The Sun Smasher

CHAPTER X

He was awake.

And he knew now who he was. He was Kyle Valkar.

But he was also still Neil Banning! The memories of Banning, the real memories of ten years, were still there, far more strong and vivid than the Valkar memories of the twenty years before that.

You could not drop the “I” of the last ten years, in a moment. He thought of himself as Neil Banning, still.

"Kyle!” It was Rolf's hoarse anxious voice. “Kyle?"

Banning opened his eyes. The helmet had been removed. Rolf's massive face, drawn with anxiety was close to his. From a little distance, Jommor watched with an expressionless stare.

"Kyle, you remember — the Hammer?” Rolf was crying. ‘Where it is — how to reach it — what it is?"

Banning felt the horror sweep back over him. Yes, he remembered, only too terribly well. He remembered his father, the Valkar of years ago, teaching him from a great star-chart on the wall of the ruined palace.

"— the yellow sun that neighbors the triple-star just beyond the last rim of the Darkness only to be approached from zenith or the drift will riddle you—"

Yes, he remembered that. And more. He wished he could forget the more, the secret of the Hammer's power that only he in the galaxy knew.

The part of him that was still Neil Banning recoiled in freezing terror from what the part of him that was Kyle Valkar remembered. No, do men could have planned such a thing, a thing to rend the very foundations of the galaxy; to destroy—

He would not think about it, be must not think about it now or his already overburdened mind would snap beneath the strain! It could not be true, anyway. Not even the Valkars of old, who had strode the galaxy like demigods, could have wielded or planned to wield such a power as that.

Rolf was shaking him by the shoulders. “Kyle come out of it! We're going to hit the Cluster, we've only minutes and it all depends on you — do you remember?"

Banning forced himself to speak, through stiff lips. “Yes — I remember — enough to get us through the Cluster — I think—"

Rolf lifted him bodily to his feet. “Then come on! You're needed on the bridge!"

Banning stumbled along beside Rolf, like a man in a daze. But when they entered the bridge, the sight now mirrored by the forward port shocked him into an awareness of danger, and the imminent necessity for action.

During that interval when his mind was lost in the dark whirlpool of time, Sunfire had been speeding at top-velocity toward the Cygnus Cluster, and now Banning saw that they were almost in it — had in fact already penetrated its out-flung edges. It was no longer a splendid distant entity, self-contained and definite. It had grown monstrously until it filled the universe, above, below, and on either side. A million suns engulfed the ship, as a grain of dust is caught up in the swarming of a million bees, and all the heavens were aburst with light.

Except in that quadrant where the Darkness lay. The Darkness, beyond whose last rim hung a triple star with a yellow sun beside it, and on the world of that yellow sun a Thing so terrible that—

No. No time for that now, no time to shiver and crumble in the grip of dread. Later, if you live. Later you can face the unthinkable.

But can you? And what will you do when you can no longer evade and postpone, when you must take the Hammer in your hand, and—

Behrent was looking at him. Rolf was looking at him, and so were the technicians, their faces bright and strange in the flooding glare, the raw star-blaze of the Cluster.

Behrent said quietly, “The ship is yours."

Banning nodded. For a moment the Banning part of him flinched away in ignorance and terror, but the newly-awakened Valkar part looked out at the multitude of suns, and then inward at the ground-glass screen where the flight data was correlated. The man who sat at the control bank stared up at him, his forehead beaded with an icy sweat. Banning said, “Get up."

He sat down in the man's place, with the control keys under his hands. And — memory flowed back, old skills and forgotten powers, and his fingers were alive and sentient on the bars, feeling the pulse and heartbeat of the ship.

He knew what to do. He was The Valkar. He was young again, hurling a speeding ship between the wild suns of Hercules, shooting the Orion Nebula, learning the hair-trigger responses and the cold mental calculation that would some day carry him in through Cygnus to — No! Keep your mind off that. Fly the ship. Get through. You've got to now, dying is not enough. Dying might take care of the present, but not the future. The Valkars did this, and it's up to you.

Besides, there is Tharanya. You brought her. Her life, too, is your responsibility.

Fly the ship! Get through!

Sunfire fled, a tiny mote, into the furnace heart of the Cluster. Outside, beyond the fringing stars, the Imperial task force slowed its speed and hung motionless in space. On a hundred bridges, a hundred captains watched a pin-point fleck go off their radar screens, lost in the overwhelming roar of solar force.

Inside Sunfire, there was silence. A thousand men and one woman crouched inside an iron vault and waited, for life, for death, for annihilation.

Under Banning's hands — The Valkar's hands — the force field that drove the cruiser ebbed and flowed, shifting focus constantly to compensate for the terrible drag of the stars that went reeling and spinning past the shuttered ports, monsters of green and red and golden fire. Silence, and the pounding throb of generators, and the tiny beating of a thousand human-hearts, and Sunfire rode the gravity-tides that raced between the suns, as a leaf will ride a mill-race between great shattering rocks.

And the swarming star-field slipped gradually aside, and the Darkness, the black nebula that cuts deep into the Cluster's flank, was set sharp on edge before them.

The Valkar remembered. The coordinates, projected on three dimensional space, with the four-dimensional correction for the passage of ninety thousand years. Turning, twisting, going back, weaving ever deeper into the Cluster along a circuitous route, every complex component of which was indelible in his brain.

He heard Rolf say, “No wonder no one else ever got in here! Even to enter the Cluster is suicide, but to twist into it this far—"

The rim of the Darkness heeled and tilted, and the stars along it swam into a new alignment. And there was a triple star, a red giant with two components, one emerald green, the other a burning sapphire. And beyond the triple star there was a yellow sun.

"— only to be approached from zenith, or the drift will riddle you—"

A Type G sun, in the normal course of events, will have at least one Earth-type world. Such a world circled the yellow star, and Banning sent the ship plunging toward it, thinking that it was a cruel and ironic coincidence that this lost star deep in a wild cluster should remind him so much of Sol, and that the green planet swinging round it should be so much like Earth.

Down through the atmosphere, sinking like a stone. The planet rolling underneath, heaving up its western curve, showing the upthrust peaks of a mountain range.

The mountain range was new. But half around the world beyond it was a place of very old formation, as stable as anything can be in an unstable universe. The place was flat and bare, and in the center of it was a structure.

Banning set Sunfire down. He felt as old as time, and as tired. A mounting excitement ran through the ship, men's voices raised in the hysterical joy of having survived. Behrent, Rolf, the technicians, other men crowded around Banning. He got up, shaking his head, and pushed them off. Rolf started to cry out some word of triumph, and Banning looked at him, and be fell silent.

"Get Jommor and Tharanya,” Banning told him. “They have a right to see the end of this. They've come a long way to see it."

Banning turned and went alone down the corridor toward the airlock — alone except for the two Arraki, who were like his own twin shadows. He ordered the lock opened, and stepped out into the sweet untainted air of a world that had never been used by men.

Except once.

Banning began to walk across the barren plain. The sun was high in a sky of clear blue flecked with little clouds — just such a sky, he thought, was over Greenville that day on Earth. He shuddered, and the air seemed cold, and ahead of him the structure that had been raised millennia ago by men stood gaunt and mighty against the drifting clouds.

"Of course, by men,” murmured Sohmsei, echoing Banning's thought, “What other creature could imagine such a glorious blasphemy?"

Banning turned. “I know now what it means, that glimpse you had of the whole broad sky on fire.” His face was white, and the weight of worlds was on his shoulders — of worlds, of stars, of men and half men and everything that lived.

Sohmsei bent his head. “You will know what to do."

Rolf came out of the ship, with Jommor and Tharanya. They began to walk across the plain, the fresh breeze lifting their hair and tugging at their garments.

Banning's face contracted as though with some deep agony. He went on again, toward the Hammer.

It towered up, reared high on a platform as big as Manhattan Island — or at least it seemed so, to Banning's dazed eyes. It was shaped in some ways like a cannon, and in others like — no, not like anything else. Like itself alone. There had only been one Hammer. And it was the first, the beginning, the experiment carried out in the lost and secret place where there was ample material for the Hammer to crush, from whence it could reach out to—

A ladder led him up onto the platform, a ladder made of some wizard joining of ceramic and metal that would outlast the land it stood on. The platform, too, was built of a substance that had not weathered or corroded. A door of cerametal led inside, to a chamber underneath, and there were controls there, and mighty dynamos that drew power from the magnetic field of the planet itself.

Banning said harshly to Sohmsei, “Keep them out."

The Arraki looked at him — was it love and trust, or a loathing terror that showed in his eyes? Banning's own gaze was uncertain, his breath painful in his throat, his hands shaking like those of an old man with the palsy.

Now, now! Which was it to be, the Old Empire and the throne of the Valkars, the banner blazened with the sunburst? Or surrender to the mercy of Tharanya and Jommor, not only himself but Rolf and Behrent and all the others?

Banning put his hand on the breast of his tunic, and felt the symbol there, the sunburst bright with jewels. And suddenly he sprang forward in the silent room, toward the levers, the sealed imperishable mechanisms that held within them the coiled might of the Hammer.

He remembered. He remembered the tradition handed down from father to son, and the things that were written in the ancient books among the archives. Ambition had burned them into his mind, and greed had fixed them there with an etching of its own strong acid. He remembered, and his hands worked fast.

Presently he went out of the chamber and down the ladder, to where Jommor and Tharanya and Rolf were waiting with the two Arraki, five grim shapes at the end of the world.

Rolf started to ask a question, and Banning said, “Wait."

He looked up.

From the colossal pointing finger of the Hammer, there leapt up a long lightning-stroke of sullen crimson light. A giant stroke that darted toward the yellow sun in the heavens, that flared and glared-and then was gone.

There was nothing more.

Banning felt his bones turn to water. He felt the horror of a supremely impious action. He had done a thing no man had done before — and be was afraid.

Rolf turned toward him, his face wild and wondering. The others were staring puzzledly, disappointedly.

"Then — it doesn't work?” said Rolf. “The Hammer — it does nothing—"

Banning forced himself to speak. He did not look at Rolf, he was looking at the growing sunspot that had appeared on the yellow star, a blaze of greater brightness against the solar fires. His horror at himself was mounting.

"It works, Rolf. Oh, God, it works—"

"But what? What—"

"The Hammer,” said Banning thickly, “is a hammer to shatter stars."

They could not take that knowledge into their minds at once, it was too vast and awful. How could they, when his own mind had recoiled from it for all these terrible hours?

He had to make them believe. Life or death hung upon that now.

"A star,” he said painfully, “nearly any star — is potentially unstable. Its core a furnace of nuclear reactions, from which hydrogen has been mostly burned away. Around that core a massive shell of much cooler matter, high in hydrogen content. The trapped, outward-pushing energy of the central furnace keeps the cooler shell from collapsing in upon it."

They listened, but their faces were blank, they could not understand and he must make them understand, or perish.

Banning cried, “The Hammer projects a tap-beam — a mere thread compared to stellar mass, but enough to let that pushing energy of the nuclear core drain out to the surface. And without that push of radiation to hold out the shell—"

Understanding, an awful understanding, was coming into Jommor's face. “The shell would collapse in upon the core,” he whispered.

"Yes. Yes — and you know what the result is when that happens."

Jommor's lips moved stiffly. “The cooler shell collapsing into the super-hot core — it's the cause of a nova—"

"Nova?” That, at least Rolf could comprehend, and the knowledge struck a stunned look into his eyes. “The Hammer could make any star a nova?"

"Yes."

For a moment, the sheer terrifying audacity of the concept held Rolf's mind to the exclusion of all else.

"Good God, the Hammer of the Valkars — a hammer that could destroy a star and all its worlds—"

But Jommor had already gone beyond that reaction, to ultimate realities.

He looked at Banning. He said, “You used it on this star? And this star will become a nova?'

"Yes. The collapse must already have begun. We have a few hours — no more. We must be far from this system, by then."

Final understanding came to Rolf then. He stared at Banning as though he saw him for the first time. “Kyle — the Hammer — we can't take it, it's far too huge — then it perishes, when this planet perishes?"

"Yes, Rolf."

"You have destroyed — the Hammer?"

"Yes. When this world perishes, in a few hours, the Hammer will perish with it."

He expected, from Rolf, a cry, an agonized reproach, a blow, death even — It was Rolf's life that he had destroyed, a life spent in the service of the Valkars, a life whose deepest reality had been the hope of someday attaining the Hammer that would put power again in the hands of the old dynasty. And that was all gone now, all the bitter years of toil and search and struggle—

Rolf's great shoulders sagged. His massive face seemed to sag too, to grow old. His voice was dull, when he said, “You had to do it, Kyle."

Banning's heart leaped. “Rolf, you understand?"

Rolf nodded slowly, heavily. “The old Valkars went too far. God, no wonder the galaxy revolted against the Old Empire! To kill a star — too terrible — too wrong—” He added haggardly, “But it's not easy, to give up a dream—"

Tharanya had watched with wide, wondering eyes, but now emotion flashed across her mobile face. She stepped forward and grasped Banning's arm.

Jommor said unsteadily, “Kyle Valkar would not have given up that dream. But you are another man too, now — an Earthman. It was all I had to count on when I restored your mind."

In that timeless moment, so brief but seeming so long, the light about them darkened. Banning looked up.

The aspect of the yellow sun had become subtly terrifying. It was dimming slightly — a shade coming across it like the shadow that preludes the coming of storm.

The faces of the others stood out white in the hazing gloom. Sohmsei and Keesh waited grotesque and calm. Stark and brutal against the heavens, the Hammer loomed over them.

"We've little time,” Banning forced himself to say. “The margin may be less than calculated — we'd better take off."

They started to move toward Sunfire. And of a sudden, fear was on Banning — fear such as no man had ever felt before. A star had been given its deathblow, and in its dying throes this solid planet beneath them would be a butterfly in a furnace. They were running, by the time they reached the ship.

He took the control-keys, he took the cruiser off with a nightmare rush. It steadied his shaking hands, that he must use them now — that upon him depended their lives once more. He drove the ship out and out, and behind them the yellow sun still dimmed, and darkened, and—

"Don't look!’ cried Jommor. “Dim the view-plates — dim them — dim them—"

A giant wave of raving energy caught the force-field drive, and the ship went out of control. Banning, groping frantically for the keys, glimpsed the starry heavens gyrating madly across the now-dimmed view-plates. And as the cruiser whirled, there came into view the yellow sun they had left.

It was exploding outward, a cosmic bloom of fire unfolding its awful petals at unthinkable speed. It paled the fierce brilliance of the Cluster, and the Darkness flared up madly with reflected glory, and the whole galaxy seemed to recoil shuddering from the intolerable splendor of the bursting star.

The star that he had slain—

That dread vision whirled away as Sunfire yawed and plunged and trembled, and was tossed like a ship upon giant waves of force.

The triplet of red and green and blue suns loomed up terrifyingly close as the cruiser, was hurled toward them. Banning smashed the keys, drove the ship up, away, was sucked back and fought free again, and again—

It seemed to him that he fought the keys forever, with the symbols on the screen gone crazy and useless, with the power of a riven star seeming to reach out to overtake and destroy the man who had tortured it to this explosion, as it had already destroyed its planet, and the Hammer.

It was only slowly, slowly, that Banning's mind could take in anything but the keys beneath his hands, could realize that the wildest waves were past, that the Sunfire was surging more steadily away from that awesome blaze across the firmament behind them.

Rolf spoke to him, and he did not hear the words. Rolf grasped his shoulder, shouted in his ear, and still he would not listen. A woman spoke to him, and to her too he was deaf and blind.

But a voice came through to Banning, at last — a voice from an old, old time, only whispering, but reaching him when those others could not.

"It is done, Lord. And the ship is safe."

Banning turned slowly, and saw the wise and loving eyes of Sohmsei. He looked at the view-plates. They were speeding out through the fringes of the Cluster, and wide leads of clear space lay ahead.

Behrent hovered worriedly beside him, wanting to take over. He understood then that they feared him a little mad.

He got up, and Behrent took the keys. Banning looked around at the white faces that met his, and then in the view-plates he saw the thing in the sky behind them, falling far behind now, the stupendous death-fire back on the rim of the Darkness—

"Kyle,” said Rolf, hoarsely. “Kyle, listen—"

He would not listen. He had slain a star, and the burden of a cosmic guilt was on him, and he could not bear their faces or their words. He went past them, be stumbled down the corridor to his cabin, he shut the port so that he could not see the thing back there that he had done.

He sat, not thinking, not trying to think. The cruiser sped on. It seemed a long time before the door opened, and Tharanya came in.

"Kyle.

"Kyle!'

He looked up, and her face was white and strange, all hatred, all passion, gone. He remembered something he must say to her.

"Tharanya, Rolf, and Horek, and all the others—"

"Yes, Kyle?"

"They followed me into this. And I failed them, I destroyed their only hope."

"They would not have had it otherwise. You did it, for all the galaxy."

"I know — but I was their leader. I'll make you a proposal. You and Jommor to be turned over to your fleet, out there. I'll go with you. But — a free pardon for all the others."

"It is done, Kyle. A free pardon for them."

"Let Rolf hear you say that, Tharanya."

She went out. When she came back, Rolf and Jommor were with her, and Sohmsei. Rolf looked swiftly at Banning, and then sighed.

"So he's himself again — well, it's small wonder—"

Tharanya spoke to him, and Rolf's brows drew together in anger.

"A pardon for us, and The Valkar to go to death? No!"

Sohmsei whispered, “Death is not in her mind, for the Valkar."

"No,” said Tharanya. “Oh, no!"

Banning looked up. He saw her face clearly for the first time, and he saw in it what seemed to him incredible.

"Can the years of before, the man of before, come back, Tharanya?"

She had tears in her eyes but her voice was steady. “Not the man of before, not Kyle Valkar only. I could not love him again, but—"

Jommor sighed. “Well.” He turned, his face sad, and then turned back and held out his hand. “I hated The Valkar. But I made him into a different man. I think I could get along with that man."

Rolf stared at them, at Banning and Tharanya, in amazement. “But I thought at the worst you'd send him back to Earth—"

"Let Earth alone,” she said. “Someday, but not for a long time, we of the Empire will go there in open friendship. But not now. And not The Valkar. He's a starman — you all are. He — you — are welcome to come home to the Empire, if you will. Not the Old Empire, or the New, but — the Empire."

"By God!” exclaimed Rolf. “Then a Valkar may yet sit upon the throne?"

The old imperious pride flashed up in Tharanya's eyes. “Not on the throne, no!” But her face was troubled as she looked at Banning.

He took her hand. They were not lovers, they were strangers, for he was not the man she had once loved. But maybe the new man, Banning-Valkar, could win back what once the Valkar had won and thrown away.

Far away and long ago seemed Earth, and his years on Earth! Those years had molded him, and he thought not for the worse. But these shining spaces between the stars, these were his birthplace, these were his future, these were his home.