“And after we’re pillaged.”
“No .. -”
“Do you think that the Terrans are going to allow the Komani to escape unpunished? They’O send a stronger force to Shinar. It might even be on its way here at this moment. You’re turning your homeworld into a battleground.”
Merdon’s face went completely blank. “There’s no point in continuing this argument. Father. You won’t change your mind. But someday you’U be proud of your son and the things he will have done for Shinar.”
“I hope so,” Clanthas said wearily, “but I doubt it.”
The youth said nothing. His body gradually dissolved and disappeared, leaving his father sitting there in silence, staring at the bare screen of the tri-di transceiver.
Merdon also remained sitting before his tri-di set for many minutes after his father’s image had faded into nothingness. He frowned moodily, weighing his father’s words of warning.
Abruptly, he shook his head and got up from the seat. “You’re a well-meaning old man,” Merdon said softly to his unhearing father, “but you’re hopelessly wedded to the past. The Terrans became our overlords by driving the Masters out of the Galaxy. It took action, force—not words and demonstrations. To drive the Terrans off Shinar, we must use force.” Merdon nodded to himself. He was right, he knew, and his father wrong. And yet … Clanthas felt that the Komani could not be trusted. Perhaps there was a kernel of truth there.
The youth stepped away from the tri-di booth and looked aroundHe was in a deserted factory, one of the few that the Terrans had built before the rebellion had broken out. Long rows of silent machines stood untended in the half-light of evening. Merdon snapped off the lamp that illuminated the tri-<u booth and stared briefly at the