The "Saint" smiled; the fact was illumined as if with an inner light. "Peace, Varon! There's no need to speak for we have the information. You gave it to us—piece-meal—I must say." He smiled with kindly humor. "But you gave it. We have synchronized and correlated what you told us in the transmitter before you went to the Paradisiac, and your later message from the shore."
"That voice ... that voice!" The thought blotted out all else in Julian's mind. It could not be, it was incredible, and yet, no one else in his experience had just that tonal quality ... those ironic overtones....
"You probably wondered," the "Saint" was speaking again, "when you saw our signal, how the Dekkan fleet could be above Ganymede unchallenged. Look!" He activated a telesolidograph standing by the side of Julian's bed.
"Every inhabited Moon has its fleet here tonight, my son. When we flashed them the news you gave us of the laboratory where the Plague germs were kept, and of the incredible plan of the Dynasts—the Mutants, they came on at full power. Enough to blast Ganymede out of its orbit! The plan was the most fiendish, the most ingenious weapon of war ever conceived! You must have guessed it of course ... for fifty years they infected our people in slowly increasing numbers, until at last they let loose the Plague."
"Narda ...." Julian began as memory agonizingly came back.
"That is the name you kept repeating with every other word in your delirium," the stranger smiled. "A Techno-Star, as we found out. She of course, will be one of the very first to be given the antidote, Varon."
"Antidote...." Julian's voice was opaque with wonder, it was as if his heart had lurched in his chest.
"You brought it," the silver-haired stranger replied. "In the Panagran vial you took from the Arch-Mutant. Our scientists are already reproducing it. It acts both as an immunizer and an antidote. The Mutants had to develop it as a safeguard for the native Ganymedeans. It was the only way they could be assured of even their reluctant loyalty. And the Mutants didn't dare war against the Ganymedeans—they still possess ancient weapons that the Dynasty could not cope with. I wish we could obtain some of them," he sighed wistfully. "What a strangely stubborn race...."
But Julian was scarcely listening, an upsurging volcano of hope had set his whole being afire with the immortal, singing flame. Narda ... himself!... He closed his eyes against the tremendous psychic strain.
"Once more open war has been averted by a hair's breadth—I'm a little bit sorry, in a way, Serenity."