The Sun Smasher

CHAPTER VII

The heavy cruiser Sunfire sped across the star-gulfs, homing toward Rigel.

Outwardly, she was what she had always been — one of the swiftest, most powerful craft in space, with the Empire crest bright on her haughty bough; carrying a full complement of officers and men, all correctly clad in Imperial uniform and armed with Imperial arms. Inwardly, she was a stalking-horse, a delusion and a snare.

"All the manuals are here,” said Rolf, “signal code and all. With any luck—"

Banning worded a careful message, in a very secret code, and had it flashed ahead by the hyper-space radio signal system that took almost no time at all.

Returning with conspirators, respectfully suggest utmost secrecy. Request instructions. He signed it with the name of the Sunfire's captain, who was sitting it out under Arraki guard, back on Katuun.

An answer came back. Come direct to Winter Palace. You are cleared through. It was signed Tharanya.

Rolf smiled grimly. “The Winter Palace — how very fitting! It was there they thought they had destroyed the Valkar, and now — they'll see! The palace is detached and quiet, with its own landing-field—"

"And very strong dungeons,” said Horek. “Don't forget that."

"You'd better stay aboard the ship,” Banning told him. “If they catch sight of your honest face, we'll all be under lock and key.” He laughed. He was excited, growing more so with every star-league that dropped behind them. The venture itself was wild enough to get any man excited, but it was more than that. It was anticipation, and a name. Tharanya. He did not know why this should be, but it was so. Suddenly he wanted to see her, to hear her voice, to know what she looked like and how she moved.'

"Always the boldest stroke,” said Rolf softly. “She'll be there, not suspecting anything, all afire to see for herself whether or not this is really the Valkar. And Jommor will be with her. Even if his office as chief councilor didn't require it, he'd be there. He has his own reasons. He'll be anxious to assure himself that Zurdis told the truth.” Rolf made a grasping motion with his hand. “And we'll have them both."

The mention of Jommor sent a little chill through Banning. He did not want to meet him. Jommor could be the last, the final test of the reality of Neil Banning, and Banning did not want to face that. He told himself savagely that there was nothing to fear, because he was Neil Banning and nobody could take that away from him. But still he was afraid.

Horek smiled, like a man who thinks of pleasant things. “When we have them,” he said, “we have the secret of the Hammer. And with the Hammer, and a Valkar who knows how to wield it—” He made a gesture that could easily have taken in a universe.

The Hammer? Banning had been thinking about that, too. He had been looking at the guns of this cruiser, the great guns that fired powerful atom-shells far faster than light, sighted by hyper-space radar impulses. And these ordinary Imperial weapons seemed terrible to him. How much more terrible could be the mysterious Hammer that the whole galaxy had dreaded?

Sunfire sped onward, homing on a blazing star.

A tension grew within the ship. Behrent, who had once been of the Imperial Fleet, spent much time training his officers and crew to use the great guns, snarling at their blunders, grimly reminding them that their lives might depend upon this. Banning slept little, sitting for endless hours with Rolf or Horek or the other captains, or brooding on the bridge. And always at his heels were Sohmsei and Keesh.

The two Arraki had refused to be left behind. “Lord,” Sohmsei had said, “you went once without me, and the years of waiting were long."

They entered the outer web of patrols that protected the capital world. Twice, three times, and again they were challenged — a matter of routine, but one that could be deadly if the slightest thing occurred to rouse suspicions. But each time they identified themselves and were told to pass on. They reduced speed, timing their landing with a fine precision. Rigel burned with a bluish glare, but they were sweeping in toward the third planet, hunting its shadow.

"We want it dark,” Rolf had said. “Good and dark. It'll give us just that much more advantage."

They passed the inner patrol ring and picked up the planetary beam. Sunfire, they said, cleared for Destination B, Signal One!

And the answer came back. Proceed, Sunfire. All other shipping is standing clear.

The shadow swallowed them, the bulk of the planet now made vast by its nearness, occluding the blaze of Rigel.

Banning's nervousness reached a fine-drawn edge and stopped there, leaving him strangely cold and calm. Neil Banning or Kyle Valkar — he had to go through with this, and it would tell him which man he really was!

The voices of the officers took on a subdued note. Below, the men were ready, under arms.

"Flight officers and crew will stay aboard,” said Banning, ready to take off — and I mean ready, not in minutes but in split-seconds.” He looked around at Rolf and Horek and the other “conspirators", and at Landolph and Tawn, who were to play officers of the guard. “You have all the orders I can give you. The rest of it we'll have to make up as we go along. Good luck."

Prepare for landing,” said a metallic voice from the audio system. Banning glanced down through the port. They were sweeping low over a vast city that seemed to fill half a continent, glowing with lights of many colors. Beyond it, some distance beyond… in the surrounding darkness of the country, there was one isolated spot of brilliance.

'The Winter Palace,” said Rolf, and Banning's heart gave one wild leap. Tharanya! Then he said quietly, “We'd better get ready. Check your weapons, all of you, and see that they're well hidden. Use your shockers — no killing unless you have to. And remember — Tharanya and Jommor must be taken alive, and unhurt!"

To the two Arraki he said, “You must not be seen at first — stay well in the shadows until I call."

Tawn and Landolph assembled the guard, drawn up very soldierly in even ranks — a heavy guard because of the importance of the prisoners. Banning drew his mantle over his face and waited. His pulses hammered, and it was difficult to breathe.

The ship touched down.

Smartly, with a crisp calling of orders and a rhythmic tramp of boots, the guard marched out and down the landing ramp, with the prisoners in the center of a hollow square. They were joined by an additional detachment from the Palace Guard, and marched across the open area of the landing-field to the palace gate. Banning was glad to see that there were no other craft on the field, which had obviously been kept clear for the big cruiser, Sunfire would at least not be hampered at her getaway.

Their double escort swung them quickly across a section of the grounds, dappled with light and shadow, toward a white portico that gave entrance to this southern face of the palace, a building of magnificent simplicity set among its trees and fountains. Banning studied it with a kind of nervous curiosity. Here, ten years ago, the Valkar had been brought a prisoner, to lose all memory under Jommor's scientific magic. Now, ten years later, there came another man, Neil Banning of the far-off planet Earth. They could not be the same man, and yet—

There was a cold chill on him, though the night was warm.

"Jommor's laboratory,” whispered Rolf, with his head close to Banning's “is in the west wing — there."

"No talking among the prisoners” said Landolph officiously, and Horek cursed him. They passed in under the broad white portico. Just before they did so, Banning managed to glance over his shoulder, and he thought he glimpsed two shadows moving where the night was darkest among the ornamental trees.

There was a long, wide hall, severe and beautiful in some pale stone, with a floor of polished marble as black as some mountain tarn in winter, and seeming quite as deep. Tall doors opened at intervals along the walls, and, at one side, a splendid staircase sprang upward in one flawless curve. A man stood waiting in the hall, and on the staircase, caught halfway by their entrance, a woman looked down upon the prisoners and guards.

Banning saw the man first of all, and an ugly sense of hate leaped up inside him. He kept his face half covered with the edge of his cloak, and looked at Jommor, half surprised that he should be so young, and not at all the bent and bearded councilor, the scientist worn with years and study. This man was tall and muscular, with a high-boned face more suited to the sword than to the test tube.

It was only in the eyes that Jommor betrayed the scientist and statesman. Looking into them, grey and steady and bright, Banning understood that he was facing a massive intellect — possibly, quite probably in fact, far beyond his own.

That thought was like a challenge, and something inside Banning snarled, we'll see!

Then the guards halted with a clang of weapons and a thunder of boot heels on the marble floor, and Banning lifted his gaze to the stairway and saw the woman. He forgot Jommor. He forgot the guards, the plan, the whole object of his being here. He forgot everything but Tharanya.

He stepped forward, so abruptly that he broke through his own men and almost through the palace guard before they caught him. He had let his mantle drop, baring his face, and he heard Jommor start and cry out under his breath. And then Tharanya had taken two steps down the stair and said a name.

She was beautiful. And she was angry. She seemed almost to glow with her anger and her hate, as though they were lamps inside her to gleam through her white flesh and put sparks in her blue eyes. And yet somehow Banning felt that underneath that hate was something else—

She came the rest of the way down the stairs, and she moved in just the way he had thought she would, with a strong free grace that was more than touched with arrogance. He would have gone forward to meet her but the guards held him back, and he too became angry, and full of hate. Hate that blended somewhere into a quite different emotion.

But he was Neil Banning, and what could Tharanya of the stars mean to him?

"You fool,” she said, “I gave you your life. Why couldn't you be content with it?"

Banning asked softly, “Is a man in my position ever content?"

She looked at him, and he thought that if she had had a knife at her girdle she would have stabbed him on the spot. “This time,” she said, “I can't save you. And this time I would not, if I could."

Jommor moved. He came to stand beside Tharanya, and suddenly Banning remembered things that Rolf had told him, enough that he could see how matters stood with them, with all three of them — not the details, but the broad outlines, the basic situation. And he laughed.

"But you did save me before, little Empress, when you should not have. And you've waited for me all these years. Hasn't she, Jommor — in spite of all your urging that she take a consort? In all these ten long years, you still haven't quite managed to get your hands on her, or her throne!"

He moved fast, then, almost before the look of cold fury in Jommor's eyes told him that he had hit home — and yet not quite home, at that. There was something about the man, something striking and inescapable, and Banning recognized it. It was honesty. Jommor was sincere. It was not the throne he loved, it was Tharanya.

With a feeling very like respect, Banning launched himself at Jommor's throat.

He did it so swiftly and so violently that the guards, caught off balance, let him thrust them hard behind him with an outward sweep of his arms — and Banning's own men received them and pulled them off. Banning shouted, and the cry was echoed savagely under the vault of pale stone — Nalkar! Valkar!” The close-packed group of palace guards and prisoners and Sunfire's armed escort exploded suddenly into furious confusion. Banning saw Jommor's face go momentarily slack with astonishment. Then he cried out, “Go, Tharanya — it's you they're after! We can hold them — get help!"

Banning was on him, then, and he didn't say any more.

Tharanya turned and ran like a deer for the stairway. Her face was white and startled, but she was not afraid. She bounded up the steps, calling imperiously for more guards. At intervals along the stair, in wall niches, were small heavy vases of sculptured stone. Tharanya picked one up and threw it, and then another. Banning laughed. Her hair had come loose from its gauzy net and was flying wild over her shoulders. It was as red as flame. He wanted her. He wanted to catch her himself, quickly, before she could vanish into those upper corridors and fetch more guards. He wanted to be done with Jommor.

But Jommor was strong. He had no weapon on him, and he was determined that Banning should not use his. They were struggling now for the shocker Banning had pulled from beneath his tunic, and it was an even match, especially when Banning dropped the shocker entirely. The fight was swirling around them, breaking up into smaller struggling groups, and Banning saw that he was going to be cut off completely from the stair. From outside came a turbulence of shots and cries as the main body of Banning's forces from the cruiser swept in and secured the grounds. Everything was going well, better than he could have hoped, but they must have Tharanya. Without her, their whole plan fell apart, and in another moment she would be gone. It would be a long task to search the whole palace, and who knew what secret ways there might be out of it? Monarchs usually took care never to be trapped.

But Jommor's powerful arms held him, and Jommor's voice said fiercely in his ear, “You're a madman, Valkar. She's beyond your reach!"

Banning arched his back and got one arm free. He hit Jommor, hard. Blood came out of the corner of his mouth and his knees sagged, but he did not let go. Tharanya had reached the top of the stair.

Jommor said, “You've lost."

Raging, Banning struck again, and this time Jommor stumbled and went down. But he pulled Banning with him, and he got his hand on Banning's throat, and they rolled among the trampling boots of the guards. And a blind fury came over Banning, something so deep and primitive that it had never heard of plans or reason. He got his own hands on Jommor's sinewy neck, and they tried to kill each other there on the marble floor until Rolf and Horek pulled them forcibly apart.

The hall was full of Banning's men now. The palace guards were laying down their arms. Gasping painfully for breath, Banning looked toward the stair.

Tharanya had disappeared.

'We'd better find her,” Rolf said. “Fast."

"The Arraki,” Banning said, and shouted hoarsely. To Rolf he added, “Get some men together. And bring Jommor. We may need Him."

He ran up the steps, and the two Arraki came racing to join him, down along the edge of the hall. “Find her,” he said to them. “Find her!” And he sent them on ahead, like two great hounds to course an Empress.

The upper corridors were still. Too still. There must be guards, servants, some of the numberless, nameless people it takes to run a palace. Banning ran, his ears strained against the silence, and Keesh and Sohmsei, the many-footed shadows, sped far faster than he up and down the branching ways.

"Not here,” said Sohmsei eagerly. “Not here, nor here. Not — yes! Here!"

There was a door. Closed and quiet, like all the doors.

Banning flung himself toward it. Keesh reached out and caught him fast.

"They wait,” he said. “Inside."

Banning drew the pistol he had hoped he would not have to use. There was a window at the end of the corridor, close by. He looked out of it. The grounds were all quiet now below. Sunfire lay peacefully on the landing field. There was another window some twenty feet along the wall. He thought it must belong to the room.

He showed it to Sohmsei. “Can you get there?"

The Arraki laughed in his curious soft way. “Count three tens, Lord, before you break the door. Keesh!"

The two Arraki, dark spider-shapes in the gloom, slipped over the wide sill. Banning could hear the dry pattering click of their clawed feet on the stone outside. He began to count. Rolf and Horek, with Jommor between them and six or seven men behind, came running up. Banning stood in front of the door.

"We have Jommor with us,” he shouted. “You in there, hold your fire unless you want him dead!"

"No,” yelled Jommor. “Fire!"

Rolf hit him across the mouth. Banning leaned closer to the door.

"Do you hear? It's his life, as well as ours."

He thought he heard Tharanya's voice inside, giving them an order.

Thirty. Now.

He kicked the door in, crashing his boot-heel hard against the lock. His flesh shrank, expecting the impact of explosive pellets. None came. A woman shrieked suddenly, and another. A half-dozen palace guards stood ranked in front of a group of servants and waiting women, armed but with their guns dropped. And now Keesh and Sohmsei had scuttled in through the window at their rear, and the guards were overwhelmed by an out-bursting wave of screaming women and yelling men who wanted to avoid the Arraki.

Tharanya was not among them.

There was a door to an inner chamber beyond the milling clump of guards and servants. Banning fought his way toward it, but the Arraki were closer and they got there first, throwing the tall white panels wide. There was a room beyond with a broad white bed curtained in yellow silk, and thick rugs on the floor and a woman's cushioned furniture. The walls were white with great inset panels done in a yellow brocade to match the hangings of the bed. One of the panels was still moving. It had been open, and now was almost shut.

No man could have reached that narrowing crack before it closed, but the Arraki were not men. By the time Banning had floundered into the room they had torn the panel open and vanished into the space that lay behind it. Banning heard them running, and then there was a scream of pure terror, compressed and made hollow by narrow walls.

Sohmsei came back, carrying Tharanya's limp body in his arms. He looked regretful. “I am sorry, Lord,” he said. “We did not harm her. But this is a thing that happens often with your human women."

Banning smiled. “She'll come to,” he said, and reached out his own arms. “Good work, Sohmsei. Where's Keesh?"

"Gone on to spy out the secret passage,” said Sobmsei, laying Tharanya carefully in Banning's arms. “He will sense if any danger threatens."

Banning nodded. Tharanya lay against him. He could feel the warmth of her, the motion of her breathing. Her throat was white and strong and her red hair hung in a heavy mass below his arm, and her lashes were thick and dark on her cheeks. He didn't want to go anywhere. He just wanted to stand and hold her.

Rolf said grimly from behind him, “Come on, Kyle, we've still got work to do."

Keesh came back, his leathery flanks heaving. “Nothing,” he said. “All is quiet there, Lord."

Rolf said, “We'll need the Arraki, Kyle."

Banning started, and a chill shiver ran down his spine. This was the time now, the time he had dreaded.