193

XVIII. By Radio 202

XIX. The Captain of the Volhynia 216

XX. The Drop of Irish 223

XXI. Method and Foresight 239

XXII. Two Thirteen 246

XXIII. On His Way 253

XXIV. The Road to Paris 261

XXV. Cup and Lip 280

XXVI. Rue Soleil d'Or 290

XXVII. From Four to Five 305

XXVIII. Together 312

XXIX. En Famille 325

XXX. Jardin Russe 337

XXXI. The Cafe des Bulgars 347

XXXII. The Cercle Extranationale 358

XXXIII. A Rat Hunt 377

XXXIV. Sunrise 395

XXXV. The First Day 410

THE DARK STAR

THE DARK STAR

PREFACE

CHILDREN OF THE STAR

Not the dark companion of Sirius, brightest of all stars--not our own
chill and spectral planet rushing toward Vega in the constellation of
Lyra--presided at the birth of millions born to corroborate a bloody
horoscope.

But a Dark Star, speeding unseen through space, known to the ancients,
by them called Erlik, after the Prince of Darkness, ruled at the birth
of those myriad souls destined to be engulfed in the earthquake of the
ages, or flung by it out of the ordered pathway of their lives into
strange byways, stranger highways--into deeps and deserts never
dreamed of.

Also one of the dozen odd temporary stars on record blazed up on that
day, flared for a month or two, dwindled to a cinder, and went out.

But the Dark Star Erlik, terribly immortal, sped on through space to
complete a two-hundred-thousand-year circuit of the heavens, and begin
anew an immemorial journey by the will of the Most High.

What spectroscope is to horoscope, destiny is to chance. The black
star Erlik rushed through interstellar darkn