"Highness, it grows late!"
Gordon turned jerkily, startled. A grave servant, a stocky man with bluish skin, was bowing.
One of Zarth Arn's personal servants, he guessed. He would have to be careful with this man!
"Yes, what of that?" he asked, with an assumption of impatience.
"The Feast of Moons will begin within the hour," reminded the servant. "You should make ready, highness."
Gordon suddenly remembered what Jhal Arn had said of a Feast. A royal banquet, he guessed, to be held this night.
What was it Jhal had said of some announcement that Arn Abbas was to make? And what had been the talk of "Murn" and "Lianna" and his duty?
Gordon braced himself for the ordeal. A banquet meant exposing himself to the eyes of a host of people-all of whom, no doubt, knew Zarth Arn and would notice his slightest slip. But he had to go.
"Very well, I will dress now," he told the servant.
It was at least a slight help that the blue-skinned servitor procured and laid out his garments for him. The jacket and trousers were of silky black, with a long black cloak to hang from his shoulders.
When he had dressed, the servant pinned on his breast a comet-emblem worked in wonderfully-blazing green jewels. He guessed it to be the insignia of his royal rank in the Empire.
Gordon felt again the sense of unreality as he surveyed his unfamiliar figure, his dark, aquiline face, in a tall mirror.
"I need a drink," he told the servant jerkily. "Something strong."
The blue servant looked at him in faint surprise, for a moment.
"Saqua, highness?" he asked, and Gordon nodded.
The brown liquor the man poured out sent a fiery tingle through Gordon's veins.
Some of the shaky strain left his nerves as he drank another goblet of the saqua. He felt a return of reckless self-confidence as he left the apartment.
"What the devil!" Gordon thought. "I wanted adventure-and I'm getting it!"
More adventure than he had bargained for, truly! He had never dreamed of such an ordeal as was now ahead of him-of appearing before the nobility of this star-flung Empire as its prince!
All the mammoth, softly-lit palace seemed astir with soft sound and laughter and movement, as streams of brilliantly-garbed men and women moved along its motowalks. Gordon, to whom they bowed respectfully, noted their direction and went forward casually.
The gliding walks took him down through the lofty corridors and halls to a broad vestibule with wonderful golden walls. Here councilors, nobles, men and women high in the Empire, drew aside for him.
Gordon nerved himself, strode toward the high doors whose massive golden leaves were now thrown back. A silk-garbed chamberlain bowed and spoke clearly into the vast hall beyond.
"His highness, Prince Zarth Arn!"
6: The Feast Of Moons
Gordon stopped stock still, shaken by an inward quaking. He stood on a wide dais at the side of a circular hall that was of cathedral loftiness and splendor.
The vast, round room of black marble held rows of tables which themselves glowed with intrinsic light. They bore a bewildering array of glass and metal dishes, and along them sat some hundreds of brilliantly-dressed men and women.
But not all these banqueters were human! though humans were dominant, just as they were throughout the galaxy, there were also representatives of the Empire's aboriginal races. Despite their conventional garb, those he could see clearly looked grotesquely alien to Gordon-a frog-like, scaly green man with bulging eyes, a beaked, owl-faced winged individual, two black spidery figures with too many arms and legs.
John Gordon's dazed eyes lifted, and for a moment he thought this whole vast room was open to the sky. High overhead curved the black vault of the night heavens, gemmed with thousands of blazing stars and constellations. Into that sky, two golden moons and one of pale silver hue were climbing toward conjunction.
It took a moment for Gordon to realize that that sky was an artificial planetarium-ceiling, so perfect was the imitation. Then he became aware that the eyes of all these folk had turned upon him. On the dais, there was a table with a score of brilliant people, Jhal Arn's tall figure had risen and was beckoning impatiently to him.
Jhal Arn's first words shocked him back to realization of how badly his caution and self-control had slipped.
"What's the matter, Zarth? You look as though you'd never seen the Hall of Stars before!"
"Nerves, I guess," Gordon answered huskily. "I think I need another drink."
Jhal Arn burst into laughter. "So you've been fortifying yourself for tonight? Come, Zarth, it isn't that bad."
Gordon numbly slid into the seat to which Jhal Arn had led him, one separated by two empty chairs from the places where Jhal sat with his lovely wife and little son.
He found grizzled Commander Corbulo on his other side. Across the table sat a thin, nervous-eyed and aging man who he soon learned was Orth Bodmer, Chief Councilor of the Empire.
Corbulo, a stern figure in his plain uniform, bowed to Gordon as did the other people along this raised table.
"You're looking pale and downcast, Zarth," rumbled the grizzled space-admiral. "That's what you get, skulking in laboratories on Earth. Space is the place for a young man like you."
"I begin to think you're right," muttered Gordon. "I wish to Heaven I was there now."
Corbulo grunted. "So that's it? Tonight's announcement, eh? Well, it's necessary. The help of the Fomalhaut Kingdom will be vital to us if Shorr Kan attacks."
What the devil were they talking about, John Gordon wondered bitterly? The names "Murn" and "Lianna" that Jhal Arn had mentioned, this reference to Fomalhaut star-kingdom again-what did they portend?
Gordon found a servant bending obsequiously over his shoulder, and told the man, "Saqua, first."
The brown liquor spun his brain a little, this time. He was aware, as he drank another goblet, that Corbulo was looking at him in stern disapproval, and that Jhal Arn was grinning.
The brilliant scene before him, the shining tables, the splendid human and unhuman throng, and the wonderful sky-ceiling of stars and climbing moons, held Gordon fascinated. So this was the Feast of Moons?
Music that rippled in long, haunting harmonies of muted strings and woodwinds was background to the gay, buzzing chatter along the glittering tables. Then the music stopped and horns flared a loud silver challenge.
All rose to their feet. Seeing Jhal Arn rising, Gordon hastily followed his example.
"His highness, Arn Abbas, sovereign of the Mid-Galactic Empire, Suzerain of the Lesser Kingdoms, Governor of the stars and worlds of the Marches of Outer Space!
"Her highness, the Princess Lianna, ruler of the Kingdom of Fomalhaut!"
The clear, loud announcements gave John Gordon a shock of astonishment even before the giant, regal figure of Arn Abbas strode onto the dais, with a girl upon his arm.
So "Lianna" was a girl, a princess-ruler of the little western star-kingdom of Fomalhaut? But what had she to do with him?
Arn Abbas, magnificent in a blue-black cloak upon which blazed the glorious jewels of the royal comet-emblem, stopped and turned his bleak eyes angrily on Gordon.
"Zarth, are you forgetting protocol?" he snapped. "Come here!"
Gordon stumbled forward. He got only a swift impression of the girl beside the emperor.
She was tall, though she did not look so beside Arn Abbas' giant height. As tall as himself, her slim, rounded figure perfectly outlined by her long, shimmering white gown, she held her ash-golden head proudly high.
Pride, beauty, consciousness of authority-these were what Gordon read in the chiseled white face, the faintly scornful red mouth, the cool, clear gray eyes that rested gravely on him.