by Various
"Of course," he said.
"Then think of all the fireworks you'll get," I said. "Bombs going off, heaters exploding, stacks of arms all going off at once--the Fourth of July, the Fourteenth, and Guy Fawkes Day, all at once, with a small touch of Armageddon for flavor. Not to mention the Chinese New Year."
"But--"
"Sell it that way," I said. "The drama. The great picture. The excitement. That, believe me, they'll buy."
He frowned while he thought it over. Then the frown turned into a grin. "By God," he said, "they might."
And they did. The conference and the election were both pretty stormy. All the new patriots were off to blow up the Government buildings one after another, even more enthusiastic than the original members. It was only natural; my instructions to the recruiters had been to pick the most violent, frothing anti-Government men they could find to send out, and that was what we got. But Hollerith gave them a talk, and the vote, when it came, was overwhelmingly in favor of his plan.
Even Huey was enthusiastic. He came up to me after the meeting and pounded me on the back; I suppose it was meant for friendship, though it felt more like sabotage. "Hey, I thought you were no good," he said. "I thought you were ... oh, you know, some kid of a spy."
"I know," I said.
"Well, Mister," he said, "believe me, I was wrong." He pounded some more. I tried to look as if I liked it or, anyway, as if I could put up with it. "You're O.K., Mister," he said. "You're O.K."
Some day, I told myself, I was going to get Huey all to myself, away in a dark alley somewhere. There didn't seem to be much chance of keeping the promise, but I made it to myself anyway, and moved away.
The meeting had set the attack for three days ahead, which was a moral victory for Hollerith; the men were all for making it in the next five minutes. But he said he needed time--it's a good thing, I told myself, that he didn't say what he needed it for. Because in a few hours, right after sunrise the next morning, training started and Hollerith had his hands full of trouble.
The new men didn't see the sense in it. "Hell," one of them complained, "all we got to do is go up and toss a bomb into the place. We don't like all this fooling around first."
The "fooling around" involved jungle training--how to walk quietly, how to avoid getting slashed by a vine, and so forth. It also involved forming two separate attack groups for Hollerith's plans. That meant drilling the groups to move separately, and drilling each group to stay together.
And there were other details: how to fire a heater from the third rank without incinerating a comrade in the front rank; signal-spotting, in case of emergency and sudden changes of plan; the use of dynamite, its care and feeding; picking targets--and so forth and so forth. Hollerith's three days seemed pretty short when you thought about what they had to cover.
But the new men didn't like it. They wanted action. "That's what we signed on for," they said. "Not all this drill. Hell, we ain't an army--we're guerrillas."
The older hands, and the more sensible members of the band, tried their best to talk the new men into line. Some of the officers tried ordering them into line.
But the talk was ignored. And as for the officers--well, the old United States Civil War tried a democratic army for a while, on both sides. Unfortunately, electing your officers is not an efficient way to run things. The most popular man makes the best officer about as often as the most popular man makes the best criminal-law judge. Or engineer, for that matter. War's not a democratic business.
This one, however, seemed to be. Mass election of officers was one of the rules, along with the voting on staff decisions. The new men out-numbered the older hands. New officers were elected--and that stopped the orders.
Hollerith was about two-thirds of the way out of his mind when the three days were up and the attack time came around. When night fell, the atmosphere around the cave was as tense as it could get without turning into actual lightning. It was a warm, still night; the single moon was quarter-full but it shed a lot more light than Earth's moon; we blacked ourselves and Hollerith went over the plans. We were still divided into two groups--ragged groups, but groups. The first wave was to come around on the depot from the left, attacking in full force with all armaments and some of that dynamite. When things were getting toward a peak in that direction, the second force was to come in from the right and set off its own fireworks. Result (Hollerith hoped): demolition, confusion, catastrophe.
It was a good plan. Hollerith obviously wasn't sure of his own men any more--and neither would I have been, in his spot. But he had the advantage of surprise and superior arms; he was clearly hoping that would overbalance the lack of discipline, training and order in his force. Besides, there was nothing else he could do; he was outvoted, all the way down the line.
* * * * *
I set out, with hardly a qualm, along with the second attack group. We were under the command of a shy, tall man with spectacles who didn't look like much, he'd been a trapper before the war, though, and was one of the original guerrillas, for a wonder, and that meant he was probably a hell of a lot tougher and more knowledgeable than he seemed. Setting traps for Wohlen's animals, for instance, was emphatically not a job for the puny or the frightened. The first group was under Huey's command.
Hollerith stayed with a small group of his own as a "reserve"; actually, he wanted to oversee the battle, and the men were perfectly willing to let him, having gotten one idea into their democratic heads: Hollerith was too valuable a man for the guerrillas to lose.
But I wasn't, of course. I'd done my bit; I'd gotten the volunteers. Now I could go and die for glory like the rest of them.
* * * * *
The trouble was, I couldn't see any way out. I marched in the dimness with the rest, and we managed to make surprisingly little noise. Wohlen's animals were active and stirring, anyhow, and that helped.
At last the depot showed up in the moonlight with the city some distance behind it. There was a wire fence, and a sentry, immediately in view behind him were square blocky buildings in a clearing. Beyond that there was another fence, then some more jungle, and then the city. Fifty yards from the fence, in the last screen of trees, we stopped and waited.
The first group was off to the other side of the fence, and I couldn't see or hear them. The wait seemed to go on for hours; perhaps a minute and a half passed. Then the first heater went off.
The sentry whirled and fired without really thinking. There wasn't any way for him to tell what he was shooting at. More heaters went off from the jungle, and then they started to come in. There was a lot of noise.
The boys were yelling, swarming over the wire fence and through it, firing heaters wildly. There were lights in the buildings, now, and a picked group of men came out of one of them, swinging in single file; the heaters chopped them to pieces before they had much of a chance. A tower light went on and then the really big guns got going.
The guerrillas started to get it, then. The big boys from the armaments tower charred holes in their line, and the noise got worse; men were screaming and cursing and dying and the heaters were still going off. I tore my eyes away and looked at the leader of our group. He was poised on the balls of his feet, leaning forward; he stayed that way, his head nodding very slowly up and down, for a full second. Then he shouted and lifted an arm and we followed him, a screaming mob heading down into hell.
The big guns were swiveled the other way and for a couple of seconds we had no trouble. Our boys weren't playing with heaters too much; instead, the dynamite started to fly. Light the fuse, pick it up, heave--and then stand back and watch. Fireworks. Excitement. Well, it was what they wanted, wasn't it?
There was an explosion as a small bundle landed inside the fence, in a courtyard. Then another one, the flashes lighting up faces and bodies in motion. I found myself screaming with the rest of them.
Then the big one went off.
One of the dynamite bundles had hit the right spot. Ammunition went off with a dul
l boom that shook the ground, and the light was too bright to look into. I went flat and so did the others; I wondered about solid shells exploding and going wild, but there weren't any. The light faded, and then it began to grow again.
I put my head up and saw flames. Then I got up and saw the others rising, too. I turned tail for the jungle. Some of them followed me, along with some of the first group; order was lost entirely and we were no more than pieces of a shrieking, delirious, victorious mob. I headed back for the base.
Behind me the ammunition depot burned brightly. The raid was over.
It had been an unqualified success, of course. The guerrillas had done the best job of their careers.
So far.
* * * * *
Hollerith was back to the cave before me. Put it down to a short-cut, or just more practice in the jungle. When I came in he looked terrible, about a hundred and twelve years old and shrunken. But my appearance seemed to rouse him a little. He gestured and the others in the cave--three or four of them--went out. One stood at the entrance.
There was a silence. Hollerith grimaced at me. "You're working for the Government," he said. It wasn't a question.
I shook my head. "I--"
"Keep it," he said. "James Carson from Ancarta is a cover identity, that's all. I tell you, I know."
He didn't look ready to pull a heater. I waited a second. The silence got louder. Then I said: "All right. How do you know?"
The grimace again, twisted and half-humorous. "Why, because you got me recruits," he said. "Because you got me armaments. Because you helped me."
"Doesn't make sense," I said.
"Doesn't it?" He turned away from me for a second. When he turned back he looked more like General Rawlinson Hollerith, and less like a corpse. "You got me fanatics, men who hated the Government."
"Well?"
"They don't think straight," he said. "There isn't room in their minds for any more than that hatred. And they're democratic, just like the rest of us. They vote."
"You set that up," I said. "I had nothing to do with it."
He nodded. "I know," he said. "There are places where democracy just doesn't work. Like an armed force. As long as most of the members think alike, you're all right. But when a new factor comes into the picture--why, nobody knows what he's voting for. It becomes a matter of personal preference--which is no way to run a war."
"All right," I said. "But I got you the men and their arms--"
"Sure you did," he said. "You got me everything I needed--to hang myself with." He raised a hand. "I'm not saying you worked against me. You didn't have to."
"I got you everything you wanted," I said.
"Sure," he said. "Did you ever hear of jujitsu?"
"I--"
"You used my strength against me," he said. "You got me what I wanted--and did it in such a way that it would ruin me."
"But the attack was a success," I said.
He shook his head. "How many men are going to come back?" he said. "Fifty? Sixty? How many of them are going to get lost out there, return to the city, try to go up against New Didymus with a heater and nothing else? How many of them have had all the excitement they want? Those are going to head for home. A success--"
He paused. I waited.
"There was a general in Greece in the ancient days," he said. "A general named Pyrrhus. He won a battle once, and lost most of his men doing it. 'For my part,' he said, 'another victory like this and we are undone.' That's the kind of success we had."
Hollerith had brains. "A Pyrrhic victory," I said.
"And you know all about it," he said. "You planned it this way."
I shrugged. "By doing what you wanted done," I said.
He nodded, very slowly.
"What now?" I said quietly.
He acted, for a second, as if he didn't hear me. Then he spoke. "Now," he said, "we go back. Democracy--it's a limited tool, like anything else. No tool is so good that it can be used in every case, on every problem. We were wrong. We'd better admit it and go back."
"But your men--"
"The good ones know the truth now," he said, "just as I do. The others ... there's nothing else they can do, without me and without the rest of the force."
I took a deep breath. It was all over.
"And now," he said suddenly, "I want you to tell me just who you are."
"I--"
"Not James Carson," he said. "And not from Ancarta. Not even from Wohlen."
"How do you know?" I said.
"Nobody on this planet," he said, "would do this job in just this way. I'm familiar enough with the top men to be sure of that. You're from the Comity."
"That's right," I said.
"But ... who are you? What force? What army?"
"No army," I said. "You might call me a teacher; my corps is made up of teachers. We give lessons--where lessons are needed."
"A teacher," he said quietly. A long time passed. "Well," he asked, "do I pass the course?"
"You pass," I told him. "You pass--with high marks, General."
* * * * *
I was off-planet within twenty-four hours. Not that Santa Claus didn't want me to stay longer, when I told him what had happened. Hell, he wanted to throw a banquet and sixteen speeches in my honor. I was a holy Idol all over again. I was superhuman.
I was glad to get away. What makes them think a man's special, just because he uses his brain once in a while?
* * *
Contents
WIZARD
By Laurence Mark Janifer
Although the Masquerade itself, as a necessary protection against non-telepaths, was not fully formulated until the late years of the Seventeenth Century, groups of telepaths-in-hiding existed long before that date. Whether such groups were the results of natural mutations, or whether they came into being due to some other cause, has not yet been fully determined, but that a group did exist in the district of Offenburg, in what is now Prussia, we are quite sure. The activities of the group appear to have begun, approximately, in the year 1594, but it was not until eleven years after that date that they achieved a signal triumph, the first and perhaps the last of its kind until the dissolution of the Masquerade in 2103.
--Excerpt from "A Short History of the Masquerade," by A. Milge, Crystal 704-54-368, Produced 2440.
Jonas came over the hill whistling as if he had not a care in the world--which was not even approximately true, he reflected happily. The state of complete and utter quiet was both foreign and slightly repugnant to him; he was never more pleased than when he had a job in hand, a job that involved a slight and unavoidable risk.
This time, of course, the risk was more than slight. Why, he thought happily, it was even possible for him to get killed, and most painfully, too! With a great deal of pleasure, he stood for a second at the crest of the hill, his hands on his hips, looking down at the town of Speyer as it baked in the May afternoon sunlight.
"Behold the Tortoise: He maketh no progress unless he sticketh out his neck." But he maketh very little progress unless he pick the right time and place to "sticketh out his neck"--which can be quite a sticky problem for a man in a medieval culture!
Jonas did not, in spite of his pose, look like the typical hero of folk tale or scribe's tome; he was not seven feet tall, for instance, nor did he have a handsome, lovesome face with flashing blue eyes, or a broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted marvel of a figure. He was, instead, somewhat shorter than the average of men in Europe in 1605 and for some time thereafter. He had small, almost hidden eyes that seemed to see a great deal, but failed completely to make a fuss about the fact. And while his figure was just a trifle dumpy, his face completed the rhyme by being extraordinarily lumpy. The nose, as a matter of strict truth, was hard to distinguish from the other contusions, swellings and marks that covered the head.
Nor, of course, did he carry the sword of a great hero, or a noble. Jonas had no von to stick on his name, and he had never thought it worth his while to claim one and a
ccept the tiny risk of disclosure. After all, a noble was only a man like other men.
And, besides, Jonas knew perfectly well that he had no need of a sword.
His adventures, too, were a little out of the common run of tales. Jonas had, he thought regretfully, few duels to look forward to, and he had even fewer to look back on. And, as a maid is won by face, figure and daring, and a wife by riches, position or prospects, there was a notable paucity of lissome ladies in Jonas' career.
All in all, he thought sadly, he was not a usual hero.
But he refused to let the thought spoil his enjoyment. After all, he was a hero, though of his own unique kind; there was no denying that. And, in his own way, he had his reward. He took one hand off his hip to scratch at the top of his head, wondering briefly if he had managed to pick up lice in the last town he had visited, and he took another look at the city.
Speyer seemed a lot better, at first glance, than some of the other places Jonas had visited. For one thing, it had a full town hall, built--no less--of honest stone, and probably a relict of the Roman times. There was the parish church, of course, a good solid wooden structure, and a collection of houses strung along the dirt paths of the town. The houses of the rich were, naturally, wooden; the poor built of baked mud. There were a great many baked-mud structures, and only one wooden one, besides the church, that Jonas could see.
The paths were winding, but comparatively free from slop. That was pleasing, he told himself. And the buildings themselves, wood, mud and stone, clustered in the valley below him as if they were afraid, and needed each other's protection.
Which, in a way, they did. Jonas reflected on that a trifle grimly, thinking of the Holy Inquisition with its hierarchy of priests and lay folk, busily working in Speyer just as it worked in every other town throughout Offenburg, and throughout the civilized world.
Ordinarily, he would not have given it a thought, beyond a passing sigh for the ways of the world; he had other business. But now--
