Gordon painfully opened his eyes. He lay on a bunk in a little metal cabin, a tiny lighted room with little furniture.

Lianna, her face colorless and her eyes closed, lay in another bunk. There was a little porthole window from which he saw a sky of blazing stars. Then Gordon recognized the droning sound as the throb of a star-ship's powerful atomic turbines and drive-generators.

“Good God, we're in space!” he thought. “Thern Eldred stunned us and brought us-”

They were in the Markab, and from the high drone of its drive the light cruiser was hurtling through the galactic void at its utmost speed.

Lianna was stirring. Gordon stumbled to his feet and went to her side. He chafed her wrists and face till her eyes opened.

The woman instantly became aware of their situation, with her first glance. Remembrance came back to her.

“Your father murdered!” she said to Gordon. “And they think you did it, back at Throon.”

Gordon nodded sickly. “We've got to go back. We've got to make Thern Eldred take us back.”

Gordon stumbled to the door of the cabin. It would not slide open when he tried it. They were locked in.

Lianna's voice turned him around. The woman was at the porthole, looking out. She turned a very pale face.

“Zarth, come here.”

He went to her side. Their cabin was near the bows of the cruiser, and the curve of the wall allowed them to look almost straight forward into the vault of stars into which the Markab was racing.

“They're not taking us toward Fomalhaut Kingdom!” Lianna said. “Thern Eldred has betrayed us.”

Gordon stared into the blazing jungle of stars that spread across the sky ahead.

“What's the meaning of this? Where is Thern Eldred taking us?” Gordon asked.

“Look to the west of Orion Nebula, in the distance ahead of us!” Lianna said.

Gordon looked as she pointed through the round window. He saw, far away in the starry wilderness ahead of their racing ship, a black little blot in the heavens. A dark, brooding blotch that seemed to have devoured a section of the starry firmament.

He knew instantly what it was. The Cloud. The distant, mysterious realm of semi-darkness within which lay the stars and planets of that League of the Dark Worlds of which Shorr Kan was master, and that was hatching war and conquest for the rest of the galaxy.

“They're taking us to the Cloud!” Lianna said. “Zarth, this is Shorr Kan's plot.”

Chapter XI. Galactic Plot

THE truth flashed over Gordon's mind. All that had happened to him since he had taken up the impersonation of Zarth Arn had been instigated by the cunning scheming of that master plotter who ruled the Cloud.

Shorr Kan's plots had reached out to involve him in the gathering conflict between the giant galactic confederations, through many secret agents. And one of those agents of the powerful master of the Dark Worlds must be Thern Eldred.

“By Heaven, I see it now!” Gordon said, to the stunned woman. “Thern Eldred is working for the Cloud, and has betrayed Commander Corbulo.”

“But why should they do this, Zarth? Why implicate you in the murder of your own father?”

“To compromise me hopelessly so that I can't return to Throon!” gritted Gordon.

Lianna had paled slightly. She looked up at him steadily, though.

“What is going to happen to us in the Cloud, Zarth?” she asked.

Gordon felt an agony of apprehension for her. It was his fault that she was in this deadly danger. She had been trying to help him, and had incurred this peril.

“Lianna, I knew you shouldn't have come with me. If anything happens to you-”

He stopped and swung around, as the door slid open. Thern Eldred stood there.

At sight of the tall Sirian standing and regarding them with a cynical smile on his pale green face, Gordon started forward in an access of hot rage.

Thern Eldred quickly drew one of the little glass weapons from his jacket.

“Please note this paralyzer in my hand,” he advised dryly. “Unless you want to spend more time unconscious, you'll restrain yourself.”

“You traitor!” raged Gordon. “You've betrayed your uniform, your Empire.”

Thern Eldred nodded calmly. “I've been one of Shorr Kan's most trusted agents for years. I expect to receive his warmest commendations when we reach Thallarna.”

“Thallarna? The mysterious capital of the League?” said Manna. “Then we are going to the Cloud?”

The Sirian nodded again. “We'll reach it in four days. Luckily, knowing the patrol-schedules of the Empire fleet as I do, I am able to follow a course that will prevent unpleasant encounters.”

“Then Arn Abbas was murdered by you League spies!” Gordon accused harshly. “You knew it was going to happen. That's why you were in such a hurry to get us away.”

The Sirian smiled coolly. “Of course. I was working on a schedule of split seconds. It had to look as though you had murdered your father and then fled. We just pulled it off.”

Gordon raged. “By heaven, you're not to the Cloud yet. Corbulo knows I didn't commit that murder. He'll put two and two together and be out to track you down.”

Thern Eldred stared at him, then threw back his head in a roar of laughter. He laughed until he had to wipe his eyes.

“Your pardon, Prince Zarth, but that's the funniest thing you've said yet!” he chuckled. “Corbulo after me? Why, haven't you guessed yet that Corbulo himself planned this whole thing?”

“You're mad!” Gordon said. “Corbulo is the most trusted official in the Empire.”

Thern Eldred nodded. “Yes, but only an official, only Commander of the feet. And he has ambitions beyond that post, has had them a long time. For the last few years, he and a score of others of us officers have been working secretly for Shorr Kan.”

The Sirian's eyes gleamed. “Shorr Kan has promised that when the Empire is scattered, we shall each of us have a star-kingdom of our own to rule. And Corbulo is to have the biggest.”

Gordon's angry incredulity somehow faded a little, before the ring of truth in the Sirian's voice.

Horrified, Gordon realized that it might be true. Chan Corbulo, Commander of the Empire's great navy, might be a secret traitor for all he knew.

Evidence pointing that way rose swiftly in Gordon's mind. Why else had Corbulo broken his duty and helped him to escape? Why, at the very moment when Arn Abbas' assassination was imminent?

Thern Eldred read something of what passed in Gordon's mind, from his face. And the Sirian laughed again.

“You begin to realize now what a dupe you've been. Why, it was Corbulo himself who shot down Arn Abbas last night. And Corbulo will swear that he saw it done by you, Zarth Arn!”

Lianna was pale, incredulous. “But why? Why implicate Zarth? “

“Because,” smiled the Sirian, “it's the most effective way to split the Empire and leave it wide open to the Cloud's attack. And there's another reason that Shorr Kan will explain to you.”

The malice and triumph in Thern Eldred's eyes detonated the rage that had gathered in John Gordon's mind.

He plunged forward, heedless of Thern Eldred's warning shout. He managed by a swift contortion of his body to avoid the glass paralyzer that the other jabbed at him. His fist smashed into the Sirian's f ace.

Thern Eldred, as he sprawled backward, had Gordon atop him like a leaping panther. But the Sirian had managed to cling to his weapon. And before Gordon could carry out his intention of wresting it away, Thern Eldred desperately jabbed up with it again.

The crescent at the end of the glass rod touched Gordon's neck. A freezing shock smote like lightning through his body. He felt his senses darken swiftly.

When Gordon for a second time came back to consciousness, he was again lying in one of the bunks. This time, the freezing ache in his body was more painful. And this time, Lianna was sitting beside him and looking down at him with anxious gray eyes.