The Sun Smasher

CHAPTER VIII

The laboratory they were in was not such a one as Banning had ever seen before. The machines and instruments here were so masked and shielded that their purposes were unguessable, their complexities only to be imagined. This long, high, wide room had the quiet cleanness of a great hall of dynamos.

He could understand why only a man who had mastered the sciences of the stars could attain to high place in this far-reaching star empire.

Rolf was speaking to that man, harshly, rapidly. Jommor listened, his face set like stone. Horek was out checking the men as they rounded up stragglers, but the two Arraki were here, bunched and tense, their eyes roving alertly.

Tharanya had recovered. She sat in a chair, her face perfectly white and her eyes like hot sapphires as she looked at Banning. She looked at no one else.

Rolf finished, and Jommor said slowly, “So that's it. I might have known."

"No,” said Tharanya, and then on a rising scale, “Oh, no! We'll not give your Valkar his memory back, so he can rend the Empire!"

"You haven't,” Rolf pointed out grimly, “much choice."

Tharanya's flaring gaze never left Banning's face. She said to him bitterly, “You almost succeeded once, didn't you? You came here with whatever clues your father had left you, and you tricked me into letting you search the old archives, and you found the way to the Hammer and went away laughing — at us, at me."

Banning said, “Did I?"

She said, “You did, and with the oldest trick a man can use with a woman, and the cheapest."

Jommor said, “Tharanya—"

She did not look at him as she said, to Banning, “You were just a little too slow. The little that saved the Empire! We caught you, and Jommor erased your memory. We should have erased you."

"But you didn't,” Banning said.

"No, we didn't. We hate killing — something a son of the Old Empire wouldn't understand. We were foolish enough to give you false memories and set you down on that fringe planet Earth and think you safety out of the way, I was foolish enough."

Rolf said sourly, “He was out of the way enough that it took me long years of secret search on Earth to find Him."

Tharanya looked slowly at the big dark man. “And now you have him, you want his memory too, and you'll have the Hammer in your grasp."

"Yes,” said Rolf, and the word was like the snap of a wolf. “Listen Jommor. You can restore his memory. And you'll do it. You'll do it because you don't want to see Tharanya die."

Jommor said, “I thought that would be it."

"Well?"

Jommor looked at Tharanya. Presently the line of his shoulders seemed to sag, and his head bent forward. “As you say — I haven't much choice."

Banning's heart pounded, and his flesh was cold. He said hoarsely, “How long will it take?” Seconds, hours, centuries — how long does it take to change a man, to make him not? Suppose this whole incredible dream was true and Neil Banning was only a name, a fiction, a walking lie? Would he remember, afterward? Would he mind, that he had not really ever been?

Jommor got up slowly. Without any expression of face or voice he answered, “An hour, perhaps less."

Tharanya stared at him. It seemed that she could not believe what she heard. Then she cried out furiously, “No! I forbid you, Jommor — do you hear? I forbid you! No matter what they—"

Sohmsei laid one taloned hand gently on her shoulder, and she caught her breath, breaking off short with a gasp of loathing. And the Arraki said, “Lord, her mouth cries anger while her mind speaks hope. There is deception here, between these two."

Rolf made a short harsh sound between his teeth. “I thought Jommor had given in too easily.” He looked from one to the other. “All right, out with it. Its no use to lie to an Arraki."

Tharanya moved away from Sohmsei, but she did not speak. Jommor shrugged, his face still showing nothing. Banning admired his control.

"The Arraki,” said Jommor, “is doubtless a good servant, but he is overzealous.” He looked at Banning. “You want your memory returned. I have agreed. I can't do more."

"An hour,” Banning said. “Or perhaps less.” He walked over to Tharanya. ‘What do you expect to happen in the next hour?"

Her eyes blazed at him, direct and unevasive. “I don't know what you're talking about. And please ask your creature not to touch me again."

"Someone is coming,” Banning said. “Someone strong enough to help."

Sohmsei said quietly, “Her mind leapt. That is the truth her tongue did not speak."

Quite irrationally, but understandably, Banning became furious. He caught Tharanya by the shoulders.

"Who is coming?"

"Wait and see!"

Jommor said warningly, “Tharanya!” and Sohmsei chuckled. “They are thinking of a ship."

Rolf swore. “Of course, they'd send for others in the Empire council to confer about us. And unless the custom has changed, that means a Class-A heavy cruiser with a bloody admiral in charge.” He turned on Jommor. “How long?"

"Five minutes, an hour — I can't tell you exactly."

"We'll still have you for hostages,” Rolf said grimly. Jommor nodded. “It should make an interesting situation."

"But not a good one,” Banning said. “Rolf, we're getting out of here."

Rolf stared at him. “Not until Jommor returns your memory!"

"Jommor,” said Banning decisively, “can do that in our ship, can't he? We're going!” He swung around. “Keesh, go tell Horek and the others to get ready to move. And bring back some men here, fast. There'll be equipment to carry. Jommor! You designate all the apparatus you need. You won't forget anything — not if you care for your Empress."

The lines around Jommor's mouth got very deep, and for the first time there was a weakening of his iron control. He glanced first of all at Sohmsei, who was watching him with intent interest, and then at Rolf and Banning, such a glittering look of pure hatred that Banning almost flinched from it. Last of all he looked at Tharanya.

"Don't take her too,” he said. “I beg of you."

'No harm will come to her,” Banning told him, “that doesn't come to all of us."

To Tharanya he said, “I'm sorry. I didn't plan it this way."

Tharanya whispered, “I don't think that I would mind dying at all, if only I could watch you go first.” She sounded as though she meant it.

A sudden doubt, a feeling of guilt, swept over Banning. He had let himself go with the rush of events, not thinking much about ethics. To an Earthman, star empires and empresses, Valkars and Hammers and intrigues that went back ninety thousand years, seemed after all no more than words, and the stuff of dreams. It didn't much matter what you did about them.

But they had stopped being words. They were people, and realities. They were Tharanya and Jommor, and he himself was a living force — the Valkar, or the, shadow of him. He was about to do a thing that could have undreamed-of consequences, affecting the lives of billions of people on worlds he had never even heard of.

He was appalled at the magnitude of his responsibility.

And he knew now, at the last minute, that he could not go through with it.

"Rolf,” he said. “I—"

The doors swung open and Keesh burst in. “A message, Lord Sunfire's radar has seen another ship approaching, and Behrent says we must come aboard at once!"

Banning looked helplessly at Tharanya. He had no choice now. He needed her, to buy his own life and the lives of his men, to buy safe passage through the space patrols. Later on he might have time to think again of ethics.

"All right,” he snapped. “Pass the word on to the captains, and get those men—"

"They are here, Lord."

"Good.” He turned to Jommor. “Hurry up, and don't try to be clever. Sohmsei is watching."

He took off his cloak and put it around Tharanya's shoulders. “I'll take you to the ship now."

She was through looking at him now, through speaking. When he set his hand on her arm and led her forward, she walked beside him, straight and proud, but she paid him no more heed than if he had not been there at all — except that he could feel a quiver and vibration in her flesh when he touched it that almost burned him.

The lower halls of the palace and the grounds outside hummed with a tense and ordered haste. Men were returning to the cruiser in long files at the double, the disarmed and helpless palace guards herded sullenly aside. They showed signs of fight when they saw Tharanya, in spite of the guns that menaced them, but Horek threw a heavy guard around her and Banning, and they went through with no trouble.

The fresh night air struck cold on Banning's cheeks.

The dark sky showed him nothing, and yet he knew that out of it, swifter than starlight, danger was rushing toward him. He hurried Tharanya on. The trees and fountains fell behind, and they were out on the landing field with Sunfire before them, paths of bright streaming from her open ports. He wondered whether Rolf had started yet, whether he had all the equipment. He kept a tight grip on Tharanya, and wondered how close that other ship had come, how many minutes they had left.

Schrann was on duty in the airlock room, hurrying the men on, keeping them in order so as not to jam the narrow lock. When he saw Banning he said, “Captain would like to see you on the bridge, sir.” His voice was taut, and he did not look happy. Banning hustled Tharanya roughly inside, not bothering to apologize. He shoved her without ceremony into an unoccupied cabin and locked the door, and set a guard on it. Then he hurried on to the bridge.

Behrent was striding up and down, looking grimmer than Banning had ever seen him. Orderlies were running in and out with messages. The technicians fidgeted at the control panels, and nobody was saying anything. Banning asked, “What's the situation?"

Behrent made a gesture with his two hands, the upper one dropping fast onto the lower and pinning it there. “Even now,” be said, “we'd be going up right under her guns.” He turned to glare out the port, at the men running far below. “What's holding them up?” he demanded. “What are they doing out there, playing games? By God, I'll clap hatches and leave ‘em—"

A pink-faced young orderly, pop-eyed with nervous excitement, clattered up to Banning and panted, “Rolf just came aboard, sir, he says to tell you all secure, and he's seeing to the prisoner."

"Good,” said Banning. He, too, looked out the port. “Go down and tell ‘em to hurry it up. Take-off in two—"

Another orderly arrived with a message from the radar man. Behrent took it. A look of great weariness came over him, draining the color from his face.

"Don't bother,” he said to the orderly. He handed the message to Banning, “If you look up at the sky now, you'll see her coming down."

"Let her come,” said Banning, savagely.

Behrent looked at him. “But two minutes after they land, they'll know what we've been up to and they'll—"

"Two minutes,” Banning said, “can be time enough. If we move fast.'

He spoke what was in his mind and Behrent's face lit with a bleak light. “You're still the Valkar! It ought to work — but the patrols will all be alerted before we can slip clear."

"We'll take the patrols,” said Banning, “when we come to them."

Behrent started yelling into the annunciator system. “Gun crews to stations at light batteries! Snap to it or by God—"

You're still the Valkar! Banning thought that was ironic. He was still Neil Banning. He had postponed facing the ultimate issue of his own identity — but it was a postponement only.

Rolf shouldered into the bridge, his massive face grim. “So we're going to fight?"

"We're going to pin that cruiser, not fight it,” Banning said. “At least, we're going to try. Jommor?"

"I locked him with Tharanya, under guard,” said the big man. “His apparatus is also under guard separately."

Sohmsei, who had slipped in after Rolf, said to Banning, “It is the right machine, Lord. That I could sense from his mind."

"I hope we live long enough to have him use it,” Banning said, between his teeth. He was looking up through the view-plates, at the starry sky.

Behrent too was looking up. There was, suddenly, a silence in the ship. Every man was at take-off station now. There was no sound but the deep, almost inaudible drone of the field building its power.

Up there against the stars, a dark spot came into being. It grew with appalling speed, ballooning out into a great black bulk that came rushing down as though the firmament itself were falling upon them. The Sunfire rocked a little from the wind of that coming, as the great grim shape of the heavy cruiser settled for landing, a hundred yards away.

Behrent yelled suddenly, “Take off!"

They went up fast, at the very moment the other cruiser was landing. Behrent watched the figures streaming across the big curving screen, as though he was seeing his future life and death on them. Banning looked down at the palace, the whole planet, sinking beneath them, and then heard Behrent's sharp command, “Fire!"

The palace, the landing-field, the big shark shape of the cruiser that had just landed, all lit to a bursting flare of light. The extreme tail of the cruiser down there was the focus of that blinding blaze, that leapt and died. Then their own upward rush took them away so fast that the whole scene below shrank and was no longer visible to Banning's eyes.

"That did it!” cried Rolf exultantly. “Can't have harmed the personnel, but they won't be after us in a hurry!"

Now the Sunfire was running down the shadow-cone of the planet, and Banning became aware that from the radio room the operator's voice was yelping, “Clear Lane 18—emergency, official! Clear Lane 18—Lane 18—” They burst out of the shadow into the awesome blaze of Rigel's light. The enormous blue-white sun was at their backs as the cruiser broke out for clear space, the great lamps of the outer planets marching steadily as they changed position against the background of the starry heavens.

"Clear away, with Tharanya herself!” Rolf was saying. He clapped Banning's shoulder a mighty blow. “We'll show them that the old Empire has come alive!"

"The captain,” murmured Sohmsei, “has no gladness in his mind."

Behrent had gone into the radio room and he was coming back, a mirthless grin on his lined face.

I wouldn't,” he said harshly, “do any celebrating yet. The word is already ahead of us and the outer patrols have got us on radar and are closing in ahead."

"Hell, smash right through them,” Rolf swore. “They're only light cruisers."

"Wait,” said Banning. “Our guns would outrange them, wouldn't they? A running barrage ahead of us — they couldn't answer at that range and would have to fall aside wouldn't they?"

"All depends,” Behrent said. But he made up his mind in a split-second. “It's worth trying. They don't know yet why we're wanted, or they might come in anyway. But not knowing—"

He didn't finish that. He went to the inter-com, demanded “Fire control!” and gave his orders.

Now Sunfire was passing an icy outer-planet at no more than a million miles. Their speed was such that the dirty, white sphere seemed to roll back across the starry sky like a great bowling ball.

The big guns began to go off. There was only the faintest of tremors as they salvoed, for their atomic shells were not hurled forth explosively but self-propelled, each by its own power unit. But Banning saw the brilliant flares pinpricking the void ahead and to either side of them, a dance of fireflies against the mighty backdrop of stars. And as the great ship rushed on, the fireflies, will-o'-the-wisps of death, kept pace with it, ahead of it and around it.

Radar reported. “Patrols drawing back! We're clear within two parsecs—"

Behrent spoke sharply into the microphone. “Full speed!"

"We've shaken them!” Rolf exclaimed. “I knew they wouldn't have the guts to come in!"

"— but heavy units, battle-cruisers and auxiliaries, have changed course to approach us from 114 degrees,” droned the radar man.

There was a silence like death. Behrent turned, and his smile was agonized. “An Imperial task force got the flash. And they've got us. We can neither outrange them nor outrun ‘em."