“Shorr Kan, Commander of the League of the Dark Worlds!” intoned Durk Undis, with fanatic intensity. And then, “These are the prisoners, sir.”

Shorr Kan's stern gaze fastened on Gordon's face, and then briefly on Lianna's.

He spoke in clipped tones to the Sirian. “You have done well, Thern Eldred. You and Chan Corbulo have proved your devotion to the great cause of the League, and you will not find it ungrateful.”

He went on, “You had better take your cruiser back at once to the Empire and rejoin your fleet lest suspicion fall on you.”

Thern Eldred nodded quickly. “That will be wisest, sir. I shall be ready to execute any orders you send through Corbulo.”

Shorr Kan added, “You can go too. Durk. I shall question our two unwilling guests now.”

Durk Undis looked worried. “Leave them here with you alone? It is true they have no weapons, but-”

Shorr Kan turned a stern face on the young fanatic. “Do you think I stand in any danger from this flabby Empire princeling? And even if there were danger, do you think I would shrink from it if it was required by our cause?”

His voice deepened. “Will not millions of men soon hazard their lives for, that cause, and gladly? Should one of us shrink from any peril when upon our unswerving devotion depends the success of all we have planned? “And we will succeed!” rang his voice. “We shall take by force our rightful heritage in the galaxy, from the greedy Empire that thought to condemn us to perpetual banishment in these dark worlds. In that great common enterprise, do you believe I think of risks?”

Durk Undis bowed, almost worshipfully, and the Sirian imitated the action. They withdrew from the room.

Gordon had felt an astonishment, at Shorr Kan's thundering rhetoric. But now he was quickly astonished.

For as the door closed, Shorr Kan's stern face and towering figure relaxed. The League commander lounged back in his chair and looked up at Gordon and Lianna with a grin on his dark face.

“How did you like my little speech, Zarth Arn?” he asked. “I know it must sound pretty silly, but they love that kind of nonsense.”

Gordon could only stare, so amazed was he by the sudden and utter transformation in the personality of Shorr Kan.

“Then you don't believe in any of that stuff yourself?” he demanded.

Shorr Kan laughed. “Do I look like a complete fool? Only crazy fanatics would swallow it. But fanatics are the mainspring of any enterprise like this, and I have to be the biggest fanatic of all when I'm talking to them.”

He motioned to chairs. “Sit down. I'd offer you a drink but I don't dare to keep the stuff around here. It might be found and that would destroy the wonderful legend of Shorr Kan's austere life, his devotion to duty, his ceaseless toil for the people of the League.”

He looked at them with calmly cynical, keen black eyes for a moment.

“I know a good bit about you, Zarth Arn. I've made it my business to find out. And I know that while you're a scientific enthusiast rather than a practical man, you're a highly intelligent person. I'm also aware that your fianc?e, the princess Lianna, is not a fool.

“Very well, that makes things a lot easier. I can talk to intelligent people. It's these idiots who let their emotions rule them who have to be handled with high-sounding nonsense about destiny, and duty, and their sacred mission.”

Gordon, his first shock of surprise over, began to understand this ruler whose name shadowed the whole galaxy.

Utterly intelligent, and yet at the same time utterly cynical, ruthless, keen and cold as a sword-blade, was Shorr Kan.

Gordon felt a strange sense of inferiority, in strength and shrewdness to this arch plotter. And that very feeling made his hatred more bitter.

“You expect me to discuss things calmly with you, after having me brought here by force and branded to the galaxy as a parricide?”

Shorr Kan shrugged. “I admit that that's unpleasant for you. But I had to have you here. You'd have been here days ago, if the men I sent to seize you at your Earth laboratory hadn't failed.”

He shook his dark head ruefully. “It just shows how chance can upset the cleverest plans. They should have had no trouble bringing you from Earth. Corbulo had given us a complete schedule of the Empire patrols in that sector, so they could be avoided. And then that cursed Antarian captain had to make an unscheduled visit to Sol.”

The Cloud-leader concluded. “So I had to get you here some other way, Prince Zarth. And the best way was to send you an incriminating thought-message that would get you into trouble. Corbulo, of course, had orders to 'discover' my messenger, and then later to assist your flight from Throon so his killing of Arn Abbas would be blamed on you.”

Gordon seized on one point in that explanation. “Then it's true that Chan Corbulo is working for you?”

Shorr Kan grinned. “I'll wager that was a bad shock to you, wasn't it? Corbulo is pretty cunning. He's mad for power, for a star-kingdom of his own to rule. But he's always concealed that under the bluff, honest spaceman pose that made the whole Empire admire him.”

He added, “It may assuage your disillusion to learn that only Corbulo, and a score of other officials and officers in the Empire are traitors. But they're enough to wreck the Empire fleet's chances when it comes to the showdown.”

Gordon leaned forward tensely. “And just when is that showdown going to come?”

Chapter XIII. Master of the Cloud

SHORR KAN lounged back in his chair before he answered. “Zarth Arn, that depends to some extent on whether or not you're willing to cooperate with me.”

Lianna spoke scornfully. “By 'cooperate' you mean, betray the Empire.”

The League commander was not ruffled. “That's one way of putting it. I'd prefer to define it as simply to become realistic.”

He leaned forward and his strong, mobile face was in deep earnest as he continued.

“I'll put my cards on the table, Zarth. The League of Dark Worlds has secretly built up its fleet here stronger than the Empire navy. We have every weapon of war you have, and a brand new weapon that will play the devil with your fleet when we use it.”

“What kind of a weapon? Sounds like a bluff to me,” commented Gordon.

Shorr Kan grinned. “You can't fish information out of me. But I will tell you that it's a weapon that can strike down enemy warships from inside them.”

He added, “With that new weapon, with our powerful fleet, and above all with your Commander Corbulo, secretly in our pay, your Empire fleet won't have a chance when we attack. We'd have attacked before now if it hadn't been for one thing. And that's the Disruptor.

“Corbulo couldn't tell us about the Disruptor, since only the royal house of the Empire are allowed to know about it. And while the traditions of its awful power may be exaggerated, we know well that they are not baseless. For your ancestor Brenn Bir did with the Disruptor somehow completely annihilate the alien Magellanians who invaded the galaxy two thousand years ago.”

Shorr Kan's face tightened. “You know the secret of that mysterious weapon or power, Zarth. And I want it from you.”

John Gordon had expected no less. But he continued to fence. “I suppose,” he said ironically, “that you're going to offer me a star-kingdom if I give you the secret of the Disruptor?”

“More than that,” Shorr Kan said levelly. “I'm offering you the sovereignty of the whole galaxy.”

Gordon was astonished by the audacity of this man. There was something breathtaking about him.

“We agreed to talk intelligently,” Gordon snapped. “Do you suppose me stupid enough to believe that after you conquered the Empire and power over the whole galaxy, you'd give it to me?”

Shorr Kan smiled. “I said nothing about giving you the power. I spoke of giving you rule. They are different things.”