The Sun Smasher

CHAPTER III

The room in which Neil Banning found himself was larger and more sumptuous than the jail cell, but it was none the less a prison. He found that out as soon as full consciousness returned to him — he had a feeling he had passed out again, and for quite some time, but be could not be sure about this. Anyway, he had got up and tried the doors. One led into an adjoining bath, rather oddly appointed. The other was locked. Tight. There were no windows. The metal wall was smooth and unbroken. Light in the room came from some overhead source he could not see.

For a few minutes he prowled uneasily, looking at things, trying to think. He remembered the weird nightmarish dream he had had about the light on the prairie and the great silver ship. Nightmare, of course. Some hypnotic vision induced by the dark man who called himself Rolf. Who in the devil's name was Rolf, and why had the man picked him as the victim of his insane behavior?

A ship, in the middle of the prairie. The men in the strange clothes, who had hailed him as — what was the name again? Valkar. A dream, of course. Vivid, but only a dream—

Or was it?

No windows. No sense of motion. No sound — yes, there was a sound, or almost one, if you let your whole body listen for it. A deep throbbing, like the beating of a giant's heart. The air had an unfamiliar smell.

With senses suddenly sharpened to an abnormal acuteness, Banning realized that everything in the room was unfamiliar. The colors, the textures, the shapes, everything from the plumbing fixtures to the furnishings of the bunk bed he had just left.

Even his own body felt unfamiliar. The weight of it had changed.

He began to pound on the door and yell.

Rolf came almost at once. The man who had driven the car was with him, and now they both carried the egg-shaped metal things. The ex-driver bowed to Banning, but he stayed several paces behind Rolf, so that Banning could not possibly attack or evade both of them at once. They now wore clothing such as the men had worn in Banning's dream, a sort of tunic and closefitting leggings that looked comfortable and functional and quite unreal.

Rolf entered the room, leaving the other man outside. Banning caught a glimpse of a narrow corridor walled in metal like the room, and then Rolf shut the door again. Banning heard it lock.

"Where are we?” he demanded.

"At the moment,” said Rolf, “we're well out from Sol on our way to Antares. I don't think the exact readings would mean much to you.'

Banning said, ‘I don't believe you.” He didn't. And yet, at the same time he knew, somehow, that it was true. The knowledge was horrible, and his brain twisted and turned like a hunted rabbit to get away from it.

Rolf walked over to the outer wall. “Kyle,” he said, “you must start to believe me. Both our lives depend on it."

He pressed a stud somewhere in the wall, and a section of the metal slid back, revealing a port.

"This isn't really a window,” Rolf said. “It's a viewplate, a very complex and clever electronic setup that reproduces a true picture of what ordinary sight couldn't see."

Banning looked. Beyond the port was stunning darkness and light. The darkness was a depthless void into which his mind seemed to be falling, tumbling and screaming through drear infinities, disoriented, lost. But the light—

He looked upon a million million suns. The familiar constellations were lost, their outlines drowned in the glittering ocean of stars. They crashed in upon him like thunder, he fell and fell in an abyss of ray and darkness, he—

Banning put his hands over his eyes and turned away. He fell down on the bunk and lay there shuddering. Rolf closed the port.

"You believe me now?"

Banning groaned.

"Good,” said Rolf. “You believe in a starship. Then you have logically to believe in a civilization capable of producing a starship, and a type of culture in which a starship is both useful and necessary."

Banning sat up in the bunk, still sick and shaky and clinging to its comforting solidity. He knew it was hopeless, but he advanced his final negative argument.

"We're not moving. If we're going faster than light — and that's impossible in itself, according to what little science I know — there ought to be some feeling of acceleration."

"The drive is not mechanical,” Rolf said, standing where he could watch Banning's face. “Its a field-type force, and since we're part of the field we are, in effect, at rest. So there's no sense of motion. As to possibility—” He grinned. “While I was on Earth, searching for you, I was amused to note the first crack in that limiting-speed theory. A research physicist clocked some particles moving faster than light, and the apologetic explanations that they were only photons and had no mass is merely evading the question."

Banning cried incredulously, “But a civilization of starships, whose people come and go to Earth — and yet nobody on Earth knows about it — it's impossible"

"That,” said Rolf dryly, “is Earth egotism talking. Earth is a fringe world, and in some ways a damn retarded one. Politically, it's a mess — fifty different nations quarrelling and cutting each other's throats. The New Empire avoids open contact with such worlds. It just isn't worth the trouble."

"All right,” said Banning. He made a gesture of defeat. “I'll accept the starship, the civilization, the — what did you call it? — New Empire. But where do I come into all this?"

"You're part of it. A very important — I might even say pivotal — part of it."

"You have the wrong man,’ said Banning wearily. “I told you, my name is Neil Banning, I was born in Greenville, Nebraska—"

He stopped, and Rolf laughed. “You were having a pretty hard time proving that. No. You're Kyle Valkar, and you were born at Katuun, the old King City on the fourth world of Antares."

"But my memories — my whole life on Earth!"

'False memories,” said Rolf. “The scientists of the New Empire are experts in mental techniques, and Jommor is the best of them. When Earth was chosen as your place of exile, and you were brought there, a captive, with your own memory already blanked out, Jommor compiled a life history for you, synthesized from the minds of the natives. When it was implanted carefully in your mind, and you were set free with a new name, a new speech, a new life, Kyle Valkar was gone forever, and there was only the Earthman Neil Banning no longer a menace to anyone."

Banning said slowly, “Menace?"

"Oh, yes.” Rolf's eyes blazed suddenly with a savage light. “You're a Valkar, the last of them. And the Valkars have always been a menace to the usurpers of the New Empire."

He began to move about nervously, as though the excitement he had in him was more than he could control. Banning stared at him blankly. He had had too many shocks, too close together, and things were just not registering any more.

"The New Empire,” Rolf repeated. He made the adjective a bitter curse. “With that cat Tharanya at its head, and the craft of Jommor holding her up. Yes, the last Valkar was a menace to them."

"But why?"

Rolf's voice rolled. “Because the Valkars were the kings of the Old Empire, the star-empire that ruled half the galaxy, ninety thousand years ago. Because the star worlds have not altogether forgotten their rightful kings."

Banning stared, and then he began to laugh a little. The dream had become too preposterous, too crazy. You couldn't take it seriously any more.

"So I'm not Neil Banning of Earth. I'm Kyle Valkar, of the stars."

"You are."

"And I'm a king.'

"No, Kyle. Not yet. But you almost made it, the last time. If we succeed this time, you will be.'

Banning said flatly, “I'm Banning. That I know. I may look like Kyle Valkar. That must be why you picked me up. Let me see the others."

Rolf's eyes narrowed. “Why?'

"I'm going to tell them what kind of deception you're pulling"

The big dark man spoke between his teeth. “No you're not. They think you're Kyle Valkar. Well, you are. But they also think you've got your memory back — which you haven't.'

"Then you admit you're deceiving them?” Banning demanded.

"Only in that one matter. Kyle, they wouldn't follow on this venture if they thought you were still without memory! They'd know you couldn't take them to The Hammer."

"The Hammer?'

"I'll tell you of it later. Right now, get this through your skull. If they suspect you don't remember, they'll abandon this venture. You'll go back to Jommor. This time, it'll not be exile for you — but death."

There was a deadly earnestness about Rolf. Banning tried to think. Then he said, “I can't speak that language of yours."

"No. Jommor did a nice clean job on you."

"Then how can I pass myself off as your Valkar?"

Rolf answered obliquely, “You are in bad shape, Kyle. Fetching your memory back has given you a shock. You'll need to keep in this cabin, for quite a while. But I'll be here with you a lot."

For a moment Banning didn't got it, then he understood “You mean, I'm to learn the language from you?"

"Re-learn it. Yes."

Banning said, after a moment, “All right. If there's nothing else I can do—"

He was turning as he said it, and of a sudden he was on Rolf's broad back, his forearm around the dark man's neck in a strangle-hold, squeezing.

Rolf gasped, “Sorry, Kyle—” and then his massive muscles seemed to explode like bursting springs, and Banning found himself hitting the cabin wall with a crash. He lay, the breath knocked out of him.

Rolf unlocked the door. He turned a moment and said dourly, “I'd have been flayed alive for that, in the old King City. But it was a pleasure. Now cool down."

He went out.

Banning, left alone, sat and stared a long time without moving, at the metal wall. He felt that his mind was floundering, and he clawed for a grip on reality.

"I am Neil Banning, and I am merely dreaming—"

He struck the wall with his clenched fist. His knuckles bruised convincingly. Blood showed on them. No, that wouldn't work.

"All right, this ship is real. A starship, going to Antares. Rolf is real, and this New Empire — a star empire that Earth doesn't dream of. But I'm still Neil Banning!"

Not Kyle Valkar — no! If he let himself believe that he was another man completely, a man from far star worlds with a past he couldn't remember, then his own personality, his own self, would waver and vanish like smoke and he would be nothing—

The Empire existed. The starships existed. Earth didn't know of them, but they obviously knew about Earth, knew its ways and languages from secret visits. This ship, Rolf, had made such a secret visit. They had come, they had taken Neil Banning, and now they were going away again. There was a purpose in that. They needed, for some vast star-intrigue, a man who could pose as Kyle Valkar. The Valkar, the descendant of ancient star-kings. And he, Banning, by physical resemblance could play the part. He was to be a pawn in their intrigue, and would be a better pawn if Rolf could convince him that he really was the Valkar.

Banning tried desperately to think what he must do. It was hard, for he still reeled from the impact of a newly-revealed universe, the unearthly shock of being in this ship. But he must, in this incredible predicament, fight for himself.

"Find out things,” he thought. “Learn where you stand, what they're trying to do with you, before you attempt anything. You've got to know—"

Hours went by. The deep, almost inaudible drone was the only sound. Outside these metal walls was the primal abyss, and a billion suns. He must not think of that.

Rolf came back. He brought new clothing for Banning, like his own, outlandish but comfortable — and the rich fabric of the white tunic had a stylized sunburst symbol picked out in jewels on the breast. Banning put it on without objection. His mind was made up — he must learn, and learn fast.

"Now you look like The Valkar,” grunted Rolf. “You've got to talk like him, too. And there's little enough time."

Rolf began, naming every object in the cabin in his own language. Banning repeated the words. And then the words for “star” and “king” and “Empire."

"Rolf."

"Yes?"

"This Old Empire, of which the Valkars were kings. You said that was ninety thousand years ago?"

"Yes. A long time. But it's still remembered, on all of the star-worlds except a few that sank back into complete savagery, like Earth."

Banning was startled. “Earth? It was part of that Old Empire?"

"It, and half of the galaxy.” Rolf brooded. “When the crash came, when the Old Empire fell, it was the faraway fringe-worlds that lost contact most completely. No wonder their colonists soon sank to savagery, almost to apehood, as on Earth."

From the somber references that Rolf made, in this and the next visits, Banning began to piece together a vague picture, an undreamed-of cosmic history.

The Old Empire, the Empire of the Valkars! They had ruled it from Katuun at Antares, their starships had webbed the galactic spaces, and the people of a myriad suns paid tribute to their power. But there had long been murmurings against the rule of these galactic lords, and more than one abortive rebellion. Finally, the Valkars themselves had precipitated a crisis.

Word spread that in a remote, inaccessible part of the galaxy, the Valkar lords were preparing a secret, terrible agency that would overawe all rebels in future. None knew its nature, or its powers. But rumor called it the Hammer of the Valkars, and said that with it the Valkars could destroy all the peoples in the galaxy if they wished.

That rumor detonated a cosmic rebellion! The peoples of the star worlds would not let the Valkars attain such life-or-death power over them. They rose in revolution, and civil war rent the whole fabric of interstellar civilization and shattered the Old Empire. Many, many far systems and worlds, when the starships came no longer, sank into barbarism and a long night.

A few star-worlds retained their civilization, their technics. They kept a few starships flying. And those few worlds, centering around the system of Rigel, expanded their efforts to bring more and more worlds back into a cooperative civilization. Thus had begun the New Empire, which professed to reject the pride and pomp of conquest of the Old Empire, and to bring a new day of cooperation to all planets.

Rolf spat in hatred. “They and their hypocritical talk of friendliness and peace! They've won many over. But some still remember the old Valkar kings who made the stars their footstools!"

Banning said, “But the thing that brought on the rebellion — the thing you called the Hammer of the Valkars. What happened to that?"

Rolf looked at Him gravely. ‘It has been lost, for all those ages. Only the Valkars knew where the Hammer was being prepared, and what it was. The clue to that secret was passed down from father to son, ever since the Old Empire fell. You were the only one who had that clue."

Banning stared. “So that's why Kyle Valkar is so pivotal a figure in all this!"

Rolf said grimly, “That's why. You told me — and me alone — that the Hammer was on a world kept in Cygnus Cluster. You said that, with the star-maps of ninety thousand years ago, you could find that world."

The big man added somberly, “You almost succeeded, Kyle. You found the maps you needed in the archives at Rigel, you started out toward Cygnus Cluster. But Tharanya and Jommor overtook you, and destroyed your memory and exiled you on faraway Earth, and now nobody knows the secret of the Hammer's hiding-place."

It sounded wildly incredible to Banning. He said so, and added, “Why wouldn't they have killed the one man who held such a secret, to make sure?"

Rolf said sardonically. “Jommor would have done so, and gladly. But Tharanya wouldn't. A woman — even one like Tharanya — shouldn't rule an Empire."

"And you are trying to overturn this New Empire,” Banning probed, “With just the few men in this ship?"

"There'll be others, Kyle. A message has been sent to them, and they'll gather at Katuun. Not many — but we'll be enough to pull down the Empire, if we have the Hammer."

"But you don't have it! And I know nothing of how to find it!"

"No, Kyle. But perhaps you soon will!"

When Banning tried to learn more, Rolf grunted, “Later. Right now, you must learn to speak. I've said that I restored your memory before we left Earth, and you're sick from the shock of that."

"The man who drove the car must know differently,” Banning reminded.

"Eyre?’ said Rolf. ‘He's safe, he's my man. But the others don't know. They're anxious to see you. You must appear soon, as Kyle Valkar."

Banning was learning the language fast. Too fast. For this language was enormously complex, showing every sign of vast age. Yet Banning picked it up easily. He reproduced Rolf's accent perfectly. It was as though his tongue and lips were used to shaping those sounds, as though this knowledge was already in his mind, dormant, needing only awakening.

He shrank from that thought. It would mean that Rolf was right, that the people of that Nebraska town had told truth, that Neil Banning didn't exist. He couldn't, he wouldn't, believe that. How could a man let his own self go? No, it was a trick, Rolf had somehow hypnotized the folk of that town — it was only a clever imposture he was being used for.

There was no day or night for Banning. He slept, ate, and finally Rolf said, “They're waiting."

"Who?"

"My men. Your men, Kyle. You can speak well enough. You're coming out, I told them that you'd recovered."

Banning went cold. He had dreaded this moment. As long as he remained in the little cabin, he could postpone realization of his situation. Now he had to face it.

"Go along with it!” he told himself. “Find out for sure just what's behind Rolf's lies, before you make your move!"

The door was opened. Rolf stood aside, waiting for him to go first. He walked out into the corridor.

"This way,” said Rolf's harsh voice, at his ear. “To the right. Get your head up. You're supposed to be the son of kings."

The corridor led into an officers’ mess. A half-dozen men rose to their feet as Rolf said loudly, “The Valkar!"

They looked at Banning with desperate, hungry eyes. He knew he had to speak to them. But before be could, one wolf-faced man stepped forward. He spoke deliberately to Banning.

"You are not the Valkar."