Shorr Kan's apartments were as austere as the bare office in which Gordon had first seen him. There were a few hard chairs, bare floors, and in another room an uncomfortable-looking cot.
Durk Undis had remained outside the door. As Gordon looked around, Shorr Kan's smile returned.
"Miserable hole for the master of the Cloud to live in, isn't it?" he said. "But it all helps to impress my devoted followers. You see, I've worked them up to attack the Empire by stressing the poverty of our worlds, the hardness of our lives. I daren't live soft myself."
He motioned Gordon to a chair, and then sat down and looked at him intently.
"It's still cursed hard to believe," he declared. "Talking here to a man of the remotest past! What was it like, that age of yours when men hadn't even left the little Earth?"
Gordon shrugged. "It wasn't so much different, at bottom. There was war and conflict, over and over. Men don't change much."
The League commander nodded emphatically. "The mob remains always stupid. A few million men fighting on your old planet, or ten thousand star-worlds ranged against each other in this universe-it's the same thing at bottom."
He continued swiftly. "Gordon, I like you. You're intelligent, daring and courageous. Since you are intelligent, you understand that I wouldn't let a mere passing liking influence me powerfully. I think we can help each other."
He leaned forward. "You're not Zarth Arn. But no one in the universe knows that, but me. So, to the galaxy, you are Zarth Arn. And as such, I can use you as I hoped to use the real Zarth, to act as puppet ruler after the Cloud has conquered the galaxy."
John Gordon had hoped for this. But he pretended startled astonishment.
"You mean, you'd make me the nominal ruler of the galaxy?"
"Why not?" retorted the other. "As Zarth Arn, one of the Empire's royal blood, you'd still serve to quiet rebellion after the Empire is conquered. Of course, I'd wield the real power, as I said."
He added frankly, "From one viewpoint you're better for my purpose than the real Zarth Arn. He might have had scruples, might have given me trouble. But you have no loyalties in this universe, and I can depend on you to stick with me from pure self-interest."
Gordon felt a brief flash of triumph. That was exactly what he had wanted Shorr Kan to think-that he, John Gordon, was merely an ambitious, unscrupulous adventurer from the past.
"You'd have everything you could desire," Shorr Kan was continuing. "Outwardly, you'd be the ruler of the whole galaxy. The Princess Lianna for your wife, power and wealth and luxury beyond your dreams!"
Gordon pretended a stunned, rapt wonder at the prospect. "I, the emperor of the galaxy? I, John Gordon?"
And then suddenly, without warning, the plan he was precariously trying to carry through slipped away from Gordon's mind and the voice of the tempter whispered in his ear.
He could do this thing, if he wanted to! He could be at least nominally the supreme sovereign of the entire galaxy with all its thousand on thousands of mighty suns and circling worlds! He, John Gordon of New York, could rule a universe with Lianna at his side!
All he had to do was to join with Shorr Kan and attach his loyalty to the Cloud. And why shouldn't he do that? What tie bound him to the Empire? Why shouldn't he strike out for himself, for such power and splendor as no man in all human history had ever dreamed of attaining?
15: Mystery of the Galaxy
John Gordon fought a temptation whose unexpectedness added to its strength. He was appalled to realize that he wanted with nearly all his soul to seize this unprecedented opportunity.
It wasn't the pomp and power of galactic rule that tempted him. He had never been ambitious for power, and anyway it would be Shorr Kan who had the real power. It was the thought of Lianna that swayed him. He'd be with her always then, living by her side-
Living a lie! Pretending to be another man, haunted for the rest of his life by memory of how he had betrayed Zarth Arn's trust and wrecked the Empire! He couldn't do it! A man had his code to live by, and Gordon knew he could never break his pledge.
Shorr Kan was watching him keenly. "You seem stunned by the prospect, Gordon. It's a tremendous opportunity for you, all right."
Gordon rallied his wits. "I was thinking that there are lots of difficulties. There's the Disruptor secret, for instance."
Shorr Kan nodded thoughtfully. "That's our biggest difficulty. And I was so sure that once I had Zarth Arn, I'd have it!"
He shrugged. "But that can't be helped. We shall have to make our attack on the Empire without it, and rely on Corbulo to see that Jhal Arn never gets a chance to use the Disruptor."
"You mean-assassinate Jhal Arn as he did Arn Abbas?" questioned Gordon.
The Cloud-man nodded. "Corbulo was to do that anyway on the eve of our attack. He'll be appointed one of the regents for Jhal's child. Then it'll be even easier for him to sabotage the Empire's defense."
Gordon realized that Shorr Kan's failure to gain the Disruptor secret was not going to stave off the League's impending attack!
"Those are your problems," Gordon said bluntly. "It's my own prospects I was thinking of. You're to make me puppet emperor when the galaxy is conquered. But if we don't have that Disruptor secret, maybe your own League forces won't accept me."
Shorr Kan frowned. "Why should they refuse to accept you on that account?"
"They, like everyone else, think I'm Zarth Arn and believe I know the Disruptor secret," Gordon pointed out. "They'll ask, 'If Zarth Arn is now on our side, why doesn't he give us that secret?' "
The Cloud-man swore. "I hadn't thought of that difficulty. Curse the Disruptor, anyway! Its existence hampers us at every turn!"
"What is the Disruptor, really?" Gordon asked. "I've had to pretend I know all about it, but I haven't any idea what it is."
"No one has!" Shorr Kan replied. "Yet it's been a terrible tradition in the galaxy for the last two thousand years.
"Two thousand years ago the alien, unhuman Magellanians invaded the galaxy. They seized several star-systems and prepared to expand their conquests. But Brenn Bir, one of the great scientist-kings of the Empire, struck out against them with some fearful power or weapon. Tradition says he destroyed not only the Magellanians but also the star-systems they infested, and nearly destroyed the galaxy itself!
"Just what Brenn Bir used, no one now knows. It's been called the Disruptor, but that tells nothing. The secret of it, known only to the Empire's royal house, has never been used since. But memory of it haunts the galaxy, and has maintained the Empire's prestige ever since."
"No wonder you've tried to get hold of it before attacking the Empire," said Gordon. "But there's still a way we can get that secret!"
Shorr Kan stared. "How? Jhal Arn is the only remaining one who knows about it, and we've no chance of capturing him."
"There's one other man who knows the secret," Gordon reminded swiftly. "The real Zarth Arn!"
"But the real Zarth's mind is back in that remote past age in your body-" Shorr Kan began. Then he stopped, eyeing Gordon narrowly. "You've something in mind. What?"
Gordon was tense as he unfolded the scheme on which his dim, precarious plan of escape depended.
"Suppose we can make the real Zarth tell us that secret, across time?" he proposed boldly. "There in Zarth's laboratory on Earth are the psycho-mechanisms by which I could speak to him across time. I learned the method from Vel Quen, and I could reach him.
"Suppose I tell him-'Shorr Kan's men hold me prisoner and won't release me unless I tell the Disruptor secret, which I don't know. I won't be permitted to re-exchange minds with you until they have the secret.'