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
