The suppression of balconies, Gan Garrett reflected with bitter whimsicality, may be necessary in a world which wishes to prevent the rise of dictators.
A guard came in, saluted, and said, “Hartle.”
Sacheverell Breakstone returned the salute and nodded. “Show him in.”
Stag Hartle came in, wearing an ascot which was unusually brilliant even for him—so blinding as almost to eliminate the need for lovestonite weapons. “Hi, boss,” he said casually. “Just wanted to—” His voice dropped as he spotted Garrett. “Christmas on wheels,” he muttered. “Ain’t it bad enough to see a ghost without him being in drag?”
“Mr. Garrett is no ghost,” said S.B. “And the female garments are merely part of a plot of his against me—a plot which miscarried as grievously as your attempt to railroad him on a one-way trip. Clumsy work, Hartle.”
Hartle bridled. “My part of it was O.K. I’m reliable. And that’s what a lot of people are finding out now, boss.”
“So? And what does that mean?”
“It means that when I tell ’em there’s going to be loot and excitement, they believe me. When you talk big, S.B., they begin to wonder what’s in it for them, or are they just all stooging for you?”
“So? Go on—”
“It means, S.B., that I’ve come here with a little proposition before you go out on that balcony, and there’s a lot of the boys’ll back me up.” Hartle’s confidence was growing even cockier. “It means it’d be a very wise idea to put me in command of this assault on Luna City. You can stick around with your big ideas, but leave the practical stuff to me.”
“So? You wish to relegate me to a figurehead? Like the ruler of the old constitutional monarchies, while you— This is a—shall we say a revolt? You understand I—”
“Sure, you’re just groping with words. Yeah, call it a revolt if you like. Words don’t count. That’s what you’ve got to learn.”
“And if I refuse, as I assuredly will?”
“Then—”
It happened almost too quickly to follow. Hartle’s hand reached toward his blouse, but before it had more than begun the movement there was a flash from the hand of S.B. Something that had been Stag Hartle lay blasted on the floor. The illegally sharpened knife clanked from his blouse; the sound of ringing metal was clean against the anguished echo of his dying screams.
Sacheverell Breakstone walked over and picked up the knife. “A singularly clumsy attempt at assassination,” he observed. “Tire fool was hampered by his old habits. Conventionally, he had prepared his fingers for the knife with paraderm; that was enough to forewarn me. Now are you content, Astra? I have punished the murderer of Valentinez.” He spurned the body with his foot. “Outside, boys,” he said, and gestured to the balcony.
Two guards carried the corpse of Stag Hartle and tossed it over into the gathering throng. For a moment S.B. stood where he could be seen from below, the knife in one hand, the lovestonite pistol in the other. The visual object lesson was complete and succinct.
He turned back to the guests in the room. “You see, gentlemen and ladies, how simple and effective is the true exercise of power?”
Maureen Furness had sat through all this in tense and shuddering silence. Now at last she spoke. “I used to think that the old times were more alive, more exciting. That was before I ever saw a man die—”
Breakstone laughed. He seemed to swell physically to match his magniloquent dreams. His short stocky body in its comically anachronistic costume dominated the room. “Leave us,” he said abruptly to his guards. Then as they hesitated incredulous, he roared: “Leave us. You heard me.”
Hesitantly the men left.
The murmur of the gathering mob was loud from outside the balcony. “In a moment,” said S.B., “I shall address my tools of creation. And in this guardless moment, you fools shall provide me with my final proof of power, my last touch of inspiration. I shall show you your own impotence and grow strong on it. There.” He laid his lovestonite pistol and Stag Hartle’s sharpened dagger on the floor. “I am here, unguarded. There are weapons. And I am safe because you—”
Astra Ardless sprang forward and siezed the pistol. With one almost careless blow, Breakstone knocked her aside. There was a flash as she fell, and she cried out in pain. S.B. glanced down at her incuriously. “I had forgotten her; she does not share your idealism. Only her dead lover moves her. But she has not had the courtesy to take care of herself.”
Gan Garrett felt his muscles straining against his will. He could attack S.B. weaponless. He could beat him to a pulp; but to what avail? He could simply summon his guards back and— Destruction was the necessity. But can a man, conditioned from childhood to certain beliefs, beliefs moreover which he knows deep in his heart to be the lasting truth of mankind, can he sacrifice those beliefs even when they themselves seem to demand it?
His helplessness seemed to justify Breakstone’s taunts. And yet would his action not justify Breakstone even more profoundly? And then abruptly he realized how futile even destruction would be. He needed something more, something—
“—and enterprises of great pith and moment,” Uranov was muttering, “with this regard their currents turn awry, anci lose the name of action—”
“Your moment is over,” S.B. announced. “You have proved your spiritual castration, and from your impotence I have drawn fresh potency. Now I shall speak to my multitude, and within the hour we shall have begun our march upon Luna City. Our two-meter lovestonite disks—you did not know we had progressed to weapons of such size
