Flame-Jewel of the Ancients

By EDWIN L. GRABER

The tiny golden sphere, blazing with terrible
energy, spelled Galactic Empire at last to
the out-space horde, once they had tapped its
limitless power. They were grimly amused
therefore when Captain Glayne of the Stellar
Guardians dropped innocently out of sub-space
to view their mighty prize.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The two Terran super Galactics glided side-by-side in the immensity of the interstellar void. Secure in the knowledge that they were the mightiest battleships ever built in the known galaxy, they didn't bother to raise their anti-energy shields. They knew, absolutely, that no other warcraft in the universe could equal their strength....

Jukes, the third pilot, lounged carelessly in his gimbal-slung shock seat, idly watching the screen before him. Aside from his sister ship, there was nothing to be seen but the harsh points of starlight. Cautiously he looked over his shoulder to see if the executive officer were nearby, then, apparently satisfied, lit a cigarette and blew an expansive plume of smoke at the serried banks of instruments that were terraced about him.

Suddenly the intermittent glowing of a red blinker aroused him. Throwing the butt to the deck, he bent forward, squinting into the screen. Far down in one corner he detected an irregularly sparkling mote moving slowly across the blazing points of the distant stars. With a single motion of his arm he swept the Call to Quarters alarm studs and began to speak rapidly into his throat transmitter. As the muffled vibrating thunder of his ship's drivers rose, he could make out his sister ship gradually swinging into an approach orbit.

A double tap on his shoulder informed him that the first pilot was there to take over. Smoothly he slipped from the shock seat and took up his station with the other two pilots near the auxiliary control boards. Everywhere about him was excited, orderly confusion as the huge warship stripped for possible action. The orbit calculators at his left took up the excited jabbering chorus and somewhere above the third pilot was aware of the massive charge accumulators for the Kellander miatron blasters whining up the scale.

"It's a Delban," he muttered to his fellow pilots. "Just a pipsqueak, too, blast his miserable, trespassing soul. A light cruiser, from what I saw of him."

The younger one looked at him eagerly. "Do you think he'll fight?"

The third pilot snorted. "One Stellar class cruiser against two Terran Galactics? He'd be out of his mind."

Just then the battle screen lit up and a babbling group of gunnery officers crowded about, feeding firing data to waiting miatron crews. Over their shoulders the third pilot could make out the Delban cruiser as it lay there, slim and deadly against the vast, star-studded vault of space.

"What I'd like to know is why the devil he doesn't run for it," the older pilot said to no one in particular. "Something's up, I'm sure. Delbans just don't act like this."

The third pilot grunted absently, his eyes fixed on the battle screen. The two Galactics now lay on either side of the Delban. His sister ship began to communicate with the new arrival, her yellow beam glowing with baleful intensity. But the pilot wasn't watching. He had noticed something odd about that cruiser. It seemed to bulge in the wrong places. It was completely enclosed by a peculiar mesh antenna which glinted ominously in the faint light.

Then the Delban fired.

For a moment there was stunned amazement in the huge plotting room. It was the very absurdity of the situation rather than mere surprise. To make the blasphemy worse, the Delban had licked out with the beam of a secondary Kellander projector rather than with her main miatron batteries. The damage was slight, the communicator bulb of the other Galactic having been reduced to twisted slag. But this was the grossest of all insults in space warfare and demanded immediate retaliation. The third pilot held his breath in anticipation.

Then it came. The plotting room exploded into frantic activity. Generators screamed into ear-splitting crescendoes as the main driver engines were coupled into them to raise the anti-energy shield. The Kellander miatron blasters hurled ravening bolts of energy at the audacious Delban, reducing accumulator loads to zero in instants. The remainder of the driver atomics were coupled into the Kellander accumulators sending up loads that were fed through the continuously thundering miatrons at the Delban cruiser. Literally trillions of megawatts lapped at the Delban shield, making it glow up the spectral scale in a brilliant spider web of absorbing power foci. But it held.

The Delban shield held! The third pilot was unbelievably shocked as he stared at the battle screen. It was simply not conceivable that the two mightiest warships in space could not penetrate the shield of a pipsqueak Stellar cruiser.

Where were they getting the power? The question blazed up in the third pilot's consciousness as he stared at the slim, deadly Delban. Abruptly he recalled where he had seen the Delban's peculiar external mesh antenna.

"Broadcast power!" he blurted to his comrades. "Those devils are receiving broadcast power!"

The other two pilots looked at him incredulously. "Hell!" snorted the older one. "You can't transmit the stuff across interstellar distances."

The third pilot didn't reply. As he watched the screen he suddenly knew they were in trouble. By rights this should have been the greatest shock of all but his mind was so dulled with amazement that he could only shake his head.

The Delban's firing had gradually increased in strength until now both the Terran battleship's mighty shields were themselves glowing up the spectral scale in its spidery force web. Despite the older pilot's doubts, he realized that only broadcast power in unlimited quantities could account for those overloaded shields. But where were they getting it to broadcast? Only an infinite source of supply could do the job.

Paralyzed, he watched the battle screen. He was aware of the miatron blasters falling silent, one after another, as the straining driver atomics were diverted to hold the shield. Their sister Galactic's blasters had all fallen silent as all the power of her own huge drivers was shunted into the shield generators. Their own shield was trembling and shuddering under the inconceivable impact of the energies that surged at it from the Delban.

Suddenly the pilot saw their sister ship's shield coruscate in a multi-hued spider web of shorting power foci. Then it buckled. The third pilot instinctively averted his face from the indescribably brilliant, eye-searing nova that followed.

His own ship screamed. The drivers, the generators, the converters and accumulators—all of them screamed in ultra-sonic crescendoes in an effort to maintain the crumbling shield. The force webs shorted one after another in brilliant red fire. The third pilot saw it rupture but he never felt it....

For days the twin novae burned in the endless night, then slowly faded to blackened cinders.

II

The Tri-di film came to an end and the Council Chamber's soft fluorescents picked up in strength. For a moment the members of Lorle Sector's High Council were stunned and bewildered at what they had seen.

Captain Glayne waited patiently for the explosion which he knew would come. For about the tenth time that morning he fervently cursed all civilians. Not even the valiant efforts of Chairman Dell Thorder could keep them in check. A vast wave of irritation filled him as he listened to the piercing squeak of a fat Councilor named Trask.

"It will mean war, I say—and we haven't had a war involving Terra for seventy years. Lorle Sector must remain neutral—especially if Delb Sector has weapons which can crush super Galactic battleships. Now I say," he squeaked, oblivious of the fact that no one was paying any attention, "that we must request Captain Glayne to leave immediately because his presence might be deemed an overt act by our friends, the Delbans. True, the Stellar Guardians—"

He was suddenly cut off by the staccato thunder of Dell Thorder's gavel. The chairman's thin, ascetic face wore a worried expression as his eyes swept the now silent Council. Of them all, he was the only man Glayne admired. For thirty years he had maneuvered the nine-planet Lorle Sector through the treacherous shoals of Combine politics and never once had the cry of "boss" or "dictator" seriously been raised against him.

"I must confess," he began quietly, "that I do not myself understand fully the implications of this situation. I do know that the fact that Imperial Terra has lost two large battleships is inconsequential. The real point is that the Terran Combine is facing imminent destruction at the hands of Gort Bro-Doral and his Delban Empire. Because we are Delb Sector's nearest neighbor, we may expect the first blow to fall on us. Since it is a known fact that the Intelligence Service of the Stellar Guardians is the finest in the galaxy, I have sent for Captain Glayne to explain certain of the technical aspects of the new Delban weapon in order that we may determine what action to take."

Thorder silently gestured to Glayne who arose and faced the hostile stares of the councilors. Their unexpressed antipathy was amusing rather than irritating. The meager little navy that Lorle Sector did possess drained away funds that could otherwise be used in their pork barrel. However, they all had something to worry about which Thorder hadn't mentioned. The Revolution which had smashed the Delb-Lorle Axis thirty years before had made Gort Bro-Doral a ruthless enemy who would not rest until his ships had utterly destroyed the Lorle cities in retaliation. So far they had depended upon Imperial Terra to support them against the Bro's passionate desire for power. But now the Terran navy was helpless and Lorle was in a desperate plight.

"What Dell Thorder told you is true," he began in a firm, clear voice. "Unfortunately it is an understatement because it implies that there is a possibility of discovering a counter-weapon to offset that of the Delbans. Such is not the case.

"For a long time we have been prone to think in terms of optimum sizes for warships. We were accustomed to believe that we had reached the pinnacle of development in destructive weapons. The fatal radiations of atomic generators and converters make it necessary to divert a part of the power into shields. These shields are limited in size by the ship size, and the ship size in turn is limited by the size of its power plant. But there is a point of diminishing returns—that is, we cannot build ships larger than the Galactic class battleships without losing efficiency. So for a long time we have believed that there was a limit to the amount of power available in any given class of warship.

"Unfortunately this no longer applies for the Delbans. As you have just seen on the tri-di film obtained by Stellar Guardian Intelligence, a single Stellar cruiser engaged and destroyed two Terran Galactics. This means, as Chairman Thorder has suggested, that the entire fleet strength of the nine hundred Sectors of the Terran Combine is now quite helpless against the Delban Grand Fleet."

Glayne paused for a moment. In spite of the room's air conditioning, many of the Councilors were mopping their faces anxiously. The one called Trask was chewing his lower lip nervously, not liking a bit what the tall Guardian officer had to say. Glayne felt a twinge of sympathy for his three hundred and fifty million constituents.

"The crux of the whole problem is the source of this new Delban power. Experts in our organization are absolutely certain that they are using broadcast power, but this information is based on the tri-di film you have seen which our agents have stolen from the Terran Admiralty Office at Lunaport. It may be a fake, but that is hardly likely. The implications of broadcast power are so tremendous as to defy reason. Even under the best laboratory conditions the power lost in transmission makes it impractical. Consequently any source which produces energies capable of smashing two Terran Galactic battleships at perhaps stellar distances is vast beyond conjecture. As incredible as this sounds, we believe that the Delbans have it. As to its precise nature, we are still in the dark. However, the Stellar Guardians, at least, are in a position to investigate."

Dell Thorder cleared his throat at this point and Glayne stopped.

"You see our position," said the weary Chairman. "Almost any countermeasure we attempt can be interpreted as an overt act by Bro-Doral. Hence any action on our part will make our ruin sooner instead of later. However, there is one thin possibility and that is Captain Glayne. It is true that he is a mercenary belonging to the Stellar Guardians. But Kairn's Intelligence vouches for him absolutely and I am informed that he is as competent as any man in the Lorle Fleet.

"Because of the peculiar nature of the Stellar Guardian organization, he can carry out investigations where any such move on our part would be suicidal. In my opinion, our only possible chance is to employ him in this capacity to locate the Delban power transmitter—if one exists. It is possible that an all-out attack with all the units we can muster will succeed in destroying it."

As Thorder finished, Glayne took a deep breath. He stood motionless by the immense circular table. He knew that the Councilors, like all small planet men, were impressed with his great shoulders and their suggestion of tremendous physical strength. But if they knew what torment he had to endure under high driver thrust as a result of his great size, they wouldn't be so impressed.

Dell Thorder coughed. "Captain Glayne, would you mind stepping into the outer room while we take a vote? We will inform you directly."

Glayne nodded silently and left the Chamber. Disregarding the anteroom's soft chairs, he stood against the wall, waiting. His space-tanned face hardened as he looked thoughtfully from the glassene window at the jewel-like city of Lorle Capital, a dazzling white under the noon sun. Mentally he pictured the sleek Delban cruisers flashing overhead in fast orbits, pouring phenomenal torrents of energy into the pathetic shield the city would attempt to set up. The Lorle High Council would trust him. In the end, even Trask would. They were all rabbits looking around desperately for someone to defend them. They would hire him; they would pat him on the back and shake his hand; they would make him solemnly swear the Guardian Oath to struggle against all their enemies. And Glayne would promise to do all of these things.

But he would lie.

He would do none of these things. Instead he would do all in his power to bring war to Lorle. He would commit an overt act against the Delbans and they would cry for Lorle blood. Their fast, sleek ships would deal out death and destruction to the very cities which he would swear ever so solemnly to defend to his last breath. With a coldly objective part of his mind he marveled at the consummate treachery he would perform.

But another part of his mind was aghast. He was unable to suppress the bitter waves of remorse that filled him. Again he remembered the serious, heavy-jowled face of Garstow, Grand Admiral of the Stellar Guardians. In the Dorleb Headquarters, only forty hours before, Garstow had said: "Glayne, we need time. Some Sector must be thrown to the wolves. While the Delbans are occupied with that unfortunate Sector, we will have time to unravel their broadcast scramblers, build antennae of our own, and perhaps even locate their power transmitter. The Policy Organ has decided upon Lorle Sector. And it has decided that you, Glayne, are the man for the job."

Glayne had listened in stunned silence to Garstow. A protest rose automatically to his lips but he had crushed it back with a click of his booted heels. And now here he was in Lorle Capital with his Stellar class cruiser Algol ready for action. When the fat men with rabbit eyes emerged from the Council Chamber and empowered him to work for them, he would be ready to move. A sudden raid on Delban space commerce, an energy bomb hurtling into a Delban city from a stolen Lorle warship—any one of a dozen expedients would have the ruthless Gort Bro-Doral screaming down on the helpless cities of Lorle.

As he stared at the afternoon brilliance of Lorle Capital he realized that his treachery was an ironic manifestation of a greater loyalty. People forgot that the Stellar Guardians were dedicated to the ideal of human progress. The great mercenary organization recognized the inevitability of war and determined that wars should be fought according to rules. But the Delbans were now in a position to flout all rules and destroy all human progress. Hence all rules were forgotten and ruthless treachery was the order of the day as every resource was exploited to crush Gort Bro-Doral and his Delban Empire.

Then the door of the Council Chamber opened and Dell Thorder stepped into the anteroom. He faced Glayne silently for a moment, lines of weariness etched in his tired, old face.

Then he thrust out his hand and said simply: "We wish you the best of luck, Glayne."

The Guardian Captain took the outstretched hand and almost winced at the trust he saw in Thorder's eyes. The weight of the crushing responsibility bowed down the Chairman's frail shoulders, but he seemed to burn with an indomitable determination to defend his people. He was not a rabbit but a warrior. And Glayne was going to betray him.

"I'll do my best," he said in quick, husky tones.

He felt like a swine as he closed the door behind him.

III

It was a second-class night spot called The Yarga. Glayne would meet the Stellar Guardian espionage chief for the Lorle Sector here. As he stood at the entrance bar absorbing the customary drink prior to entering the first stage, he swept the place with cold grey eyes. Evidently the city commission of Lorle Capital was going through a phase of puritanism because the deadly Kesla lights were absent and the swirling strains of the reportedly jawth-fed orchestra were considerably toned down. Nevertheless, the general impression was quite sufficiently exotic to suit Glayne as he entered the dimly-lit first stage.

Vaguely he was aware of the less restrained laughter of patrons who had already reached the second stage, having passed through the vibrator screen that simulated a soothing color movement. The function of the vibrator was to give jaded sensibilities the physical fillip necessary to convince reluctant laggards that they really were ready for the second stage. Glayne was also aware of his table's slight movement toward the vibrator screen and he felt a wave of irritation at the prospect of chasing through nine stages in this outlandish place looking for his contact.

Suddenly the annunciator light in the center of his table began to glow an intermittent red-orange. Glayne looked at it, eyes narrowed. Experimentally he stabbed its speaker stud and a voice seemed to emerge from the empty air before his face.

"Captain, you look so lonely and disconsolate sitting by yourself. Won't you join me?" It was a woman's voice, low and casual. Glayne was briefly startled—he had expected that his contact would be a man. Then it occurred to him that she was not his contact, but that doubt vanished when he remembered that he had discarded his uniform for the light grey business jumper of a young business executive. How could she know him for a Captain in the Stellar Guardians unless she was his contact?

On the other hand, she had not made herself known with the code which had been selected beforehand. Puzzled and suspicious, he flicked the transmitter stud and said cautiously: "Where are you?"

"You can't miss me, darling," she replied. "Just stand up."

Glayne hesitated, hefting the heavy, comforting weight of the Cardy blaster under his arm-pit. With a shrug he tossed off the remnants of the blue-green borse which stirred lambently in the exquisite goblet. Then he stood up.

She was perfectly correct. He couldn't miss her from ten light years, much less thirty feet. She was tall and graceful in a tailored green jumper which half suggested, half concealed the long, smooth curves of her young body. She had coppery red hair and wide-set green eyes that smiled boldly at him. She rested a hand on her hip in mock impatience.

"Well, don't just stand there, fat-head!" she cried across the tables. "What do you usually do when you haven't seen someone for years and years?"

With an effort Glayne collected himself, assayed a weak smile, and maneuvered around the tables to her side.

"Oh, you look perfectly gorgeous," she said, oblivious to the amused people around her. "Dance with me—you always were a divine dancer. You know, I was telling Jani just today how I wished you'd come for a visit—we haven't seen you for such a long time...."

She prattled gaily on. Somewhat dazed, Glayne led her to the resilient dance floor, an absurdity which had suddenly become the very latest rage overnight. The girl slipped smoothly into his arms, her fragrant, perfumed hair under his chin.

He wasn't at all prepared for the hard tones of her voice when she said: "I regret to inform you, Captain Glayne, that the agent you were supposed to meet here is dead. He had an unfortunate accident with a Cardy gun."

Glayne stiffened perceptibly. "Who did it?"

"Probably Delban espionage. They know that something is in the fire and they're not wearing kid gloves to find out what it is."

"Did they discover the identity of the person he was supposed to meet?"

"No," she replied. "But they're looking. Fortunately the organization was not in the dark as to whom he would meet. Otherwise I could never have found you."

Glayne's eyes narrowed. Too many people knew what was going on. That made it very dangerous. But what made it even more dangerous was the fact that he himself did not know what was going on. Agents of three organizations were involved in the search for information and the tangled maze of plots would be deadly for anyone caught in the middle. He was silent for a moment, battle-trained senses sifting his surroundings instinctively. Something ... somewhere ... was odd.

"If you will notice their eyes," the girl remarked dryly, "you will find that a good proportion of the Yarga's clientele are high on Soames drug."

Glayne started and looked more closely at the couples entering the stage. Then he saw what she meant. Here and there he saw eyes—burning eyes—eyes that glittered with a brilliant fire that emanated from huge, dilated pupils. They were using the marvelous Soames energizing drug; it fairly blazed from their slitted lids. Its purpose was to accelerate physical reaction speeds—but why use it on a small planet like Lorle IV? With the question came the answer. Their quarry had the .95 reaction index of a big-planet man. That was Glayne's index. And that meant that they were right on top of him.

"I think," he intoned softly to the girl, "it would be wise for us to move on to the next stage."

In reply she slipped smoothly from his arms, seized him by the sleeve of his loose-fitting jumper, and propelled him to the tingle screen. When he balked she grinned at him and stood in the field of the screen herself and laughed at him. It was a bubbly, elated laugh. Glayne liked it. And he liked the way the soothing color movements of the tingle screen caressed the long curves of her figure. But he didn't like the nervous manner in which the glittering, dilated pupils flickered at them and held them curiously, then flickered casually away.

The girl was clever, he realized. The keyed-up Delban agents would be far less likely to suspect an intoxicated couple of dark designs. Suddenly the red-headed girl stumbled, accidentally pushed from the other side of the screen. Instinctively Glayne reached out to steady her—reached out with a long, liquid motion of his powerful arm. In one instant every Soames-dilated eye in the room was upon him. In another, Cardy guns were magically appearing in a dozen hands.

But, fast as they were, Glayne was faster. He drew his own weapon with blurred speed, fired, and flung himself and the girl through the screen into the second stage. The Delban agents hesitated to fire blindly through the screen and rushed after them. The big Guardian hurtled through the exotic darkness of the second stage with the girl in his left arm. He scattered and smashed tables right and left, littering the floor with bewildered and drunken patrons.

The exit toward which he was heading was suddenly no longer an exit. It was filled with a crowd of huge, glittering eyes and wicked looking Cardy guns. In a single movement, Glayne dropped to the floor and fired.

The second stage was in an uproar. Now agents were pouring through the tingle screen in pursuit. Desperately Glayne sought for a means of escape. Then he saw the portal that evidently led to the kitchen or the bar. He grabbed the dazed red-head and rushed through the portal, swept down a short corridor, turned, and straight-armed two tray-bearing waiters as he dashed through a second portal. And suddenly he was behind the entrance bar where he had taken his first drink. He tensed for a fraction of a second, then vaulted the low bar.

A bartender and two customers stared at them with blank amazement but there was not a Delban agent in sight. Swiftly Glayne set the girl upon her feet and together they fled from the building. He noted approvingly the capable-looking Cardy she held in her small fist.

"My flier is outside," he said. "They've probably surrounded the place, but in the confusion the ones outside won't know us. We'll try to bluff through."

She nodded and put her gun away. As they approached the flier parking area she clutched his arm with intoxicated possessiveness. Glayne was right; here and there a Delban agent glanced at them suspiciously—then looked contemptuously away. The object of their search was alone. Controlling his heavy breathing with difficulty, Glayne approached an attendant, digging out his micro-wave key jewel.

"Here! Get my air-jet," he panted.

But instead of the expected response, the man stiffened for a measureless instant, then whirled with blurred speed. A Cardy blaster magically materialized in his hand and his eyes burned with Soames-induced ferocity. But Glayne was a shade faster. His left streaked with dazzling speed into the agent's stomach and the Delban folded up, his motor nerves paralyzed from the blow in the solar plexus.

Crouching, they ran toward Glayne's air-jet. A Cardy bolt splashed into the side of a flier just above Glayne's head, battering the tough beralloy and sending a shower of white hot droplets in all directions. As they reached his air-jet, Glayne whirled and fired rapidly and with murderous accuracy at the pursuing Delban agents. As they scuttled for cover, Glayne turned and waved the talisman through the micro-wave field and the door swung open.

Instantly he shoved the girl into the cabin, then climbed in behind her. He let the tiny atomic engine thunder beyond audibility, then fed power to the jets in huge gulps. With a tremendous surge the little craft leaped into the air and roared over the roof of the Yarga. A couple of Delban energy bolts slapped viciously into the air-jet, but soon Glayne out-distanced them, flying low over the dark countryside.

The girl sighed beside him. "This has been a very warm evening. Do you think they'll catch us?"

"I don't think they're organized that well," Glayne grunted, busy with the course-computer. "Their whole assault was hasty and ill-timed. I doubt if they even had time to set up an air net."

"But, now that they are out in the open, they will move quickly. Do you have a specific plan in mind, Captain Glayne?"

The Guardian frowned and cast a quick glance at her. He was puzzled by her insistence. "My Flagship, the Algol, is maneuvered into a fast orbit behind inert detector screens. About ninety miles out. I've just set course to intercept her before we hit dayside."

In reply the girl bent past his shoulder toward the luminous figures which floated in the dial of the computer, announcing the course. The delicate lines of her face were hard in the faint light. Again Glayne felt a twinge of uneasiness and it was not dispelled by the soft touch of her body against his.

"What is your name?" he asked belatedly, trying to make out the features of her face in the dim light from the instrument panel.

She chuckled in the darkness and he fancied he heard a note of triumph. "Lieutenant Niala Chodred," she said. "Espionage Bureau of Imperial Terra. At your service, Captain."

Of Imperial Terra! The words fairly blazed in Glayne's consciousness. His hand shot like lightning for the Cardy in his arm-pit holster, then stopped in mid-motion as he became aware of a hard, cylindrical object thrust into his ribs. It was her tiny Cardy blaster.

Through the waves of chagrin and impotent fury that surged up within him, Glayne heard her say mockingly: "Guardian warriors are supposed to function like machines when on missions, aren't they, Captain? Since when are machines rattled by pretty girls?"

The lines on Glayne's face deepened but he said nothing. Her taunting rebuke was well-deserved. He had certainly lacked the emotionless precision which was the Guardian ideal. But the mere fact that he had been caught napping was inconsequential beside the implications of her presence as a Terran agent. How much did Terra know? The question hammered urgently in Glayne's mind.

Even as it flashed through his head, he heard her amused voice say: "In time of crisis, Captain Glayne, the Stellar Guardians invariably throw allies and friends to the dogs in order to gain time. This is common knowledge. So all we had to do was determine the direction of the Guardian move. We immediately thought of Lorle. And we even thought that you might be the man the Guardians would send, Glayne, because we have a complete file on your activities for the past ten years. We know that you have been on good terms with Delban brass since that successful exploring job you performed at Jorger Sun, five years ago."

With growing horror, Glayne listened to her unfold the deepest Guardian secrets—derived by Terran Espionage through simple induction. What a fool he had been for trusting her even for a minute! Unless he could stop her, she could utterly destroy all Guardian hopes to overcome the Delbans. His great body tensed as he stared at her from the corner of his eye, watching for the slightest sign of inattention.

"Glayne," she continued, in a hard, objective voice with no trace of amusement, "Imperial Terra is not itself adverse to a policy of throwing someone to the dogs in order to gain time. But we want to give the dogs someone who can put up a fight. Poor Lorle would not be much of a match for Gort Bro-Doral and she wouldn't gain us much time. But the Stellar Guardians would. In fact, the Stellar Guardians themselves will commit the overt act—with a little help."

The Guardian Captain was stunned at the very audacity of her plan. He had to admit that its logic was undeniable. But how could she possibly seek to accomplish such an incredible feat as forcing the Guardians into a suicidal attack upon the Delbans? Unless....

Then his worst suspicions were realized as she said: "The Ganser mind-conditioning treatments will not harm your essential-ego, Captain Glayne. But, if you struggle against them, your mind will be shattered and you will be left an idiot when the effects wear off."

A cold thrill of fear caressed Glayne's spine as he heard her words. The brutal, tearing fingers of the horrible mind-conditioner devised by the Delban Espionage Chief, Hoteh Ganser, would change his goals and values in the space of only a few hours. What seemed to him irrational now would be the height of reason after his conditioning. As the ramifications of Imperial Terra's plot came clear to him, Glayne realized with increasing urgency that he simply had to overcome the girl.

"You may be sure that your attack on Sterle II will not be in vain," came the girl's brittle tones. "Admiral Bardled will station units of the Imperial Terran Fleet in hyper-space with the purpose of cracking the wave length of the broadcast power and locating its source.

"Our plan is much cleaner and nobler than yours, is it not, Captain Glayne? You Stellar Guardians are all hard, ruthless fighters. You can take care of yourselves. But poor little Lorle wouldn't have a chance. Don't you agree, Captain? Don't you find it heroic to sacrifice yourself to the Delban dog pack to gain time for the rest of the galaxy?"

Glayne ignored the mockery in her voice. A sudden wave of bitter anger swept over him at the presumptuous manner in which they were all bent upon throwing one another to the dogs. Surely they were not so tactically poverty-stricken that they could not conceive of a better plot which would not demand such a tremendous sacrifice of human life.

Suddenly, almost without warning, the tiny spark of rebellion within him blazed up in hot determination. To hell with Garstow and the Stellar Guardian Policy Organ. To hell with Admiral Bardled and the Terran fleet. To hell with everyone. The vague suggestion of a plan was forming in the recesses of his mind, breath-taking in its audacity and possibly, just possibly workable.

But what of the girl? To think about overpowering her was one thing; actually doing it was another. She had already killed one Guardian earlier this evening, he presumed. She would not hesitate to kill another. That meant that he would have to meet cunning with cunning.

"You don't mind if I smoke one last cigar while I am still in control of my essential-ego, do you?" he asked, trying to match her mocking, satirical mood. "I don't believe the Ganser-personality enjoys tobacco as much as the average Guardian Captain."

She alerted instantly, but the Cardy didn't waver the least fraction of an inch. "You are not the average Guardian Captain," she said in a strange, low voice. "But go ahead and smoke."

Fleetingly Glayne wondered what she had meant, then he let the thought flicker away as he concentrated on his cigar. He reached for the radio-active on the instrument panel, flicking it so that its coal gleamed into gradual dull red life. She was watching him like a hawk, he knew, and smiled inwardly. The closer the better. Idly he began to hum a snatch of melody, a curious thing arranged in minors. It was peculiarly suited to his unsteady bass. He waved the radio-active in his hand in slow, sweeping circles in time to his humming.

Smoothly he ignited his cigar, puffing the semi-narcotic smoke in thick clouds. He hummed louder, his voice pushing the deep, wailing dirge into the cabin. It acted like a drug, throwing everything into slow time. It numbed the sensibilities and dulled acute perceptions.

Ever so gently and smoothly Glayne turned his head and glanced at the girl. His scheme had worked. Her eyes automatically followed the circles he described with the radio-active in his hand. She was lulled into a near-hypnotic condition.

In a single jump, Glayne seized the hand in which she held the Cardy gun. She reacted instantly, but not quite fast enough to wrest the weapon from his hand. Like a spring under great pressure she exploded into writhing, clawing, kicking, biting action. Her savage ferocity so startled Glayne that he nearly lost the weapon to her. As he sought to fend her off with one hand and throw the weapon away with the other, he felt her nails sink agonizingly into the side of his face. Gasping, he finally got rid of the weapon, then drew back his fist and slugged her with a short, jabbing punch.

Panting, he recovered from the struggle. Suddenly he became aware of the peculiar angle of flight of the air-jet. It was shrieking down on its stubby fins toward the planet's surface. Somehow the Terran girl had kicked off the robot control. As he righted the craft and reoriented the course, he became aware of the girl's brooding eyes on him.

"You are very clever, Captain Glayne," she said. "Perhaps one might even say courageous. A heavy planet man like yourself should not risk himself with such reckless bravery in a physical struggle with a small planet individual."

Glayne was stung by her rebuke, but he was even more startled at her bitterness. She was an espionage agent and she knew the risks and hazards involved. Certainly she was not whining at her defeat.

"How do you propose to fake the overt act, Captain?" she continued in a light, conversational tone.

Glayne was grimly aware of the accusation in her words but he said nothing. She had a right to be bitter, he realized. Ironically, she was going to get her way after all, though she didn't know it yet. He grinned mirthlessly at her, the cigar clenched between his teeth.

She was beautiful, but especially so in the resentment that was mirrored in her features. Glayne was suddenly very sorry that she had killed the Guardian agent he was supposed to meet. Otherwise he would have liked very much to have known her.

IV

The nine-hundred-foot bulk of the Stellar class cruiser Algol loomed hugely over the little air-jet as Glayne maneuvered it into the gaping reception maw in the cruiser's belly. The craft's slight lurch as it came to rest just inside the lock awoke the Terran girl who had fallen asleep.

Glayne sighed, glancing at her. She stared back at him coolly. He shook his head and said, "That green outfit of yours will just have to go, Lieutenant Chodred. Crew's morale, you know."

Her eyes widened in sudden dismay. "But ... but surely you don't want me to—"

He grinned. "You will have to wear a crew jumper." Glancing again at her graceful figure, he made a mental note: it would have to be an over-size jumper—several sizes over.

Stiffly they climbed from the little air-jet and propelled themselves weightlessly to the elevator. Seconds later its door slid open and they were on the navigation bridge. Glayne took the girl's arm and escorted her around the bulking computers and auxiliary boards to the Captain's Station.

Graysen, the grizzled old Executive Officer, snapped to attention and delivered a brisk salute. Glayne acknowledged it absently, his attention absorbed primarily in a hasty inspection of the bridge. Then he became aware of the intent stares of Graysen and the other officers. Those who were not gawking at Niala Chodred were staring hard at his cheek, obviously striving not to laugh.

Puzzled, Glayne felt his cheek, then glanced at his hand. There was blood on it. He suddenly recalled the two long red welts inflicted by the Terran agent's fingernails and realized that his officers were drawing the obvious inferences. Abruptly he was stung with chagrin and pictured the juicy tidbit of gossip which he had just supplied gunroom scuttlebutt throughout the Guardian Fleet. Exasperated at his own lack of foresight, he stared back at his officers, browbeating them into submission with his stony gaze.

"Morning, Captain," drawled Graysen, breaking the embarrassed silence.

"Good morning, Commander," returned Glayne. "Stoke her up. Set an orbit for Sterle II. Incidentally, this is Lieutenant Niala Chodred of Imperial Terran Espionage. I met her instead of our own agent. He had an unfortunate accident with a Cardy gun—I'm told."

Glayne glanced significantly at the girl. Graysen nodded understandingly and raised a quizzical eyebrow in Niala's direction. She looked from one to the other, mystified.

Then sudden understanding registered on her features. "Glayne!" she cried in a horrified tone, "I didn't kill him! Terran Espionage had nothing to do with his death. He was murdered by the Delbans and we found out by bribing one of Kairn's men that he was supposed to make contact with an unknown Guardian big gun at the Yarga. We knew he was to meet you but the Delbans didn't. That's the only reason you escaped them, Captain Glayne. The Delbans murdered your contact agent but I had nothing to do with it. You must believe me!"

Glayne smiled cynically at her and said, "Of course, Lieutenant Chodred, we believe you." He brusquely turned his back on her and said to Graysen, "You will have to move in with one of the other officers, Commander. Just temporarily, of course."

"Aye, sir," replied Graysen.

Presently the navigation bridge was filled with hurrying men. The orbit computers began to clatter noisily and somewhere within the depths of the ship a keening whine indicated that the huge driver atomics were being warmed.

"What acceleration, Captain?" Graysen asked, appearing with a sheaf of orbit calculations.

Glayne was on the point of saying three G's out of deference to Niala Chodred and her light planet birth. But he thrust her from his mind as he realized that speed was of the utmost importance. High acceleration meant speed and speed meant time saved. Time to carry out his bold scheme, time to locate and sabotage the mysterious Delban power broadcast, time to build the mesh antennae and energize the Stellar Guardian fleet....

His face hardened grimly. "Five G's," he said shortly.

Doubt flickered for an instant across Graysen's face as he glanced at the girl. Then he shrugged and turned away to comply with the order.

Silently Glayne took Niala Chodred's arm and descended to the next deck. As the first traces of a floor appeared under their feet, he opened the door to Graysen's quarters. It was furnished with the Spartan simplicity of a typical warrior. Trophies and a few rather gruesome battle prints decorated the bulkheads. Niala examined the room curiously but preserved a hurt silence.

He showed her the acceleration hammocks and how to use the anti-thrust drugs in their small surettes.

"If you need me," he said, "I will be in the cabin at the end of the corridor."

She looked at him with mock surprise. "What? No connecting door? Really, Captain, you've shattered all my girlish illusions about the Stellar Guardians."

Glayne paused, his hand on the door stud. He turned around and said, "I want to wake up tomorrow without suffering an accident with a Cardy gun." He closed the door behind him.

By the time he reached the navigation bridge again, the Algol had built up to five G's. To Glayne, accustomed to the heavy Dorleb planets, this was a little more than twice normal.

Young Brodis, the ship's Intelligence Officer, approached him and saluted. "I beg your pardon, sir. Communications just handed these over to me—I thought you might be interested." He extended a sheaf of flimsies to Glayne.

The big Guardian examined them, eyes narrowed. They were transcripts of an official Lorle news bulletin. Rapidly he read:

Intelligence Chief Kairn announced tonight the death of Carling Clawdor, allegedly an espionage agent of the Stellar Guardians. It is believed that he was to contact another agent or agents at the Yarga night club this evening. Prior to his death by Cardy burns, Clawdor accused Delban agents.

Intelligence Chief Kairn also revealed that a raid carried out on the Yarga night club failed to apprehend the Guardian agents. Just before their arrival a spectacular gun battle took place. Investigation is still proceeding, Kairn announced, indicating that ...

Silently Glayne handed the flimsies back to Brodis, chewing his lower lip. It was incredible that Kairn should reveal such confidential information. Obviously the Lorle Intelligence Chief was taking no chances on provoking an incident which the Delbans could twist into a pretext for war. But an even more important fact came clear to Glayne: Niala Chodred had not murdered Clawdor. He was very glad that she was innocent of the Guardian agent's death. Unconsciously he framed the apology he would make to her as he climbed with an effort into the Captain's Dome and lowered himself into its gimbal-slung shock seat.

Far off to his left the globe of Lorle IV shrunk visibly. Again the mental picture of the Delban warships streaking over those short horizons in fast orbits flashed across his mind and he imagined them pouring their inconceivable torrents of energy into the unprotected cities. At least, he thought, he wouldn't be guilty of that crime. But what was the real chance of the wild scheme and its attendant insubordination which he had conceived in the air-jet?

For a long time he pondered it. No matter how much he rationalized, it was still insubordination and it lay heavily on his mind. Suddenly he was shaky and he realized that he held the fate of the civilized galaxy in his hands. If he blundered, would that not be a greater crime than the mere sacrifice of Lorle? Glayne could not resolve the question and he was vaguely glad that decision was no longer in his hands and he could not turn back if he wanted to.

The Algol emerged from sub-space four hundred million kilometers below the plane of the ecliptic in the Sterle System. With her identity signals broadcasting at full power, she changed course, veering "upward" toward the second planet of Sterle's small brood of five.

The faint beams of the distant red dwarf sun shed a sickly glow on the navigation bridge through the huge glassene ports. Shortly after her arrival the Algol was picked up by two fast and deadly Delban destroyers of the Planet class. Almost delicate in their unobtrusiveness, they slipped in on either side of the Algol and escorted her swiftly to the capital planet of the Delban Empire, Sterle II.

"There's one consolation, anyway," Graysen remarked to his chief as they stood before the glassene ports. "They don't seem to have fitted out their whole fleet with receiving antennae yet."

Glayne nodded, flipping on the small auxiliary battle screen at his side. Expertly he manipulated the viewer until one of the rakish Delban warships ballooned up mightily on its plate. The tell-tale coppery mesh antenna was absent.

"That is fortunate," Glayne grunted dourly. "But there is the possibility that these ships may be too small for the installation."

The Delbans began to decelerate and the Algol's pilot hastily imitated them. Faintly Glayne made out the tiny red ball that was Sterle II. Uneasily Glayne realized that he had better go over the plan once more with Niala Chodred. Next to himself, the Terran girl's part was the most important. He grunted at Graysen to take over and descended to her quarters. He knocked twice perfunctorily and entered the room.

Niala smiled up at him, pleased at his visit. "How much longer now, Captain?"

Glayne looked down at her, marveling at the failure of her absurdly huge jumper in concealing the long, smooth curves of her body. Her hair was a varied mass of copper and gold which gleamed with a subtle display of half tones. In the cabin's fluorescents Glayne noted for the first time that she had once been the owner of a saddle of freckles across her nose. Now only one or two were left which contrasted deliciously with the smoothness of her face. Glayne felt a sudden desire to jet down on Sterle Capital like the legendary buccaneers and ransack the best dress shops to outfit her properly.

"Well?" she said.

"Huh?" said Glayne foolishly. Then he collected his wandering thoughts and replied, "Oh, yes. We're being escorted in now. We'll be down in a couple of hours. I wanted to make a last minute check of the plan."

"Ahh," she replied, stretching with devastating effect in the heavy jumper. "We've done this so many times, Captain. But really they're very entertaining."

"I'm glad you like them," said Glayne dryly. "You should because the plan is substantially the one you would have had me carry out under a Ganser-personality."

She colored, then regained control of her vascular motors and recited the plan in a sing-song monotone: "We jet down at Sterle Capital. You and I attend the informal reception. Commander Graysen remains with the Algol along with Lieutenant Harbin. But precisely at twenty-one hundred Standard, Harbin and twenty men leave the ship, ostensibly on liberty. At twenty-one fifteen, you and I attempt to maneuver Gort Bro-Doral and General Ganser together in conversation. At that moment Lieutenant Harbin will land on the roof of the palace, attacking the guards there. Then we will hustle the two Delbans into the elevator, take them to the roof, and escape with Harbin in the flier. In the meantime Graysen will have blasted off in the Algol; we will intercept him twenty miles over Topo Gulf."

"Exactly," Glayne said. "Everything is going well so far. We've just received permission to land a liberty party so we don't have to worry about that anymore."

He took some hand-drawn maps from the case in his hand. "Brodis and I made these from memory and a little inside information—one of the palace, one of the roof, and one of the grounds. The whole thing depends upon whether they are using an old style one-way shield. If so, we can get out all right. Otherwise we're finished."

She nodded and bent over the maps. Glayne bit the end off of a cigar, then lit it meticulously. He smiled quizzically at the girl. "How's your courage?" he asked.

Her wide green eyes looked up thoughtfully into his. "I've seen some shoe-string deals pulled before, but Captain, I'll have to award you the prize—never one as thin and short as this."

Glayne felt a sudden fear and a sudden hunger as he looked at her. He could not bear the thought of failure—and the consequent fate of Niala Chodred. His cheek twitched nervously and he reached for her, gathering her into his powerful arms and drawing her face to his. Her breath was hot against his cheek and he could feel her heart pounding heavily against his chest. Willingly she responded to his kisses.

"Here's to luck," he breathed.

"And plenty of it," she replied.

V

Try as he might, Glayne could never accustom himself to these Sectors which lay far out on the edge of the galaxy. Neighboring stars were hundreds of light years apart while the great belt of stars that was in the Main Galaxy revealed itself only as a faint haze twenty thousand light years distant. He could not shake off the loneliness that settled over him like a shroud, separating him from everything he knew. He was accustomed to the vast star clouds of Sagittarius; it was there he had spent the first ten years of his Guardianship.

A dry and thirsty wind seemed to suck the moisture from his body as he waited by the after lock with Niala. It swept across the hard surface of the space-port and sang dolefully around the mass of the grounded Algol; it even seemed to characterize the Delbans themselves. A lonely people out on this forsaken edge of the galaxy, they hungered and thirsted after wealth and power. The Guardian sympathized with them to some extent, yet at the same time realized the awful threat to civilization they represented with the mysterious, titanic broadcast power at their disposal.

Again Glayne felt inner qualms as he considered the odds against them. Grimly he crushed them out and touched with almost superstitious reverence the tiny blaster at his hip—for ornamental purposes only. More confidently he hefted the weight of the heavy Cardy at his arm-pit.

The small surface-jet which had set out for the Algol immediately after the mushrooming blasts of its landing jets subsided now drew up at the tiny waiting dock formed by the Algol's after lock. The lack of formality, Glayne knew, was as blatant an insult as the Delbans could manage. He smiled mirthlessly to himself. They couldn't please him more if they tried. The less pomp and ceremony attached to him, the more smoothly his plan would work.

A single Delban emerged from the surface-jet, evidently a civilian judging from his dress. He was incredibly tall and thin and made Glayne very uncomfortable because he had to tilt his head back to get a good look at him.

"Captain Glayne," began the emissary in a high, sighing nasal, "on behalf of His Imperial Excellency, Ruler of Ten Thousand Suns, Master of the Cosmos, and Supreme Overlord of the Delban Empire, Gort Bro-Doral, I humbly welcome you to Sterle II." He bowed very low.

Glayne, nervously anticipating almost anything, could hardly restrain his laughter at this comic pomposity. It was quite out of place in the desolate, curiously-deserted space-port. He and Niala entered the rear compartment of the surface car and sunk back in the luxurious cushions. Their Delban guide tooled it with expert ease from the space-port and down a traffic artery toward the bright blob on the horizon that was Sterle Capital.

In minutes, it seemed, they were pausing for the first guard check along the private road that led to the Bro's fabulous palace. Glayne had been there once before, five years ago. They passed two more guard checks. For a minute Glayne thought they were safely on the palace grounds, only to be disillusioned by another, and this time very close, guard check.

The weapons' detector emitted a raucous buzz when they came into its field. Suspiciously the guards stared at them, their weapons leveled. Seeing the tiny toy at Glayne's hip, they smiled and passed them on with contemptuous nods.

What a hell of a mess, he thought to himself. It was too late to back out. In another hour Harbin would be on his way to the palace—and right into a hive of trigger-happy guards. One faint consolation was their contempt which would render them more vulnerable to the surprise attack he planned. But on the whole it looked pretty grim. He suppressed his unhappy thoughts as the surface-jet drew up at last beneath a gigantic, arched entrance.

Niala squeezed his hand bravely, casting a quick smile at him.

Heartened by her display of courage, he climbed from the little jet car and followed the escorting Delban down a long series of luxuriously furnished corridors. Eventually they turned off into an enormous reception room brilliantly illuminated by chandeliers of priceless Tharna crystals. Tremendous tapestries hung along the wall, depicting ancient, pre-spaceship battle scenes. A score or so of guests stood about the huge room, all of them quite obviously in very advanced stages of drunkenness. Quite cheerfully they spilled drinks on the priceless jrik carpets or on the equally priceless marl Shanzi-wood furnishings.

Glayne was puzzled by all the intoxication. As he speculated, it suddenly occurred to him that they were celebrating. Quite obviously they believed that they had won a victory of some sort in the diplomatic call by the Stellar Guardian Algol. Glayne had to agree that it was a logical conclusion and resolved to exploit their mistaken belief as far as possible.

The first person to be presented to Glayne and Niala was General Hoteh Ganser. He was hopelessly drunk. Glayne knew the pop-eyed Delban Espionage Chief only by reputation; he was rather disappointed at the dried and withered figure he cut. Nevertheless he was pleased to see the Delban in an intoxicated condition; he could be more easily handled.

"The Bro will arrive presently," their guide informed them. Affairs of state prevented his presence at the moment. Meanwhile they were introduced to a number of curious and intoxicated guests—high-ranking, Glayne gathered, from the monotonous repetition of titles.

Then General Ganser was before them again, accompanied by another Delban in a brilliant uniform surmounted by a gaudy, flowing cape. He was aristocratic and condescending in his demeanor and a smile played about his eyes and dry lips.

"May I present His Excellency, Gort Bro-Doral ... Captain Glayne of the Stellar Guardians," introduced Ganser. His eyes were owlish with forced dignity. Gort Bro-Doral waved him away with a careless sweep of his arm and bowed politely to Glayne.

"I think we met several years ago, Captain. Am I right? But of course. Won't you and your ... er ... lady have a drink?"

Glayne colored angrily. Yes, they would have a drink. He glanced casually at his wrist-chrono. Twenty minutes ... just twenty minutes before Harbin would be down on the roof.

He sipped slowly at the huge cup of borse which the Bro had personally ladled out for him, letting its blue-green smoothness ease his parched throat and his nervousness. Niala, at his sign, slipped away and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of the outlanders, General Ganser at the head. They knew a good thing when they saw it, Glayne reflected wryly.

Gort Bro-Doral eyed him with amusement across the mammoth borse bowl. "Now really, Captain, why did you come here? Surely not to inform us of the decision of your sacred Policy Organ?" The Ruler of Ten Thousand Suns emitted an odd, explosive noise that corresponded to laughter.

To the Delban leader's question Glayne replied cautiously, "The Guardians have landed on their feet in every major crisis for the last thousand years. Perhaps we want to land feet-first this time."

"That is quite understandable, Captain," replied Gort Bro-Doral, cautious in his turn.

"When one side in a battle has unlimited strength," Glayne continued, "the wise man has no difficulty in deciding whom he will support. That is similar to our own position, Your Excellency."

Again Bro-Doral produced his strange, whinnying laugh. "Really, Captain, you amaze me. The future Delban Empire cannot tolerate such things as mercenary armies and space fleets—nor do we need such organizations to win our battles now. But, if you could bring yourself to the point of forgetting your traditions and other related paraphernalia of which you are so fond, then there is a possibility that you might be absorbed into the Delban Space Navy. Of course, you would have to submit to our commands—but that's understandable...."

Glayne exulted inwardly. The Bro simply saw them begging for a crumb of the spoils—he enjoyed his power to humiliate the Stellar Guardians. But what he didn't see, contrary to the old adage, was going to trim his scrawny neck. Where were Niala and Ganser? A minute to go!

"Your conditions are rather harsh, Your Excellency," he said, looking around for Niala. "But perhaps tomorrow...?"

"Yes. Tomorrow by all means, Captain. And it will be a formal occasion this time." Again Bro-Doral produced his explosive laugh, glancing obliquely at Glayne from beneath lowered eyelids. Amusement at the Guardian's plight bubbled in the depths of his otherwise fathomless black eyes.

A sudden series of shocks made the floor shudder and Glayne's heart jumped to his throat. Harbin had struck! Out of the corner of his eye he perceived Niala thrusting a big, black Cardy into Ganser's back, concealing it beneath his cape. Glayne drew his own and thrust it into Bro-Doral's ribs.

"Keep laughing, damn you!" Glayne instructed. "Walk to the roof elevator—casually." Glayne's eyes flickered rapidly about the room. Niala was right behind him with the staggering and nonplussed General Ganser. He thrust his weapon into the fold of his jumper before it could be seen. Repeated tremors shook the floor—Harbin must be digging them out with a secondary Kellander, he thought fleetingly.

"You must be insane!" choked the Master of the Cosmos. "The roof guards—the palace guards and my own personal men will blast you down before you can set a foot outside this room!"

"Just—keep—laughing!" Glayne said, emphasizing every word. One or two of the guests looked at them curiously as they approached the massive doors, then turned away indifferently. The trembling had ceased. That meant that Harbin had cleared away the immediate defenses—but Glayne knew it would be a race with the reinforcements.

The doors were opened before them by attendants—slowly and with agonizing dignity. Two hawk-eyed Delban guards glanced at them sharply as they entered the corridor that led to the Bro's private apartment and the crucial fifth level roof elevator. Ever so slowly they moved down the corridor. It was a snail's pace to Glayne. Gort Bro-Doral laughed—or gasped in his sickly, explosive manner. He gestured. He spoke to Glayne, waving his arms in a deprecating manner. And all the while the Guardian looked innocently into the Delban's tormented features, his hand clinging wetly to the Cardy in the folds of his jumper.

They met no more guards in the corridor; evidently the rest of them had hastened to the roof. But the first two were still eyeing them. Glayne could feel their stares burning into his back. Twenty feet separated them from the waiting elevator ... fifteen ... ten. Niala had drawn abreast with General Ganser; the sick, the pale, the fuzzy-minded Intelligence Chief whose cunning was known throughout the Galaxy.

There was a sudden commotion behind them. Glayne cast a glance over his shoulder and saw the corridor rapidly filling with uniformed and heavily-armed Delbans. They commanded him to stop; he smiled back. They brandished their weapons; he waved back gaily, herding the prisoners into the open elevator. They rushed after him; he drew his Cardy gun, crouched, and fired with murderous effect. Then he lunged into the elevator and jabbed the roof stud.

Swiftly it rose. Glayne turned to the two Delbans. The Ruler of Ten Thousand Suns was in a blue funk but General Ganser had pulled himself together a bit. His heavily-veined, crimson eyes blazed furiously at the kidnapers.

"Be careful with the General," Glayne warned. "He is dangerous when sober."

She managed a weak smile and thereby jumped another ten points in Glayne's esteem. The elevator sighed to a stop and the heavy door slid open, letting the dry wind pluck at them. Glayne turned his blaster on the controls, fusing them into tangled slag. Then he crept to the open door, crouched, and surveyed the palace roof in the pale, rosy illumination shed by one of Sterle's just-risen moons.

On his left, not a hundred yards away, lay the flier from the Algol. Three gunners from the crew were operating a portable Kellander, firing along the edge of the anti-energy shield which had been generated from the flier to prevent other Delban roof emplacements from destroying the little assault force. The rest of the attacking group manned Delban energy projectors that were still in operating condition, sending a heavy fire into possible concentration points for an enemy counter-attack. Bodies—mostly Delban—sprawled everywhere.

"We'll have to run for it," Glayne said. "They've erected an anti-shield between us and the flier. Once we gain that, we're safe."

Niala nodded and prodded the two prisoners out of the elevator. Bending low, they ran diagonally across the roof toward the shimmering ovoid that was the anti-shield. They had not gone more than forty steps before a counter-attacking wave of Delban palace guards suddenly appeared on their right. Cursing, Glayne doubled about and increased his pace in order not to be cut off. "Glayne! Slow down ... I can't keep up," the girl panted.

The Guardian glanced anxiously back at her just in time to be struck full force by General Ganser's flying body. They went down together in a wild tangle of thrashing arms and legs. The Delban, in spite of his dissipation, was tough and wiry; his long fingers sought Glayne's throat and clung to it with a vise-like grip. In vain the Guardian battered his body with sledge-hammer blows of his fists. Somewhere he had lost his gun. A black film threatened to engulf his consciousness as he struggled against the strangling grip of General Ganser. Vaguely he felt the roof on which he lay tremble from the impact of the energy beams that smashed into it.

From far away he heard Niala scream. It was a bitter spur to his flagging strength. Summoning every last reserve, he tore Ganser's clutching hands from his throat and flung him down to the roof. Not done yet, the Delban snatched up Glayne's weapon which had fallen in the first seconds of the combat and lifted it to fire. Furiously Glayne launched his booted foot at Ganser in a savage kick. Bones crunched as it caught him full in the face and the impact sent him spinning.

Glayne scooped up the Cardy gun and searched desperately for Niala. The Delban palace guard continued to storm the little Guardian stronghold, but the fire of the defenders took horrible effect on their ranks. In the darkness he saw Niala's crumpled form on the roof. And almost immediately afterwards he saw Gort Bro-Doral fleeing to the safety of his attacking soldiers. Holding his breath, Glayne tried a long range shot. But it was to no avail. The Supreme Overlord had made good his escape.

Anxiously Glayne bent over the girl who was just beginning to stir. There was a nasty welt on her forehead.

"I'm all right," she gasped, rising to her feet. "Where's Bro-Doral? Did he get away?"

Glayne nodded grimly. "Yes, but never mind. We've got this one. Hurry!"

Grunting, he swung Ganser's supine form to his shoulder and ran panting to the edge of the anti-shield. He halted a pace before the shimmering field and pulled a dark-colored disc from his pocket. Set beforehand to the shield frequency that Harbin would use, its purpose was to nullify a small section long enough for them to slip through.

Hastily his fingers flipped the trigger and it began to vibrate furiously in his hand. Instantly an irregular opening flickered in the lethal shimmer of the shield. Glayne shoved the girl through, then darted after her with Ganser over his shoulder.

Harbin waved joyously at them from the flier turret, his youthful face wreathed in smiles. "We can't hold them much longer," he shouted. "They're nullifying the shield with field scramblers. Hurry!"

Right behind Glayne as he steered Niala through the lock and leaped in behind her came the portable Kellander crew, still firing as they backed the gun into the flier. With a clang the locks slammed shut and the flier's driver engines thundered. With a single motion of his arm, Harbin released the anti-shield and fed the pent-up driver power to the jets. With a tremendous heave that crushed Glayne back rigidly in his seat the flier blasted up from the palace roof.

Harbin flung the flier around in a screaming turn and thundered low over the vast forest preserves that surrounded the palace. The tall, scraggly trees seemed to brush against the ship's stubby fins as Harbin sought to evade enemy pursuit. Grunting with effort, Glayne clambered up to the nose of the craft and sank back into a shock seat beside the pilot.

Grimly the Guardian Captain peered ahead at the huge, featureless ovoid of grey which was fast rushing down upon them. It was the palace defense shield. If it was the new type, then they were licked because nothing could get in or out. But the two-way shields were dangerous and unnecessary as protection for a natural siege position like Gort Bro-Doral's palace. Hence Glayne had concluded that the Delbans would keep their old style shield.

Or had he made a mistake in his reasoning? Glayne tensed unconsciously as the tiny flier flashed toward the grey ovoid. It was all or nothing. And suddenly the flier slashed through it like so much paper.

Glayne suppressed a sigh of relief at the vindication of his logic. Now the flier was hurtling over Sterle Capital. Harbin, in an effort to avoid enemy detectors, was almost flying down the very streets. Their wild gamble almost looked as if it would pay off. Glayne hoped fervently that Graysen had managed to evade the two Delban escort destroyers that had accompanied them to the space-port. The Algol would be a sitting duck over Topo Gulf until the flier arrived.

But after that, Glayne thought grimly, they were clear. No matter how much power the Delbans could receive from their astounding transmitter, they could not withstand a sustained ten G thrust like his crew of heavy planet men. Then he thought of Niala, accustomed to Terran Standard. He bit his lip. She would just have to take it; there was no other way.

The flier had left Sterle Capital far behind and was climbing rapidly into the stratosphere. Evidently the surprise attack had disorganized the Delban patrols and drawn them like flies to the city. At any rate, not one was in sight as their flier streaked over Topo Gulf.

Feverishly Harbin doubled the flier back and forth, searching the conic broadcast beam of the Algol, undetectable behind her inert screen. Finally a welcome series of dots and dashes crackled from the receiver and Harbin brought the flier around in a screaming turn to follow the directional beam. Cautiously he slowed the craft as the intensity of the signals increased. Suddenly the reception maw gaped at them out of grey nothingness—and the flier shuddered to a stop at the Algol's landing dock.

Hastily Glayne jumped out of the flier and hurried to the navigation bridge, dropping Niala in her quarters along the way. Harbin would take General Ganser—the precious, indispensable Ganser—to Surgery for facial repairs.

Graysen nodded at him, as taciturn as ever. "Your orbit, Captain?"

"Anywhere," Glayne replied. "Anywhere, just so long as we get far enough out of this system to drop into sub-space." He rubbed his bristly chin for a moment, thinking. "Make it eight G's," he added.

Graysen acknowledged and turned away. Almost immediately the inert screens were dropped and a floor began to build under Glayne's feet. By the time he had mounted to the Captain's Station, he was panting with effort. Automatically he jabbed an anti-thrust surette into his arm and felt his muscles relax instantaneously under the influence of the magic drug.

The inter-ship communicator phones gurgled over his head for a couple of seconds, then Brodis' voice issued from the speaker: "The General is floating up to his ears in verchromynal, Captain. They're putting his face back together right now. Give the word and I'll go to work on him, thrust or no thrust."

"No," Glayne replied. "We'll make sub-space in a few hours. Then we'll have all the time we need to pump him. And, Lieutenant...."

"Sir?"

"Prepare the General's very own treatments for him."

Brodis paused for an appreciable instant, then said, "Right, Captain," and cut off.

Glayne watched the globe of Sterle II diminish in his battle screen with deep satisfaction. The first step in his plan had been carried off with miraculous good fortune. Now the most pressing necessity was speed. Once the Algol was sufficiently far from mass to drop into sub-space, the mysterious power source of the Delbans would be only a couple of hours distant at the most. With Ganser under control and acting as a safe conduct, Glayne saw success dangling just within his fingers.

Yet deep within his nether-mind he felt a twinge of foreboding—as if he had forgotten some vital factor in his calculations. The dim awareness was almost on the threshold of prescience, but it was too indistinct for him to make out clearly. Uneasily he sought to ignore it but could not.

VI

In sub-space, time crept along in low gear. Glayne was aware of the fact that five hours in sub-space corresponded to about forty minutes in flat, normal space due to the difference in time rates. But time was time, whether fast or slow. General Hoteh Ganser also realized that time was passing; in fact, he exerted every effort to increase the length of time the Algol would have to remain in sub-space.

Sullenly he stared at Brodis and Glayne as they stood over him. There was a hint of amusement in the depths of his peculiar, crimson eyes.

"You deserve congratulations in the success of your attack, Captain Glayne," he said mockingly. "A touch of bravado here, a bit too audacious there ... but, all in all, quite well executed. His Excellency will remember it for a long time. In fact, your success now will add to his delight at witnessing your Vibra-Death later."

Glayne suppressed an involuntary shudder. What a fertile imagination the Delban had!

"Shut up!" snapped Brodis with disgust in his voice. "You might as well make it easier for yourself, Ganser. Relax your mind barriers or we will smash them down and drag the information from you. Either way, we'll get it in the end!"

Ganser sneered at the young Guardian.

"I can loosen him up with some physical persuasion, Captain," suggested Brodis hopefully.

Ganser made an obscene remark which brought Brodis to his feet, enraged. The young officer was on the verge of clobbering him with a meaty fist, but Glayne stopped him.

"Such an old veteran as the General is certain to have taken the precaution of having automatic anesthesia cultures introduced into his blood stream," he said. "He would like nothing better than to have you strike him because the sustained trauma of physical pain would trigger the anesthesia and make him unconscious for as long as forty-eight hours."

Ganser made a mocking bow to Glayne.

The Guardian Captain rubbed his cheek wearily. Nothing else but the Ganser conditioner probe now, he realized. He caught Brodis' eye and moved his head slightly in the direction of the gleaming mass of coils and the huge helmet which was the Ganser conditioner.

Brodis nodded. With the aid of a couple of the technicians he set the helmet down carefully over the General's bald pate.

"Have you ever tried these wonderful treatments of yours, General?" Brodis inquired with clinical detachment. "They eliminate all your worries in instants, I understand. They can even make a new man of you, I'm told."

Ganser remained obstinately silent as the massive helmet was adjusted about his head and clamped to the chair in which he was secured. In spite of himself Glayne admired the Delban's strength of will. He, if anyone, should know the mental anguish of the conditioner. But now it was dog eat dog, kill or be killed, and the devil take the hindmost. He nodded imperceptibly to Brodis who was waiting for the signal to begin.

Hours passed and Glayne cursed each inexorable minute. He and Brodis and the four grey-faced technicians were wet with perspiration. Ganser drooped in the chair, but his crimson eyes still blazed with fanatical hatred.

"Lord, what barriers!" whispered Brodis. He stared with fascination at the indomitable Delban.

"What is the power source?" Glayne asked repeatedly, holding his face impassive through sheer force of will. "You want to help us, Guardian. Tell us about the broadcast power."

The conditioned self was slowly beginning to take shape in Ganser's mind. It offered a new set of values, new goals and desires, uppermost of which was to give all possible aid to the Stellar Guardians. Thus the Ganser-personality they were so painstakingly superimposing upon the Delban was almost that of a Stellar Guardian. Gradually they saw it appear in the Delban's crimson eyes.

"The Tane Jewel," he whispered. "Found it in space ... no bigger than a Terran grapefruit. Engineers ... found way to drain its power potential ... almost infinite."

The Tane! The Flame-Jewel of the Elder Tane!

Glayne was stunned. He remembered the legends he had heard of the incredible Tane—weird creatures who had ruled the Galaxy long before the existence of protein life forms. He even recalled the tales of their fabulous Second Universe in which they had sought refuge in order to maintain an artificial stasis and escape extermination. Ever since the discovery of the Tane legends, scientists had speculated about the Second Universe and the titanic source of power it represented. And now it had been found by the Delban Empire and was at the disposal of Gort Bro-Doral.

What had Ganser called it? A Jewel—and no larger than a grapefruit! Incredulously Glayne snapped a glance at one of the technicians who was watching the jerking movements of the lie detector stylus on its graphed scroll. The man looked up and nodded, his mouth a tight line across his face.

Glayne turned back to the Delban prisoner. "Where is the power broadcast from, Guardian?" he asked urgently.

"Tjadlinn," muttered Ganser, under the control of a pseudo-Guardian personality. "Jorger Sun ... deep helio orbit. The planetless Jorger Sun—remember, we were commissioned to clear it of meteor drift. Later they built the Tjadlinn discoid around the Jewel...."

Glayne smiled mirthlessly. So the Delbans had planted the Jewel right under their noses. Yet what more logical place! He recalled the job he had supervised there five years before. The Delbans were going to build a power research station in an orbit about the planetless sun—a practice common in many Sectors.

Glayne tensed as he leaned toward Ganser to ask a third question. It was the crucial one and the others knew it. There was a hushed silence as Glayne asked:

"What is the frequency of the Jewel power broadcast? What do you know about the design of the mesh receiving antennae? Tell us, Guardian. We need your help."

Silence followed Glayne's question. It lengthened and became unbearable.

At last: "The mesh antennae are manufactured at the secret Karkara Fleet Station on Scone III. It is defended by Jewel-powered Kellander batteries in addition to secondary auxiliary projectors. The approach code is not available to me. Neither is there information available on broadcast frequencies or antenna design."

Glayne smashed his fist against his leg in violent disappointment. The facts were simply not available in Ganser's mind, so the pseudo-Guardian personality naturally failed to produce them. Again Glayne felt a twinge of respect for the Delban. If anyone knew the technical secrets of the Jewel broadcast, it should have been Ganser. But the Delban's wily cunning had thwarted them. He had carefully avoided all technical knowledge of the Jewel, anticipating an attempt to drain his mind.

There was only one course open to him now. Attack Tjadlinn! He looked at his wrist-chrono. Twelve hours they had spent in this nether-space! It was inconceivable. Glayne swore to himself and thought furiously.

According to Ganser, the mass of the Tjadlinn discoid was too slight to maintain an interstellar telephone; only message craft connected it with the rest of Bro-Doral's empire. That was a break, thought Glayne. In spite of the time they had spent in sub-space, they might still reach Jorger Sun before a warning came from Sterle II. With Ganser under their control and posing as a guide, they could bluff through the outer defenses of the Jewel station. Once inside, they would have to take the breaks as they came.

His shoulders suddenly sagged at the appalling decision he would have to make. Once within the discoid, he would be cut off from outside communication and could not warn the fleet if anything went wrong. On the other hand, the fleet had to be standing by or there was no possible chance of success. Desperately he sought for alternatives to his scheme but none presented themselves. The Terran Combine's last chance rested within his own hands, he realized grimly. An immediate decision had to be made. But if he failed....

With sudden resolve he crushed out his burning doubts and turned to Brodis. "Take the fastest flier we have, dope yourself up with verchromynal, and go to the Stellar Guardian Communication Station at Zandrome. They generate enough power there to push a message over the interstellar telephone to Dorleb in thirty-five minutes. Contact Admiral Garstow. Give him all the information we have and tell him that Scone III will be without Jewel power in forty-eight hours. Have him advise Admiral Bardled of the Terran Fleet that his aid is essential. Inform Garstow that every available fleet unit must be at Scone III in forty-eight hours. Hurry!"

Brodis reached the door in one jump and was half-way down the corridor in another. Glayne watched him go, bleakly phrasing the rest of the message under his breath. Garstow, he thought, you will be slaughtered if there's one tiny slip on my part. It's good you don't know about it.

Then Glayne shrugged and went up to the navigation bridge.