The Best of Jack Williamson

by Jack Williamson

  Kellon turned on his frank, confident smile.

  “I’m glad to see you, Catlaw,” he said smoothly. “I’m sorry if this is inconvenient for you, but it was the only way I knew to get your point of view.”

  The boss paused invitingly, but the Preacher said nothing. He stood absolutely motionless, between the big men who held him. His burning eyes stared bleakly away, through the far, glowing murals.

  “I know that times are difficult.” Kellon kept his voice suave and even. “The exhaustion of the Jovian mines has caused depression. All the heavy industries are almost dead, and labor has naturally suffered. But I personally am deeply concerned for the comfort and welfare of the masses. And I assure you that the Union will earnestly consider any reform measures you will suggest.”

  Kellon paused again. Stillness whispered in the long Moon Room. Beneath the mighty glowing murals, that showed station domes and robot miners and long unitron transports against a background of towering lunar peaks and star-shot space, the little group at the telephone desk seemed queerly insignificant. The room seemed too vast for its builders.

  Now at last the Preacher spoke. His long, stern face showed no response to Kellon’s persuasive smile, and he ignored Kellon’s arguments. In a tense, grating, stifled voice, he began quoting texts from the Revelation:

  “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit. . . . Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.”

  Kellon’s smile had turned a little pale.

  “Are you crazy?” He coughed against a troublesome rasp in his throat. “I suppose you mean Sunport?” His bewilderment was honest. “But Sunport is civilization!”

  Stiff and insolent, the Preacher croaked:

  “He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. . . . Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire. ... In one hour is she made desolate. . . . And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all

  Kellon leaned over the curving desk, with a look of earnest puzzlement.

  “I don’t understand you, Catlaw,” he protested gravely. “Do you want to wreck all that men have accomplished ? Do you want the future to forget the power of science? Do you want to turn men back into naked savages, and wipe out civilization?”

  “Civilization?” The Preacher made a harsh snorting laugh. “Your glittering civilization is itself the Harlot of Babylon, poisoning all that yield to her painted lure. The science you revere is your false prophet. Your machines are the very Beast of the Apocalypse.”

  He gulped a hoarse breath.

  “Yea, Armageddon and the Kingdom are at hand!”

  “Listen to me,” begged Kellon. “Please—”

  Catlaw jerked angrily in the grasp of the Goons.

  “I have come to destroy this last, most evil Babylon.” His metallic, pulpit voice rang through the long Moon Room. “Even as the angels of God once smote the wicked cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah. And every engineer shall be burned with the fire of the Lord—save that he repents tonight!”

  His yellow face was a stern, rigid mask.

  “I warn you, Antichrist. Repent tonight, and follow me.” The cunning of the swamp trader glittered briefly in his hollow eyes. “Turn your power to the path of God, and I will receive you into the Kingdom. Tomorrow will be too late.”

  Kellon rose, gasping for breath.

  “Listen!” His voice trembled. “I fought to rule Sunport. And I’ll fight to preserve it from you and all the lunatics who follow you. Not just because it is mine. But because it is the storehouse of everything great that men have created.”

  “Then you are damned!” Scuffling with the Goons, Catlaw shook a dark, furious fist. “With all your city of evil.”

  Kellon’s voice dropped grimly.

  “I’m not going to kill you, Catlaw. Because you are probably more dangerous dead than alive, just now. But I know that you are a fugitive from the Union, with an untried murder charge waiting for you. I’m sending you to the Outstation prison, tonight, to await trial for murder.”

  He nodded at the Goons, and they dragged the prisoner away.

  Kellon sat down heavily at the telephore desk. The Preacher unnerved him. It was hard for him to understand that deadly, destroying hatred, that blindness to all reason. But he knew that it was multiplied many million times in the gray-clad masses under the Union. He thought of the howling mob of the Preacher’s fanatics about the foot of this very tower, and he was afraid.

  But he must not yield to fear.

  “Get me the militechnic reservation,” he told the telephore operator. “The Admiralty Office. Hurd’s at the ball, but I’ll talk to the officer in charge.”

  The efficient redhead nodded, in the center prism. Kellon was astonished when the next screen lit with the dark, handsome features of Admiral Hurd, himself.

  “Your genius looks surprised.” Hurd flashed his easy, white-toothed smile. “But I left the ball, after one dance with Miss Captain du Mars. I had reports of this crisis, and I felt it my duty to be ready for your commands.”

  “Thank you, admiral.” Kellon tried to put down an uncomfortable feeling that Hurd was far too alert and dutiful. “I have arrested the Preacher. His followers may try to set him free. I want a cruiser to take him to the Outstation prison, as soon as possible.”

  “At once, your genius. I was expecting duty, and my flagship is hot. I’ll take the prisoner myself. The Technarch will be on the Goon Office terrace, to receive him, in five minutes.”

  Smiling, Hurd flickered out of the prism.

  Kellon felt another stab of sharp regret that Roy had failed him. But he had no time to dwell upon his dim mistrust of Hurd. For the empty prism lit again, with Marquard’s worried features.

  “Your genius, the people know we caught the Preacher.” The Goon chief’s whisper was nervous and hurried. “Mob in the square getting ugly. Fighting the Goon cordons. I’m afraid they will attack the Tower.”

  Kellon caught his breath, and tried to keep smiling. He felt confused and tired. He was afraid that any violent action would jar the human volcano under Sunport into terrible eruption.

  But something had to be done. Some display of confidence was necessary, to help the morale of his supporters. He lifted his big shoulders, and groped for his old habit of instant decision.

  “I’ll talk to them,” he told Marquard. “They can’t all be as mad as Catlaw. I’ll tell them who butters their bread.” He smiled a little, as he turned to the operator. Any action made him feel better. “I’ll speak from the terrace,” he said, “on the Tower telephore.”

  “Wait, your genius,” the Goon chief objected anxiously. “The terrace is dangerous. Automatic arms in the mob. Afraid the demonstration has support from some faction in the Union. My operatives still looking for evidence. Better keep out of range.”

  “I’ll speak from the terrace,” Kellon repeated.

  Of course, he might be killed. Fear was a cold, crawling thing inside him. But he had faced death before. Now a display of perfect confidence was the best weapon he could use. He prepared to conceal his gnawing unease.

  The touch of a key dropped the telephore desk into the lavatory below, a hall of glowing luxion almost as splendid as the huge Moon Room. Kellon adjusted the white toupee. A servant rouged his heavy jowls back to a cheerful glow. He tried to rinse the dry rasp out of his throat.

  The elevator section lifted him back to the Moon Room. He walked back through the glowing luxion arch, to the lofty terrace. The telephore stand here had only two prisms. Standing between them, he could look down across Union Square.

  Now the pavements had been darkened, all around the square. Surface traffic was stopped. That gray, human sea had grown until it overflowed the ways, to the shining bases of the towers beyond. The hum of voices had a lowered, vicious tone.

  Kell
on spoke to the operator in the prism beside him. The wall behind—and all the illuminated faces of the Union Tower—began to flash, red and dark, red and dark, to gain attention. That ugly buzzing ceased, and he nodded. The crown of the Tower became a cool, steady violet.

  “People of Sunport.” From the three-hundred-foot screen in the wall beneath him, his giant image looked down over the mob. Magnified to the depth of thunder, his voice rolled out of a thousand speakers. “My friends, the action I have taken tonight was taken for your own good.”

  He trusted the old magic of his frank, robust smile and his candid, booming voice. After all, he had talked his way to victory over better men than Eli Catlaw. But that breathless quiet lasted only a moment, before the defiance of the mob rolled up to him at the slow speed of sound. It was a monstrous animal bellow.

  “My friends, listen to me.” At his quick nod, the operator stepped up the volume of that tremendous voice. “Listen to reason.” A bullet slapped against the cold, glowing wall behind him. Stinging particles of plastic showered him. But fortunately the telephore picked up only a muffled thump. “What can you gain from the Preacher?”

  Boos and jeers roared up from the mob.

  “The Preacher has told you to destroy the machines.” He tried to drown that defiant bellow. “He has told you to kill the men who create and control them. But think what you owe to machines—everything! Obey the Preacher, and the most of you will perish—”

  Brrrram!

  A dull but mighty concussion rocked the terrace. Kellon glimpsed flying debris, spreading out in a giant fan from somewhere beneath him. Black smoke overtook it, and covered the mob in a billowing cloud. His knees were shaking, and his throat went dry. But he tried to go on:

  “The most of you will perish—”

  But the amplifiers were dead. His natural voice was wholly lost in the blasting echoes that came rolling back through the smoke from the distant towers. The telephore was out of order. Even the operator’s image was gone. He shouted hoarsely at it, and clicked the call key. But the prisms remained empty.

  He stood clutching the edges of the stand. He felt bewildered and ill, too dazed even to wonder actively what had happened. At last the smoke came up about him, in a choking, blinding cloud. He stumbled back into the Moon Room.

  “Your genius!” Frightened members of the bodyguard met him in the doorway. “Are you hurt?” The officer told him: “It was a bomb. Under the giant screen. Spies must have set it.”

  The telephore in the Moon Room was still working. Kellon dropped weakly in his seat in the slot, with a grateful smile at the white-lipped operator. He told the redhead to call the Goon Office. Marquard answered, his jerky whisper briefly relieved:

  “Afraid they had got you, boss.” Alarm came back to his thin, dark face. “Thing is worse than I thought. Widespread plot. Organization. Probably Preacher is the leader, but engineers were in it. Got surprising quantities of arms and explosives, and experts to use them.”

  Kellon managed a hard, little grin.

  “Evidently it isn’t sinful to use machines—when they’re guns.”

  The Goon chief was too harassed to smile.

  “Watch for your life, boss,” he whispered. “Warn your guards. May strike anywhere. Rioters smashing cars and storming buildings and murdering engineers, all over the city. Union Tower may be next.”

  Kellon drew a long breath. His shaken nerves were recovering from the blast.

  “Chin up, chief!” His rouged smile was easier. “We’ll handle things. I’ll call Hurd, and have him stand by with the Fleet. We may need a few tons of tickle powder dropped out of space. There’s nothing like a couple of hundred thousand tons of long, black unitron cruiser to instill respect.” He turned to the watchful redhead. “Get me the Technarch.”

  The operator nodded. Her head bobbed a little in the prism, as her unseen hands sped over the switchboard. But the next prism remained blank. A puzzled expression came over her tense face. At last she told Kellon, “Your genius, the Technarch doesn’t answer.”

  Icy, unreasoning panic clutched Kellon’s heart.

  “Get me the Admiralty Office.”

  A dazed-looking militechnic cadet informed him that Admiral Hurd had taken the entire Fleet into space. “All the ships had been hot for twenty-four hours, sir,” he stammered. “I understand the annual maneuvers are taking place, off the Moon.”

  Kellon made a stunned little nod, and the startled cadet was cut off. He stared at Marquard, still imaged in the adjacent prism. The Goon chief had seen and heard the cadet, and his lean, furrowed face reflected Kellon’s consternation.

  “The maneuvers were not to begin for a week,” Kellon gulped uneasily. “Hurd shouldn’t have begun them without an order from me.” He shook his cragged head. “But—wholesale mutiny—it’s too appalling to think of!”

  Marquard made a tiny, bleating sound.

  “That explains it, your genius,” his whisper rasped. “Arms. Organization. Experts. Evidence that the Preacher had help from in the Union. He was plotting with Hurd.” His pale face looked frightened. “Looks desperate, boss!”

  “I won’t believe it,” muttered Kellon. He didn’t dare believe it. Anxiously he told the tense-faced redhead, “Get me the Outstation. Manager General Nordhorn. At once.”

  The Union’s supremacy—and his own—depended on control of space. To that end, the Fleet and the Outstation were equally essential. That artificial moonlet was scarcely a mile in diameter, but an often-proved proverb ran, “The master of the Outstation will be master of the planets.”

  The tiny metal moon had a twenty-four-hour period, which kept it swinging always to the south of Sunport’s zenith. At first it had served merely as observatory, laboratory and steppingstone to space. But the militechnic engineers of the Commonwealth, the Corporation and the Union had thickened its massive armor of meteoric iron, until it was the Gibraltar of the system. The theoretical range of its tremendous guns extended around the Earth and out to the Moon.

  “Hurry!” Kellon croaked. Breathless with impatience, he watched the red-haired operator. She fumbled with her unseen controls, as if there was some difficulty. But at last Nordhorn’s thin, dark face flashed into the prism.

  Manager General Nordhorn was an old man, bent and yellowed and deaf. He should have been retired years ago. But few younger men had shown steadfast loyalty—and even those few, like Marquard, were usually of indifferent ability. Something had happened to the fine tradition of the militechnic service.

  “Has Hurd arrived?” Nordhorn cupped a trembling yellow hand to his ear, and Kellon shouted: “I have arrested the Preacher. I sent Hurd to carry him out to prison. He took the Fleet to space, and he doesn’t answer the telephore. There may be trouble. Better call your men to action stations—”

  Kellon’s voice dried up. Nordhorn had looked sternly composed. But now, as he gulped to speak, Kellon saw the evidence of desperate emotion in his bloodless cheeks and his thin, quivering lips.

  “Your genius, Hurd has already called.” His voice quavered, uncertainly. “I was just about to call you. Hurd did not mention any prisoner. He delivered an ultimatum. A shocking thing, your genius —I can’t quite understand—he demanded that I surrender the Outstation!” Nordhorn’s yellow Adam’s apple jerked, as he swallowed. “Your orders, sir?”

  Blood drummed in Kellon’s ears. Cold with sweat, his hands clutched the edges of the desk. In spite of all the evidence, the completeness of this disaster was still incredible. He tried to steady his reeling brain. Hoarsely he ordered:

  “You will defend the Station—to the last.”

  “To the last.” Nordhorn’s white head lifted proudly. “But the situation is desperate, sir.” A stunned bewilderment came back to his face. “I can’t understand—things are happening so fast. But mutiny is reported in some of the gun crews. Men are fighting in the spaceward bays now.”

  “Hold out—” begged Kellon. But suddenly the haggard-faced old general was swe
pt out of the prism. He clicked the call key desperately, and shouted at the operator, “Get back Nordhorn!”

  “I’m sorry, your genius,” the tense girl told him. “The Outstation doesn’t answer.”

  Marquard’s sick, shaken face was still in the other screen. For his benefit, Kellon tried to grin. “So Hurd and the Preacher are in bed together?” he muttered. “Which do you say will manage to kick the other out?”

  “Won’t matter, if the Station falls,” rasped the Goon chief’s hasty whisper. He listened. “Excuse me, your genius. The riot bureau is calling me. Remember—watch your life!”

  His image was gone. Aimlessly, Kellon stalked up and down the pale-glowing luxion floor of the long Moon Room. What next? The news from the Outstation had shaken him more than the explosion under the terrace. He felt numbed and ill. Still the Station didn’t answer, and he knew nothing useful to do.

  The ball was still going on in the Neptune Room, the officer of his bodyguard told him. Even the telephore newsmen had as yet received little hint of the real gravity of the situation. The bright-clad dancers didn’t know that their world was at the brink of catastrophe.

  Perhaps that was the trouble. If the engineering class had danced less—if they had learned more and done more about the other nine-tenths of the population—things might have been different. But Melkart said it was three generations late to think of that.

  “Boss!” a guard shouted. “Look out!”

  Shots echoed against the high, glowing murals. Somewhere a woman screamed. Fighting men surged through the wide arch from the Neptune Room. The lights went out in the luxion panels. An automatic clattered in the dark.

  The broad connecting doorway had been closed only with the sound-absorbing air screen. Now Kellon heard a muffled woosh! The armored safety panel had lifted, but too late. The attackers were already in the Moon Room.

  In the faint glow that came through the terrace arch, he glimpsed crouching, darting figures. An arm threw something over the fighting Goons. It crashed beside him. Desperately he groped for it, hurled it toward the far end of the room, dropped flat behind the telephore desk.