“I say so,” Seaton said, flatly. “You’re hitting bottom right now. You’re using half-grown
kids: girls, even. How many weeks is it going to be before you don’t make quota and
your town and everything and everybody in it get turned into a lake of lava?”
Prenk trembled visibly and his face turned white. “You win,” he said unsteadily, and put
his pistol back into the top right-hand drawer of his desk. “Whoever you are, you know
the score and aren’t afraid to talk about it. You’d have no papers, of course-on you, at
least . . . Let’s see your arm.”
“No number.” Seaton rolled up his left sleeve and held his forearm out for examination.
“Look close. Scars left by good surgery are fine, but they can’t be made invisible.”
“I know they can’t.” His Honor looked very closely indeed, then drew a tremendously
deep breath of relief. “You are a wilder! You mean to say you’ve been up in the hills
ever since the Conquest without getting caught?”
“That’s right. I told you I’m smart, and the brains of a whole platoon of chasseurs, all
concentrated down into one, wouldn’t equip a half-witted duck.”
“But they’ve got dogs!”
“Yeah, but they aren’t smart, either. Not very much smarter than the chasseurs are.
Hell, I’ve been living on those dogs half the time. Pretty tough, fried or roasted, but
boiled long enough they make mighty tasty stew.”
“Mi-Ko-Ta’s beard! Who are you, really, and what were you, before?”
“I told you, I’m Ky-El Mokak. I am-was, rather-a Class Twelve Fellow of the Institute of
Mining Engineers. Recognize the ring?” Seaton went to the desk and placed his left
hand flat on its surface.
Prenk studied the massive ornament. It had been fabricated, in strict external accord
with the Brain’s visualization of what it should have been, from synthesized meteoric
metal metal that had actually never been in open space, to say nothing of ever having
been anywhere near the gray-lichened walls of the revered Institute that Seaton had
never seen.
Having examined the ring minutely, Prenk looked up and nodded; his whole manner
changed. “I recognize the ring and I can read the symbols. A Twelve! It’s a shame to
register and brand you. If you say so I’ll let it drop.”
“I’ll say so. I’m not committing myself that deep yet.”
“All right, but why did you come in? Or is it true that whatever undergrounds spring up
are smashed flat in a week?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t find any. Not one, – and I searched every square mile for a
thousand miles north, east, south, and west of here. And I didn’t find anybody who
wasn’t too dangerous to travel with, and I’m gregarious. Also, I don’t like caves and I
don’t like camp cooking and I don’t like living off the land-and I do like music and books
and art and educated people and so on-in other words, I found out that I can’t revert to
savagery. And, not least, I like women and there aren’t any out there. What few ever
make it up there die fast.”
“I’m beginning to believe you.” A little of the worry and harassment left His Honor’s face.
“One more question. Why, knowing the jam we’re in, did you come here instead of
going somewhere where you’d be safe?”
“Because, on the basis of stuff I picked up here and there, you and I together can make
it safe here. I can fix your mining machinery easily enough so you can make quota
every week with no sweat; so the town won’t get slagged down; not right away, anyway.
You aren’t a quisling, and my best guess is that most of the spies and storm troopers
have sneaked out or have been pulled out because of what’s supposed to be about to
happen here,” Seaton said.
Prenk stared thoughtfully at Seaton. “You don’t appear to be the suicidal type. But you
know as well as I do that just making quota won’t be enough for very long. What have
you really got in mind, Ky-El Mokak?”
Seaton thought for a moment. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he dug down into his
baggy breeches and brought out two closely folded headsets.
“Put one of these on. It isn’t a player or a recorder; just a kind of super-telephone. A fast
way of exchanging information.”
Prenk wore it for a couple of minutes, then took it off, staring suspiciously in turn at it
and at Seaton. “Why didn’t I ever hear of anything like that before?” he demanded.
Seaton didn’t answer the question and Prenk went on, “Oh; secret. Okay. But what
makes you think you can set up an underground right out here in the open?”
“There’s no reason in the world why we can’t,” Seaton declared. “Especially since we’d
just be reviving one that everybody, including the Premier and you yourself, thinks is
smashed flat and is about to be liquidated.”
This was the second really severe test Seaton had made of the Brain’s visualizations,
and it too stood solidly up. All Prenk said was, “You’re doing the talking; keep it up,” but
his hands, clenching tightly into fists, showed that Seaton’s shot had struck the mark.
“I’ve talked enough,” Seaton said then. “From here on rd be just guessing. It’s your turn
to talk.”
“All right. It’s too late now, I’m afraid, for anything to make any difference. Yes, I was the
leader of a faction that believed in decent, humane, civilized government, but we
weren’t here then, we were in the capital. Our coup failed. And those of us who were
caught were exiled here and arrangements were made for us to be the next wipe-out.”
“Some of your party survived, then. Could you interest them again, do you think?”
“Without arms and equipment, no. That was why we failed.”
“Equipment would be no problem.”
“It wouldn’t?” Prenk’s eyes began to light up.
“No.” Seaton did not elaborate, but went on, “The problem is people and morale. I can’t
supply people and we have to start here, not over in the capital. Self-preservation.
We’ve got to make quota. Your people have been hammered down so flat that they
don’t give a whoop whether they live or die. As I said, I can fix the machinery, but that of
itself won’t be enough. We’ll have to give ’em a shot in the arm of hope.”
“Okay, and thanks.”
And no one in the outer office, not even the secretary, so much as looked up as the two
men, talking busily, walked out.
DuQuesne, en route to Earth, knew just what a madhouse Earth was, and in just what
respects. He knew just how nearly impossible it was to buy machine tools of any kind.
He also knew just what an immense job it was going to be to build a duplicate of the
Skylark of Valeron. Or, rather, to build the tools that would build the machines that
would in turn build the planetoid. With his high-order constructors he could build most of
those primary machine tools himself; perhaps all of them in time; but time was exactly
what he did not have. Time was decidedly of the essence.
DuQuesne’s ex-employer, The World Steel Corporation, had billions of dollars’ worth of
exactly the kind of tooling he had to have. They not only used it, they manufactured it
and sold it. And what of it they did not manufacture they could buy. How they could buy!
As a result of many years of intensive, highly organized, and well directed snooping,
Brookings of Steel had over a thousand very effective handles upon over a thousand
very important men.
And he, DuQuesne, had a perfect handle on Brookings. He was much harder and more
ruthless than Brookings was, and Brookings knew it. He could make Brookings buy his
primary tooling for him-enough of it to stuff the Capital D to her outer skin. And he
would do just that.
Wherefore, as soon as he got within working range of Earth, he launched his projection
directly into Brookings’ private office. This time, the tycoon was neither calm nor quiet.
Standing behind his desk, chair lying on its side behind him, he was leaning forward
with his left hand flat on the top of his desk. He was clutching a half-smoked, half
chewed cigar in his right hand and brandishing it furiously in the air. He was yelling at
his terrified secretary; who, partly standing in front of her chair and partly crouching into
it, was trying to muster up courage to run.
When DuQuesne’s projection appeared Brookings fell silent for a moment and goggled.
Then he screamed. “Get out of here, you!” at the girl, who scuttled frantically away. He
hurled what was left of his cigar into his big bronze ashtray, where it disintegrated into a
shower of sparks and a slathery mess of soggy, sticky brown leaves. And finally,
exerting everything he had of self-control, he picked his chair up, sat down in it and