"Prince Zarth, you're not hurt?" cried their leader to Gordon.
The man was big and burly, with bristling black hair and a craggy, knobby face whose complexion was faintly copper-red. His black eyes were snapping with cheerful excitement.
"I'm Hull Burrel, captain commanding a Sirius-sector patrol," he told Gordon, saluting. "Our radar spotted an unauthorized vessel approaching Earth, and we followed it to find it at your laboratory here."
He glanced at the dead men. "Cloudmen, by Heaven! Shorr Kan has dared send men to abduct you! This could be cause for war!"
John Gordon thought swiftly. These excited Empire officers also naturally took him for the son of their ruler.
And he couldn't tell them the truth, couldn't tell them he was John Gordon in Zarth Arn's body! For Zarth Arn had made him promise to tell that to no one, had warned that to do so would mean disaster! He'd have to keep up the strange imposture with these men until rid of them.
"I'm not hurt," Gordon said unsteadily. "But they shot Vel Quen and I'm afraid he's dead."
They hurried with him to the tower. He ran hastily up the stairs and bent over the old scientist.
One look was enough. A gaping hole had been blasted in Vel Quen's body by the explosion of the tiny atomic pellet.
Gordon was appalled. The death of the old scientist meant that he was now completely on his own in this unfamiliar future universe.
Could he ever get back to his own body and time? Vel Quen had thoroughly explained the principle and operation of the mind-projecting apparatus. He might be able to operate it if he could get into telepathic contact with the real Zarth Arn.
Gordon quickly made up his mind. It was vital for him to stay here in the tower with the apparatus which alone could restore him to his own body and time.
"I must report this attack at once to your father, Prince Zarth," the captain named Hull Burrel was saying.
"There is no need," Gordon said quickly. "The danger is over. Keep the whole matter confidential."
He expected his authority as son of the sovereign to overawe the captain. But Hull Burrel, surprise on his craggy copper face, demurred.
"It would be a breach of duty if I failed to report so serious a matter as a League raid like this!" the captain protested.
He went to the telestereo and touched its switches. In a moment on its receiver-plate appeared the image of a uniformed officer.
"Chief of Fleet Operations speaking from Throon," he said crisply.
"Captain Hull Burrel of the Sirius-sector patrol wishes to report a matter of the utmost importance to his highness, Arn Abbas," declared the big coppery captain.
The official stared. "Cannot the matter be submitted to Commander Corbulo?"
"It cannot-its importance and urgency are too great," Hull Burrel declared. "I take the responsibility for insisting on this audience."
There was a little wait. Then on the telestereo the image of a different man flashed into being.
He was a massive giant, well past middle age, with shaggy, bristling brows over penetrating, hard gray eyes. He wore a brilliantly embroidered cloak over a dark jacket and trousers, and his great, graying head was bare.
"Since when do mere naval captains insist-," he began angrily, and then as his image looked past Hull Burrel he caught sight of John Gordon. "So this concerns you, Zarth? What's wrong?"
Gordon realized that this massive, bleak-eyed man was Arn Abbas, sovereign of the Mid-Galactic Empire and Zarth Arn's father-his father.
"It's nothing serious," Gordon began hastily, but Hull Burrel interrupted.
"Your pardon, Prince Zarth, but this is serious!" He continued to the emperor. "A League phantom-cruiser clipped in to Earth and made an attempt to kidnap the prince. By chance my patrol was making an unscheduled stop at Sol, and we detected them by radar and followed them here just in time to destroy them."
Arn Abbas uttered an angry roar. "A League warship violating Empire space? And trying to kidnap my son? Curse that devil Shorr Kan for his insolence! He's gone too far this time!"
Hull Burrel added, "We weren't able to take any of the Cloud-men alive but Prince Zarth can give you the details of the attempt."
Gordon wanted above all else to minimize the whole thing and finish the nerve-racking strain of having to keep up this imposture.
"It must have been just a surprise sneak attempt," he said hastily to Arn Abbas. "They won't dare try it again-I'll be in no more danger here."
"No danger? What are you talking about?" rumbled Arn Abbas angrily. "You know as well as I do why Shorr Kan was trying to get his hands on you, and what he'd have done if he succeeded!"
The massive ruler continued commandingly to Gordon. "You're not going to stay there on Earth any longer, Zarth! I've had enough of your slipping away to that remote old planet for your crazy secret scientific studies. This is what comes of it! We'll take no more such chances! You're going to come here to Throon at once!"
John Gordon's heart sank. To Throon, the royal planet of the sun Canopus which lay nearly halfway across the galaxy? He couldn't go there!
He couldn't carry on this masquerade in Zarth Arn's body at the court itself! And if he left the laboratory here, he'd have no chance of contacting Zarth Arn and re-exchanging their bodies.
"I can't come to Throon now," Gordon protested desperately. "I have to remain here on Earth for a few days more to carry out my researches."
Arn Abbas uttered a bellow of anger. "You do as I say, Zarth! You'll come to Throon and you'll come right now!"
And the emperor swung his angry gaze to Hull Burrel and ordered, "Captain, bring the prince here at once in your cruiser. And if he refuses, bring him here under guard!"
4: Magic Planet
The big cruiser sped through the interstellar spaces at a velocity already hundreds of times that of light. Earth and Sol had hours before receded astern. Ahead of the ship expanded the heart of the galaxy, thick with glittering star-swarms.
John Gordon stood in the wide, many-windowed bridge of the Caris with Hull Burrel and two helmsmen, feeling a quaking inward awe as he looked at that incredible vista ahead. The enormous speed of the warship was evidenced by the fact that the stars ahead grew visibly brighter as he watched.
Gordon felt no acceleration, thanks to the dim, blue-glowing stasis of force that cradled everything in the ship. He tried to remember what he had learned about the motive power of these great ships. They were propelled by an energy drive which utilized the famous sub-spectrum rays that were the basis of galactic civilization.[4]
"It still seems crazy of Shorr Kan to send a League cruiser into our realm on such an errand!" Hull Burrel was saying. "What good would it do him if he did manage to capture you?"
Gordon had wondered about that himself. He couldn't see the reason for wanting to capture the mere second son of the emperor.
"I suppose," he ventured, "that Shorr Kan figured he could use me as a hostage. I'm glad you got the murderous devils, for killing Vel Quen."
To forestall the strain of further conversation, Gordon turned abruptly. "I think I'd like to rest, captain."
With a quick word of apology, Hull Burrel led the way from the bridge and down by narrow corridors and catwalks through the ship.
Gordon pretended to glance only casually about him, but was really devoured by interest in what he saw. There were long, narrow galleries of atomic guns, navigation rooms and radar rooms on this upper deck.
Officers and men whom they met snapped to attention, saluting him with deep respect. These men of the Mid-Galactic Empire differed in complexion, some of them faintly blue of skin, others reddish, others tawny yellow. He knew it was because they came from different star-systems, and had learned that Hull Burrel himself was an Antarian.
[4]
The era of space-travel had really dawned in 1945 and '46, with the first release of atomic energy and the discovery that radar could function efficiently in space. By the end of the 20th Century, atomic-powered rockets guided by radar had reached the Moon, Mars and Venus.
Interplanetary exploration and exploitation had increased rapidly. But the vast distances to other stars remained unconquerable until late in the 22nd Century, when three great inventions made interstellar travel possible.
The most important of the three was the discovery of sub-spectrum rays. These were hitherto unsuspected octaves of electromagnetic radiation far below even the gamma and cosmic rays in wavelength, and which had velocities vastly greater than the speed of light.
Of these sub-spectrum rays the most useful were the so-called pressure rays in the Minus-3Oth octave of the spectrum, which could react against the tenuous cosmic dust of space with a powerful pressure. These pressure rays formed the driving power of star-ships. They were produced in generators powered by atomic turbines, and were jetted from the stern of a ship to drive it thousands of times faster than light.
The second vital invention was that of the mass-control. Einstein's equations had shown that if a ship travelled as fast as light, its mass would expand to infinity. This difficulty was overcome by the mass-control, which "bled" off mass as energy to maintain a constant mass unaltered by velocity. The energy thus obtained was stored in accumulators and fed back automatically whenever speed was reduced.
The final invention concerned the human element. Men's bodies would have been unable ordinarily to withstand those vast accelerations, but this obstacle was conquered by the cradle-stasis. This was a stasis of force which gripped every atom in a ship. The energy-drive jets gave their thrust, not to the ship directly, but to its stasis. Thus everyone and everything in the ship remained unaffected by acceleration. Magnetic apparatus furnished artificial gravity on shipboard, similar to that of the tiny gravitation-equalizers worn by all star-travelers.
The fastest of the sub-spectrum rays, those of the Minus-42nd octave, were so speedy that they made light seem to crawl. These super-speed rays were used in telestereo communication and also in the vital function of radar for the star-ships.
Using these inventions to build star-ships, mankind took at once to interstellar space. Alpha Centauri, Sirius and Altair were quickly visited. Colonies were soon established on suitable star-worlds. For some 10,000 years, Sol and Earth remained the center of government of a growing region of colonized stars.
Until then, there had been no serious conflicts. Aboriginal alien races of intelligence had been found at some star-systems and were helped and educated, but there was found no scientific civilization on any star-world. That had been expected, for if such a race existed it would have visited
But in the year 12,455, a group of star-systems near Polaris complained that Earth was too remote to appreciate their problems, and they set up an independent kingdom. By 39,000, the kingdoms of Lyra, Cygnus, and the Baronies of the great Hercules Cluster had declared independence.
Criminals and fugitives from the law seeking refuge in the Cloud eventually founded the League of Dark Worlds. By 120,000, the star-kingdoms were many. But the biggest was still the Mid-Galactic Empire, and hosts of star-worlds remained loyal to it. For convenience its government had been shifted in 62,339 from Earth to a world of the great sun Canopus.
The Empire took the lead of the star-kingdoms in the year 129,411 when the galaxy was suddenly invaded by alien and powerful creatures from the Magellanic Clusters outside. And after that invasion was repelled the Empire had steadily grown by exploring and colonizing the wild, unmapped star-systems in the frontier regions called the Marches of Outer Space.
Thus when Gordon found himself in the galaxy of this year 202,115, he found its star-kingdoms already old in traditions and history. Many wars had been fought between them, but the Empire had steadily sought to prevent such sanguine galactic struggles and to unify them in peace. But now the ominous growth of the League of Dark Worlds had reached a point where the safety of the Empire itself was challenged. Ed.