The Star Kings

2: Future Universe

Consciousness came back slowly to Gordon. He found himself lying on a high table in a room of brilliant sunlight.

For some moments he lay looking up dazedly, feeling a terrible weakness and shakiness. Right over his head, as though just swung back, was a curious apparatus like a silver cap with many wires.

Then a face bent down into his view. It was the wrinkled face of an old, white-haired man. But the excitement he evidently felt made his blue eyes youthfully eager.

He spoke to Gordon in a voice shrill with excitement. But he spoke in a language that was almost entirely unfamiliar.

"I can't understand you," Gordon said helplessly.

The other pointed to himself and spoke again. "Vel Quen," he said.

Vel Quen? Gordon remembered now. Zarth Arn had said that was the name of his scientific colleague in the future.

The future? Then the two scientists had effected that incredible exchange of minds and bodies across the abyss of time?

With sudden wild excitement, Gordon tried to sit up. He couldn't do it. He was still too weak, and slipped back.

But he had got a glimpse of his own body as he sat up, and the sight had stunned him.

It wasn't his body. It was not John Gordon's stocky, muscular figure. This was a taller, slimmer body he now inhabited, one dressed in silky white sleeveless shirt and trousers, and sandals.

"Zarth Arn's body!" husked Gordon. "And back in my own time, Zarth Arn is awaking in mine!"

Old Vel Quen apparently recognized the name he spoke. The old scientist nodded quickly.

"Zarth Arn-John Gordon," he said, pointing at him.

The exchange had worked! He had crossed two thousand centuries and was now in another man's body!

It didn't feel any different. Gordon tried moving his hands and feet. Every muscle responded perfectly. Yet his hair still bristled from the ghastly strangeness of it. He had an hysterical nostalgia for his own body.

Vel Quen seemed to understand his feelings. The old man patted his shoulder reassuringly, then offered him a crystal beaker filled with foaming red liquid. Gordon drank it, and began to feel stronger.

The old scientist helped him get up from the table, and steadied him as he stood looking wonderingly around the room.

Brilliant sunlight poured through tall windows that filled all eight sides of the octagonal chamber. The light flashed and glittered off machines and instruments and racks of queer metal spools. Gordon was no scientist, and all this science of the future baffled him.

Vel Quen led him toward a corner in which there was a tall mirror. He stood transfixed the moment he caught a glimpse of himself in the glass.

"So this is what I look like now!" Gordon whispered, staring wildly at his own image.

His figure was now that of a tall, black-haired young man of well over six feet. The face was dark, aquiline and rather handsome, with serious dark eyes. It was altogether different from John Gordon's own square, tanned face.

He saw that he was wearing snug-fitting shirt and trousers. Vel Quen threw a long, silky white cloak around his shoulders. The old scientist himself was similarly attired.

He gestured to Gordon that he must rest. But weak as Gordon felt, he couldn't without first looking out at this unknown world of the far future.

He stumbled to one of the windows. He expected to look forth on wondrous vistas of super-modern cities, marvelous metropoli of the star-conquering civilization. But Gordon was disappointed.

Before him lay a scene of wild, forbidding natural grandeur. This octagonal chamber was the upper floor of a massive little cement tower which was perched on a small plateau at the edge of a sheer precipice.

Stupendous mountain peaks crowned with glittering white snow rose in the bright sunlight. From them and from the tower, dark and awesome defiles dropped for thousands of feet. There was not another building in sight. It looked much like the Himalayas of his own time.

Weakness made John Gordon sway dizzily. Vel Quen hastily led him out of the tower-room and down to a small bedroom on the floor below. He stretched on a soft couch and was almost instantly asleep.

When Gordon awoke, it was another day. Vel Quen came in and greeted him, then checked his pulse and respiration. The old scientist smiled reassuringly, and brought him some food.

There was a thick, sweet, chocolate-colored drink, some fruit, some wafers like dry biscuits. It was all evidently charged with nutritional elements, for Gordon's hunger vanished after the slight meal.

Then Vel Quen began to teach him his language. The old man used a box-like little apparatus which produced realistic stereoscopic images, carefully naming each object or scene he exhibited.

Gordon spent a week in his task, not going outside the tower. He picked up the language with astonishing quickness, partly because of Vel Quen's scientific teaching and partly because it was based on his own English. Two thousand centuries had greatly enlarged and changed its vocabulary, but it was not like a completely alien tongue.

At the end of that week Gordon's strength had fully returned, and by that time he was able to speak the language fluently.

"We are on the planet Earth?" was the first eager question he had put to Vel Quen.

The old scientist nodded. "Yes, this tower is located amid the highest mountains of Earth."

So it was the Himalayas whose snowy peaks rose around the tower, as Gordon had guessed. They looked as wild and lonely and grand as when he had flown over them in war days long ago.

"But aren't there any cities or people left on Earth?" he cried.

"Certainly there are. Zarth Arn chose this lonely spot on the planet simply so that his secret experiments would not be disturbed.

"From this tower, he has been exploring the past by going back into the bodies of many men in various epochs of human history. Yours is the remotest period of the past that Zarth Arn has yet tried to explore."

It was a little overwhelming to John Gordon to realize that other men had found themselves in his own uncanny present position.

"Those others-they were able to return without trouble to their own bodies and times?"

"Of course-I was here to operate the mind-transmitter, and when the time came I effected the re-exchange just as I will do with you later."

That was reassuring. Gordon was still wildly excited by this unprecedented adventure into a future age, but he hated to think that he might be marooned indefinitely in a stranger's body.

Vel Quen explained to Gordon in detail the amazing scientific method of contacting and exchanging minds across time.

He showed him the operation of the telepathic amplifier that could beam its thought-message back to any selected mind in the past. And then he outlined the operation of the mind-exchange apparatus itself.

"The mind is an electric pattern in the neurons of the brain. The forces of this apparatus detach that pattern and embody it in a network of 'nonmaterial photons.'

"That photon-mind can then be projected along any dimension. And since time is the fourth dimension of matter, the photon-mind can be hurled into past time. The forces operate in a two-way channel, simultaneously detaching and projecting both minds so as to exchange them."

"Did Zarth Arn himself invent this method of exchanging minds?" Gordon asked wonderingly.

"We invented it together," Vel Quen said. "I had already perfected the principle. Zarth Arn, my most devoted scientific pupil, wanted to try it out and he helped me build and test the apparatus.

"It has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. You see those racks of thought-spools[1]? In them is the vast mass of information brought back by Zarth Arn from past ages he has explored thus. We've worked secretly because Arn Abbas would forbid his son to take the risk if he knew."

"Arn Abbas?" repeated Gordon questioningly. "Who is he, Vel Quen?"

"Arn Abbas is sovereign of the Mid-Galactic Empire, ruling from its capital world at the sun Canopus. He has two sons. The oldest is his heir, Jhal Arn. The second son is Zarth Arn."

Gordon was astounded. "You mean that Zarth Arn, the man whose body I now inhabit, is son of the greatest ruler in the galaxy?"

The old scientist nodded. "Yes, but Zarth is not interested in power or rule. He is a scientist and scholar, and that is why he leaves the court at Throon to carry on his exploration of the past from this lonely tower on Earth."

Gordon remembered now that Zarth Arn had said he was high in the Empire. But he had had no suspicion of his true exalted position.

"Vel Quen, what exactly is the Mid-Galactic Empire? Does it take in all the galaxy?"

"No, John Gordon. There are many star-kingdoms in the galaxy, warlike rivals at times. But the Mid-Galactic Empire is the largest of them."

Gordon felt a certain disappointment. "I had thought the future would be one of democracy, and that war would be banished."

"The star-kingdoms are really democracies, for the people rule," Vel Quen explained. "We simply give titles and royal rank to our leaders, the better to hold together the widely separated star-systems and their human and aboriginal races."

Gordon could understand that. "I get it. Like the British democracy in my own day, that kept up the forms of royalty and rank to hold together their realm."

"And war was banished on Earth, long ago," Vel Quen went on. "We know that from traditional history. The peace and prosperity that followed were what gave the first great impetus to space-travel.

"But there have been wars between the star-kingdoms because they are so widely separated. We are now trying to bring them together in union and peace, as you unified Earth's nations long ago."

Vel Quen went to the wall and touched a switch beside a bank of lenses. From the lenses was projected a realistic little image of the galaxy, a flat, disk-shaped swarm of shining sparks.

Each of those little sparks represented a star, and their number was dizzying to John Gordon. Nebulae, comets, dark clouds-all were faithfully represented in this galactic map. And the map was divided by zones of colored light into a number of large and small sections.

"Those colored zones represent the boundaries of the great star-kingdoms," Vel Quen explained. "As you see, the green zone of the Mid-Galactic Empire is much the largest and includes the whole north and middle of the galaxy. Here near its northern border is Sol, the sun of Earth, not far from the wild frontier star-systems of the Marches of Outer Space.[2]

"The little purple zone south of the Empire comprises the Baronies of Hercules, whose great Barons rule the independent star-worlds of Hercules Cluster. Northwest lies Fomalhaut Kingdom, and south of it stretch the kingdoms of Lyra, Cygnus, Polaris and others, most of these being allied to the Empire.

"This big black blot southeast of the Empire is the largest dark cloud in the galaxy, and within it lies the League of Dark Worlds, composed of suns and worlds engulfed in the perpetual dimness of that cloud. The League is the most powerful and jealous rival of the Empire.

"The Empire is dominant and has long sought to induce the star-kingdoms to unite and banish all war in the galaxy. But Shorr Kan and his League have intrigued against Arn Abbas' policy of unification, by fomenting the jealousies of the smaller star-kingdoms."

It was all a little overwhelming for John Gordon, man of the 20th Century. He looked in wonder at that strange map.

Vel Quen added, "I shall teach you how to use the thought-spools and then you can learn that great story."

In the following days while he learned the language, Gordon had thus learned also the history of two thousand centuries.

It was an epic tale that the thought-spools unfolded of man's conquest of the stars. There had been great feats of heroism in exploration, disastrous wrecks in cosmic clouds and nebulae, bitter struggles against stellar aborigines too alien for peaceful contact.

Earth had been too small and remote to govern all the vast ever-growing realm of man. Star-systems established their own governments, and then banded into kingdoms of many stars. From such a beginning had grown the great Mid-Galactic Empire which Arn Abbas now governed.

Vel Quen finally told Gordon, "I know you want to see much of our civilization before you return to your own body and time. First let me show you what Earth looks like now_. Stand upon this plate," He referred to one of two round quartz plates set in the floor, which were part of a curious, complex apparatus.

"This is a telestereo, which projects and receives stereoscopic images that can see and hear," Vel Quen explained. "It operates almost instantaneously over any distance."[3]

Gordon stood gingerly with him on the quartz plate. The old scientist touched a switch.

Abruptly, Gordon seemed to be in another place. He knew he was still in the tower laboratory, but a seeing, hearing image of himself now stood on a stereo-receiver on a terrace high in a great city.

"This is Nyar, largest city of Earth," said Vel Quen. "Of course, it cannot compare with the metropoli of the great star-worlds."

Gordon gasped. He was looking out over a mammoth city of terraced white pyramids.

Far out beyond it he could glimpse a spaceport, with rows of sunken docks and long, fishlike star-ships in them. There were also a few massive, grim-looking warships with the Empire's comet emblem on them.

But it was the great city itself that held his stunned gaze. Its terraces were flowering green gardens with gay awnings and crowds of pleasure-seeking people.

Vel Quen switched them to other stereo-receivers in Nyar. He had glimpses of the interior of the city, of halls and corridors, of apartments and workshops, of giant underground atomic power plants.

The scene suddenly vanished from John Gordon's fascinated eyes as Vel Quen snapped off the telestereo and darted toward a window.

"There is a ship coming!" he exclaimed. "I can't understand it. No ship ever lands here!"

Gordon heard a droning in the air and glimpsed a long, slim, shining craft dropping out of the sky toward the lonely tower.

Vel Quen looked alarmed, "It's a warship, a phantom-cruiser, but has no emblem on it. There's something wrong about this!"

The shining ship landed with a rush on the plateau a quarter-mile from the tower. A door in its side instantly slid open.

From it poured a score of gray-uniformed, helmeted men who carried weapons like long, slim-barreled pistols, and who advanced in a run toward the tower.

"They wear the uniform of Empire soldiers but they should not have come here," Vel Quen said. His wrinkled face was puzzled and worried. "Could it be-"

He broke off, seeming to reach a sudden decision. "I am going to notify the Nyar naval base at once!"

As the old scientist turned from John Gordon toward the telestereo, there came a sudden loud crash below.

"They have blasted in the door!" cried Vel Quen. "Quick, John Gordon, take the-"

Gordon never learned what he meant to tell him. For at that moment, the uniformed men came rushing up the stair into the room.

They were strange-looking men. Their faces were white, a pallid, colorless and unnatural white.

"League soldiers!" cried Vel Quen, the instant he saw them thus close. He whirled to turn on the telestereo.

The leader of the invaders raised his long, slim pistol. A tiny pellet flicked from it and buried itself in Vel Quen's back. It instantly exploded in his body. The old scientist dropped in his tracks.

Until that moment, ignorance and bewilderment had held Gordon motionless. But he felt a hot rage burst along his nerves as he saw Vel Quen fall. He had come to like the old scientist, in these days.

With a fierce exclamation, Gordon plunged forward. One of the uniformed men instantly raised his pistol.

"Don't blast him-it's Zarth Arn himself!" yelled the officer who had shot down Vel Quen. "Grab him!"

Gordon got his fists home on the face of one of them, but that was all. A dozen hands grasped him, his arms were twisted behind his back, and he was held as helpless as a raging child.

The pallid officers spoke swiftly to Gordon. "Prince Zarth, I regret we had to blast your colleague but he was about to call for help and our presence here must not be detected."

The officer continued rapidly. "You yourself will not be harmed in the slightest. We have been sent to bring you to our leader."

Gordon stared at the man. He felt as though all this was a crazy dream.

But one thing was clear. They didn't doubt he was Zarth Arn. And that was natural, seeing that he was Zarth Arn, in body.

"What do you mean?" he demanded furiously of the other. "Who are you?"

"We come from the Cloud!" answered the pallid officer instantly. "Yes, we are from the League and have come to take you to Shorr Kan."

It was still all baffling to John Gordon. Then he remembered some of the things that old Vel Quen had told him.

Shorr Kan was leader of the League of the Dark Worlds, which was the greatest foe of the Empire. That meant that these men were enemies of the great star-kingdom to whose ruling house Zarth Arn belonged.

They thought that he was Zarth Arn and were kidnapping him! Zarth Arn had never foreseen anything like this happening when he had planned the exchange of bodies!

"I'm not going with you!" Gordon cried! "I'm not leaving Earth!"

"We'll have to take him by force," rasped the officer to his men. "Bring him along."