“Please, Commander,” I pleaded most unctuously, “we’re on your side, even when no one else is. You know exactly what you are doing-while none of your troops has the slightest idea what is happening. Not only are you in charge here, but it looks as though you have managed a mild insurrection on your own terms. You have done an incredible job that no one else was capable of doing. We can help you-if you will let us.”
The scowl faded. Floyd followed my lead, smiled and nodded agreement and said nothing; another cigar was produced and lit. The smoke rose up and the smoker nodded beneficently.
“You are right of course, Jim. The responsibility has been great, the pressure continuous. And I am surrounded by morons-stulteguloj, kretenoj! Centuries of interbreeding and hiding underground has done little to improve their brain capacity. I am amazed that I alone have the intelligence to see this. I’m as different from them as if I had been born on a different planet, the child of superior parents.”
This was sounding familiar. There has never been a strongman, dictator, military ruler, who did not believe that he somehow came from superior stock.
“You are different, sir,” Floyd said, almost humbly. “I knew that as soon as you spoke.”
We had both obviously read the same textbooks. Though I thought he was spreading it on rather thickly. I was wrong.
“You could see that? The difference is obvious I suppose, to someone from Outside. It hasn’t been easy, I tell you. In the beginning I even tried to talk to the senior officers, explain some of the problems and suggest solutions. I could have had more communication talking to a wall. Not that the younger ones are any better. Though they are restless, give them that. When you get down to it there isn’t much joy in just plain surviving. In the beginning maybe, it must have been a challenge then. But after a couple of centuries the pleasures begin to wear pretty thin.”
“Was it the restlessness of the younger ones that gave you the idea to supply a leader for them to follow?” I asked.
“Not at first. But I began to see that the young were losing respect for the old. About the only people they looked up to were the scientists. From their point of view the scientists were the only ones who at least appeared to be doing new and important things. That’s when I hit on the Alphamega role. They think that I am one of the younger scientists. A rebel who is unable to make any progress against the old ideas, the familiar ways-therefore I have been forced to enlist others of like age and mind.”
“My arms are getting stiff,” Floyd said, smiling. “You wouldn’t mind taking off these clamps for a bit?”
“I would. I want you two just where you are.”
Mercurial, our friend. All warmth gone in an instant, he dragged so hard on the cigar that it crackled and sparked. “We Survivalists watch events pretty closely-all over this planet. With a surveillance network set up before anyone else arrived. Amplified and spread ever since. Not a bird craps, not a polpettone fruit falls that we don’t know about. That I don’t know about. Because I watch the watchers. I watched and saw that a lot of energy and plenty of high-powered work was going into recovering that artifact. There is something very important about it-and I want to know just what. I had a squad steal it and destroy the building, hide their tracks. It was impossible to follow them. Yet you did. I want to know how you did that too. So talk-and talk fast.”
“My pleasure,” I said. “My friend here knows nothing about the artifact. But I do. I am the one who found it first, then tracked it and followed it here. I am the only one who can tell you how it operates-and what incredible things it can do. If you can take me to it I will be happy to show you how it works.”
“That is more like it. You will come with me. Your associate remains here as a guarantee-don’t you agree?” He stood and buckled on a large and offensive-looking sidearm.