fatigue and age. Battle reports were being relayed to Baxley by a former cadet who had joined the cause. They were all bad. When Wundt approached, walking slowly and with great effort, Baxley waved the cadet away. They talked, the two old, tired men. Around them the air was dense with acrid smoke. In the near distance the fire ring pulsated, roared. A weapon blew with an ear-splitting blast. Sadly, they agreed that it was hopeless. They met in a battered city in a building which had been seared by a near miss. Wundt, so weak he had to be helped into the room, sat with his face lowered. Baxley, in a clean uniform, stood stiffly at attention as Brother President Kyle Murrel strode in arrogantly, escorted by helmeted Brothertroops. «Well, colonel—» Murrel said. «We request terms,» Baxley said, eyes straight ahead. «You have them,» Murrel said. «Our terms. All ringleaders will be shot. All surviving scientists will become prisoners of the government. All medicines and equipment, will, of course, become state property.» «I must demand that our troops be treated as prisoners of war,» Baxley said. Murrel smiled coldly, «One hundred million people are dead because of you, colonel. Surely you would not be shocked by the execution of a few thousand more?» «We can continue fighting,» Baxley said. «We can cost you a half million casualties.» Murrel's smile did not change. «Actually, you've done the Republic a service, you know. Overpopulation was a problem. You've reduced that problem slightly. I, personally, would not object to a further reduction.
However, I will agree to execute only the leaders and all those in your army above the third rank.» «But— « «What does it matter?» Zachary Wundt asked. «What does it matter if we die now or next week or next month?» «Why, doctor,» Murrel said, «can't you heal yourself? A man with your ability should be able to cope with a few bullet holes.» «Couldn't you pardon the members of the rank and file?» Baxley asked. «Wouldn't you be satisfied with just the officers?» Murrel spread his hands. «It is beyond my control. The people demand revenge.» «The people—» Wundt said. «The people…» «You will command your forces to cease firing,» Murrel said. «You will march them, in orderly fashion, into areas which will be prepared for them. They will carry no weapons. If there is any resistance, we will open fire.» Ed Baxley turned away to hide the tears which came to his eyes. It was late evening before the word could be passed. Isolated groups refused the surrender orders and continued fighting. They were overwhelmed and burned out of existence. The bulk of the tattered rebel army marched listlessly toward the designated areas. The firing squads were already at work. Officers and noncommissioned officers were marched directly to execution areas. High-ranking personnel were imprisoned, awaiting public execution. The army disarmed, beaten, was crowded into three areas encircled by government troops and fire cannon. The early morning saw a renewal of the firing squad activity. Colonel Baxley and Zachary Wundt were roused from their exhausted sleep and escorted to a small hill overlooking the valley in which the mass of the troops were concentrated. Kyle Murrel was there along with members of the government high command. «I must report that my recommendation for mercy for the rebel army has been overruled,» Murrel said. «It has been decided that there will be no reward for treachery.» He turned to a uniformed Brother. «Brother General, you may proceed.» The general raised his hand. Below, in the valley, crews looked to their fire weapons, the muzzles trained on the massed rebel troops. Shocked beyond horror, Colonel Ed Baxley prayed. He prayed aloud. «God in heaven, don't let this happen.» They came out of the north. They came soundlessly, floating high, moving in formation. They numbered in the hundred, the thousands, huge, spheroid things glintingly metallic in the morning sun. A low murmur spread over the plains. Murrel, face gone white, stood with his eyes turned toward the heavens. A shape detached itself from one of the large spheres, lowered silently. It hovered over the hill on which stood the President of the Second Republic and his military staff, shocked into momentary inactivity. A great voice came thundering down to them. «I have the means to destroy you. I will not hesitate to do so. All Brother troops will lay down their arms and withdraw.» «The guns,» Murrel said. «The guns!» Orders were given. Fire cannon raised their muzzles to the sky. «Fire!» Murrel said. Lances of force shot skyward. The massed fire of the government cannon concentrated on the stationary spheres and there was a roar of power as weapons discharged massive beams. Visible, deadly, the fire streams shot upward and flared and were absorbed. The spheres were untouched. The small vehicle which had lowered toward the hill shot high, attached itself to a large sphere. The large sphere moved slowly, settling, making a slow movement above the circle of discharging cannon. The earth rocked and shook. Dust swirled as tremendous force was brought into play. It took five minutes for the sphere to make the circuit and when it rose there was, where the massed cannon had encircled the rebel army, a trench fifty feel deep and hundreds of yards wide. The smaller sphere
detached itself once again, hovered over the now silent group on the hill. A small port opened. A boiling, vibrating blast of dust appeared only yards to the front of the Presidential group, Murrel bolted. The generals held their ground for a moment. One aimed a hand fire-gun at the sphere. The beam was absorbed. There was a sound much like the clapping of hands and the general who had fired was gone. In his place there was a smoking hole in the earth. Then it was over. Stunned, not yet believing the sudden reversal, Baxley and Wundt stood nervously watching the sphere above them as a port opened and a man stepped out into open air and descended. He reached ground directly in front of them. He was dressed in a metallic garment. He was strikingly handsome, well muscled. He was smiling. He walked toward them. He paused. «Who are you?» Wundt asked in an awed voice. «Where are you from?» «I'm from East City,» Luke said. «You know that Dr Wundt.» CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The computer had been right. Not all of the Earth's people had the capacity to make the change. Zachary Wundt and Colonel Ed Baxley were, as the first people whom Luke met and tested after his return, a source of great concern. When Luke first faced them, he looked into them and saw—nothing. He could use his power to make repairs in their aging bodies, but the potential for using their own life force was frighteningly absent. The vast, unused portions of their brains were fallow, incapable of being altered, having no connective passages to be opened. Luke envisioned disaster. He had seen the planet from space and new devastation had been added to the still unhealed scars of the old atomic war between the giant Communist powers. Now a good portion of the two remaining usable land areas was a fire- gun-scorched wasteland. He had counted on being able to alter those with whom he came into contact, make them capable of the feats which came so easily to him. He had envisioned a spreading wave of change, one person helping his brother to reach the capabilities of repairing his own physical imperfections, passing that ability to others, and the others passing it in a progression which would, in a short time, affect the population of the entire world. Then he saw blank, fallow hopelessness in the brains of the two leaders and his hopes were, momentarily dashed. Desperately, ignoring the excited questions of Wundt and Baxley, he turned to others. He found that the capacity to change was present in a large percentage of those who had lived in the overcrowded cities. He wondered then, for a moment, remembering the old, old adage which said that God moves in mysterious ways. It was hard to accept the supposition that God had made millions suffer in order to prepare the race for a great leap outward, but the fact remained that it was the poor and downtrodden who were able to accept Luke's penetration of the dark, closed ball in that large, unused area of
brain. It was the suffering mass of people, those who had lived like rats in the hell of the cities, those whose bodies had altered through the tension, the irritation, the overcrowding, those with vastly enlarged adrenals and seared lungs and overworked hearts who had developed the unopened conduits through which could pass, with stunning stimulation from Luke's mind, the life force, the knowledge, the ability. He found it first in a tired old non- commissioned officer on the fringes of the mass of rebel troops who milled and shouted and wondered at the vast fleet which had appeared so miraculously overhead to save them from
the Brothers' fire guns. He saw the black ball of potential, shot power into it, sent the old man reeling down to his knees holding his head in pain. Then there was communication. «Know yourself, brother,» Luke told him in his mind, giving instruction, leading, showing the old non-com the key to it all. «Pass it on, brother.» It spread out through the troops with a visible ripple of movement,
rapid, the aching, almost-dead city people finding a reward, at last, for the
lifetime of almost non-living. And from the battlefield, small ships carried converters to the cities, across the country, to the south into the devastated Republic of South American. «Know yourself, brother. Pass it along.» With the change spreading in a moving wave of wonder, the education process was begun. The fleet from the inner galaxy moved to key points, thousands of ships, each ship's system connected with the main computer, each ship able to reach into the minds of a hundred changees at once, force-feeding information to newly opened minds eager for knowledge. Luke, having begun the wave of change, flew with Wundt and Baxley to the underground capital near old Washington, installed Baxley as temporary President of the Third Republic. The crippled communications system was augmented by the mind-to-mind passage of the news among the changees. Organization slowly began to come from chaos. From the very first a special search team had been looking for Irene Caster. She was traced from the shakeshock therapy room in police headquarters in West City to a Fare home for invalids. The home, itself, had been in the path of a localized skirmish involving conventional weapons. The buildings were sagging, burned-out, empty. There was no trace of any of the occupants of the home. «Too late,» Luke said, when he received the report. «God I was too late.» He was with Wundt and Baxley. It was six days after Luke's return. Already,
