The Star Kings

honor its pledge! When we pledged alliance, it was because the Empire promised to use the Disruptor if necessary to protect us.'

'Have I not told you that the Disruptor will be used?' flashed Gordon.

'You promised that but you evaded demonstrating it!' cried the Polaris envoy. 'Why should you do that if you know the secret? Suppose that Shorr Kan is right and that you are an impostor-then we'd be throwing our realms away in a useless fight!'

Hull Burrel, carried away by anger, uttered a roar. 'Do you believe for a moment Shorr Kan's fantastic lie that Prince Zarth is an impostor?'

'Is it a lie?' demanded Tu Shal, gazing fixedly at Gordon's face. 'Shorr Kan must know something to assure him the Disruptor won't be used, or he'd never have risked this attack!'

'Curse it, you can see for yourself that he's Zarth Arn, can't you?' raged the Antarian captain.

'Scientific cunning can enable one man to masquerade in the disguise of another!' snapped the Hercules envoy.

Gordon, desperate in the face of this final terrible stumbling-block, seized upon an idea that crossed his mind.

'Hull, be still!' he ordered. 'Tu Shal and you others, listen to me. If I prove to you that I am Zarth Arn and that I can and will use the Disruptor, will your Kingdoms stand by the Empire?'

'Polaris Kingdom will!' exclaimed that envoy instantly. 'Prove that and I'll flash instant word to our capital.'

Others chimed in swiftly, with the same assurance. And the Hercules ambassador added, 'We Barons of the Cluster want to resist the Cloud, if it's not hopeless. Prove that it isn't, and we'll fight!'

'I can prove in five minutes that I am the real Zarth Arn!' rasped Gordon, 'Follow me! Hull, you come too!'

Bewilderedly, they hastened after Gordon as he went out of the room and down through the corridors and ramps of the palace.

They came thus down the spiral stair to the hall from which extended that corridor of throbbing deadly white radiance that led to the Chamber of the Disruptor.

Gordon turned to the bewildered envoys. 'You all must know what that corridor is?'

Tu Shal answered. 'All the galaxy has heard of it. It leads to the Chamber of the Disrupter.'

'Can any man go through that corridor to the Disruptor unless he is one of the royal family entrusted with it?' Gordon pressed.

The envoys began to understand now. 'No!' exclaimed the Polarian. 'Everyone knows that only the heirs of the Empire's rulers can enter the Wave that is tuned to destroy anyone except them.'

'Then watch!' Gordon cried, and stepped into the radiant corridor.

He strode down it into the Chamber of the Disruptor. He grasped one of the big gray metal forcecones. Upon the wheeled platform on which it rested, he wheeled that cone back out of the chamber and the corridor.

'Now do you believe that I'm an impostor?' he demanded.

'By Heaven, no!' cried Tu Shal. 'No one but the real Zarth Arn could have entered that corridor and lived!'

'Then you are Zarth Arn, and you do know how to use the Disruptor!' another cried.

Gordon saw that he had convinced them. They had thought it possible that he might be another man disguised as Zarth Arn. And they knew now that that could not be so.

What they had not even dreamed, what even Shorr Kan had not told lest it meet utter disbelief, was that he was Zarth Arn in physical body but another man in mind!

Gordon pointed to the big force-cone. 'That is part of the Disruptor apparatus. The rest of it I'll bring out, to be mounted at once on the battleship Ethne. And then that ship goes with me out to use the Disruptor's awful power and crush the League's attack!'

Gordon had decided, had in these minutes of strain made his fateful choice.

He would try to use the Disruptor! He knew its operation from Jhal Arn's explanations, even if its purpose and power were still a dread mystery to him. He would risk catastrophe to use it.

For it was his own strange imposture, involuntary though it had been, that had brought the Empire to this brink of disaster. It was his responsibility, his duty to the real Zarth Arn, to attempt this.

Tu Shal's aging face flamed. 'Prince Zarth, if you intend thus to keep the Empire's pledge, we will keep our pledge! Polaris Kingdom will fight with the Empire against the Cloud!'

'And Lyra! And we Barons!' rang the eager, excited voices. 'We'll flash word to our capitals that you're going out with the Disruptor to join the struggle!'

'Send that word at once, then!' Gordon told them. 'Have your Kingdoms place their fleets under Commander Giron's orders!'

And as the excited ambassadors hurried back up the stairs to send their messages, Gordon turned to Hull Burrel.

'Call the Ethne's technicians here with a squad of guards, Hull. I'll bring out the apparatus of the Disruptor and it can be taken at once to the Ethne.'

Back and forth into the silent, radiant Chamber, Gordon now hastened, bringing out one by one the big, mysterious cones. He had to do this himself-no one else except Jhal Arn could enter there.

By the time he wheeled out the bulky cubical transformer, Hull Burrel was back with Captain Val Marlann and his technicians.

Working hastily, but handling the apparatus with a gingerliness that betrayed their dread, the men loaded the equipment into tubeway cars.

A half-hour later they stood in the naval spaceport beneath the shadow of the mighty Ethne. It and two other battleships were the only major units left here, the others already on their way to join the epochal struggle.

Under the flare of lightning and crash of thunder and rain, the technicians labored to bolt the big force-cones to the brackets already in place around the prow of the battleship. The tips of the cones pointed forward, and their cables were brought back through the hull into the navigation-room behind the bridge.

Gordon had had the cubical transformer with its control-panel set up here. He directed the hooking of the colored cables to the panel as Jhal Arn had explained. The massive power-leads were hastily run back and attached to the mighty drive-generators of the ship.

'Ready for take-off in ten minutes!' Val Marlann reported, his face gleaming with sweat.

Gordon was shaking with strain. 'One last check of the cones. There's time for it.'

He raced out into the storm, peering up at the huge, overhanging prow of the warship. The twelve cones fastened up there seemed tiny, puny.

Impossible to think that this little apparatus could produce any such vast effect as men expected! And yet-

'Take-off, two minutes!' yelled Hull Burrel from the gangway, over the din of alarm bells and shouts of hurrying men. Gordon turned. And as he did so, through the confusion a slim figure ran toward him.

'Lianna!' he cried. 'Good God, why-' She came into his arms. Her face was white, tear-wet, as she raised it to him.

'Zarth, I had to come before you left! If you didn't come back, I wanted you to know-I still love you! I always will, even though I know it's Murn you love!'

Gordon groaned, as he held her in his arms with his cheek against her tear-wet face.

'Lianna! Lianna! I can't promise for the future, you may find all things changed between us in the future, but I tell you now that it is you I love!'

A wave of final, bitter heartbreak seemed to surge up in him at this last moment of wild farewell.

For it was farewell forever, Gordon knew! Even if he survived the battle, it must not be he but the real Zarth Arn who would come back to Throon. And if he didn't survive-'Prince Zarth!' yelled Hull