'Mr. President,' Steiner said, ''Slocum was retired on my recommendation two years ago. It seems to me that my responsibility ended there and Security should have taken over.'
The President Elect's finger left the trigger of the auto-rifle and his lip drew in a little. 'Quite so,' he said curtly, and turned to the door.
'Slocum!' he shouted. 'Come out of there. We can use gas if we want.'
The door opened unexpectedly and a tired-looking man with three stars on each shoulder stood there, bare- handed. 'All right,' he said drearily. 'I was fool enough to think something could be done about the regime. But you fat-faced imbeciles are going to go on and on and—'
The stutter of the auto-rifle cut him off. The President Elect's knuckles were white as he clutched the piece's forearm and grip; the torrent of slugs continued to hack and plow the general's body until the magazine was empty. 'Burn that,' he said curtly, turning his back on it. 'Dr.
Barnes, come here. I want to know about my father's passing.'
The doctor, hoarse and red-eyed from the whiff of phosphorus smoke, spoke with him. The U.P. man had sagged drunkenly into a chair, but the other newsmen noted that Dr. Barnes glanced at them as he spoke, in a confidential murmur.
'Thank you, doctor,' the President Elect said at last, decisively. He gestured to a Secret Serviceman. 'Take those traitors away.' They went, numbly.
The Secretary of State cleared his throat. 'Mr. President,' he said, 'I take this opportunity to submit the resignations of myself and fellow Cabinet members according to custom.'
'That's all right,' the President Elect said. 'You may as well stay on. I intend to run things myself anyway.' He hefted the auto-rifle. 'You,' he said to the Secretary of Public Opinion. 'You have some work to do.
Have the memory of my father's—artistic—preoccupations obliterated as soon as possible. I wish the Republic to assume a warlike posture—
yes; what is it?'
A trembling messenger said: 'Mr. President, I have the honor to inform you that the College of Electors has elected you President of the Republic—unanimously.'
Cadet Fourth Classman Thomas Grayson lay on his bunk and sobbed in an agony of loneliness. The letter from his mother was crumpled in his hand: '—prouder than words can tell of your appointment to the Academy. Darling, I hardly knew my grandfather but I know that you will serve as brilliantly as he did, to the eternal credit of the Republic.
You must be brave and strong for my sake—'
He would have given everything he had or ever could hope to have to be back with her, and away from the bullying, sneering fellow-cadets of the Corps. He kissed the letter—and then hastily shoved it under his mattress as he heard footsteps.
He popped to a brace, but it was only his roommate Ferguson. Ferguson was from Earth, and rejoiced in the lighter Lunar gravity which was punishment to Grayson's Io-bred muscles.
'Rest, mister,' Ferguson grinned.
'Thought it was night inspection.'
'Any minute now. They're down the hall. Lemme tighten your bunk or you'll be in trouble—' Tightening the bunk he pulled out the letter and said, calfishly: 'Ah-hah! Who is she?—' and opened it.
When the cadet officers reached the room they found Ferguson on the floor being strangled black in the face by spidery little Grayson. It took all three of them to pull him off. Ferguson went to the infirmary and Grayson went to the Commandant's office.
The Commandant glared at the cadet from under the most spectacular pair of eyebrows in the Service. 'Cadet Grayson,' he said, 'explain what occurred.'
'Sir, Cadet Ferguson began to read a letter from my mother without my permission.'
'That is not accepted by the Corps as grounds for mayhem. Do you have anything further to say?'
'Sir, I lost my temper. All I thought of was that it was an act of disrespect to my mother and somehow to the Corps and the Republic too—that Cadet Ferguson was dishonoring the Corps.'
Bushwah, the Commandant thought. A snow job and a crude one. He studied the youngster. He had never seen such a brace from an Io-bred fourth-classman. It must be torture to muscles not yet toughened up to even Lunar gravity. Five minutes more and the boy would have to give way, and serve him right for showing off.
He studied Grayson's folder. It was too early to tell about academic work, but the fourth-classman was a bear—or a fool—for extra duty. He had gone out for half a dozen teams and applied for membership in the exacting Math Club and Writing Club. The Commandant glanced up; Grayson was still in his extreme brace. The Commandant suddenly had the queer idea that Grayson could hold it until it killed him.
'One hundred hours of pack drill,' he barked, 'to be completed before quarter-term. Cadet Grayson, if you succeed in walking off your tours, remember that there is a tradition of fellowship in the Corps which its members are expected to observe. Dismiss.'
After Grayson's steel-sharp salute and exit the Commandant dug deeper into the folder. Apparently there was something wrong with the boy's left arm, but it had been passed by the examining team that visited Io. Most unusual. Most irregular. But nothing could be done about it now.
The President, softer now in body than on his election day, and infinitely more cautious, snapped: 'It's all very well to create an incident. But where's the money to come from? Who wants the rest of Io anyway? And what will happen if there's war?'
Treasury said: 'The hoarders will supply the money, Mr. President. A system of percentage bounties for persons who report currency hoarders, and then enforced purchase of a bond issue.'
Raw Materials said: 'We need that iron, Mr. President. We need it desperately.'
State said: 'All our evaluations indicate that the Soviet Premier would consider nothing less than armed invasion of his continental borders as occasion for all-out war. The consumer-goods party in the Soviet has gained immensely during the past five years and of course their armaments have suffered. Your shrewd directive to put the Republic in a warlike posture has borne fruit, Mr. President…'
President Folsom XXV studied them narrowly. To him the need for a border incident culminating in a forced purchase of Soviet Io did not seem as pressing as they thought, but they were, after all, specialists.
And there was no conceivable way they could benefit from it personally.
The only alternative was that they were offering their professional advice and that it would be best to heed it. Still, there was a vague, nagging something …
Nonsense, he decided. The spy dossiers on his Cabinet showed nothing but the usual. One had been blackmailed by an actress after an affair and railroaded her off the Earth. Another had a habit of taking bribes to advance favorite sons in civil and military service. And so on. The Republic could not suffer at their hands; the Republic and the dynasty were impregnable. You simply spied on everybody— including the spies—and ordered summary executions often enough to show that you meant it, and kept the public ignorant: deaf-dumb-blind ignorant. The spy system was simplicity itself; you had only to let things get as tangled and confused as possible until nobody knew who was who. The executions were literally no problem, for guilt or innocence made no matter. And mind control, when there were four newspapers, six magazines, and three radio and television stations, was a job for a handful of clerks.
No; the Cabinet couldn't be getting away with anything. The system was unbeatable.
President Folsom XXV said: 'Very well. Have it done.'
Mrs. Grayson, widow, of New Pittsburgh, Io, disappeared one night. It was in all the papers and on all the broadcasts. Some time later she was found dragging herself back across the line between Nizhni-Magnitogorsk and New Pittsburgh in sorry shape. She had a terrible tale to tell about what she had suffered at the hands and so forth of the Nizhni-Magnitogorskniks. A diplomatic note from the Republic to the Soviet was answered by another note which was answered by the dispatch of the Republic's First Fleet to Io which was answered by the dispatch of the Soviet's First and Fifth Fleets to Io.
The Republic's First Fleet blew up the customary deserted target hulk, fulminated over a sneak sabotage attack, and moved in its destroyers.
Battle was joined.
Ensign Thomas Grayson took over the command of his destroyer when its captain was killed on his bridge. An electrified crew saw the strange, brooding youngster perform prodigies of skill and courage, and responded to them.
