King? King of shadows, posturing here in a dead throne-city on a ruined, lost world! His subjects only the Arraki, the dogs of the Valkars who had staved faithful though the stars crashed. His royalty only a poor pretense, a phantom like the long-dead empire of old—
Banning's hands clutched the cold stone arms of the throne. He was thinking too much like the Valkar he was supposed to be.
"You're no king or king's blood,” he told himself fiercely. “You're Rolf's pawn, an Earthling he’ use for his own plans—if you let him."
Flanked by the torches, Rolf and at least twenty other men came down the great hall. They looked askance uneasily at the Arraki as they came. The dread of the Warders was still alive, and it was plain to see why this old king-world was visited by few.
Banning could see their faces now. Except for Captain Behrent and some of the officers from his own ship, they were all strangers to him, and they were a mixed lot. Some had the look of honest fighting-men, soldiers devoted to a cause. Others looked like arrant jailbait with no loyalty to anything but their own greed. They stopped ten paces away, looking up at the dark throne on which Banning sat with Sohmsei hovering back in the shadows.
"Hail, Valkar!” Behrent gave the salutation, and the others made it a ragged cheer.
Rolf stepped up toward the throne. He spoke in a low voice, in English. “Let me handle them. I think I've won them over."
Banning demanded in an angry whisper, “Won them over to what?"
"To a raid on Rigel,” Rolf answered evenly. “We're going there, Kyle. Jommor is there, and he can restore your memory. And when you remember again, we'll have the Hammer."
Banning was stricken dumb by the overwhelming boldness of the proposal. Rigel, the capital of the New Empire—to raid it secretly, with a handful of men—sheer madness!
It flashed across his mind that Rolf, then, did believe him to be the Valkar or he would not have made this plan. Or else, Rolf was playing an even deeper game of deception than he could fathom—
Rolf had made an elaborate bow, and was turning to present the captains.
Sohmsei murmured suddenly, “Lord, beware! There is treachery here—and death!"
Banning started. He remembered the strange parapsychic sense the Arraki had already showed. He felt his body go cold and tense.
Rolf had straightened, and his voice rolled through the great hall as he said loudly to Banning, “I've told them what you plan to do, Kyle! And I think every captain here will follow you!"
CHAPTER VI
A ROAR of assent followed Rolf's words, and one of the strange captains, a lean dark smiling man with a face so marked by facile wickedness that it fascinated Banning, sprang forward to rest his knee on the base of the throne and say, “I'll follow any man who will lead me to the stealing of an Empress! Jommor alone would have been no little task, but Tharanya too-!” He laughed. “If you can dream that big, Valkar, you may very well upset the throne."
Only the tense need for caution aroused in him by Sohmsei's whispered warning kept Banning from showing his astonishment. To raid the capital, to force Jommor to do something, was one matter—but to lay bands upon its sovereign was another. And then, from that obscure dark place inside himself, another thought came and said to him, Tharanya is the answer—take her and you can take the stars!
Banning thought that whatever Rolf's failings might be, lack of boldness was not one of them.
The dark man at his feet reached up. “I am Horek, with the light cruiser Starfleet and one hundred men. Give me your hand, Valkar."
Banning glanced aside at Sohmsei. “This one?"
The Arraki shook his head. His eyes brooded on the captains, bright and strange.
Banning leaned forward and said to Horek, “Suppose I overset the Empire—what will you ask for your help?"
Horek laughed. “Not gratitude. I have no heart to follow, so I follow gold instead. Is that understood?"
Banning answered, “Fair enough,” and gave him his hand.
Horek stepped back, and Banning said to Rolf, “You haven't told them the details of the plan?"
Rolf shook his head. “That remains for a full council, after they have pledged themselves."
Banning said cynically, “That was wise."
Rolf looked at him. “I am wise, Kyle. And it won't be long before you understand how wise."
Another captain had come up, and Rolf said smoothly, “You remember Varthis, who fought for you before."
"Of course,” lied Banning. ‘Welcome, Varthis.” And he gave his hand again. Varthis was one of the honest-looking ones, the old soldier loyal to a lost cause. Banning thought of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and hoped that his own venture would come to a better end. Because it was his venture now, like it or not. Rolf had seen to that, and the only way to get out of it alive was to win. So he would win, if it were humanly or superhumanly possible. His conscience did not reproach him very much. After all, Tharanya and Jommor and the New Empire were only names to him.
He was beginning to enjoy this sitting on a throne.
The captains came up one by one and took his hand, the rogues and the honest men, and with each one Banning glanced at Sohmsei, who watched and seemed to listen. After a while there were only four left. Banning searched their faces. Three of them looked as though they would sell their own mothers, and Banning knew it must be one of these. The fourth was already bending his knee, a broad-faced, sober-looking man in a neat uniform tunic and Rolf was saying easily, “Zurdis covered your retreat at-!'
Suddenly, with a thin, blood-chilling cry, Sohmsei sprang, and set his taloned fingers around Zurdis’ throat.
A startled sound went up from the men who were in the throne-hall. They moved—uneasily, and the Arraki stirred in the shadows, coming forward. Banning rose.
"Quiet! And you, my spiderlings—be still!'
Silence came over the ball, as tight as a bow-string. He could hear Rolf's harsh breathing beside him, and below on the steps of the throne Zurdis knelt and did not move, his face the color of ashes. Sohmsei smiled.
"It is this one, Lord."
Banning said, “Let him stand."
Reluctantly Sohmsei took his bands away. Tiny blood drops stood red on the captain's thick brown throat, where the talons had pricked the skin.
"So,” said Banning. “It was left to one of my own men, my honored captains to betray me."
Zurdis did not answer. He looked at Sohmsei, and at the distant door, and back again at Banning.
"Tell me,” Banning said. “Talk fast, Zurdis."
Zurdis said, “It's, all a lie. Call off this beast! What right has it—"
"Sohmsei,” said Banning softly.
The Arraki reached out delicately, and Zurdis squirmed and screamed. He went down on his knees again.
"All right,” he said. “All right, I'll tell you. Yes, I sold you out, why not? What did I ever get from you but wounds and outlawry? When Rolf sent word to me of this gathering, I sent word to Jommor. There's a cruiser standing off Katuun now, waiting for my signal! I was to learn your plans, your strength, and who was with you—and above all, whether you were truly the Valkar come back, or only an impostor, a puppet with Rolf to pull the strings?"
"Well?” said Banning, his heart suddenly beating fast.
Zurdis’ face, still bloodless and very grim, twisted into a caricature of a smile.
"You're the Valkar, all right. And I suppose you'll give your filthy Arraki brutes the pleasure of flaying me alive. But it will do you little good. The cruiser would prefer to hear from me, but if they don't they'll come in anyway, and take their chances. It's a Class-A heavy. I don't think they'll come to much harm."
A cry of dismay went up from the captains. Banning could hear Rolf swear under his breath. Then one of the men shouted, “We can still take off, while the cruiser waits for his message!"
A general movement started toward the door. Banning knew that if they left him here, his life would pay forfeit. That knowledge
lent him desperate determination. He must play the Valkar now to the hilt, for his neck! He stopped their movement, with a shout.
"Wait! And have them hunt us down in space? Listen, I have a, better idea!” He turned to Rolf. “Forget the old plan, throw it away. I have a new one. Listen you idiots who call yourselves captains. We want to penetrate to the very heart of the Empire. We want to reach the very throne and snatch the Empress off it. What better way to do it than in one of their own ships?"
They began to get the idea. They thought it over, seeing the neat shape of it, liking it more and more. Zurdis looked up at Banning, doubt and a sudden hope showing in his eyes.
"They want a message,” Banning said. “We'll give them one.” He leaped down from the throne, gesturing to Zurdis as he passed. “Fetch him, Sohmsei. Alive! You others of the Arraki—follow me, and I'll show you how to strike a blow for the Valkar!” He lifted his head to grin defiantly at Rolf, still standing on the steps of the throne. “Are you coming?” he demanded.
Rolf let go a laugh of pure exultation. “Lord,” he said, “I am at your heels!"
It was the first time he had given Banning that title.
Horek, the dark smiling man of the Starfleet, cried out shrilly, “Come on, you hounds—if you'd like to catch a cruiser!"
They cheered and followed Banning out into the nighted streets, with the Arraki for link-boys to carry the torches. And Banning, seeing the ruins and the fallen colossi under the dim moons, hearing the footsteps and the voices and thinking of what lay ahead, thought secretly, This is all a mad dream, and some day I'll wake from it. But meanwhile—
He turned to Rolf and said in English, “Did you have a plan?"
"Oh, yes. An elaborate and very clever one, that might even have worked—but we'd have lost a lot of ships."
"Rolf."
"Yes."
"What did you tell them, to get them into this?"
"Half the truth. I said that Jommor has the key to the secret of the Hammer, that he stole that from you. We have to get it back, I didn't think it necessary to explain that the key is actually your memory—which, of course, they believe you already have."
"Um. Rolf—"
"What now?"
"Don't make any more arrangements for me."
"After this,” said Rolf quietly, “I think I could trust you to make your own."
Meanwhile, Banning thought, impostor or not he must keep playing the Valkar—if Neil Banning was not to die.
They passed the great gate of the city. Out on the ruined road, Banning stopped and looked back. The huge bulk of the palace showed at the far end of the avenue, alight with many torches—an eerie mockery of life in that dead, deserted place. He nodded and spoke to the Arraki, and to the captains. One by one their own torches went out, and men and not-men melted away into the jungle, leaving Banning alone with Rolf and Behrent and Horek of the Starfleet, and the two Arraki, Sohmsei and Keesh, who held Zurdis close between them.
They went up the ruined road to the plateau. And on the way Banning spoke seriously to Zurdis, who listened with great care.
"His men may decide to fight for him,” Rolf said, and Banning nodded.
"Behrent and Horek can handle that, they'll have all the other crews behind them. Few men have any love for traitors."
Zurdis said sullenly, “I told no one else. Why share the gain? The men are all loyal to the Valkar."
"Good,” said Banning, and then told Behrent, “But make sure it's true!"
On the plateau, Banning made straight for his own ship and the radio room, with Rolf and Zurdis and the two Arraki. The operator on duty sprang up startled out of a half doze, and began frantically to work. Banning set Zurdis by the microphone, and Sohmsei beside him with the tips of his talons resting lightly on the captain's throat.
"He can hear your words before they're spoken,” Banning said. “If he hears treason, you'll never live to speak it.” He gestured sternly. “Go on."
A voice was already acknowledging the call. Slowly and very clearly, Zurdis said into the microphone, “Zurdis here. Listen—the man Rolf brought back is not the Valkar, and half the men suspect it. They are quarrelling about it now, in the throne-room of the palace. They're disorganized and completely off guard. There are no Arraki about, and if you land now in the jungle outside the city gate, you can grab the lot without any trouble."
"Good,” said the voice. “You're sure this man is not the Valkar?"
"Sure."
"I'll send word at once to Jommor—he'll be relieved. In a way I'm sorry—it would have been more of an honor to me, to bring him in. Oh well, Rolf and a whole conspiracy can't be sneered at! We'll land in twenty minutes. You stand clear."
The microphone clicked. Zurdis looked at Banning.
Banning said to Sohmsei. “Is his mind clean?"
"Lord,” answered the Arraki, “he is thinking now how he can warn the cruiser's men after they land, leaping swiftly out to get among them. He is thinking of many things he cannot hide, and none of them are good."
Banning said curtly, “Take him out."
They took him.
Banning turned savagely to Rolf. “I want no unnecessary killing when the cruiser lands. Make that understood!"
He went to his cabin and got the weapons Rolf had given him. The cerebro-shockers were short-ranged for hot work. These weapons were stocky pistols that fired explosive pellets. He wasn't sure he could use them, though Rolf had explained how it was done. When he went out, the men of the crews were drawn up and waiting. Keesh and Sohmsei took their accustomed places beside him. They were alone.
"All right,” said Banning. “Quickly."
They plunged down into the dark bowl of the valley, under the ghostly ocher moons.
Presently Banning shouted, “Take cover! Here she comes!"
The black ranks of the forest trees swallowed them up. Overhead a huge dark shape was dropping swiftly down. Banning had a moment of panic, when it seemed certain that the giant bulk would crush him and all his men. Then he saw that it was only night and optical illusion, and the cruiser sank down with a splintering of breaking trees some hundred yards away—caught as he had planned it between his two forces. A great wind struck them, whipping the branches over their heads and whirling a storm of twigs and leaves in their faces. Then there was silence, and Banning went forward through the trees, with his men behind him.
The cruiser's men were already filing out, fully armed and in good order, but not expecting any trouble here, more concerned with picking their way through the dark and the broken trees. And then from nowhere Banning's forces hit them, and they were like the iron that lies between the hammer and the anvil. Banning shouted, and Sohmsei echoed him with a long wailing cry.
More men poured out of the cruiser's port. There was firing, with explosive pellets bursting like tiny stars, and much deadly floundering among the trees. The cruiser's floodlights came on, turning the landscape into a tangled pattern of white glare and black shadows, in which the shapes of men and Arraki swarmed in a wildly-shifting phantasmagoria. Banning raced for the cruiser, with Sohmsei and Keesh scuttering swiftly beside him, and more Arraki came in answer to the call, quick and eager as children running to play, their strange eyes shining in the light.
With Banning at their head, they swept in through the cruiser's open port, into the lock room, into the passageways, driving the surprised humans before them, trampling them under their swift-moving feet, sweeping the ship like a great broom. A few of them died, and others were wounded. But Banning knew that he had guessed right, and that these unhuman servitors were the strongest weapon he could use against men who had heard of them only in legends and old wives’ tales. The sudden nightmare rush of Sohmsei's people out of the dark, the sound and sight of them, were enough to demoralize all but the bravest, and even the bravest went down before that resistless attack. The Arraki were obedient. They avoided killing when they could. But they swept the ship clean, right up to the bridge, and Ke
esh and Sohmsei, under special orders, got to the radio room before the operator realized what was going on.
Banning returned to the port. He was breathing bard, and bleeding a bit, and his head was whirling with a wild excitement such as he had never even guessed at in the old days on Earth. Rolf came panting up, and Banning said, “It's done here."
Rolf grinned, wiping blood away where somebody had bit him in the mouth. “Here, too. We're just mopping up.'
Banning laughed. He held out his hand, and Rolf took it, and they shook hands, laughing. The Arraki began to herd the men out of the cruiser, and on the ground, the Valkar's men and the Arraki that were with them were rounding up the Empire men from among the trees. They looked bewildered and resentful, as though they did not yet understand what had happened to them.
Banning said, “And now?"
"Now,” Rolf said, “It's Rigel for us, and Jommor—and you'll be Kyle Valkar again and your hand will grasp the Hammer."
Banning looked up at the sky, where the heart of Empire swung around its sun, far-off and unsuspecting.
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.
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