When the Star Kings Die
Reviewed date: 2025 Sep 10
Rating: 2
162 pages
Star King
I confess I read this one simply because I've already read Star King by Jack Vance and The Star Kings by Edmond Hamilton. Well, that and the Jack Gaughan cover art. This one is a fairly paint-by-numbers adventure, I'm afraid, but it's well-done for what it is.
The Star Kings: an infodump
We start out with a little infodump.
See, then, II Galaxy.
It wheels and a billion stars wheel with it, far in space from the First Home, the Earth, far in future time from the Out-riding in the lightships, that now-ancient history which carried man out past the point of returning, to where he could become, without aid from the First Home, the master II Galaxy.
In II Galaxy, savagery and opulence live side by side in an uneasy tension on planet after planet. Common people of all the star races, Terran and otherwise, grub out existence in near-primitive surroundings, ruled by the loose confederation of ageless, deathless star kings—
The Lords of the Exchange.
Those Lords of the Exchange are the star kings, and they're descended from ancient Earth corporations. For example, there are Genmo and Fomoko and Unilev and Mishubi. It's a little odd that corporation names are still around, even more so that they've all morphed into hereditary dictatorial fiefdoms. The star kings are practically immortal, living eight or nine hundred years.
Also odd is that everybody, and I mean everybody, talks about II Galaxy, or more often, simply, II. That's such an awkward turn of phrase.
Dragonard
Our hero Maxmillion Dragonard is a Regulator, which is what they call policeman in II. (See how odd that is? Who talks like that?) Or rather, he's a former Regulator: Dragonard is subject to fits of what he calls the redness. Dragonard bemoans this medical disability, which he claims is a brain problem that causes him to lose control of his emotions and go into uncontrollable rages. It's completely out of his control, and in one rage he beat a suspect to death. That got him sent to prison, as it should! Dragonard is now serving a life sentence on the prison planet Rankor.
Prison break
You can't keep a Dragonard in prison though. He and fellow inmate Tingo Spellhands stage a daring escape, which almost works. It doesn't, though. But surprise, just as Dragonard is about to be recaptured he is rescued by his old Regulator colleagues.
The Regulators sprang him from prison? Sure! His old boss, Sectioner Jonas Valk, explains: the star kings are dying young and nobody knows why. It's been hushed up, but something is afoot, and it might have something to do with a small rebel group called the Heart Flag movement. Someone needs to investigate, and it's got to be done off the books, so Dragonard is the man for the job. His friends set him up with money, clothes, and forged identity papers, and send him off on a spaceliner bound for the planet Pentagon where he is to meet up with the Heart Flaggers and figure out what's going on.
The redness
Dragonard makes a big deal about how his fits of redness are a medical disability and completely out of his control. I'm not so sure. The redness only rises when Dragonard puts himself into highly charged, violent situations. For example, after he boards the ship to Pentagon to start his secret mission, the first thing Dragonard does is head to the casino, chat up a girl, and then join a high-stakes game of dice. He loses. He gets angry. He catches a player cheating. He violently confronts the player and starts a fight. The other guy fights back. Then the redness comes upon Dragonard: he loses control and nearly kills the guy.
Yeah…Dragonard doesn't have a medical condition: he's just an angry, violent man who makes poor choices. He should be in prison.
High Commander Thomas St. Anne and star king Mishubi II
Dragonard is bad at undercover work. On Pentagon he immediately gets picked up by the authorities and brought before the boss of the Regulators, High Commander Thomas St. Anne. Dragonard thinks this is a good thing, but quickly realizes that whatever the conspiracy is, St. Anne is in on it. St. Anne and the star king Mishubi II are conspiring together, and they throw Dragonard into a dungeon beneath the Fortress Starmarch.
Kristin, Jeremy, Bel, and Methuselah
Dragonard makes a friend in prison: a young man named Jeremy Lynx. With help from a young woman named Kristin (who he had previously met on the spaceship en route to Pentagon; Kristin works for St. Anne but is clearly smitten with Dragonard) and with coordination from outside forces (the Heart Flag movement attacks Fortress Starmarch), Dragonard and Jeremy escape and join up with the Heart Flaggers. Jeremy reveals that he is actually Methuselah, the leader of Heart Flag. Jeremy introduces Dragonard to his sister, Bel, and now Dragonard has two love interests. One of them is surely going to die.
Showdown at Kalrath
Jeremy is coy at first, but eventually reveals that the Heart Flag movement has seized control of Kalrath, a secret medical facility deep in the North Wastes of Pentagon. It's the organ bank facility where star kings go to get transplants: new kidneys, new lungs, new intestines, new skin, new blood, new hearts and livers and eyes and brains. It's medical technology that the star kings have long claimed is lost, but which in reality they've been hoarding for themselves for thousands of years. They can do more than transplants, too: they rebuild Dragonard's brain cell-by-cell and correct the error that causes the redness. He's cured.
Mishubi II and St. Anne attack the Heart Flag army with a detachment of Regulators, and are beaten back. Mishubi changes tactics: he agrees to discuss terms. Jeremy lays out the plan: the Heart Flaggers will retain control of Kalrath for five years, during which time the star kings will "discover" the secrets of organ transplant and life extension, which they can benevolently give "to all the people of II." (Once again, who talks that way?) When "every adult and child in II Galaxy can be reborn medically the same way the Lords are reborn," Jeremy will give Kalrath back. Mishubi, representing all the star kings, reluctantly agrees.
It's a trick, of course. During a dinner celebrating the successful negotiations, St. Anne has Kristin dance for everyone's entertainment. She slips and falls on a knife which St. Anne has been carelessly and drunkenly waving about. While everyone is distracted trying to get Kristin down to the organ banks to save her life, Mishubi and St. Anne's forces sneak into Kalrath and retake the facility.
Jeremy is mentally broken by the defeat. Dragonard takes the initiative and singlehandedly re-infiltrates Kalrath, stabs St. Anne to death, plants a bomb, and blows the whole place up. Kalrath is gone, the life-prolonging medical technology is gone, Mishubi is dead, and without the organ banks, the rest of the star kings will soon die. Kristin also is dead.
Denouement
Dragonard is certain that when the Heart Flag movement tells II Galaxy about Kalrath and the organ banks, the knowledge that medical life extension is possible will spur research and the technology will soon be rediscovered. Long life will belong to everyone in II Galaxy.
Dragonard mourns for Kristin. Bel is wise enough to let him do so, and to let him know that she will be right there by his side when he's ready.