The Star Kings

15: Mystery of the Galaxy

John Gordon fought a temptation whose unexpectedness added to its strength. He was appalled to realize that he wanted with nearly all his soul to seize this unprecedented opportunity.

It wasn't the pomp and power of galactic rule that tempted him. He had never been ambitious for power, and anyway it would be Shorr Kan who had the real power. It was the thought of Lianna that swayed him. He'd be with her always then, living by her side-

Living a lie! Pretending to be another man, haunted for the rest of his life by memory of how he had betrayed Zarth Arn's trust and wrecked the Empire! He couldn't do it! A man had his code to live by, and Gordon knew he could never break his pledge.

Shorr Kan was watching him keenly. "You seem stunned by the prospect, Gordon. It's a tremendous opportunity for you, all right."

Gordon rallied his wits. "I was thinking that there are lots of difficulties. There's the Disruptor secret, for instance."

Shorr Kan nodded thoughtfully. "That's our biggest difficulty. And I was so sure that once I had Zarth Arn, I'd have it!"

He shrugged. "But that can't be helped. We shall have to make our attack on the Empire without it, and rely on Corbulo to see that Jhal Arn never gets a chance to use the Disruptor."

"You mean-assassinate Jhal Arn as he did Arn Abbas?" questioned Gordon.

The Cloud-man nodded. "Corbulo was to do that anyway on the eve of our attack. He'll be appointed one of the regents for Jhal's child. Then it'll be even easier for him to sabotage the Empire's defense."

Gordon realized that Shorr Kan's failure to gain the Disruptor secret was not going to stave off the League's impending attack!

"Those are your problems," Gordon said bluntly. "It's my own prospects I was thinking of. You're to make me puppet emperor when the galaxy is conquered. But if we don't have that Disruptor secret, maybe your own League forces won't accept me."

Shorr Kan frowned. "Why should they refuse to accept you on that account?"

"They, like everyone else, think I'm Zarth Arn and believe I know the Disruptor secret," Gordon pointed out. "They'll ask, 'If Zarth Arn is now on our side, why doesn't he give us that secret?' "

The Cloud-man swore. "I hadn't thought of that difficulty. Curse the Disruptor, anyway! Its existence hampers us at every turn!"

"What is the Disruptor, really?" Gordon asked. "I've had to pretend I know all about it, but I haven't any idea what it is."

"No one has!" Shorr Kan replied. "Yet it's been a terrible tradition in the galaxy for the last two thousand years.

"Two thousand years ago the alien, unhuman Magellanians invaded the galaxy. They seized several star-systems and prepared to expand their conquests. But Brenn Bir, one of the great scientist-kings of the Empire, struck out against them with some fearful power or weapon. Tradition says he destroyed not only the Magellanians but also the star-systems they infested, and nearly destroyed the galaxy itself!

"Just what Brenn Bir used, no one now knows. It's been called the Disruptor, but that tells nothing. The secret of it, known only to the Empire's royal house, has never been used since. But memory of it haunts the galaxy, and has maintained the Empire's prestige ever since."

"No wonder you've tried to get hold of it before attacking the Empire," said Gordon. "But there's still a way we can get that secret!"

Shorr Kan stared. "How? Jhal Arn is the only remaining one who knows about it, and we've no chance of capturing him."

"There's one other man who knows the secret," Gordon reminded swiftly. "The real Zarth Arn!"

"But the real Zarth's mind is back in that remote past age in your body-" Shorr Kan began. Then he stopped, eyeing Gordon narrowly. "You've something in mind. What?"

Gordon was tense as he unfolded the scheme on which his dim, precarious plan of escape depended.

"Suppose we can make the real Zarth tell us that secret, across time?" he proposed boldly. "There in Zarth's laboratory on Earth are the psycho-mechanisms by which I could speak to him across time. I learned the method from Vel Quen, and I could reach him.

"Suppose I tell him-'Shorr Kan's men hold me prisoner and won't release me unless I tell the Disruptor secret, which I don't know. I won't be permitted to re-exchange minds with you until they have the secret.'

"Suppose I tell the real Zarth that? What do you think he'll do? He doesn't want to be marooned back there in my own world and age, in my own body, for the rest of his life. This is his universe, he's got a morganatic wife here he dearly loves, he'd sacrifice anything to get back here. He'll tell us that secret, across time!"

Shorr Kan looked at him in wondering admiration. "By Heaven, Gordon, I believe it would work! We could just get the Disruptor secret that way!"

He stopped and asked suddenly, "Then when you had forced that secret out of Zarth, you'd re-exchange minds with him?"

Gordon laughed. "Do I look like a complete fool? Of course I won't. I'll simply break the contract then and let Zarth Arn live the rest of his life back in my own time and body while I keep on playing his part."

Shorr Kan threw back his head in a burst of laughter. "Gordon, I repeat, you're a man after my own heart!"

He began to pace to and fro as seemed his habit when thinking rapidly.

"The main difficulty will be to get you to Earth to make that contact with the real Zarth," he declared. "Empire patrols are thick all along the frontier, and the main Empire fleet is maneuvering near the Pleiades. And Corbulo can't order that whole region cleared, without arousing suspicion."

Shorr Kan paused, then continued. "The only kind of League ship that has any chance of reaching Earth through all that is a phantom-cruiser. Phantoms are able to slip through tight places, where even a battle-squadron couldn't fight a way."

Gordon, who had only the mistiest notion of what kind of a warship was mentioned, looked puzzled. "A phantom? What's that?"

"I forgot for a moment that you're really a stranger in this age," Shorr Kan said. "A phantom-cruiser is a small cruiser with armament of a few very heavy atom-guns. It can become totally invisible in space."

He explained, "It does that by projecting a sphere of force around itself that refracts perfectly all light and radar rays. So no ship can detect it. But to hold that concealing sphere of force requires terrific power, so a phantom is only good for twenty or thirty hours travel 'dark'."

John Gordon nodded understandingly. "I get it. And it looks like the best chance to reach Earth, all right."

"Durk Undis will go with you with a full crew of trusted men," Shorr Kan continued.

That was bad news to Gordon. That fanatic young Cloud-man hated him, he knew.

"But if Durk Undis learns that I'm not really Zarth Arn-" he began to object.

"He won't," Shorr Kan interrupted. "He'll simply know that he's to take you to your laboratory on earth for a brief time, and that he's to bring you back safely."

Gordon eyed the Cloud-man. "It sounds as though he's to be a guard. You don't entirely trust me?"

"What the devil made you think I did?" Shorr Kan retorted cheerfully. "I trust no man entirely. I do trust to men following their self-interest, and that's why I feel I can rely on you. But just to make sure-Durk Undis and a crew of picked men go with you."

Again, Gordon chilled to a realization that he was playing his desperate game against a man so shrewd and skilled in intrigue that it seemed almost hopeless he could succeed.

He nodded coolly, however. "That's fair enough. But I might also say that I don't entirely trust you, Shorr Kan. And for that reason, I don't go on this mission unless Lianna goes with me."

Shorr Kan looked genuinely surprised for a moment. "The Fomalhaut girl? Your fiancée?"

Then an ironic smile flickered in his eyes. "So that's your weak point, Gordon-that girl?"

"I love her and I'm not going to leave her here for you to tamper with," Gordon asserted sullenly.

Shorr Kan snorted. "If you knew me better, you'd know that one woman means no more to me than another. Do you think I'd risk my plans for a pretty face? But if you're jealous, you can take her with you."

He added, "How are you going to explain it all to her, though? You can't very well tell her the truth about our deal."

Gordon had thought of that already. He said slowly, "I'll make up a story that you're going to let us go if I bring you certain valuable scientific secrets from my Earth laboratory."

Shorr Kan nodded understandingly. "That will be your best course."

He added rapidly, "I'll give orders at once to have our best phantom-cruiser prepared. You ought to be able to start tomorrow night."

Gordon stood up. "I'll be glad to get some rest. I feel as though I've been through a grinder."

Shorr Kan laughed. "Man, that's nothing to what the brain-scanner would have made of you if it had run longer than a few minutes. What a twist of fate! Instead of a mindless idiot, you're to be nominal emperor of the galaxy!"

He added, his face setting for just a moment to a steely hardness, "But never forget that your power is only nominal and that it is I who will give the orders "

Gordon met his searching gaze steadily "I might forget it if I thought I'd gain by that. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't. I'm pretty sure that once I'm ruler, I'll fall if you fall. So you will be able to rely on me-or on my self-interest."

The Cloud-man chuckled. "You're right. Didn't I say I always like to deal with intelligent people? We'll get along."

He pressed a button. When Durk Undis quickly entered the room, he told him:

"Escort Prince Zarth back to his quarters and then return here for orders."

All the way back through the corridors, Gordon's thoughts were feverish. Relaxation from the intolerable strain of playing his part left him trembling.

So far, his precarious scheme for escape was succeeding. He had gambled on Shorr Kan's ruthless, cynical personality reacting in a certain way, and had won.

But he well knew that this success was only the beginning. Ahead loomed far greater difficulties which he had not yet found the least way of solving.

He'd have to go ahead, even though his scheme was suicidal in riskiness! There was no other way.

When he entered the somber apartment, Lianna sprang from a chair and ran toward him. She grasped his arm.

"Zarth, you're all right?" she cried, her gray eyes shining. "I was afraid-"

She loved him, still. Gordon knew it from her face, and again he felt that wild, hopeless rapture.

He had to fight his impulse to take her into his arms. Something of what he felt must have showed in his face, for Lianna flushed and stepped back a little.

"Lianna, I'm all right though a little shaky," Gordon told her, sinking into a chair. "I had a taste of Cloud science and it wasn't pleasant."

"They tortured you? They made you tell the Disrupter secret?"

He shook his head. "I didn't tell that secret. And I'm not going to. I convinced Shorr Kan he couldn't get it from me."

Gordon went on, telling her as much of the truth as he could. "I made that devil believe that I would have to go to my Earth laboratory to get that secret for him. And he's sending us to get it. We'll leave in a phantom-cruiser tomorrow night."

Lianna's eyes flashed. "You're going to outwit him? You have some plan?"

"I wish I did," groaned Gordon. "This is as far as my plan goes. It will get us out of the Cloud, that's all. Then it's up to me. Somehow, I'll have to find a way for us to escape that ship and get a warning of Corbulo's treachery to Jhal Arn."

He added wearily, "The only way I can think of is somehow to sabotage the phantom-cruiser so it'll be captured by Empire warships. But how to do that, I don't know. That young fanatic Durk Undis is going with a picked crew to guard us, and it won't be easy."

Faith and courage shone in Lianna's eyes. "You'll find a way somehow, Zarth. I know you will."

Her faith could not overcome the chill realization in Gordon's mind that his hare-brained scheme was almost impossible.

He might be dooming both Lianna and himself by trying it. But they were doomed anyway unless he betrayed the real Zarth Arn and the Empire, and the momentary temptation to do that had left Gordon forever.

He slept heavily, well into the next day. It was dusk when Shorr Kan and Durk Undis finally came.

"Durk Undis has all his orders, and the phantom is ready," Shorr Kan told Gordon. "You should get to Earth in five days, and be back here in eleven."

His face lit. "Then I'll announce to the galaxy that we have the Disruptor secret and that Zarth Arn has joined us, and will give Corbulo the secret signal and launch the League's attack!"

Two hours later, from the huge Thallarna spaceport, the slim, shining phantom-cruiser on which Gordon and Lianna had embarked rose from its dock and plunged headlong out through the Cloud.