Without hesitation, the big Earthman closed his hand over hers, clasping it as though they were lovers. Between their palms, the glowing bit of crystallized light throbbed warmly.
And, in that second, Laird Hammill became the first Earthman to contact the hsrorn.
Hsrorn was a symbol—not a word. It was never actually meant to be pronounced in any human language. It was a concept-thought for something that could not be described in language.
Hsrorn was a being—and yet not a being. It was a race—and yet not a race. It was intelligent—and yet not intelligent. In its entirety, it was entirely incomprehensible to the human mind. There was only one—and yet there were many.
In the heart of every living star dwelt the hsrorn. In every glowing star throughout the sidereal Universe—in every one of a billion billion billion shining suns—dwelt the hsrorn. Some of them—or, perhaps, parts of it—were stronger than others. A blue-white giant was a more powerful star than a red dwarf. But, as a whole, the hsrorn was more powerful, more potent, than any or all of the stars that were its components.
As a plant changes the light of a sun into heat and chemical energy, as the vast Powertapper engines of Earth’s Federation bled the inconceivable nuclear power of a sun, so did the tiny jewel tap the tremendous mental energy of the uncounted suns of the Universe.
But a plant does not tap all the power of a sun, nor does a Powertapper engine pick up more than a tiny portion of the limitless nuclear energy of a huge star. Each is limited by its own ability to use that power.
And thus it was with the mental energies of those suns—each mind, with the aid of the jewel, could use the energy that the jewel tapped—provided that the resiliency and ability to handle the energy that poured from those tiny bits of crystallized light.
The electrical socket in an ordinary house has no ability of its own; it is merely the outlet for the tremendous energies of the generator at the power station. If something that is too weak to withstand the voltage and amperage of a household socket is plugged into it, there is a short circuit. The weak appliance burns out. But if it is used properly, the socket can feed energy into a motor or any other appliance—and that energy can be used, transmitted from a power source many miles away.
And thus it was with the hsrorn gem; it was a power source that could be used—provided the mentality of the being using it was strong enough to stand the strain of those incomprehensible energies.
For a moment, Hammill’s mind reeled as the power from the jewel flowed through him. Then the flow stabilized, and the Earthman’s mind could feel the energy backing it.
Nita’s thought came into his brain, urging, pressing. Think, Laird! Think of the ship moving! Faster! Faster! Push, Laird; aim it toward the Earth Federation fleet and push—with all your might!
There was a terrible rushing. Stars swam and blurred. The coupled minds of Nita and Laird Hammill slammed the tiny scoutship through space as though distance were a negligible thing—as though there were no distance at all.
Then, quite suddenly, the ship slowed.
Nita gently took her hand from Hammill’s own and relocked the hsrorn jewel about her throat. “We’re here,” she said gently.
Hammill glanced at the plate. There, within less than a hundred million miles, he saw the ravening fury of a space battle.
The blackness of space was rent with the brilliant gouts of flame that told of titanic conflict. Rays splashed across the arch of the void, battered into protective screens, staggered armaments. As Hammill watched, the dull gray snout of a Shanador cruiser spurted bright green as an energy charge leaped from its fore batteries and blazed toward a retreating Terran destroyer.
The ray-charge struck. Hammill pictured vividly what must be going on aboard the ship as the screens labored valiantly to absorb the overload. Again the Shanador cruiser struck, probably raising temperatures aboard the Terran ship to unbearable degrees.
He watched as a second Shanador vessel cruised in for the kill, orbiting silently downward and smashing through the Terran star-ship’s defenses with a powerful caesium-beam that sizzled through screens and turned the Earth ship into a spinning husk. Another Terran ship cut upward to provide a defensive maneuver, but it was too late.
“You see what’s happening?” Hammill said. “The Starlords are cutting us to pieces!”
She nodded grimly. “I see. Perhaps it is not too late to save them. Take my hand once again.”
He grasped her, tingling at the contact, and felt the throbbing vibrance of the hsrorn surge through him—that, and the quite different throbbing vibrance of the girl’s physical nearness.
“Hold me tightly,” she whispered—and for a moment it seemed that her mind was not entirely on the battle. But it was only for a moment. She stared keenly into the viewplate, searching the roaring turmoil below.
“That’s the Shanador flagship,” Hammill said, pointing to a long, menacing dreadnought that seemed to be controlling strategy. “We’ll be best concentrating our attack there.”
She nodded. Suddenly he stiffened as the hsrorn drew on his and the girl’s combined mental powers, and hurled a bolt of faint pink light down toward the cruising Shanador ship.
It enveloped the flagship like the fuzzy halo of a comet, and then the beam—vanished! Winked out of existence!
A ripple of despair ran through him, and Hammill realized that he was linked to the girl by the hsrorn, sharing her emotions and her reactions. Puzzled, he turned to her.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s try again.”
A second time the beam streaked toward the Shanador flagship, and a second time it was deflected and blinked out.
“I don’t understand what they’re doing,” she said. “Unless—yes, that must be it! They’ve finally developed a shield!”
Hammill whitened. “You mean the Starlords have a defense against the hsrorn?”
“Yes and no. They can’t ever be able to withstand our combined might—but this shield can hold off whatever you and I can throw against them. At the moment, we can’t stop them. I hope your friends know how to retreat swiftly.”
Hammill’s eyes narrowed. The Rhodanans had failed him, and he wasn’t sure what to believe now. If the hsrorn were as powerful as it was supposed to be, how could the Starlords shield against it? And why didn’t the rest of the Rhodanans join in to save the Earth fleet?
There were no answers. He glanced at the girl, who was fingering the gem at her throat with nervous fingers. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly; he could see she was worried.
“Let’s get out of here!” he said, and turned to the control panel. A quick look at the viewplate showed him that the Shanador fleet was in full command, with the Earth ships streaking to all corners of the cosmos in frantic and undignified retreat. Hammill’s fingers played rapidly over the blasting console—there was not time to set up the automatics—and directed his ship out and away from the advancing Shanador fleet.
“We’ll have to figure out some other line of attack. We’ll—”
The sentence was never completed. The ship came to a sudden halt, as complete as if it had run into an immovable screen in mid-space.
“They’ve slapped a traction beam on us,” Hammill muttered. He looked around and saw the slumped body of Nita sprawled near the wall—the sudden jolt of deceleration had slammed her up against it with a stunning impact.
There was a twisting effect as the frozen ship dipped and whirled in space. Hammill clung to the controls and fought for consciousness. They were giving him the spin treatment, pivoting the traction on beam off one end of the ship and whirling them in a tight circle like a cat held by its tail.
Blood circled dizzyingly in his head as the ship went over and over. Once, he managed to glance out the plate, and saw Lord Kleyne’s flagship hovering within striking distance, ready to pounce. Kleyne was no doubt enjoying the scene of Hammill’s ship whirling over and over.
&
nbsp; Hammill rocked and swung, clinging tightly to awareness. He knew why Kleyne was spinning them—Kleyne realized there was a Rhodanan aboard, and Kleyne was taking no chances. They were trapped.
Hammill hung on a moment more, then blacked out completely. He could almost hear Kleyne’s sadistic laughter now.
The blackout didn’t last more than a few seconds. When stability returned, Hammill found himself still hanging on to the wall of the ship, holding himself erect by sheer will power.
There was a wave of searingly hot air which washed through the ship as Lord Kleyne’s cruiser burned the airlock door open and clamped a tube against it before the air could escape.
The two ships were tied together now, connected by the tube which ran from the airlock of Lord Kleyne’s battle cruiser to the burned lock of the little scoutship.
As he pulled himself upright, Hammill saw Lord Kleyne step into the ship from the tube. There was a sardonic smile on his lips and a semi-portable ray rifle in his arms. The radiation-blackened muzzle pointed directly at Hammill’s midsection.
“Well, Earthling,” the Starlord said contemptuously, “I see you’ve done your duty.” He glanced at the supine figure of Nita, who lay unconscious on the floor.
Hammill realized instantly what the Starlord must think. Laird Hammill had been sent out, under hypnotic compulsion, to steal one of the hsrorn jewels from Rhodanas. Lord Kleyne thought that he had done just that!
If he could play it right, Hammill knew he could make the Starlord think he was still under compulsion!
Hammill blinked. “Yes, Lord Kleyne,” he said dully, “I’ve brought you the jewel.”
The muzzle of the Starlord’s ray rifle lowered a bit. He looked hungrily at the glowing bit of cold fire at Nita’s throat.
“Within a short time, I shall be Starlord of Rhodanas,” he said.
He was so intent upon the jewel that neither he nor the men who had followed him through the tube had seen the little ship pull up alongside the other airlock. But Hammill had seen it. Some other ship was also trying to board the scout cruiser!
Lord Kleyne stepped over to Nita and bent down. “At last! With this jewel, I shall become the greatest ruler the Universe has ever known!”
“You’ll die before then!” said a harsh voice from the port airlock.
Lord Kleyne jerked himself erect and stared down the twin muzzles of a dimodine projector. “Lord Brannis!” he said sharply.
The man holding the dimodine projector also wore the bejeweled cloak of a Starlord of Shanador. He was shorter than Lord Kleyne, and broader of shoulder. His wide face radiated contempt and hatred.
“Well, my lord,” he said sneeringly, “so you have managed to get a hsrorn crystal, eh?”
“I intended to turn it over to the Starlords’ Union,” Kleyne said steadily. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see that his own men had dropped their weapons as soon as they had been covered by the other Starlord’s personal guard.
“Oh, certainly,” said Lord Brannis sarcastically. “Well, I’ll just take charge of that little bauble myself, Lord Kleyne.”
“The Union has elected me Starlord of Starlords,” Lord Kleyne said in a hard voice. “Would you violate the decision of the Union?”
Lord Brannis laughed harshly. “No more than you would, my lord.”
Hammill had been watching the scene between the two Starlords without moving a muscle. He smiled inwardly. It was easy to see what Lorkan of Rhodanas had meant when he said that the Starlords were warped mentally; they could not even agree among themselves. In spite of their great power, they were no better than any neurotic criminal; they didn’t trust each other, and probably did not even trust themselves.
There was silence for a moment as the two Starlords faced each other, each backed by his hypnotically controlled minions. The ordinary people of Shanador had no great mental power, and were thus at the mercy of the Starlords. Even without a hsrorn jewel, a Starlord could control a planet. What would happen if they seized control of the gem?
Because of his own newly-found ability to handle mental energy, Hammill felt more confident in the situation than he would have before his trip to Rhodanas. Ironically, he had Lord Kleyne to thank for that.
But, as long as the Starlords both thought he was under hypnotic compulsion like the guards, he had a chance. Cautiously, he felt toward their minds with his new-found telepathic sense. He just barely touched the surface of their minds. Neither one reacted, so he went a little deeper, watching, listening, making no attempt to control them.
Lord Brannis hefted his dimodine projector and glanced at Nita. His eyes glittered evilly. “Well, well! Not only do we have one of the hsrorn jewels, but a lovely girl as well.”
He started to step toward Nita, and, in that instant, Lord Kleyne acted. He sent a driving thought out to his own guards, who, under his control, cared nothing for their own lives. They brought up their weapons and fired.
But Lord Brannis had sensed that order and had dropped to the floor, swinging his own twin-barreled weapon about.
For an instant, the cabin was filled with the ravening flame of white-hot radiation as the rays burned their way through flesh and bone. The guards of both Starlords flared, smoldered, burned, and died—the hot beams of their ray rifles cut both sides down within half a second.
The two Starlords, meanwhile, had fired at each other almost simultaneously. The beams met in midair, flaring blue-white and filling the cabin with heat. Both men were unharmed, but their weapons had been short-circuited. They smoked ominously and became impotent in their owners’ hands.
Two Starlords, weaponless and without guards, faced each other in the control room of the tiny scout vessel, while the Earthman stood by and watched the battle to the death.
But Lord Brannis did the unexpected. Instead of trying to do battle with Lord Kleyne, either physically or mentally, he flung himself toward Nita’s inert body.
When he did, Laird Hammill almost leaped to protect her. But Lord Brannis wasn’t after the girl; he wanted the jewel! His hand clasped around it, and he glared at Lord Kleyne.
It was the last act of his life. He had meant to use the hsrorn energy to kill Lord Kleyne. But Lord Brannis did not, by any means, have enough mental power of his own to control those supernal energies. When he called them forth, it was as though he had touched a high-voltage wire. Like a man strapped in an electric chair, he found himself unable to resist the tremendous power behind the hsrorn. His mind, burned out completely by that terrible force, collapsed and died.
With an effort, Hammill held himself in check. At the moment, he was in no danger from Kleyne—so long as the Starlord believed he was still under compulsion.
“Poor Brannis,” Kleyne said cluckingly. “He should have known that second-rate minds have no business trying to play with the hsrorn. Eh, Earthling?”
Kleyne stooped and picked up the gem, carefully grasping it by its chain. He’s afraid of it, Hammill thought. He saw what it did to Brannis, and it scares him.
Smiling, the Starlord pocketed the hsrorn. A new thought entered Hammill’s mind; Suppose Kleyne did have enough innate mental ability to handle the hsrorn? Would he be able to unleash a crushing attack on the rest of the galaxy? And—more important—would Nita’s people remain so damnably detached, standing aloof so long as Kleyne didn’t come near them?
Hammill didn’t know. He longed to spring at Kleyne, to turn his aristocratic hawk’s nose into a pulpy mass, to seize the hsrorn and restore it to its rightful place at Nita’s throat, but it wouldn’t be a wise move. Right now it was smarter to pretend to be a hypnotized dupe.
Kleyne spoke briefly into a hand-microphone and almost immediately half a dozen of his black-clad guards came up the tube that linked the ships.
He gestured to the inert body of Lord Brannis. “Get rid of this,” he ordered. Then he turned to Hammill and the still-unconscious Nita, and indicated them to several of the guards.
“As for these two—the
Earthling’s served his purpose well, and we can’t let that go unrewarded. Earthling, I grant you a speedy death—instead of the lingering one in the torture chambers!”
Hammill’s face became a steely mask. This was Starlord honor, then—not that it mattered. It was no more than he expected from Kleyne.
“What about the girl, lord?” asked a guard.
“I don’t care to have her remain alive either,” Kleyne said crisply. He gathered his jeweled cloak around him, and affectionately patted the pocket that contained the hsrorn. “That will be all,” he said.
He turned imperiously and stalked away down the tube that led to his own ship, leaving Hammill and Nita in the custody of two of the guards.
The bigger of the two guards, who seemed to be the higher in rank as well, waited until the tube that linked the ships was empty. He peered down its length for a moment, then turned to the other guard.
“Hah! It would be just like our noble Starlord to sever the tube and leave us adrift in this ruined hulk!”
“The tube’s all right, isn’t it?” the other guard asked uneasily.
The bigger one nodded. “But let’s finish these two off quickly. I don’t know how long we can trust our luck to this derelict.”
Then his eyes fell on Nita, and he smiled. “Hmm—maybe we’ll take a little extra time after all,” he said, leering. “The good Starlord said nothing about the exact method of inflicting death, so long as it was fairly merciful.” He chuckled.
Hammill, standing stiffly against the far bulkhead by Nita’s slumped body, reached down and grasped her cold, limp hand. He gathered together his ever-growing mental powers. This was the time to act. Now. Without any more delay.
Nita. Nita, can you hear me?
His mind moved out, sought contact with hers as she groped toward consciousness. He sensed feelings of pain stirring in her bruised head; he detected a sense of loss, of incompleteness, of almost nakedness, coming from her as she realized she no longer had the hsrorn.