_You are a poor servant. Your flesh is weak. Yet must we use you
against Noorlythin!_
"How? How can I help?"
And then all space was shaking, flowing in a liquid stream, inward
toward a whirlpool of light that swam around and around, sucking the
stars and the black deeps of space into its maw. And as the stars and
space flowed faster and faster, so flowed McCanahan stretched and
lengthened and tortured....
* * * * *
He sat on the yellow tile of the ancient tower. A tumble of red hair
shifted and tossed before him as Flaith's white hand shook him. Beyond
her, near the open green marble door, stood the peddler. His eyes
burned with the fright in his face.
"Kael! You were so still. I thought you dead!"
She helped him to his feet. He swayed, almost retching with the pain
that spasmed his muscles. Flaith was a blur of white before him. He put
his hands to her soft shoulders, and his fingers dug in. He held to
her, as to reality.
Slowly the floor solidified and steadied beneath his buskined feet. The
pain slid away, slowly, then with greater speed.
"Out there," he said thickly. "Things. Bright things. Maybe made
of energy itself. They spoke to me. Told me about something named
Noorlythin. It was as if I was suspended in space itself. Want me to
help them."
Flaith came against him until the hard tips of her breasts burned his
naked chest. Her voice was a flow of terrified sound.
"The Doyen! They are the Doyen! We on Senn always thought they were
just a myth, like the balangs! They are gods, Kael! The gods of all
space!"
The McCanahan grunted. "Well, gods or not, they want to make a servant
out of me. They want me to help them round up some character named
Noorlythin."
From the doorway the peddler groaned. His eyes rolled in his head. A
white froth bubbled on his lips.
"Noorlythin, the evil! Noorlythin, who lived in the olden days, when
all Senorech worshipped him with blood sacrifices. Even today, on the
altar in the Temple of Krebb, the dark stains are still there!"
The McCanahan turned away to stare upward at the great metal machine
that bulked monstrous in the dim light. It was formed of black steel
and silvery chrome. Its tubes and power relays were inset under thin
glass globules so that it resembled a gigantic, transparent-backed
spider. High above its arching shell, reaching upward into the dimness
of the tower itself, were half a hundred floating, glowing balls that
danced and spun in the wind eddies.
Stretching on either side of the central hall were wide corridors,
their walls lined by glass bubbles that projected outward like bulging
eyes.
The McCanahan moved toward the near corridor, his eyes caught by a
scene within one of the glassine bubbles. Flaith followed him, afraid
to be alone.
They halted before a curving prism, discovering it to be a dioramic
window that seemed to peer into the heart of a distant planet. Flaith
whispered, "It's the planet Sfar! I'd know those cold-faced men
anywhere!"
Frozen, tiny faces stared back at them from a great, white city, set
like a jewel on the shore of a wide, blue sea. The little figures were
caught in a locked moment of time, attending to their duties. Some
moved with weapons, some drove sleek monocars.
"There's something about them," Kael muttered, scowling. "They're so
perfect! They make every move count as if it would be their last. Each
of them is long and lean, with bright, keen eyes that never miss a
thing!"
Flaith put a hand on the glassine bubble, leaning closer, staring down
at the magnified scene. "It's funny, but--"
Her slant eyes slid sideways at the McCanahan, amusement swimming
in them. "I've noticed something that I thought _you'd_ see, Kael
McCanahan!"
His eyes studied the girl in front of him as she cocked her head at
him. Even in her tattered garments, through which the McCanahan caught
disturbing glimpse of white, rounded flesh, the redhaired Flaith was a
tantalizing morsel of womanhood. He put out a long arm and drew her in
against him.
"Och, now what would I have been missing that you, with your cat's
eyes, have seen?"