Now Selan was all he had to depend on. He started back to the forward compartment hoping that Selan had at last made her decision. The battle was still going on and lights were still flashing down the galactic screen to sudden, unwitting death. The bulk of the Darzent fleet had been destroyed and Thane saw that Candar had changed his tactics. Now, instead of disrupters, he was using concentrated, high-power Stoltz artillery.
After destroying the mass of their power, Candar was going to bring in the staff ships, with the fleet admirals as captives. It would immobilize whatever power Darzent had in reserve while Candar turned on the Allied Systems. Already, confused and blinded Darzent ships were drifting in space, with Onzar wrecker tugs swarming in on them.
Thane turned to the old priestess Selan. "Don't you see the crisis that is shaping? Don't you see what Candar intends? When this is done and he has re-powered, he'll turn on the Allied Systems. They'll fight back of course, but the war will make a shambles of the whole Galaxy. Don't you see?"
She turned slowly and looked at him. Her eyes seemed older, much more tired than they had before. "I have seen it, Roger Thane, and this cannot be repeated. It will not happen again. It is against all my training and belief and the tenets of the faith, but I, as Priestess of Keltar, will take it on myself to attack the temporal power."
hane felt the sweat on his hands, and his smile was stiff though it was certainly heartfelt. So much depended on this woman's decision and on her performance from now on. Without the aid of Liaison to depend on it was up to this woman to prevent galactic war.
They started back for Onzar II and Keltar at once. They would have a good start on Candar while he was engaged in mopping up the Darzent fleet. Thane felt sure that Candar would stay to confront the high-ranking captives and to gloat over them. On the other hand Candar would not delay too long. He would be back to announce his victory and to prepare for the attack on the Allied Systems.
At the landing port outside Keltar, Selan's automatic anti-grav was waiting. It took them up over the outskirts of the bleak wintry city and towards its center. As they reached the solidly built-up area Thane could see the dim outlines of the old city wall beneath them. Not so many years ago, as time went in the Galaxy, that wall had been a vital protection against the spears of the hill men. And now Onzarians were in space, blasting away the power of a third of the Galaxy. But still, the descendents of the hill men, the descendents of the plains dweller, the city builders, were living here, underneath him.
In the midst of their technological revolution they were still living in their ancient superstitions. Still the old awe of the Word of the matriarchal, matrilineal church. Still the compulsion to have their little gold symbols of rank sanctified and made real. Still the.... Thane paused in his thoughts as he saw flames leaping into the night sky from a blast furnace, producing some of the finest alloys in the Galaxy. It was still the same, he hoped.