“I see,” he said at last. “I see you’re in earnest.
An unfortunate result of your training, which I had not anticipated.
I suppose it’s too late to change you, now.”
“I’m sure it is.”
Again Adam Ulnar mused awhile, and then he stood up suddenly, his lean face imperious with decision.
“I hope you understand the situation, John. Our plans are going ahead.
If you won’t be Emperor, Eric will.
Perhaps, with my advice, he won’t do too badly.
Anyhow, the Green Hall is doomed.
I suppose, with your foolish attitude, you’ll be against us?”
“I will!” John Star promised warmly.
“I hope for nothing more than a chance to smash your crooked schemes.”
Adam Ulnar nodded; for an instant he almost smiled.
“I knew you would.”
The family pride rang briefly in his sad, slow voice.
“And that means, John—I’ll be as honest with you as you have been with me—that means that you must spend your life hi prison. Unless it becomes necessary to kill you.
I have far too much confidence in your ability and your determination to set you at liberty.”
“Thank you,” said John Star, his tone more friendly than he intended.
Something softened the proud authority of the old Commander’s face.
“Good-bye, John.
I’m sorry we must part, this way.”
He laid his hand a moment on John Star’s shoulder, and showed a sudden concern at his involuntary shudder of pain.
“You’ve been hurt, John?”
“Some weapon from the black ship.
It made a greenish burn.”
“Oh, the red gas!”
The Commander was suddenly very grave.
“Open your tunic, and let me see.
The stuff is believed to be an airborne virus, really, though the biochemical reports brought back by the expedition are incomplete and extremely confusing.
The effects of it are rather distressing, but my experts in planetary medicine have worked out a treatment.
Turn, and let me see… You must go right to the hospital, John, but I think we can catch it in time.”
“Thank you,” said John Star, less stiffly—for he remembered terrifying rumors of men insane and rotting alive from that red gas.
“I’m sorry, my boy, that I’ll never be able to do more for you.
I’m really sorry that you choose to go to prison from the hospital—not to the empty throne in the Purple Hall.”
7 Giles Habibula’s Higher Calling
In a hospital room in the south wing of the colossal Purple Hall, a gruffly capable, tight-mouthed doctor washed John Star’s injury with a blue, palely luminescent solution, covered it with a thick salve, bound it and made him go to bed.
Two days later the old skin began to peel off in hard, greenish flakes, leaving new healthy flesh beneath it.
“Good,” said the laconic physician, bending to examine him.
“Not even a scar.
You’re lucky.”
John Star practised one of the wrestling holds he had learned in the Academy.
He walked out of the room in the doctor’s clothing, leaving him gagged and bound, furious but unharmed.
Four men in Legion uniform met him at the door, armed, unsurprised, and warily courteous.
“This way, please, John Ulnar, if you are ready now to go to the prison.”
With a taut little smile, John Star nodded silently.
The prison was a huge space, square and lofty, beneath the north wing of the Purple Hall.
Its walls were white metal, shining and impregnable.
The triple doors were massive, sliding slabs of armor plate, with guards in the short halls between.
The mechanism permitted only one door to open at a time, so two always sealed the way to freedom.
The cell block stood in the center of that great room, a double tier of big, barred cages, partitioned with sheet metal.