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.

Jorger Sun was barely visible through the glassene observation ports. But it blew up hugely in Glayne's auxiliary battle screen—a white dwarf of brilliant intensity and a temperature equal to that of the greatest white super-giants in the main galaxy. It was incredibly alone out on the furthest reaches of the vast, trailing arms of the galaxy.

The Algol was decelerating as it flashed toward Jorger Sun. Somewhere behind it was the Tjadlinn discoid built around the fabulous Tane Jewel. It would look strange, Glayne knew, if they were detected in a maximum ten G deceleration thrust while on an official inspection tour—especially with their low-gravity guide, General Ganser, aboard.

Commander Graysen approached, shifting his weight from one gnarled leg to the other in the space-man's shuffling gait. His leathery face widened in a rare grin as he reached Glayne. "I should have retired after that last cruise," he wheezed. "Here is Harbin for last minute instructions, Captain."

Glayne nodded to the younger officer. "Harbin, you will take over when Commander Graysen and I leave with the landing party. If you are fired upon while we are inside the discoid, clear out fast. Take the Algol to Scone III as quickly as possible. Warn Admiral Garstow that my plan has failed and that it would be best to disperse all fleet units. Under no conditions are you to attempt battle. Do you understand?"

"Aye, sir!" snapped the youngster. His face worked for an instant, but he suppressed his protest and brought himself under control.

"Destination in sight, Captain Glayne," called the pilot over the communicator.

"Cut deceleration to four G's." To Graysen: "How is Ganser?"

"In excellent shape—even his face. According to Psych he is completely under control."

Glayne turned back to his screen and stared at the expanding Tjadlinn discoid. Instinctively he looked for the slim and deadly Jewel-powered cruisers that would be waiting for them if a warning had reached Tjadlinn. But of course he saw nothing. If they were there, they would be masked by inert detector screens, waiting for him to approach so closely that no amount of frantic acceleration could tear him from their grasp.

The discoid was a huge thing of beralloy, all of ten kilometers in diameter. About half-way from the center he could make out the landing dock as Ganser had indicated. He could also make out the evil snouts of Kellander projectors sprouting in clusters on Tjadlinn's metallic surface. Even as he watched, they wheeled about ominously, coming to bear on the decelerating Algol. Were they simply taking precautions, Glayne wondered, or were they cagily waiting for him to climb right down the barrels of their projectors?

As he stood alone before the battle screen he suddenly felt a small hand touch his. He looked around. It was Niala Chodred, subdued and somewhat apprehensive. She looked up at him intently, forcing him to meet her eyes.

"I believe you are planning to leave me behind in the ship when you land at Tjadlinn, aren't you?"

Glayne winced at the slight accusation in her eyes. A sudden wave of nervous irritation welled up in him and he was on the verge of hurling a curse at her and driving her back to her quarters. But the tenderness in her eyes made him feel guilty because of his hasty mood and he relented.

"Yes," he said. "I'm very sorry. The ship is unsafe enough as it is, but down there—" he gestured at the image of Tjadlinn in the screen, "—down there will be fighting and certainly many casualties."

"But if I am present," she pointed out logically, "they will be much less likely to suspect you of hostile intentions."

"How do you think I would feel if you were killed down there?" Glayne asked, avoiding her eyes.

"How do you think I would feel if you were?" she countered.

Glayne turned to her, about to point out another difficulty, then said nothing. Suddenly she was in his arms and he felt his senses swim at her touch. For a timeless instant he forgot everything but the warm, laughing, green-eyed Niala whom he held in his arms.

VII

Tjadlinn was gigantic. It rotated on its central axis once every forty hours and completed a revolution about Jorger Sun once every eighty-five years. The orbit was like that of a comet; at perihelion its velocity approached seventy miles per second. Now it had begun its journey away from the sun, swinging out into the infinite blackness of the lonely void.

Grimly the Guardian Captain looked at his crewmen, sturdy big-planet men like himself. There were six of them. Glayne wondered how many would be left when they returned—if they ever did return. He looked at the girl and wondered if she would return. She smiled at him as the artificial planetoid loomed hugely over their tiny landing launch. He felt no regret that she was along—his mind ignored all such feelings of that nature now. Instead it was concentrated to the highest degree of receptivity, sorting and classifying the sense impressions that came to it.

The massive beralloy portals of the outer air-lock gaped open at them and the launch jetted inside. Then they closed with a thunderous clang and the inner doors slid open in an oddly obsequious fashion. They were much less ponderous than the outer doors, Glayne noted. A moment later the launch came to rest and General Hoteh Ganser, Chief of Delban Intelligence, stalked out of the cabin followed by representatives of the Stellar Guardians, now allied with the Delban Empire.

There was a group of high-ranking Delban Army and Fleet officers awaiting them as they stepped from the launch. They bowed ceremoniously to Ganser, then to Glayne and his party as they were introduced. The Guardian smiled, he bowed, he clicked his heels solemnly—but all the time his hand was casually resting inside of the fold of his jumper on the Cardy gun there.

The only name Glayne remembered was that of the commander of Tjadlinn discoid: Admiral Selzi-Narfid, Right Royal Protector of the Emperor's Hunting Preserves. But he was not notable because of his absurd title; rather, it was the hint of amusement that Glayne fancied he saw flickering in the depths of his jet black eyes.

It was Selzi-Narfid who turned to Ganser and said: "I'm sure you must be weary after your arduous journey, Your Excellency. Won't you and Captain Glayne and his party partake of some refreshment?"

Glayne frowned. That was not so good. They could not afford to waste time eating and drinking because the message craft might bring the warning from Sterle II at any minute. Yet how could they refuse?

Evidently this same train of thought flashed through the conditioned intellect of General Ganser. For just an instant he paused before saying yes, they would be delighted.

Again Selzi-Narfid bowed and this time Glayne was positive he saw mockery in the Tjadlinn commander's eyes. Following him, they entered a large mono-car poised on its single, gleaming span by gyros. It started with a jolt, picked up speed, and was presently bulleting down the tunnel, the walls a blur on either side. To Glayne it almost seemed as if they were moving down hill.

"You will notice the gravity attraction increasing as we progress," began Selzi-Narfid. "That is because we are approaching the Jewel. It is considerably more comfortable in my quarters close to the center. On the periphery of the discoid one has almost no weight because of the distance from the Jewel.

"No one knows the exact mass of the Tane Jewel. Probably around two hundred million tons, it is thought. Naturally it is not safe to approach too closely—the inverse square law, you know. Within a few meters the attraction is so tremendous that we have great difficulty in anchoring the power drain machinery. But you will see for yourself in the Jewel Chamber."

The mono-car sighed to a halt and Selzi-Narfid ushered them graciously into a tapestried corridor. Glayne noticed that the gravity was just about Terran Standard. He also noticed that Selzi-Narfid, in spite of his flow of suave conversation, was worried. Suddenly a peculiar sensation of wrongness flared up in Glayne's mind and he knew that his battle-trained, preternatural intuition was at work. His hand tightened on the Cardy and his eyes flickered everywhere but could discover nothing.

At the wide entrance stage the Admiral held back, gesturing for Ganser, Glayne, and the others to precede him. The small hairs on the back of Glayne's neck arose as they entered the luxurious suite of the Tjadlinn commander. Something was definitely very wrong.

Then sick dismay scalded up in the pit of his stomach. He saw what was wrong. It was Gort Bro-Doral who faced them, a Cardy gun in his hand.

Calmly the Delban Overlord fired at Ganser. The energy beam lashed into the pseudo-Guardian, making a big, ragged hole where his belly had been.

Glayne could do nothing more than stare helplessly. He did not even think to resist when the room filled with armed Delbans who went about the job of disarming them in a very silent and efficient fashion.

"Such a pity," remarked Gort Bro-Doral, glancing down at Ganser's charred and crumpled body. "Hoteh was my right hand, but the poor wretch was just too thorough. His own mind-conditioning device caught him in the end." He produced his sickly, explosive laugh and inclined his head to one of the armed Delbans. "Take it away," he murmured.

"How did you get here so quickly?" Glayne said, asking the question uppermost in his mind. He was bewildered to think of the incredible acceleration the low-gravity Delban must have undergone to have beaten the Guardian ship.

"Another of the wonders of the glorious Tane Jewel," replied Bro-Doral with amused condescension. "Theoretically it was always possible to project material bodies into sub-space directly from planetary mass in the same way that the immaterial waves of an interstellar telephone message are cast directly into sub-space. Heretofore, however, there has never been sufficient power to form a shield around the material object strong enough to prevent its being completely crushed by the brutal space warp in the presence of mass. That difficulty vanishes when one has the unlimited power of the Tane Jewel at his disposal."

Glayne understood. Ganser, who had meticulously avoided all technical knowledge, did not know this. Consequently they had walked straight into a trap. Glayne's shoulders sagged as he looked around, savouring the taste of defeat. Tough old Graysen stood at his side, impotently balling his fists. His carefully picked crewmen were behind him, arms above their heads. They looked grim and ready for anything. But Niala...

Glayne fought down the painful lump in his throat. It made no difference. They had the Algol, too. So it mattered not at all whether she came along or stayed behind, he told himself. They had only one thing to look forward to—and that would be unpleasant. Surreptitiously he touched the massive ring on his hand. It contained a single blaster charge. Shakily he resolved to use it on Niala when it came to that.

Bro-Doral whinnied. "I have your day planned for you, Captain," he said. "I have often been accused of lacking a sense of justice, but you will see for yourself that such a charge wrongs me. Your men will be executed as humanly as possible. You and the esteemed Graysen will be given a chance to witness the destruction of your ship. And then—" the Delban snickered, "—the Vibra-Death! The girl ... I'm not sure. Yes, it will take some thought. But you may be sure that it will be interesting."

Bro-Doral's sadism was too much for Glayne. With a snarl of animal hatred he leaped at the Delban Overlord, brushing aside his Cardy gun and reaching for his throat. The force of his lunge carried them back a few steps and the Bro tripped. Glayne, blazing with blind rage, lifted his foot to crush the Bro like a worm. At that instant a cold beam lanced into his back. Its icy fingers played along his spine and paralyzed him with numbness. Helplessly his arms fell to his sides and two of the armed Delbans came up behind him, supporting him to prevent his falling.

Gort Bro-Doral clambered up from the floor. His heavily-veined eyes were red with insane ferocity. He thrust his contorted face close to Glayne's own and said: "Guardian, you will now be extended another privilege. You will be permitted to see the girl writhing in the agonies of the Vibra-Death!"

Bro-Doral turned to one of his men. "Take those crewmen away—execute them," he said. "Keep the girl here under guard while I show the two officers around."

Glayne was horrified at the fruits of his unthinking attack on the Bro. It was almost as if he himself had pulled the switch which would subject Niala to the most infamous nerve torture ever devised. Dully he realized that he could not even lift his hand to administer a merciful death with the clean, fast energy beam of his ring.

"The paralysis will wear off in a minute or two, Captain," observed Bro-Doral. He had completely regained his self-control. "Since you have exerted so much useless effort to destroy our Tane Jewel, I think you ought at least be permitted to see it. But after that—" he sighed expressively, "—after that, we will procrastinate no longer."

Even before the effects of the cold-beam had worn off completely, Bro-Doral nodded to his men and they took him by the arms and escorted him from the room. In despair, Glayne tried to jerk his head around to see the girl. For the briefest of instants he saw her smiling bravely at him. Then his view was cut off by the door as the guards maneuvered his still half-paralyzed frame around it.

In a couple of moments Glayne was able to move under his own power. He turned to find Graysen staring anxiously at him, alert for the slightest command. Glayne nodded imperceptibly and examined the guards. There were six of them. He noticed wryly that they held cold-beam weapons in their long-fingered fists while the ones that really produced the fatal damage—the Cardys—hung in holsters at their sides. Trust them not to risk killing their prisoners when so many more delightful methods presented themselves, he thought bitterly.

As he and Graysen were led side-by-side down a maze of corridors, their weight gradually increased. Along with it was the sensation of going down hill. Glayne's mind operated rapidly and with cold precision but the Delbans showed not the slightest weakness. Not even the increase in gravity seemed to annoy them. Nevertheless, Glayne resolved, he would risk everything on a sudden attack when they got as close to the Jewel as possible. There the conditions would be ideal for him. With eyes narrowed, he tried desperately to remember the turns they had taken through the winding corridors of the beralloy discoid.

As they progressed Glayne saw the tough, all-metal walls were more heavily buttressed with the massive beralloy supports. Selzi-Narfid saw the direction of his glance and said, "Those were necessary when we maneuvered the Jewel into the center of the discoid. You have no idea of what such a tremendous mass in a body the size of the Jewel can do when it is not balanced."

Glayne listened to the Admiral with just a part of his mind. His main attention was devoted to photographing mentally the warren of passages. Here and there he saw groups of Delban technicians, none of them armed.

Good, thought Glayne.

They reached the entrance stage of the Jewel Chamber. The beralloy walls here were nearly a meter thick. In single file the party crawled through the narrow opening that dilated ponderously in the entrance stage. Two very weary-looking guards snapped to attention as they passed, but almost immediately slumped back into their somnolent positions, exhausted by their abnormally increased weight.

Better yet, thought Glayne.

"This is the Jewel Chamber, Captain. It is the very heart of Tjadlinn," puffed Selzi-Narfid after he had crawled through the dilated entrance stage.

Glayne stared about the vaulted room curiously. It was shaped like the inside of an oval, thick at the center but tapering off to nothing at the sides. They were standing on a balcony which was heavily buttressed and ran all the way around the Chamber past several other massive portals. In the exact center of the Chamber a kind of a nest was formed by the tremendously thick beralloy girders. Something burned there with a cold, golden brilliance that filtered through the interstices of the girders and etched them sharply in banded shadows about the heavy walls.

An uncanny sensation possessed Glayne as he gazed at the Jewel. A vague dread passed over him and he found himself wondering if the Elder Tane Gods would emerge from their crypt and wreak hideous vengeance on mere mortals for disturbing their sleep. Uneasily he crushed the fantasy that was rioting up in his mind and determined to look for something more practical.

He concentrated on the power drain machinery which hung in clusters from the massive girders. Obviously those mechanisms were far more delicate than their supports and could be sabotaged with comparatively little work. As he calculated he gradually became aware of Bro-Doral who was speaking:

"—were remarkable creatures. As you know, Tane legends exist in every part of the known galaxy. They even possessed immortality—but they lost it for all practical purposes when they failed to adjust their bodies to the expanding universe.

"While the universe expands, quanta emission frequencies remain constant. You are familiar, of course, with the shift in the wave length of the cadmium spectrum, taken over the centuries. Ages ago, emission frequencies were so long, relatively speaking, that energy liberation from protein organisms was impossible. That definitely rules out protein construction for the Tane—but just what they were composed of is unknown. At any rate, their bodies couldn't stand the shortened emission frequencies which overloaded their muscles. They exploded. Like a plague. Billions and billions of them must have died before they discovered the answer to the strange death that was striking among them. And billions more must have died before their marvelous science was able to build the Second Universe, as the legends call it."

Gort Bro-Doral gestured at the Jewel which shed its cold, brilliant light about the Chamber.

"They enclosed themselves in that tiny ovoid crypt you see there," he went on. "That was countless ages ago. Somehow they had managed to construct shields capable of withstanding the spatial expansion of the universe. Who knows—they may still live in their static crypt?

"As millions and millions of years passed, the Tane Jewel—the Second Universe, as the legends call it—slowly dwindled in size when considered in relation to our own universe. As it dwindled, its energy potential grew. Now its accumulated charge is so titanic that it defies conception.

"Some day those beautiful engines of the Tane Gods would have run down and the shield would have collapsed. Then our own universe would have been destroyed. The sudden release of such a vast energy potential would have caused a concussion which would literally warp our flat space into the fourth-dimensional sub-space.

"Now that can't happen. We are draining off that infinite potential and broadcasting it—flooding it—through sub-space to be received everywhere there is a Delban receiving antenna. The power is limitless. We Delbans will be the rulers of the universe just as the Tane Gods were of old. There is no limit to our power!"

Bro-Doral's eyes blazed with a pure lust for power as he stared exultantly at the green brilliance of the Tane Jewel. His mouth was slack and he breathed heavily from the effort of his speech. Selzi-Narfid, too, was tired. Wearily he rested against the support rail of the balcony. The guards blinked their large pop-eyes from fatigue, shuffling from one foot to another to promote circulation. Most of them had placed their weapons in holsters as Bro-Doral talked. That is, all except one. He still held his weapon loosely in his fingers at his side. Slowly and gently Glayne poised, gathering his strength.

"Isn't it beautiful, Glayne?" mused the Delban Overlord, staring into the tiny radiant sun. "An artifact of the mightiest culture that ever existed. Now we will carry on in their footsteps. We will be the mightiest—"

VIII

Then Glayne leaped. With one flailing fist he caught the Delban guard on his bony jaw and with the other he snatched the cold-beam gun from his limp fingers. Whirling, he played it among the stupefied guards. Then old Graysen exploded into action, seizing Selzi-Narfid and hurling him bodily at Bro-Doral who was in the act of bringing up his Cardy gun. Three of the guards had collapsed and another was crumpling on his knees under Glayne's cold-beam. The other two had crouched back in the shadows of the entrance portal, trying to bring their weapons to bear upon Glayne.

Graysen whirled and lunged at them, smashing one down with a single blow. The last guard on his feet, surprised and dismayed by this attack from the rear, fled to the portal and tried to dilate it. But he was too late and sagged in a heap under Glayne's hand weapon.

Scooping up two of the Cardy guns which had fallen to the balcony floor, Glayne shouted: "Pick up an energy gun, Graysen. Cut down the power drain machinery."

Graysen reached for an energy gun in the holster of one of the paralyzed guards. He never even saw Gort Bro-Doral scramble to his feet and fire point blank. His head disappeared as the Delban's beam struck full force. Glayne fired back wildly but he was off balance and missed. Before he could collect himself to fire again, Bro-Doral had fled to another stage and darted through the dilation.

Glayne whirled toward the Delbans. Selzi-Narfid had a broken neck and was obviously dead. The guards were all unconscious and would remain so for a long time.

Glayne turned back to the Jewel which cast its chill, gold light steadily through the interstices of the surrounding girders. Calmly he leveled the Cardy gun and fired at it. As if it were so much water, the deadly little energy beam washed off the Tane Jewel and fused with the beralloy supports. It was as he had expected. Given several hours, the little hand weapon might have made an impression on the incredibly tough beralloy but Glayne had no time to lose.

As he had seen before, the power drain machinery which hung in clusters from the big beams and transmitted the energy through the heavy busbars looked to be the most fragile. Glayne wondered what would happen if he fired into them. There was only one way to find out. The muscles of his jaw hardened as he depressed the firing stud on the Cardy.

Nothing happened. He let the beam of his energy gun play up and down the clusters of power drains, fusing them into slag. Now the thin, invisible rays of power which the drains extracted from the Jewel no longer existed since they had no place to go. But nothing happened.

Then it occurred to him that nothing would happen in the Jewel Chamber itself. It needed no power for lights—the Jewel provided all the light needed. Heartened, Glayne blasted at every drain in reach, following the balcony around the Chamber.

But even this method, he realized, would take too long. Gort Bro-Doral would soon have squads of men hurrying into the Chamber after him. Grimly he wished he had an energy bomb. With one of those he could finish the job in a few seconds.

Suddenly he remembered an old Guardian trick. Hurriedly he began to tinker with one of the Cardy guns. By jamming a couple of the safety gadgets, it was possible to make the weapon fire out of phase. When the trigger stud was depressed, its tiny miatron coils would build up an unstable load in a couple of seconds, then explode. Quickly he fixed the weapon to his satisfaction, then hurried on around the balcony to find a suitable opening in the girders through which to hurl the ersatz bomb.

Halfway around, he met two panic-stricken Delban technicians. The instant they saw him they turned tail and ran back through the portal. Obviously something must be happening, Glayne thought with grim satisfaction. Then he found a good spot, pressed the firing stud of the doctored Cardy gun, then flung it with all his strength into the remaining power drains. In an instant he had pivoted and lunged for the port of the entrance stage behind him, feeling in the shadow for its dilator stud.

It refused to open!

Obviously Glayne himself had sabotaged its power circuit. Now he was trapped in the Chamber and the ersatz bomb was about to explode. Tensely he crouched as far back in the recess of the port as he could and waited. With a terrific roar the bomb exploded in the confined Chamber, rupturing the membranes of his nose and crushing him violently against the port. Parts of the devastated power drains were hurled against the massive walls, then fell back to the Jewel. One of the heavy busbars had collapsed, ripping festoons of cables from the top of the Chamber which shorted violently against one another.

Dazed, Glayne pulled himself to his feet. Fortunately he had broken no bones. But one of his ear drums was ruptured and his nose bled unremittingly. He had lost his other Cardy. Hurriedly he felt about, found it, and thrust it into the fold of his tattered jumper.

He turned back to the port and found that the concussion had dilated it for him. Breathing heavily, he crawled through it into the inky blackness of the passages. On all sides he heard the sound of running footsteps. By touch he staggered into the blackness, realizing that he must keep going uphill, away from the Jewel's attraction.

The exertion cleared his head a bit. He knew he was lost, but he hoped to be able to find his way back to Selzi-Narfid's quarters. There he would find Niala and be oriented with the rest of the discoid.

Figures bumped into him in the blackness, hurrying to the scene of destruction. The Delbans were badly disorganized. Obviously they had not been prepared to cope with such devastation wreaked on their sacred Jewel. Not even to the extent of auxiliary power for lights, he thought as he panted up the black passages.

Even as he thought about it, the lights began to flicker weakly in their fluorescent tubes, growing stronger with each passing second. Startled, Glayne crouched back in the shadow of a recess in the wall. That was Luck in all her perversity, he thought grimly. His hand sought the butt of the blaster in his jumper. Fortunately the lights did not wax as brightly as they had when the Jewel was still functioning, but that did not offer much consolation. He would be recognized instantly by the outline of his thick-chested body if he was seen in the corridor.

He noticed that fewer Delbans were passing. He decided to chance it. Tightly grasping the gun in his jumper, he crept from his hiding place and ran on the balls of his feet, dodging and ducking into shadows every time one of the enemy passed. Once he was seen and pursued by a squad of Delban guards. Breathlessly he ran at full tilt through a cross-corridor, up a flight of high steps, and twisted into another of the endless passages of the discoid.

The pull of the Jewel had become very slight. In fact it was much slighter than it had been in Selzi-Narfid's suite. Glayne pushed on, realizing that he was hopelessly lost. His only chance now was to find the mono-rail on which they had ridden from the landing dock to the Tjadlinn commander's suite. It occurred to him that even if he did find Niala, they might never escape Tjadlinn. And it was absolutely imperative that he make contact with Garstow at Scone III. The slightest delay on the part of the Stellar Guardian Admiral in attacking the Karkara Station might give the Delbans the precious time they needed to repair the damage he had effected.

There were two entrance stages, one on either side, in the corridor through which he was hurrying. He tried one and found it was locked. He was more fortunate with the other. It creaked open slowly when he flipped the dilator stud. Tensely, hand on the Cardy gun in his jumper, he crept through the port.

It was the landing dock!

Glayne's heart jumped with delight as he crouched back in a shadow and examined the place. Not a hundred meters away was the launch which had brought his party from the Algol. His eyes drank it in avidly and a plan for escape formed rapidly in his mind. A message craft of some sort was preparing to leave, he saw. As soon as the inner lock door closed behind it, he would smash the launch through it and the air pressure would fling him out of the discoid. How very simple!

Then the impact of the realization that he would have to leave Niala Chodred behind struck him. He was stunned by its very violence.

Leave Niala? Abandon her to Gort Bro-Doral and his sadistic vengeance for the sabotage Glayne himself had performed? No! That was out of the question. But what of the Terran Combine? What did the life of Citizen Niala Chodred mean against the lives of the trillions who made up that Combine to which she had sworn allegiance? Viewed in that light, it was obvious that the life of one person was a cheap price to pay for security of the Combine against the Tane Jewel.

Glayne crouched in the shadow and buried his face in his hands. In an agony of indecision he prodded his weary mind to discover an alternative to the horrible dilemma. But he could find none. He would have to decide between Niala, the laughing, green-eyed Niala, and the ideal of human progress which he had sworn the Guardian Oath to protect.

Dully he realized that the power of the abstract was too strong. He would forsake Niala. The pain redoubled itself as he made his decision but he set his face in a granite-mask against it. Unfortunately it was not so easy to quell the agony that burned within him.

Grimly he stood up. He saw that the time had come for action. The message craft was slowly jetting down the cinder blastway toward the lock door. Glayne tensed for an instant, then raced for the launch, covering ten meters at a stride in the light gravity. Three Delban mechanics caught sight of him as he rounded the stubby fins and leaped for the lock. In mid-stride he whipped out his Cardy gun and brought them down in charred heaps.

A guard squad saw him and fired. Their beams sang dangerously close, smashing into the beralloy side of the launch. They crunched down the blastway in pursuit as Glayne jumped through the open lock, slammed it shut, and darted to the controls. The atomic driver engine coughed and surged into life. He let it scream up beyond audibility, then fed power to the jets. The blast washed over the guards who were closest to the launch and the others fell back hastily before its searing heat.

The inner lock of the entrance port had slid shut behind the message craft. It was now or never, Glayne realized. He opened the atomic driver wide and the stubby launch shuddered for an instant, then lunged for the lock. The sudden thrust created constricting hands about Glayne's chest and he fought precariously on the edge of blacking out. For a brief instant Glayne was aware of the huge outer doors swinging shut before him—and then the air pressure struck them and flung the launch bodily through the narrow space left between them.

The launch tumbled crazily end-over-end until Glayne straightened it out and oriented himself with Tjadlinn and Jorger Sun. He had just sighted the tiny gleaming speck of the Algol a dozen kilometers distant when something struck the launch a terrific blow. Almost instantly the tell-tales indicated air was escaping. Dismayed, Glayne shot a glance over his shoulder at the receding discoid. He discovered that they were firing at him with the secondary Kellander batteries, using auxiliaries to power the miatrons. Feverishly he changed course, zig-zagging wildly away from the discoid.

Due to over confidence, the Delbans had not destroyed the Algol immediately. They preferred to play cat and mouse. And now, with the titanic energies of the Jewel no longer available to them, they could not destroy the Algol.

The Kellander energy beams slashed dangerously close to the fleeing launch. Not in salvos but by ones and twos. That meant that their fire control was badly disorganized—and it was that fact which saved Glayne. Harbin had raised the Algol's anti-shield when the Delbans had commenced firing but he had not turned tail as Glayne had ordered, realizing that the launch was fleeing in his direction.

Glayne flipped the stud of the shield-nullifier that was matched to the frequency of the Algol's anti-shield and darted the launch through it, braking with eye-searing blasts of the forward jets as the huge Reception Deck locks yawned open. With a heavy lurch, his battered craft came to rest inside the lip of the gaping outer doors.

IX

The Algol's officers formed a silent group beneath the huge glassene dome of the navigation bridge. They looked expectantly at Glayne as the elevator port dilated and he approached them, weary and unshaven, his face covered with blood.

Ignoring their unspoken questions, Glayne said brusquely, glancing at the navigation chrono, "Lieutenant Harbin: Compute an orbit for Scone III. Get the ship under way immediately ... drop into sub-space at three ten to the seventh kilos from Jorger Sun. Thrust—eight G's."

He was about to turn on his heel when Harbin's hesitant voice stopped him.

"Sir ... what ... what about Commander Graysen and the others?"

Glayne stared at the youngster bleakly. "Graysen is dead," he said with a flat voice. "So is Ganser. And I presume that our escort has been executed."

Harbin's youthful jaw tightened. "And Lieutenant Chodred?"

The lines about Glayne's mouth deepened. He let his gaze travel over Harbin's troubled face and the impassive faces of the rest of the ship's officers. He saw accusation in their eyes along with resentment and veiled hostility. He knew what they were thinking. Why should he be the only one to return. Why had he abandoned the others? And now they wanted to know what had happened to the girl. So he told them.

"She is still alive." Bitterly he wondered why Fate had designated her to be the only one left to face Gort Bro-Doral's vengeance. He looked up again at the silent cluster of officers. "If your curiosity is satisfied, gentlemen, suppose we get on with the war?"

"If Tjadlinn is without Jewel power," persisted Harbin stubbornly, "why can't we attack? We might be able to rescue Lieutenant Chodred. It's the least we could do—"

"Follow my orders!" Glayne cut in savagely. He turned on his heel and mounted to his shock seat in the Captain's Station. Yes, he thought bitterly, they could attack Tjadlinn, incur heavy damage on the discoid—perhaps even accomplish a miraculous rescue of Niala. But weighed against that was the possibility that the Algol might be heavily damaged or destroyed by the highly potent secondary Kellanders of the discoid. Unless he got through to Garstow, the conservative Grand Admiral of the Stellar Guardians was likely to delay his attack on Karkara—and such a delay would be suicidal.

Gradually a floor began to build under his feet and the Algol got under way. As the thrust increased, the discoid began to shrink in the distance. Glayne stared at its image grimly in the battle screen. He didn't say farewell because he knew he would be back. He rubbed his bristly cheek. He saw success now. He felt it on the tips of his clutching fingers. But something else was beyond his grasp now—something that made success dry and unpalatable. He covered his eyes with his hand as the thought stabbed him: The laughing, green-eyed Niala....

The Stellar Guardian fleet lay motionless across forty thousand kilometers of space when the Algol reached the rendezvous at Scone III. Admiral Garstow's anxious face formed rapidly in the featureless grey surface of Glayne's ship-to-ship communicator screen.

"Give me a fast, verbal report on the Jewel, Glayne," ordered the Admiral.

The Guardian Captain complied, rapidly sketching the main details of his sabotage and providing a rough outline of the Delban defense of the discoid.

When he finished, Garstow nodded thoughtfully. "Do you think it advisable to risk an immediate attack on the discoid on the chance that we can knock it out before they repair the power drains?"

Glayne frowned, then said, "No. It's too long a chance. They will mass their fleet at Tjadlinn immediately. Under normal circumstances we could lick them, but if they repair that Jewel faster than I expect, then we'll be sitting ducks."

Garstow nodded again. "Lieutenant Brodis informed me of the plan you had in mind of attacking the Karkara Fleet Station on Scone III and thereby acquiring the Jewel power-receiving antennae. On the whole, I think that is the shrewder move. Since you've managed this show up to now, Captain, I think you might as well organize the attack."

"Thank you, sir," Glayne replied. "I'll take my own cruiser division in first to clear away what little resistance they'll put up. That will be the simplest part about it. The real difficulty will come when we install the antennae. As Brodis probably told you, we were unable to get any technical information from General Ganser."

Garstow rubbed his fleshy nose thoughtfully, then said, "It's in your hands, Captain." Then he cut out.

Rapidly Glayne organized the attack, placing his own cruiser division at the point of the spearhead. Smoothly the Stellar Guardian striking force flashed down on Scone III. As Glayne had anticipated, their sudden assault was little more than an armed landing. The Delbans were caught completely off guard. They put up a fanatical resistance with the auxiliary-powered Kellander secondary batteries, but the superior weight of Glayne's miatron blasters soon crushed every last shred of opposition.

As soon as the Algol had jetted down on the immense space-port of the Karkara Fleet Station, a group of technicians in addition to the landing party raced off to confiscate an antennae unit for the big ship. Glayne set up an operations unit in the glassene dome of the Algol to assign landing patterns to the other Guardian fleet units. The heaviest Cluster and Galactic class warships he assigned to fast orbits about Scone to defend the ships which had already landed.

After he saw that landing operations were proceeding smoothly he descended to the engine room of the Algol to see how the installation of the antenna was progressing. Massive cables snaked across the deck in confusions, waiting to be hooked into the heavy buses which the technicians were jockeying into place. Outside on the hull, gangs of men were welding in the mesh antenna. Fuming, he looked at his wrist-chrono repeatedly.

"How much longer?" he asked Harbin impatiently.

"Thirty minutes at the most, sir," replied Harbin stiffly, refusing to meet Glayne's eyes.

Glayne rubbed his bristly cheek thoughtfully as he turned away. The young officer was determined to give him the silent treatment along with the rest of the officers in his crew. Word would spread; soon the whole fleet would hear of his cowardly negligence. He smiled thinly as he made his way back up to the navigation bridge. He had seen it happen before. There were just two ways to escape it. One was retirement. The other involved a Cardy gun placed at the temple....

The red light of his personal communicator was blinking intermittently when he regained the bridge. It was Garstow.

"Glayne!" he barked abruptly, "Bardled is on his way in with the fleet of Imperial Terra. And a dozen other Sectors have massed their fleets and are on the way, too."

"Excellent," said Glayne. "We're working faster now. We've put the Delban technicians to work and repaired the damage to their assembly lines. We ought to be able to handle a thousand ships an hour. How long before Bardled will arrive?"

"Four hours ... maybe six."

"I'm lifting in a few minutes," Glayne said. "When Bardled arrives, install the units in his heavy ships first. Those tubs will smash the Tjadlinn anti-shield if anything will."

Rapidly Glayne went on to sketch his plan of attack. When he finished, Garstow nodded ponderously. "Then we will sub-space as soon as we pick up the power broadcast. A sound strategy, Captain. Good luck!" His face faded from the screen.

The first of the big Cluster class battleships were easing down on vast fingers of flame when Harbin reported that the work of installation was complete. In quick succession the other cruisers of his division reported readiness and he gave the command to blast off.

The Algol was almost two hundred million kilos below Scone System's plane of ecliptic when the hastily installed antenna unit began to pick up the first surges of power from the Tane Jewel. Cautiously the Algol's pilot experimented with it, accustoming himself to unlimited power at his finger tips. One by one, the ship's atomic drivers fell silent as the pilot gained confidence.

"Raise the anti-shield, Lieutenant Harbin," Glayne said crisply over his inter-ship phone. "We'll sub-space right now."

Harbin's image stared at him incredulously from the communicator screen for an instant but he fought down the words that trembled on his lips.

"Aye, sir," he snapped.

Glayne was grimly amused at his anxiety but said nothing to relieve it. They were dangerously close to mass, he knew, but if Gort Bro-Doral could blast into sub-space directly from Sterle II with a shield supported by Jewel power, then he ought to be able to get away with it at two hundred million kilos from mass.

Briefly Glayne communicated his intent to the commanders of the thirty other cruisers in his division and their anti-shields began to build. At his curt command they dropped smoothly into sub-space, their shield generators heating up slightly as the sudden strain hit them.

They plunged on through sub-space, building up to incredible velocities in that nether dimension where such commonplace things as mass and light did not exist. Glayne's mind worked rapidly, analyzing his plan of battle for any defects. Obviously the enemy would mass his fleet at the all-important Tjadlinn. If his calculations were correct, his cruiser division would pop into normal space right among them. If they struck fast enough, they could disorganize the Delbans sufficiently for Garstow and Bardled to get in among them with the heavy units of their fleets. And that, he knew, would be the end of the Delban Grand Fleet.

The discoid was another matter. Paradoxically, it contained within it the very source of the power which they would use to destroy it. The only possible way the Delbans could deprive them of the Jewel power would be to turn off the non-directional broadcast entirely. That, however, would leave them open to an attack by the regular miatron batteries of the heavy Guardian and Terran battleships. They could not possibly hope to beat off such an attack with their Kellander secondaries. Hence, Glayne reasoned, they would keep up the power broadcast at all costs.

Satisfied with his plan, Glayne let his mind relax and drift where it wanted. Abruptly it turned to thoughts of Niala Chodred and he winced at the pain which filled him. Grimly, he realized that if the silent treatment by his fellow officers failed to ruin him, the bitter acid of remorse which burned his soul would certainly accomplish the job.

X

One instant the fleet of the Delban Empire was assembling about the vital Tjadlinn discoid in an orderly fashion. An instant later all hell broke loose amid its massed ranks.

Glayne's cruiser division popped out of sub-space at two hundred kilometers per second and flailed through the Delbans like a giant scythe. His eyes glued to the small battle screen in front of him, Glayne clipped off rapid commands over the ship-to-ship communicator that kept him in touch with the rest of his group.

Three Delban warships—one a battle-ship—had been caught with their shields down and were now exploding enthusiastically in nova-fashion. A dozen others had been heavily damaged by the slashing miatron beams as they vainly sought to lift their shields.

The Algol screamed in protest as the pilot flung her around to bore in again. Her armored hide seemed to crawl in squealing agony at the twenty G turn. Glayne panted, on the verge of blacking out. Dimly he glimpsed the strained features of the pilot wracked with spasms of coughing that flung lobs of blood and lung tissue against the terraced banks of instruments at his side....

Then they were among the Delbans again, slashing right and left with Kellander miatron beams. This time the Delbans were ready for them and replied with a vengeance. Torrents of energy smashed at the Algol's shield which shuddered like a live thing under the impact. Behind Glayne a knot of sweating gunnery officers rattled off firing data to waiting Kellander crews before the mammoth battle screen. Somewhere in the bowels of the ship the accumulators were screaming as they fed the Jewel energies from the antenna to the smoking banks of shield generators and the ravenous Kellander condensers. But dominating the ear-splitting crescendo of the Algol in full fighting stride was the continuous, ravening thunder of Kellander projectors as they flung their blasts at the Delban warships.

Glayne saw that his division had scattered widely—but, at the same time, the disorganization of the Delbans was even more evident. Unaware that the sudden attack was a feint to draw them away from Tjadlinn, a dozen Delban fleet divisions abandoned the Jewel to join the fray.

As the Guardian Captain scanned the screen, he saw that the tide was fast running in favor of the Delbans. The Anza was finished for the day. A flotilla of swift Delban destroyers had darted in with mines and torpedoes, one of which had gotten through her shield and exploded with a devastating energy concussion against her stern, sheering off plates and jet tubes by it force. The Altor and Astrid were cornered by a dozen Delban Galactics and Clusters and their shields coruscated in brilliant hues as they trembled on the point of collapse. A third Guardian ship, the Aesir, blasted in to offer aid and even as Glayne watched, hurled her energies in a concerted salvo at a point just below the jets of one of the Delban Clusters. Its shield coruscated brilliantly, tottered, and suddenly it was strewing its guts, nova-fashion. Almost immediately the Aesir followed her example as a salvo of Galactic beams struck her amidships, rupturing her shield. A torpedo ripped into the bridge of the Astrid and she exploded in an eye-searing nova. The Altor managed to limp away in the confusion, her beralloy hide mangled and torn from a near miss.

The Algol herself was in trouble. Two Delban Stellars were hurling torrents of energy at her shield, making it coruscate in a blaze of overloaded power foci. A pack of destroyers was circling hungrily, looking for a chance to dart in and plant their seeds of destruction. The pilot maneuvered desperately, but the overloaded power lines could not shunt sufficient power through the drivers to pull them out of their difficulty.

Glayne swore, wondering where the rest of the fleet was. It couldn't go on much longer. The Akkad had novaed; the Ashlar and Asgard had disappeared without leaving a trace. Only six of his original thirty were in fighting shape—and even as he watched he had to revise it to five. The Atlas, surrounded by a dozen enemies, exploded in nova-fashion as her shield collapsed.

And then the void was suddenly full of great warships bearing the Guardian and Terran insignia, appearing magically in the midst of the Delbans. What had appeared to be triumph suddenly turned into a rout for the Delbans. Badly disorganized, they attempted to flee back to the safety of the mighty Kellander projectors of Tjadlinn.

But Glayne's annihilated cruiser division had done its work well; the Delbans, drawn too far from the discoid, were cut off by the fleets that opposed them. They fought desperately and fanatically, but there was only one possible outcome. One after another they exploded nova-fashion as the massed salvos of the tremendous Terran and Guardian battle ships swept aside their shields and touched destructive fingers to their beralloy sides.

Glayne's ship-to-ship suddenly crackled into life and Garstow's heavy face appeared on the screen. "My boy," he boomed, "I'm proud of you. Excellent work! We've bagged them all at almost no cost. Bardled tells me he didn't lose a ship."

Glayne gazed stupidly at him for a moment before he could adjust himself to the idea of victory. Then he said quietly: "I have five ships left out of a command of thirty."

"Oh! ... that's too bad," mumbled Garstow, his broad face becoming serious. "What I mean to say is—"

"The chaplain will say what needs to be said," Glayne cut in with unnecessary bitterness. "If you still want me to run this show, then I submit that we attack Tjadlinn without delay."

Admiral Garstow nodded, his face like a deflated balloon.

Quickly Glayne outlined his plan for the assault on the discoid itself. The battle would be fought between the Kellander accumulator and condenser capacity of the massed fleets and the total generator capacity of the mighty anti-shield which the Delbans would raise from the discoid. If the Delban shield capacity was less than the massed strength of the fleet, then the discoid would be destroyed. But if the Delbans held them off, they would try something else.

It took several hours to assemble the scattered and highly numerous Terran and Guardian warships into a closely-integrated formation. Matters were not helped by the appearance of dozens of warships from the fleets of other Sectors. They roamed about searching for enemy stragglers, but succeeded only in getting in the way. Finally, however, Glayne got them organized and the enormous fleet moved ponderously on Tjadlinn.

The Delbans waited behind their featureless grey shield, not firing a single Kellander blast at the advancing fleet. When it reached to within fifty kilometers of the discoid, Glayne gave the order to commence fire.

In the center of the huge discoid the Jewel, the Second Universe of the Elder Tane, blazed with a chill, golden luminescence. It did not waver a fraction as the tremendous energy demands struck it. The power drains fed voraciously of its infinite energies and flooded them into sub-space. The cumbersome mesh antennae on the hulls of the numberless ships in the massed fleet gulped it up and transmitted it to screaming accumulators which in turn fed it to the ravenous Kellander condensers. They, in turn, cast it through the miatron projectors at the shield of Tjadlinn from whence it had emerged.

For minutes on end those titanic torrents of energy blasted at that phenomenal shield. But it held. The inconceivable energies could not crack it. Not even when every single accumulator and condenser in the massed fleets of the Terran Combine labored at peak capacity did the shield so much as tremble. Not even to the extent of a tiny spider web of coruscation along the power foci.

Glayne barked a command to cease fire. He saw that the hail of torpedoes and mines which they had strewn had penetrated the shield. But they had been detonated by roving beams from the Tjadlinn secondaries before they could strike the surface of the discoid. If they could get through that mighty barrier, Glayne reasoned, then so could the Algol. He peered into the battle screen, attempting to locate the mammoth landing dock of the discoid through its shimmering grey shield.

He made his decision. Garstow's face came to life on his communicator screen. Briefly he communicated his intention to the Guardian leader. When he had finished, Garstow nodded soberly and mumbled farewell.

When he learned that the Algol's Kellander batteries had been rigged to fire by remote control from the pilot's seat, Glayne contacted Harbin.

"Abandon ship!" he ordered laconically when the youngster's face filled the screen.

"Wha—what?" blurted Harbin incredulously.

"I said," Glayne repeated curtly, "abandon ship. Make haste!"

"Aye, sir," said Harbin. His face still mirrored astonishment as it faded from the screen.

XI

Glayne sat alone in the pilot's massive shock seat of the Algol. The instruments rose about him on all sides in terraced banks with the battle screen directly in front of his eyes. Tentatively he reached for the firing studs, accustoming his fingers to their shape. When he saw that the last of the Algol's lifeboats had been picked up he realized that the time had come.

He transferred his gaze to the discoid that was vague and indistinct beneath its anti-energy shield. Fastening his eyes to the armored outer lock doors of the landing dock, he gently fed power to the drivers. The Algol shuddered and gradually picked up speed. Glayne dropped the anti-shield, realizing that he would never get through the barrier with the energized shield functioning. But once he was through, it would have to go up quickly or his ship would be shattered by the roving secondaries. Hand hovering tensely over the shield control, he guided the ship toward the landing dock.

His speed increased; at twenty kilometers he was streaking toward the discoid in a free fall, all energy sources quiet. Fifteen—ten—five—and the Algol was boring through the energy barrier, stormed and buffeted as it sought to impede the passage of the individual circuits. Suddenly she emerged inside the shield and Tjadlinn was rushing upwards.

Like lightning Glayne's fingers stabbed at the shield control and fed power to the drivers. He braked the ship crazily to avoid the lashing secondary beams that reached hungrily for him. Once ... twice—and yet a third time the Kellander beams found the cruiser and slashed through her half-formed shield, dealing terrific blows to the plummeting ship.

Then the massive beralloy doors of the landing stage were expanding hugely in his screen and he braked with all the power he could shunt into the straining drivers. Somehow his clutching fingers found the Kellander firing studs and he lashed out repeatedly against the outer lock. It whitened, ran into slag, crusted, and flared again and again as the ravening bolts struck it. Desperately Glayne fought to prevent blackness encroaching on the corners of his vision.

Suddenly a rending, thundering roar filled the Algol and she was crashing headlong through the weakened beralloy doors of the landing dock. But even above that deafening roar, Glayne could hear the scream of twisted and tortured metal. Then the big ship stopped moving and all was quiet except for the shriek of air escaping through the crevices around her mangled hull.

Groggily, Glayne shook his head in an effort to shake off the black-out which had engulfed his vision. In spite of his circulation exercises he couldn't see anything. Then a glimmering of the answer occurred to him and with wild surmise he experimentally flicked the firing stud of the ship's Kellanders.

Nothing happened.

Then Glayne understood. Every bit of the ship's power was cut off, including the lights and the battle screen. Obviously the Jewel power was cut off. Evidently the impact of the Algol's crash had jarred the delicate power drains so that Tjadlinn was once again without power. But he'd have to make sure.

Heartened, he rose and took a space suit from the locker, checking to see if its light torch was operating. As he turned away, a vague, ridiculous hope struck him. He took a second suit from the locker.

Twisted and buckled beralloy plates had sheered long, jagged gashes in the equally tough armor of the cruiser, Glayne saw, as he clambered from the emergency lock. A little air still sighed through the huge rent which the cruiser had smashed in the skin of the discoid. The gigantic landing dock was dwarfed by the three hundred meter bulk of the cruiser. Small Delban craft had been flung violently on either side and now littered the walls with their battered bodies. One or two of the Delban technicians had been caught by the crash and were either smeared thinly along the blastway or turned inside out as their bodies exploded from lack of air pressure.

Hurriedly Glayne flashed his torch about, trying to find the mono-car which his party had used to get to Selzi-Narfid's quarters. The car itself was gone but he found the gleaming mono-rail and followed it at a rapid trot. Fortunately the passage was well-equipped with automatic air-locks, one of which had whipped in place when the air pressure dropped suddenly. When he came to the first of these, he found that the dilator was without power. He fumed at the wasted time as he burned around the lock with his torch and triggered the mechanism with his finger.

After he closed it behind him, Glayne picked up his jogging pace down the mono-rail passage. He felt a kind of grim, ruthless hatred when he thought of Bro-Doral. He hoped wistfully that he would find the sneering sadist before Garstow's energy beams ripped the discoid to pieces.

He wondered what had happened to Niala Chodred. During the battle he had consciously held his thoughts away from her and the dull ache of her memory. A chill loathing spread through him as he thought of the Vibra-Death. He knew of the agonies of that nerve torture; it produced not one slow death but thousands. More passionately than ever he longed to find the Bro.

Suddenly Glayne felt the floor of the discoid tremble under his feet. At first he ignored it, but it grew persistently stronger and he realized that the fleet was again hurling its energy beams at the discoid—but this time they were penetrating because there was no shield to stop them. He quickened his pace, rounded a long curve, and found that he had reached his goal.

He vaulted the high curbing and pounded down the tapestried corridor to the wide entrance stage. The dilator stud refused to operate, so Glayne burned into the lock to operate the stud. He discovered that the port itself was locked and a sudden unreasoning hope blazed up in him. With rapid movements he burned the lock out altogether and threw his weight against the door. With a wheeze it dilated and he staggered into the luxurious apartment, stumbling from the force of his own momentum.

He was scrambling to his feet when something hit him. It was soft with rounded contours which he perceived even through the unsympathetic thickness of his spacesuit. And it had red hair and green eyes.

It was Niala.

"Glayne ... oh, Glayne," she murmured, clinging tightly to him.

"But ... but you're not hurt," he stammered, his mind striving to adjust to the realization of a hope which it had long rejected.

"I thought they had killed you," she sobbed happily. "But you got away."

"Yes, he did," remarked a third voice, familiar and hated. "It was unfortunate."

Glayne whirled. Gort Bro-Doral stood inside the entrance stage, a black Cardy gun in his hand.

"Without you in the audience, Captain, I didn't see much point in amusing myself with the girl. But now that you have returned, Glayne—"

The big Guardian crouched to spring at the Delban, gathering his legs under him.

"I shouldn't do that, Captain," Bro-Doral observed sharply, waving the Cardy menacingly. "Life is too sweet to throw it away so rashly, isn't it? Besides, such refined methods require time and I fear your leader, Admiral Garstow, doesn't propose to give us that commodity."

It was true, Glayne realized. The energy beams of the assaulting fleets were smashing tremendous blows at the discoid so that it shuddered violently. The shocks increased in strength even as he turned his attention to them. Somewhere deep in Tjadlinn air was escaping with a screaming whistle where the skin was ruptured.

"You seem to have no idea how hideous Death is, Glayne," said the Delban, approaching them slowly. "Out here on the periphery of the galaxy we like to make some sort of a ceremony of his coming—you see, he is always hovering around us." The Delban produced his explosive, nasal snicker. "Death is a fascinating subject; I have often wondered why you people in the Main Galaxy ignore him. Ever present, you know. And always waiting for you to step into his dark embrace."

Glayne watched Bro-Doral narrowly. He was but a couple of meters away. As the blows of the Kellander beams smashing into the discoid increased, he became more preoccupied with his subject and his grip on the Cardy grew lax. Glayne's hand tightened imperceptibly on the spare spacesuit.

"—out here on the Edge," Bro-Doral was saying, "Life is considered only a prelude to Death. Personally—"

Glayne lunged, flinging the extra spacesuit to one side. Bro-Doral alerted instantaneously, but his Cardy wavered for a fraction of an instant toward the empty space suit. Before he could recover his mistake Glayne's flying body had struck him. The two went down together in a thrashing tangle. Glayne's movements were hampered by the bulky spacesuit and he felt his desperate grip on the Delban slipping. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bro-Doral extending his long fingers for the Cardy which he had dropped. Frantically he sought to restrain the Delban's long arm, missed, and saw the Delban slither from his grasp and reach for the gun.

Glayne scrambled to his feet just in time to see Niala snatch up the weapon a split second ahead of Bro-Doral. For a brief instant the Ruler of Ten Thousand Suns stared into the muzzle of Death. Then it wrapped him in its dark embrace forever as Niala fired.

Glayne retrieved the spacesuit and hurriedly helped her don it. The screaming whistle of escaping air formed a mad symphony with the rumbling crashes of corridors and whole levels caving in upon themselves. They raced from the apartment, through the tapestried corridor to the mono-rail which twisted like a live thing under the impact of the blasting energy beams. Jolt after jolt shook the discoid as torpedoes and mines exploded with devastating energy concussions deep within its entrails.

It was uphill all the way as the tremendous mass of the Tane Jewel dragged at their flagging steps. Niala fell a half a dozen times from the smashing shocks that shook the discoid. Glayne helped her to her feet, only to be thrown down himself the next instant by the concussion of an energy torpedo. Huge seams opened in the tough beralloy sides of the mono-rail passage as the mammoth support beams fractured.

Panting, they finally reached the point where the air-lock had fallen in place automatically. Glayne pushed at the port, expecting it to dilate. It didn't move a fraction of a centimeter. A rapid examination showed that it was sprung. Feverishly he felt for his torch to cut it down.

But it was gone!

He suddenly felt sick, realizing that he had lost it in the struggle with Bro-Doral. Now he would never be able to find it again. They were trapped. Waves of defeat swept over him as he crouched in the darkness.

Suddenly he heard a new sound in the mad cacaphony of destruction that raged about them. It was the tortured scream of rending, snapping beralloy. And along with it came the sensation of increased weight.

The Tane Jewel!

The huge beams which had anchored it in place had evidently collapsed under the impact of the assault and now the Jewel was falling freely through space, crashing through everything that stood in its path. And it was falling toward them!

Glayne's weight grew unbearable as it approached. Vaguely he could make out its steady gold brilliance behind him in the passage. Grimly he clung to a projection in the wall with one arm and hung onto Niala with the other.

Then the miraculous happened.

The air-lock door which had been sprung now dilated under its own tremendous weight and the air pressure which remained in the passage flung Glayne and Niala through the lock.

Summoning the last reserves of his diminishing strength, Glayne put his arm around her body and half-supported her, half-dragged her up the few remaining steps of the mono-rail passage to the landing dock. Forty meters separated him from the emergency lock of the Algol. Thirty meters. His straining muscles groaned in anguish. Twenty meters. Niala was unconscious and her slight form was an unbearable weight to him as he dragged her with painfully slow steps. Ten.... Five ... he reached the lock.

The battle raged on across the stars!

He heaved her bodily into the lock and clambered in himself. Then through the inner door. Across to the elevator. His muscles were a symphony of agony. Slowly, slowly the elevator climbed. The discoid was splitting and breaking up around the Algol—or was it wedging the cruiser more firmly than ever in the vise grip of the beralloy outer portals? The elevator door quivered for a moment, then dilated in a series of little shudders. Ever so slowly Glayne crawled across the bridge deck, dragging the girl. A shock seat ... a surette of verchromynal into the blue vein inside her elbow.

The crescendo of destruction reached new heights. The Tane Jewel was following him, splashing its insidious yellow radiance through the glassene window of the navigation bridge. It dogged his footsteps ... closer ... closer. The pilot's seat. The surette. Blackness encroached upon his vision. Dimly he was aware of his arm; it moved instinctively ... slowly ... slowly. The regular driver atomics began to shriek. His arm made another movement, flicking jet studs. Power suddenly sang in the forward jet chambers and ejected itself in a great, mushrooming flame. The Algol lurched backwards ... another lurch ... straining ... a third. And the Algol was suddenly free.

The yawning pit of blackness closed its gaping maw on Glayne and he slid down, down, down....

It occurred to Glayne, when he woke up, that his quarters in the Algol had a changed appearance. He climbed from his acceleration hammock and bounded to the shower.

"Terran Standard!" he snorted to himself. "What the hell is Harbin doing puttering along like that?"

As he dried himself from the tingling shower he tried to put his finger on the change that had come over his quarters. For one thing, he couldn't find what he wanted. But an even worse defect was the absence of his dust.

Flag officers in the Stellar Guardians were generally conceded some slight idiosyncrasy through which they could assert their individuality in a service where individuality was otherwise rigorously suppressed. Glayne's own idiosyncrasy was dust. After five long years as a Dorleb training-cadet without a speck of dust to his name, Glayne felt he had earned his right to wallow in a bit of dust. But now it was all gone. His quarters were spotless.

He had finished dressing when a cautious knock sounded on his entrance portal; then it dilated before he could answer. Harbin's face appeared in the opening.

"Oh! I'm sorry, sir. Didn't think you were awake yet," Harbin said apologetically.

"Forget it," grunted Glayne. "Come in."

Harbin entered the room and fidgeted nervously for a moment. "Sir!" he finally burst out, "I ... we're sorry about that unpleasantness. I want to apologize on behalf of—"

Glayne snorted and cut him off with a wave of his arm. "What I want to know," he said with deceptive calmness, "is, where the hell is my dust?"

Harbin grinned. "Lieutenant Chodred. I advised her against it—told her it was one of your peculiarities. But she wouldn't listen."

"What 'she' is this?" inquired a new voice, pleasantly husky.

Glayne turned and saw Niala leaning in the entrance stage. "You know damned well whom we are talking about," he said ominously. "Why did you take away my dust?"

"Oh, is that all?" she laughed. It was a deliciously cool and tinkling laugh. Harbin foresaw an imminent explosion. Being a discreet warrior who longs to fight another day, he fled from the room.

But it never quite jelled. Glayne extended his arms to the laughing, green-eyed Niala. But she stood her ground.

"No," she teased. "Not when you have a beard like that."

Glayne swore and reached for his depilatory. He was going to set a new galactic speed record for shaving.