“You need keep nothing back from me.
I’m Captain Madlok of the Purple Dream.
I enjoy Commander Ulnar’s full confidence.
I know that you men were stationed here to guard a priceless treasure.
What account have you to make of it?”
All his companions hesitated, Jay Kalam habitually taciturn, Hal Samdu, slow with words, Giles Habibula overly cautious.
John Star spoke out bitterly:
“That treasure is lost!”
“Lost!” snapped Madlok.
“You’ve lost AKKA?”
John Star nodded, sick at heart.
“A traitor was sent here———”
“I don’t care for alibis!” rapped Madlok.
“You admit that you have betrayed your trust.”
“Aladoree Anthar has been kidnapped,” John Star said stiffly, Madlok’s stern face recalling his lectures in military courtesy.
“I suggest, sir, that she must be rescued. And I believe, sir, that the news should be communicated to the Green Hall.”
Madlok’s voice had a brittle snap:
“I shall take care of any reports necessary.”
“Sir, the search must begin at once,” said John Star, urgently.
“I’m accepting no orders from you, if you please.
And I shall take the four of you at once to Commander Ulnar, at his estate on Phobos.
You can report your failure to him.”
“May I go back, sir, just a few minutes?” appealed Giles Habib-ula. “Some things I must bring———”
“What things?”
“Just a few mortal cases of old wine, sir.”
“What!
Wine!
We’re taking off at once.”
“If you will pardon me, sir,” gravely offered Jay Kalam, “our mission gives us a peculiar position in the Legion, regardless of military rank.
We are not under your command.”
“Your signals were seen from Commander Ulnar’s private observatory on Phobos,” snapped Madlok.
“Inferring—and rightly—that you had betrayed your trust and lost AKKA, he sent me to bring you to the Purple Hall.
I trust that you will condescend to obey the Commander of the Legion.
We take off in twenty seconds!”
John Star had heard of the Ulnar estate on Phobos, for the magnificent splendor of the Purple Hall was famous throughout the System.
The tiny inner moon of Mars, a bit of rock not twenty miles in diameter, had always been held by the Ulnars, by right of reclamation.
Equipping the barren, stony mass with an artificial gravity system, synthetic atmosphere, and “seas” of man-made water, planting forests and gardens in soil manufactured from chemicals and disintegrated stone, the planetary engineers had transformed it into a splendid private estate.
For his residence, Adam Ulnar had obtained the architects’ plans for the Green Hall, the System’s colossal capitol building, and had duplicated it room for room.
But he had built on a scale an inch larger to the foot, using, not green glass, but purple, the color of the Empire.
The Purple Dream dropped upon the landing stage atop the square, titanic tower.
Beyond the edge of the platform, when they disembarked, John Star could see the roofs of the building’s great wings, glistening expanses of purple stretching out across the vivid green of lawn and garden.
Beyond, the woods and hills of the tiny world appeared to drop with an increasing, breath-taking abruptness, so that he felt as if he were perched insecurely on the top of a great green ball, afloat in a chasm of starry purple-blue.
They dropped in an elevator three thousand feet, escorted by Madlok and half a dozen alert armed men from the cruiser, and entered an amazing room.
Corresponding to the Green Hall’s Council Chamber, it was five hundred feet square, arched with a tremendous dome.
The lofty vault and columned walls were illuminated with colored lights to secure effects of ineffable vastness and splendor.
In the center of the floor, all grouped in a tiny-seeming space, were a thousand seats, corresponding to the seats of the Council of the Green Hall—empty.
Above them, on a high dais, stood a magnificent gem-canopied throne of purple crystal—vacant.
On its seat lay the old crown and sceptre of the Emperors—waiting.
They marched, astonished and awed, across the vast floor, under the whispering vault, and around the dais.
Behind the throne they entered a small room, beyond a guarded door.