Edmond Hamilton: The Star Kings

Gordon wanted above all else to minimize the whole thing and finish the nerve-racking strain of having to keep up this imposture.

“It must have been just a surprise sneak attempt,” he said hastily to Arn Abbas. “They won't dare try it again. I'll be in no more danger here.”

“No danger? What are you talking about?” rumbled Arn Abbas angrily. “You know as well as I do why Shorr Kan was trying to get his hands on you, and what he'd have done if he succeeded.”

The massive ruler continued commandingly to Gordon. “You're not going to stay there on Earth any longer, Zarth. I've had enough of your slipping away to that remote old planet for your crazy secret scientific studies. This is what comes of it. We'll take no more such chances. You're going to come here to Throon at once!”

John Gordon's heart sank. To Throon, the royal planet of the sun Canopus which lay nearly halfway across the galaxy? He couldn't go there!

He couldn't carry on this masquerade in Zarth Arn's body at the court itself. And if he left the laboratory here, he'd have no chance of contacting Zarth Arn and re-exchanging their bodies.

“I can't come to Throon now,” Gordon protested desperately. “I have to remain here on Earth for a few days more to carry out my researches.”

Arn Abbas uttered a bellow of anger. “You do as I say, Zarth! You'll come to Throon and you'll come right now!”

And the emperor swung his angry gaze to Hull Burrel and ordered, “Captain, bring the prince here at once in your cruiser. And if he refuses, bring him here under guard!”

THE big cruiser sped through the interstellar spaces at a velocity already hundreds of times that of light. Earth and Sol had hours before receded astern. Ahead of the ship expanded the heart of the galaxy, thick with glittering star-swarms.

John Gordon stood in the wide, many-windowed bridge of the Caris with Hull Burrel and two helmsmen, feeling a quaking inward awe as he looked at that incredible vista ahead. The enormous speed of the warship was evidenced by the fact that the stars ahead grew visibly brighter as he watched.

Gordon felt no acceleration, thanks to the dim, blue-glowing stasis of force that cradled everything in the ship. He tried to remember what he had learned about the motive power of these great ships. They were propelled by an energy drive which utilized the famous sub-spectrum rays that were the basis of galactic civilization.

“It still seems crazy of Shorr Kan to send a League cruiser into our realm on such an errand!” Hull Burrel was saying. “What good would it do him if he did manage to capture you?”

Gordon had wondered about that himself. He couldn't see the reason for wanting to capture the mere second son of the emperor.

“I suppose,” he ventured, “that Shorr Kan figured he could use me as a hostage. I'm glad you got the murderous devils, for killing Vel Quen.”

To forestall the strain of further conversation, Gordon turned abruptly. “I think I'd like to rest, captain.”

With a quick word of apology, Hull Burrel led the way from the bridge and down by narrow corridors and catwalks through the ship.

Gordon pretended to glance only casually about him, but was really devoured by interest in what he saw. There were long, narrow galleries of atomic guns, navigation rooms and radar rooms on this upper deck.

Officers and men whom they met snapped to attention, saluting him with deep respect. These men of the Mid-Galactic Empire differed in complexion, some of them faintly blue of skin, others reddish, others tawny yellow. He knew it was because they came from different star-systems, and had learned that Hull Burrel himself was an Antarian.

Hull Burrel slid open the door of an austere little room. “My own cabin, Prince Zarth. I beg you'll use it till we reach Throon.”

Left alone, John Gordon felt a slight relaxing of the extreme tension under which he had been laboring for hours.

They had left Earth as soon as Vel Quen's burial was over. And every moment of the hours since then had impressed on Gordon the vital necessity of playing a part.

He could not tell the weird truth about himself. Zarth Arn had insisted that to tell anyone would bring disaster on both Gordon and himself. Why was it so dangerous? Gordon couldn't guess, as yet.

But he was sure that he must heed that warning, must let no one suspect that he was the prince only in physical body. Even if he told, they wouldn't believe him. Old Vel Quen had said that Zarth Arn's weird experiments had been wholly secret. Who would credit such a crazy story?

Gordon had determined that his only possible course of action was to play the part of Zarth Arn as best he could at Throon, and return as soon as possible to the tower-laboratory on Earth. Then he could plan a way to re-effect the exchange of minds.

“But it seems that I'm being sucked into some crazy tangle of galactic conflict that'll make it hard to get away,” he thought, dismayed.

Lying on the padded bunk, Gordon wondered wearily if any man since time began had ever found himself in such a situation as this.

“There's nothing for it but to bull ahead and play it out as Zarth Arn, if I can,” he thought. “If Vel Quen had only lived!”

He felt again a pang of regret for the old scientist. Then, tired and unstrung, he fell asleep.

When Gordon awoke, he unconsciously expected to see the familiar plaster ceiling of his New York apartment overhead. Instead, he looked at a glittering metal ceiling and heard a deep, steady drone.

He realized then it had been no wild dream. He was still in Zarth Arn's body, in this big warship that was racing through the galaxy toward a doubtful reception for himself.

A uniformed man who bowed respectfully when he entered brought him food-an unfamiliar red substance that seemed to be synthetic meat, fruit, and the chocolate-like drink he already knew.

Hull Burrel came in then. “We're making almost two hundred parsecs an hour and will reach Canopus in three days, highness.”

Gordon did not venture any reply other than a nod. He realized how fatally easy it would be to make slips of pure ignorance.

That possibility was a weight on his mind in the hours that followed, adding to the already superhuman strain of his imposture.

He had to go through the big cruiser as though such a ship was familiar to him, he had to accept references to a thousand things which Zarth Arn would know, without betraying his ignorance.

He carried it off, he hoped, by wrapping himself in brooding silence. But could he carry it off at Throon?

On the third day, John Gordon entered the spacious bridge to be dazzled by a blinding flare of light that forced a way even through the heavy filter screens across the windows.

“Canopus at last,” remarked Hull Burrel. “We shall dock at Throon in a few hours.”

Again, wild bugle-calls of excitement soared in Gordon's mind as he looked through the windows at a tremendous spectacle.

It was worth all risk and danger, it was worth that nightmare traverse from body to body across the gulf of time, for a man of the 20th Century to look on such a sight as this.

The majesty of Canopus was a thundering impact on his senses. The colossal sun revised all his limited ideas of grandeur. It blazed here in white splendor like a firmament aflame, drenching the warship and all space with a glorious, supernal radiance.

Gordon's senses reeled, as he tried to keep his face impassive. He was only a man of the past and his brain was not used to such shock of wonder as this.

The drone of the great pressure-ray generators dropped in key as the cruiser swung in around an Earth-sized planet that was one of a dozen worlds circling this monster star.