The Star Kings

'Murn, you will only have to wait a little longer,' he told her. 'Then all will be as before, I promise you.'

'I stll cannot understand,' she murmured troubledly. 'But I'm happy you're cleared of that awful crime, that you've returned.'

She looked at him again with that queer shyness as she left. He knew that Murn still sensed a strangeness about him.

Gordon lay in his bed, and in his mind Lianna, Murn, Jhal Arn and the Disruptor all spun chaotically before he finally slept.

He had slept but two hours when an excited voice awoke him. The storm had broken in full fury upon Throon. Blinding lightning danced continuously over the city, and thunder was bellowing deafeningly.

Hull Burrel was shaking him, and the Antarian's craggy face was dark and taut with excitement.

'The devil's to pay, highness!' he cried. 'The Cloud's fleets have come out and crossed our frontier! There's already hard cruiser-fighting beyond Rigel, ships are snuffing out by the scores, and Giron reports that two League fleets are heading toward Hercules!'

25: The Star Kings Decide

Galactic war! The war the galaxy had dreaded, the long-feared struggle to the death between the Empire and the Cloud!

And it had come at this disastrous moment when he, John Gordon of ancient Earth, bore the responsibility of leading the Empire's defense!

Gordon sprang from bed. 'League fleets heading toward Hercules? Are the Barons ready to resist?'

'They may not resist at all!' cried Hull Burrel. 'Shorr Kan is stereo-casting to them and to all the Kingdoms, warning them that resistance would be useless because the Empire is going to fail!'

'He's telling them that Jhal Arn is too near death to wield the Disruptor, and that you can't use it because you don't know its secret!'

As though the words were a flash illumining an abyss, Gordon suddenly realized that that was why Shorr Kan had finally struck.

Shorr Kan knew that he, John Gordon, was a masquerader inside Zarth Arn's physical body. He knew that Gordon had no knowledge of the Disruptor such as the real Zarth had.

Knowing that, the moment he had heard of Jhal Arn being stricken down, Shorr Kan had launched the League's long-planned attack. He counted on the fact that there was no one now to use the Disruptor against him. He should have realized that was what Shorr Kan would do!

Hull Burrel was shouting on, as Gordon dressed with frantic haste. 'That devil is talking by stereo to the star kings right now! You've got to hold them to the Empire!'

Officials, naval officers, excited messengers were already crowding into the room and clamoring wildly for Gordon's attention.

Hull Burrel roughly cleared them from the way as he and Gordon hastened out and raced down through the palace to the study that was the nerve-center of the Mid-Galactic Empire.

All the palace, all Throon, was waking this fateful night! Voices shouted, lights were flashing on, great warships taking off for space could be heard rushing across the storm-swept sky.

In the study, Gordon was momentarily stunned by the many telestereos that blazed with light and movement. Two of them gave view from the bridges of cruisers in the thick of the frontier fighting, shaking to thundering guns and rushing through space ablaze with atom-shells.

But then Gordon's eyes flew toward the stereo on which the dark, dominating image of Shorr Kan stood speaking. His black head bare, his eyes flashing confidently, the Cloud-man was broadcasting.

'-so I repeat, Barons and rulers of the star-kingdoms, that the Cloud's war is not directed against you! Our quarrel is only with the Empire, which has too long sought to dominate the whole galaxy under the guise of working for peaceful federation. We in the League of Dark Worlds have finally struck out against that selfish aggrandizement.

'Our League offers friendship to your Kingdoms! You need not join this struggle and be dragged down to destruction with the Empire. All we ask is that you let our fleets pass through your realms without resistance. And you shall be full, equal members in the real democratic federation of the galaxy which we shall establish when we have conquered.

'For we shall conquer! The Empire will fall. Its forces cannot stand against our mighty new fleets and weapons. Nor can their long-vaunted Disruptor save them now, for they have no one to use it. Jhal Arn, who knows it, lies stricken down-and Zarth Arn does not know how to use it!'

Shorr Kan's voice rang loud with supreme confidence as he emphasized his final declaration.

'Zarth Arn does not know that because he is not really Zarth Arn at all-he is an impostor masquerading as Zarth Arn! I have absolute proof of that! Would I have challenged the Disrupter's menace if I had not? The Empire cannot use that secret, and thus the Empire is doomed. Star kings and Barons, do not join a doomed cause and wreck your own realms!'

Shorr Kan's image faded from the stereo as he concluded that ringing declaration.

'Good God, he must have gone crazy!' gasped Hull Burrel to Gordon. 'To claim that you're not really yourself!'

'Prince Zarth!' rang an officer's excited call across the room. 'Commander Giron calling-urgent!'

Still stunned by Shorr Kan's audacious stroke to neutralize the Kingdoms, Gordon stumbled hastily to that other stereo.

In its view, Commander Ron Giron and his officers stood on a battleship's bridge, bent over their radar screens. The towering Centaurian veteran turned toward Gordon.

'Highness, what about the star-kingdoms?' he rasped. 'We've radar reports that two of the big League fleets that came out of the Cloud are now speeding west toward Hercules and Polaris. Are the Barons and the Kingdoms going to submit to them or resist? We must know that!'

'We'll know that for certain just as soon as I can contact the Kingdoms' envoys,' Gordon said desperately. 'What is your situation?'

Giron made a curt gesture. 'Only our cruiser-screens are fighting so far. Some Cloud phantoms slipped through them and are sniping at our main fleet here back of Rigel, but that's not serious yet.

'What is serious is that I daren't commit my main forces on this southern front if the League is going to flank me through Hercules! If the Barons and the Kingdoms are not going to join us, I'll have to fall far back westward to cover Canopus from that flank thrust.'

Gordon, staggered by the moment of awful responsibility, tried to steady his whirling thoughts.

'Avoid commitment of your main forces as long as possible, Giron,' he begged. 'I'm still hoping to hold the Kingdoms to us.'

'If they fail us now, we're in a bad fix!' Giron said grimly. 'The League has twice as many ships as we figured! They'll cut around in short order to attack Canopus.'

Gordon swung back to Hull Burrel. 'Get the ambassadors of the star kings, at once! Bring them here!'

Burrel raced out of the room. But almost at once, he returned.

'The ambassadors are already here! They just arrived!'

Tu Shal and the other envoys of the star-kingdoms crowded into the room a moment later, pale, excited and tense.

Gordon wasted no time on protocol. 'You've heard that two of Shorr Kan's fleets are heading for Hercules and Polaris?'

Tu Shal, pallid to the lips, nodded. 'The news was brought to us instantly We have heard Shorr Kan's broadcast-'

Gordon interrupted harshly 'I demand to know if the Barons are going to resist his invasion or allow him free passage! And I demand to know if the Kingdoms are going to honor their engagements of alliance with the Empire, or surrender to Shorr Kan's threats!'

The deathly-white Lyra ambassador answered. 'Our Kingdoms will honor their engagements if the Empire will