When the outer casing of the prop was off, a huge piece of machinery loomed over us, a shiny metal column with a bubbled glass piece on top, with crystal spheres and metal coils, just like the machine I'd seen aboard Lord Bowen's ship.

“What is it?” the sergeant asked.

“I think it's an Event Record Transmitter. It's a kind of machine invented by The Satellite Lords, used by a clan of half-casts out in big-sky country.”

“But what is it doing here?”

“Grothol used this device to drive our rocket pilots mad, so he could win the siege for the enemy.”

Raygun fire erupted in the theater. One of the officers spun and fell onto the debris of the obelisk. I hid behind the machine and shot up into the rafters.

Tando and Tsang were pinned down under an upturned table, firing back at one of the stage crew who kept blasting the seats to pieces.

I kept to my spot and fired around at what seemed now to be a dozen maniacs. They didn't dare shoot the machine though, they must have been ordered to protect it.

A chandelier hung over the oversized box where the gunman pinned down my friends. I shot a few rays just above it. It made a hard mark in the gloom above, but one ray found the cord and brought the whole chandelier down on the fellow.

Someone jumped out from behind the curtains and slapped my raygun out of my hand.

I grabbed hold of him and we went down together onto a pile of scenery. I took a few lucky punches at his face and makeup came off on my fist. He'd been disguised as a green man from Zidd, like Tsang, but underneath his skin was very blue.

He kicked me off him and I rolled out into the hall behind the backstage. My blue attacker came through the door only to catch a face full of raygun fire. It hadn't come from me.

I turned and saw an officer of the city guard with a rifle. That shot was his last act before succumbing to his injuries.

I took up the rifle myself and went down the hall. I saw another couple of bodies, luckily those of the dubious stage crew, but nobody else. I noticed that this part of the hall contained dressing rooms and the one with the star on it belonged to Grothol, I made for that.

The contents of the room appeared fairly innocent at first. Of course, Grothol was not in the room, which helped.

Someone's voice came from back in the room “Behind the mirror.”

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“I won't hurt you, Cylas. Look behind the mirror.”

I obeyed, the mirror swung open on a pivot and behind it I found a powerful space-radio set, the tubes lit up, but the volume was turned down.

“What is all this?”

“He's a spy,” the voice said.

“Okay. Now who are you?”

“Out here.”

I found a window behind a circus poster, and outside the window floated a strange figure. Above the city floated Grothol's new assistant. He wore a floating harness of strange design and little else, scale-mail gauntlets and a horned helmet. In his right held he held a raygun, but he didn't point it at me. His expression was strange.

“You're Onix?” I asked.

“Yes, but the magician isn't really Grothol. He's a fraud.”

“Is that why Klyp was killed?”

“The big man did that, not me. He flew me in to work for him. I'm a slave, I had no choice in any of it.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“He's a failure.'

“Is that the only reason?”

“You could have killed me and you didn't.”

“You work for the Satellite Lords?”

“He does.”

“Who is he?”

“Lord Bowen.”

“Bowen is dead, his ship exploded!”

“He made it out. He made it to his father's city, they were able to save him. The Satellite Lords made him an offer and he took it.”

“Thank you, Onix.”

Onix only nodded. As if nothing for needed to be said, he turned in mid-air and floated away across above the city.

The sirens began to sound then.

Time was wasting. We'd only talked a moment, but Onix had told me a lot, possibly everything I needed. Bowen's father had been independent, the leader of a cruel race belonging to neither empire, but the son was clearly less particular. He'd sought the glory of old power, perhaps he thought serving the evil empire could bring him the same stature.

Power, however, could be a double-edged sword.

I went to the radio set and turned up the volume. Someone was calling on it at the moment. I picked up the microphone and spoke.

Moments later, a cry came from down the hall, and was cut off short.

As I walked back to the backstage area I heard the bombs exploding already, shaking the whole city. The sounds of shooting had ceased and I could see the floor littered with dead stage crew.

In fact, I saw no signs of life at all. I walked to the back of the house, to the place where Tando and Tsang had been held up, but they weren't there. I walked among the boxes.

A caped figure rose up from behind a rail, silhouetted from the windows.

Grothol stood before me, his black cape flowing around him.

“Is it true?” I asked. “Are you really Lord Bowen?”

“Lord Bowen is dead,” he said. “Call me Grothol the Magnificent.”

I kept my gun trained on him “Why do I get the feeling that it's Grothol who's dead?”

“You won't live to prove it, Renford.”

“Klyp figured out that you were an impostor. You tricked him into taking you back to his room and you killed him there.”

“I didn't.”

“You did, you're marked. You got the chemical on you.”

He pulled a bluish hand from his cloak, stained with white. He held a raygun in that hand and when he opened his cape I saw that he held the gun on Tsang!

“I've killed, you're right. I will kill again. Let me pass safely, Renford.”

“What about Tando?” I asked. “What did you do with him?”

“Perhaps I made him join my crew again?”

An explosion rocked the stage. I looked back and saw Tando with a ray-rifle, firing shot after shot into the mind-bending machine that the magician had used to drive Xato mad.

“Stop!” the magician shouted. “I'll kill him!”

Tsang struggled and the helmet was knocked from the magician's face. It was indeed Lord Bowen, his face scarred now, but his long hair still intact. Before he had looked every inch the prince, but he had become the twisted phantom.

“You're beaten again, Lord Bowen,” I said. “You might as well give up.”

“The Satellite Lords will blow you and this city to nothing and I'll have my revenge.”

“Will they?” I asked. “Haven't you noticed that the bombs have stopped falling?”

“What do you mean?” He listened. Only the ordinary sounds of the city came through the blown-out windows.

“They're in retreat,” I told him, keeping my gun aimed at him. “Onix told me where to find your radio. I got on it and told them I was you. I said the plot was discovered and that the siege was a failure.”

“Renford!” he shouted.

At that moment three things happened very rapidly. Lord Bowen aimed his ray-pistol at me, Tsang punched him in the chin and broke away from him, and I leapt to one side to avoid the rays meant to kill me.

Tando fired from the stage, hitting Bowen in the arm. The gun dropped from nerveless fingers.

I jumped out at Bowen and gave him a sharp right across the jaw. He whirled, but came back up and slapped me.

I fell down on my back, and Bowen came up at me, picking up the gun in his left hand.

At that moment my hand found the raygun where I'd dropped it and I raised it and fired.

Lord Bowen's body exploded, dead at last.