Empire

Throughout Mars it was the same.

In a dozen places in Sandebar the voice spoke. It spoke in a dozen places, out of empty air, in Malacon and Alexon and Adebron.

Tom Brown, vanishing into the air after his speech was done, reappeared a few minutes later in Adebron and there the police, warned of what had happened in Sandebar, opened fire upon him when he stood on a park bench to address the people. But the flames passed through and did not touch him. Tom Brown, his long white beard covering his chest, his mad eyes flashing, stood in the fiery blast that bellowed from the muzzles of the flame rifles and calmly talked.

The chief of police at New Chicago, Venus, called the police commissioner. "There's a guy out here in the park, just across the street. He's preaching treason. He's telling the people to overthrow the government."

In the ground glass the police commissioner's face grew purple.

"Arrest him," he ordered the chief. "Clap him in the jug. Do you have to call me up every time one of those fiery-eyed boys climbs a soap box? Run him in."

"I can't," said the chief.

The police commissioner seemed ready to explode. "You can't? Why the hell not?"

"Well, you know that hill in the center of the park? Memorial Hill?"

"What has a hill got to do with it?" the commissioner roared.

"He's sitting on top of that hill. He's a thousand feet tall. His head is way up in the sky and his voice is like thunder. How can you arrest anybody like that?"

Everywhere in the System, revolt was flaming. New marching songs rolled out between the worlds, wild marching songs that had the note of anger in them. Weapons were brought out of hiding and polished. New standards were raised in an ever-rising tide against oppression.

Freedom was on the march again. The right of a man to rule himself the way he chose to rule. A new declaration of independence. A Solar Magna Carta.

There were new leaders, led by the old leaders. Led by spirits that marched across the sky. Led by voices that spoke out of the air. Led by signs and symbols and a new-born courage and a great and a deep conviction that right in the end would triumph.

Spencer Chambers glared at Ludwig Stutsman. "This is one time you went too far."

"If you'd given me a free hand before, this wouldn't have been necessary," Stutsman said. "But you were soft. You made me go easy when I should have ground them down. You left the way open for all sorts of plots and schemes and leaders to develop."

The two men faced one another, one the smooth, tawny lion, the other the snarling wolf.

"You've built up hatred, Stutsman," Chambers said. "You are the most hated man in the Solar System. And because of you, they hate me. That wasn't my idea. I needed you because I needed an iron fist, but I needed it to use judiciously. And you have been ruthless. You've used force when conciliation was necessary."

Stutsman sneered openly. "Still that old dream of a benevolent dictatorship. Still figuring yourself a little bronze god to be set up in every household. A dictatorship can't be run that way. You have to let them know you're boss."

Chambers was calm again. "Argument won't do us any good now. The damage is done. Revolt is flaming through all the worlds. We have to do something."

He looked at Craven, who was slouched in a chair beside the desk across which he and Stutsman faced each other.

"Can you help us, doctor?" he asked.

Craven shrugged. "Perhaps," he said acidly. "If I could only be left to my work undisturbed, instead of being dragged into these stupid conferences, I might be able to do something."

"You already have, haven't you?" asked Chambers.

"Very little. I've been able to blank out the televisor that Manning and Page are using, but that is all."

"Do you have any idea where Manning and Page are?"

"How could I know?" Craven asked. "Somewhere in space."

"They're at the bottom of this," snarled Stutsman. "Their damned tricks and propaganda."

"We know they're at the bottom of it," said Craven. "That's no news to us. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have this trouble now, despite your bungling. But that doesn't help us any. With this new discovery of mine I have shielded this building from their observation. They can't spy on us any more. But that's as far as I've got."

"They televised the secret meeting of the emergency council when it met in Satellite City on Ganymede the other day," said Chambers. "The whole Jovian confederacy watched and listened to that meeting, heard our secret war plans, for fully ten minutes before the trick was discovered. Couldn't we use your shield to prevent such a situation again?"

"Better still," suggested Stutsman, "let's shield the whole satellite. Without Manning's ghostly leaders, this revolt would collapse of its own weight."

Craven shook his head. "It takes fifty tons of accumulators to build up that field, and a ton of fuel a day to maintain it. Just for this building alone. It would be impossible to shield a whole planet, an entire moon."