The Star Kings

23: The Secret of the Empire

Gordon suddenly noticed that Lianna's slim figure was sagging with weariness. He uttered an exclamation of self-reproach.

"Lianna, you must be half-dead after all you've been through!"

Lianna tried to smile. "I'll admit that I won't be sorry to rest."

"Captain Burrel will see you to your apartments, Lianna," said Jhal Arn. "I want Zarth to be here with me when the star-kingdom envoys come, to impress on them that our royal house is again united."

He added to Hull Burrel and Val Marlann, "You two and all your men are completely cleared of the mutiny charge, of course. I'm your debtor for life for helping to expose Corbulo and save my brother."

When they had escorted Lianna out, Gordon sank tiredly into a chair. He was still feeling reaction after the long strain.

"Zarth, I'd rather let you rest too but you know how vital it is to hold the star-kingdoms when this crisis is deepening," Jhal said. "Curse that black devil, Shorr Kan!"

A servant brought saqua and the fiery liquor cleared Gordon's numbed mind and brought strength back into his weary body.

Presently a chamberlain opened the door of the room, bowing low.

"The ambassadors of the Kingdoms of Polaris, of Cygnus, of Perseus and of Cassiopeia, and of the Baronies of Hercules Cluster!"

The envoys, in full dress uniforms, stopped in amazement when they saw Gordon standing beside Jhal Arn.

"Prince Zarth!" exclaimed the chubby Hercules envoy. "But we thought-"

"My brother has been completely cleared and the real traitors have been apprehended," Jhal informed them. "It will be publicly announced within the hour."

His eyes ran over their faces. "Gentlemen, for what purpose have you requested this audience?"

The chubby Hercules ambassador looked at the grave, aged envoy from Polaris Kingdom. "Tu Shal, you are our spokesman."

Tu Shal's lined old face was deeply troubled as he stepped forward and spoke.

"Highness, Shorr Kan has secretly just offered all our kingdoms treaty of friendship with the League of Dark Worlds! He declares that if we cling to our alliance with the Empire, we are doomed."

The Hercules ambassador added, "He has made the same offer to us Barons, warning us not to join the Empire."

Jhal Arn looked swiftly at Gordon. "So Shorr Kan is now sending ultimatums? That means he is almost ready to strike."

"We none of us have any love for Shorr Kan's tyranny," Tu Shal was saying. "We prefer to hold to the Empire that stands for peace and union. But it is said that the Cloud has prepared such tremendous armaments and has such revolutionary new weapons that they'll carry all before them if war comes."

Jhal Arn's eyes flashed. "Do you dream he can conquer the Empire when we have the Disrupter to use in case of necessity?"

"That's just it, highness!" said Tu Shal. "It's being said that the Disrupter was never used but once long ago, and that it proved so dangerous then that you would not dare to use it again!"

He added, "I fear that our kingdoms will desert their allegiance to the Empire unless you prove that that is a lie. Unless you prove to us that you do dare to use the Disrupter!"

Jhal Arn looked steadily at the envoys as he answered. And his solemn words seemed to Gordon to bring the whisper of something alien and supernally terrible into the little room.

"Tu Shal, the Disrupter is an awful power. I will not disguise that it is dangerous to unchain that power in the galaxy. But it was done once when the Magellanians invaded, long ago.

"And it will be done again, if necessary! My father is dead, but Zarth and I can unloose that power. And we will unloose it and rive the galaxy before we let Shorr Kan fasten tyranny on the free worlds!"

Tu Shal seemed more deeply troubled than before. "But highness, our kingdoms demand that we see the Disrupter demonstrated before they will believe!"

Jhal's face grew somber. "I had hoped that never would the Disrupter have to be taken from its safekeeping and loosed again. But it may be that it would be best to do as you ask."

His eyes flashed. "Yes, it may be that when Shorr Kan learns that we can still wield that power and hears what it can do, he will think twice before precipitating galactic war!"

"Then you will demonstrate it for us?" asked the Hercules envoy, his round face awed.

"There's a region of deserted dark-stars fifty parsecs west of Argol," Jhal Arn told them. "Two days from now, we'll unchain the power of the Disrupter there for you to see."

Tu Shal's troubled face cleared a little. "If you do that, our kingdoms will utterly reject the overtures of the Cloud!"

"And I can guarantee that the Barons of the Cluster will declare for the Empire!" added the chubby envoy from Hercules.

When they had gone, Jhal Arn looked with haggard face at Gordon. "It was the only way I could hold them, Zarth! If I'd refused, they'd have been panicked into submitting to Shorr Kan."

Gordon asked him wonderingly, "You're really going to unloose the Disrupter to convince them?"

The other was sweating. "I don't want to, God knows! You know Brenn Bir's warning as well as I do! You know what nearly happened when he used it on the Magellanians two thousand years ago!"

He stiffened. "But I'll run even that risk, rather than let the Cloud launch a war to enslave the galaxy!"

Gordon felt a deeper sense of wonder and perplexity, mixed with cold apprehension.

What was it, really, the age-old secret power which even Jhal Arn who was its master could not mention without fear?

Jhal Arn continued urgently. "Zarth, we'll go down now to the Chamber of the Disrupter. It's been long since either of us was there, and we must make sure everything is ready for that demonstration."

Gordon for the moment recoiled. He, a stranger, couldn't pry into this most guarded secret in the galaxy!

Then he suddenly realized that it made little difference if he did see the thing. He wasn't scientist enough to understand it. And in any case, he'd be going back soon to his own time, his own body.

He'd have to find a chance to slip away to Earth in the next day or so, without letting Jhal Arn know. He could order a ship to take him there.

Once again, at that thought, came the heartbreaking realization that he was on the verge of parting forever from Lianna. "Come, Zarth!" Jhal was saying impatiently. "I know you must be tired, but there's little time left."

They went out through the anteroom, Jhal Arn waving back the guards who sprang to accompany them.

Gordon accompanied him down sliding ramps and through corridors and down again, until he knew they must be deeper beneath the great palace of Throon than even the prison where he had been confined.

They entered a spiral stair that dropped downward into a hall hollowed from the solid rock of the planet. From this hall, a long, rock-hewn corridor led away. It was lighted by a throbbing white radiance emitted by luminous plates in its walls. As Gordon walked down this radiant corridor with Jhal Arn, he felt an astonishment he could hardly conceal. He had expected great masses of guards, mighty doors with massive bolts, all kinds of cunning devices to guard the most titanic power in the galaxy.

Instead, there seemed nothing whatever to guard it! Neither on the stair nor in this brilliant corridor was there anyone. And when Jhal Arn opened the door at the corridor end, it was not even locked!

Jhal Arn looked through the open door with Gordon from the threshold.

"There it is, the same as ever," he said with a strong tinge of awe in his voice.

The room was a small, round one hollowed also from solid rock and also lighted by throbbing white radiance from wall-plates.

Gordon perceived at the center of the room the group of objects at which Jhal Arn was gazing with such awe.

The Disrupter! The weapon so terrible that its power had only once been unloosed in two thousand years!

"But what is it?" Gordon wondered dazedly, as he stared.

There were twelve big conical objects of dull gray metal, each a dozen feet long. The apex of each cone was a cluster of tiny crystal spheres. Heavy, vari-colored cables led from the base of the cones.

What complexities of unimaginable science lay inside the cones, he could not even guess. Beside heavy brackets for mounting them, the only other object here was a bulky cubical cabinet on whose face were mounted a bank of luminous gauges and six rheostat switches.

"It draws such tremendous power that it will have to be mounted on a battleship, of course," Jhal Arn was saying thoughtfully. "What about the Ethne you came in? Wouldn't its turbines provide enough power?"

Gordon floundered. "I suppose so. I'm afraid I'll have to leave all that to you."

Jhal Arn looked astounded. "But Zarth, you're the scientist of the family. You know more about the Disruptor than I do."

Gordon hastily denied that. "I'm afraid I don't know. You see, it's been so long that I've forgotten a lot about it."

Jhal Arn looked incredulous. "Forgotten about the Disruptor? You must be joking! That's one thing we don't forget! Why it's drilled into our minds beyond forgetfulness on the day when we're first brought down here to have the Wave tuned to our bodies!"

The Wave? What was that? Gordon felt completely at sea in his ignorance.

He advanced a hasty explanation. "Jhal, I told you that Shorr Kan used a brain-scanning device to try to learn the Disruptor secret from me. He couldn't-but in my deliberate effort to forget it so he couldn't, I seem really to have lost a lot of the details."

Jhal Arn seemed satisfied by the explanation. "So that's it! Mental shock, of course. But of course you still remember the main nature of the secret. Nobody could forget that."

"Of course, I haven't forgotten that," Gordon was forced to prevaricate hastily.

Jhal drew him forward. "Here, it will all come back to you. These brackets are for mounting the force-cones on a ship's prow. The colored cables hook to the similarly colored binding-posts on the control panel, and the transformer leads go right back to drive-generators."

He pointed at the gauges. "They give the exact coordinates in space of the area to be affected. The output of the cones has to balance exactly, of course. The rheostats do that-"

As he went on, John Gordon began dimly to perceive that the cones were designed to project force into a selected area of space.

But what kind of force? What did they do to the area or object on which they acted, that was so awful? He dared not ask that.

Jhal Arn was concluding his explanation. "-so the target area must be at least ten parsecs from the ship you work from, or you'll get the backlash. Don't you remember it all now, Zarth?"

Gordon nodded hurriedly. "Of course. But I'm glad just the same that it will be your job to use it."

Jhal looked more haggard. "God knows I don't want to! It has rested here all these centuries without being used. And the warning of Brenn Bir still is true."

He pointed up, as he spoke, to an inscription on the opposite wall. Gordon read it now for the first time.

"To my descendants who will hold the secret of the Disruptor that I, Brenn Bir, discovered: Heed my warning! Never use the Disruptor for petty personal power! Use it only if the freedom of the galaxy is menaced!

"This power you hold could destroy the galaxy. It is a demon so titanic that once unchained, it might not be chained again. Take not that awful risk unless the life and liberty of all men are at stake!"

Jhal Arn's voice was solemn. "Zarth, when you and I were boys and were first brought down here by our father to have the Wave tuned to us, we little dreamed that a time might come when we would think of using that which has lain here for so long."

His voice rang deeper. "But the life and liberty of all men are at stake, if Shorr Kan seeks to conquer the galaxy! If all else fails, we must take the risk!"

Gordon felt shaken by the implications of that warning. It was like a voice of the dead, speaking heavily in this silent room.

Jhal turned and led the way out of the room. He closed the door and again Gordon wondered. No lock, not bolts, no guard!

They went down the long radiant corridor and emerged from it into the softer yellow light of the well of the spiral stair.

"We'll mount the equipment on the Ethne tomorrow morning," Jhal Arn was saying. "When we show the star-kingdom envoys-"

"You will never show them anything, Jhal Arn!" Out from beneath the spiral stair had sprung a disheveled man who held an atom-pistol leveled on Gordon and Jhal Arn.

"Orth Bodmer!" cried Gordon. "You were hiding in the palace all the time!"

Orth Bodmer's thin face was colorless, deadly, twitching in a pallid smile.

"Yes, Zarth," he grated. "I knew the game was up when I saw Them Eldred brought in. I couldn't get out of the palace without being swiftly traced and apprehended, so I hid in the deeper corridors."

His smile was ghastly now. "I hid, until as I had hoped you came down here to the Chamber of the Disruptor, Jhal Arn! I've been waiting for you!"

Jhal's eyes flashed. "Just what do you expect to gain by this?"

"It is simple," rasped Bodmer. "I know my life is forfeit. Well, so is your life unless you spare mine!"

He stepped closer, and Gordon read the madness of fear in his burning eyes.

"You do not break your word when it is given, highness. Promise me that I shall be pardoned, and I will not kill you now!"

Gordon saw that panic had driven this rabbity, nervous traitor to insane resolve_.

"Jhal, do it!" he cried. "He's not worth risking your life for!"

Jhal Arn's face was dull red with fury. "I have let one traitor go free, but no more!"

Instantly, before Gordon could voice the cry of appeal on his lips, Orth Bodmer's atom-pistol crashed.

The pellet tore into Jhal Arn's shoulder and exploded there as Gordon plunged forward at the maddened traitor.

"You murdering lunatic!" cried Gordon fiercely, seizing the other's gun-wrist and grappling with him.

For a moment, the thin Councilor seemed to have superhuman strength. They swayed, stumbled, and then reeled together from the hall into the brilliant white radiance of the long corridor.

Then Orth Bodmer screamed! He screamed like a soul in torment, and Gordon felt the man's body relax horribly in his grasp.

"The Wave!" screeched Bodmer, staggering in the throbbing radiance.

Even as the man screamed, Gordon saw his whole body and face horribly blacken and wither. It was a shriveled, lifeless body that sank to the floor.

So ghastly and mysterious was that sudden death, that for a moment Gordon was dazed. Then he suddenly understood.

The throbbing radiance in the corridor and in the Chamber of the Disruptor was the Wave that Jhal Arn had spoken of! It was not light but a terrible, destroying force-a force so tuned to individual human bodily vibrations that it blasted every human being except the chosen holders of the Disruptor secret.

No wonder that no locks or bolts or guards were needed to protect the Disruptor! No man could approach it without being destroyed, except Jhal Arn and Gordon himself. No, not John Gordon but Zarth Arn-it was Zarth Arn's physical body that the Wave was tuned to spare!

Gordon stumbled out of that terrible radiance back into the hall. He bent over the prone form of Jhal Arn.

"Jhal! For God's sake-"

Jhal Arn had a terrible, blackened wound in his shoulder and side But he was still breathing, still alive.

Gordon sprang to the stair and shouted upward. "Guards! The Emperor has been hurt!"

Guards, officers, officials, came pouring down quickly, Jhal Arn by then was stirring feebly. His eyes opened.

"Bodmer-guilty of this attack on me!" he muttered to them. "Is Zarth all right?"

"I'm here. He didn't hit me, and he's dead now," Gordon husked.

An hour later, he waited in an outer room of the royal apartments high in the palace. Lianna was there, striving to comfort Jhal Arn's weeping wife.

A physician came hurriedly from the inner room to which Jhal Arn had been taken.

"The emperor will live!" he announced. "But he is terribly wounded, and it will take many weeks for him to recover."

He added worriedly, "He insists on Prince Zarth Arn coming in."

Gordon uncertainly entered the big, luxurious bedroom. The two women followed. He stooped over the bed in which Jhal Arn lay.

Jhal Arn whispered an order. "Bring a stereo-transmitting set. And order it switched through for a broadcast to the whole Empire."

"Jhal, you mustn't try it!" Gordon protested. "You can make announcements of my being cleared in another way than that."

"It's not only that that I have to announce," Jhal whispered. "Zarth, don't you realize what it means for me to be stricken down at the very moment when Shorr Kan's plans are reaching their crisis?"

The stereo transmitter was hastily brought in. Its viewer-disk swung to include Jhal Arn's bed, and Gordon and Lianna and Zora.

Jhal Arn painfully raised his head on the pillow, his white face looking into the disk.

"People of the Empire!" he said hoarsely. "The same traitorous assassins who murdered my father have tried to murder me, but have failed. I shall in time be well again.

"Chan Corbulo and Orth Bodmer-they were the ringleaders of the group! My brother Zarth Arn has been proved completely innocent and now resumes his royal rank.

"And since I am thus stricken down, I appoint my brother Zarth Arn as regent to rule in my place until I recover. No matter what events burst upon us, give your allegiance to Zarth Arn as leader of our Empire!"