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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f246ed --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63993 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63993) diff --git a/old/63993-0.txt b/old/63993-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 93fc2fc..0000000 --- a/old/63993-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1779 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lord of a Thousand Suns, by Poul Anderson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Lord of a Thousand Suns - -Author: Poul Anderson - -Release Date: December 08, 2020 [EBook #63993] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD OF A THOUSAND SUNS *** - - - - - LORD of a THOUSAND SUNS - - By POUL ANDERSON - - _A Man without a World, this 1,000,000-year-old - Daryesh! Once Lord of a Thousand Suns, now condemned - to rove the spaceways in alien form, searching - for love, for life, for the great lost Vwyrdda._ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories September 1951. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -"Yes, you'll find almost anything man has ever imagined, somewhere out -in the Galaxy," I said. "There are so damned many millions of planets, -and such a fantastic variety of surface conditions and of life -evolving to meet them, and of intelligence and civilization appearing -in that life. Why, I've been on worlds with fire-breathing dragons, -and on worlds where dwarfs fought things that could pass for the -goblins our mothers used to scare us with, and on a planet where a race -of witches lived--telepathic pseudohypnosis, you know--oh, I'll bet -there's not a tall story or fairy tale ever told which doesn't have -some kind of counterpart somewhere in the universe." - -Laird nodded. "Uh-huh," he answered, in that oddly slow and soft voice -of his. "I once let a genie out of a bottle." - -"Eh? What happened?" - -"It killed me." - -I opened my mouth to laugh, and then took a second glance at him -and shut it again. He was just too dead-pan serious about it. Not -poker-faced, the way a good actor can be when he's slipping over a tall -one--no, there was a sudden misery behind his eyes, and somehow it was -mixed with the damnedest cold humor. - -I didn't know Laird very well. Nobody did. He was out most of the time -on Galactic Survey, prowling a thousand eldritch planets never meant -for human eyes. He came back to the Solar System more rarely and for -briefer visits than anyone else in his job, and had less to say about -what he had found. - -A huge man, six-and-a-half feet tall, with dark aquiline features and -curiously brilliant greenish-grey eyes, middle-aged now though it -didn't show except at the temples. He was courteous enough to everyone, -but shortspoken and slow to laugh. Old friends, who had known him -thirty years before when he was the gayest and most reckless officer -in the Solar Navy, thought something during the Revolt had changed him -more than any psychologist would admit was possible. But he had never -said anything about it, merely resigning his commission after the war -and going into Survey. - -We were sitting alone in a corner of the lounge. The Lunar branch of -the Explorers' Club maintains its building outside the main dome of -Selene Center, and we were sitting beside one of the great windows, -drinking Centaurian sidecars and swapping the inevitable shop-talk. -Even Laird indulged in that, though I suspected more because of the -information he could get than for any desire of companionship. - -Behind us, the long quiet room was almost empty. Before us, the window -opened on the raw magnificence of moonscape, a sweep of crags and -cliffs down the crater wall to the riven black plains, washed in the -eerie blue of Earth's light. Space blazed above us, utter black and a -million sparks of frozen flame. - -"Come again?" I said. - - * * * * * - -He laughed, without much humor. "I might as well tell you," he said. -"You won't believe it, and even if you did it'd make no difference. -Sometimes I tell the story--alcohol makes me feel like it--I start -remembering old times...." - -He settled farther back in his chair. "Maybe it wasn't a real genie," -he went on. "More of a ghost, perhaps. That was a haunted planet. They -were great a million years before man existed on Earth. They spanned -the stars and they knew things the present civilization hasn't even -guessed at. And then they died. Their own weapons swept them away in -one burst of fire, and only broken ruins were left--ruins and desert, -and the ghost who lay waiting in that bottle." - -I signalled for another round of drinks, wondering what he meant, -wondering just how sane that big man with the worn rocky face was. -Still--you never know. I've seen things out beyond that veil of stars -which your maddest dreams never hinted at. I've seen men carried home -mumbling and empty-eyed, the hollow cold of space filling their brains -where something had broken the thin taut wall of their reason. They say -spacemen are a credulous breed. Before Heaven, they have to be! - -"You don't mean New Egypt?" I asked. - -"Stupid name. Just because there are remnants of a great dead culture, -they have to name it after an insignificant valley of ephemeral -peasants. I tell you, the men of Vwyrdda were like gods, and when they -were destroyed whole suns were darkened by the forces they used. Why, -they killed off Earth's dinosaurs in a day, millions of years ago, and -only used one ship to do it." - -"How in hell do you know that? I didn't think the archeologists had -deciphered their records." - -"They haven't. All our archeologists will ever know is that the -Vwyrddans were a race of remarkably humanoid appearance, with a highly -advanced interstellar culture wiped out about a million Earth-years -ago. Matter of fact, I don't really know that they did it to Earth, but -I do know that they had a regular policy of exterminating the great -reptiles of terrestroid planets with an eye to later colonization, -and I know that they got this far, so I suppose our planet got the -treatment too." Laird accepted his fresh drink and raised the glass to -me. "Thanks. But now do be a good fellow and let me ramble on in my own -way. - -"It was--let me see--thirty-three years ago now, when I was a bright -young lieutenant with bright young ideas. The Revolt was in full swing -then, and the Janyards held all that region of space, out Sagittari -way you know. Things looked bad for Sol then--I don't think it's ever -been appreciated how close we were to defeat. They were poised to -drive right through our lines with their battle-fleets, slash past our -frontiers, and hit Earth itself with the rain of hell that had already -sterilized a score of planets. We were fighting on the defensive, -spread over several million cubic light-years, spread horribly thin. -Oh, bad! - -"Vwyrdda--New Egypt--had been discovered and some excavation done -shortly before the war began. We knew about as much then as we do now. -Especially, we knew that the so-called Valley of the Gods held more -relics than any other spot on the surface. I'd been quite interested -in the work, visited the planet myself, even worked with the crew that -found and restored that gravitomagnetic generator--the one which taught -us half of what we know now about g-m fields. - -"It was my young and fanciful notion that there might be more to be -found, somewhere in that labyrinth--and from study of the reports -I even thought I knew about what and where it would be. One of the -weapons that had novaed suns, a million years ago-- - -"The planet was far behind the Janyard lines, but militarily valueless. -They wouldn't garrison it, and I was sure that such semi-barbarians -wouldn't have my idea, especially with victory so close. A one-man -sneakboat could get in readily enough--it just isn't possible to -blockade a region of space; too damned inhumanly big. We had nothing to -lose but me, and maybe a lot to gain, so in I went. - -"I made the planet without trouble and landed in the Valley of the Gods -and began work. And that's where the fun started." - -Laird laughed again, with no more mirth than before. - - * * * * * - -There was a moon hanging low over the hills, a great scarred shield -thrice the size of Earth's, and its chill white radiance filled the -Valley with colorless light and long shadows. Overhead flamed the -incredible sky of the Sagittarian regions, thousands upon thousands of -great blazing suns swarming in strings and clusters and constellations -strange to human eyes, blinking and glittering in the thin cold air. It -was so bright that Laird could see the fine patterns of his skin, loops -and whorls on the numbed fingers that groped against the pyramid. He -shivered in the wind that streamed past him, blowing dust devils with a -dry whisper, searching under his clothes to sheathe his flesh in cold. -His breath was ghostly white before him, the bitter air felt liquid -when he breathed. - -Around him loomed the fragments of what must have been a city, now -reduced to a few columns and crumbling walls held up by the lava which -had flowed. The stones reared high in the unreal moonlight, seeming -almost to move as the shadows and the drifting sand passed them. Ghost -city. Ghost planet. He was the last life that stirred on its bleak -surface. - -But somewhere above that surface-- - -What was it, that descending hum high in the sky, sweeping closer -out of stars and moon and wind? Minutes ago the needle on his -gravitomagnetic detector had wavered down in the depths of the pyramid. -He had hurried up and now stood looking and listening and feeling his -heart turn stiff. - -_No, no, no--not a Janyard ship, not now--it was the end of everything -if they came._ - -Laird cursed with a hopeless fury. The wind caught his mouthings -and blew them away with the scudding sand, buried them under the -everlasting silence of the valley. His eyes traveled to his sneakboat. -It was invisible against the great pyramid--he'd taken that much -precaution, shoveling a low grave of sand over it--but, if they used -metal detectors that was valueless. He was fast, yes, but almost -unarmed; they could easily follow his trail down into the labyrinth and -locate the vault. - -Lord if he had led them here--if his planning and striving had only -resulted in giving the enemy the weapon which would destroy Earth-- - -His hand closed about the butt of his blaster. Silly weapon, stupid -popgun--what could he do? - -Decision came. With a curse, he whirled and ran back into the pyramid. - -His flash lit the endless downward passages with a dim bobbing -radiance, and the shadows swept above and behind and marched beside, -the shadows of a million years closing in to smother him. His boots -slammed against the stone floor, _thud-thud-thud_--the echoes caught -the rhythm and rolled it boomingly ahead of him. A primitive terror -rose to drown his dismay; he was going down into the grave of a -thousand millennia, the grave of the gods, and it took all the nerve he -had to keep running and never look back. He didn't dare look back. - -Down and down and down, past this winding tunnel, along this ramp, -through this passageway into the guts of the planet. A man could get -lost here. A man could wander in the cold and the dark and the echoes -till he died. It had taken him weeks to find his way into the great -vault, and only the clues given by Murchison's reports had made it -possible at all. Now-- - - * * * * * - -He burst into a narrow antechamber. The door he had blasted open leaned -drunkenly against a well of night. It was fifty feet high, that door. -He fled past it like an ant and came into the pyramid storehouse. - -His flash gleamed off metal, glass, substances he could not identify -that had lain sealed against a million years till he came to wake the -machines. What they were, he did not know. He had energized some of -the units, and they had hummed and flickered, but he had not dared -experiment. His idea had been to rig an antigrav unit which would -enable him to haul the entire mass of it up to his boat. Once he was -home, the scientists could take over. But now-- - -He skinned his teeth in a wolfish grin and switched on the big lamp -he had installed. White light flooded the tomb, shining darkly back -from the monstrous bulks of things he could not use, the wisdom and -techniques of a race which had spanned the stars and moved planets and -endured for fifty million years. Maybe he could puzzle out the use of -something before the enemy came. Maybe he could wipe them out in one -demoniac sweep--just like a stereofilm hero, jeered his mind--or maybe -he could simply destroy it all, keep it from Janyard hands. - -He should have provided against this. He should have rigged a bomb, to -blow the whole pyramid to hell-- - -With an effort, he stopped the frantic racing of his mind and looked -around. There were paintings on the walls, dim with age but still -legible, pictographs, meant perhaps for the one who finally found this -treasure. The men of New Egypt were shown, hardly distinguishable -from humans--dark of skin and hair, keen of feature, tall and stately -and robed in living light. He had paid special attention to one -representation. It showed a series of actions, like an old time -comic-strip--a man taking up a glassy object, fitting it over his head, -throwing a small switch. He had been tempted to try it, but--gods, what -would it do? - -He found the helmet and slipped it gingerly over his skull. It might be -some kind of last-ditch chance for him. The thing was cold and smooth -and hard, it settled on his head with a slow massiveness that was -strangely--_living_. He shuddered and turned back to the machines. - -This thing now with the long coil-wrapped barrel--an energy projector -of some sort? How did you activate it? Hell-fire, which was the muzzle -end? - -He heard the faint banging of feet, winding closer down the endless -passageways. Gods, his mind groaned. They didn't waste any time, did -they? - -But they hadn't needed to ... a metal detector would have located his -boat, told them that he was in this pyramid rather than one of the -dozen others scattered through the valley. And energy tracers would -spot him down here.... - -He doused the light and crouched in darkness behind one of the -machines. The blaster was heavy in his hand. - -A voice hailed him from outside the door. "It's useless, Solman. Come -out of there!" - -He bit back a reply and lay waiting. - -A woman's voice took up the refrain. It was a good voice, he thought -irrelevantly, low and well modulated, but it had an iron ring to it. -They were hard, these Janyards, even their women led troops and piloted -ships and killed men. - -"You may as well surrender, Solman. All you have done has been to -accomplish our work for us. We suspected such an attempt might be made. -Lacking the archeological records, we couldn't hope for much success -ourselves, but since my force was stationed near this sun I had a boat -lie in an orbit around the planet with detectors wide open. We trailed -you down, and let you work, and now we are here to get what you have -found." - -"Go back," he bluffed desperately. "I planted a bomb. Go back or I'll -set it off." - -The laugh was hard with scorn. "Do you think we wouldn't know it if you -had? You haven't even a spacesuit on. Come out with your hands up or -we'll flood the vault with gas." - -Laird's teeth flashed in a snarling grin. "All right," he shouted, only -half aware of what he was saying. "All right, you asked for it!" - -He threw the switch on his helmet. - - * * * * * - -It was like a burst of fire in his brain, a soundless roar of -splintering darkness. He screamed, half crazy with the fury that poured -into him, feeling the hideous thrumming along every nerve and sinew, -feeling his muscles cave in and his body hit the floor. The shadows -closed in, roaring and rolling, night and death and the wreck of the -universe, and high above it all he heard--laughter. - -He lay sprawled behind the machine, twitching and whimpering. They had -heard him, out in the tunnels, and with slow caution they entered and -stood over him and watched his spasms jerk toward stillness. - -They were tall and well-formed, the Janyard rebels--Earth had sent her -best out to colonize the Sagittarian worlds, three hundred years ago. -But the long cruel struggle, conquering and building and adapting to -planets that never were and never could be Earth, had changed them, -hardened their metal and frozen something in their souls. - -Ostensibly it was a quarrel over tariff and trade rights which had led -to their revolt against the Empire; actually, it was a new culture -yelling to life, a thing born of fire and loneliness and the great -empty reaches between the stars, the savage rebellion of a mutant -child. They stood impassively watching the body until it lay quiet. -Then one of them stooped over and removed the shining glassy helmet. - -"He must have taken it for something he could use against us," said the -Janyard, turning the helmet in his hands; "but it wasn't adapted to his -sort of life. The old dwellers here looked human, but I don't think it -went any deeper than their skins." - -The woman commander looked down with a certain pity. "He was a brave -man," she said. - -"Wait--he's still alive, ma'm--he's sitting up--" - -Daryesh forced the shaking body to hands and knees. He felt its -sickness, wretched and cold in throat and nerves and muscles, and he -felt the roiling of fear and urgency in the brain. These were enemies. -There was death for a world and a civilization here. Most of all, he -felt the horrible numbness of the nervous system, deaf and dumb and -blind, cut off in its house of bone and peering out through five weak -senses.... - -Vwyrdda, Vwyrdda, he was a prisoner in a brain without a telepathy -transceiver lobe. He was a ghost reincarnated in a thing that was half -a corpse! - -Strong arms helped him to his feet. "That was a foolish thing to try," -said the woman's cool voice. - -Daryesh felt strength flowing back as the nervous and muscular and -endocrine systems found a new balance, as his mind took over and fought -down the gibbering madness which had been Laird. He drew a shuddering -breath. Air in his nostrils after--how long? How long had he been dead? - -His eyes focused on the woman. She was tall and handsome. Ruddy hair -spilled from under a peaked cap, wide-set blue eyes regarded him -frankly out of a face sculptured in clean lines and strong curves and -fresh young coloring. For a moment he thought of Ilorna, and the old -sickness rose--then he throttled it and looked again at the woman and -smiled. - -It was an insolent grin, and she stiffened angrily. "Who are you, -Solman?" she asked. - -The meaning was dear enough to Daryesh, who had his--host's--memory -patterns and linguistic habits as well as those of Vwyrdda. He replied -steadily, "Lieutenant John Laird of the Imperial Solar Navy, at your -service. And your name?" - -"You are exceeding yourself," she replied with frost in her voice. "But -since I will wish to question you at length ... I am Captain Joana -Rostov of the Janyard Fleet. Conduct yourself accordingly." - -Daryesh looked around him. This wasn't good. He hadn't the chance now -to search Laird's memories in detail, but it was clear enough that this -was a force of enemies. The rights and wrongs of a quarrel ages after -the death of all that had been Vwyrdda meant nothing to him, but he -had to learn more of the situation, and be free to act as he chose. -Especially since Laird would presently be reviving and start to resist. - -The familiar sight of the machines was at once steadying and unnerving. -There were powers here which could smash planets! It looked barbaric, -this successor culture, and in any event the decision as to the use -of this leashed hell had to be his. His head lifted in unconscious -arrogance. _His!_ For he was the last man of Vwyrdda, and they had -wrought the machines, and the heritage was his. - -He had to escape. - - * * * * * - -Joana Rostov was looking at him with an odd blend of hard suspicion -and half-frightened puzzlement. "There's something wrong about you, -Lieutenant," she said. "You don't behave like a man whose project has -just gone to smash. What was that helmet for?" - -Daryesh shrugged. "Part of a control device," he said easily. "In my -excitement I failed to adjust it properly. No matter. There are plenty -of other machines here." - -"What use to you?" - -"Oh--all sorts of uses. For instance, that one over there is a -nucleonic disintegrator, and this is a shield projector, and--" - -"You're lying. You can't know any more about this than we do." - -"Shall I prove it?" - -"Certainly not. Come back from there!" - -Coldly, Daryesh estimated distances. He had all the superb -psychosomatic coordination of his race, the training evolved through -millions of years, but the sub-cellular components would be lacking in -this body. Still--he had to take the chance. - -He launched himself against the Janyard who stood beside him. One hand -chopped into the man's larynx, the other grabbed him by the tunic and -threw him into the man beyond. In the same movement, Daryesh stepped -over the falling bodies, picked up the machine rifle which one had -dropped, and slammed over the switch of the magnetic shield projector -with its long barrel. - -Guns blazed in the dimness. Bullets exploded into molten spray as they -hit that fantastic magnetic field. Daryesh, behind it, raced through -the door and out the tunnel. - -They'd be after him in seconds, but this was a strong longlegged -body and he was getting the feel of it. He ran easily, breathing in -coordination with every movement, conserving his strength. He couldn't -master control of the involuntary functions yet, the nervous system was -too different, but he could last for a long while at this pace. - -He ducked into a remembered side passage. A rifle spewed a rain of -slugs after him as someone came through the magnetic field. He chuckled -in the dark. Unless they had mapped every labyrinthine twist and turn -of the tunnels, or had life-energy detectors, they'd never dare trail -him. They'd get lost and wander in here till they starved. - -Still, that woman had a brain. She'd guess he was making for the -surface and the boats, and try to cut him off. It would be a near -thing. He settled down to running. - -It was long and black and hollow here, cold with age. The air was dry -and dusty, little moisture could be left on Vwyrdda. How long has it -been? How long has it been? - - * * * * * - -John Laird stirred back toward consciousness, stunned neurons lapsing -into familiar pathways of synapse, the pattern which was personality -fighting to restore itself. Daryesh stumbled as the groping mind -flashed a random command to his muscles, cursed, and willed the other -self back to blankness. Hold on, Daryesh, hold on, a few minutes only-- - -He burst out of a small side entrance and stood in the tumbled -desolation of the valley. The keen tenuous air raked his sobbing lungs -as he looked wildly around at sand and stone and the alien stars. New -constellations--Gods, it had been a long time! The moon was larger than -he remembered, flooding the dead landscape with a frosty argence. It -must have spiraled close in all those uncounted ages. - -The boat! Hellblaze, where was the boat? - -He saw the Janyard ship not far away, a long lean torpedo resting on -the dunes, but it would be guarded--no use trying to steal it. Where -was this Laird's vessel, then? - -Tumbling through a confusion of alien memories, he recalled burying -it on the west side.... No, it wasn't he who had done that but Laird. -Damnation, he had to work fast. He plunged around the monstrous eroded -shape of the pyramid, found the long mound, saw the moongleam where the -wind had blown sand off the metal. What a clumsy pup this Laird was. - -He shoveled the sand away from the airlock, scooping with his hands, -the breath raw in throat and lungs. Any second now they'd be on him, -any instant, and now that they really believed he understood the -machines-- - -The lock shone dully before him, cold under his hands. He spun the -outer dog, swearing with a frantic emotion foreign to old Vwyrdda, -but that was the habit of his host, untrained psychosomatically, -unevolved--There they came! - -Scooping up the stolen rifle, Daryesh fired a chattering burst at the -group that swarmed around the edge of the pyramid. They tumbled like -jointed dolls, screaming in the death-white moonlight. Bullets howled -around him and ricocheted off the boat-hull. - -He got the lock open as they retreated for another charge. For an -instant his teeth flashed under the moon, the cold grin of Daryesh the -warrior who had ruled a thousand suns in his day and led the fleets of -Vwyrdda. - -"Farewell, my lovelies," he murmured, and the remembered syllables of -the old planet were soft on his tongue. - -Slamming the lock behind him, he ran to the control room, letting John -Laird's almost unconscious habits carry him along. He got off to a -clumsy start--but then he was climbing for the sky, free and away-- - -A fist slammed into his back, tossed him in his pilot chair to the -screaming roar of sundered metal. Gods, O gods, the Janyards had fired -a heavy ship's gun, they'd scored a direct hit on his engines and the -boat was whistling groundward again. - -Grimly, he estimated that the initial impetus had given him a good -trajectory, that he'd come down in the hills about a hundred miles -north of the valley. But then he'd have to run for it, they'd be -after him like beasts of prey in their ship--and John Laird would not -be denied, muscles were twitching and sinews tightening and throat -mumbling insanity as the resurgent personality fought to regain itself. -That was one battle he'd have to have out soon! - -Well--mentally, Daryesh shrugged. At worst, he could surrender to the -Janyards, make common cause with them. It really didn't matter who won -this idiotic little war. He had other things to do. - - * * * * * - -Nightmare. John Laird crouched in a wind-worn cave and looked out over -hills lit by icy moonlight. Through a stranger's eyes, he saw the -Janyard ship landing near the down-glided wreck of his boat, saw the -glitter of steel as they poured out and started hunting. Hunting _him_. - -Or was it him any longer, was he more than a prisoner in his own skull? -He thought back to memories that were not his, memories of himself -thinking thoughts that were not his own, himself escaping from the -enemy while he, Laird, whirled in a black abyss of half-conscious -madness. Beyond that, he recalled his own life, and he recalled another -life which had endured a thousand years before it died. He looked out -on the wilderness of rock and sand and blowing dust, and remembered -it as it had been, green and fair, and remembered that he was Daryesh -of Tollogh, who had ruled over whole planetary systems in the Empire -of Vwyrdda. And at the same time he was John Laird of Earth, and two -streams of thought flowed through the brain, listening to each other, -shouting at each other in the darkness of his skull. - -A million years! Horror and loneliness and a wrenching sorrow were in -the mind of Daryesh as he looked upon the ruin of Vwyrdda. A million -years ago! - -Who are you? cried Laird. What have you done to me? And even as he -asked, memories which were his own now rose to answer him. - -It had been the Erai who rebelled, the Erai whose fathers came from -Vwyrdda the fair but who had been strangely altered by centuries -of environment. They had revolted against the static rule of the -Immortals, and in a century of warfare they had overrun half the Empire -and rallied its populations under them. And the Immortals had unleashed -their most terrible powers, the sun-smashing ultimate weapons which -had lain forbidden in the vaults of Vwyrdda for ten million years. -Only--the Erai had known about it. And they had had the weapons too. - -In the end, Vwyrdda went under, her fleets broken and her armies -reeling in retreat over ten thousand scorched planets. The triumphant -Erai had roared in to make an end of the mother world, and nothing in -all the mighty Imperial arsenals could stop them now. - -Theirs was an unstable culture, it could not endure as that of Vwyrdda -had. In ten thousand years or so, they would be gone, and the Galaxy -would not have even a memory of that which had been. Which was small -help to us, thought Laird grimly, and realized with an icy shock that -it had been the thought of Daryesh. - -The Vwyrddan's mental tone was, suddenly, almost conversational, and -Laird realized what an immensity of trained effort it must have taken -to overcome that loneliness of a million years. "See here, Laird, we -are apparently doomed to occupy the same body till one of us gets rid -of the other, and it is a body which the Janyards seem to want. Rather -than fight each other, which would leave the body helpless, we'd better -cooperate." - -"But--Lord, man! What do you think I am? Do you think I want a vampire -like you up there in my brain?" - -The answer was fierce and cold. "What of me, Laird? I, who was Daryesh -of Tollogh, lord of a thousand suns and lover of Ilorna the Fair, -immortalized noble of the greatest empire the universe has ever seen--I -am now trapped in the half-evolved body of a hunted alien, a million -years after the death of all which mattered. Better be glad I'm here, -Laird. I can handle those weapons, you know." - -The eyes looked out over the bleak windy hillscape, and the double -mind watched distance-dwarfed forms clambering in the rocks, searching -for a trail. "A hell of a lot of good that does us now," said Laird. -"Besides, I can hear you thinking, you know, and I can remember your -own past thoughts. Sol or Janya, it's the same to you. How do I know -you'll play ball with me?" - -The answer was instant, but dark with an unpleasant laughter. -"Why--read my mind, Laird! It's your mind too, isn't it?" Then, more -soberly: "Apparently history is repeating itself in the revolt of the -barbarians against the mother planet, though on a smaller scale and -with a less developed science. I do not expect the result to be any -happier for civilization than before. So perhaps I may take a more -effective hand than I did before." - -It was ghostly, lying here in the wind-grieved remnants of a world, -watching the hunters move through a bitter haze of moonlight, and -having thoughts which were not one's own, thoughts over which there was -no control. Laird clenched his fists, fighting for stability. - -"That's better," said Daryesh's sardonic mind. "But relax. Breathe -slowly and deeply, concentrate only on the breathing for a while--and -then search my mind which is also yours." - -"Shut up! Shut up!" - -"I am afraid that is impossible. We're in the same brain, you know, and -we'll have to get used to each other's streams of consciousness. Relax, -man, lie still; think over the thing which has happened to you and know -it for the wonder it is." - -Man, they say, is a time-binding animal. But only the mighty will and -yearning of Vwyrdda had ever leaped across the borders of death itself, -waited a million years that that which was a world might not die out of -all history. - -What is the personality? It is not a thing, discrete and material, it -is a pattern and a process. The body starts with a certain genetic -inheritance and meets all the manifold complexities of environment. The -whole organism is a set of reactions between the two. The primarily -mental component, sometimes called the ego, is not separable from the -body but can in some ways be studied apart. - -The scientists had found a way to save something of that which was -Daryesh. While the enemy was blazing and thundering at the gates of -Vwyrdda, while all the planet waited for the last battle and the -ultimate night, quiet men in laboratories had perfected the molecular -scanner so that the pattern of synapses which made up all memory, -habit, reflex, instinct, the continuity of the ego, could be recorded -upon the electronic structure of certain crystals. They took the -pattern of Daryesh and of none other, for only he of the remaining -Immortals was willing. Who else would want a pattern to be repeated, -ages after he himself was dead, ages after all the world and all -history and meaning were lost? But Daryesh had always been reckless, -and Ilorna was dead, and he didn't care much for what happened. - -Ilorna, Ilorna! Laird saw the unforgotten image rise in his memory, -golden-eyed and laughing, the long dark hair flowing around the lovely -suppleness of her. He remembered the sound of her voice and the -sweetness of her lips, and he loved her. A million years, and she was -dust blowing on the night wind, and he loved her with that part of -him which was Daryesh and with more than a little of John Laird.... O -Ilorna.... - -And Daryesh the man had gone to die with his planet, but the crystal -pattern which reproduced the ego of Daryesh lay in the vault they -had made, surrounded by all the mightiest works of Vwyrdda. Sooner -or later, sometime in the infinite future of the universe, someone -would come; someone or something would put the helmet on his head and -activate it. And the pattern would be reproduced on the neurons, the -mind of Daryesh would live again, and he would speak for dead Vwyrdda -and seek to renew the tradition of fifty million years. It would be the -will of Vwyrdda, reaching across time--But Vwyrdda is _dead_, thought -Laird frantically. Vwyrdda is gone--this is a new history--you've got -no business telling us what to do! - -The reply was cold with arrogance. "I shall do as I see fit. Meanwhile, -I advise that you lie passive and do not attempt to interfere with me." - -"Cram it, Daryesh!" Laird's mouth drew back in a snarl. "I won't be -dictated to by anyone, let alone a ghost." - -Persuasively, the answer came, "At the moment, neither of us has much -choice. We are hunted, and if they have energy trackers--yes, I see -they do--they'll find us by this body's thermal radiation alone. Best -we surrender peaceably. Once aboard the ship, loaded with all the might -of Vwyrdda, our chance should come." - -Laird lay quietly, watching the hunters move closer, and the sense of -defeat came down on him like a falling world. What else could he do? -What other chance was there? - -"All right," he said at last, audibly. "All right. But I'll be watching -your every thought, understand? I don't think you can stop me from -committing suicide if I must." - -"I think I can. But opposing signals to the body will only neutralize -each other, leave it helplessly fighting itself. Relax, Laird, lie -back and let me handle this. I am Daryesh the warrior, and I have come -through harder battles than this." - -They rose and began walking down the hillside with arms lifted. -Daryesh's thought ran on, "Besides--that's a nice-looking wench in -command. It could be interesting!" - -His laughter rang out under the moon, and it was not the laughter of a -human being. - - * * * * * - -"I can't understand you, John Laird," said Joana. - -"Sometimes," replied Daryesh lightly, "I don't understand myself very -well--or you, my dear." - -She stiffened a little. "That will do, Lieutenant. Remember your -position here." - -"Oh, the devil with our ranks and countries. Let's be live entities for -a change." - -Her glance was quizzical. "That's an odd way for a Solman to phrase -it." - -Mentally, Daryesh swore. Damn this body, anyway! The strength, the -fineness of coordination and perception, half the senses he had known, -were missing from it. The gross brain structure couldn't hold the -reasoning powers he had once had. His thinking was dull and sluggish. -He made blunders the old Daryesh would never have committed. And this -young woman was quick to see them, and he was a prisoner of John -Laird's deadly enemies, and the mind of Laird himself was tangled in -thought and will and memory, ready to fight him if he gave the least -sign of-- - -The Solarian's ego chuckled nastily. Easy, Daryesh, easy! - -Shut up! his mind snapped back, and he knew drearily that his own -trained nervous system would not have been guilty of such a childishly -emotional response. - -"I may as well tell you the truth, Captain Rostov," he said aloud. "I -am not Laird at all. Not any more." - -She made no response, merely drooped the lids over her eyes and leaned -back in her chair. He noticed abstractedly how long her lashes were--or -was that Laird's appreciative mind, unhindered by too much remembrance -of Ilorna? - -They sat alone, the two of them, in her small cabin aboard the Janyard -cruiser. A guard stood outside the door, but it was closed. From time -to time they would hear a dull thump or clang as the heavy machines of -Vwyrdda were dragged aboard--otherwise they might have been the last -two alive on the scarred old planet. - -The room was austerely furnished, but there were touches of the -feminine here and there--curtains, a small pot of flowers, a formal -dress hung in a half-open closet. And the woman who sat across the desk -from him was very beautiful, with the loosened ruddy hair streaming to -her shoulders and the brilliant eyes never wavering from his. But one -slender hand rested on a pistol. - -She had told him frankly, "I want to talk privately with you. There -is something I don't understand ... but I'll be ready to shoot at -the first suspicion of a false move. And even if you should somehow -overpower me, I'd be no good as a hostage. We're Janyards here, and the -ship is more than the life of any one of us." - -Now she waited for him to go on talking. - -He took a cigarette from the box on her desk--Laird's habits again--and -lit it and took a slow drag of smoke into his lungs. _All right, -Daryesh, go ahead. I suppose your idea is the best, if anything can be -made to work at all. But I'm listening, remember._ - -"I am all that is left of this planet," he said tonelessly. "This is -the ego of Daryesh of Tollogh, Immortal of Vwyrdda, and in one sense I -died a million years ago." - -She remained quiet, but he saw how her hands clenched and he heard the -sharp small hiss of breath sucked between the teeth. - -Briefly, then, he explained how his mental pattern had been preserved, -and how it had entered the brain of John Laird. - -"You don't expect me to believe that story," she said contemptuously. - -"Do you have a lie detector aboard?" - -"I have one in this cabin, and I can operate it myself." She got up and -fetched the machine from a cabinet. He watched her, noticing the grace -of her movements. You died long ago, Ilorna--you died and the universe -will never know another like you. But I go on, and she reminds me -somehow of you. - - * * * * * - -It was a small black thing that hummed and glowed on the desk between -them. He put the metal cap on his head, and took the knobs in his -hands, and waited while she adjusted the controls. From Laird's -memories, he recalled the principle of the thing, the measurement of -activity in separate brain-centers, the precise detection of the slight -extra energy needed in the higher cerebral cortex to invent a falsehood. - -"I have to calibrate," she said, "Make up something I know to be a lie." - -"New Egypt has rings," he smiled, "which are made of Limburger cheese. -However, the main body of the planet is a delicious Camembert--" - -"That will do. Now repeat your previous statements." - -_Relax, Laird, damn it--blank yourself! I can't control this thing with -you interfering._ - -He told his story again in a firm voice, and meanwhile he was working -within the brain of Laird, getting the feel of it, applying the lessons -of nerve control which had been part of his Vwyrddan education. It -should certainly be possible to fool a simple electronic gadget, to -heighten activity in all centers to such an extent that the added -effort of his creative cells could not be spotted. - -He went on without hesitation, wondering if the flickering needles -would betray him and if her gun would spit death into his heart in the -next moment: "Naturally, Laird's personality was completely lost, its -fixed patterns obliterated by the superimposition of my own. I have his -memories, but otherwise I am Daryesh of Vwyrdda, at your service." - -She bit her lip. "What service! You shot four of my men." - -"Consider my situation, woman. I came into instantaneous existence. -I remember sitting in the laboratory under the scanner, a slight -dizziness, and then immediately I was in an alien body. Its nervous -system was stunned by the shock of my entry, I couldn't think clearly. -All I had to go on was Laird's remembered conviction that these were -deadly foes surrounding me, murderous creatures bent on killing me and -wiping out my planet. I acted half-instinctively. Also, I wanted, in my -own personality, to be a free agent, to get away and think this out for -myself. So I did. I regret the death of your men, but I think they will -be amply compensated for." - -"H'm--you surrendered when we all but had you anyway." - -"Yes, of course, but I had about decided to do so in all events." -Her eyes never lifted from the dials that wavered life or death. "I -was, after all, in your territory, with little or no hope of getting -clear, and you were the winning side of this war, which meant nothing -to me emotionally. Insofar as I have any convictions in this matter, -it is that the human race will best be served by a Janyard victory. -History has shown that when the frontier cultures--which the old -empire calls barbaric but which are actually new and better adapted -civilizations--when they win out over the older and more conservative -nations, the result is a synthesis and a period of unusual achievement." - -He saw her visibly relaxing, and inwardly he smiled. It was so easy, so -easy. They were such children in this later age. All he had to do was -hand her a smooth lie which fitted in with the propaganda that had been -her mental environment from birth, and she could not seriously think of -him as an enemy. - -The blue gaze lifted to his, and the lips were parted. "You will help -us?" she whispered. - -Daryesh nodded. "I know the principles and construction and use of -those engines, and in truth there is in them the force that molds -planets. Your scientists would never work out the half of all that -there is to be found. I will show you the proper operation of them -all." He shrugged. "Naturally, I will expect commensurate rewards. But -even altruistically speaking, this is the best thing I can do. Those -energies should remain under the direction of one who understands -them, and not be misused in ignorance. That could lead to unimaginable -catastrophes." - -Suddenly she picked up her gun and shoved it back into its holster. She -stood up, smiling, and held out her hand. - -He shook it vigorously, and then bent over and kissed it. When he -looked up, she stood uncertain, half afraid and half glad. - -_It's not fair!_ protested Laird. The poor girl has never known -anything of this sort. She's never heard of coquetry. To her love isn't -a game, it's something mysterious and earnest and decent-- - -I told you to shut up, answered Daryesh coldly. Look, man, even if we -do have an official safe-conduct, this is still a ship full of watchful -hostility. We have to consolidate our position by every means at hand. -Now relax and enjoy this. - - * * * * * - -He walked around the desk and took her hands again. "You know," he -said, and the crooked smile on his mouth reminded him that this was -more than half a truth, "you make me think of the woman I loved, a -million years ago on Vwyrdda." - -She shrank back a little. "I can't get over it," she whispered. -"You--you're old, and you don't belong to this cycle of time at all, -and what you must think and know makes me feel like a child--Daryesh, -it frightens me." - -"Don't let it, Joana," he said gently. "My mind is young, and very -lonely." He put a wistfulness in his voice. "Joana, I need someone to -talk to. You can't imagine what it is to wake up a million years after -all your world is dead, more alone than--oh, let me come in once in -awhile and talk to you, as one friend to another. Let's forget time and -death and loneliness. I need someone like you." - -She lowered her eyes, and said with a stubborn honesty, "I think that -would be good too, Daryesh. A ship's captain doesn't have friends, -you know. They put me in this service because I had the aptitude, and -that's really all I've ever had. Oh, comets!" She forced a laugh. "To -space with all that self-pity. Certainly you may come in whenever you -like. I hope it'll be often." - -They talked for quite a while longer, and when he kissed her goodnight -it was the most natural thing in the universe. He walked to his -bunk--transferred from the brig to a tiny unused compartment--with his -mind in pleasant haze. - -Lying in the dark, he began the silent argument with Laird anew. "Now -what?" demanded the Solarian. - -"We play it slow and easy," said Daryesh patiently--as if the fool -couldn't read it directly in their common brain. "We watch our chance, -but don't act for a while yet. Under the pretext of rigging the energy -projectors for action, we'll arrange a setup which can destroy the ship -at the flick of a switch. They won't know it. They haven't an inkling -about subspatial flows. Then, when an opportunity to escape offers -itself, we throw that switch and get away and try to return to Sol. -With my knowledge of Vwyrddan science, we can turn the tide of the war. -It's risky--sure--but it's the only chance I see. And for Heaven's sake -let me handle matters. You're supposed to be dead." - -"And what happens when we finally settle this business? How can I get -rid of you?" - -"Frankly, I don't see any way to do it. Our patterns have become too -entangled. The scanners necessarily work on the whole nervous system. -We'll just have to learn to live together." Persuasively: "It will be -to your own advantage. Think, man! We can do as we choose with Sol. -With the Galaxy. And I'll set up a life-tank and make us a new body to -which we'll transfer the pattern, a body with all the intelligence and -abilities of a Vwyrddan, and I'll immortalize it. Man, you'll never -die!" - -It wasn't too happy a prospect, thought Laird skeptically. His own -chances of dominating that combination were small. In time, his own -personality might be completely absorbed by Daryesh's greater one. - -Of course--a psychiatrist--narcosis, hypnosis-- - -"No, you don't!" said Daryesh grimly. "I'm just as fond of my own -individuality as you are." - -The mouth which was theirs twisted wryly in the dark. "Guess we'll just -have to learn to love each other," thought Laird. - -The body dropped into slumber. Presently Laird's cells were asleep, his -personality faded into a shadowland of dreams. Daryesh remained awake -a while longer. Sleep--waste of time--the Immortals had never been -plagued by fatigue-- - -He chuckled to himself. What a web of lies and counterlies he had -woven. If Joana and Laird both knew-- - - * * * * * - -The mind is an intricate thing. It can conceal facts from itself, -make itself forget that which is painful to remember, persuade its -own higher components of whatever the subconscious deems right. -Rationalization, schizophrenia, autohypnosis, they are but pale -indications of the self-deception which the brain practices. And the -training of the Immortals included full neural coordination; they could -consciously utilize the powers latent in themselves. They could by an -act of conscious will stop the heart, or block off pain, or split their -own personalities. - -Daryesh had known his ego would be fighting whatever host it found, -and he had made preparations before he was scanned. Only a part of -his mind was in full contact with Laird's. Another section, split off -from the main stream of consciousness by deliberate and controlled -schizophrenia, was thinking its own thoughts and making its own plans. -Self-hypnotized, he automatically reunited his ego at such times as -Laird was not aware, otherwise there was only subconscious contact. In -effect a private compartment of his mind, inaccessible to the Solarian, -was making its own plans. - -That destructive switch would have to be installed to satisfy Laird's -waking personality, he thought. But it would never be thrown. For he -had been telling Joana that much of the truth--his own advantage lay -with the Janyards, and he meant to see them through to final victory. - -It would be simple enough to get rid of Laird temporarily. Persuade him -that for some reason it was advisable to get dead drunk. Daryesh's more -controlled ego would remain conscious after Laird's had passed out. -Then he could make all arrangements with Joana, who by that time should -be ready to do whatever he wanted. - -Psychiatry--yes, Laird's brief idea had been the right one. The methods -of treating schizophrenia could, with some modifications, be applied -to suppressing Daryesh's extra personality. He'd blank out that -Solarian ... permanently. - -And after that would come his undying new body, and centuries and -millennia in which he could do what he wanted with this young -civilization. - -The demon exorcising the man--He grinned drowsily. Presently he slept. - - * * * * * - -The ship drove through a night of stars and distance. Time was -meaningless, was the position of the hands on a clock, was -the succession of sleeps and meals, was the slow shift in the -constellations as they gulped the light-years. - -On and on, the mighty drone of the second-order drive filling their -bones and their days, the round of work and food and sleep and Joana. -Laird wondered if it would ever end. He wondered if he might not be the -Flying Dutchman, outward bound for eternity, locked in his own skull -with the thing that had possessed him. At such times the only comfort -was in Joana's arms. He drew of the wild young strength of her, and he -and Daryesh were one. But afterward-- - -We're going to join the Grand Fleet. You heard her, Daryesh. She's -making a triumphal pilgrimage to the gathered power of Janya, bringing -the invincible weapons of Vwyrdda to her admiral. - -Why not? She's young and ambitious, she wants glory as much as you do. -What of it? - -We have to escape before she gets there. We have to steal a lifeboat -and destroy this ship and all in it soon. - -All in it? Joana Rostov, too? - -Damn it, we'll kidnap her or something. You know I'm in love with the -girl, you devil. But it's a matter of all Earth. This one cruiser has -enough stuff in it now to wreck a planet. I have parents, brothers, -friends--a civilization. We've got to act! - -All right, all right, Laird. But take it easy. We have to get the -energy devices installed first. We'll have to give them enough of a -demonstration to allay their suspicions. Joana's the only one aboard -here who trusts us. None of her officers do. - -The body and the double mind labored as the slow days passed, directing -Janyard technicians who could not understand what it was they built. -Laird, drawing on Daryesh's memories, knew what a giant slept in -those coils and tubes and invisible energy-fields. Here were forces -to trigger the great creative powers of the universe and turn them to -destruction--distorted space-time, atoms dissolving into pure energy, -vibrations to upset the stability of force-fields which maintained -order in the cosmos. Laird remembered the ruin of Vwyrdda, and -shuddered. - -They got a projector mounted and operating, and Daryesh suggested that -the cruiser halt somewhere that he could prove his words. They picked -a barren planet in an uninhabited system and lay in an orbit fifty -thousand miles out. In an hour Daryesh had turned the facing hemisphere -into a sea of lava. - -"If the dis-fields were going," he said absent-mindedly, "I'd pull the -planet into chunks for you." - -Laird saw the pale taut faces around him. Sweat was shining on -foreheads, and a couple of men looked sick. Joana forgot her position -enough to come shivering into his arms. - -But the visage she lifted in a minute was exultant and eager, with -the thoughtless cruelty of a swooping hawk. "There's an end of Earth, -gentlemen!" - -"Nothing they have can stop us," murmured her exec dazedly. "Why, this -one ship, protected by one of those spacewarp screens you spoke of, -sir--this one little ship could sail in and lay the Solar System waste." - - * * * * * - -Daryesh nodded. It was entirely possible. Not much energy was required, -since the generators of Vwyrdda served only as catalysts releasing -fantastically greater forces. And Sol had none of the defensive science -which had enabled his world to hold out for a while. Yes, it could be -done. - -He stiffened with the sudden furious thought of Laird: That's it, -Daryesh! That's the answer. - -The thought-stream was his own too, flowing through the same brain, and -indeed it was simple. They could have the whole ship armed and armored -beyond the touch of Janya. And since none of the technicians aboard -understood the machines, and since they were now wholly trusted, they -could install robotcontrols without anyone's knowing. - -Then--the massed Grand Fleet of Janya--a flick of the main -switch--man-killing energies would flood the cruiser's interior, and -only corpses would remain aboard. Dead men and the robots that would -open fire on the Fleet. This one ship could ruin all the barbarian -hopes in a few bursts of incredible flame. And the robots could then be -set to destroy her as well, lest by some chance the remaining Janyards -manage to board her. - -And we--we can escape in the initial confusion, Daryesh. We can give -orders to the robot to spare the captain's gig, and we can get Joana -aboard and head for Sol! There'll be no one left to pursue! - -Slowly, the Vwyrddan's thought made reply: A good plan. Yes, a bold -stroke. We'll do it! - -"What's the matter, Daryesh?" Joana's voice was suddenly anxious. "You -look--" - -"Just thinking, that's all. Never think, Captain Rostov. Bad for the -brain." - -Later, as he kissed her, Laird felt ill at thought of the treachery -he planned. Her friends, her world, her cause--wiped out in a single -shattering blow, and he would have struck it. He wondered if she would -speak to him ever again, once it was over. - -Daryesh, the heartless devil, seemed only to find a sardonic amusement -in the situation. - -And later, when Laird slept, Daryesh thought that the young man's -scheme was good. Certainly he'd fall in with it. It would keep Laird -busy till they were at the Grand Fleet rendezvous. And after that -it would be too late. The Janyard victory would be sealed. All he, -Daryesh, had to do when the time came was keep away from that master -switch. If Laird tried to reach it their opposed wills would only -result in nullity--which was victory for Janya. - -He liked this new civilization. It had a freshness, a vigor and -hopefulness which he could not find in Laird's memories of Earth. It -had a tough-minded purposefulness that would get it far. And being -young and fluid, it would be amenable to such pressures of psychology -and force as he chose to apply. - -Vwyrdda, his mind whispered. Vwyrdda, we'll make them over in your -image. You'll live again! - - * * * * * - -Grand Fleet! - -A million capital ships and their auxiliaries lay marshaled at a dim -red dwarf of a sun, massed together and spinning in the same mighty -orbit. Against the incandescent whiteness of stars and the blackness -of the old deeps, armored flanks gleamed like flame as far as eyes -could see, rank after rank, tier upon tier, of titanic sharks swimming -through space--guns and armor and torpedoes and bombs and men to smash -a planet and end a civilization. The sight was too big, imagination -could not make the leap, and the human mind had only a dazed impression -of vastness beyond vision. - -This was the great spearhead of Janya, a shining lance poised to drive -through Sol's thin defense lines and roar out of the sky to rain hell -on the seat of empire. They can't really be human any more, thought -Laird sickly. Space and strangeness have changed them too much. No -human being could think of destroying Man's home. Then, fiercely: All -right Daryesh. This is our chance! - -Not yet, Laird. Wait a while. Wait till we have a legitimate excuse for -leaving the ship. - -Well--come up to the control room with me. I want to stay near that -switch. Lord, Lord, everything that is Man and me depends on us now! - -Daryesh agreed with a certain reluctance that faintly puzzled the -part of his mind open to Laird. The other half, crouched deep in his -subconscious, knew the reason: It was waiting the posthypnotic signal, -the key event which would trigger its emergence into the higher -brain-centers. - -The ship bore a tangled and unfinished look. All its conventional -armament had been ripped out and the machines of Vwyrdda installed in -its place. A robot brain, half-alive in its complexity, was gunner and -pilot and ruling intelligence of the vessel now, and only the double -mind of one man knew what orders had really been given it. _When the -main switch is thrown, you will flood the ship with ten units of -disrupting radiation. Then, when the captain's gig is well away, you -will destroy this fleet, sparing only that one boat. When no more -ships in operative condition are in range, you will activate the -disintegrators and dissolve this whole vessel and all its contents to -basic energy._ - -With a certain morbid fascination, Laird looked at that switch. An -ordinary double-throw knife type--Lord of space, could it be possible, -was it logical that all history should depend on the angle it made with -the control panel? He pulled his eyes away, stared out at the swarming -ships and the greater host of the stars, lit a cigaret with shaking -hands, paced and sweated and waited. - -Joana came to him, a couple of crewmen marching solemnly behind. Her -eyes shone and her cheeks were flushed and the turret light was like -molten copper in her hair. No woman, thought Laird, had ever been so -lovely, and he was going to destroy that to which she had given her -life. - -"Daryesh!" Laughter danced in her voice. "Daryesh, the high -admiral wants to see us in his flagship. He'll probably ask for a -demonstration, and then I think the fleet will start for Sol at once -with us in the van. Daryesh--oh, Daryesh, the war is almost over!" - -Now! blazed the thought of Laird, and his hand reached for the main -switch. Now--easily, causally, with a remark about letting the -generators warm up--and then go with her, overpower those guardsmen in -their surprise and head for home! - -And Daryesh's mind reunited itself at that signal, and the hand -froze.... - -No! - -_What? But_-- - -The memory of the suppressed half of Daryesh's mind was open to Laird, -and the triumph of the whole of it, and Laird knew that his defeat was -here. - - * * * * * - -So simple, so cruelly simple--Daryesh could stop him, lock the body in -a conflict of wills, and that would be enough. For while Laird slept, -while Daryesh's own major ego was unconscious, the trained subconscious -of the Vwyrddan had taken over. It had written, in its self-created -somnambulism, a letter to Joana explaining the whole truth, and had put -it where it would easily be found once they started looking through -his effects in search of an explanation for his paralysis. And the -letter directed, among other things, that Daryesh's body should be -kept under restraint until certain specified methods known to Vwyrddan -psychiatry--drugs, electric waves, hypnosis--had been applied to -eradicate the Laird half of his mind. - -Janyard victory was near. - -"Daryesh!" Joana's voice seemed to come from immensely far away; her -face swam in a haze and a roar of fainting consciousness. "Daryesh, -what's the matter? Oh, my dear, what's wrong?" - -Grimly, the Vwyrddan thought: Give up, Laird. Surrender to me, and you -can keep your ego. I'll destroy that letter. See, my whole mind is open -to you now--you can see that I mean it honestly this time. I'd rather -avoid treatment if possible, and I do owe you something. But surrender -now, or be wiped out of your own brain. - -Defeat and ruin--and nothing but slow distorting death as reward for -resistance. Laird's will caved in, his mind too chaotic for clear -thought. Only one dull impulse came: I give up. You win, Daryesh. - -The collapsed body picked itself off the floor. Joana was bending -anxiously over him. "Oh, what is it, what's wrong?" - -Daryesh collected himself and smiled shakily. "Excitement will do this -to me, now and then. I haven't fully mastered this alien nervous system -yet. I'm all right now. Let's go." - -Laird's hand reached out and pulled the switch over. - -Daryesh shouted, an animal roar from the throat, and tried to recover -it, and the body toppled again in a stasis of locked wills. - -It was like a deliverance from hell, and still it was but the -inevitable logic of events, as Laird's own self reunited. Half of him -still shaking with defeat, half realizing its own victory, he thought -savagely: - -None of them noticed me do that. They were paying too much attention -to my face. Or if they did, we've proved to them before that it's only -a harmless regulating switch. And--the lethal radiations are already -flooding us! If you don't cooperate now, Daryesh, I'll hold us here -till we're both dead! - -So simple, so simple. Because, sharing Daryesh's memory, Laird had -shared his knowledge of self-deception techniques. He had anticipated, -with the buried half of his mind, that the Vwyrddan might pull some -such trick, and had installed a posthypnotic command of his own. In a -situation like this, when everything looked hopeless, his conscious -mind was to surrender, and then his subconscious would order that the -switch be thrown. - -Cooperate, Daryesh! You're as fond of living as I. Cooperate, and let's -get the hell out of here! - -Grudgingly, wryly: You win, Laird. - -The body rose again, and leaned on Joana's arm, and made its slow way -toward the boat blisters. The undetectable rays of death poured through -them, piling up their cumulative effects. In three minutes, a nervous -system would be ruined. - -Too slow, too slow. "Come on, Joana. Run!" - -"Why--" She stopped, and a hard suspicion came into the faces of the -two men behind her. "Daryesh--what do you mean? What's come over you?" - -"Ma'm...." One of the crewmen stepped forward. "Ma'm, I wonder ... I -saw him pull down the main switch. And now he's in a hurry to leave the -ship. And none of us really know how all that machinery ticks." - -Laird pulled the gun out of Joana's holster and shot him. The other -gasped, reaching for his own side arm, and Laird's weapon blazed again. - -His fist leaped out, striking Joana on the angle of the jaw, and she -sagged. He caught her up and started to run. - -A pair of crewmen stood in the corridor leading to the boats. "What's -the matter, sir?" one asked. - -"Collapsed--radiation from the machines--got to get her to a hospital -ship," gasped Daryesh. - -They stood aside, wonderingly, and he spun the dogs of the blister -valve and stepped into the gig. "Shall we come, sir?" asked one of the -men. - -"No!" Laird felt a little dizzy. The radiation was streaming through -him, and death was coming with giant strides. "No--" He smashed a fist -into the insistent face, slammed the valve back, and vaulted to the -pilot's chair. - -The engines hummed, warming up. Fists and feet battered on the valve. -The sickness made him retch. - -O Joana, if this kills you-- - -He threw the main-drive switch. Acceleration jammed him back as the gig -leaped free. - -Staring out the ports, he saw fire blossom in space as the great guns -of Vwyrdda opened up. - -[Illustration: _He saw fire blossom in space as the great guns of -Vwyrdda opened up._] - - * * * * * - -My glass was empty. I signalled for a refill and sat wondering just how -much of the yarn one could believe. - -"I've read the histories," I said slowly. "I do know that some -mysterious catastrophe annihilated the massed fleet of Janya and turned -the balance of the war. Sol speared in and won inside of a year. And -you mean that you did it?" - -"In a way. Or Daryesh did. We were acting as one personality, you know. -He was a thorough-going realist, and the moment he saw his defeat he -switched whole-heartedly to the other side." - -"But--Lord, man! Why've we never heard anything about this? You mean -you never told anyone, never rebuilt any of those machines, never did -anything?" - -Laird's dark, worn face twisted in a bleak smile. "Certainly. This -civilization isn't ready for such things. Even Vwyrdda wasn't, and -it'll take us millions of years to reach their stage. Besides, it was -part of the bargain." - -"Bargain?" - -"Just as certainly. Daryesh and I still had to live together, you know. -Life under suspicion of mutual trickery, never trusting your own brain, -would have been intolerable. We reached an agreement during that long -voyage back to Sol, and used Vwyrddan methods of autohypnosis to assure -that it could not be broken." - -He looked somberly out at the lunar night. "That's why I said the -genie in the bottle killed me. Inevitably, the two personalities -merged, became one. And that one was, of course, mostly Daryesh, with -overtones of Laird. - -"Oh, it isn't so horrible. We retain the memories of our separate -existences, and the continuity which is the most basic attribute of -the ego. In fact, Laird's life was so limited, so blind to all the -possibilities and wonder of the universe, that I don't regret him very -often. Once in a while I still get nostalgic moments and have to talk -to a human. But I always pick one who won't know whether or not to -believe me, and won't be able to do much of anything about it if he -should." - -"And why did you go into Survey?" I asked, very softly. - -"I want to get a good look at the universe before the change. Daryesh -wants to orient himself, gather enough data for a sound basis of -decision. When we--I--switch over to the new immortal body, there'll -be work to do, a galaxy to remake in a newer and better pattern by -Vwyrddan standards! It'll take millennia, but we've got all time -before us. Or I do--what do I mean, anyway?" He ran a hand through his -gray-streaked hair. - -"But Laird's part of the bargain was that there should be as nearly -normal a human life as possible until this body gets inconveniently -old. So--" He shrugged. "So that's how it worked out." - -We sat for a while longer, saying little, and then he got up. "Excuse -me," he said. "There's my wife. Thanks for the talk." - -I saw him walk over to greet a tall, handsome red-haired woman. His -voice drifted back: "Hello, Joana--" - -They walked out of the room together in perfectly ordinary and human -fashion. - -I wonder what history has in store for us. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD OF A THOUSAND SUNS *** - -***** This file should be named 63993-0.txt or 63993-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/9/63993/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Lord of a Thousand Suns - -Author: Poul Anderson - -Release Date: December 08, 2020 [EBook #63993] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD OF A THOUSAND SUNS *** -</pre> -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>LORD of a THOUSAND SUNS</h1> - -<h2>By POUL ANDERSON</h2> - -<p><i>A Man without a World, this 1,000,000-year-old<br /> -Daryesh! Once Lord of a Thousand Suns, now condemned<br /> -to rove the spaceways in alien form, searching<br /> -for love, for life, for the great lost Vwyrdda.</i></p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories September 1951.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Yes, you'll find almost anything man has ever imagined, somewhere out -in the Galaxy," I said. "There are so damned many millions of planets, -and such a fantastic variety of surface conditions and of life -evolving to meet them, and of intelligence and civilization appearing -in that life. Why, I've been on worlds with fire-breathing dragons, -and on worlds where dwarfs fought things that could pass for the -goblins our mothers used to scare us with, and on a planet where a race -of witches lived—telepathic pseudohypnosis, you know—oh, I'll bet -there's not a tall story or fairy tale ever told which doesn't have -some kind of counterpart somewhere in the universe."</p> - -<p>Laird nodded. "Uh-huh," he answered, in that oddly slow and soft voice -of his. "I once let a genie out of a bottle."</p> - -<p>"Eh? What happened?"</p> - -<p>"It killed me."</p> - -<p>I opened my mouth to laugh, and then took a second glance at him -and shut it again. He was just too dead-pan serious about it. Not -poker-faced, the way a good actor can be when he's slipping over a tall -one—no, there was a sudden misery behind his eyes, and somehow it was -mixed with the damnedest cold humor.</p> - -<p>I didn't know Laird very well. Nobody did. He was out most of the time -on Galactic Survey, prowling a thousand eldritch planets never meant -for human eyes. He came back to the Solar System more rarely and for -briefer visits than anyone else in his job, and had less to say about -what he had found.</p> - -<p>A huge man, six-and-a-half feet tall, with dark aquiline features and -curiously brilliant greenish-grey eyes, middle-aged now though it -didn't show except at the temples. He was courteous enough to everyone, -but shortspoken and slow to laugh. Old friends, who had known him -thirty years before when he was the gayest and most reckless officer -in the Solar Navy, thought something during the Revolt had changed him -more than any psychologist would admit was possible. But he had never -said anything about it, merely resigning his commission after the war -and going into Survey.</p> - -<p>We were sitting alone in a corner of the lounge. The Lunar branch of -the Explorers' Club maintains its building outside the main dome of -Selene Center, and we were sitting beside one of the great windows, -drinking Centaurian sidecars and swapping the inevitable shop-talk. -Even Laird indulged in that, though I suspected more because of the -information he could get than for any desire of companionship.</p> - -<p>Behind us, the long quiet room was almost empty. Before us, the window -opened on the raw magnificence of moonscape, a sweep of crags and -cliffs down the crater wall to the riven black plains, washed in the -eerie blue of Earth's light. Space blazed above us, utter black and a -million sparks of frozen flame.</p> - -<p>"Come again?" I said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He laughed, without much humor. "I might as well tell you," he said. -"You won't believe it, and even if you did it'd make no difference. -Sometimes I tell the story—alcohol makes me feel like it—I start -remembering old times...."</p> - -<p>He settled farther back in his chair. "Maybe it wasn't a real genie," -he went on. "More of a ghost, perhaps. That was a haunted planet. They -were great a million years before man existed on Earth. They spanned -the stars and they knew things the present civilization hasn't even -guessed at. And then they died. Their own weapons swept them away in -one burst of fire, and only broken ruins were left—ruins and desert, -and the ghost who lay waiting in that bottle."</p> - -<p>I signalled for another round of drinks, wondering what he meant, -wondering just how sane that big man with the worn rocky face was. -Still—you never know. I've seen things out beyond that veil of stars -which your maddest dreams never hinted at. I've seen men carried home -mumbling and empty-eyed, the hollow cold of space filling their brains -where something had broken the thin taut wall of their reason. They say -spacemen are a credulous breed. Before Heaven, they have to be!</p> - -<p>"You don't mean New Egypt?" I asked.</p> - -<p>"Stupid name. Just because there are remnants of a great dead culture, -they have to name it after an insignificant valley of ephemeral -peasants. I tell you, the men of Vwyrdda were like gods, and when they -were destroyed whole suns were darkened by the forces they used. Why, -they killed off Earth's dinosaurs in a day, millions of years ago, and -only used one ship to do it."</p> - -<p>"How in hell do you know that? I didn't think the archeologists had -deciphered their records."</p> - -<p>"They haven't. All our archeologists will ever know is that the -Vwyrddans were a race of remarkably humanoid appearance, with a highly -advanced interstellar culture wiped out about a million Earth-years -ago. Matter of fact, I don't really know that they did it to Earth, but -I do know that they had a regular policy of exterminating the great -reptiles of terrestroid planets with an eye to later colonization, -and I know that they got this far, so I suppose our planet got the -treatment too." Laird accepted his fresh drink and raised the glass to -me. "Thanks. But now do be a good fellow and let me ramble on in my own -way.</p> - -<p>"It was—let me see—thirty-three years ago now, when I was a bright -young lieutenant with bright young ideas. The Revolt was in full swing -then, and the Janyards held all that region of space, out Sagittari -way you know. Things looked bad for Sol then—I don't think it's ever -been appreciated how close we were to defeat. They were poised to -drive right through our lines with their battle-fleets, slash past our -frontiers, and hit Earth itself with the rain of hell that had already -sterilized a score of planets. We were fighting on the defensive, -spread over several million cubic light-years, spread horribly thin. -Oh, bad!</p> - -<p>"Vwyrdda—New Egypt—had been discovered and some excavation done -shortly before the war began. We knew about as much then as we do now. -Especially, we knew that the so-called Valley of the Gods held more -relics than any other spot on the surface. I'd been quite interested -in the work, visited the planet myself, even worked with the crew that -found and restored that gravitomagnetic generator—the one which taught -us half of what we know now about g-m fields.</p> - -<p>"It was my young and fanciful notion that there might be more to be -found, somewhere in that labyrinth—and from study of the reports -I even thought I knew about what and where it would be. One of the -weapons that had novaed suns, a million years ago—</p> - -<p>"The planet was far behind the Janyard lines, but militarily valueless. -They wouldn't garrison it, and I was sure that such semi-barbarians -wouldn't have my idea, especially with victory so close. A one-man -sneakboat could get in readily enough—it just isn't possible to -blockade a region of space; too damned inhumanly big. We had nothing to -lose but me, and maybe a lot to gain, so in I went.</p> - -<p>"I made the planet without trouble and landed in the Valley of the Gods -and began work. And that's where the fun started."</p> - -<p>Laird laughed again, with no more mirth than before.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was a moon hanging low over the hills, a great scarred shield -thrice the size of Earth's, and its chill white radiance filled the -Valley with colorless light and long shadows. Overhead flamed the -incredible sky of the Sagittarian regions, thousands upon thousands of -great blazing suns swarming in strings and clusters and constellations -strange to human eyes, blinking and glittering in the thin cold air. It -was so bright that Laird could see the fine patterns of his skin, loops -and whorls on the numbed fingers that groped against the pyramid. He -shivered in the wind that streamed past him, blowing dust devils with a -dry whisper, searching under his clothes to sheathe his flesh in cold. -His breath was ghostly white before him, the bitter air felt liquid -when he breathed.</p> - -<p>Around him loomed the fragments of what must have been a city, now -reduced to a few columns and crumbling walls held up by the lava which -had flowed. The stones reared high in the unreal moonlight, seeming -almost to move as the shadows and the drifting sand passed them. Ghost -city. Ghost planet. He was the last life that stirred on its bleak -surface.</p> - -<p>But somewhere above that surface—</p> - -<p>What was it, that descending hum high in the sky, sweeping closer -out of stars and moon and wind? Minutes ago the needle on his -gravitomagnetic detector had wavered down in the depths of the pyramid. -He had hurried up and now stood looking and listening and feeling his -heart turn stiff.</p> - -<p><i>No, no, no—not a Janyard ship, not now—it was the end of everything -if they came.</i></p> - -<p>Laird cursed with a hopeless fury. The wind caught his mouthings -and blew them away with the scudding sand, buried them under the -everlasting silence of the valley. His eyes traveled to his sneakboat. -It was invisible against the great pyramid—he'd taken that much -precaution, shoveling a low grave of sand over it—but, if they used -metal detectors that was valueless. He was fast, yes, but almost -unarmed; they could easily follow his trail down into the labyrinth and -locate the vault.</p> - -<p>Lord if he had led them here—if his planning and striving had only -resulted in giving the enemy the weapon which would destroy Earth—</p> - -<p>His hand closed about the butt of his blaster. Silly weapon, stupid -popgun—what could he do?</p> - -<p>Decision came. With a curse, he whirled and ran back into the pyramid.</p> - -<p>His flash lit the endless downward passages with a dim bobbing -radiance, and the shadows swept above and behind and marched beside, -the shadows of a million years closing in to smother him. His boots -slammed against the stone floor, <i>thud-thud-thud</i>—the echoes caught -the rhythm and rolled it boomingly ahead of him. A primitive terror -rose to drown his dismay; he was going down into the grave of a -thousand millennia, the grave of the gods, and it took all the nerve he -had to keep running and never look back. He didn't dare look back.</p> - -<p>Down and down and down, past this winding tunnel, along this ramp, -through this passageway into the guts of the planet. A man could get -lost here. A man could wander in the cold and the dark and the echoes -till he died. It had taken him weeks to find his way into the great -vault, and only the clues given by Murchison's reports had made it -possible at all. Now—</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He burst into a narrow antechamber. The door he had blasted open leaned -drunkenly against a well of night. It was fifty feet high, that door. -He fled past it like an ant and came into the pyramid storehouse.</p> - -<p>His flash gleamed off metal, glass, substances he could not identify -that had lain sealed against a million years till he came to wake the -machines. What they were, he did not know. He had energized some of -the units, and they had hummed and flickered, but he had not dared -experiment. His idea had been to rig an antigrav unit which would -enable him to haul the entire mass of it up to his boat. Once he was -home, the scientists could take over. But now—</p> - -<p>He skinned his teeth in a wolfish grin and switched on the big lamp -he had installed. White light flooded the tomb, shining darkly back -from the monstrous bulks of things he could not use, the wisdom and -techniques of a race which had spanned the stars and moved planets and -endured for fifty million years. Maybe he could puzzle out the use of -something before the enemy came. Maybe he could wipe them out in one -demoniac sweep—just like a stereofilm hero, jeered his mind—or maybe -he could simply destroy it all, keep it from Janyard hands.</p> - -<p>He should have provided against this. He should have rigged a bomb, to -blow the whole pyramid to hell—</p> - -<p>With an effort, he stopped the frantic racing of his mind and looked -around. There were paintings on the walls, dim with age but still -legible, pictographs, meant perhaps for the one who finally found this -treasure. The men of New Egypt were shown, hardly distinguishable -from humans—dark of skin and hair, keen of feature, tall and stately -and robed in living light. He had paid special attention to one -representation. It showed a series of actions, like an old time -comic-strip—a man taking up a glassy object, fitting it over his head, -throwing a small switch. He had been tempted to try it, but—gods, what -would it do?</p> - -<p>He found the helmet and slipped it gingerly over his skull. It might be -some kind of last-ditch chance for him. The thing was cold and smooth -and hard, it settled on his head with a slow massiveness that was -strangely—<i>living</i>. He shuddered and turned back to the machines.</p> - -<p>This thing now with the long coil-wrapped barrel—an energy projector -of some sort? How did you activate it? Hell-fire, which was the muzzle -end?</p> - -<p>He heard the faint banging of feet, winding closer down the endless -passageways. Gods, his mind groaned. They didn't waste any time, did -they?</p> - -<p>But they hadn't needed to ... a metal detector would have located his -boat, told them that he was in this pyramid rather than one of the -dozen others scattered through the valley. And energy tracers would -spot him down here....</p> - -<p>He doused the light and crouched in darkness behind one of the -machines. The blaster was heavy in his hand.</p> - -<p>A voice hailed him from outside the door. "It's useless, Solman. Come -out of there!"</p> - -<p>He bit back a reply and lay waiting.</p> - -<p>A woman's voice took up the refrain. It was a good voice, he thought -irrelevantly, low and well modulated, but it had an iron ring to it. -They were hard, these Janyards, even their women led troops and piloted -ships and killed men.</p> - -<p>"You may as well surrender, Solman. All you have done has been to -accomplish our work for us. We suspected such an attempt might be made. -Lacking the archeological records, we couldn't hope for much success -ourselves, but since my force was stationed near this sun I had a boat -lie in an orbit around the planet with detectors wide open. We trailed -you down, and let you work, and now we are here to get what you have -found."</p> - -<p>"Go back," he bluffed desperately. "I planted a bomb. Go back or I'll -set it off."</p> - -<p>The laugh was hard with scorn. "Do you think we wouldn't know it if you -had? You haven't even a spacesuit on. Come out with your hands up or -we'll flood the vault with gas."</p> - -<p>Laird's teeth flashed in a snarling grin. "All right," he shouted, only -half aware of what he was saying. "All right, you asked for it!"</p> - -<p>He threw the switch on his helmet.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was like a burst of fire in his brain, a soundless roar of -splintering darkness. He screamed, half crazy with the fury that poured -into him, feeling the hideous thrumming along every nerve and sinew, -feeling his muscles cave in and his body hit the floor. The shadows -closed in, roaring and rolling, night and death and the wreck of the -universe, and high above it all he heard—laughter.</p> - -<p>He lay sprawled behind the machine, twitching and whimpering. They had -heard him, out in the tunnels, and with slow caution they entered and -stood over him and watched his spasms jerk toward stillness.</p> - -<p>They were tall and well-formed, the Janyard rebels—Earth had sent her -best out to colonize the Sagittarian worlds, three hundred years ago. -But the long cruel struggle, conquering and building and adapting to -planets that never were and never could be Earth, had changed them, -hardened their metal and frozen something in their souls.</p> - -<p>Ostensibly it was a quarrel over tariff and trade rights which had led -to their revolt against the Empire; actually, it was a new culture -yelling to life, a thing born of fire and loneliness and the great -empty reaches between the stars, the savage rebellion of a mutant -child. They stood impassively watching the body until it lay quiet. -Then one of them stooped over and removed the shining glassy helmet.</p> - -<p>"He must have taken it for something he could use against us," said the -Janyard, turning the helmet in his hands; "but it wasn't adapted to his -sort of life. The old dwellers here looked human, but I don't think it -went any deeper than their skins."</p> - -<p>The woman commander looked down with a certain pity. "He was a brave -man," she said.</p> - -<p>"Wait—he's still alive, ma'm—he's sitting up—"</p> - -<p>Daryesh forced the shaking body to hands and knees. He felt its -sickness, wretched and cold in throat and nerves and muscles, and he -felt the roiling of fear and urgency in the brain. These were enemies. -There was death for a world and a civilization here. Most of all, he -felt the horrible numbness of the nervous system, deaf and dumb and -blind, cut off in its house of bone and peering out through five weak -senses....</p> - -<p>Vwyrdda, Vwyrdda, he was a prisoner in a brain without a telepathy -transceiver lobe. He was a ghost reincarnated in a thing that was half -a corpse!</p> - -<p>Strong arms helped him to his feet. "That was a foolish thing to try," -said the woman's cool voice.</p> - -<p>Daryesh felt strength flowing back as the nervous and muscular and -endocrine systems found a new balance, as his mind took over and fought -down the gibbering madness which had been Laird. He drew a shuddering -breath. Air in his nostrils after—how long? How long had he been dead?</p> - -<p>His eyes focused on the woman. She was tall and handsome. Ruddy hair -spilled from under a peaked cap, wide-set blue eyes regarded him -frankly out of a face sculptured in clean lines and strong curves and -fresh young coloring. For a moment he thought of Ilorna, and the old -sickness rose—then he throttled it and looked again at the woman and -smiled.</p> - -<p>It was an insolent grin, and she stiffened angrily. "Who are you, -Solman?" she asked.</p> - -<p>The meaning was dear enough to Daryesh, who had his—host's—memory -patterns and linguistic habits as well as those of Vwyrdda. He replied -steadily, "Lieutenant John Laird of the Imperial Solar Navy, at your -service. And your name?"</p> - -<p>"You are exceeding yourself," she replied with frost in her voice. "But -since I will wish to question you at length ... I am Captain Joana -Rostov of the Janyard Fleet. Conduct yourself accordingly."</p> - -<p>Daryesh looked around him. This wasn't good. He hadn't the chance now -to search Laird's memories in detail, but it was clear enough that this -was a force of enemies. The rights and wrongs of a quarrel ages after -the death of all that had been Vwyrdda meant nothing to him, but he -had to learn more of the situation, and be free to act as he chose. -Especially since Laird would presently be reviving and start to resist.</p> - -<p>The familiar sight of the machines was at once steadying and unnerving. -There were powers here which could smash planets! It looked barbaric, -this successor culture, and in any event the decision as to the use -of this leashed hell had to be his. His head lifted in unconscious -arrogance. <i>His!</i> For he was the last man of Vwyrdda, and they had -wrought the machines, and the heritage was his.</p> - -<p>He had to escape.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Joana Rostov was looking at him with an odd blend of hard suspicion -and half-frightened puzzlement. "There's something wrong about you, -Lieutenant," she said. "You don't behave like a man whose project has -just gone to smash. What was that helmet for?"</p> - -<p>Daryesh shrugged. "Part of a control device," he said easily. "In my -excitement I failed to adjust it properly. No matter. There are plenty -of other machines here."</p> - -<p>"What use to you?"</p> - -<p>"Oh—all sorts of uses. For instance, that one over there is a -nucleonic disintegrator, and this is a shield projector, and—"</p> - -<p>"You're lying. You can't know any more about this than we do."</p> - -<p>"Shall I prove it?"</p> - -<p>"Certainly not. Come back from there!"</p> - -<p>Coldly, Daryesh estimated distances. He had all the superb -psychosomatic coordination of his race, the training evolved through -millions of years, but the sub-cellular components would be lacking in -this body. Still—he had to take the chance.</p> - -<p>He launched himself against the Janyard who stood beside him. One hand -chopped into the man's larynx, the other grabbed him by the tunic and -threw him into the man beyond. In the same movement, Daryesh stepped -over the falling bodies, picked up the machine rifle which one had -dropped, and slammed over the switch of the magnetic shield projector -with its long barrel.</p> - -<p>Guns blazed in the dimness. Bullets exploded into molten spray as they -hit that fantastic magnetic field. Daryesh, behind it, raced through -the door and out the tunnel.</p> - -<p>They'd be after him in seconds, but this was a strong longlegged -body and he was getting the feel of it. He ran easily, breathing in -coordination with every movement, conserving his strength. He couldn't -master control of the involuntary functions yet, the nervous system was -too different, but he could last for a long while at this pace.</p> - -<p>He ducked into a remembered side passage. A rifle spewed a rain of -slugs after him as someone came through the magnetic field. He chuckled -in the dark. Unless they had mapped every labyrinthine twist and turn -of the tunnels, or had life-energy detectors, they'd never dare trail -him. They'd get lost and wander in here till they starved.</p> - -<p>Still, that woman had a brain. She'd guess he was making for the -surface and the boats, and try to cut him off. It would be a near -thing. He settled down to running.</p> - -<p>It was long and black and hollow here, cold with age. The air was dry -and dusty, little moisture could be left on Vwyrdda. How long has it -been? How long has it been?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>John Laird stirred back toward consciousness, stunned neurons lapsing -into familiar pathways of synapse, the pattern which was personality -fighting to restore itself. Daryesh stumbled as the groping mind -flashed a random command to his muscles, cursed, and willed the other -self back to blankness. Hold on, Daryesh, hold on, a few minutes only—</p> - -<p>He burst out of a small side entrance and stood in the tumbled -desolation of the valley. The keen tenuous air raked his sobbing lungs -as he looked wildly around at sand and stone and the alien stars. New -constellations—Gods, it had been a long time! The moon was larger than -he remembered, flooding the dead landscape with a frosty argence. It -must have spiraled close in all those uncounted ages.</p> - -<p>The boat! Hellblaze, where was the boat?</p> - -<p>He saw the Janyard ship not far away, a long lean torpedo resting on -the dunes, but it would be guarded—no use trying to steal it. Where -was this Laird's vessel, then?</p> - -<p>Tumbling through a confusion of alien memories, he recalled burying -it on the west side.... No, it wasn't he who had done that but Laird. -Damnation, he had to work fast. He plunged around the monstrous eroded -shape of the pyramid, found the long mound, saw the moongleam where the -wind had blown sand off the metal. What a clumsy pup this Laird was.</p> - -<p>He shoveled the sand away from the airlock, scooping with his hands, -the breath raw in throat and lungs. Any second now they'd be on him, -any instant, and now that they really believed he understood the -machines—</p> - -<p>The lock shone dully before him, cold under his hands. He spun the -outer dog, swearing with a frantic emotion foreign to old Vwyrdda, -but that was the habit of his host, untrained psychosomatically, -unevolved—There they came!</p> - -<p>Scooping up the stolen rifle, Daryesh fired a chattering burst at the -group that swarmed around the edge of the pyramid. They tumbled like -jointed dolls, screaming in the death-white moonlight. Bullets howled -around him and ricocheted off the boat-hull.</p> - -<p>He got the lock open as they retreated for another charge. For an -instant his teeth flashed under the moon, the cold grin of Daryesh the -warrior who had ruled a thousand suns in his day and led the fleets of -Vwyrdda.</p> - -<p>"Farewell, my lovelies," he murmured, and the remembered syllables of -the old planet were soft on his tongue.</p> - -<p>Slamming the lock behind him, he ran to the control room, letting John -Laird's almost unconscious habits carry him along. He got off to a -clumsy start—but then he was climbing for the sky, free and away—</p> - -<p>A fist slammed into his back, tossed him in his pilot chair to the -screaming roar of sundered metal. Gods, O gods, the Janyards had fired -a heavy ship's gun, they'd scored a direct hit on his engines and the -boat was whistling groundward again.</p> - -<p>Grimly, he estimated that the initial impetus had given him a good -trajectory, that he'd come down in the hills about a hundred miles -north of the valley. But then he'd have to run for it, they'd be -after him like beasts of prey in their ship—and John Laird would not -be denied, muscles were twitching and sinews tightening and throat -mumbling insanity as the resurgent personality fought to regain itself. -That was one battle he'd have to have out soon!</p> - -<p>Well—mentally, Daryesh shrugged. At worst, he could surrender to the -Janyards, make common cause with them. It really didn't matter who won -this idiotic little war. He had other things to do.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nightmare. John Laird crouched in a wind-worn cave and looked out over -hills lit by icy moonlight. Through a stranger's eyes, he saw the -Janyard ship landing near the down-glided wreck of his boat, saw the -glitter of steel as they poured out and started hunting. Hunting <i>him</i>.</p> - -<p>Or was it him any longer, was he more than a prisoner in his own skull? -He thought back to memories that were not his, memories of himself -thinking thoughts that were not his own, himself escaping from the -enemy while he, Laird, whirled in a black abyss of half-conscious -madness. Beyond that, he recalled his own life, and he recalled another -life which had endured a thousand years before it died. He looked out -on the wilderness of rock and sand and blowing dust, and remembered -it as it had been, green and fair, and remembered that he was Daryesh -of Tollogh, who had ruled over whole planetary systems in the Empire -of Vwyrdda. And at the same time he was John Laird of Earth, and two -streams of thought flowed through the brain, listening to each other, -shouting at each other in the darkness of his skull.</p> - -<p>A million years! Horror and loneliness and a wrenching sorrow were in -the mind of Daryesh as he looked upon the ruin of Vwyrdda. A million -years ago!</p> - -<p>Who are you? cried Laird. What have you done to me? And even as he -asked, memories which were his own now rose to answer him.</p> - -<p>It had been the Erai who rebelled, the Erai whose fathers came from -Vwyrdda the fair but who had been strangely altered by centuries -of environment. They had revolted against the static rule of the -Immortals, and in a century of warfare they had overrun half the Empire -and rallied its populations under them. And the Immortals had unleashed -their most terrible powers, the sun-smashing ultimate weapons which -had lain forbidden in the vaults of Vwyrdda for ten million years. -Only—the Erai had known about it. And they had had the weapons too.</p> - -<p>In the end, Vwyrdda went under, her fleets broken and her armies -reeling in retreat over ten thousand scorched planets. The triumphant -Erai had roared in to make an end of the mother world, and nothing in -all the mighty Imperial arsenals could stop them now.</p> - -<p>Theirs was an unstable culture, it could not endure as that of Vwyrdda -had. In ten thousand years or so, they would be gone, and the Galaxy -would not have even a memory of that which had been. Which was small -help to us, thought Laird grimly, and realized with an icy shock that -it had been the thought of Daryesh.</p> - -<p>The Vwyrddan's mental tone was, suddenly, almost conversational, and -Laird realized what an immensity of trained effort it must have taken -to overcome that loneliness of a million years. "See here, Laird, we -are apparently doomed to occupy the same body till one of us gets rid -of the other, and it is a body which the Janyards seem to want. Rather -than fight each other, which would leave the body helpless, we'd better -cooperate."</p> - -<p>"But—Lord, man! What do you think I am? Do you think I want a vampire -like you up there in my brain?"</p> - -<p>The answer was fierce and cold. "What of me, Laird? I, who was Daryesh -of Tollogh, lord of a thousand suns and lover of Ilorna the Fair, -immortalized noble of the greatest empire the universe has ever seen—I -am now trapped in the half-evolved body of a hunted alien, a million -years after the death of all which mattered. Better be glad I'm here, -Laird. I can handle those weapons, you know."</p> - -<p>The eyes looked out over the bleak windy hillscape, and the double -mind watched distance-dwarfed forms clambering in the rocks, searching -for a trail. "A hell of a lot of good that does us now," said Laird. -"Besides, I can hear you thinking, you know, and I can remember your -own past thoughts. Sol or Janya, it's the same to you. How do I know -you'll play ball with me?"</p> - -<p>The answer was instant, but dark with an unpleasant laughter. -"Why—read my mind, Laird! It's your mind too, isn't it?" Then, more -soberly: "Apparently history is repeating itself in the revolt of the -barbarians against the mother planet, though on a smaller scale and -with a less developed science. I do not expect the result to be any -happier for civilization than before. So perhaps I may take a more -effective hand than I did before."</p> - -<p>It was ghostly, lying here in the wind-grieved remnants of a world, -watching the hunters move through a bitter haze of moonlight, and -having thoughts which were not one's own, thoughts over which there was -no control. Laird clenched his fists, fighting for stability.</p> - -<p>"That's better," said Daryesh's sardonic mind. "But relax. Breathe -slowly and deeply, concentrate only on the breathing for a while—and -then search my mind which is also yours."</p> - -<p>"Shut up! Shut up!"</p> - -<p>"I am afraid that is impossible. We're in the same brain, you know, and -we'll have to get used to each other's streams of consciousness. Relax, -man, lie still; think over the thing which has happened to you and know -it for the wonder it is."</p> - -<p>Man, they say, is a time-binding animal. But only the mighty will and -yearning of Vwyrdda had ever leaped across the borders of death itself, -waited a million years that that which was a world might not die out of -all history.</p> - -<p>What is the personality? It is not a thing, discrete and material, it -is a pattern and a process. The body starts with a certain genetic -inheritance and meets all the manifold complexities of environment. The -whole organism is a set of reactions between the two. The primarily -mental component, sometimes called the ego, is not separable from the -body but can in some ways be studied apart.</p> - -<p>The scientists had found a way to save something of that which was -Daryesh. While the enemy was blazing and thundering at the gates of -Vwyrdda, while all the planet waited for the last battle and the -ultimate night, quiet men in laboratories had perfected the molecular -scanner so that the pattern of synapses which made up all memory, -habit, reflex, instinct, the continuity of the ego, could be recorded -upon the electronic structure of certain crystals. They took the -pattern of Daryesh and of none other, for only he of the remaining -Immortals was willing. Who else would want a pattern to be repeated, -ages after he himself was dead, ages after all the world and all -history and meaning were lost? But Daryesh had always been reckless, -and Ilorna was dead, and he didn't care much for what happened.</p> - -<p>Ilorna, Ilorna! Laird saw the unforgotten image rise in his memory, -golden-eyed and laughing, the long dark hair flowing around the lovely -suppleness of her. He remembered the sound of her voice and the -sweetness of her lips, and he loved her. A million years, and she was -dust blowing on the night wind, and he loved her with that part of -him which was Daryesh and with more than a little of John Laird.... O -Ilorna....</p> - -<p>And Daryesh the man had gone to die with his planet, but the crystal -pattern which reproduced the ego of Daryesh lay in the vault they -had made, surrounded by all the mightiest works of Vwyrdda. Sooner -or later, sometime in the infinite future of the universe, someone -would come; someone or something would put the helmet on his head and -activate it. And the pattern would be reproduced on the neurons, the -mind of Daryesh would live again, and he would speak for dead Vwyrdda -and seek to renew the tradition of fifty million years. It would be the -will of Vwyrdda, reaching across time—But Vwyrdda is <i>dead</i>, thought -Laird frantically. Vwyrdda is gone—this is a new history—you've got -no business telling us what to do!</p> - -<p>The reply was cold with arrogance. "I shall do as I see fit. Meanwhile, -I advise that you lie passive and do not attempt to interfere with me."</p> - -<p>"Cram it, Daryesh!" Laird's mouth drew back in a snarl. "I won't be -dictated to by anyone, let alone a ghost."</p> - -<p>Persuasively, the answer came, "At the moment, neither of us has much -choice. We are hunted, and if they have energy trackers—yes, I see -they do—they'll find us by this body's thermal radiation alone. Best -we surrender peaceably. Once aboard the ship, loaded with all the might -of Vwyrdda, our chance should come."</p> - -<p>Laird lay quietly, watching the hunters move closer, and the sense of -defeat came down on him like a falling world. What else could he do? -What other chance was there?</p> - -<p>"All right," he said at last, audibly. "All right. But I'll be watching -your every thought, understand? I don't think you can stop me from -committing suicide if I must."</p> - -<p>"I think I can. But opposing signals to the body will only neutralize -each other, leave it helplessly fighting itself. Relax, Laird, lie -back and let me handle this. I am Daryesh the warrior, and I have come -through harder battles than this."</p> - -<p>They rose and began walking down the hillside with arms lifted. -Daryesh's thought ran on, "Besides—that's a nice-looking wench in -command. It could be interesting!"</p> - -<p>His laughter rang out under the moon, and it was not the laughter of a -human being.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"I can't understand you, John Laird," said Joana.</p> - -<p>"Sometimes," replied Daryesh lightly, "I don't understand myself very -well—or you, my dear."</p> - -<p>She stiffened a little. "That will do, Lieutenant. Remember your -position here."</p> - -<p>"Oh, the devil with our ranks and countries. Let's be live entities for -a change."</p> - -<p>Her glance was quizzical. "That's an odd way for a Solman to phrase -it."</p> - -<p>Mentally, Daryesh swore. Damn this body, anyway! The strength, the -fineness of coordination and perception, half the senses he had known, -were missing from it. The gross brain structure couldn't hold the -reasoning powers he had once had. His thinking was dull and sluggish. -He made blunders the old Daryesh would never have committed. And this -young woman was quick to see them, and he was a prisoner of John -Laird's deadly enemies, and the mind of Laird himself was tangled in -thought and will and memory, ready to fight him if he gave the least -sign of—</p> - -<p>The Solarian's ego chuckled nastily. Easy, Daryesh, easy!</p> - -<p>Shut up! his mind snapped back, and he knew drearily that his own -trained nervous system would not have been guilty of such a childishly -emotional response.</p> - -<p>"I may as well tell you the truth, Captain Rostov," he said aloud. "I -am not Laird at all. Not any more."</p> - -<p>She made no response, merely drooped the lids over her eyes and leaned -back in her chair. He noticed abstractedly how long her lashes were—or -was that Laird's appreciative mind, unhindered by too much remembrance -of Ilorna?</p> - -<p>They sat alone, the two of them, in her small cabin aboard the Janyard -cruiser. A guard stood outside the door, but it was closed. From time -to time they would hear a dull thump or clang as the heavy machines of -Vwyrdda were dragged aboard—otherwise they might have been the last -two alive on the scarred old planet.</p> - -<p>The room was austerely furnished, but there were touches of the -feminine here and there—curtains, a small pot of flowers, a formal -dress hung in a half-open closet. And the woman who sat across the desk -from him was very beautiful, with the loosened ruddy hair streaming to -her shoulders and the brilliant eyes never wavering from his. But one -slender hand rested on a pistol.</p> - -<p>She had told him frankly, "I want to talk privately with you. There -is something I don't understand ... but I'll be ready to shoot at -the first suspicion of a false move. And even if you should somehow -overpower me, I'd be no good as a hostage. We're Janyards here, and the -ship is more than the life of any one of us."</p> - -<p>Now she waited for him to go on talking.</p> - -<p>He took a cigarette from the box on her desk—Laird's habits again—and -lit it and took a slow drag of smoke into his lungs. <i>All right, -Daryesh, go ahead. I suppose your idea is the best, if anything can be -made to work at all. But I'm listening, remember.</i></p> - -<p>"I am all that is left of this planet," he said tonelessly. "This is -the ego of Daryesh of Tollogh, Immortal of Vwyrdda, and in one sense I -died a million years ago."</p> - -<p>She remained quiet, but he saw how her hands clenched and he heard the -sharp small hiss of breath sucked between the teeth.</p> - -<p>Briefly, then, he explained how his mental pattern had been preserved, -and how it had entered the brain of John Laird.</p> - -<p>"You don't expect me to believe that story," she said contemptuously.</p> - -<p>"Do you have a lie detector aboard?"</p> - -<p>"I have one in this cabin, and I can operate it myself." She got up and -fetched the machine from a cabinet. He watched her, noticing the grace -of her movements. You died long ago, Ilorna—you died and the universe -will never know another like you. But I go on, and she reminds me -somehow of you.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was a small black thing that hummed and glowed on the desk between -them. He put the metal cap on his head, and took the knobs in his -hands, and waited while she adjusted the controls. From Laird's -memories, he recalled the principle of the thing, the measurement of -activity in separate brain-centers, the precise detection of the slight -extra energy needed in the higher cerebral cortex to invent a falsehood.</p> - -<p>"I have to calibrate," she said, "Make up something I know to be a lie."</p> - -<p>"New Egypt has rings," he smiled, "which are made of Limburger cheese. -However, the main body of the planet is a delicious Camembert—"</p> - -<p>"That will do. Now repeat your previous statements."</p> - -<p><i>Relax, Laird, damn it—blank yourself! I can't control this thing with -you interfering.</i></p> - -<p>He told his story again in a firm voice, and meanwhile he was working -within the brain of Laird, getting the feel of it, applying the lessons -of nerve control which had been part of his Vwyrddan education. It -should certainly be possible to fool a simple electronic gadget, to -heighten activity in all centers to such an extent that the added -effort of his creative cells could not be spotted.</p> - -<p>He went on without hesitation, wondering if the flickering needles -would betray him and if her gun would spit death into his heart in the -next moment: "Naturally, Laird's personality was completely lost, its -fixed patterns obliterated by the superimposition of my own. I have his -memories, but otherwise I am Daryesh of Vwyrdda, at your service."</p> - -<p>She bit her lip. "What service! You shot four of my men."</p> - -<p>"Consider my situation, woman. I came into instantaneous existence. -I remember sitting in the laboratory under the scanner, a slight -dizziness, and then immediately I was in an alien body. Its nervous -system was stunned by the shock of my entry, I couldn't think clearly. -All I had to go on was Laird's remembered conviction that these were -deadly foes surrounding me, murderous creatures bent on killing me and -wiping out my planet. I acted half-instinctively. Also, I wanted, in my -own personality, to be a free agent, to get away and think this out for -myself. So I did. I regret the death of your men, but I think they will -be amply compensated for."</p> - -<p>"H'm—you surrendered when we all but had you anyway."</p> - -<p>"Yes, of course, but I had about decided to do so in all events." -Her eyes never lifted from the dials that wavered life or death. "I -was, after all, in your territory, with little or no hope of getting -clear, and you were the winning side of this war, which meant nothing -to me emotionally. Insofar as I have any convictions in this matter, -it is that the human race will best be served by a Janyard victory. -History has shown that when the frontier cultures—which the old -empire calls barbaric but which are actually new and better adapted -civilizations—when they win out over the older and more conservative -nations, the result is a synthesis and a period of unusual achievement."</p> - -<p>He saw her visibly relaxing, and inwardly he smiled. It was so easy, so -easy. They were such children in this later age. All he had to do was -hand her a smooth lie which fitted in with the propaganda that had been -her mental environment from birth, and she could not seriously think of -him as an enemy.</p> - -<p>The blue gaze lifted to his, and the lips were parted. "You will help -us?" she whispered.</p> - -<p>Daryesh nodded. "I know the principles and construction and use of -those engines, and in truth there is in them the force that molds -planets. Your scientists would never work out the half of all that -there is to be found. I will show you the proper operation of them -all." He shrugged. "Naturally, I will expect commensurate rewards. But -even altruistically speaking, this is the best thing I can do. Those -energies should remain under the direction of one who understands -them, and not be misused in ignorance. That could lead to unimaginable -catastrophes."</p> - -<p>Suddenly she picked up her gun and shoved it back into its holster. She -stood up, smiling, and held out her hand.</p> - -<p>He shook it vigorously, and then bent over and kissed it. When he -looked up, she stood uncertain, half afraid and half glad.</p> - -<p><i>It's not fair!</i> protested Laird. The poor girl has never known -anything of this sort. She's never heard of coquetry. To her love isn't -a game, it's something mysterious and earnest and decent—</p> - -<p>I told you to shut up, answered Daryesh coldly. Look, man, even if we -do have an official safe-conduct, this is still a ship full of watchful -hostility. We have to consolidate our position by every means at hand. -Now relax and enjoy this.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He walked around the desk and took her hands again. "You know," he -said, and the crooked smile on his mouth reminded him that this was -more than half a truth, "you make me think of the woman I loved, a -million years ago on Vwyrdda."</p> - -<p>She shrank back a little. "I can't get over it," she whispered. -"You—you're old, and you don't belong to this cycle of time at all, -and what you must think and know makes me feel like a child—Daryesh, -it frightens me."</p> - -<p>"Don't let it, Joana," he said gently. "My mind is young, and very -lonely." He put a wistfulness in his voice. "Joana, I need someone to -talk to. You can't imagine what it is to wake up a million years after -all your world is dead, more alone than—oh, let me come in once in -awhile and talk to you, as one friend to another. Let's forget time and -death and loneliness. I need someone like you."</p> - -<p>She lowered her eyes, and said with a stubborn honesty, "I think that -would be good too, Daryesh. A ship's captain doesn't have friends, -you know. They put me in this service because I had the aptitude, and -that's really all I've ever had. Oh, comets!" She forced a laugh. "To -space with all that self-pity. Certainly you may come in whenever you -like. I hope it'll be often."</p> - -<p>They talked for quite a while longer, and when he kissed her goodnight -it was the most natural thing in the universe. He walked to his -bunk—transferred from the brig to a tiny unused compartment—with his -mind in pleasant haze.</p> - -<p>Lying in the dark, he began the silent argument with Laird anew. "Now -what?" demanded the Solarian.</p> - -<p>"We play it slow and easy," said Daryesh patiently—as if the fool -couldn't read it directly in their common brain. "We watch our chance, -but don't act for a while yet. Under the pretext of rigging the energy -projectors for action, we'll arrange a setup which can destroy the ship -at the flick of a switch. They won't know it. They haven't an inkling -about subspatial flows. Then, when an opportunity to escape offers -itself, we throw that switch and get away and try to return to Sol. -With my knowledge of Vwyrddan science, we can turn the tide of the war. -It's risky—sure—but it's the only chance I see. And for Heaven's sake -let me handle matters. You're supposed to be dead."</p> - -<p>"And what happens when we finally settle this business? How can I get -rid of you?"</p> - -<p>"Frankly, I don't see any way to do it. Our patterns have become too -entangled. The scanners necessarily work on the whole nervous system. -We'll just have to learn to live together." Persuasively: "It will be -to your own advantage. Think, man! We can do as we choose with Sol. -With the Galaxy. And I'll set up a life-tank and make us a new body to -which we'll transfer the pattern, a body with all the intelligence and -abilities of a Vwyrddan, and I'll immortalize it. Man, you'll never -die!"</p> - -<p>It wasn't too happy a prospect, thought Laird skeptically. His own -chances of dominating that combination were small. In time, his own -personality might be completely absorbed by Daryesh's greater one.</p> - -<p>Of course—a psychiatrist—narcosis, hypnosis—</p> - -<p>"No, you don't!" said Daryesh grimly. "I'm just as fond of my own -individuality as you are."</p> - -<p>The mouth which was theirs twisted wryly in the dark. "Guess we'll just -have to learn to love each other," thought Laird.</p> - -<p>The body dropped into slumber. Presently Laird's cells were asleep, his -personality faded into a shadowland of dreams. Daryesh remained awake -a while longer. Sleep—waste of time—the Immortals had never been -plagued by fatigue—</p> - -<p>He chuckled to himself. What a web of lies and counterlies he had -woven. If Joana and Laird both knew—</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The mind is an intricate thing. It can conceal facts from itself, -make itself forget that which is painful to remember, persuade its -own higher components of whatever the subconscious deems right. -Rationalization, schizophrenia, autohypnosis, they are but pale -indications of the self-deception which the brain practices. And the -training of the Immortals included full neural coordination; they could -consciously utilize the powers latent in themselves. They could by an -act of conscious will stop the heart, or block off pain, or split their -own personalities.</p> - -<p>Daryesh had known his ego would be fighting whatever host it found, -and he had made preparations before he was scanned. Only a part of -his mind was in full contact with Laird's. Another section, split off -from the main stream of consciousness by deliberate and controlled -schizophrenia, was thinking its own thoughts and making its own plans. -Self-hypnotized, he automatically reunited his ego at such times as -Laird was not aware, otherwise there was only subconscious contact. In -effect a private compartment of his mind, inaccessible to the Solarian, -was making its own plans.</p> - -<p>That destructive switch would have to be installed to satisfy Laird's -waking personality, he thought. But it would never be thrown. For he -had been telling Joana that much of the truth—his own advantage lay -with the Janyards, and he meant to see them through to final victory.</p> - -<p>It would be simple enough to get rid of Laird temporarily. Persuade him -that for some reason it was advisable to get dead drunk. Daryesh's more -controlled ego would remain conscious after Laird's had passed out. -Then he could make all arrangements with Joana, who by that time should -be ready to do whatever he wanted.</p> - -<p>Psychiatry—yes, Laird's brief idea had been the right one. The methods -of treating schizophrenia could, with some modifications, be applied -to suppressing Daryesh's extra personality. He'd blank out that -Solarian ... permanently.</p> - -<p>And after that would come his undying new body, and centuries and -millennia in which he could do what he wanted with this young -civilization.</p> - -<p>The demon exorcising the man—He grinned drowsily. Presently he slept.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The ship drove through a night of stars and distance. Time was -meaningless, was the position of the hands on a clock, was -the succession of sleeps and meals, was the slow shift in the -constellations as they gulped the light-years.</p> - -<p>On and on, the mighty drone of the second-order drive filling their -bones and their days, the round of work and food and sleep and Joana. -Laird wondered if it would ever end. He wondered if he might not be the -Flying Dutchman, outward bound for eternity, locked in his own skull -with the thing that had possessed him. At such times the only comfort -was in Joana's arms. He drew of the wild young strength of her, and he -and Daryesh were one. But afterward—</p> - -<p>We're going to join the Grand Fleet. You heard her, Daryesh. She's -making a triumphal pilgrimage to the gathered power of Janya, bringing -the invincible weapons of Vwyrdda to her admiral.</p> - -<p>Why not? She's young and ambitious, she wants glory as much as you do. -What of it?</p> - -<p>We have to escape before she gets there. We have to steal a lifeboat -and destroy this ship and all in it soon.</p> - -<p>All in it? Joana Rostov, too?</p> - -<p>Damn it, we'll kidnap her or something. You know I'm in love with the -girl, you devil. But it's a matter of all Earth. This one cruiser has -enough stuff in it now to wreck a planet. I have parents, brothers, -friends—a civilization. We've got to act!</p> - -<p>All right, all right, Laird. But take it easy. We have to get the -energy devices installed first. We'll have to give them enough of a -demonstration to allay their suspicions. Joana's the only one aboard -here who trusts us. None of her officers do.</p> - -<p>The body and the double mind labored as the slow days passed, directing -Janyard technicians who could not understand what it was they built. -Laird, drawing on Daryesh's memories, knew what a giant slept in -those coils and tubes and invisible energy-fields. Here were forces -to trigger the great creative powers of the universe and turn them to -destruction—distorted space-time, atoms dissolving into pure energy, -vibrations to upset the stability of force-fields which maintained -order in the cosmos. Laird remembered the ruin of Vwyrdda, and -shuddered.</p> - -<p>They got a projector mounted and operating, and Daryesh suggested that -the cruiser halt somewhere that he could prove his words. They picked -a barren planet in an uninhabited system and lay in an orbit fifty -thousand miles out. In an hour Daryesh had turned the facing hemisphere -into a sea of lava.</p> - -<p>"If the dis-fields were going," he said absent-mindedly, "I'd pull the -planet into chunks for you."</p> - -<p>Laird saw the pale taut faces around him. Sweat was shining on -foreheads, and a couple of men looked sick. Joana forgot her position -enough to come shivering into his arms.</p> - -<p>But the visage she lifted in a minute was exultant and eager, with -the thoughtless cruelty of a swooping hawk. "There's an end of Earth, -gentlemen!"</p> - -<p>"Nothing they have can stop us," murmured her exec dazedly. "Why, this -one ship, protected by one of those spacewarp screens you spoke of, -sir—this one little ship could sail in and lay the Solar System waste."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Daryesh nodded. It was entirely possible. Not much energy was required, -since the generators of Vwyrdda served only as catalysts releasing -fantastically greater forces. And Sol had none of the defensive science -which had enabled his world to hold out for a while. Yes, it could be -done.</p> - -<p>He stiffened with the sudden furious thought of Laird: That's it, -Daryesh! That's the answer.</p> - -<p>The thought-stream was his own too, flowing through the same brain, and -indeed it was simple. They could have the whole ship armed and armored -beyond the touch of Janya. And since none of the technicians aboard -understood the machines, and since they were now wholly trusted, they -could install robotcontrols without anyone's knowing.</p> - -<p>Then—the massed Grand Fleet of Janya—a flick of the main -switch—man-killing energies would flood the cruiser's interior, and -only corpses would remain aboard. Dead men and the robots that would -open fire on the Fleet. This one ship could ruin all the barbarian -hopes in a few bursts of incredible flame. And the robots could then be -set to destroy her as well, lest by some chance the remaining Janyards -manage to board her.</p> - -<p>And we—we can escape in the initial confusion, Daryesh. We can give -orders to the robot to spare the captain's gig, and we can get Joana -aboard and head for Sol! There'll be no one left to pursue!</p> - -<p>Slowly, the Vwyrddan's thought made reply: A good plan. Yes, a bold -stroke. We'll do it!</p> - -<p>"What's the matter, Daryesh?" Joana's voice was suddenly anxious. "You -look—"</p> - -<p>"Just thinking, that's all. Never think, Captain Rostov. Bad for the -brain."</p> - -<p>Later, as he kissed her, Laird felt ill at thought of the treachery -he planned. Her friends, her world, her cause—wiped out in a single -shattering blow, and he would have struck it. He wondered if she would -speak to him ever again, once it was over.</p> - -<p>Daryesh, the heartless devil, seemed only to find a sardonic amusement -in the situation.</p> - -<p>And later, when Laird slept, Daryesh thought that the young man's -scheme was good. Certainly he'd fall in with it. It would keep Laird -busy till they were at the Grand Fleet rendezvous. And after that -it would be too late. The Janyard victory would be sealed. All he, -Daryesh, had to do when the time came was keep away from that master -switch. If Laird tried to reach it their opposed wills would only -result in nullity—which was victory for Janya.</p> - -<p>He liked this new civilization. It had a freshness, a vigor and -hopefulness which he could not find in Laird's memories of Earth. It -had a tough-minded purposefulness that would get it far. And being -young and fluid, it would be amenable to such pressures of psychology -and force as he chose to apply.</p> - -<p>Vwyrdda, his mind whispered. Vwyrdda, we'll make them over in your -image. You'll live again!</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Grand Fleet!</p> - -<p>A million capital ships and their auxiliaries lay marshaled at a dim -red dwarf of a sun, massed together and spinning in the same mighty -orbit. Against the incandescent whiteness of stars and the blackness -of the old deeps, armored flanks gleamed like flame as far as eyes -could see, rank after rank, tier upon tier, of titanic sharks swimming -through space—guns and armor and torpedoes and bombs and men to smash -a planet and end a civilization. The sight was too big, imagination -could not make the leap, and the human mind had only a dazed impression -of vastness beyond vision.</p> - -<p>This was the great spearhead of Janya, a shining lance poised to drive -through Sol's thin defense lines and roar out of the sky to rain hell -on the seat of empire. They can't really be human any more, thought -Laird sickly. Space and strangeness have changed them too much. No -human being could think of destroying Man's home. Then, fiercely: All -right Daryesh. This is our chance!</p> - -<p>Not yet, Laird. Wait a while. Wait till we have a legitimate excuse for -leaving the ship.</p> - -<p>Well—come up to the control room with me. I want to stay near that -switch. Lord, Lord, everything that is Man and me depends on us now!</p> - -<p>Daryesh agreed with a certain reluctance that faintly puzzled the -part of his mind open to Laird. The other half, crouched deep in his -subconscious, knew the reason: It was waiting the posthypnotic signal, -the key event which would trigger its emergence into the higher -brain-centers.</p> - -<p>The ship bore a tangled and unfinished look. All its conventional -armament had been ripped out and the machines of Vwyrdda installed in -its place. A robot brain, half-alive in its complexity, was gunner and -pilot and ruling intelligence of the vessel now, and only the double -mind of one man knew what orders had really been given it. <i>When the -main switch is thrown, you will flood the ship with ten units of -disrupting radiation. Then, when the captain's gig is well away, you -will destroy this fleet, sparing only that one boat. When no more -ships in operative condition are in range, you will activate the -disintegrators and dissolve this whole vessel and all its contents to -basic energy.</i></p> - -<p>With a certain morbid fascination, Laird looked at that switch. An -ordinary double-throw knife type—Lord of space, could it be possible, -was it logical that all history should depend on the angle it made with -the control panel? He pulled his eyes away, stared out at the swarming -ships and the greater host of the stars, lit a cigaret with shaking -hands, paced and sweated and waited.</p> - -<p>Joana came to him, a couple of crewmen marching solemnly behind. Her -eyes shone and her cheeks were flushed and the turret light was like -molten copper in her hair. No woman, thought Laird, had ever been so -lovely, and he was going to destroy that to which she had given her -life.</p> - -<p>"Daryesh!" Laughter danced in her voice. "Daryesh, the high -admiral wants to see us in his flagship. He'll probably ask for a -demonstration, and then I think the fleet will start for Sol at once -with us in the van. Daryesh—oh, Daryesh, the war is almost over!"</p> - -<p>Now! blazed the thought of Laird, and his hand reached for the main -switch. Now—easily, causally, with a remark about letting the -generators warm up—and then go with her, overpower those guardsmen in -their surprise and head for home!</p> - -<p>And Daryesh's mind reunited itself at that signal, and the hand -froze....</p> - -<p>No!</p> - -<p><i>What? But</i>—</p> - -<p>The memory of the suppressed half of Daryesh's mind was open to Laird, -and the triumph of the whole of it, and Laird knew that his defeat was -here.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>So simple, so cruelly simple—Daryesh could stop him, lock the body in -a conflict of wills, and that would be enough. For while Laird slept, -while Daryesh's own major ego was unconscious, the trained subconscious -of the Vwyrddan had taken over. It had written, in its self-created -somnambulism, a letter to Joana explaining the whole truth, and had put -it where it would easily be found once they started looking through -his effects in search of an explanation for his paralysis. And the -letter directed, among other things, that Daryesh's body should be -kept under restraint until certain specified methods known to Vwyrddan -psychiatry—drugs, electric waves, hypnosis—had been applied to -eradicate the Laird half of his mind.</p> - -<p>Janyard victory was near.</p> - -<p>"Daryesh!" Joana's voice seemed to come from immensely far away; her -face swam in a haze and a roar of fainting consciousness. "Daryesh, -what's the matter? Oh, my dear, what's wrong?"</p> - -<p>Grimly, the Vwyrddan thought: Give up, Laird. Surrender to me, and you -can keep your ego. I'll destroy that letter. See, my whole mind is open -to you now—you can see that I mean it honestly this time. I'd rather -avoid treatment if possible, and I do owe you something. But surrender -now, or be wiped out of your own brain.</p> - -<p>Defeat and ruin—and nothing but slow distorting death as reward for -resistance. Laird's will caved in, his mind too chaotic for clear -thought. Only one dull impulse came: I give up. You win, Daryesh.</p> - -<p>The collapsed body picked itself off the floor. Joana was bending -anxiously over him. "Oh, what is it, what's wrong?"</p> - -<p>Daryesh collected himself and smiled shakily. "Excitement will do this -to me, now and then. I haven't fully mastered this alien nervous system -yet. I'm all right now. Let's go."</p> - -<p>Laird's hand reached out and pulled the switch over.</p> - -<p>Daryesh shouted, an animal roar from the throat, and tried to recover -it, and the body toppled again in a stasis of locked wills.</p> - -<p>It was like a deliverance from hell, and still it was but the -inevitable logic of events, as Laird's own self reunited. Half of him -still shaking with defeat, half realizing its own victory, he thought -savagely:</p> - -<p>None of them noticed me do that. They were paying too much attention -to my face. Or if they did, we've proved to them before that it's only -a harmless regulating switch. And—the lethal radiations are already -flooding us! If you don't cooperate now, Daryesh, I'll hold us here -till we're both dead!</p> - -<p>So simple, so simple. Because, sharing Daryesh's memory, Laird had -shared his knowledge of self-deception techniques. He had anticipated, -with the buried half of his mind, that the Vwyrddan might pull some -such trick, and had installed a posthypnotic command of his own. In a -situation like this, when everything looked hopeless, his conscious -mind was to surrender, and then his subconscious would order that the -switch be thrown.</p> - -<p>Cooperate, Daryesh! You're as fond of living as I. Cooperate, and let's -get the hell out of here!</p> - -<p>Grudgingly, wryly: You win, Laird.</p> - -<p>The body rose again, and leaned on Joana's arm, and made its slow way -toward the boat blisters. The undetectable rays of death poured through -them, piling up their cumulative effects. In three minutes, a nervous -system would be ruined.</p> - -<p>Too slow, too slow. "Come on, Joana. Run!"</p> - -<p>"Why—" She stopped, and a hard suspicion came into the faces of the -two men behind her. "Daryesh—what do you mean? What's come over you?"</p> - -<p>"Ma'm...." One of the crewmen stepped forward. "Ma'm, I wonder ... I -saw him pull down the main switch. And now he's in a hurry to leave the -ship. And none of us really know how all that machinery ticks."</p> - -<p>Laird pulled the gun out of Joana's holster and shot him. The other -gasped, reaching for his own side arm, and Laird's weapon blazed again.</p> - -<p>His fist leaped out, striking Joana on the angle of the jaw, and she -sagged. He caught her up and started to run.</p> - -<p>A pair of crewmen stood in the corridor leading to the boats. "What's -the matter, sir?" one asked.</p> - -<p>"Collapsed—radiation from the machines—got to get her to a hospital -ship," gasped Daryesh.</p> - -<p>They stood aside, wonderingly, and he spun the dogs of the blister -valve and stepped into the gig. "Shall we come, sir?" asked one of the -men.</p> - -<p>"No!" Laird felt a little dizzy. The radiation was streaming through -him, and death was coming with giant strides. "No—" He smashed a fist -into the insistent face, slammed the valve back, and vaulted to the -pilot's chair.</p> - -<p>The engines hummed, warming up. Fists and feet battered on the valve. -The sickness made him retch.</p> - -<p>O Joana, if this kills you—</p> - -<p>He threw the main-drive switch. Acceleration jammed him back as the gig -leaped free.</p> - -<p>Staring out the ports, he saw fire blossom in space as the great guns -of Vwyrdda opened up.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> - <p><i>He saw fire blossom in space as the great guns of Vwyrdda opened up.</i></p> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>My glass was empty. I signalled for a refill and sat wondering just how -much of the yarn one could believe.</p> - -<p>"I've read the histories," I said slowly. "I do know that some -mysterious catastrophe annihilated the massed fleet of Janya and turned -the balance of the war. Sol speared in and won inside of a year. And -you mean that you did it?"</p> - -<p>"In a way. Or Daryesh did. We were acting as one personality, you know. -He was a thorough-going realist, and the moment he saw his defeat he -switched whole-heartedly to the other side."</p> - -<p>"But—Lord, man! Why've we never heard anything about this? You mean -you never told anyone, never rebuilt any of those machines, never did -anything?"</p> - -<p>Laird's dark, worn face twisted in a bleak smile. "Certainly. This -civilization isn't ready for such things. Even Vwyrdda wasn't, and -it'll take us millions of years to reach their stage. Besides, it was -part of the bargain."</p> - -<p>"Bargain?"</p> - -<p>"Just as certainly. Daryesh and I still had to live together, you know. -Life under suspicion of mutual trickery, never trusting your own brain, -would have been intolerable. We reached an agreement during that long -voyage back to Sol, and used Vwyrddan methods of autohypnosis to assure -that it could not be broken."</p> - -<p>He looked somberly out at the lunar night. "That's why I said the -genie in the bottle killed me. Inevitably, the two personalities -merged, became one. And that one was, of course, mostly Daryesh, with -overtones of Laird.</p> - -<p>"Oh, it isn't so horrible. We retain the memories of our separate -existences, and the continuity which is the most basic attribute of -the ego. In fact, Laird's life was so limited, so blind to all the -possibilities and wonder of the universe, that I don't regret him very -often. Once in a while I still get nostalgic moments and have to talk -to a human. But I always pick one who won't know whether or not to -believe me, and won't be able to do much of anything about it if he -should."</p> - -<p>"And why did you go into Survey?" I asked, very softly.</p> - -<p>"I want to get a good look at the universe before the change. Daryesh -wants to orient himself, gather enough data for a sound basis of -decision. When we—I—switch over to the new immortal body, there'll -be work to do, a galaxy to remake in a newer and better pattern by -Vwyrddan standards! It'll take millennia, but we've got all time -before us. Or I do—what do I mean, anyway?" He ran a hand through his -gray-streaked hair.</p> - -<p>"But Laird's part of the bargain was that there should be as nearly -normal a human life as possible until this body gets inconveniently -old. So—" He shrugged. "So that's how it worked out."</p> - -<p>We sat for a while longer, saying little, and then he got up. "Excuse -me," he said. "There's my wife. Thanks for the talk."</p> - -<p>I saw him walk over to greet a tall, handsome red-haired woman. His -voice drifted back: "Hello, Joana—"</p> - -<p>They walked out of the room together in perfectly ordinary and human -fashion.</p> - -<p>I wonder what history has in store for us.</p> - -<pre style='margin-top:6em'> -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD OF A THOUSAND SUNS *** - -This file should be named 63993-h.htm or 63993-h.zip - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/9/63993/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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