“That doesn’t apply to me, Scotty,” Don snapped. “Get out of my way.”
Scotty stood up, reluctantly, but barred the way. “He said it applied to everybody, Mr. Mathers.”
Don put his full weight into a blow that started at his waist, dug deep into the other’s middle. Scotty doubled forward, his eyes bugging. Don Mathers gripped his hands together into a double fist and brought them upward in a vicious uppercut.
Scotty fell forward and to the floor.
Don stood above him momentarily, watchful for movement which didn’t develop. The hefty bodyguard must have been doing some easy living himself. He wasn’t as tough as he looked.
Don knelt and fished from under the other’s left arm a vicious-looking short-barrelled scrambler. He tucked it under his own jacket into his belt, then turned, opened the door and entered the supposedly barred office.
Demming and Rostoff looked up from their work across a double desk.
Both scowled. Rostoff opened his mouth to say something and Don Mathers rapped, “Shut up.”
Rostoff blinked at him. Demming leaned back in his swivel chair. “You’re sober for a change,” he wheezed, almost accusingly.
Don Mathers pulled up a stenographer’s chair and straddled it, leaning his arms on the back. He said coldly, “Comes a point when even the lowest worm turns. I’ve been checking on a few things.”
Demming grunted amusement.
Don said, “Space patrols have been cut far below the danger point.”
Rostoff snorted. “Is that supposed to interest us? That’s the problem of the military—and the government.”
“Oh, it interests us, all right,” Don growled. “Currently, Mathers, Demming and Rostoff control probably three-quarters of the system’s radioactives.”
Demming said in greasy satisfaction, “More like four-fifths.”
“Why?” Don said bluntly. “Why are we doing what we’re doing?”
They both scowled, but another element was present in their expressions too. They thought the question unintelligent.
Demming closed his eyes in his porcine manner and grunted, “Tell him.”
Rostoff said, “Look, Mathers, don’t be stupid. Remember when we told you, during that first interview, that we wanted your name in the corporation, among other reasons, because we could use a man who was above law? That a maze of ridiculously binding ordinances have been laid on business down through the centuries?”
“I remember,” Don said bitterly.
“Well, it goes both ways. Government today is also bound, very strongly, and even in great emergency, not to interfere in business. These complicated laws balance each other, you might say. Our whole legal system is based upon them. Right now, we’ve got government right where we want it. This is free enterprise, Mathers, at its pinnacle. Did you ever hear of Jim Fisk and his attempt to corner gold in 1869, the so-called Black Friday affair? Well, Jim Fisk was a peanut peddler compared to us.”
“What’s this got to do with the Fleet having insufficient fuel to…” Don Mathers stopped as comprehension hit him. “You’re holding our radioactives off the market, pressuring the government for a price rise which it can’t afford.”
Demming opened his eyes and said fatly, “For triple the price, Mathers. Before we’re through, we’ll corner half the wealth of the system.”
Don said, “But… but the species is… at… war.”
Rostoff sneered, “You seem to be getting noble rather late in the game, Mathers. Business is business.”
Don Mathers was shaking his head. “We immediately begin selling our radioactives at cost of production. I might remind you gentlemen that although we’re supposedly a three-way partnership, actually, everything’s in my name. You thought you had me under your thumb so securely that it was safe—and you probably didn’t trust each other. Well, I’m blowing the whistle.”
Surprisingly fast for such a fat man, Lawrence Demming’s hand flitted into a desk drawer to emerge with a twin of the scrambler tucked in Don’s belt.
Don Mathers grinned at him, even as he pushed his jacket back to reveal the butt of his own weapon. He made no attempt to draw it, however.
He said softly, “Shoot me, Demming, and you’ve killed the most popular man in the Solar System. You’d never escape the gas chamber, no matter how much money you have. On the other hand, if I shoot you…”
He put a hand into his pocket and it emerged with a small, inordinately ordinary bit of ribbon and metal. He displayed it on his palm.
The fat man’s face whitened at the ramifications and his hand relaxed to let the gun drop to the desk. “Listen, Don,” he broke out. “We’ve been unrealistic with you. We’ll reverse ourselves and split, honestly—split three ways.”
Don Mathers laughed at him. “Trying to bribe me with money, Demming? Why don’t you realize, that I’m the only man in existence who has no need for money, who can’t spend money? That my fellow men—whom I’ve done such a good job of betraying—have honored me to a point where money is meaningless?”
Rostoff snatched up the fallen gun, snarling, “I’m calling your bluff, you gutless rummy.”
Don Mathers said, “Okay, Rostoff. There’s just two other things I want to say first. One—I don’t care if I die or not. Two—you’re only twenty feet or so away, but you know what? I think you’re probably a lousy shot. I don’t think you’ve had much practice. I think I can get my scrambler out and cut you down before you can finish me.” He grinned thinly, “Wanta try?”
Max Rostoff snarled a curse and his finger whitened on the trigger.
Don Mathers fell sideward, his hand streaking for his weapon. Without thought there came back to him the long hours of training in hand weapons, in judo, in hand to hand combat. He went into action with cool confidence.
At the spaceport he took a cab to the Presidential Palace. It was an auto-cab, of course, and at the Palace gates he found he had no money on him. He snorted wearily. It was the first time in almost a year that he’d had to pay for anything.
Four sentries were standing at attention. He said, “Do one of you boys have some coins to feed into this slot? I’m fresh out.”
A sergeant grinned, approached, and did the necessary.
Don Mathers said wearily, “I don’t know how you go about this. I don’t have an appointment, but I want to see the President.”
“We can turn you over to one of the assistant secretaries, Captain Mathers,” the sergeant said. “We can’t go any further than that. While we’re waiting, what’s the chances of getting your autograph, sir? I gotta kid…”
It wasn’t nearly as complicated as he’d thought it was going to be. In half an hour he was seated in the office where he’d received his decoration only—how long ago was it, really less than a year?
He told the story briefly, making no effort to spare himself. At the end he stood up long enough to put a paper in front of the other, then sat down again.
“I’m turning the whole corporation over to the government….”
The President said, “Wait a minute. My administration does not advocate State ownership of industry.”
“I know. When the State controls industry you only put the whole mess off one step, the question then becomes, who controls the State? However, I’m not arguing political economy with you, sir. You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say, I’m turning it over to the government to untangle, even while making use of the inventories of radioactives. There’s going to be a lot of untangling to do. Reimbursing the prospectors and small operators who were blackjacked out of their holdings by our super-corporation. Reimbursing of the miners and other laborers who were talked into accepting low pay in the name of patriotism.” Don Mathers cut it short. “Oh, it’s quite a mess.”
“Yes,” the President said. “And you say Max Rostoff is dead?”
“That’s right. And Demming off his rocker. I think he always was a little unbalanced and the prospect of
