Gordon awoke next morning to glimmering white dawn and found the blue Vegan servant standing beside his bed.
“The princess Lianna asks you to breakfast with her, highness,” the servant informed.
Gordon felt quick surprise and worry.
Why had Lianna sent this invitation? Could she suspect something? No, impossible. And yetHe bathed in a little glass room where, he found by pushing buttons at hazard, he could cause soapy, salty or perfumed waters of any temperature to swirl up neck-high around him.
The Vegan had a silken white suit and cloak ready for him. He dressed quickly, and then went through the palace to Lianna's apartments.
These were suites of fairylike pastel walled rooms beyond which one of the broad, flower-hung terraces looked out over Throon. Boyish in blue slacks and jacket, Lianna greeted him on the terrace.
“I have had breakfast laid here,” she told him. “You are just in time to hear the sunrise music.”
Gordon was astonished to detect a faint shyness in Lianna's gaze as she served him iced, red-pulped fruits and winy purple beverage. She did not now seem the regally proud princess of the night before.
And what was the sunrise music? He supposed that was another of the things he should know but didn't.
“Listen, it is beginning now!” Lianna said suddenly.
High around the city Throon loomed the crystal peaks of the Glass Mountains, lofty in the sunrise. Down from those glorious distant peaks now shivered pure, thrillingly sweet notes of sound.
Storm of music broke louder and louder from the glittering peaks. Wild, angelic arpeggios of crystalline notes rang out like all the bells of heaven. Tempests of tiny tinklings like Pizzicati of fairy strings was background to the ringing chords.
Gordon realized now that he was hearing the sounds given forth by the sudden expansion of the glassy peaks as Canopus' rays warmed them. He heard the crystal music reach its ringing crescendo as the big white sun rose higher. Then it died away in a long, quivering note.
Gordon exhaled a long breath. “That was the most wonderful thing I've ever heard.”
Lianna looked at him, surprised. “But you've heard it many times before.”
He realized he had made another slip. They had walked to the rail of the terrace, and Lianna was looking up at him intently.
She suddenly asked a question that startled him. “Why did you send Murn away last night?”
“How did you know about that?” he said.
Lianna laughed softly. “You should know there are no secrets in this palace. I've no doubt it is buzzing right now with the news that we breakfasted together.”
Was that so? Gordon thought in dismay. In that case, he might have some explaining to do to Murn when next they met.
“Did you and she quarrel?” Lianna persisted. Then she flushed slightly and added, “Of course, it's really none of my affair.”
“Lianna, it is your affair,” Gordon said impulsively. “I only wish-”
He stopped. He could not go on, to say that he only wished he could tell her the truth.
He did wish that with all his heart and soul, at this moment. Murn was adorable, but it was Lianna whom he would never forget.
Lianna looked up at him with puzzled gray eyes. “I don't understand you as well as I thought I did, Zarth.”
She was silent for a moment, and then suddenly spoke a little breathlessly.
“Zarth, I can't fence with people. I have to speak straight out. Tell me, did you really mean it when you kissed me last night?”
Gordon's heart jumped, and the answer sprang from his lips. “Lianna, I did.”
Her gray eyes looked up at him gravely, wondering. “It seemed strange yet I felt you did. Yet I still can hardly believe-”
She suddenly, with the imperiousness that betrayed regal training, put her hands on his shoulders. It was open invitation to kiss her again.
Not if the whole palace had crumbled about them could Gordon have resisted doing so. And again, the feel of her slim, electrically alive figure in his arms, the touch of sweet, breathless lips, shook him.
“Zarth, you've changed,” Lianna whispered, wonderingly, unconsciously repeating Murn. “I almost believe that you love me-”
“Lianna, I do!” burst from Gordon. “I have, from the first moment I saw you.”
Her eyes softened, clung brilliantly to his. “Then you want our marriage to be a real one? You would divorce Murn?”
Gordon came to himself with a crashing shock. Good God, what was he doing?
He couldn't compromise the real Zarth, who loved Murn with all his heart.
Chapter VIII. The Spy from the Cloud
GORDON was temporarily delivered from his impasse of bewilderment by a providential interruption. It came from a chamberlain who hesitantly emerged onto the terrace.
“Highness, your father requests you and the Princess Lianna to come to the tower-suite,” he told Gordon, bowing.
Gordon seized upon the chance to evade further discussion. He said awkwardly, “We had better go at once, Lianna. It may be important.”
Lianna remained looking at him with steady gaze, as though expecting him to say more. But he didn't.
He couldn't. He couldn't tell her that he loved her, only to have the real Zarth Arn come back and deny it.
She was silent as they followed the chamberlain by gliding ramps up to the highest tower of the palace. Here were rooms whose glass walls looked out over all the shimmering towers of Throon and the stupendous encircling panorama of glassy peaks and sea.
Arn Abbas was restlessly pacing the room, a giant, dominating figure. The thin-faced Chief Councilor, Orth Bodmer, was speaking to him, and Jhal Arn was also present.
“Zarth, this matter concerns you and Lianna both,” Arn Abbas greeted them.
He explained curtly. “The crisis between us and the League is deepening. Shorr Kan has called all League starships home to the Cloud. And now I'm afraid the Hercules Barons are wavering toward him.”
Gordon quickly recalled the lukewarm attitude of Zu Rizal and the other Hercules Baron the night before.
Arn Abbas' massive face was dark. “I sounded Zu Rizal last night after the Feast. He said the Barons couldn't commit themselves to full alliance with the Empire. They're worried by persistent rumors to the effect that Shorr Kan has some powerful new weapon.
“I believe, though, that Zu Rizal doesn't represent the feelings of all the Barons. They may be doubtful but they don't want to see the Cloud conquer. I think they can be brought into full alliance with the Empire. And I'm going to send you to accomplish that, Zarth.”
“Send me?” Gordon exclaimed, startled. “But I couldn't carry out a mission like that.”
“Who could carry it out better, highness?” Orth Bodmer said earnestly to him. “As the emperor's own son, your prestige would make you a potent ambassador.”
“We're not going to argue about it-you're going whether you like it or not!” snapped Arn Abbas.
Gordon was swept off his feet. He to act as ambassador to the great star lords of Hercules Cluster? How could he?
Then he saw a chance in this. Once in space on that mission, he might manage to touch at Earth and would then be able to re-exchange bodies with the real Zarth Arn. If he could do that – “This means,” Arn Abbas was saying, “that your marriage to Lianna must take place sooner than we planned. You must leave for Hercules in a week. I shall announce that your marriage to Lianna will be solemnized five days from now.”
Gordon felt as though he had suddenly stepped through a trapdoor into an abyss.
He had assumed that this marriage lay so far in the future he didn't need to worry about it. Now his assumption was wrecked.