9
Grimly Kim set the "Starshine" on the ground, in the very centre of the dark area, and started the generator in the airlock. When it worked at its utmost, and nothing happened, Kim threw in the leads of the ship's full engine-power. There was a surging of all the terrific energy the ship's engines could give. Then the radio-loop went white-hot and melted, with a sputtering arc as the circuit broke.
Abruptly the stars appeared overhead, and simultaneously came the leaping flame of a rumbling explosion. Then followed the flare of fuel burning savagely in the night. TheStarshine'sfull power had burned out the force-field generator, an instant before the loop melted to uselessness.
Kim was with the men who ran toward the scene of the explosion, and he would have tried to stop the killing of the other men who ran out of underground burrows, but the victims would not have it. They expected to be killed, and they fought wildly. All died.
Later Kim inspected the shattered apparatus which now lay in pieces, but he thought it could be reconstructed and perhaps in time understood.
"Night's nearly over," he announced to those who prowled through the wreckage. "It shouldn't be much more than an hour until dawn. If I hadn't seen sunlight for a week or more, I think, I'd go for a look at the sunrise."
In seconds the first atmosphere-flier took off. In minutes the last of them were gone. They flew like great black birds beneath the starlight, headed for the east to greet a sun they had not expected to see again.
But the Mayor of Steadheim stayed behind.
"Hah!" he said, growling. "It's over my head. I don't know what happened and I never expect to understand. How are my sons in the new Galaxy?"
"Fine when last we heard," said Dona, smiling. "Come into the ship."
He tramped into the living space of theStarshine. He eased himself into a seat.
"Now tell me what's gone on, and what's happened, and why!" he commanded dictatorially.
Kim told him, as well as he could. The Mayor of Steadheim fumed.
"Took over the twenty-one planets, eh?" he sputtered. "We'll attend to that. We'll take a few ships, go over there, and punish 'em."
"I suspect they've pulled out," said Kim. "If they haven't, they will. And soon! The Gracious Majesties and Magnificents, and the other planetary rulers who essayed some easy conquests, have other need for their soldiers now. Plenty of need!"
"Eh, what?" cried the mayor. "What's the matter? Those rulers have got to have a lesson! We didn't try to free the whole Galaxy because it was too big a job. But it looks like we'll have to try!"
"I doubt the need," said Kim, amused. "After all, it's the Disciplinary Circuit which has enslaved the human race. When the psychogram of every citizen is on file, and a disciplinarian has only to put his card in the machinery and press a button to have that man searched out by Disciplinary-Circuit waves and tortured, wherever he may be—when that's possible—any government is absolute. Men can't revolt when the whole population or any part of it can be tortured at the ruler's whim."
Dona's expression changed.
"Kim!" she said accusingly. "Those things you got on Spicus Five and dropped on the planets the soldiers came from—what were they?"
"I'll tell you," said Kim. "The Disciplinary Circuit is all right to keep criminals in hand—not rebels like us, but thieves and such—and it does keep down the number of officials who have to be supported by the state. Police and guards aren't really needed on a free planet with the Disciplinary Circuit in action. It's a useful machine for the protection of law and order. The trouble is that, like all machines, its use has been abused. Now it serves tyranny. So I made a device to defend freedom."
The Mayor of Steadheim cocked a suspicious eye upon him.
"I procured a little gadget," said Kim. "I dropped the gadget in various places where it wasn't likely to be found. If one man is under Disciplinary Circuit punishment, or two or three or four—that's not unreasonable on a great planet—nothing happens. But if twenty-five or fifty or a hundred are punished at once, the Disciplinary Circuit is blown out as I just blew out that force-field generator."
The Mayor of Steadheim considered this information.
"Ha-hmmm!" he said profoundly.
"Criminals can be kept down, but a revolt can't be suppressed," Kim went on. "The soldiers who are occupying the twenty-one planets will be called back to put down revolts, as soon as the people discover the Disciplinary Circuits on their planets are blowing out, and that they blow out again as fast as they're re-made and used."
"Hm!" said the Mayor of Steadheim. "Not bad! And the rebels will have some very tasty ideas of what to do to the folk who've tyrannized over them. No troops can stop a revolt nowadays. Not for long!"
"No, not for long," said Kim. "No government will be able to rule with a dissatisfied population. Not if it has a little gadget hidden somewhere that will blow out the Disciplinary Circuit, if it's used to excess."
"Good enough, good enough," grumbled the mayor. "When rulers are kept busy satisfying their people, they won't have time to bother political offenders. That's sensible enough! But it's too fiendish bad that only those twenty planets have the gadgets on them! I suppose we criminals will have to set up a factory and make them, and then visit all the three hundred million inhabited planets, one by one, and drop one little contrivance on every one. But it'll take us centuries! Space! That's a pity!"
"It won't take centuries," said Kim drily. "I made a deal with a factory-owner on Spicus Five. He turned out the ones I personally dropped, in exchange for the design. He's going to manufacture them in quantity. He'll make a fortune out of them!"
"How? Who'll buy them?" demanded the mayor. "Every king will outlaw them! Space, yes! They'll be scared to death—"
"The kings," said Kim more drily than before, "the kings and despots and emperors will be the ones to buy them. They'll want them to drop in their neighbors' dominions. Every king or ruler will buy a few to put where they will weaken his enemies—and every one has enemies! We don't have to plant the gadgets that make the Disciplinary Circuit into a boomerang! We'll let the kings weaken each other and bring back freedom. And they will!"
The Mayor of Steadheim puffed in his breath until it looked as if he would explode. Then he bellowed with laughter.
"Make the tyrants dethrone each other," he roared delightedly. "They'll weaken each other until they find they've their own people to deal with. There'll be a fine scramble! I give it five years, no more, before there's not a king in the Galaxy who dares order an execution without a jury-trial first!"
"A consummation devoutly to be wished," said Kim, smiling. "I rather like the idea myself."
The mayor heaved himself up.
"Hah!" he said, still chuckling. "I'll go back to my wife and tell her to come outdoors and look at the stars. What will you two do next?"
"Sleep, I suspect," said Kim. It was all over. The realization made him aware of how tired he was. "We'll probably put in twenty-four hours of just plain slumber. Then we'll see if anything more needs to be done, and then I guess Dona and I will head back to Terranova. The Organizer there is worried about a shortage of textiles."
"To the devil with him," grunted the Mayor of Steadheim. "We've had a shortage of sunlight! You're a good man, Kim Rendell. I'll tell my grandchildren about you, when I have them."
He waved grandly and went out. A little later his flier took off, occulting stars as it rose.
Kim closed the airlock door. He yawned again.
"Kim," said Dona, "We had to break that shield, but it was dangerous."
"Yes," said Kim. He yawned again. "So it was. I'll be glad to get back to our house on Terranova."
"So will I," said Dona. Her face had become determined. "We shouldn't even think of leaving it again, Kim! We should—anchor ourselves to it, so nobody would think of asking us to leave."
"A good idea," said Kim. "If it could be done."
Dona looked critically at her fingers, but she flushed suddenly.
"It could," she said softly. "The best way would be—children."
Put yourself in the place of Kim Rendell, a handsome, idealistic young man living on a distant planet ruled by a super-efficient government. Here is industrialization carried to itsillogicalconclusion. Kim Rendell lives in the shadow of mechanized terror, for machines have taken over, and the disciplinary circuit keeps the inhabitants in check.
Rendell is an outlaw because he tried to strike at the very foundations of this so-called civilization. He will not yield to the tyranny of the power-mad, sensuously warped rulers of the astral body Alphin III. He and his girl friend are in danger of psychological torture worse than death.
Kim Rendell goes to the antique museum of Alphin III, which housesStarshine, an outmoded space-ship. He conceives the daring plan of using theStarshineto save his girl and himself from the dictators of Alphin III. In this world, teleportation of matter has taken the place of transportation from planet to planet, and solar system to solar system, via rocket and atomic-powered vessels. Nevertheless, Kim decides to steal the last space-ship from the antique museum and flee with his girl.
Thus starts this most stirring novel of love, adventure and the fight against tyranny, by the well-known author of hundreds of adult science-fiction stories.