And Bors could only hope to salvage the life of one girl from the wreckage of everything that human beings prefer to believe in. He could only hope to send Gwenlyn away--if he was not already too late.
The _Horus_ broke out into normal space twelve days after leaving Deccan. The untrustworthy sun of Glamis still shone brightly. The inner planet revolved about it with one side glowing low red heat and the other side piled high with frozen atmosphere. The useless outer planet remained a lush green, save for its seas. And the fleet still circled it from pole to pole.
Bors had himself ferried to the flagship by space-boat, because what he had to report was too disheartening to be spoken where all the fleet might hear. Gwenlyn met him at the flagship's airlock. She looked very glad, as if she'd been uneasy about him.
"Call for a boat," Bors commanded her curtly, "to take you to the _Sylva_. Go on board with anybody else who belongs on it, your father, anybody. I'm going to ask the king to insist that the _Sylva_ get away from here--fast! Before the Mekinese turn up."
Gwenlyn shook her head, her eyes searching his face.
"The _Sylva's_ not here. It's gone to Kandar as a sort of dispatch-boat."
"Then I'll try to get another ship assigned to take you away," he said formidably. "Maybe one of the captured cargo-ships I sent back."
"No," said Gwenlyn. "They're going to be released. They'll go to Mekin, and we _couldn't_ go there!"
Bors groaned again. Then he said savagely, "Wait here for me. I'll arrange something as soon as I've seen the king."
He strode down the corridor to King Humphrey's cabin. A sentry came to attention. Bors passed through a door. The king and half a dozen of the top-ranking officers of the fleet were listening apathetically to Morgan, at once vexed and positive and uncertain.
"But you can't ignore it!" protested Morgan. "I don't understand it either, but you'll agree that since my precognizer said no ship but Bors's is coming here--and he precognized every one of the prizes before they arrived--you'll concede that the Mekinese aren't coming here. So you're going out to meet them."
He saw Bors, and breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"Bors!" he said in a changed tone. "I'm glad you're back!"