When the late Count Hassium told me that his son, Lord Bowen, lived near, he must have meant it in a relative sense. This embattled land that was once The United States of America was indeed vast, and this distance between these settlements in Big Sky country was minuscule compared to the whole, but it was still a march of miles and on foot.

Lord Bowen kept a smug smile on the whole march, the distance and the effort didn't seem to take any wind out of him. His men, all sparkling in sliver uniforms, appeared just as satisfied.

If I hadn't already had such a long day of running for my life I think I might have fared better.

The party only contained a handful of men and I began to entertain notions of breaking away and running off through the dense northern woods. Of course my hands were bound and these clever fellows had my raygun, so at best I could run like hell and hope they didn't shoot me down.

“We were here to collect your countryman, Novom, he was doing some work for me, as I'm sure you found out” Lord Bowen told me.

“Why did he keep calling himself Lord Dromo?” I asked.

“Ah!” Bowen laughed. “All of my guests and helpers get a little promotion like that. When you reach my kingdom you may well become a lord or a count or a baron.”

“I think I'd rather just go back to Rothrock.”

“He hardly looked like one of their citizens. Anyway, you'll be happy in my kingdom, everyone is.”

His last remark put a chill through me, and I wanted more than ever just to run away.

I was in the middle of thinking of how I might give a few good kicks to my captors and take off when our destination appeared ahead of us around a bend.

As we drew near along the edge of a clearing, I realized that what I'd taken for a strangely shaped fortress was in fact an enormous rocketship, a space vessel of great size and great age. Time had tarnished the metal skin of the ship, and many of the glass dome were broken or covered over in filth. The forest had already started to swallow up the tubes in the rear. A stream flowed under the nose, the tip fully thirty feet above the running water.

As we came nearer, Lord Bowen told me “This was one of Lord Radon's personal ships, thousands of years ago. It was one of the finest in three galaxies and I plan to restore it to it's former glory.”

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“You just want a really nice rocket?” I asked.

Again he laughed “No, simple Cylas, I want to conquer the universe.”

We crossed the stream by means of a log bridge and more of Bowen's silver-dressed servants lowered a gangway for us.

Inside the ship was richly decorated, every rusty surface covered over with drapes and rugs and tapestries, with electric lighting throughout. We stopped in a kind of ante-chamber and a captain of the guard saluted my host “Hail, Lord Radon.”

After I moment I expressed my confusion to Lord Bowen, who answered “I am re-living the glory of the founder of our race. To do this, all of my guests and servants assume to roles of the people in the life of the great one himself. You and I know that I am Lord Bowen, but for the purposes of my continued conquest, these mind-slaves know me as Lord Radon and see me as him.”

“What do you mean, 'mind slaves'?”

“Come, I'll show you,” and he lead me through the many sumptuous corridors towards a centralized chamber, a spherical room with many tiers of metal decking. I had to watch my step since the rocket didn't sit evenly on the ground, so all the floors slanted slightly. In the center of the room stood a kind of pillar, about 7 feet high, upon which rested a curious device. The machine was a series of crystal spheres connected by tubes and metal coils, all of which caught the light in rainbow colors.

“This,” Lord Bowen pointed to the machine, “is the Event Record Transmitter. It originates far off in the galaxy of The Satellite Lords and the great Lord Radon used it to record the events of his own life. All the excesses and debauches of his time at court were absorbed onto a the memory cylinders. So finely tuned are these ancient devices, that the mental waves of each player in the drama of Radon's life were saved, and the machine also allows them to be played back.”

“So,” I asked, “we can watch his life, like a play on the stage?”

He shook his head “No, we live his life, for the machine puts the mind of the players into living bodies!”

I shuddered at that.

The whole ship was busy with servants, many of whom wore the silver-colored leather armor of the soldiers, but some only the silver pants. A mechanical door slid open then and admitted three men into the room who looked out of place.

I gasped looking at these differently colored short-haired men, realizing now that they were none other than Tando, Tsang, and Xato!

“Ah!” Bowen clapped his hands, “Cylas, I believe you know these officers...”

“...hail, Lord Radon!” I heard my friends say in unison.

They gave no sign that they recognized me at all!

Bowen pointed to them “Cylas, meet Baron Nycen, Captain Ion, and Count Hydron.”