Edmond Hamilton: The Star Kings

“Jhal, don't go out on me I I've got to know more than that.”

But Jhal Arn had subsided into a drugged slumber from which he could not be awakened.

Gordon ran it all over in his mind. He knew a little more than he had before.

The procedure of operating the Disruptor was clear. But that wasn't enough. It was like giving a savage of his own time a pistol and telling him how to pull the trigger. The savage might hold the pistol's muzzle in his own face as he pulled that trigger.

“But I've got to pretend at least that I'm going to demonstrate the thing,” Gordon thought tensely. “That may hold the envoys of the Kingdoms until I can learn more from Jhal Arn.”

He went down with Hull Burrel to that deep-buried level of the palace in which lay the Chamber of the Disruptor.

The Antarian could not enter that corridor of deadly force that was tuned to blast every living being but Jhal Arn and himself. Gordon went in alone, and brought back the brackets for mounting the force-cones.

Hull Burrel looked even at these simple brackets in awe as they took them up through the palace.

By tubeway, he and Hull Burrel sped to the naval spaceport outside Throon. Val Marlann and his men were waiting by the great grim bulk of the Ethne.

Gordon handed over the brackets. “These are to be mounted on the prow of the Ethne so that they will form a circle exactly fifty feet in diameter. You'll also make provision for a heavy power connection to the main drive-generators.”

Val Marlann's swarthy face stiffened. “You're going to use the Disruptor from the Ethne, highness?” he said excitedly.

Gordon nodded. “Have your technicians start installing these brackets immediately.”

He used the ship's stereo to call Tu Shal the envoy of Polaris Kingdom.

“I you can see, Tu Shal, we are preparing to make the demonstration of the Disruptor. It will take place as soon as possible,” Gordon told the ambassador, with assumed confidence.

Tu Shal's troubled face did not lighten. “It should be quickly, highness. Every capital in the galaxy is badly disturbed by rumors of the movements of Cloud fleets.”

Gordon felt almost hopeless, as he sped back to the palace. He couldn't stall like this much longer. And with Jhal Arn still comatose, he couldn't learn more about the Disruptor now.

As night fell, thunder grumbled over the great palace of Throon from an electric storm moving in from the sea. When Gordon went wearily up to his apartments, he glimpsed violet flares of lightning outside its windows, eerily illumining the looming Glass Mountains.

Lianna was waiting for him there. She greeted him anxiously.

“Zarth, terrifying rumors of impending League attack are being whispered through the palace. It is to be war?”

“Shorr Kan may only be bluffing,” he said numbly. “If only things hold off, until-”

He had almost said, until he could get to Earth and re-exchange bodies so the real Zarth could return to bear this fearful responsibility.

“Until Jhal recovers?” Lianna said, misunderstanding. Her face softened. “Zarth, I know the terrible strain all this is to you. But you're proving that you're Arn Abbas' son!”

He wanted to take her into his arms, to bury his face against her cheek. Some of that must have showed in his face, for Lianna's eyes widened a little.

“Zarth!” said an eager feminine voice.

He and Lianna both turned sharply. Gordon immediately recognized the lovely, dark-haired woman who had entered his rooms.

“Murn!” he exclaimed.

He had almost forgotten this woman who was the real Zarth Arn's secret wife, and whom the real Zarth loved.

Amazement, then incredulity, crossed her face as she looked at Lianna, “Princess Lianna here! I did not dream-”

Lianna said quietly, “There need be no pretense between us three. I know quite well that Zarth Arn loves you, Murn.”

Murn colored. She said uncertainly, “I would not have come if I had known-”

“You have more right here than I have,” Lianna said calmly. “I shall go.”

Gordon made a movement to detain her, but she was already leaving the room.

Murn came toward him and looked up at him anxiously with soft, dark eyes.

“Zarth, before you left Throon you said you, would be different when you returned, that all would be with us as before.”

“Murn, you will only have to wait a little longer,” he told her. “Then all will be as before, I promise you.”

“I still cannot understand,” she murmured troubledly. “But I'm happy you're cleared of that awful crime, that you've returned.”

She looked at him again with that queer shyness as she left. He knew that Murn still sensed a strangeness about him.

Gordon lay in his bed, and in his mind Lianna, Murn, Jhal Arn and the Disruptor all spun chaotically before he finally slept.

He had slept but two hours when an excited voice awoke him. The storm had broken in full fury upon Throon. Blinding lightning danced continuously over the city, and thunder was bellowing deafeningly.

Hull Burrel was shaking him, and the Antarian's craggy face was dark and taut with excitement.

“The devil's to pay, highness!” he said. “The Cloud's fleets have come out and crossed our frontier. There's already hard cruiser-fighting beyond Rigel, ships are snuffing out by the scores, and Giron reports that two League fleets are heading toward Hercules.”

GALACTIC war. The war the galaxy had dreaded, the long-feared struggle to the death between the Empire and the Cloud!

And it had come at this disastrous moment when he, John Gordon of ancient Earth, bore the responsibility of leading the Empire's defense.

Gordon sprang from bed. “League fleets heading toward Hercules? Are the Barons ready to resist?”

“They may not resist at all!” said Hull Burrel. “Shorr Kan is stereo-casting to them and to all the Kingdoms, warning them that resistance would be useless because the Empire is going to fall.

“He's telling them that Jhal Arn is too near death to wield the Disruptor, and that you can't use it because you don't know its secret!”

As though the words were a flash illumining an abyss, Gordon suddenly realized that that was why Shorr Kan had finally struck.

Shorr Kan knew that he, John Gordon, was a masquerader inside Zarth Arn's physical body. He knew that Gordon had no knowledge of the Disruptor such as the real Zarth had.

Knowing that, the moment he had heard of Jhal Arn being stricken down, Shorr Kan had launched the League's long planned attack. He counted on the fact that there was no one now to use the Disruptor against him. He should have realized that was what Shorr Kan would do.

Hull Burrel was shouting on, as Gordon dressed with frantic haste. `That devil is talking by stereo to the star-kings right now. You've got to hold them to the Empire.”

Officials, naval officers, excited messengers were already crowding into the room and clamoring wildly for Gordon's attention.

Hull Burrel roughly cleared them from the way as he and Gordon hastened out and raced down through the palace to the study that was the nerve-center of the Mid-Galactic Empire.

All the palace, all Throon, was waking this fateful night. Voices shouted, lights were flashing on, great warships taking off for space could be heard rushing across the storm-swept sky.

In the study, Gordon was momentarily stunned by the many telestereos that blazed with light and movement. Two of them gave view from the bridges of cruisers in the thick of the frontier fighting, shaking to thundering guns and rushing through space ablaze with atom-shells.

But then Gordon's eyes flew toward the stereo on which the dark, dominating image of Shorr Kan stood speaking. His black head bare, his eyes flashing confidently, the Cloudman was broadcasting.