The Star Kings

such revolutionary new weapons that they'll carry all before them if war comes.'

Jhal Arn's eyes flashed. 'Do you dream he can conquer the Empire when we have the Disrupter to use in case of necessity?'

'That's just it, highness!' said Tu Shal. 'It's being said that the Disrupter was never used but once long ago, and that it proved so dangerous then that you would not dare to use it again!'

He added, 'I fear that our kingdoms will desert their allegiance to the Empire unless you prove that that is a lie. Unless you prove to us that you do dare to use the Disrupter!'

Jhal Arn looked steadily at the envoys as he answered. And his solemn words seemed to Gordon to bring the whisper of something alien and supernally terrible into the little room.

'Tu Shal, the Disrupter is an awful power. I will not disguise that it is dangerous to unchain that power in the galaxy. But it was done once when the Magellanians invaded, long ago.

'And it will be done again, if necessary! My father is dead, but Zarth and I can unloose that power. And we will unloose it and rive the galaxy before we let Shorr Kan fasten tyranny on the free worlds!'

Tu Shal seemed more deeply troubled than before. 'But highness, our kingdoms demand that we see the Disrupter demonstrated before they will believe!'

Jhal's face grew somber. 'I had hoped that never would the Disrupter have to be taken from its safekeeping and loosed again. But it may be that it would be best to do as you ask.'

His eyes flashed. 'Yes, it may be that when Shorr Kan learns that we can still wield that power and hears what it can do, he will think twice before precipitating galactic war!'

'Then you will demonstrate it for us?' asked the Hercules envoy, his round face awed.

'There's a region of deserted dark-stars fifty parsecs west of Argol,' Jhal Arn told them. 'Two days from now, we'll unchain the power of the Disrupter there for you to see.'

Tu Shal's troubled face cleared a little. 'If you do that, our kingdoms will utterly reject the overtures of the Cloud!'

'And I can guarantee that the Barons of the Cluster will declare for the Empire!' added the chubby envoy from Hercules.

When they had gone, Jhal Arn looked with haggard face at Gordon. 'It was the only way I could hold them, Zarth! If I'd refused, they'd have been panicked into submitting to Shorr Kan.'

Gordon asked him wonderingly, 'You're really going to unloose the Disrupter to convince them?'

The other was sweating. 'I don't want to, God knows! You know Brenn Bir's warning as well as I do! You know what nearly happened when he used it on the Magellanians two thousand years ago!'

He stiffened. 'But I'll run even that risk, rather than let the Cloud launch a war to enslave the galaxy!'

Gordon felt a deeper sense of wonder and perplexity, mixed with cold apprehension.

What was it, really, the age-old secret power which even Jhal Arn who was its master could not mention without fear?

Jhal Arn continued urgently. 'Zarth, we'll go down now to the Chamber of the Disrupter. It's been long since either of us was there, and we must make sure everything is ready for that demonstration.'

Gordon for the moment recoiled. He, a stranger, couldn't pry into this most guarded secret in the galaxy!

Then he suddenly realized that it made little difference if he did see the thing. He wasn't scientist enough to understand it. And in any case, he'd be going back soon to his own time, his own body.

He'd have to find a chance to slip away to Earth in the next day or so, without letting Jhal Arn know. He could order a ship to take him there.

Once again, at that thought, came the heartbreaking realization that he was on the verge of parting forever from Lianna. 'Come, Zarth!' Jhal was saying impatiently. 'I know you must be tired, but there's little time left.'

They went out through the anteroom, Jhal Arn waving back the guards who sprang to accompany them.

Gordon accompanied him down sliding ramps and through corridors and down again, until he knew they must be deeper beneath the great palace of Throon than even the prison where he had been confined.

They entered a spiral stair that dropped downward into a hall hollowed from the solid rock of the planet. From this hall, a long, rock-hewn corridor led away. It was lighted by a throbbing white radiance emitted by luminous plates in its walls. As Gordon walked down this radiant corridor with Jhal Arn, he felt an astonishment he could hardly conceal. He had expected great masses of guards, mighty doors with massive bolts, all kinds of cunning devices to guard the most titanic power in the galaxy.

Instead, there seemed nothing whatever to guard it! Neither on the stair nor in this brilliant corridor was there anyone. And when Jhal Arn opened the door at the corridor end, it was not even locked!

Jhal Arn looked through the open door with Gordon from the threshold.

'There it is, the same as ever,' he said with a strong tinge of awe in his voice.

The room was a small, round one hollowed also from solid rock and also lighted by throbbing white radiance from wall-plates.

Gordon perceived at the center of the room the group of objects at which Jhal Arn was gazing with such awe.

The Disrupter! The weapon so terrible that its power had only once been unloosed in two thousand years!

'But what is it?' Gordon wondered dazedly, as he stared.

There were twelve big conical objects of dull gray metal, each a dozen feet long. The apex of each cone was a cluster of tiny crystal spheres. Heavy, vari-colored cables led from the base of the cones.

What complexities of unimaginable science lay inside the cones, he could not even guess. Beside heavy brackets for mounting them, the only other object here was a bulky cubical cabinet on whose face were mounted a bank of luminous gauges and six rheostat switches.

'It draws such tremendous power that it will have to be mounted on a battleship, of course,' Jhal Arn was saying thoughtfully. 'What about the Ethne you came in? Wouldn't its turbines provide enough power?'

Gordon floundered. 'I suppose so. I'm afraid I'll have to leave all that to you.'

Jhal Arn looked astounded. 'But Zarth, you're the scientist of the family. You know more about the Disruptor than I do.'

Gordon hastily denied that. 'I'm afraid I don't know. You see, it's been so long that I've forgotten a lot about it.'

Jhal Arn looked incredulous. 'Forgotten about the Disruptor? You must be joking! That's one thing we don't forget! Why it's drilled into our minds beyond forgetfulness on the day when we're first brought down here to have the Wave tuned to our bodies!'

The Wave? What was that? Gordon felt completely at sea in his ignorance.

He advanced a hasty explanation. 'Jhal, I told you that Shorr Kan used a brain-scanning device to try to learn the Disruptor secret from me. He couldn't-but in my deliberate effort to forget it so he couldn't, I seem really to have lost a lot of the details.'

Jhal Arn seemed satisfied by the explanation. 'So that's it! Mental shock, of course. But of course you still remember the main nature of the secret. Nobody could forget that.'

'Of course, I haven't forgotten that,' Gordon was forced to prevaricate hastily.

Jhal drew him forward. 'Here, it will all come back to you. These brackets are for mounting the force-cones on a ship's prow. The colored cables hook to the similarly colored binding-posts on the control panel, and the transformer leads go right back to drive-generators.'

He pointed at the gauges. 'They give the exact coordinates in space of the area to be affected. The output of the cones has to balance exactly, of course. The rheostats do that-'

As he went on, John Gordon began dimly to perceive that the cones were designed to project force into a selected area of space.

But what kind of force? What did they do to the area or object on which they acted, that was so awful? He dared not ask that.

Jhal Arn was concluding his explanation. '-so the target area must be at least ten parsecs from the ship you