“Crusades do not die when the weapons of war crumble into silence. Every moment of the true life of man should be, must be a crusade. In Africa and in Australia there are black men who have not yet been brought to full membership in mankind; there is a crusade. In Europe and Asia and America, there are still injustices even under our economic dispensation; there is a crusade. Cancer is dead by now; but diabetes and tuberculosis and Kruger’s disease still claim their thousands and their tens of thousands; there is a crusade.”
He was losing the mob; he felt that. They talked among themselves in huddled groups. There were no more shouts of acclaim. He lowed his voice to a pitch of intense resolution and plunged on to the heart of his offer.
“But those crusades are for the stay-at-homes, the ones that haven’t yet rebelled against this stagnant peace. You want more. You want fame and glory and wealth and excitement. You want a world to conquer. Well, it’s yours for the fighting. I promise you a world. I promise you—Mars!”
He went on hastily, before they could react away from the novel idea. “Why have our trips to Mars failed? Because only a few brave men—warriors like yourselves— dared to make them. The ships cannot carry enough fuel to return, and much of what they carry must be wasted against the cold of the Martian night. A handful of men cannot do enough work to extract the fuel we know is there.
“You are brave, you are daring, and you are no mere handful. A fleet, an armada of spaceships can carry you to Mars. Lovestonite can ease the fuel problem, not in the ship itself, but against the Martian night. Your two-meter disks will turn that night into a new day. And there, in this new outpost of man, there you can fight. You can fight the cold and the hardships. You can fight God knows what dangers of nature lurking there. You will be the bravest, the most daring, the fightinest of men.
“Man has not conquered Mars because he has been peace-loving and timorous and sheeplike. Men! Are you these things?”
There was a roar of NO! which must have drowned out the revelry in the night spots of Luna City if the airless moon could have carried sound outside the domes. Warmth flowed into Gan Garrett. The guess was working. He hastened on:
“I promised you a greater war. I also promised you a greater leader. You need him. You need the greater leader that bested Breakstone, because only he can make this new crusade real.”
He saw their eyes raised to him, and he moved his hand in a gesture of disclaimer. “No. I am not that leader. But I speak for him now. There is a great man for you to follow. Greater than Caesar and Napoleon and Hitler, and immeasurably greater than Breakstone. Greater even than the infinitely different greatness of Devarupa. Follow him. Let him lead you to triumph in the new crusade.”
He waited until there arose clamorous outcries for the new leader. Then he let his voice drop until the tuned-down speaker barely carried it, small and still, over the hushed crowd.
“That man is Man. He alone is the all-great leader. No single man, no worldconqueror, no saint, no genius of art or science, is important beside Man himself. And Man is all of you—and each of you. Look within that part of Man that is yourself, and find there that part of yourself that is Man. There is your great man, your strong leader. Follow him, and fight the crusade of Mars. Mars was the god of war. Now he leads the new war of peace!”
The balcony seemed upheld by a surging wave of jubilant noise.
“They didn’t get the last of it,” Gan Garrett said to his friends as he stepped back into S.B.’s chamber. “For them I’m the great man on the white horse. I’ve destroyed a fuehrer to become one. But they’ll learn, and meanwhile I’ve set them on the right road. We’ve a new world before us.”
Sacheverell Breakstone writhed, and grunted through the gag that was part of Garrett’s female costume.
Uranov gestured to him. “I just thought of another blessing. As a W.B.I. man, you’re arresting him?”
“Of course. He’ll get a one-way trip for Hartle.”
Uranov grinned. “Good. Now I can write the Devarupa epic without any words that he’s groped with.”
The Devarupa epic, generally accepted by now as the finest solly ever made, was released on the same day that the space armada left for Mars. Its fate, critical and commercial, did not concern its author. You don’t worry about epics on a space crew. Garrett and Maureen said good-by to him at the spaceport. “That’s why I’m not going,” Garrett said. “If I led this magnificent exhibition, if I was even on it, I’d be fixed forever as a great new fuehrer. I’m sinking back into the anonymity of a good W.B.I. agent.”
Uranov glanced at the loading of the two-meter disks. “See you soon though. And I’m the first man ever leaving for Mars who’s said that with any confidence.”
“Here,” said Maureen Garrett abruptly. She took a lovestonite figure from her recently altered identification bracelet. “Take him. He’s been pretty good luck for us by and large so far. I want him to make the first two-way trip.”
The loading was being speeded up. The crew was impatient for a new world, and for the new war of peace.
Man’s Reach
He listened carefully to the baritone’s opening phrases and after a moment jotted down the word robust on the pad in front of him. In another moment he added four letters to make it read robustious.
The voice rang big in the audition hall:
To saddle, to saddle, to spur,
