The Star Hunters: A Star Kings Novel [The Two Thousand Centuries]

by Edmond Hamilton

  "Chan Fairlie's dead,” he told her, hitting her between the eyes with it because he didn't know any other way,

  She leaped to her feet and stood, her face shocked and unbelieving. She looked at him, for a long moment, and then said, “Who killed him? You—"

  "Yes,” Mason said. “He came to assassinate Garr Atten, and would have killed me into the bargain, and I had to—"

  He got as far as that, and then he was too busy to say more, for she was at him like a wildcat, her fingers raking his face, while her other hand grabbed for the weapon at his belt.

  He stopped that, and pinioned her arms between his hands, and shook her. He said roughly, “Murderers are liable to get killed. You ought to have thought of that before you came here with him."

  Lua suddenly stopped struggling, and burst into tears. “What will become of me here now?"

  Mason said acidly, “I'm glad your grief isn't so permanent that you can't think of yourself."

  He let go of her, and stepped back a pace. And the Lyran girl was now neither a sexy piece nor an angry wildcat, but just a scared girl, her cheeks smeared with tears and her mouth quivering.

  "Who was Fairlie?” demanded Mason. “Who was he really?"

  She stared at him. “I don't know what you mean. He came to Linnabar, where I was dancing in a starport pleasure-palace. He wanted me to go with him, he told me he was a star-trader and owned a small ship. I went. Then later he admitted that he was an outlaw, that he'd stolen the little ship, and that he was on his way to the Marches where the law couldn't reach him."

  It could all be true, Mason thought, but if Fairlie had been just an outlaw fleeing to the Marches, why had he tried to kill Garr?

  On the other hand, if Fairlie had been V'rann, the agent of Orion, he could have posed as a Lyran outlaw and picked up the girl as a piece of protective camouflage. And V'rann would have had good reason to suspect that “Brond Holl” was a Terran agent, and want to kill him.

  "What will become of me now?” Lua asked dolefully, again.

  Mason grunted. “I don't think you'll find it too hard to find another—protector, here."

  "Fayaman of Draco has been nice to me,” said Lua, a thoughtful look in her eyes.

  Mason told himself disgustedly that she was a cheap little tramp, but he stuck to his main problem of establishing Fairlie's identity. Of course, if Fairlie had been V'rann, his blue Lyran look had been all disguise, but modern make-up tricks were so good it took laboratory techniques to detect them. He hadn't had a laboratory, and he hadn't even had the time, since Garr had had his servants bury Fairlie at once.

  Mason stepped toward the open door of the small black stone house.

  "What are you going to do?” asked Lua uneasily.

  He didn't answer her, but went on in and left her looking after him half-fearfully.

  * * * *

  Only three of the shadowy, dank rooms of the stone house had been lived in. The kitchen was a mess, and he decided that cooking and housekeeping were not among Lua's talents. But in the sleeping room, her tawdry silks and bangles were laid out neatly with loving care.

  He rummaged swiftly through Chan Fairlie's effects. They were just the sort of stuff an outlaw on the run would take with him-spare weapons, charts, bottles, and some tri-dimension photo of girls that should have made her jealous if she had seen them. There was not a thing here to show that Fairlie had been V'rann of Orion. On the other hand, if Fairlie had been V'rann, an ace secret agent like that would be too clever to carry anything around that would give him away.

  As Mason stood frowning, he suddenly heard the sharp voice of Fayaman from outside.

  "Lua, I've just heard that Garr Atten is finally going to tell us his plans today, and—"

  Lua's voice, rising to shrillness, interrupted. “Chan's dead! Brond Holl killed him, he said. And he's in there now!"

  Mason strode out into the dazzling green sunlight. With an oath, Fayaman turned from the girl, his hand darting toward the front of his shirt.

  Mason said, “I'd just like to know, Fayaman, how surprised you really are by that news. If you put Fairlie up to trying to kill Garr, you can't be surprised at all."

  "What the devil are you talking about?” demanded Fayaman, his marble-white face tight and dangerous.

  "He said Chan tried to kill Garr,” wailed Lua. “He said that's why he killed Chan.” Tears started again in her eyes as she added, “And he shook me."

  Fayaman hesitated, not grabbing for the weapon inside his shirt. There was a shade of indecision in his face now.

  "It's true,” Mason nodded. “Garr doesn't figure that Fairlie, a newcomer, would think up the assassination himself. Garr is very keen to know who put Fairlie up to it."

  Fayaman's hesitation deepened, and slowly he took his hand away from his shirt. After a moment, he said, “I see. You make a big play of saving Garr, to get in close with him. You're clever, Brond. The trouble is, you're never quite clever enough."

  "I wasn't, when I went off raiding and left you behind to send out the tip that got me captured,” Mason said harshly. “I won't give you a chance like that again. I'll make sure of you before I go."

  Fayaman smiled thinly. “Any time, Brond. Any time at all."

  Mason went past them, and noticed that already Lua was snuggling against Fayaman like a puppy trying to pick up a new master.

  He didn't think he had got very far. He would have liked to believe that Chan Fairlie had been V'rann, because that would mean V'rann was dead, but he had no proof of it at all. And if it wasn't true, if V'rann was someone else here, he was walking on a live mine. An agent of Orion here, and a squadron of Orionid cruisers waiting out in the nebula, could add up to hell breaking loose when the missing Ryll Emrys was located.

  He thought about it, and went back to find Hoxie again. The old Terran had had news by now, and he hailed Mason with a crow of welcome.

  "So you killed Chan Fairlie! Well, well, things are livening up at Quroon again. I guess you and Fayaman will be having it out for that wench now."

  He clapped Mason on the back admiringly. “Come on home with me, Brond. You've been gone so long your house is a wreck by now. I've got a few good bottles."

  * * * *

  Mason went, and sat in Hoxie's house drinking with him until his head buzzed. He forced himself to think clearly, for he had to pump Hoxie without arousing suspicion. He wanted badly to know what other newcomer to the Marches might possibly be V'rann.

  "No, we don't get the bold and lusty boys we used to get here,” Hoxie said regretfully, wiping his mouth. “Garr's too finicky, he don't want murderers and such. As if a few honest murders mattered."

  "You mentioned a chap named Zin Diri who came and then left,” Mason reminded.

  "He wasn't any good outlaw material,” said Hoxie. “A thin, twitchy fellow who said he was from Argo though he didn't look it to me. But that was months ago—Garr gave him a lift to somewhere else."

  That didn't sound as though it could be V'rann, thought Mason. But he suddenly realized that it could have been Ryll Emrys.

  But V'rann? Mason realized that he was obsessed with an uneasy conviction that the Orion agent was still alive. And with Garr Atten about to reveal his secret within a few hours—

  A thought came abruptly to Mason. If V'rann was here, hiding in some guise, there was one way he could be spotted, after the meeting of the captains with Garr this night. V'rann would surely have a way planned to learn what Garr said, and V'rann would act swiftly and that was his, Mason's, chance.

  Mason decided it was the only idea he had, and he might as well follow it. To avoid further drinking with the hard-headed old Terran, he pretended to go to sleep.

  "Prison must have weakened you down, to pass out so soon, Brond,” he heard Hoxie saying, and then his pretended sleep became real.

  Hoxie, looking no whit the worse, woke him hours later. “Time for Garr's meeting. You sure don't want to miss that."

  * * * *

&
nbsp; The green sun had set and the hosts of stars were leaping out again in the darkening sky when he and Hoxie came to Garr Atten's house. Armed men were posted here and there outside it, but let them through.

  "Guess Garr don't want anybody but us to hear his big secret yet,” mumbled the old Terran.

  Mason thought he was right, and he also thought that if V'rann was living he'd not be stopped by a few guards from hearing.

  In the big, bare room, Garr Atten stood and faced his captains grimly. They were all there, human and humanoid, and they were silent but their faces were keen with excitement. And the eyes of Fayaman were bright as those of a questing hound.

  Garr's voice was bitter. “You wouldn't trust me, and so I've got to take the chance of losing everything by a leak of information. All right, it's what you want."

  He looked them over somberly before he spoke again. “For years, we've had the dream of making the Marches a free and independent kingdom. It's never been possible because if we proclaimed a free kingdom, all the star-kings on this side of the galaxy would pounce in to stop us. And we wouldn't have the strength to repel them. But if we had a weapon strong enough to hold them all off, we could make the Marches a nation."

  He paused again, and then said, “A few months ago a refugee named Zin Diri came here. He seemed a decent man and I gave him refuge. He was grateful. He was so grateful that after a while he began to worry, and finally he told me something. He said his real name was Ryll Emrys, and that he'd been a scientist in the Empire of Orion. He said he'd made a far-reaching scientific discovery, but that he'd been horrified when the Orionids got wind of it and wanted him to adapt it as a weapon of conquest for the King of Orion. He was so horrified, Ryll Emrys said, that he fled secretly and finally made it to the Marches.

  "But now he was worried. He felt that sooner or, later, Orion would find out where he was. And when they did, they'd come in force to get him, and would smash all of us to flinders when we tried to oppose, them. He was grateful for the sanctuary we had given him, and was agonized that his presence here might mean doom for us."

  Garr Atten's tawny eyes flashed.

  "I saw our big chance, then. I told Ryll Emrys, ‘Give us this new weapon of yours. If it's as powerful as you say, we can use it to hold off Orion or anyone else. But he recoiled from that idea at first. He said he'd run away so the thing never would be used for war, he couldn't do it. I pointed out to him that while Orion would use the thing for galactic conquest, we only wanted it to defend ourselves and establish the Marches as a kingdom that could be a refuge for other people like him.

  "That finally decided Ryll Emrys. He agreed to build the thing for me. It had to be on an uninhabited world, though. So I took him deeper into the cluster, to that region where the drift is so bad that Devil's Channel is the only way through it. There's a dying star-system in there beyond the Channel, with no life on any of its planets, though to judge from the ruins on the innermost world, it had humanoid life once. Ryll Emrys set up his work there. I've gone in to him many times, taking him the materials he needed. He's got one weapon ready—but we'll need more, many more, before we can face the border star-kings, not to mention Orion. That's why I need all the time I can get."

  Mason, like the others, had listened in tense silence. But now he heard Hoxie ask the question that was in the minds of all the captains.

  "But what is this weapon, Garr? What was it that Ryll Emrys discovered?"

  Garr answered slowly. “He discovered something scientists have been looking for since the old Earth days. He found a way to neutralize external gravitational pull, in any or all directions."

  They looked blank, and Garr Atten added a pregnant sentence.

  "He can do that on a planetary scale."

  Mason went cold. The nightmare possibilities of such a thing rushed upon his trained mind, while the outlaw captains were still staring puzzledly at Garr Atten.

  "But what does it do?” demanded Hoxie.

  Garr Atten's voice rumbled like distant thunder. “Can't you understand? Neutralization on a scale like that can eliminate all pulls on a planet except in one direction. You can move a planet in any course you want—it'll fall in that direction, faster, and faster."

  His face was flaming. “Do you get it now? Ryll's apparatus makes that dead planet a missile. If we build the same apparatus on other dead worlds, we'll have as many planetary missiles as we want. And will the border star-kings or the King of Orion himself come to crush us, when we have fists that can smash star-systems?"

  Mason felt aghast. He had utterly underestimated the potential of Ryll Emrys mysterious discovery.

  He had never expected a thing of incredible possibilities for destruction such as this. No wonder that Janissar of Orion had sent a squadron across the galaxy, to wait and spring and snatch a thing of such awful power.

  But the outlaw captains were flaring with the same excitement that blazed on Garr Atten's face. Shouting voices filled the room. Only a few faces had a tinge of awe, of dread.

  "By all the gods of Rigel, with a thing like that we could take over the galaxy!” cried Shaa.

  "No,” said Garr Atten. “You can forget that idea. Most of us are here because the damned grasping star-kings’ ambitions drove us out one way or another, and we're not going to become like them. I swore to Ryll Emrys that I'd only use it for defense, and that goes."

  His eyes swept them fiercely. “Now listen to me. I'll go at once to consult Ryll about the men and materials we'll need to build the thing on more dead worlds. We'll need all the time we can get to do that. If one of you blabs this thing in the meantime, I'll kill him. Understand?"

  They left the house an hour later, a taut, excited group. Mason was among the first out, and instantly he slipped away in the humid darkness and turned down a side way and started running.

  He felt as though he was running a footrace with cosmic disaster. The stars of the cluster blazed over his head. And when he thought of what was on a dead world amid those stars, the threat to galactic peace that was hidden there, he ran faster through the dark back streets to Hoxie's dark house.

  He had noted when they left that the old Terran's battered jet car was outside the house, and he prayed that it might still be there.

  It was, and Mason jumped in and sent the car hurtling out of Quroon City, running without lights by back streets until he reached the jungle road that led to the spaceport.

  He kept looking back, but there was no one behind him yet. There would be someone soon, he thought, if V'rann was still living. The secret had been told, and the first thing V'rann would do would be to send a message to the Orionid Cruisers out there in Dumbbell Nebula. And he had found out from Hoxie that there was no long-range communic equipment in the town itself, so V'rann would have to come out here to use the communic of a ship or of the radar tower.

  Mason pulled off the road and stopped the car amid the dark polypoid trees, when he reached the starport. He got out, and drew his missile-pistol, and crouched down in the shadows just beside the starport edge.

  He waited.

  The big ships out on the tarmac glittered brightly as two jade-green moons came chasing each other up over the horizon. The lights up in the radar tower shone steadily. There was no sound except the night-singing insects of the jungle, coming from everywhere but not from close by him.

  Then there was another sound, and Mason tensed. It was the purr of a motor, coming down the road from Quroon City.

  Its lights flaring, the car roared past him and raced out onto the starport.

  CHAPTER VI

  MASON DARED not shoot for he could not see who was in the car, and it might be Garr Atten. Garr had said that he was going at once to see Ryll Emrys. He dared not take the chance.

  Instead, Mason ran out onto the tarmac after the car. It was racing down a long line of the outlaw starships, and turned out of sight between two of them. Mason's feet pounded the tarmac hard, as he sprinted along beneath the looming flanges of the shi
ps, their grim missile-launchers protruding from them to catch the moonlight.

  He ran between two of the great craft, and then he saw the car. It was parked, with lights out now, beside a ship. Mason knew that ship at once, from the rocketblast insignia picked out upon its bows. He knew it from the memories of Brond Holl, who had had every reason to remember that particular craft.

  Fayaman's ship.

  Was Fayaman really V'rann? It couldn't be.

  It could very well be. More than one empire's intelligence knew the tricks of disguise and impersonation. If he, Mason, could be Brond Holl, the ace of Orion might just as likely be Fayaman.

  He ran up to the ship. The airlock door was closed and locked, and he tugged at the handle in vain.

  Mason, desperate as the moments ran away, leaped back a little. He triggered fast, and three quick silent stars of white light burned, and when they went out the airlock was gone and part of the metal wall around it.

  He plunged forward, through the gaping opening.

  The lighted main lateral companionway, was right in front of Mason, and, as he leaped in through the jagged opening, he saw Fayaman come running down the steps. His white face was very deadly, and his weapon was in his hand and they both shot at the same time.

  In their haste, both missed. Fayaman's missile-pellet went right past Mason's head and on out into the darkness through the opening.

  But Mason's missile, grazing past Fayaman, struck the wall beside him.

  The silent white star blazed exultantly and wrapped Fayaman in a halo of radiance, and he fell.

  There was not too much left of him when Mason went forward and looked down at him. Suddenly he looked upward. He had heard something.

  The murmur of a voice, up in the communic room.

  In agonized haste, Mason dashed up the steps. He heard the voice more clearly, and he knew it now, and it was speaking very rapidly of a dead world and the way to reach it.