* * * * *
I was able to establish which way was up, which down, and that I lay
horizontally, as if floating in liquid or upon clouds. My ears hummed a
trifle, and a voice spoke.
"He will be all right."
Dr. Thorald! I opened my eyes, and they were blurred. I lifted a hand
to them, and moaned despite myself.
"Were you killed, too?" I muttered.
"Killed? Not me. Nobody was killed, except that fat pig you met in the
cavern. Not enough of him left to make a funeral worth while." Thorald
looked behind him. "Ahoy, Parkeson! Cross! Barak's going to be all
right."
The other two heads of the Newcomer expedition pushed into view, and
looked down upon me where I lay.
"High time," grumbled Parkeson. "They're yelling for him--both sides.
Barak, you'll have to drop all your weapons and take up political
economy. I greatly fear you'll have a world to run."
"World?" I echoed stupidly. "What world?" My head cleared a bit.
"Where's Doriza?"
"The fighting's over," Parkeson soothed me. "Just as you forced it to
be. I'm still trying to decide whether you were an epic hero or an epic
idiot, there at the crossways of battle, making us all stop, or fight
you! But your hunch paid off. The entire Council of Dondromogon is
dead, and--"
"Doriza," I said again.
"Somebody named Klob, a sturdy soldierly chap, is taking charge. An
old sneak named Sporr tried to foment a counter-rising, but Klob
disintegrated him. However, the army of Dondromogon still holds an
inner defense--says it doesn't trust us quite. Wants only you to assure
it that we mean peace. Feel like getting up, Barak?"
Dr. Thorald leaned over. "You've engineered this yourself, Barak, or
maybe you didn't engineer it--maybe you only bulled it through. So I
won't put words in your mouth, or thoughts in your head. But tell those
deluded people to start by trusting us. And you know that they can.
Nobody wanted war less than I. Peacetime endeavor on Dondromogon is
quite difficult and exciting enough."
"Doriza," I said yet again, and then, "All right, gentlemen. You won't
tell me about her. Maybe you don't dare. But how did I survive?"
"Oh, that?" put in Captain Cross. "Don't you know? The explosion was
set off prematurely, to trap and destroy Gederr. It blew him to atoms,
but you were clear of it. You had a bad tumble into the lower chamber--"
Now I sat up. "Never tell me that he bungled it that badly! Gederr was
a tyrant and coward and murderer, but not a bungler!"
"He was to some extent. Is your head clear? Now we can begin to
explain."
Cross subsided, and Dr. Thorald took up the tale: "We sent a spy among
them, a long time back, a spy that would pretend to be renegading
from us. The spy was good, but got a rather visionary idea, like your
own--that peace was better than war between us."
"Practically treason," opined Parkeson sagely.
"We might have held a court-martial and an execution," went on Dr.
Thorald, "but for you. Because you seemed to plan out all this
Horatius-at-the-bridge coup. And just when we thought it had achieved
success--we thought you were failing."
"And up bobs our ex-spy, and sets off the explosion," chimed in Cross.
"Sets it off to destroy Gederr and save you. And that left them without
a leader to order battle, and they were more than glad to talk peace."
"What," I growled, "has all this to do with Doriza?"
"Why," grinned Dr. Thorald, "they're yelling for her, too, to lead
in the final peace talks. Because, you see, she was our spy, our
pseudo-renegade, who set off the explosion!"
Doriza came forward to where I had sagged back on the pillows. At sight
of her smile, I thought no more of strife and wounds and worries.