arguments make sense. Every doubt you sow in their minds now will make our work just that much easier when the proper time comes.”
Occasionally Dirrul had an uneasy feeling that he was making no real progress at all, that when he talked to the scientists he was a dancing puppet dangling on invisible strings. It seemed impossible that the scientists of the Ad-Air University could be so repeatedly defeated by his logic. Slowly, however, he reasoned his way to an explanation.
The scientists, like the system itself, were in the last wild frenzy of a decaying social order. They had lived so long in the atmosphere of relative truths, they had so carefully schooled themselves to avoid all absolutes, that they were unable to elude the simplest processes of logic. Their very efforts to be objective made them too honest to reject a conclusion once Dirrul had demonstrated the careful structure that seemed to support it.
*
A month passed. Dirrul felt divorced from the Movement, existing in suspended animation in a cloud of wordy unreality. Then abruptly the slow-moving dream ended. Late one night Paul Sorgel slipped into Dirrul’s apartment and announced in an emotionless whisper, “The Plan’s ready. You’ll have to carry the details to Vinin. We can’t use the teleray—the Union monitors might pick up the message and decode it.”
“Naturally our Vininese Headquarters will want to know, Paul,” said Eddie, “but can’t that wait? We’ll need every man here when we—”
Sorgel interrupted him. “I’ve made one or two changes in Glenna’s original plan. It was too impractical. A handful of men can’t take over half a galaxy.”
“Glenna and Hurd weren’t after the entire Planetary Union, Paul—that’s out of the question. We meant to liberate Agron first. The capital is here and for awhile the government would be disrupted. When the people on the other planets saw how much better our social organization had become, modeled on the Vininese system, they would stage their own revolutions just like ourselves.”
Sorgel laughed scornfully. “And in the meantime, of course, none of them would think of attacking you and throwing your people out?”
“Not if we seized the Nuclear Beam Transmitters,” said Dirrul, “no space-fleet could come near us then.”
“Eddie, you’ve lived in Agron too long. You’re not thinking straight when you try to build the Plan around a single weapon.”
“Why not, Paul? It’s a perfect defense. In less than thirty seconds the Beam Transmitters can charge the entire stratospheric envelope of Agron. Nothing can move through it without disintegrating, yet life on the surface of the planet would go on quite normally because the atmosphere serves as an insulation.”
“Technically it’s a change in the form of energy, not a disintegration,” Sorgel reminded him. “The beamed electrons unite with the atoms of visible material substances and alter them. I quite understand the process, Eddie—Vinin has the Beam too, you know.”
“Because the Agronian scientists gave you the specifications!”
“That always has rankled, hasn’t it?” said Sorgel.
“Yes,” Dirrul admitted. “If the Vininese scientists had discovered the Beam-reaction first they would have conquered the galaxy.”
“Conquer is a nasty word, Eddie,” Sorgel said softly. “Vinin makes no conquests. Let’s put it differently and say we would have used the Beam to bring peace to the galaxy instead of splitting it in two as it is now.”
“Glenna’s Plan can change all that, at least here on Agron.”
“Face the facts, Eddie! A few conscientious people with ideals can’t take over a planet. The Movement has its crews trained to capture the Beam Transmitters. You’ll isolate Agron and seize the government offices simultaneously. What happens then?”
“Our people will rise and join us,” said Eddie. “We’ll create a new government modeled on Vinin’s and we’ll have young leaders instead of murky thinkers like Dr. Kramer.”
“That’s effective propaganda for speechmaking, but—”
“Glenna pounded away at it too, Paul,” said Eddie. “It was the most telling line in winning our new crop of recruits.”
“Which is precisely why the police disposed of her. But it won’t work. The people won’t rise. A mob is lethargic, too willing to keep things as they are. Here on Agron you’ve been coddled too long with luxuries and easy living. You have to prod the mob awake with a shock-force, a force coming from the outside.”
“How, Paul? We haven’t enough people in the Movement to put on any real show of strength. We can’t even get outside.”
“Now you understand the changes I’ve made in Glenna’s Plan. You people in the Movement will seize the Beam Transmitters as originally planned. Then you’ll simply hold them and keep them decommissioned long enough for a Vininese space-fleet to land. We’ll set up your new government for you.”
“And the rest of the Planetary Union will go to war!”
“It hardly matters,” said Paul. “Once we’re here the Beams will protect us against counterattack and every planet in the Vininese Confederacy has the same defense. One by one we can liberate the planets of the Union in the same way. But the timing is vital, of course—that’s why you have to go to Vinin.”
“I had a vacation leave only three months ago. I can’t get tourist passage now without—”
“I’ve considered that. You’ll have to have your own space-ship.”
“Now wait a minute, Paul! It’s one thing to borrow a surface jet but a space-cruiser...!”
“A cruiser, yes—not an old cargo ship. And you can handle that without a crew.”
“It can’t be done, Paul.” Dirrul held his Glo-Wave nervously to the end of a cigarette. “Besides, I want to think this through carefully before I make up my mind.”
“A merchant ship made a crash landing at Barney’s emergency field yesterday,” said Paul. “The damage was slight, but the pilot—unfortunately the pilot is dead.” Sorgel smiled enigmatically. “Barney’s one of our best men. He’s been on the lookout for a chance like this for weeks.
“You’ll leave tonight. Avoid the regular space lanes. I’m guessing you’ll be on Vinin in a hundred days at the outside. On the fiftieth day after that—exactly one hundred and fifty days from now—our Vininese space-fleet must make a landing on Agron.”
“I’ll be missed, Paul—they’ll make inquiries.”
“And get no satisfactory answers.”
Pacing the floor, Dirrul asked tensely, “Does everyone in the Movement know about this?”
“The vote was made unanimously yesterday.”
“One of the others must have a vacation leave coming up. Send him. We’re not at war with Vinin. He could take one of the regular space excursions.”
“I can’t send
