the week. Not even within the month.”

“What?”

“You heard me. The nearest convoy of Terran warships is in the Centaurian Sector and that’s months away, even through hyperspace.”

“But that was your only bargaining point!”

“In this game, son, bargaining doesn’t matter.”

“Do you expect to… to bluff them into surrendering?”

“No. They’re too smart for that. All I wanted was to buy your passage into Lilani Base—and now we’ve got it. You, Mr. Sanford, are the lever that’s going to upset the Hrakan menace.”

Sullivan laughed. “I am? Come on, Admiral. Do you want me to go in there and destroy the place barehanded?”

“Not quite. You’ll have weapons.”

“This is a joke, right? You expect the Hraka to let me in their front door with a handful of nuclear grenades? What am I supposed to say? ‘Hello, I’m Derek Sanford and I’m here to blow all of you to hell and back’?”

“Not bad, Mr. Sanford. Not bad. To be honest, you’re equipped at this moment with all the armament you’re going to need.”

“I don’t think—”

“Take off your shoes,” Holstead interrupted gruffly.

“My… my shoes?”

“Take them off and hand them here. Hurry. We’ve got less than half an hour, no time to dawdle.”

Baffled but unquestioning, Sullivan reached down and pulled the boots free of his pressure suit, then, from underneath, removed first one shoe and then the other. Holstead took one of them and placed it in his lap, laying the other at his side. Turning the sole face up, he ran the flat edge of a small knifelike utensil from the toe to the heel. As it passed a slot opened, revealing a lusterless metallic sliver within.

“We took the liberty,” Holstead said smoothly, “of adding a few improvements to your clothing.” He pulled the two-centimeter-long sliver from the slot and held it up where the others could see it more clearly. “This is the weapon that you’re going to use against Lilani Base. It looks harmless enough—and to an extent it is—but when you combine it with this—” he reached down and placed the other shoe in his lap, opening a similar slot and removing an identical sliver “—it becomes an explosive far more deadly than the nuclear grenades you mentioned earlier.” Smiling cryptically, he held up one sliver in his left hand, the other in his right, and moved them slowly towards one another. “When the two bars come together a chemical reaction begins. Four hours will pass before that reaction is complete—four hours during which you’d better get out of Lilani Base damned fast!”

Sullivan stared in wonder. “You mean those two tiny chunks of metal can produce an explosion powerful enough to destroy the entire Hrakan installation?”

“Yes. As long as we can find some way to get them inside. And that, of course, is where you come in. When you’ve finished with your negotiations, leave the weapon in an inconspicuous place where its existence won’t be noticed until it’s too late. Four hours later the dome will be reduced to rubble. Nothing can survive that blast. Nothing living, at any rate.”

“But… what about the information that will be lost, the individual minds?”

“Terra needs a decisive victory over the Hraka more than it needs the information stored in Lilani Base. You might not be aware of it, but the war isn’t going well for us, not well at all. If we can destroy Lilani Base on our own initiative, it will provide the propaganda and improved morale we’ve needed for some time.”

“Wouldn’t the surrender of the Hraka be just as important?”

“Perhaps—but personally I don’t believe the Hraka are going to surrender at all. They’ll hold out for further evidence of the attack by the Star Fleet—and when it doesn’t come, we’ll lose our leverage. That’s why we have to attack now.”

Sullivan leaned back and let out a long gush of breath. “All right,” he said. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

They call it déjà vu, he remembered, the feeling that you’ve been somewhere, gone through the same motions, at an earlier time in your life. Or during an earlier life.

He moved toward the dome at a slow walk. The desert around him seemed a vast bowl, an immense crater or sand that held him prisoner, defied him to run away. Gravity and inertia pulled him down into the center, toward the quiet red bubble that squatted innocently in front of him. It waited, like a harmless-seeming predator, for its prey to draw within easy reach…

He didn’t want to go back, dreaded going back, and yet knew that he had no alternative.

Luxor walked silently beside him. The tall Lilanian had not spoken since they had left the command car and now showed no inclination to do so.

Sunlight pelted them. Sullivan felt a shiver of fear as he recalled his last experience in the desert, the day of the sandstorm, then another shiver as he thought of what awaited him inside Lilani Base.

What would the base commander’s reaction be when he saw him walk in the door? Surely his memories of Sullivan’s brief stay were still bitter, but now that he was operating under the auspices of the Terran Government—in an “official” capacity—would the Hraka dare to harm him?

Looking back, he realized now that he had no choice but to accept Holstead’s orders and act as Terran representative on Lilani Base; not that Holstead had given him a choice. Cindy was still somewhere inside the building— and he had to get her out.

Finally Luxor spoke: “Your step is heavy, friend. Do you fear the coming meeting?”

“Yes. I do.”

“In all truth,” the Lilanian replied, “I fear it myself. I see no reason for this, no logic behind it.”

“Then why are you coming?”

Luxor remained silent for a moment, then spoke again. “Habit, I suppose. A mercenary does what he is told to do and doesn’t concern himself with reasons.”

” ‘Yours not to question why, yours but to do or die?’ “

“Yes. I suppose that is the creed of all mercenaries. Mindless obedience.”

“You sound bitter about it. Didn’t you choose to become a mercenary?”

The Lilanian shrugged. “Sometimes we make the wrong choice,” he replied.

The dome bulked up in front of them as they lowered themselves into the low valley of sand around its perimeter. Ahead of them, across the face of the metallic shell, a wide doorway slid open at ground level.

Luxor and Sullivan walked toward it. At the threshold two pressure-suited guards ushered them into the air lock.

Oxygen hissed into the chamber. When the atmospheric content was once again breathable, the guards helped the two visitors out of their suits.

The inner door opened. Beyond was a chamber Sullivan had not seen before, plushly furnished, elegantly appointed. In the center stood the base commander, a pair of Hrakan guards at his shoulders.

“Welcome,” he began. “Though you are representatives of our enemy—”

His eyes met Sullivan’s. For a moment he stood with mouth agape, mutely staring at the man he had last seen more than a week before.

“Sullivan!” he whispered. “You dared to come back!” He snapped a finger at one of the guards. “The human. Hold him!”

Before he could move Sullivan found himself in the grip of two massive Hraka, their muscular hands tightening around his elbows.

“Base commander, I came here in good faith, as an agent of the Terrans.”

“Secret agent, you mean!” snarled the Hrakan. “You are a spy, Mr. Sullivan. Twice you have come here under false pretenses, twice you have had the audacity to expect us to welcome you with open arms, but this malevolent masquerade can no longer be tolerated. The penalty for spying is death, Mr. Sullivan, and it is death you shall have.”

Unthinkingly, Sullivan lurched from the grasp of the two Hrakan guards, actually succeeding in freeing his arms and springing away before they could regain their hold. Almost immediately, however, the base commander reached down and pressed a small stud on his wide belt.

A bolt of electricity arced across the room and struck Sullivan midway down the chest. He reeled backwards, off-balance, into the arms of the waiting guards. But as their fingers cut deep into his flesh he felt nothing.

Death descended from a darkling sky and spread its wings over his soul, consuming him in its shadow.

CHAPTER 11

But he did not die. Miraculously, death took pity on him and gave him only the darkness-bestowing touch of its wing. For hours he lay somewhere between existence and nonexistence, in the limbo at the edge of life. When he returned, finally, he was still in darkness, but of a different kind.

The floor on which he lay sprawled was cold and moist, thick with the musty smell of a place where men rarely go. He felt it more than saw it,, barely able to make out the dim reflection of a distant fluorescent lamp in its smooth surface. He pressed his arms against it, tried to rise, fell back. For a moment he lay still again, listening to the rattling sound of his breath.

“Derek!” an urgent voice whispered.

He raised his head, tried to follow the sound. The whisper echoed slightly and for a moment seemed to come from all sides. Then, when it came again, he determined that the whisperer was somewhere off to his left. Slowly, paddling across the floor like a swimmer struggling through overly shallow waters, he made his way toward the sound of the voice.

Hours or minutes later—he could not tell which—he reached a cold iron grating that rose perpendicular to the stone floor beneath him. Pressing his hand against it, he managed to force three of his fingers through the holes between bars. On the far side someone brushed a hand across his fingertips, stroking them softly.

“Derek,” the voice said.

He pressed his face against the grating. There was little light on the other side, but he could make out the silhouette of a kneeling figure about one meter away from him. From the long hair that flowed down around its shoulders, he guessed that the figure was female.

“Cindy?” he replied. “Is it you?”

“Yes, Derek. They threw you into that cell about three hours ago and I’ve been waiting for you to revive. I’ve been so worried. They must have done something terrible to you; you’ve been unconscious for so long!”

“I… I don’t remember. Something about a lightning bolt, but that might have been a dream.”

Cindy pressed her face against the grating. “I’m sorry about before, Derek. I guess words can’t make up for what happened, but I’m sorry I thought you were a spy. When you ran away—yes, they told me about it—I realized what must have happened and I felt like a fool for not having understood before. Can you forgive me?”

“Yes. You’re not the one who was a fool, Cindy. I was the fool. If not for my stupidity, I wouldn’t be in this situation now.”

“That’s not true! You know it isn’t. It wasn’t your fault that those two thieves decided to steal your suitcase back on Ilium or that you grabbed that other case by mistake.”

Sullivan slumped back to the floor, his muscles throbbing with a dull pain, a faint tinge of nausea in his stomach. “No,” he said. “But I should have gone to the authorities immediately and reported the theft. If I hadn’t thought I could solve my problems by myself I’d be all right now—and you’d still be back in your father’s hotel. But I managed to make a royal botch of everything.”

“Oh, Derek—”

There was a loud click from somewhere in the darkness. A door cracked open and light flooded in, dim but still dazzling to Sullivan’s night-sensitive eyes.

A muscular figure hovered over him, gave him a sharp kick in the side.

“Get up, Terran dog! It’s time for us to do a little talking!”

Trembling, Sullivan rose to his knees. Westfield reached down and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, yanking him to his feet. Too weak to fight back, Sullivan dangled helplessly in his grasp.

“So,” Westfield said, “you thought you could crawl back to us, did you? I don’t know why you’d want to come back, kid, but I’m damned glad you did, believe me! After what you did to me the last time I saw you, I plan to see to it that you do a lot of suffering before your Terran friends blow up this base. It’ll do my heart good to see the look on your face when we send jolts of electricity into that tiny little skull of yours—and when you watch us doing the same thing to your girl friend.”

Chuckling softly, he lowered Sullivan back to the floor. “The fun starts tonight, friend. Knox and I will be here in just about an hour to take the two of you to the chambers. I hope you’ll be ready.”

He started to turn away, but as an afterthought he stooped low and spat a mouthful of saliva in Sullivan’s face.

“Think about that while I’m gone,” he said. “I’ll be thinking about you.”

Seconds later the door slammed and Sullivan found himself in darkness again. His heartbeat rang like a slow gong in the silence.

“Cindy,” he said at last. “That man—Westfield—did he come to see you while I was gone?”

She hesitated for a few seconds, then said, “Yes. He seemed angry about something; your escape, I assumed. He wanted to take me to the interrogation chambers, but someone else—I think it was that Mr. Knox—wouldn’t let him.”

“Knox?” He laughed quietly under his breath. “I’ll be damned.”

“Derek, is there anything we can do to stop them.”

“Yes,” he replied, to her surprise. “There is.”

A few minutes later a slot appeared near the bottom of the door and a plate of food slid through. Sullivan crawled over to it, removed the thin plastic covering and ate ravenously. There was a small hunk of meat, cold, and some kind of tepid soup, but at that moment it tasted like ambrosia.

Afterwards, he regained some of his strength. At least he could stand without falling.

His sense of purpose returning, he crouched in a corner and removed his shoes. Taking a small metallic object from his pocket—the Hraka had not bothered to give him new clothing—he ran one edge along the sole. The tiny compartment opened, revealing the metal sliver. He pulled it out and placed it by his side, then repeated the process with the other shoe.

Once the process was complete, he took the two slivers and studied them in the dim light. Slowly, with shaking hands, he brought them together.

There was a barely audible hissing sound, as of gas escaping from a cracked pipe. When he tried to pull the two pieces apart again, they refused to unclasp.

There was no turning back.

He placed the tiny unit on the floor. Four hours, Holstead had said. They had four hours to get out of the base, before the destruction began.

He put on his shoes again, then removed his watch. Like the shoes, his watch had been doctored by Holstead, without his knowledge or permission, while he was still in Malovia. Following the Admiral’s instructions, he reached inside the wrist band and removed a small wire that was almost invisible against the metal configurations of the expansion links.

When it was free, he walked to one side of the room and attached the end of the wire to the grating that separated his room from Cindy’s; then on the far side of the room he pulled a small wad of gumlike substance from his pocket and used it to affix the other end of the wire to the wall.

With a rigid forefinger, he plucked the wire as one would pluck the strings of a lute. It vibrated slightly, running tautly across the room about one meter above the floor.

Retrieving the watch from the floor, he cracked open the glass face and extracted the mechanism from within. Holding it carefully in two fingers, he attached it to one end of the wire, then—once he was certain that it was secure—he pulled out the stem.

He took two steps back and examined his handiwork. It would do, he decided. It would do. Then, taking great care not to brush against the wire himself, he stooped low and crawled back to the side of the room opposite the door.

He sat with his back against the wall and waited.

On the far side of the grating, Cindy changed position as if to stand. Sullivan waved her to caution.

“Don’t touch the wire,” he whispered. “I’ve got it primed.”

“Primed?” she asked. “Is it dangerous?”

“Yes. Very. Don’t go near it.”

“All right. I won’t.”

For almost an hour they sat together in their adjoining cells, talking in low voices, not moving. Sullivan told her of his flight to Malovia and of what followed.

A key scraped into the lock of the door. Sullivan’s muscles tensed, bringing him forward into a wary crouch. The door cracked, then opened wide.

In the brilliant rectangle of light stood a tall male silhouette.

Sullivan squinted into the glare. The man remained in the doorway for almost thirty seconds, then closed it behind him. He pulled a hankerchief from his jacket pocket and mopped his brow.

“Hello, Knox,” Sullivan said.

The figure took a short step forward. His breathing was audible: ragged and heavy. There was a hint of tension in the way his shoulders were hunched.

“Hello, Sullivan,” he said. “It’s good… to have you back.”

“Thank you. I gather you’re not too happy with the way things worked out.”

“No. I’m not very happy at all.” He stood quietly for a moment, then, abruptly, brought his hands together in a violent explosion. “Damn it, Sullivan! My career with the Hraka is over and it’s all because of this foolish escapade! By all rights, I should flay your flesh from your body cell by cell and gloat over every scream of pain.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because—” The anger seemed to leave him suddenly and his shoulders relaxed. “Because I know it isn’t your fault, that’s why. It was all a hideous mistake and we were all fools, myself most of all. When you left the base I began to wonder why you had ever attempted such an insane and hopeless scheme in the first place, so I did some checking with my agents on Ilium. The government there is riddled with them, you know. I found out about the communicator that incriminated you and had it traced. It had belonged to two of our local agents, a pair of crooks who had been recruited to burgle information from the homes of highly placed officials. One of their suitcases fell into your hands. I suppose I don’t have to tell you the rest.”

“No. You don’t.”

“The damnable thing is that nothing would have ever come of it had we left well enough alone. If I’d followed my common sense rather than my conscience and allowed you to go unrescued, there wouldn’t be a fleet of Terran warships on their way to destroy Lilani Base.”

“But I’d be dead.”

“What does it matter? You’re dead now—or as good as dead. If it were up to me I’d let you walk out of here a free man, for what that’s worth. But it’s not up to me. The base commander wants to see you strung from the highest flagpole—metaphorically speaking, of course—and what the base commander wants, he gets.”

“So you’re going to take us to the interrogation chambers now?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. The base commander’s already waiting for you there and so’s that rabid dog, Westfield. Since you slugged him over the head last week he’s been slavering for your blood. Personally, I think you deserve a medal.”

Sullivan smiled. “I gather you two don’t get along.”

“Never have. I almost think Westfield wanted to see you get away, just because he knew it would discredit me. If I didn’t know better I’d say he helped you in your escape.”

“He almost did,” Sullivan replied, without elaboration.

Knox sighed. “Well, I’m afraid it’s time. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, honestly I do, but we’ll all be dead in a week anyway. I’d suggest you come without a struggle, all right?”

“Sorry, Knox, but I don’t have any intention of going at all.”

“You’d make it easier for both of us if you’d just stand up and follow me out into the hall. I’d rather not have to be brutal.”

“No way. You’ll have to come and get me.”

“Then I shall,” said Knox, pulling a small pistol from his jacket pocket. He stepped forward. “The base commander would be very angry if I had to kill—”

The wire caught him just above the stomach. There was a hissing sound and he reeled back, clutching his chest.

“What in the name of .. . ?”

Sullivan slid nimbly under the wire and tackled Knox around the knees. The tall man fell to the floor, cracking his head against the wall. Sullivan took the pistol from his hand, then shook the still figure awake.

“I’m sorry, Knox. I really am.” The man on the floor moaned, then tried to raise his head.

“Stand slowly,” Sullivan said. “Don’t make any sudden movements.”

“What… what was that thing I ran into?”

“A vibro-span wire. It’s a recent Terran invention, I’m told. It vibrates at nearly supersonic speeds. I guess it must have been rather painful.”

“Yes. I think I’m bleeding….”

“You’ll have time to find medical care after you help us to get out of here. Like you said, you’ll be dead in a week anyway.”

Unsteadily, Knox came to his feet, hand still clutched where the wire had sliced his chest. Sullivan pointed the pistol steadily toward his heart.

“I don’t want to kill you, Knox…”

“Yes, yes, I know. You’d suggest I come along without a struggle, right?”

“That’s right. Now open the door and slip quietly out into the hallway. Are there any guards outside?”

“No. Not right now.”

“For your sake, I hope that’s true. Can you release Cindy from her cell?”

“Yes. The key’s on the same ring that I used to get into your cell.”

“Good. Now move slowly and carefully and there won’t be any trouble.”

With deceptive calmness, Knox swung the door open and stepped out into the hallway, Sullivan directly behind him. Sullivan blinked in the harsh light, his eyes not quite ready for the shock. Reaching into his coat pocket, Knox extracted a small key ring and used it to open the cell next to Sullivan’s, allowing the girl to leave.

Cindy looked thin and haggard, her hair stringy and unwashed, her clothing limp—but she was alive and free and Sullivan was grateful for that. They stared at each other for a moment as Knox looked on awkwardly, then Sullivan turned to the tall man and asked, “Where’s Luxor?”

“Upstairs, waiting for negotiations to begin. The Base Commander has accepted him as the only true representative of the Terrans and plans to begin the parley after your execution. So I suppose the Lilanian is in his room now.”

“How can I get in contact with him?”

“By telephone, I should imagine. There’s one down the hall.”

“Lead us there, Knox, and pray that we don’t run into any guards along the way.”

The tall man turned and led them down the hallway, past more cells, though these appeared to be empty. At the end of the hall they passed through a doorway and into another deserted corridor. Knox indicated the entrance to a small chamber and the three of them entered. There was a communication unit against one wall.

“All right, Knox, you do the talking and I’ll tell you what to say.”

“You can do it yourself if you’d like, Mr. Sullivan.”

“No. I don’t have any way of knowing who might be listening in on that line or who might be in the room with Luxor. You call him, Knox. Get him to meet us at—what floor is this?”

“The twenty-first sub-level.”

“Get him to meet us at the elevator on the twenty-first sub-level, whichever elevator is closest. Get him there within five minutes, preferably alone. Got that? I don’t care what you say to do it.”

“Of course.”

Knox pushed buttons and sat stoically as the screen glowed red, then green. With a slight buzzing sound, the Lilanian’s face appeared.

Sullivan watched Luxor from the side of the room, cautiously remaining out of range of the camera. The Lilanian took the message calmly, as always, agreeing curtly to the rendezvous and not questioning its purpose. If he guessed the true reason, he gave no indication.

The screen dimmed to darkness. Sullivan leaned against the wall, exhaustion already beginning to cast its shadow over him.

When Luxor arrived, he thought, they would try to make their way out into the desert. If they failed, well, they would either die trying or in the explosion to come.

He glanced at his watch. They had a little more than two and a half hours…

Cindy screamed. Swiveling aside more from reflex than from a true understanding of the situation, Sullivan moved out of the way just as the knife-sharp beam of a laser pistol sliced through the air where he had been standing. A guard stood in the doorway, gun clutched tightly in his fist. Even as he moved, Sullivan discharged the tiny pistol he had taken from Knox and hit the guard just above the adam’s apple. He grabbed at his throat, opening his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Sullivan released another burst from the gun, this one hitting the guard in the chest. He staggered backwards into the hallway.

“Come on, ” Sullivan shouted. “Let’s get out of here.”

Following Knox’s hastily blurted directions, they headed out the door and went left, stepping past the guard’s unmoving body into yet another corridor. Halfway to the next set of doors there was an elevator, but before they realized what was happening the door sprang open and the Lilanian stepped out.

“Luxor!” Sullivan shouted. “Thank God.”

For a moment the Lilanian seemed to hesitate, then he raised an arm in what seemed to be a gesture of warning. Taken off guard Sullivan did not immediately react, then another figure stepped from the elevator, a massive Hrakan with a laser clutched in his fingers.

“Get down!” shouted Sullivan to the others. Moving quickly to one side of the hall, he shot the guard before any real damage could occur, but almost immediately another hulking figure stepped into view, gun already leveled in front of him.

It was the Lilanian’s turn to react. Luxor pivoted with dizzying speed and slammed the gun from the guard’s hand, knocking it into the hallway. Slashing his arm out in front of him, he drove his fist into the Hrakan’s stomach. The massive figure folded to the floor with a groan.

Sullivan bolted past the helpless guard and retrieved the laser pistol, handing it to Luxor. The Lilanian took it without comment and jammed it into his pocket.

“What happened?” Sullivan asked breathlessly.

“They held me at gunpoint,” Luxor replied evenly. “Apparently they had monitored Mr. Knox’s communication and had divined its true purpose. They forced me to lead them to you. I tried to warn you, but—”

“Don’t worry about it. Everything’s okay now. Cindy! Knox! Into the elevator car!”

“Do you think it will be safe?” asked Luxor. “If they’ve attacked you once, conceivably they will attack you again. In the elevator we may well be at their mercy.”

“Do we have a choice?” asked Sullivan, as they crowded together into the tiny cubicle. “We’ve to reach the top level and get out of the base. We’re as good as dead if we stay, so we might as well run.”

“Perhaps if we bided our time… ?”

“No,” replied Sullivan cryptically. “We don’t have any time. We have to get out of here now.”

“And the negotiations?”

“The negotiations are dead.” With an air of grim finality, Sullivan pressed the button for the top level.

The elevator jerked upwards, whining as its cables began the long vertical lift. No one spoke at the numbers flashed one by one across the level indicator, no one dared break the strangely ominous silence that hung like a pall in the cramped semi-darkness.

The tiny car whirred to a halt.

Sullivan raised his pistol toward the doors, as did Luxor, expecting them to slide open at any second onto an unfamiliar hallway. They remained closed, however, and the Lilanian jabbed slowly at the control panel, but the car refused to move.

The lights dimmed, then flickered out.

“What the hell?” Knox rumbled uncharacteristically.

“Stay calm,” Sullivan whispered. “It must be some kind of power failure.”

“Your assessment of the situation is overly optimistic,” replied Knox. “The base commander has ordered the elevator cables frozen. You should never have come this way.”

“Thanks for the advice. You could have told me that earlier.”

“You never asked for my advice, Mr. Sullivan.”

“All right, Knox, I’m asking for it now. If we find ourselves under attack inside here, you’ll die along with the rest of us. How would you suggest we get out?”

“There’s a service door in the roof. We can leave through there and work our way up to the next floor.”

“What if somebody’s waiting for us there?”

“You asked for my suggestions, Mr. Sullivan. I can’t be expected to work miracles.”

“You go first then, Knox. Luxor and I will help you reach the service door, but remember: we’ll be watching every minute.”

“There’s no need to be melodramatic. Not much chance of my running away, is there?”

Ignoring Knox’s sarcasm, Sullivan bent down and took the tall man’s foot between laced fingers and, as Luxor did the same on the opposite leg, hefted him awkwardly toward the ceiling. There was a sound of scraping from above them, then dim light poured in through a small rectangle directly overhead. Knox shoved his arms through the hole and, as Sullivan and Luxor gave him another upward push, disappeared into the shaft.

“Get up there fast!” Sullivan told Luxor. “And keep an eye on Knox while I help Cindy get out.” He grabbed the Lilanian about the waist and lifted. Luxor hooked the edge of the hole with his fingers and followed Knox’s trail.

Seconds later Knox bent down into the car and helped Cindy into the shaft, as Sullivan raised her in his arms. Then, when Knox reached back inside for a second time, Sullivan allowed him to pull him up through the service door and into the dimly lit area beyond.

He stood and examined the situation. The shaft stretched up almost interminably into the shadows above them. A pair of oily cables ran vertically from the center of the elevator car, until they disappeared some hundreds of feet overhead.

It would be a long climb if they tried to reach the top, thought Sullivan, yet the base commander’s men would be waiting on each of the floors along the way.

There was an explosion below them. Sullivan looked back down through the service door and saw smoke and flame erupt into the tiny car, then, as the air began to clear, a uniformed guard rushed inside, laser drawn. As his face turned to look through the hole above him, Sullivan discharged his pistol. Shouting voices echoed from somewhere not far off.

Stooping quickly, Sullivan slammed the service door closed. Then he asked Knox, “Is there any way to lock this thing?”

“Here,” the tall man said, kneeling beside him. “Throw this switch.” He grabbed a small blue lever on the roof of the elevator and twisted it until it barred the door from swinging upward. “That should hold it, but they’ll have it open again in a few minutes.”

“Then we’ll have to get out of here fast,” said Sullivan, standing. “We’re going up the cable. I’ll be first, then Cindy, Knox and Luxor. Is that understood?”

The others nodded. Sullivan turned and braced his hands against the black metal links that held the elevator in place. The cable was oily, greasy, but he found that if he ran his fingers into the small holes of the links he could obtain a fairly secure grip. Hauling himself upwards, he dug the heels of his shoes into the cable below him and squirmed toward the top of the shaft until he had gone about five feet.

“All right, Cindy, do you think you can follow me?”

“I think so,” the girl replied. “I’ll try.”

Hesitantly, she placed her hands as Sullivan had and struggled against her own weight, slowly but surely pulling herself after him. Sullivan moved diligently ahead and moments later Knox followed, then Luxor. There was another rumbling sound from the elevator car below them.

“I’d suggest you hurry,” shouted Knox. “We haven’t much time.”

Sullivan felt panic swirling in the air around him, like an evil spirit waiting to consume him, to draw him downwards to his doom. Arms throbbing from exertion, he pulled himself past the doorway to the floor directly above where the elevator had stopped, considered halting their journey there, then moved on.

Two floors later, unable to climb any farther, he swung himself free of the cable and stepped gingerly onto a narrow platform that jutted outwards from the wall. The platform was about ten centimeters deep, barely wide enough to stand on. Precariously, he reached upwards and caught his balance on a small mechanical hook extending out from the metal of the door.

Seconds later Cindy joined him, grasping his shoulder for support. Breathlessly, they stood together for a moment, then Sullivan worked his free hand into the small space between door and wall and tried to pull it open.

It moved a couple of centimeters, then stopped.

“Here,” said Cindy. “This looks a lot like the service elevator back at the hotel. I know how they work.” Reaching over Sullivan’s head she pulled against a diagonal crossbar. The door slid open effortlessly.

In the hallway beyond, sirens wailed frantically. Together, Sullivan and Cindy stumbled into the corridor, followed almost immediately by Knox and Luxor. The Lilanian held his pistol steadily at the tall man’s back.

“Where to now, Knox?” Sullivan demanded. “They’ll have all the upper exits guarded.”

“I should imagine. I’m sorry, but it seems I’ve run out of suggestions.”

“I can’t believe that, Knox. There’s got to be an escape route that the base commander won’t think to have—”

He looked up abruptly. The clatter of footsteps sounded in the distance. Grabbing Cindy’s arm he shouted, “We’d better get away from the elevator. It’ll be the first place they look.”

Sullivan in the lead, they headed quickly down the corridor, then into another hallway running across it. Exhausted, Sullivan paused finally and lasered open the lock on an unmarked room and stepped inside. With Luxor’s help, he searched the room for an occupant, but found none.

“As I was saying,” he began, as he walked back into the foyer, “there’s got to be another way out of here. And if anyone knows where it is, it’ll be you, Knox.”

“I know of no such route, Sullivan.”

“I can’t buy that. The base commander must have arranged for there to be some kind of back exit, a way to get out of here in an emergency.”

“You’re wrong, Derek. If there is such an exit, I’ve never been informed of it.”

Sullivan’s eyes flashed angrily and he raised his laser and tightened his finger against the trigger. “I guess we’ll have to take our chances without you, then.”

“All right!” said Knox, raising his hand in warning. “There is another way out. On the lowest level. It’s a tunnel that leads out into the desert, slanting up for about a mile until it reaches the surface.”

“And all we have to do is walk out of it?”

“No. There’s a small rail car inside the tunnel. It makes the trip in about five minutes. It was added shortly after the base was built, in case we had to get out of here fast. For top officials only, of course.”

“I see. I suppose the base commander plans to get out of here before the fleet arrives then, if that exit’s still open. Start moving, Knox, and show us where this tunnel is. We don’t have any time.”

Hesitantly, Knox turned and led them back out into the corridor. The others followed, until they had reached another small elevator.

“This one probably won’t be guarded,” said Knox. “It doesn’t go above the sixth level, so they won’t expect you to try and get out this way.”

Seconds later they were plunging toward the lowest levels of Lilani Base. They had less than two hours left.

CHAPTER 12

They emerged in a room that was more cavern than man-made structure. The walls were gray stone, covered with glistening sweat. The air was cool as they stepped out of the elevator.

“This area was never really finished,” Knox told them, his voice echoing strangely off the limestone walls. “The cavern is natural, one of the reasons we chose this spot to build the base.”

Sullivan shivered. The cavern had an indefinable air of antiquity about it, a feeling that it had been there eons before the Hraka had arrived, perhaps even before the Lilanians. Cindy reached out and grasped his hand.

The exit tunnel was little more than a hole carved in the middle of a stone wall. The four of them stepped through the hole and Knox flicked a concealed switch, filling the small room beyond with light.

The rail car was about seven meters long, with eight seats spaced at intervals along its length. Sullivan placed a foot in the rearmost, testing its stability.

“How do you start this thing?” he asked.

“The controls are in the front seat. They’re virtually self-explanatory. You’ll find pressure suits at the head of the line.”

“Thanks, Knox. I appreciate your help, even if it was at gun point.”

He walked toward the front of the vehicle, gesturing for Luxor and the girl to follow. “Cindy, you take the second seat and Luxor, you take the third. I’ll drive.”

Knox cleared his throat. “Sullivan?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to die when the Terrans arrive next week.”

“I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t either.”

“I had hoped to escape through the tunnel, but if you tell the Terrans of its existence, they’ll seal it off. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Then why do you have to tell them about it? Can’t you lie, invent a story about how you escaped? What does it matter if a few of us get away before the holocaust? Why do we have to die here, like trapped animals?”

“I have no choice, Knox. I can’t lie to the Terran command.”

“Why not?” Knox roared, his face purpling with anger. “We’re human, some of us at least. We deserve to live as much as you do. Why can’t you save our lives with a simple lie?”

“Because—” Because what? wondered Sullivan. Did it really matter if he allowed the Hraka to escape? Would it really make any difference in the vast scheme of things?

But of course the whole question was purely academic: in ninety minutes there would be no more Lilani Base and the Hraka would be dead anyway. If they were going to save their lives they would have to begin doing so now. Otherwise they were as good as dead already.

Which meant that the base commander was as good as dead, Westfield was as good as dead, Knox was as good as dead…

He looked up. Knox’s eyes were sad, pleading.

The revelation came to him in a burst of colors, like a rainbow spreading across the celestial sphere of his mind. Thoughts that had been trapped inside his head for days suddenly exploded into the open and his head filled with images.

. . a redhaired skull crushed beneath a vermin infested mattress…

a once-human face torn apart by the sharp edges of a rusty pipe…

… a man screaming and thrashing in an alley as a laser sliced open his guts…

.. his father reaching out across the gates of death with a last message…

… a fat thief in a dark room…

… a charred corpse in a rubble-strewn crater…

… a Terran admiral ordering the death of every Hrakan and human in Lilani Base…

… and suddenly the pieces fell into place, like the loose fragments of a jigsaw puzzle assembling themselves into a whole. For an instant he saw it all clearly, saw the relationship between all of those things and more.

And he knew what his father had been trying to tell him.

IT had been early spring on Greensward. The planting season had begun and the work had been hard, rugged, though Sullivan had done little of it. Still, as he stood in the sun-drenched fields directing the progress of the farmhands, he felt the power of the heat almost as severely as they.

At noon his father sent one of his cousins to take over. Grateful for the relief, Sullivan started back to the farmhouse, but was surprised to find his father waiting for him there. He was even more surprised when his father led him up along a path into the woods, instead of inside. The old man seemed to be excited over something that day, but Sullivan had no idea of what it could be.

About a kilometer from the farm they came to a clearing and his father gestured for him to take a seat in the grass. Together they sat watching the white clouds blowing across the pale blue sky: then his father spoke.

“Derry, you’re eighteen years old now and you’ll be taking over the farm soon. There are some things I want you to know.”

For a moment Sullivan felt the urge to smile. His father was finally going to tell him the facts of life, he thought, only seven years after he had learned them from the boys at Hadley Grove Elementary School. Well, it would save both of them a lot of embarassment if he just lay back and let his father tell it his way. After all, when the old man got it into his head to make a speech, there was rarely any hope of stopping him.

But the speech wasn’t the one Sullivan had been expecting.

“Derry,” his father went on, “you’ll be a man soon. In some ways you already are one and in some ways you’ve got a distance to go, but I know you’ll make it. I have confidence in you.”

“Thank you, father.”

“But they say it’s a man’s duty to show his son the direction he ought to be traveling in and I wonder sometimes if I’ve done enough along that line. Oh, I know it’s been my way to let you find your own directions, your own likes and dislikes, and I’m not going to change that now. And I’ve always tried to set a good example for you and I’d like to think I’ve succeeded, but there are still some things I feel I ought to tell you. I know I won’t be around here forever.”

“Oh, father.”

“No, Derry, it’s true. You may think your old man’s indestructible, but I know better. Your mother passed away a long time ago and I’ll be following her someday.”

“It won’t be very soon.”

“You don’t know that, son. Now listen. I want you to be the best person you possibly can be, which means that there are some things you should remember. The first is that you should always do what you think is right. Never let anyone else tell you what to do, what to be.”

“Even you, father?”

The old man laughed. “Yes. Even me. I know it sounds… paradoxical that I’m sitting here telling you not to let people tell you what to do, but that’s the way it is. You should always make up your own mind about what’s right and wrong and act accordingly. Don’t let other people do it for you.”

“What about the police?”

“If they’re wrong, then tell them so. You may get slapped in jail for it, but there’s no shame in getting arrested for doing the right thing. Don’t be afraid of authority. Respect it, but never fear it. Even the law can make mistakes and it’s your duty to right them. Now tell me, Derry. Are there any things you know are wrong?”

“Well… I know that it’s wrong to kill a person.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I suppose. I guess there must be times when you have to kill—if a person attacks you first, for instance, and it’s the only way to stop him, but I don’t think it’s right to kill in cold blood.”

“Then you stick by that. Never kill a man in cold blood!”

“I won’t, father, though I doubt that I’ll ever get the chance anyway.”

“No matter. When the day comes that you can truly say that you are the master of your life—and no one else’s!— that’s the day you’ll truly be a man.”

He found no words to say in reply.

HE jerked back to reality, aware that he had been staring vacuously into space for at least fifteen seconds.

Cindy touched his arm. Knox opened his mouth as if to speak. Time seemed to freeze…

He had to think.

It all made sense now—or, at least he understood why it all failed to make sense. For weeks now he had been allowing other people to run his life, tell him what to do, to push him ever closer to death. Now he held the lives of a thousand beings—both human and Hrakan—in his hands and he was going to murder them simply because a damned fool Terran admiral had told him to do so.

It was wrong. He had known for some time that it was wrong, but had been unable to say why.

In slightly more than ninety minutes Lilani Base would be blasted back into its component atoms and everyone in it would die.

He couldn’t allow this to happen. He could never kill anyone in cold blood. They were the enemy—not his enemy, but the enemy of his Empire—yet they still deserved to live. All of them—Knox and the base commander included—had been doing what they saw as their duty, nothing less. They had treated him no worse than the Terrans had back in New Troy, in many ways a good deal better.

“Knox,” he said, coming suddenly back to life, ”can you get everybody out of this base in an hour and a half?”

The tall man’s eyes widened. “Are… are you insane? The Terrans are waiting for us outside. That would be tantamount to surrender.”

“I know that, damn it! But if they’re not out of here by then they’ll all be dead, even the most innocent civilians among them.”

“But the Terran fleet won’t be arriving for at least a week. That Admiral—Holsum or whatever his name was—said that himself.”

Sullivan sighed. “There is no Terran fleet, Knox. Not on its way to Lilani, at any rate. But there’s been a bomb planted inside this building and it’s going to go off at approximately twenty-three hundred hours, taking this whole place with it.”

“A bomb!” Knox exclaimed, his features whitening. “Are you responsible for this, Sullivan?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I am. And for what it’s worth, I regret it. Which is why I’d like to save the innocent lives that are going to be lost.”

“Can the bomb be removed?” Luxor asked. “If it can be taken outside of the base, perhaps… ?”

“No,” Sullivan replied. “It bonds with whatever metal or rock it happens to be in contact with. You couldn’t remove it now—except maybe with a jackhammer.”

“We might have the equipment,” Knox began.

“No. The bomb becomes less and less stable until it’s ready to detonate. By now even the slightest vibration could set it off. If someone should even walk near it… “

Knox waved his hands hopelessly. “We can’t evacuate the base, Sullivan. It’s out of the question.”

“We can’t let innocent people die either.”

“They knew the risk when they came here. They’re willing to die for their Empire!”

“Well, I’m not willing to let them! I understand your reluctance to surrender, Knox. No man wants to be a traitor to his people—and no man should be forced into the position of becoming one. But saving the lives of others is never a traitorous act.”

Cindy put a hand to his shoulder. “Is there some way to force them to get out, Derek?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Lilanian army still waits outside,” said Luxor. “If the shields were to be removed—”

“The shields” shouted Sullivan. “Knox, is there some way that we can turn them off, so that the army can force the personnel to evacuate the base?”

“You… you know I can’t tell you that, Sullivan.”

Sullivan stared intently into the tall man’s eyes. “Listen to me,” he began. “Forget your allegiances for a moment, just a moment. Think of those people upstairs. In your own words, Knox: they deserve to live. No one will ever know how you helped us, not if you don’t want them to. We’ll do the work, you just give us the information we need.”

“All right!” Knox almost shouted. “For an amateur you’ve done a pretty good job of…” He sighed. “The Central Power Core is on the next floor. Deactivate all units coded Red and the shields will be dropped. Deactivate all units coded Blue and defensive and offensive weaponry will be disarmed.”

“Thank you, Knox. Lead the way. Luxor, Cindy and I will follow.” Sullivan waved his gun toward the door.

Shrugging, Knox turned and led them out through the small portal and through the spacious cavern beyond. They stepped into the elevator, rode upwards for several seconds and emerged into a corridor not unlike the ones on the upper floors. Roughly twenty meters down the hallway, they stepped into a white-tiled room lined with elaborate equipment. A low humming pervaded the air, almost below the threshold of audibility.

Knox gestured to a bank of equipment in the center of the room and stepped aside. Sullivan leaned against a barrel-shaped coil of wire and stared into the maze of esoteric machinery.

“My God!” whispered Sullivan. “There’s so much of it! How do we tell which unit’s are which?”

“Perhaps,” said Luxor, “if we simply point our lasers at random… ?”

“No. Too dangerous. No telling what might blow.” He threw a sharp glance over his shoulder. “Knox! Come here! How do we tell the blue and red units from the rest?”

The tall man stepped to his side. “In here,” he said, gesturing towards a white fuse box mounted on a three-meter length of piping. “Open it.”

Sullivan leaned against the safety railing, grabbing the handle on the fuse box door and swinging it outwards. Recessed into the interior of the box were seven rectangular cartridges bearing brightly colored insignias.

“Now what do we do?” asked Sullivan. “Pull out the red and blue ones?”

“Yes,” replied Knox. “It’s as simple as that.”

An echoing voice from behind them said, “Hello, Sullivan. Who’s your friend?”

Sullivan spun on his heels, started to raise his laser to fire, but Westfield, standing just inside the door, released a quick burst that caught him on the inside of his wrist. With a moan of pain, Sullivan dropped his pistol to the floor. Luxor half lifted his gun, then lowered it back toward the ground.

“Smart,” said Westfield. “Very smart. Now put the pistol down and kick it over here.”

Without speaking, the Lilanian let the gun fall from his hand and skitter across the floor. Westfield dropped cautiously to his knees, eyes never straying from his adversaries, and picked it up, stuffing it behind his belt. Anger in his eyes, he turned to Knox.

“So you led them to the power core, friend? I expected better from you, Knox old boy. I guess when the chips are down, we find out who the real Hrakan loyalists are. I told the base commander a long time ago that you couldn’t be trusted. It’s nice to have you prove me right.”

“It’s not like it looks, Westfield…”

“Oh, isn’t it? I guess you’re going to tell me that they led you here at gunpoint, as if that made any real difference. You’re a traitor, Knox, a yellow-bellied traitor who deserves to die.”

“You’re going to kill us?”

“Why not? It might be fun to take you to the interrogation chambers first, but at this point I really don’t care. I just want to see the looks on your faces when you die. I’m going to kill you all right here, right now, but—” his eyes turned to Cindy “—I’m going to save the girl for last.”

“You’ll die too, Westfield,” Knox gasped. “They’ve planted a bomb in the building and there’s no way to stop it before it goes off.”

“They’ve what—?”

“You heard him,” chimed Sullivan. “Everyone here will be dead in an hour, unless the base can be evacuated in time. You can help us now, Westfield, or you can die along with everybody else.”

Westfield looked back at Knox and laughed. “So that’s the story they gave you—and you swallowed it! You idiot! That’s one of the oldest ruses in the book and you were fool enough to believe it.”

“It’s true,” Knox replied, but his eyes flashed with sudden doubts. Sneering broadly, Westfield raised his gun and aimed it directly at the tall man’s stomach.

Luxor dived forward. Sullivan saw this out of the corner of his eye, but by the time he realized what the Lilanian was going to do it was too late for him to prevent it. Taken by surprise, Westfield turned and pointed the gun toward his attacker, but Luxor was already on top of him, forcing him back into the hallway.

The two fell to the floor almost as one, the Lilanian on top, still struggling as Westfield’s laser burned through the flesh of his stomach and into the tender organs within.

Sullivan grabbed Luxor’s body and tried to haul it away from the terrified form underneath, but the Lilanian’s fingers were locked almost rigidly into Westfield’s neck, the nails burrowing deeply inside the skin of the throat. Beneath him, the disabled human whimpered weakly. Knox stooped down and slipped the gun from his trembling hand.

Oblivious to the others, Sullivan bent over the Lilanian’s still form. Luxor’s lips moved soundlessly, his larynx bobbing futilely as he tried to speak. Sullivan pressed his ear close in front of his companion’s mouth, trying to make out the almost inaudible words.

“… proud… decision… Holstead.”

“Yes, Luxor. I’m listening.”

“I’m…proud,” the Lilanian repeated, barely whispering, “that you… made your… own decision. Holstead was… a fool.”

“You know, then, why Holstead sent me here?”

“Of course. It was… obvious. He’s an… officer. They all… think… alike. I know. All of my life… I followed… their orders. I never had… the conviction… to disobey. You did. It is… an honor to die… for you, Terran.”

Sullivan lowered the corpse back to the floor. Blinded by a thin mist of tears, he rose slowly to his feet.

“Is he dead?” Cindy asked.

“Yes.”

“You’d better get out of here, Sullivan,” shouted Knox. “You don’t have much time.”

“Just a second,” he replied, grabbing one of the discarded lasers from the floor and shoving it into his pocket. He returned to the Power Core and yanked the blue and red cartridges free of the fuse box. The machinery hummed urgently. For a moment the lights dimmed, then brightened. A warning signal rose and fell.

Sullivan returned to the hallway. Knox stood dumbly over the body of Westfield, laser dangling loosely in his fingers. The man’s corpse lay still and twisted on the floor, a freshly burned gash extending from shoulder to mid-stomach.

“I finished him,” said Knox simply. “I think he was going to die anyway.”

“It was for the best,” said Sullivan, grabbing Cindy’s hand. “Thanks for everything, Knox. I’m almost glad I got to know you.”

Without looking back, Sullivan rushed down the corridor and jabbed the button for the elevator. Seconds later, as he descended once again to the bottom floor, Cindy at his side, he thought that he heard the sound of distant explosions, but it may have been his imagination. Yet, for an instant, the elevator car seemed to tremble.

He pushed Cindy ahead of him through the small hole into the escape tunnel. Climbing quickly into the front seat of the rail car, he pulled a small harness strap across his waist and examined the controls in front of him. There was a wheel, a pedal and a choke; Knox was right, he thought. The controls were self-explanatory.

He pulled out on the choke and the car bucked forward. Ahead of them the tunnel was dark, a murky passageway to unseen infinity. He stepped on the pedal and the tiny vehicle sped smoothly ahead.

“I’m frightened,” said Cindy. “What if there’s something on the track ahead? We’d never see it in time to stop.”

“No reason to worry,” said Sullivan, wishing that he felt half as assured as he sounded. “The Hraka probably kept the tunnel as clear of debris as possible. They wouldn’t want to find a rock in the way while they were trying to escape.”

The rail car picked up speed. The air in the tunnel was cool and brisk. Almost cold, thought Sullivan, shivering.

Far above them, the earth trembled. The dull roar of an artillery barrage from the Lilanian army was muffled by the hundreds of feet of rock and sand between them and the surface.

“It’s begun,” said Sullivan, softly. “The shields are down. The Lilanians are attacking. Even Holstead can’t stop them from evacuating the base now.”

“What about the people killed in the attack?”

“There’ll be a few, yes, but the others will live. At least, I won’t have their lives on my—”

Ahead of them, the tunnel came to a brilliant life in a flurry of bright orange sparks. The track immediately in front of the rail car seemed to disengaged itself from the floor of the tunnel and fly into the air, then settle back to the dirt. Debris fell from the ceiling like rain.

“Derek, what is it?”

The sparks faded. “They… they must have scored a hit directly above us. We’re still within range of the barrage. I think it’s over now.”

But even as he spoke there was a deep rumbling sound from behind them. Sullivan looked back to see fifteen meters of ceiling drop into the tunnel, almost completely blocking the track to their rear.

“Are we almost out, Derek. What if—”

“I think we are,” he shouted, cutting her off. “Knox said that it was a five minute trip. We should be just about—”

This time the roar was almost deafening. By the light of the wildly flying sparks, Sullivan looked up to see the ceiling directly above them crack almost in two, a wide opening split suddenly along its length. For a moment it seemed to hang low over them, like the distended belly of a dead fish. Then great hunks of rock fell. One of them struck Sullivan’s shoulder, sending excruciating pain down through his arm, up his neck. Cindy screamed as a chunk smashed into the seat behind her.

And then the rail car reached the end of its track. Sullivan dived out of his seat, Cindy’s hand locked firmly in his own grip. There was a dull booming from the tunnel as the entire ceiling seemed to give up its long struggle and collapse inward. Thick dust billowed outward, upward.

Sullivan, stepped to a row of pressure suits lined up against the wall and chose one for himself and one for Cindy. Together they wrestled their way into the bulky gear, then Sullivan pounded against a set of buttons attached to the top of a small console. Above them a hatchway whirred open, revealing the clear black sky of the Lilanian night.

It was the most beautiful sky Sullivan had ever seen.

EPILOGUE

Fleet Admiral Jellicoe Waterston of the Terran Star Fleet was a small man, but his size belied the intensity of his presence, not to mention the stature of his reputation. As he shuffled through the stack of papers that lay precariously piled atop his desk, Sullivan felt a certain awe of the man, an awareness of his proximity to fame and greatness. But as the man spoke that awareness slowly faded.

“And that, Mr. Sullivan,” he said, “would seem to be the end of the matter.”

“I’m not going to be shot as a traitor?”

“Oh, no!” the admiral replied, almost laughing. “You’re going to be decorated for your part in this. The Emperor has already arranged for you to be presented with the Cross of Empire, the highest honor that any civilian can receive in the service of Terra. Why, you practically undermined the Hrakan espionage network singlehandedly.”

Sullivan wiped a weary hand across his forehead. “I wouldn’t go quite that far, Admiral. I did have some help. And to tell the truth, what I was doing mostly was trying to save my own life. And Cindy’s.”

He reached over and took her hand in his, giving it a small squeeze.

“Well,” said the admiral, “would that most citizens could do as much in their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. You’ll be interested to know, incidentally, that Admiral Holstead has been severely reprimanded for his actions on Lilani. He had no right to order you to destroy Lilani Base. Negotiations should have been attempted first and more drastic measures should have been used only as a last resort. As it was, things worked out quite well. The evacuation and capture of Lilani Base marked a turning point in the Intra-Galactic War. It sealed up an important hole in the Terran Defense Network and for the first time since the Holovee Incident our Star Fleet has been making more important strikes against the Hrakan navy than they have been making against ours.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Sullivan. “One other thing, though. About the spying charge leveled against me when I first arrived on Ilium. That has been cleared up, hasn’t it?”

“Of course. We managed to get the full story out of a man named Knox. He volunteered the information, though we had, ah, to use some rather sophisticated methods of chemical persuasion before we were absolutely certain of the veracity of his statement. The whole business was an unfortunate mistake from the beginning. Luckily, it seems to have had unexpectedly beneficial results.”

“They weren’t worth it,” said Sullivan flatly. “I wouldn’t go through that again if fifteen empires depended on me. By the way, whatever happened to those law enforcement officers who tried to kill me? Three of them are dead, I know, but what about the fourth? I don’t mean to seem vindictive, but personally I don’t like the thought of someone like that getting away free after what they tried to do to me.”

The admiral turned his gaze back down toward the papers on his desk. “There seems to have been some kind of mixup as regards that matter. The, um, Ilium Ministry of Law Enforcement seems to be unable to identify the officer in question.”

“But I gave them his description! They must be able to tell who he is!”

“Well, ah, Mr. Sullivan, you have to be understanding. These law enforcement agencies tend to be very insular. They protect their own.”

“But he tried to kill me!”

Admiral Waterston shrugged fatalistically. “I don’t blame you for being angry, Mr. Sullivan, but that’s the way it is.”

“Yeah,” said Sullivan bitterly, “that’s the way it is.”

“There are compensations, however. Your decoration ceremony will be tomorrow at noon. The Emperor himself will be there to bestow the Cross.”

“Sorry,” said Sullivan, rising from his chair, “but the Emperor will have to pin it on without me. I won’t be there.”

“You wha?”

“You heard me. I won’t be there. I don’t want your medals, Admiral. I’ve already borne my own cross of Empire—and that was enough for me. I just want to be left alone, so that I can live a peaceful life, get married, raise kids.”

“But… but how could you make a ridiculous decision like that?”

“Very easily. I made the decision for myself. I didn’t let anybody make it for me.”

Taking Cindy’s hand, he walked to the door of the admiral’s office and flung it open.

“Thanks for your help,” he murmured. “It was appreciated.”

Outside, they hurried quickly along the steps of the Star Fleet Administration Building and out into the streets of New Troy. The sun glowed brightly—not as brightly as the sun of Lilani, but brightly—in the clear midafternoon sky. Hand in hand, they raced to the corner and across the street.

“Why didn’t you take the medal?” Cindy asked. “The Cross of Empire is a very great honor. Something to be proud of. After all you’ve been through, you deserve some kind of reward.”

“I’ve got my reward,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

She laughed. “It’s nice to hear you say it, Derek, but you deserve more than that. You could have had me even if none of this horrid business had taken place.”

“I guess so,” he said. “I’d like to think I could have, anyway. But you weren’t my only reward. I’ve got my Cross of Empire, all right, but I’ve got it inside.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, pausing for a moment to place her arm around his neck.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said.

“Try me.”

He smiled again. “Maybe I will sometime. Maybe I will.”

He lay a hand against the small of her back and pulled her toward him. For a moment he thought of his father, conjuring up his image so vividly that it almost seemed ready to speak, and then he realized that he was crying.

The old man would be proud of him, he knew, proud of him for following the path he had laid down almost seven years earlier. But most of all he was proud of himself.

That was his Cross of Empire, an award that no Emperor could bestow. He had, at last, become a man.

END

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

EPILOGUE