Yet she had never seen him. She didn't even know he existed. She couldn't even imagine the wonders of flashing through interstellar worlds by use of thought-force, nor picture a means of existing entirely on basic radiation, sucked from the atoms themselves. This young man, slender and well-proportioned, was a product of endless evolution and progression. She was a retrograde current of atavism that had persisted somehow on one outlaw world.
Savage, yes! But there was no mistaking the light in Ilon Karth's eyes as he followed every movement of her little graceful body.
Suddenly an awareness of someone approaching burst into his mentality. He wheeled, an expression of annoyance on his face. With an abrupt movement of his hand he struck a switch that caused the glowing of the machine to die. The sphere, and the lovely girl of that alien globe, vanished utterly.
Now the surrounding walls, glowing with light of their own, flickered. An ovoid opening in solidity appeared, forced by the mental-push of the approaching person. The figure of an old man, venerable of appearance, stooped and robed in the gold-mesh-cloth of the Galax-Mentor, floated into the room. The wisdom of ages lay imprinted on the face that was like wrinkled parchment beneath the blue emerald set in a forehead band, denoting his rank in the Supreme Council of Seven. The face lost its strain of menta-portation, and the old man landed gently at his side.
"Greeting, Ilon," greeted Nyo Karth, his eyes darting intelligently about the room.
"Er—Greeting, dad," said Ilon Karth, hiding his irritation. As the opening had been menta-forced into the room, his hand had darted instinctively toward a hidden compartment in the machine. Now he tried to hide the movement of his hand and what it contained as it sped toward the secret pocket again. But the keen eyes of his father saw and grew narrow and steely with surprise and suspicion. The older man reached out and grabbed his wrist. In Ilon's open palm lay a needle-ray weapon of defense.
"What is it you fear, son?" he demanded sternly. "What can you, a princeling of your own people, fear here in our own galaxy?"
Ilon Karth averted his eyes. "Has enough tonnage of ithilyn been removed from the mines lately?" he asked, ignoring the other's question.
"But there is only one thing to fear," continued his father wonderingly. "That is the minion spies. The guards of the secret galaxy. But what have you done to fear them? Don't tell me, Ilon, that you have been crazy enough to probe through the dark ultra-universes in search for lower life-forms?"