No sooner had Gordon and Hull Burrel taken their places in its pneumatic-slung chairs, than the car started moving with great speed. Its velocity was so great that to Gordon it seemed barely five minutes before they stopped.
They stepped out into a similar lighted, underground vestibule. But here uniformed guards with slim, rifle-like atom-guns were on duty. They saluted with the weapons to Gordon.
A young officer, saluting likewise, informed Gordon, "Throon rejoices at your return, highness."
"There's no time now for civilities," Hull Burrel broke in impatiently.
Gordon walked with the Antarian captain to an open doorway beyond which lay a corridor with alabaster walls.
The floor of the corridor began to move smoothly as they stepped onto it, almost startling Gordon into an exclamation. As it bore them forward and up long winding ramps, Gordon numbly comprehended that they were already in the lower levels of Arn Abbas' palace.
The very nerve-center of the vast star-empire whose rule swayed suns and worlds across thousands of light-years! He couldn't yet fully grasp and realize it, or the coming ordeal.
The moving walk swept them into an antechamber in which another file of guards saluted and stood apart from high bronze doors. Hull Burrel stood back as Gordon went through into the room beyond.
It was a small room wholly without magnificence. Around its walls were many telestereo instruments, and there was a curious low desk with a panel of grids and screens on its face.
Behind the desk a man sat in a metal chair, with two other men standing beside him. All three looked at Gordon as he approached. His heart hammered violently.
The man in the chair was a giant, dominating figure in dull-gold garments. His massive, powerful face, bleak gray eyes and thick black hair graying at the temples gave a leonine impression.
Gordon recognized him as Arn Abbas, ruler of the Empire, Zarth Arn's father. No, his father! He had to keep thinking of it that way!
The younger of the two standing men was like Arn Abbas himself, thirty years younger-tall and stalwart but with more friendliness in his face. That would be Jhal Arn, his elder brother, he guessed.
And the third man, grizzled, stocky, square-faced, wearing the uniform of the Empire navy but with golden bars of rank on his sleeve-this must be Chan Corbulo, the Commander of the space fleet.
Gordon, his throat tight with tension, stopped in front of the seated man. He nerved himself against those bleak eyes, knowing that he had to speak.
"Father-," he began tightly. Instantly, he was interrupted.
Arn Abbas, glaring at him, uttered an exclamation of wrath.
"Don't call me father! You're not my son!"
5: Weird Masquerade
Gordon felt a staggering shock. Could Arn Abbas suspect the weird impersonation he was carrying on?
But the next words of the giant ruler a little reassured Gordon, even though they were furious in tone.
"No son of mine would go straying off to the edge of the Empire to play scientific hermit for months, when I need him here! Your cursed science-studies have made you utterly forget your duty."
Gordon breathed a little more easily. "Duty, father?" he repeated.
"Duty to me and to the Empire!" roared Arn Abbas. "You know that I need you here. You know the game that's being played across the galaxy, and what it means to all our star-worlds!"
His big fist pounded his knee. "And see what burying yourself there on Earth nearly brought about! Shorr Kan nearly scooped you up! You know what that would mean?"
"Yes, I know," Gordon nodded. "If Shorr Kan had got hold of me, he could use me as a hostage against you."
Next moment, he realized that he had blundered. Arn Abbas stared at him, and Jhal Arn and Corbulo looked surprised.
"What in the name of all the star-devils are you talking about?" demanded the emperor. "You should know as well as I why Shorr Kan wanted his hands on you. To get the secret of the Disrupter, of course!"
The Disrupter? What was that? Gordon desperately realized that again his ignorance had betrayed him.
How could he keep going in this mad imposture when he didn't know the vital facts about Zarth Arn's life and background?
Gordon might have blurted out the truth then and there had not remembrance of his promise to Zarth Arn steadied him. He tried to look unruffled.
"Of course-the Disruptor," he said hastily. "That's what I was referring to."
"You certainly did not sound like it!" snapped Arn Abbas. He uttered a fierce exclamation. "By Heaven, at a time when I need sons to help me, I've got one real son and I've got another who's so cursed dreamy-eyed he doesn't even remember the Disruptor!"
The massive ruler leaned forward, anger dissolving momentarily into an earnestness that betrayed his deep anxiety.
"Zarth, you've got to wake up! Do you realize that the Empire stands on the verge of a terrible crisis? Do you realize just what that devil Shorr Kan is planning?
"He's sent ambassadors to the Hercules Barons, to the kingdoms of Polaris and Cygnus, even to Fomalhaut Kingdom. He's doing everything to detach our allies from us. And he's building every new warship and weapon he can, there inside the Cloud."
Grizzled Commander Corbulo nodded grimly. "It's certain vast preparations are going on inside the Cloud. We know that, even though our scanner-beams can't get through the screens that Shorr Kan's scientists have flung around their work."
"It's the dream of his life to crack the Empire and reduce the galaxy to a ruck of small warring kingdoms that the League could devour one by one!" Arn Abbas went on. "Where we are trying to unify the galaxy in peace, he wants to split and separate it.
"Only one thing holds Shorr Kan back and that is the Disruptor. He knows we have it, but he doesn't know just what it is or what it can do, any more than anyone else does. And because only you and Jhal and I know the secret of the Disruptor, that arch-devil has tried to get his hands on you!"
Light broke upon John Gordon's mystification. So that was what the Disruptor was-some mysterious weapon whose secret was known only to three men of the Empire's ruling house?
Then Zarth Arn knew that secret. But he didn't know it, even though he wore Zarth Arn's body! Yet he had to pretend that he did.
"I never thought of it that way, father," Gordon said hesitatingly. "I know the situation is critical."
"So critical that things may well come to a crisis within weeks!" affirmed Arn Abbas. "It all depends on how many of our allied kingdoms Shorr Kan is able to detach, and whether he will dare to risk the Disruptor."
He added loudly, "And because of that, I forbid you to go back to your hideout on Earth any more, Zarth! You'll stay here and do your duty as the second prince of the Empire should."
Gordon was appalled. "But father, I've got to go back to Earth for at least a short time-"
The massive ruler cut him off. "I told you I forbade it, Zarth! Do you dare to argue with me?"
Gordon felt the crash of all his desperate plans. This was disaster.
If he couldn't go back to Earth and the laboratory there, how could he contact Zarth Arn and re-exchange their bodies?
"I'll hear no more objections!" continued the emperor violently as Gordon started to speak. "Now get out of here! Corbulo and I have things to discuss."
Blindly, helplessly, Gordon turned back toward the door. More strongly than even before, he felt a dismayed consciousness of being utterly trapped and baffled. Jhal Arn went with him, and when they had reached the antechamber the tall elder prince put his hand on Gordon's dim.
"Don't take it too hard, Zarth," he encouraged. "I know how devoted you are to your scientific studies, and what a blow Vel Quen's death must have been to you. But father is right-you are needed here, in this gathering crisis."