The night had been a horrible one for Kane. His face was pale and drawn; his eyes hollow and feverishly brilliant. Yet he spoke loudly and firmly.
“We are allies, Tymball.”
Tymball smiled bleakly, took Kane’s outstretched hand for a moment, and dropped it, “By necessity. Excellency, only. I am not your friend.”
“Nor I yours. Yet we may work together. My initial orders have gone out and the Central Council will ratify them. In that direction, at least, I anticipate no trouble.”
“How quickly may I expect results?”
“Who knows? Loarism still has its facilities for propaganda. There are still those who will listen from respect and others from fear, and still others from the mere force of the propaganda itself. But who can say? Humanity has slept, and Loarism as well. There is little anti-Lhasinuic feeling, and it will be hard to drum it up out of nothing.”
“Hate is never hard to drum up,” and Tymball’s moon-face seemed oddly harsh. “Emotionalism! Propaganda! Frank and unscrupulous opportunism! And even in its weakened state, Loarism is rich. The masses may be corrupted by words, but those in high places, the important ones, will require a bit of the yellow metal.”
Kane waved a weary hand, “You preach nothing new. That line of dishonor was Human policy far back in the misty dawn of history when only this poor Earth was Human and even it split into warring segments.” Then, bitterly, “To think that we must return to the tactics of that barbarous age.”
The conspirator shrugged his shoulders cynically, “Do you know any better?”
“And even so, with all that foulness, we may yet fail.”
“Not if our plans are well-laid.”
Loara Paul Kane rose to his feet and his hands clenched before him, “Fool! You and your plans! Your subtle, secret, snaky, tortuous plans! Do you think that conspiracy is rebellion, or rebellion, victory? What can you do? You can ferret out information and dig quietly at the roots, but you can’t lead a rebellion. I can organize and prepare, but I can’t lead a rebellion.”
Tymball winced, “Preparation-perfect preparation-”
“-is nothing, I tell you. You can have every chemical ingredient necessary, and all the proper conditions, and yet there may be no reaction. In psychology-particularly mob psychology-as in chemistry, one must have a catalyst.”
“What in space do you mean?”
“Can you lead a rebellion?” cried Kane. “A crusade is a war of emotion. Can you control the emotions? Why, you conspirator, you could not stand the light of open warfare an instant. Can I lead the rebellion? I, old and a man of peace? Then who is to be the leader, the psychological catalyst, that can take the dull worthless clay of your precious ‘preparation’ and breathe life into it?”
Russell Tymball’s jaw muscles quivered, “Defeatism! So soon?”
The answer was harsh, “No! Realism!”
There was angry silence and Tymball turned on his heel and left.
It was midnight, ship time, and the evening’s festivities were reaching their high point. The grand salon of the superliner Flaming Nova was filled with whirling, laughing, glittering figures, growing more convivial as the night wore on.
“This reminds me of the triply-damned affairs my wife makes me attend back on Lacto,” muttered Sammel Maronni to his companion. “I thought I’d be getting away from some of it, at least out here in hyperspace, but evidently I didn’t.” He groaned softly and gazed at the assemblage with a faintly disapproving stare.
Maronni was dressed in the peak of fashion, from purple headsash to sky-blue sandals, and looked exceedingly uncomfortable. His portly figure was crammed into a brilliantly red and terribly tight tunic and the occasional jerks at his wide belt showed that he was only too conscious of its ill fit.
His companion, taller and slimmer, bore his spotless white uniform with an ease born of long experience, and his imposing figure contrasted strongly with the slightly ridiculous appearance of Sammel MaronnL
The Lactonian exporter was conscious of this fact. “Blast it, Drake, you’ve got one fine job here. You dress like a nob and do nothing but look pleasant and answer salutes. How much do you get paid, anyway?”
“Not enough.” Captain Drake lifted one gray eyebrow and stared quizzically at the Lactonian. “I wish you had my job for a week or so. You’d sing mighty small after that. If you think taking care of fat dowager damsels and curly-headed society snobs is a bed of roses, you’re welcome to it.” He muttered viciously to himself for a moment and then bowed politely to a bejeweled harridan who simpered past. “It’s what’s grayed my hair and furrowed my brow, by Rigel.”
Maronni drew a long Karen smoke out of his waist-pouch and lit up luxuriously. He blew a cloud of apple-green smoke into the Captain’s face and smiled impishly.
“I’ve never heard the man yet who didn’t knock his own job, even when it was the pushover yours is, you hoary old fraud. Ah, if I’m not mistaken, the gorgeous Ylen Surat is bearing down upon us.”
“Oh, pink devils of Sirius! I’m afraid to look. Is that old hag actually moving in our direction?”
“She certainly is-and aren’t you the lucky one! She’s one of the richest women on Santanni and a widow, too. The uniform gets them, I suppose. What a pity I’m married.”
Captain Drake twisted his face into a most frightful grimace, “I hope a chandelier falls on her.”
And with that he turned, his expression metamorphosed into one of bland delight in an instant, “Why, Madam Surat, I thought I’d never get the chance to see you tonight.”
Ylen Surat, for whom the age of sixty was past experience, giggled girlishly, “Be still, you old flirt, or you’ll make me forget that I’ve come here to scold you.”
“Nothing is wrong, I hope?” Drake felt a sinking of the heart. He had had previous experience with Madam Surat’s complaints. Things usually were wrong.
“A great deal is wrong. I’ve just been told that in fifty hours, we shall land on Earth-if that’s the way you pronounce the word.”
“Perfectly correct,” answered Captain Drake, a bit more at ease.
“But it wasn’t listed as a stop when we boarded.”
“No, it wasn’t. But then, you see, it’s.quite a routine affair. We leave ten hours after landing.”
“But this is insupportable. It will delay me an entire day. It is necessary for me to reach Santanni within the week, and days are precious. Now, I’ve never heard of Earth. My guide book,” she extracted a leather-covered volume from her reticule and flipped its pages angrily, “doesn’t even mention the place. No one, I feel sure, has any interest in a halt there. If you persist in wasting the passengers’ time in a perfectly useless stop, I shall take it up with the president of the line. I’ll remind you that I have some little influence back home.”
Captain Drake sighed inaudibly. It had not been the first time he had been reminded of Ylen Surat’s “little influence.” “My dear madam, you are right, entirely right, perfectly right-but I can do nothing. All ships on the Sirius, Alpha Centauri, and 61 Cygni lines must stop at Earth. It is by interstellar agreement, and even the president of the line, no matter how stimulated he may be by your argument, could do nothing.”
“Besides,” interrupted Maronni, who thought it time to come to the aid of the beleaguered captain, “I believe that we have two passengers who are actually headed for Earth.”
“That’s right. I had forgotten.” Captain Drake’s face brightened a bit. “There! We have concrete reason for the stop as well.”
“Two passengers out of over fifteen hundred! Reason, indeed!”
“You are unfair,” said Maronni, lightly. “After all, it was on Earth that the Human race originated. You know that, I suppose?”
Ylen Surat lifted patently false eyebrows, “Did we?”
The blank look on her face twisted to one of disdain, “Oh, well, that was all thousands and thousands of years ago. It doesn’t matter any more.”
“It does to the Loarists and the two who wish to land are Loarists.”
“Do you mean to say,” sneered the widow, “that there are still people in this enlightened age who go about studying ‘our ancient culture.’ Isn’t that what they’re always talking about?”