Dirk nodded, not daring to trust his thoughts to words, and depressed the switch. As oft before he felt a churning moment of vertigo…then he stood in a lower corridor of the Palace Royal. Not ten feet distant stood an armed guard. This man stirred restlessly, his head turning as if he felt the electric disturbance of Dirk’s entrance. But when his searching eyes found nothing, he returned to the pacing of his post. Dirk slipped past him swiftly, noiselessly, and to the first of the long series of staircases he must negotiate.
The Palace Royal was equipped with elevators, but these he dared not use. The movement of an "empty" elevator would be token enough to the wit-sharpened Palace guards that the dreaded Galactic Ghost was in their midst. So he pressed forward and upward to the heights of the tower.
It was a long climb and a brutal one. The Emperor’s palace dwarfed to shame the puny "skyscraper" attempts of ancestors a thousand years removed. Thus it was a weary Dirk Morris who finally attained the topmost flight, and there rested himself briefly before entering the suite which comprised the Overlord’s council chamber.
The vagrant thought struck him that the Palace was poorly guarded, considering the chaos into which the Ghost’s activities should have thrown the Emperor. But this, he reasoned, might be but another proof of the weakening of Graed Garroway’s grip; so undermined was the structure of his empire now that not even in his own bailiwick could he command the meticulous discipline he had heretofore exacted of his hirelings.
Rested at last, he moved toward the massive portal of the council hall. It hung slightly ajar; with no effort he inched it open and eased his still-invisible, but now substantial body through.
His entrance found the Overlord addressing a group seated in a semi-circle about the dais from which Garroway spoke. All backs save that of the Emperor himself were turned to Dirk. He moved forward silently, cautiously.
"—therefore, my lords and generals," the Overlord was saying, "it is vitally necessary that we apprehend this dastard, this criminal, who has so dared attack our government. Never until the so-called Galactic Ghost is captured and put to death will we be free to—"
"—to continue," said Dirk loudly, boldly, "your murderous onslaught against the rights and liberties of freedom loving people! Is that your meaning, Graed Garroway? Then abandon the thought. For truly, tonight your empire crumbles beneath you!"
"The Ghost! "
*
The cry lifted in the hall; all heads whirled as one. Eyes opened wide in futile scanning, and jaws fell agape. And of all that vast, terrified assemblage, there was only one who did not freeze with sudden fear. That one was Garroway. Strangely, a smile seized his lips as he cried:
"Yes, the Ghost…as I had hoped! Guards ... lights! "
Instantly the room, which had been cloaked in semi-darkness, blazed with the fury of a thousand beaming flares. And to his horror, Dirk Morris saw....
... not only those who had spun to face him, tight faces wreathed in scowls, hands gripping lethal weapons…but his own image, reflected a hundred times from every nook and corner of the vast hall! From a hundred mirrors placed to reflect in their revealing rock-quartz surfaces every move he made!
Too late, comprehension dawned upon him! Rima had guessed aright…this was a trap, ingeniously set for him by the Overlord, and now sprung at the proper moment. The Princess had revealed that which she had seen; the Overlord was clever enough to take advantage of it.
There was but one thing to do, and that quickly! In a trice, Dirk’s hand leaped to the control stud on his belt, seeking to depress the switch that would return him to Nadron. But here, too, the Emperor had anticipated his move. His voice again cleft the stark, foreboding silence.
"Field! "
And instantly there hummed through the room a shrill, whining current. It took but the split of a second for Dirk Morris to discern its purpose. For when his own hand tightened on the switch…nothing happened! He did not find himself hurling the vibration-span to the safety of Nadron. He remained where he was, writhing in the coils of an electric agony that coursed through his veins like liquid fire.
It was then the Overlord laughed, his voice a grating triumph.
"You see, Dirk Morris, it is useless! My scientists have probed the secret of your ghostly state…and you are snared in a net of their devising! Toss down your weapons!"
The grim purpose in his voice left Dirk no choice. Reluctantly he dropped to the floor the weapon with which he had hoped to capture Graed Garroway, stood still as grim-faced guards moved forward to grip him, bundle him to the dais wherefrom watched the smirking Overlord.
The tide was terribly turned. The biter was bitten!
VII
Dirk released the stud, pressure upon which had not brought him the escape he hoped, and gained some consolation in the fact that the pain faded. One thing he would not do, he pledged himself, was show fear or hurt before Garroway.
In as level a voice as he could muster he said, "So we meet again, Overlord of scavengers?"
Garroway laughed harshly.
"The trapped rabbit uses strong language still. You have profited little by your experience, I see, Dirk Morris."
"On the contrary," retorted Dirk, "I have profited much. And the measure of my profit lies in the dissolution of your empire…as you have learned in this past fortnight."
Garroway said, "True, you have caused me trouble. I acknowledge it. But that trouble is ended, now, for I have discovered—at last, but fortunately not too late—the true nature of the machine in which I had thought to execute you. It was not a disintegrating machine, but one that distorted the atoms of your body, rendering you invisible."
Dirk’s heart leaped; he struggled to maintain the impassive mask which was his face, revealed to the Overlord in a hundred reflecting surfaces of quartz. Then not yet had Garroway learned of the existence of Nadron, of the adjacent universe. That, at least, was something to be thankful for.
He said, "It was a clever trap you set for me, Garroway. You announced a council meeting which you knew I must attend; you surround yourself not with your generals, as was expected, but with guards. You listened to the advice of your daughter, used rock-quartz to make my body visible—"
"—and," added Garroway complacently, "prepared an electric wave-transmitter that disrupted your own instrument, trapped you in our presence, and makes it impossible for you to escape.
"Well—" His voice changed abruptly—"your puny attempt to overthrow me has failed, Morris. As a fighter, I cannot restrain a certain degree of admiration for your effort, but as Emperor of the System, there is one thing I can, and must, do. Guards—! "
His voice was a thin snarl.
But as hulking stalwarts moved forward to perform his bidding, another slighter figure hastened before them to confront her parent. The Princess Lenore.
"Wait!" she commanded. "What means this, my parent? Why do you call the guards?"
"Return to your apartment, Lenore!" ordered Garroway sternly. "You have served your purpose. It is not seemly you should witness the judgment on this rebel."
"Have you forgotten your promise?" raged the woman. "You cannot kill this man. You pledged me his life!"
"Forget this foolish whim!" bade her father. "He is but an underling. Surely there are other men—"
"I want this one!" insisted Lenore. For a moment her dark, vivid eyes touched Dirk’s with lingering ferocity…and despite the tenseness of the moment, the peril of his situation, Dirk Morris could not restrain the quick thrill of admiration and…something else which burned through him. His brain tossed in a turmoil of conflicting emotions. He understood, now, why an ungovernable impulse had caused him to sweep this girl into his arms that night in her apartment. It was because she was…she was his