glared at DuQuesne.
“Careful of your apoplexy, Fat,” DuQuesne sneered then. “I’ve told you-you’ll rupture
your aorta some day and that will just about break my heart.”
Brookings’ reply to that was unprintable; after which he went on, even more bitterly,
“This is all it lacks to make this a perfect day.”
“Yeah,” DuQuesne agreed, callously. “Some days you can’t lay up a cent. I suppose
you’ve been eager to know why I didn’t return your goons to you.”
“There’s nothing in the world I’m less interested in.”
“I’ll tell you anyway, for the record.” DuQuesne did not know what had actually
happened, but Brookings was never to know that. “They each got one free shot, as I
said they would. But they missed!”
“Skip that, Doctor,” Brookings said, brusquely. “You didn’t come here for that. What do
you want this time?”
DuQuesne reached over, took a ball-point out of Brookings’ pocket, tore the top sheet
off of the memorandum pad on Brookings’ desk, and wrote out an order for one hun-
dred twenty-five million dollars, payable to the World Steel Corporation, on a numbered
account in a Swiss bank. He slid the order across the glass top of the desk and said:
“You needn’t worry about whether it’s good or not. It is. I want machine tools and fast
deliveries.”
Brookings glanced at the paper, but did not touch it. His every muscle tensed, but he
did not quite blow up again. “Machine tools,” he grated. “You know damn well money’s
no good on them.”
“Money alone, no,” DuQuesne agreed equably. “That’s why I’m having you apply
pressure. You’ll get the detailsorders, specs, times and places of delivery, and so forth
by registered mail tomorrow morning. Shall I spell out the ‘or else’ for you?”
Brookings was quivering with rage, but there wasn’t a thing in the world he could do
about the situation and he knew it. “Not for me,” he managed finally, “but I’d better
record it for certain people who will have to know.”
“Okay. Any mistake in any detail of the transaction or one second more than twenty-
four hours’ delay in any specified time of delivery will mean a one-hundred-kiloton
superatomic on North Africa Number Eleven. Good-by.”
And DuQuesne cut his projection. To Brookings, he seemed to vanish; to DuQuesne
himself, he simply was back in his own Capital D, far out in space; and DuQuesne
allowed himself to smile.
Things were going rather well, he thought. Seaton was tangled up with whoever the
new enemy had turned out to be; might well be dead; at any rate, was not a factor he,
DuQuesne, needed currently to take into his calculations. By the time Seaton was back
in circulation DuQuesne should have his new ship and be ready to handle him. And
from then on . . .
From then on, thought DuQuesne, it was only a short step to his rightful, inevitable
destiny: His universe. No one able to contest his mastery.-So thought DuQuesne, who
at that point in time knew nearly every factor that bore upon his plans, and had carefully
and correctly evaluated them all. He knew about the Llurdi and the Jelmi; he knew that
Seaton and the Chlorans were, from his point of view, keeping each other neutralized;
he knew that the Norlaminians, even, were unlikely to cause him any trouble.
DuQuesne really knew all the relevant facts but one-or, you might say, two. These two
facts were a very long distance away. One was a young girl. The other was her mother.
Two individuals out of a universe! Why, even if DuQuesne had known of their
existence, he might have discounted their importance completely. In which he would
have been-completely-wrong.
18 HUMANITY TRIUMPHANT, NOT INC
SINCE Seaton as Ky-El Mokak was not the least bit fussy, he accepted the first house
that Prenk showed him. His honor offered also-with a more than somewhat suggestive
expression-to send him a housekeeper, but Seaton declined the offer with thanks;
explaining that that could wait until he got himself organized and could do a little looking
around for himself.
Prenk gave Seaton a handful of currency and a ground car-one of Prenk’s own, this; a
beautifully streamlined, beautifully kept little three-wheeled jewel of a ground-car-told
him where the shopping-centers .were, and went back to City Hall.
Seaton bought a haircut and a shave, a couple of outfits of clothing, and some
household supplies, which he took out to his new home and stowed away.
By that time it was the local equivalent of half-past three, and the shifts changed at four
o’clock; wherefore he drove his spectacular little speedster six miles up-canyon to the
uraninite mine that was the sole reason for the town’s existence. Since he did not want
to be shot out of hand, he did not dare to be late or to do anything unusual, either
during the five-mile train-ride along the main tunnel or during the skip-ride down to the
eighty-four-hundred-foot level where he was to work.
Once in the stope itself, however, he stopped-exactly thirteen feet short of the stiffly
erect young overseer-and stood still while his shift mates picked up their tools and
started for the banging wall-the something-more-than-vertical face of the cavernous
stope-to begin their day’s work.
The overseer-was a well-fed young man, and the second native Seaton had seen who
looked more than half alive. His jacket, breeches and boots were as glossily black as
his crash-helmet was glossily white. He was a very proud young man, and arrogant. His
side-arm hung proudly at his hip. His bull-whip coiled arrogantly ready for instant use.
This wight stared haughtily at Seaton for a moment, and began to swell up like a pouter
pigeon. Then, as Seaton made an unmistakable gesture at him, he went into smoothly
violent action.
“Oh, you’re the wilder!” he snarled, and swung the heavy blacksnake with practiced
ease.
But Seaton had known exactly what to expect and he was ready for it. He ducked and
sidestepped with the speed and control of the trained gymnast that he was; he handled
the short, thick club that had been in his sleeve as though it were the wand of the highly
skilled prestidigitator that he was. Thus, in the instant that the end of the lash curled
savagely around the hickory he swung it like a home-run hitter swings a bat-and caught
the blacksnake’s heavy, shot-loaded butt on the fly in his right hand.
The minion went for his gun, of course, but Seaton’s right arm was already swinging
around and back, and as gun cleared holster the bull-whip’s vicious tip snapped around
both gun and hand with a pistol-sharp report. The trooper stared, for an instant stunned,
at the blood spurting from his paralyzed right hand; and that instant was enough.
Seaton stepped up to him and put his left fist deep into his midsection. Then, as the
half-conscious man began to double over, he sent his right fist against its preselected
target. Not the jaw he didn’t want to break his hand the throat. Nor did he hit him hard;
he didn’t want to kill the
guy, or even damage him permanently.
As the man fell to the hard-rock floor-writhing in agony, groaning, strangling and
gasping horribly for breath -the men and women and teen-agers looking on burst as
one into clamor. “Stomp ‘im!” they shrieked and yelled. “Give ‘im the boots! Stomp ‘im!
Kill ‘im! Stomp ‘is head clean off! Stomp ‘im right down into the rock!”
“Hold it!” Seaton rasped, and the miners fell silent; but they did not relapse into their
former apathy.
Seaton stood by, waiting coldly for his victim to be able to draw a breath. He picked the
overseer’s pistol-like weapon up and looked it over. He had never seen anything like it
before, and casual inspection didn’t tell him much about how it worked, but that could
wait. He didn’t intend to use it. In fact, he wasn’t really interested in it at all.
When the overseer had partially recovered his senses, Seaton jammed a headset onto
his head and thought viciously at him; as much to give him a taste of real punishment
as to find out what he knew and to impress upon his mind exactly what he had to do if
he hoped to keep on living. Then Seaton made what was for him a speech. First, to the
now completely deflated officer:
“You-you slimy traitor, you quisling! Know now that a new regime has taken over.
Maybe I’ll let you live and maybe I’ll turn you over to these boys and girls here-you know
what they’d do to you. That depends on how exactly you stick to what I just told you.
One thought of a squeal -if you ever get one mini-meter out of line, and you’ll be under
surveillance every second of every day-you’ll die a long, slow, tough death. And I mean
tough!”
He turned to the miners; studied them narrowly. His “shot in the arm” had done them a