hand, and resumed seat and pose. Then: “Oh … broth … therr! One hundred percent
convictions so far and not a possible miss in sight. Psionic Intelligence agents are things
that . . . well, maybe some cloak-and-dagger men have dreamed about such things, hut
we’ve got ’em. Over ten thousand already and more coming and they’re all batting a
thousand, Boss, the Big Brains claim that while ethics is related to psionics, ethics is not
and cannot be made an absolute. Do you buy that?”
“In the abstract, as a generalization, yes. In practice, and in the specific case of our own
culture as it now is, perhaps not. I might almost say probably not.”
“Very, very cautious about going out on a limb, aren’t you? So bite yourself off a piece of
this and chew on it and give your taste-buds a treat. The opposition hasn’t got any
psiontists worth a tinker’s toot and never will have any.”
Maynard did not question this statement. All experience had shown that any psychics of
much ability, immediately upon perceiving the vastnesses of psionics, went to Newmars
and the University of Psionics as a matter of course. Spehn went on:
“It’s a truly wonderful thing to know, for certain damn sure, everything that goes on. So
we’re steam-rolling ’em to the queen’s own taste. This next election will be honest; the
kind of election the Founding Fathers had in mind. GalFed should be in the saddle shortly
after that. Of course there’ll be some fuss, but Guerd should be ready by then. You’re
sticking around?”
Maynard nodded. “Longer than that, Stev. Until GalFed is, both in name and in fact, THE
GALACTIC FEDERATION; until Tellus-a united Tellus-is both in name and in fact the
capital of all civilization.”
Spehn thought for a moment. “That’s a big order, boss, but I wouldn’t wonder if we might
be able to deliver the goods.”
After half an hour more of discussion, Maynard went up one floor and had a long
discussion with Fleet Admiral Guerdon Dann.
He then tuned his mind to that of Li Hing Wong, who brought Feodr Ilyowicz in for a
three-way. Things were going as well as was to be expected. The Iron Curtain and the
Bamboo Curtain, which had faced outward, had been replaced by Psionic Curtains facing
inward. Since the fleet englobing Earth, whatever it really was, did not seem to care
what happened to either Russia or China, there had not been very much effective
opposition. People were dying, but that couldn’t be helped. The only way progress could
be made was by killing off the commissars and the warlords and all such corruptionists;
and, since corruption had been the way of life for centuries, reclamation would
necessarily be a slow process.
As each district was reclaimed and put under a psionic Peace-lord its people were given
as much self-government as they could handle-which wasn’t very much. They would have
to grow up to self-government, and that would take a low; time. If famine and pestilence
did not take care of the population problem, population control would; by birth-control and
logic if possible, by sterilization if necessary.
It was not a cheerful report; but Maynard had not expected it to be. He shrugged his
shoulders and went on to interview every one of the men and women who were handling
the political campaign. Then, last of all, he turned his attention to the financiers who were
operating in the stock market.
The Plastics Building, in Chicago, Illinois, WestHem, Tellus, occupied the entire eight
hundred block west; bounded by Halsted and Peoria Streets on the east and west, and
by Washington and Randolph Boulevards on the south and north. Its main bulk, built of
steel-reenforced synthetics of various kinds, was eighty five stories high, and a
comparatively slender tower reached up fifteen stories higher still. This tower housed the
private offices of the Biggest of the Big of Plastics, Incorporated; and its entire top floor,
the one hundredth of the building, was devoted to the series of exceedingly private
offices, in ascending order of privacy from the private elevator, of the least accessible
man on Earth-President Byron Punsunby himself.
To say that these offices were sumptuous is to make the understatement of the year, but
that is all that will be said. At three o’clock one Wednesday afternoon, while President
Punsunby was sitting at his most sumptuous desk, alone in his most sumptuous, most
private office, clear across the tower from the elevator, a call came in on a
communicator that was his alone, in a mish-mash of noise and herringbone that he alone
could unscramble. He stared at it angrily for a few seconds; his big, fat body tensing, his
big, fat face stiffening, and his small blue eyes growing even harder than their hard wont.
He’d been getting altogether too damned many calls on that com of late and he hadn’t
liked any one of them. And this was the worst. It wasn’t subspace, or even long distance;
it was local-and this was one purely sweet-scented hell of a time for him to have to leave
Earth . . . why couldn’t the ape handle a few things himself?
He unscrambled the mish-mash; Erskine Cantwell, the Comptroller General of The
World, appeared. “Where are you?” Punsunby snapped. “Spaceport?” “Yes. Just
landing.”
“Come in. I’ll be alone.”
Cantwell did not enter the Plastics Building by any of the usual routes. He approached it
via subway, opened an almost invisible door into the second subbasement, walked along
a deserted hall, opened a completely invisible door by speaking a series of six coined
words, and took the ultra-secret elevator straight up into Punsunby’s ultra-private office.
“Well?” Punsunby demanded, savagely. “I told you to take whatever steps might prove
necessary. Why the hell didn’t you do it, instead of coming here again?”
“What do you think?” Cantwell sneered. “That I’m here for the fun of it? I’m only the
Highest Agent, remember? Six A’s and a B, with only a violet headlight. It takes the one
and only discarnate God Himself-the one and only holder of seven straight A’s-the
All-Powerful and Eternal-the one and only being able to pour the pure mercury-vapor light
of God onto his poor dumb creatures-you, you fat-head, are the only living human being
who can modify Article Ninety of your precious Second Directive, and by all the devils in
hell you . . .”
“Christ almighty!” Punsunby broke in. He had been turning not-so-slowly purple as he
listened to this lesemajeste, but at the words “Second Directive” his face began to pale.
“But that’s the basis of the whole caste system-it’s never been modified. Things can’t be
that bad, Ersk-there must be some other way of handling this trouble.”
“It’s exactly that bad, and if you can find any other way to clean up the mess I’ll roll a
peanut from here to Buckingham Fountain with my nose. And I’ve had it. You can take
this . . .”
“Don’t say it, Ersk.” Punsunby got up, walked around the desk, and put a big hand on the
slender man’s shoulder. “We couldn’t operate without you. But such a change as that . . .
God knows where a thing like that would end.”
“You’re so right. That’s the trouble with any rigid system,” Cantwell said, much more
calmly. “When it starts to crack it’s apt to shatter. But that’s the way you Tops have
always wanted it, so you’re stuck with it. So let’s get at it.”
“All right. I’ll have to make a couple of calls.”
There was no more talk of business until they were in SUITE ONE of the subspacer.
Then Punsunby said, “Go ahead, Ersk. What do you think it is?”
“I know what it is, now. Sabotage. Expert, organized, directed, and highly efficient
sabotage. Worthy of the Commies at their very best.”
“The Commies? But I . . .
“I didn’t say it was and I don’t think it is. I don’t see how it could be. I can see only one
possibility. I never have believed in mind reading; but what else can it be?”
“The Galaxians.” Punsunby thought for minutes. “Mental stuff-that’s why you want our
mentalists to work openly with operators without losing caste. But no person has
ever-knowingly, that is-has ever even seen a three-A, Ersk. It’d scare ’em to death.”
“It’ll have to be worse than that. They’ll have to shed their pretty colored spotlights, put
on lockets, and become operators. How the hell else can we find out what is going on?
All we’re doing now is knocking hell out of production by killing thousands of dumb
bastards who don’t know whether Christ was crucified or shot in a crap game.”
“Well, how about hiring some of their psychics away from ’em? Price would be no
object.”
“We can’t. They’re ethical. And if WestHem ever finds out what we’re doing they’ll stop
the Earth in its tracks and throw us the hell off bodily. Don’t kid yourself about this, Lord