Dawnman Planet

VIII

If Bakon Wyler had suddenly metamorphosed into a gigantic butterfly, he could hardly have surprised Ronny Bronston more.

“Not intelligent?” he protested. “A moment ago you said they had an unbelievably advanced technology. Fusion reactors and matter conversion units aren’t exactly the products of unintelligent minds.”

The Baron looked at him strangely. “Can we be so sure? Have you ever considered some of the things insects accomplish? However, neither as individuals nor as units—such as beehives or anthills—do we think of insects as intelligent. But the analogy isn’t too good. A moment, please.”

He got up, walked over to a wall screen and said something into it, then returned.

“You noted, of course, how humanoid our Dawnman was?”

“Humanoid?” Ronny blurted. “That was a man.”

“Perhaps.” There was still a strange element in the Baron’s voice.

The screen on one of the room’s doors said, “Academecian Count Felix Fitz-james, on orders to see the Supreme Commandant.”

“Enter,” the Baron said.

He made off-hand introductions, then said to Ronny Bronston, “The Count has been specializing in this particular aspect of the matter. Undoubtedly, he will be pleased to enlighten you.” He turned to the Count. “The matter of the nature of the Dawnmen.”

“Dawnmen?” Ronny said.

The Academecian, who was an elderly scholar and somewhat nervous in the presence of his ultimate superior, said, “Undoubtedly a misnomer, but one that has come into common usage among we who are working on the project. One hypothesis is that these aliens are the original Homo sapiens, that Earth was seeded from one of their planets.”

Baron Wyler said affably, “Sit down, my dear Count.”

The Count nervously sat, remaining on the edge of his chair.

Ronny said, “That’s ridiculous. Earth is the origin of man.”

The other nodded, apologetically. “Most likely, Your Excellency; however, there are those among us who think otherwise. You are undoubtedly aware of the theory that would evolve upon various planets. The fact that he stands erect, that his eyes are so placed, that he has a voicebox, so many of the other factors that go to make up the entity, man—all have good reason for having evolved, and given similar situations would evolve on similar worlds as on Earth.”

“I’ve heard the theory,” Ronny begrudged. “I haven’t thought too much about it.”

“Most authorities don’t,” the other bobbed his head agreeably. “However, there are certain factors that give credence to Homo sapiens’ evolution elsewhere. For instance, we know that the earliest man-like creatures, Zinjanthropus and Homo habilis were in existence some two million years ago, and, utilizing very primitive tools and weapons. For two million years little progress was made. And then, almost overnight, in terms of history, modern man was on the scene. Some twenty or twenty-five thousand years ago, Cro-Magnon man burst upon us with his advanced tools, his weapons, his religion, his advanced art.”

“Advanced art?” Ronny protested.

“The cave drawings and paintings of the Magdalenian period in the Upper Paleolithic—especially in such places as Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France—are not primitive art, as so many seem to think. It is a highly developed art, and, without doubt, connected with their religion. Consider a moment, and you will realize that the very concept of religion is indicative of a sophisticated mind.”

Ronny said impatiently, “I don’t seem to get the point.”

“The point,” the older man said reasonably, “is that possibly Cro-Magnon man was not native to Earth, but was either seeded there, or was the result of an ages-ago spaceship crash.”

Ronny looked at him. “But there is no proof?”

“Not as yet. Perhaps one day it will be found on the Dawnworld planets.”

“Dawnworld?” Ronny said. Then, “Never mind.” He looked at Baron Wyler who had been leaning back in his chair, quiet but beaming encouragement. “What’s this got to do with this preposterous idea that the, uh, Dawnmen aren’t intelligent?”

The Baron said, “Count… ?”

The elderly scholar ran a hand back through thinning hair, as though unhappy. “Your Excellency, are you at all acquainted with the caste system of early India?”

“No.” Ronny hesitated. “That is, not much. I understand that it was one of the reasons India never got very far.”

The academician looked at him unhappily. “Well, that is debatable. From your name and your facial characteristics, Your Excellency, I assume you are of European extraction. Europeans seem to have arrived at the opinion that their efforts have predominated in man’s development. In actuality, few, if any, of man’s really great breakthroughs originated in Europe. Indeed, the Europeans came late on the scene and were largely brought into the march of civilization despite themselves. This particularly applies to the Northern Europeans who are even more prone than others to think of themselves as the undisputed leaders.”

The Baron’s chuckle encouraged the old man.

He went on. “When my own Nordic and Tutonic ancestors were wearing animal skins and tearing their food from bones before campfires, the Indians were developing such advanced concepts as the zero, in mathematics. I mention in passing that the Mayans of Yucatan used the zero even before India. While my ancestors lived in skin-tents or inadequate shacks of wood and bark, large cities were being erected at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in the Indus River valley. Elsewhere in Asia and Africa, the wheel, the domestication of animals, agriculture, mathematics, astronomy—I could go on—were being developed. And my ancestors, and yours, Your Excellency…”

“And mine,” the Baron laughed encouragingly.

“… were still in their animal skins. Why, the art of writing has developed, in different form, in various places about the world: in China, in America, in Mesopotamia, in Egypt. The alphabet we use today had its origins in Asia Minor. But to my knowledge, the Europeans had to import writing, never striking upon it on their own.”

The old boy was evidently capable of dwelling upon non-essentials indefinitely, Ronny decided. “All right, all right,” he said. “So the Indians made great strides, in spite of the caste system.”

The scholar pursed his lips. “Or perhaps, because of it?”

“Oh, now, don’t be ridiculous.”

Count Fitz-james looked apprehensive, as though he feared he had gone too far.

But the Baron nodded to him. “Go on, my dear Count. Tell us a bit more of the caste system and its origins. And why you think it analogous to the Dawnworld’s culture.”

The other bobbed his head. “Yes, Your Lordship.” He looked back at Ronny. “The origins of the system are lost in the mists of antiquity, but it is usually thought that when the Aryans invaded from the north—destroying the earlier culture, or assimilating it—they realized that unless they took stringent measures, they would soon interbreed and merge with the more numerous conquered indigenous people. So they divided society into four orders: the Brahmins, who performed religious and scholarly pursuits, the Kshatriyas, who were the ruling class and warriors, and the Vaishyas, traders and businessmen. All these were composed of the conquering Aryans. Intermarriage between castes was forbidden—a deep religious matter. Below these three castes were the Sudras , which were composed of the original peoples and took over the laboring jobs. Beneath these were the Outcastes, the untouchables, who were consigned to the most menial tasks.

“Now, consider. This system prevailed for a thousand years, two thousand years, or even more. A man born into the Brahmin caste became a scholar or religious; a Kshatriyas, a soldier or ruler, and so on. A man born into one of the subdivisions of the Sudras was a cobbler, if his father, grandfather and so on had been. It never occurred to him to seek education, beyond what was involved in learning to make shoes. However, he did learn to make shoes and make them very well indeed. On the other hand, it never occurred to a Brahmin not to be educated. That was in the nature of things. It was inevitable. Indeed, did he fail in his studies and application of them, he had a good chance of being ostracized from society. What family would wish their perfectly normal, well-educated, Brahmin daughter to marry a cloddy? There were exceptions, of course, but on an average and over a period of time, the outstanding scholar in the caste got the pick of the girls. I assume your knowledge of genetics leads you the proper conclusions.”

Ronny was looking at him thoughtfully. “I think I begin to see your ultimate point.”

“Indeed. Actually, man on Earth has seldom come up with the type of socio-economic system that developed in India. Oh, there have been some. The so-called Incas of Peru were one. You were born into your social strata and could seldom, if ever, leave it. The Inca clan supplied the warrior-priests, the administrators; other clans supplied artisans; but most were of the soil and automatically became farmers.” The old man looked up. “It worked, by the way, surprisingly well. The average inhabitant of Peru, at the time of the conquistadores lived on a considerably higher level than did the average inhabitant of Europe.”

“The anthill,” Ronny said, an edge of distaste in his voice.

The Baron shrugged and smiled pleasantly. “Perhaps,” he said. “We are not exactly advocating such a socio-economic system, my dear Bronston; however, it has its admitted advantages.”

“From your ambitious viewpoint.”

“Granted. But the point the good Count is making is that man can evolve along such a path. He need not automatically follow the more individualistic road we most often witnessed in Earth’s early development. On the Dawnworlds, it would seem—if we interpret the information we’ve accumulated correctly—they have taken a path of specialization unknown even in caste system India.”

“But what has this got to do with your claim that they aren’t intelligent?”

“My dear Bronston, extrapolate a bit on the example the good Count gave you of the cobbler. Suppose that instead of being a cobbler for two millennia, he stuck to his specialty for a megayear or so. No need for education, no need for anything—except learning to make shoes.”

“Yes, but such a cloddy doesn’t invent a method of converting matter.”

“Are you sure? Our cobbler doesn’t invent a matter converter, obviously. His field is shoes. But as the centuries go by, and the millennia, a slight improvement in technique here, a slightly different tool put into use there, and you’d wind up with some very nearly perfect shoes. Remember, by this time he instinctively makes shoes. Over the megayears, the inadequate shoemakers, the throwbacks, have been weeded out. It has become a matter of genetics. The child born into the cobbler—let’s call it caste—can make shoes without training. In the same manner that the bee takes no training to collect honey, nor the soldier ant to guard the community.”

“But the matter converter?”

“Obviously devised by some other caste. Some caste which has been at work in manufacture a megayear or so. Undoubtedly, a member of this caste is no more capable of making shoes, other than putting them into a converter and copying them, than the cobbler is capable of producing matter converters, or fusion reactors.”

The Baron pursed his lips. “Actually, of course, I doubt if they have cobblers at this late date. With the matter converter, such skills would disappear.”

He looked suddenly at the elderly scholar, “That will be all, Count Fitz-james.”

The Count scrambled hurriedly to his feet, put his hand over his heart in the salute he had made when he entered the room, and backed hurriedly toward the door through which he had come half an hour earlier.

When he was gone, the Baron looked at his visitor. “It’s all rather mind shaking, isn’t it?”

Ronny didn’t immediately answer. Finally, he shook his head, as though to clear it, and said, “Frankly, I can’t understand your reason for letting me in on all this. Surely, you must realize I’ll simply report to Ross Metaxa.”

“I hope not,” the Baron said seriously, pouring the remainder of the light wine into their glasses.

All right, you’ve got it. Ronny thought. Start bouncing.

The Baron said judiciously, “Largely, what your commissioner reported to the chiefs of state, there at the conference in the Octagon, is valid. Man is face to face with his greatest crisis. Nothing can prevent our coming in contact with the Dawnworlds and their unique culture, sooner or later. Probably sooner than we would wish. However, where Metaxa and I differ is in the manner in which United Planets must be organized most efficiently.”

Ronny said, bitterly, “You, the strongman, figure on enforcing union.”

The Baron smiled and sipped his wine. “My dear Bronston, has it never occurred to you that your admired Ross Metaxa is a strongman himself?”

“He works within the framework of the United Planets Charter.”

The other clucked deprecation. “Does he, indeed? I am afraid, only when it so suits him. His methods differ little from my own, in actuality. He is downright Machiavellian when he can achieve his purpose by no other means. For instance, in selecting his tools… his agents, such as yourself. I am sometimes surprised that young men of obvious integrity and idealism, remain on his, ah, team.”

Ronny could see something was coming. Another curve ball.

Baron Wyler said decisively, his friendly eyes boring earnestly into the Section G operative’s, “Bronston, we of Phrygia know the location of the nearest Dawnworlds. We are on the verge of sending an expedition there. We are of the opinion that it will be quite practical to land and observe sufficient of that culture to be able to duplicate some of their ultra-advanced devices.” He twisted his mouth. “If not duplicate them, perhaps, ah, liberate one or two. It would seem that the matter converter is highly portable, for instance.

“I hardly need point out that the possession of such a device would put our planet into such a position of advantage that the whole of United Planets, even if they could be coerced into acting in full unison, could not stand against us.”

The Baron came to his feet, and his personality seemed to fill the room to straining. “Reunited under the aegis of Phrygia, man, of all the three thousand worlds we have colonized, will march forward together. By the time the inevitable all-out contact between the Dawnworlds and our own is made, we shall be ready for these unintelligent—though highly advanced technically—antmen, beemen, call them what you will.”

Ronny looked up at him, expressionlessly. “And where do I come in on this? Why have you told me about it? Why do you hope I won’t report to Ross Metaxa?”

Baron Wyler smiled at him. “I would think that as sharp a man as yourself, my dear Bronston, would see what I have been leading to. I am as desirous of top operatives as is Ross Metaxa. I want you to join my forces, Ronald Bronston.”

Ronny looked at him.

He came to his own feet. “I see. You want a man planted in Section G who’ll keep you tipped off to the latest maneuvers of Ross Metaxa.”

“Why mince words? Obviously.”

The Section G agent’s mouth worked. He said finally, “I’ll have to think about it. Frankly, what’s been said here in the past hour has set me back on my mental heels.”

“Of course, my dear Bronston. Do not take too long, is all. Events are on the march. We must not be dullards.”

He made his way over to the wall screen he had utilized earlier, and said something into it.

The same door, through which the elderly Count Fitzjames had come, opened again and Rita Daniels entered the room.

Ronny stared.

She said, a mocking quality in her voice, “Good afternoon, Citizen Bronston.” He had noted the comparative drabness of the local women on the streets, here was the direct opposite. Not even in the most swank salons, in the most luxurious embassies in Great Washington, could he have found a more stunningly turned out young woman than this. No Tri-Di star could have equaled this slim blonde; no artificially manufactured sex symbol, the pert prettiness of this elfin girl.

The Baron beamed at the two of them “I understand you have already met my niece, Your Excellency.”

Ronny Bronston closed his eyes in pain.

Rita said sweetly, “This was quite a little gimmick, getting yourself appointed a plenipotentiary from UP. Or do you maintain that you bore that rank before reaching Phrygia?”

Ronny bowed, wryly. “You seem to have a gimmick or so up your own sleeve, Citizeness Daniels,” he said.

The Baron smiled his wide smile. “Whatever our friend’s immediate methods, my dear Rita, he obviously can think on his feet, a desirable trait.” He turned to Ronny. “My niece has been working, ah, incognito, with Interplanetary News, the better to learn the workings of our fellow worlds. However, I believe I shall, in the future, utilize her talents even more profitably. Had I known what Metaxa had up his sleeve, I would never have allowed her to try and penetrate that conference; I had no idea he would go to the extent of seizing and then memorywashing the poor girl.”

He turned back to Rita, “And now, my dear, will you see our guest to his quarters? He has some important decisions to make.”

IX

Rita took him up, by way of the private elevator, to the ground floor and through the pseudo-Minoan Palace to a hovercar ramp. As they progressed, silently, passers-by came to a quick halt. Civilians pressed their hands over their hearts in the same salute Count Fitzjames had given the Baron, soldiers came to stiff attention.

She looked at him from the side of her eyes, a mocking quality still there.

Ronny said dryly, “Like magic, isn’t it? On Mother Earth, a lowly Interplanetary News reporter, sneaking into places she’s not wanted. Being grabbed, manhandled, mauled, battered around, and then memorywashed. But now a veritable princess, the niece of the Supreme Commandant.”

“What! Manhandled, mauled, battered around! Who dared?”

He looked at her as though in surprise. “Oh. That’s right, you wouldn’t remember.”

She had stopped. Now she stood there, fists on boyishly slim hips, glaring at him. “You… you…” Then she caught his grin.

“Ha!” she snapped. “The last time you told me I had a bottle of guzzle, was drenched, and in trouble with a traffic coordinator.”

He continued to grin, the mockery was in his face now.

She spun and marched on. “Someday, I’m going to find out what happened to me during that twenty-four hours,” she snarled. “And when I do…”

They reached a wide entryway which led off toward the gates down the ramp. Rita snapped something to one of the guards, who then spoke into a screen set in the wall. In moments, a low slung auto-car approached them. It was a two seater, and Rita slid under the controls. She dropped the manual lever and took the stick, waiting for him.

Ronny got in beside her and they started down the ramp. He said, “I’ve got an official car waiting for me at the main gate.”

“Let them follow. I want to talk to you.”

“All right. My suite’s at the United Planets Building.”

When they passed the UP limousine with the marines, he gestured to them to follow.

Rita said, “What did you think of Uncle Max?”

“Uncle Max? Oh, the Baron.”

“Maximilian, and a whole lot of other names and titles.”

Ronny said warily, looking out over the countryside, “He surprised me.” This whole area had been landscaped, all the way to the city. Phrygia evidently spared no expense in aggrandizing her Supreme Commandant.

She said, conversationally, “Have you ever noticed the extent to which man can delude himself when considering persons of whom he doesn’t approve?”

“Such as strongmen?” he said dryly.

“Exactly. Evidently, few consider that men such as Alexander didn’t stand alone. Actually, he was the leader of a team. A team of military and political geniuses so capable that they were able to pull down the world’s greatest empire. Men like Parmenion, Ptolemy, Antipater, Antigonus, Seleucus and all the Companions. Can you see the charm he must have radiated, the strength, the ability to draw men of great capability into his service? He must have indeed been like a god. Or Napoleon. Can you imagine the personality that man must have had, the charm, to draw together his team? Men like Ney, Marat, Bernadotte, Lannes, Soult and Massé na.”

She shook her head so that the ponytail she affected flounced back and forth. “No, Ronny Bronston, your strongmen of history weren’t dark villains with a mean glint in eye and dastardly deeds in mind. They were men of exceeding charm and strength, and they became strongmen because of their superiority.”

“How does Hitler fit into this theory?” Ronny said mildly.

“He’s come down to us as the arch villain of all time. And I have no doubt that his victims saw him in that light. But his immediate team evidently worshipped him. Even men of the caliber of Churchill admitted his personal charm, his strength of personality. Without it, he would never have swayed the people as he did.”

They were proceeding toward the capital city at full tilt now, the marines in the car behind having their work cut out trying to keep up with the speedy two seater the girl drove.

Ronny looked over at her, not failing to note the spray of freckles dusted over her slightly upturned nose. “You seem to have read up quite a bit on history, especially the history of strongmen.” He paused, before adding, “Could it be because you see another strongman, Uncle Max, coming along?”

“Obviously, Ronny Bronston. And I want to be part of his team. Don’t you?”

Ronny said, “I thought I’d think about it a bit. I don’t change coats as easily as all that.”

She slowed the car’s pace a trifle and put a hand on his sleeve. She said, an element of inspiration in her voice, “Of course you don’t. But man has come as far as he can, Ronny, along the path as it is now. We need a strongman. What a glorious race we could become, if, under the banner of Maximilian Wyler, we united to march together into the future.”

^What future?”

“Eventually, the complete domination of the galaxy, no matter what other life forms we run into as we progress.”

“That’s quite an order,” Ronny said mildly.

“Don’t be silly. I don’t mean within our lifetimes. But only that can be the eventual destiny of man.”

Ronny said, “Suppose I granted that the race could use a strongman along here, a man on horseback, as the term goes. What leads you to believe that Uncle Max is the man?”

She frowned at him. “But isn’t that obvious? If he isn’t, he’ll never form his team, he’ll never come to power. History is strewn with the wrecks of would-be strongmen, who didn’t really have what was required.”

He nodded agreement. “You’re right, there. If Baron Wyler isn’t the man he thinks himself, he’ll land on the rocks, too.”

She drew up before the UP Building and brought the vehicle to a halt, although without setting it down. Her hand was on his arm again.

“Think it over, Ronny. My uncle evidently wants you on his team.”

“All right,” he said. “I’m thinking. Thanks for the ride.” He turned and taking two levels at a time, started up the stone steps. He didn’t turn when he heard her sporter whisk away from the curb.

In the small apartment which had been assigned him, he immediately went to his bag. He brought forth a small object looking something like a woman’s compact or a cigar case. He sat down at the table and propped it before him, activating it.

“Phil Birdman,” he clipped out. “Soonest.”

Birdman’s mahogany face faded into the miniature screen. “I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

“Get over here,” Ronny rapped. “I’m at the UP.”

“Right.” The Indian’s face faded.

Ronny said, “Irene Kasansky. Soonest.”

Irene’s perpetually harrassed face faded in, and twisted into her version of a smile, when she saw who it was. “Hi, Ronny, what’s the urgency?”

“I’ve got to talk to the Old Man, immediately.”

“No can do. Another big conference. He’s browbeating fifty or more presidents, kings, patriarchs and what not.”

“Give me Sid, then. And let the chief know I have to talk to him.”

“All right, but Supervisor Jakes is busy, too.”

Sid Jakes faded in, grin wreathed as usual. “Ronny! Plenipotentiary Extraordinary! Frankly, in spite of that imposing tag, I thought the Baron’d have you into his deepest dungeon by now.”

“Knock it!” Ronny clipped. “This is highest emergency. Everybody, but everybody, has been underestimating Uncle Max.”

Sid Jakes’ eyes widened slightly and his grin was a bit less bright. Not even in the seemingly lax Section G did an agent customarily tell Ross Metaxa’s right-hand man to shut.

“Who?” he asked.

Ronny briefed him on what had transpired.

The feisty Section G supervisor ran a hand over his mouth thoughtfully. “Hmmm. I wonder how it’d work out if you told the Baron you’re signing up with him? Then we’d have you on the inside of his organization.”

Ronny said plaintively, “I keep telling you, this Wyler is no cloddy. The moment I told him that, he’d slip me some Scop, just to see if I was lying. Then, when he found out my passion for him and his ambitions wasn’t exactly overwhelming, he’d see I had a few holes blasted in me.”

Sid said, “Yeah. Possibly, we’d better pull you out of there, Ronny. When you turn him down, the Baron isn’t going to be very happy about the fact that he’s revealed so much to you.”

“You can’t pull me out,” Ronny said. “There’s nobody else here but Phil Birdman, and the Baron is about to send his expedition to the Dawnworlds. If it succeeds, and he gets some of those ultra-ultra devices the Dawnmen have, the fat’s really in the fire. That matter converter. If I get a clear picture, with it he could duplicate himself a fleet of space cruisers that would outnumber everything UP has combined.”

“You have no idea where these Dawnworlds—where in Zen did that name ever come from?—are located?”

“None at all. The Baron learned through some of the things his people found on the little aliens’ planets.”

Jakes muttered, for once unsmiling, “Without coordinates, it could take us a millenium looking.” He looked up again. “Listen, I’ll get to Ross. Call you back.”

While he had been talking, Phil Birdman had entered the room. Ronny deactivated the Section G communicator and turned to his colleague.

The Indian said, “Well, at least, you’re still with us.”

“But how long that will be, I couldn’t guarantee,” Ronny told him.

The older agent sank into an auto-chair and dialed. “Pseudo-whiskey?” he asked. “I have a sneaking suspicion I’m going to need a bit of firewater before I’ve heard all your story.”

They’d got through two highballs apiece before Ronny had finished bringing him up to date.

When he had ended, Birdman grunted. “There’s only one answer,” he submitted.

“What?”

“Let’s go down to the recruiting station and join up with Uncle Max.”

“Oh great, you overgrown funker. Funnies, I get.”

The communicator hummed. Ronny went over to the desk, sat down before it and activated the device. It was Ross Metaxa, at least as rumpled and weary as usual. He minced no words.

“That madman is taking a gamble, in his bid for power, that could destroy us all. Our big chance was to put off for as long as possible first contact with these aliens. To stall for time. Now he’s planning to set down on one of their planets, right now—to make immediate contact. He’s drivel-happy! Well, there’s nothing for it. Ronny, find out where those damned Dawnworlds are located.”

“Yes, sir. How?”

“How in the devil would I know? You and Agent Birdman are there. I’m not. The nearest other agents to Phrygia are a good week’s trip away. It’s all in your lap.”

Ronny Bronston looked at him.

His ultimate superior looked back, his eyes level.

On an impulse, Ronny blurted, “Was my becoming a Section G agent an engineered deal, not of my own choosing?”

The moist eyes looked deeply into his own, without flicker. “Yes.”

Ronny took a deep breath.

Ross Metaxa said, “Report through Irene as soon as you have anything.” His face faded.

Ronny turned to Phil Birdman, who had come up behind him to listen in on the conversation, but had missed even the final sentences. “You better dial us another drink, Phil. We’re going to need it.”

Phil, his expression passive, got the drinks, then sat down across from Ronny Bronston.

Ronny said slowly, “Phil, the Baron’s working on a full time basis on this project. That means somewhere, on or very near his person, is the information we need—the location of the Dawnworlds.”

The Indian said nothing.

Ronny said slowly, “Phil, the Baron isn’t quite as well informed on Section G as he’d like to think he is. There’re a few little items that come out of the gimmick department that—I’m willing to bet my life—he hasn’t heard about.”

Phil Birdman put down his glass.

Ronny said, “Phil, one of us has got to go in.”

“You mean…” The older man ran his tongue over suddenly dry lips. He said, his tone a blend of protest and apology, “I’m forty-five, Ronny. There aren’t many of the good years left.”

“Metaxa would undoubtedly retire you immediately, on full pay, of course.”

The other said slowly, “I don’t want to retire. I like this work. Some day I look forward to making supervisor.”

Ronny said, “All right. I’m only thirty-two.”

Birdman looked up at him, his handsome Indian face working. “It’s fifteen years off your life, Ronny.”

Ronny Bronston nodded, a weary aspect in the gesture. “When I joined up with Section G, I figured I was expendable. This isn’t as bad as copping a slug from some secret police goon on some backward planet, where we’re trying to upgrade their government, or some such.”

He thought of something and said, “By the way, Phil. How’d you get into Section G? What led you to apply?”

“Oh, I didn’t. Sid Jakes looked me up one day while I was still living back on Piegan. I was in the local police. We jawed around a little and before I knew it, I was in.”

“Kind of got jockeyed in, eh?” Ronny said bitterly.

Phil looked at him. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

Ronny got up and went over to the order box on the desk. He said into it, “I want the biggest whale of a meal you can concoct. Very concentrated, rich food, high calorie content.”

Later, they retraced the route the marines had driven him earlier in the day. Phil Birdman was driving now, his own speedy hovercar.

Ronny was pensive. He said, after a long silence, “How close do you figure we can get? That’s important. It’ll cut time.”

Phil said thoughtfully, “On that diagram you drew: You know that ramp this Rita Daniels mopsy took you to, when you were leaving the palace?”

“Yes, sure.”

“I can take you to the top of that.”

“I think that’s the private entry of the Supreme Commandant and his family.”

“I know. As soon as I get to the top, they’ll order me to drive down again. That’s perfect for us. Every split second can count, Ronny. It could be seventeen or eighteen years, you know…”

Ronny Bronston said nothing. For that matter, it had been known to be twenty. Beyond that point, you inevitably died. You starved to death.

The hovercar bore diplomatic identification. The guards did no more than present their spears in a salute as they roared through the palace gates. Phil Birdman kept up a good speed. Not so high as to be conspicuous, but fast enough that their faces were unlikely to be spotted.

They got to the foot of the ramp and started up.

“You’d better take it,” the Indian said tightly, from the side of his mouth.

Ronny took a syrette from a small compartment in the dash and pushed it home in the back of his neck. He reached immediately for some of the energy pills.

Things were jerking frantically by the time they reached the head of the ramp and the entrada there—jerking frantically and already beginning to slow up.

A guard officer moved sluggishly toward them, more sluggish still. As he approached the car, his mouth, slowly, slowly, began to open. But before sound issued forth, he had stopped completely, one foot held in the air, his body in such position that it seemed impossible for him not to fall forward, out of balance.

Ronny Bronston vaulted over the side of the car and darted into the interior. He had done this but once before, in training, and had been under for less than ten seconds, pseudo-time. But this was the real thing. He darted a hand into his jacket pocket and gulped down more pep pills.

All was frozen.

He had no time to waste observing the utterly fantastic phenomenon. The world had stopped .

X

He retraced the route Rita Daniels had brought him along only a few hours earlier, dodging around the frozen statues that had—moments before—been soldiers and officials, clerks and secretaries, in all their bustling activities.

He came to the private elevator that led into the depths that housed the apartments of the Supreme Commandant. This was his first serious barrier. There was no manner in which he could operate the machinery, nor any other machine, save the equipment he carried.

He whipped out a laser gun, flicked the stud to cut and began beaming a hole through the elevator shaft door. Pure luck was involved now. He grabbed the door handle, and when he had largely cut the door away, pulled it toward him. It was a fantastically thick door. Evidently, Phrygia security took care that it was not easy to get at their Supreme Commandant.

Finally, the door began to fall toward him, slowly, sluggishly, but sped up by the effort he was exerting. It was as though he were pulling it through water, or even a thicker fluid. Before it had half reached the floor, he gave up his efforts and peered into the shaft beyond.

Luck was with him. Built into the metal wall of the shaft were ladder steps, obviously meant for repairmen, and possibly as a last method of emergency exit from the quarters below in case of some extreme disaster.

He vaulted over the falling door, now arrested in its drop, and scurried down the ladder.

Ronny tried to remember how long it had taken him to get down to the Baron’s apartments, when he had been there before, and couldn’t. This was the crucial thing. If the other maintained his rooms five or ten stories down, that was one thing. If they were a hundred stories, that was disaster. He would starve to death in this shaft.

Which brought his needs to mind. He darted a hand into one of his pockets for another handful of energy pills, even as he descended.

Luck was with him still.

His feet hit the top of the elevator cab.

He pulled the gun again, even as he gobbled pep pills, and cut a hole through the top of the elevator cage. He jumped on the circular, cut away a section so that it would fall. As soon as it had fallen sufficiently for him to jump off onto the elevator cage floor, he did so, and turned the gun to the door, cutting that away, too.

Ronny pushed hard against the great inertia, forcing the door inward into the room beyond. He wedged himself through as soon as there was sufficient way.

He was within the Baron’s apartments. Now he needed fortune’s kiss, indeed. Suppose the Baron wasn’t here. Suppose, even though he was, he didn’t have the information on him. Suppose he did have it, but in such form that it was impossible to decipher.

Suppose a lot of things.

He darted his hand into another pocket for a supply of the energy pills, and dashed into the room in which Wyler had invited him earlier in the day. It was unoccupied.

He headed for the door beyond, through which both Count Fitzjames and Rita had entered. Happily, it was open. He sped down the hall that was there, searching frantically. The living quarters of the Supreme Commandant of Phrygia were laid out in similar fashion—though utterly more swank—to any home of an extremely wealthy individual on a score of planets Ronny had visited. He had little trouble in guessing the layout.

From time to time, he would pass frozen statues in this dead world. Servants, guards, what were obviously secretaries or clerks, sometimes, if garb meant anything, evidently some high ranking Phrygia official.

Somewhere along here, Ronny thought, must he some sort of audience chamber, some sort of conference room . It was unlikely that Baron Wyler would be eating at this time of day, and certainly not sleeping. Ronny was gambling on the possibility that Wyler was at work, in conference with underlings, and probably deep in the project for sending the expedition to the Dawnworlds.

The gamble paid off.

He came to a large door guarded by two huskies in elaborate uniform, muffle-guns at their sides.

He wrenched at the doorknob, miscalculated and ripped it completely off.

Ronny snarled an obscenity, stepped back and flicked his beam gun up again. He repeated the process of cutting a circular hole large enough to pass his body, and then pushed the panel through. When there was space to see, he realized he had found what he sought. The Baron Wyler, standing at a table, a dozen men, mostly uniformed, also about it.

He pushed harder on the slowly falling panel, finally had the space to squeeze through. The Baron was standing, mouth closed, looking down the arch of his aristocratic nose at one of his subordinates who was speaking, his finger touching a chart. At least, he had been speaking at the moment of the freeze—his mouth was open. And remained so, though no sound issued forth during Ronny’s stay.

Ronny Bronston darted to the table. He stared down at the paper the other was touching. It was a star chart, but not, he realized, the one that could possibly have helped in the location of the Dawnworlds. It was a chart of United Planets.

Ronny sorted through the papers on the table, frantically. On the face of it, these men were discussing the broad subject of the Baron’s designs against UP. If so, the subject of the Dawnworlds was obviously in mind.

But there was no other chart. Plans, reports, graphs, diagrams of this, that and the other. But no further charts.

He stepped over to the frozen statue that was Baron Wyler and ran his hands over him. He went through every pocket, examined, however briefly, every paper. The other’s body felt like clammy clay, there was a nauseating element in making physical contact with a living object under these conditions.

There was nothing pertaining to the Dawnworlds.

For the briefest of moments, he wondered if it were all a hoax. Was the wily Baron planting the idea that he was in contact with this fabulous unintelligent race with the idea of bluffing the UP into accepting him as supreme? But no, the bluff might work with some, but hardly with others. Such planets as Delos were going to have to be shown something tangible before knuckling under to a Baron Maximilian Wyler.

Ronny Bronston’s eyes began to dart around the room, inspecting the Baron’s underlings. Which, of them all, might be expected to carry a star chart, pinpointing the Dawnman worlds? He simply didn’t have time to search them all. The only one he recognized was the self-effacing Count Fitz-james, who, characteristically, was back away from the others, as though not wishing to intrude.

He grabbed energy pills from his jacket and munched on them. He had to think. No matter how desperate for time, he had to think.

He had been in this room already so long that he could note a slight change in the Baron’s eyes. They had begun to widen a merest trifle, the first indication of surprise.

Then, as though magnet drawn, the Section G agent’s attention whipped back to Count Fitzjames. What was the other doing over there, away from the others? Something hadn’t at first registered on Ronny’s awareness.

Yes! The oldster was looking at a… a map. No! It was a chart, a star chart. Ronny whipped over. Attached there to the wall.

Phrygia was heavily marked, down in this corner. Over here, surprisingly near, were the three star systems of the originally discovered tiny aliens. And beyond, all those numberless stars in red! They could only be…

Whether or not he was right, Ronny had no more time. No more time. He reached out and ripped the chart from the wall. Swore at himself for tearing it badly. Carefully and slowly pulled it down, folding it, so he could carry it more easily.

He spun and dashed for the door he had blasted through, slowed somewhat by the resistance of the object he carried. He wedged himself into the corridor beyond. The panel he had cut out had not as yet dropped all the way to the floor; in fact, was not more than an inch or so lower than when he had finished shoving it.

In the corridor, the guards were beginning to react somewhat as had the Baron. Their eyes had begun to widen in shocked surprise.

He hurried down the hall, retracing his steps. To the elevator. Through the roof of the cage, up the ladder. As he went he desperately swallowed his energy pills, desperately crammed them down.

The ground floor could be no more than a few stories up, but he felt himself tiring. He was weary with the activity. He had been moving at top speed since Phil had pulled the hovercar up before the entry. And he could feel it now.

At least, that is what he told himself he was feeling.

He refused the fear that was welling up inside. How long, how long?

He pulled himself at last through the hole he had burned in the heavy elevator door at the ground floor. He began to drag himself along the way to the entry, the ramp, Phil’s hovercar and release. The star chart he carried grew increasingly sluggish, impossibly heavy.

And even as he went, he knew he wasn’t going to make it.

The energy was draining out of him with every step. He had taken too much time. He had taken far too much time.

He went down on his knees, the star chart falling slowly from his hands, then remaining suspended in the air. He laboriously took it again. He had to make it to the hovercar. He stumbled forward. It was far too far.

He was too weak even to bring more pep pills to his mouth. The last few he had taken had had little effect, at any rate. His body had taken all the punishment it was capable of taking. He wasn’t going to make it.

This, then, was the ultimate failure.

He looked up in agony, down the long corridor that led in the direction of the ramp. The occupants of the hall were still frozen in their movements. For him, they would always be frozen. But…

He saw movement!

Down the hall toward him came running Phil Birdman, his eyes going in all directions.

He spotted Ronny, grabbed down at him, hoisted him over his shoulder and started back.

Ronny held on to consciousness. He didn’t understand, but it was going to work out now. He held desperately to the chart.

They were back in the hovercar. The Indian operative dumped him into the passenger seat, hurried around to the other side and vaulted into the driver’s position. His hand darted to the dash compartment and seized two syrettes. He pressed the first into his own neck, the second into Ronny’s.

Things began jerking frantically. Things began moving sluggishly. The people. The guards.

The guard officer, who had been walking toward them when time had first stopped, began moving more naturally, faster, and still faster.

Scowling, he barked, “What’s going on here?”

Phil Birdman said apologetically, “Sorry, officer. I seem to have ascended the wrong ramp.”

“You certainly have! This is the private entry of the Supreme Commandant! What’s going on here? You men look suspicious.”

The Phrygian stared at Ronny Bronston. “What’ve you got there in your hand? You didn’t have anything just a second ago.”

It was the star chart.

Ronny shook his head, weakly. “Nothing. I… I feel sick. Let’s go on back, Birdman.”

“Yes, get out of here,” the guard officer rapped. He was scowling, obviously wondering whether or not to arrest this pair.

Phil Birdman had never dropped the lift lever. Now he applied pressure to the velocity pedal, tipped the stick to the left and back, and spun the vehicle to descend the ramp again.

Ronny fumbled for a sandwich, gobbled it. Got it down and felt like retching. There was a bottle with a score of assorted pills. He got them all down, drank deeply from a flask of water. He was dehydrated, weak, empty.

They were speeding toward the gate through which they had entered mere moments ago by straight time.

The gate was closing. The guards were milling about, anxiously. Four or five barred the way, spears raised.

Spears raised as though they were rifles, and it came to Ronny Bronston that appearances deceive. The Baron Wyler wasn’t about to arm his guards with nothing more effective than iron tipped wooden shafts. Those spears were undoubtedly disguised weapons demanding of considerably more respect.

“Blast through!” Ronny clipped to his companion. Phil shot a glance at him. “If I do, we’ll have the paleface cavalry after us in moments.”

“We’ve got them after us already. What d’ya think they’re closing those gates for?”

The Indian’s hand shot out, flicked a switch. Part of the dash fell away to reveal a pistol grip built into the car. Phil Birdman grabbed it, touched the trigger, slowly swerved the car right and left.

The gate and the soldiers that guarded it melted away into nothingness.

The two Section G agents felt nausea. It was seldom one took human life, even in the ultra-dedicated Bureau of Investigation.

They shot through what had once been the gate and down the road toward the city limits of Phrygia.

Ronny growled, “They’ll be after us both in the air and on the road. Chances are, we’ll never make it halfway.”

“It’s getting dark,” Birdman muttered. “Not that that’ll make much difference. You got the location of the Dawnman planets?”

“I think so.” Ronny wolfed another sandwich. “Listen, how did you ever find me? What was the idea? How could you do it?”

Birdman grunted. “I pressed my syrette a split second after you did. I was gambling that my metabolism wouldn’t be hit until you had already been gone long enough to do what you could. I figured that you’d probably keep going, long after you’d passed the danger point, if you hadn’t found what we needed. I figured I’d be going into pseudo-time, just in time to come looking for you.”

He added apologetically, “It was all I could do. Of course, I was in pseudo-time only a fraction of the duration you were. I doubt if it makes more than a year or two difference.”

“You cloddy!” Ronny growled. “Well, thanks.” He knew well enough Phil would have kept coming, looking for him, no matter how much time had elapsed.

“All for dear old Section G,” Phil said cheerfully. “Listen, I can hear them behind us. We’ll never make it.”

“Keep going,” Ronny muttered. “I’m beginning to feel the immediate after-effects.”

“Oh fine,” the Indian operative said. “You haven’t got a communicator on you?”

“No, of course not. We couldn’t take the chance of the Baron getting hold of one of us and finding the thing. He’d be able to tap Section G communications.”

The dash screen let up. There was the face, the icy face of an officer in the uniform of Baron Wyler’s personal guards.

The officer snarled, “You have exactly two minutes in which to come to a halt and surrender. Otherwise, we blast. You are not going to be allowed to reach Phrygia city limits. The Supreme Commandant’s orders.”

Ronny flicked the screen off. “Two minutes to go,” he said. “Can you think of anything?”

“All I can think of,” Phil said expressionlessly, “is that we should have taken my earlier idea. Go down to the recruiting station and join up with the Baron.”

“Too late now.” Ronny grunted. “We’ve taken our stand. Look out, here comes a car toward us from the city.”

“Probably a civilian,” the Indian muttered. “There hasn’t been time for security guards to be coming from that direction.”

“Wait a minute!” Ronny said urgently. “I know that car. Stop.”

The Indian shot a quick glance at him, but jammed on deceleration.

Ronny waved at Rita Daniels.

“Hey!“ he called.

She came to a halt, her high forehead furrowed.

“What’re you doing out there?” she asked. “I thought you were in town thinking over Uncle Max’s proposition.”

He was feeling increasingly weak, but he climbed from Birdman’s hovercar and made his way to hers, fumbling as he went for his gimmicked fountain pen.

He said, “Look. I want to talk to you. Come along with us.”

Her eyes narrowed. She could hear the sounds of the pursuing guard vehicles. “Not likely,” she snapped. “What’re you up to?”

He lifted the stud of the device and turned to call weakly to Birdman. “Get the Baron on the screen. Soonest, damn it!”

He turned back to the girl. She was scratching her cheek where the tiny dart had struck her, and already her eyes were going blank.

“Come along with me, Rita,” he ordered. Without bothering to see if she followed, he staggered back to the other hovercar.

Phil Birdman had managed to get through. Evidently, Baron Wyler had been stationed at a screen waiting for a report from his guards on the progress of the chase. His face was on the screen.

Ronny Bronston slumped into his seat, the drugged girl climbed in next to him, the slim figure warm but unnoticed against his side.

He said weakly, “We’ve got your niece, Uncle Max. She’s going with us into Phrygia.”

The Baron’s face was blazing with anger. “Have you supposed altruists of Section G stooped to abducting helpless women and using them as hostages to protect your miserable selves?”

“You have said it, friend,” Phil Birdman said flatly. He kicked the acceleration pedal with his foot, switched off the screen again to prevent the other from following their conversation.

Ronny Bronston had been hanging on to consciousness with considerable effort. Now he gave up.

XI

Ronny came to, weakly, in the hideaway the Indian operative had made in the suburban housing area of the Phrygian capital. Evidently, Phil had just given him a draught of something highly stimulating.

“How’d you ever make it?” Ronny murmured.

Phil grinned down at him. Bronston was stretched out on a couch. “Ugh. Redman have no trouble shaking pursuing palefaces in confusion of big city traffic.”

“Funnies, I get,” Ronny muttered. “Where’s the girl?”

“She’s with us. Our strongman isn’t as strong as he ought to be, if he’s thinking in terms of taking over whole empires of planets. He should have figured her expendable.”

Ronny said, before passing out again, “Get the Old Man.”

Phil Birdman went over to the desk and set up the Section G communicator. He said into it, “Irene Kasansky, soonest.”

Her tight face faded in, her expression worried. “Phil Birdman,” she said, “what’s going on?”

“Give me the Chief, Irene. Absolutely soonest.”

“He and Jakes are waiting for your report.”

Metaxa’s acid sour face faded in. “Birdman!” he growled. “What’s happened to Ronny Bronston?”

The Indian said, “I’ve got him here. He’s out.” He had an edge of bitterness in his voice now. “He took your orders literally, of course. The only way of getting that information was for him to go into pseudo-time.”

Ross Metaxa stared at him, unblinkingly. “How long was he under?”

“Evidently maximum. He probably set some sort of record.”

The Section G head allowed himself to close his eyes for the briefest of seconds. He took a deep breath and said, “Did he get the information from that funker?”

“I think so. He brought a star chart away with him.” Phil Birdman cleared his throat. “We also have a hostage. The Baron’s niece.”

Ross Metaxa assimilated that, not bothering to ask for details. He said, finally, “Have you any manner of getting out into space?”

Birdman hesitated. “UP has a small craft assigned to it. But if we utilize that, I have no doubt that the Baron will lower the boom on all UP personnel, the moment we’re gone. He’s got a reputation for ruthlessness, when he gets excited about something.”

Metaxa shook his head. “They’ll have to take their chances. You and Ronny and the girl get yourselves out. There’s a Space Forces cruiser heading at top speed for you. They’ll be there in five days, Earth time.”

“Then what do we do?” Birdman said, though he could see it coming. “Return Ronny to Earth for whatever treatment he can get?”

Ross Metaxa looked at him bleakly. “The Baron is going to head immediately for those Dawnworlds. You take off after him. In a week’s time, Bronston will have recovered.”

The Indian said flatly, “Ronny Bronston will never recover, as you well know, Commissioner. He’s lost at least twenty years in that jazzed up phoney-time he went into. Five years from now, he’ll look and be twenty-five years older than he is today.”

Metaxa said evenly, “He knew what he was doing, Birdman. He did what he had to do. He wouldn’t have been Ronald Bronston otherwise. He’ll recover within a week. As you know, the age doesn’t come immediately, but over a period of time. For awhile, it won’t effect him. When he has recovered, give him the story and make your way immediately after the Baron.”

The Indian operative scowled. “How do you know the Baron, personally, will go out to the Dawnworlds?”

“Because when men like Maximilian Wyler really get in the clutch there’s nobody they dare trust. He could never be certain that his closest right-hand man wouldn’t take over the reins, given some of those gismos the Dawnmen evidently have. No, you can be sure that the Baron will go himself.”

His face faded from the screen.

Birdman looked at the now opaque screen for a long moment. “So everybody’s expendable, including the complete UP staff on Phrygia. The party’s getting rough.”

Ross Metaxa had been right. By the time the four man Space Forces cruiser reached them, Ronny Bronston was in his old shape. Good food and rest had done it. He felt the same as ever. All except, deep within, he knew that he had thrown away at least twenty years, the good years, of life. A few Earth years from now and he would look and be as old as Metaxa himself. It wasn’t the happiest of prospects.

No effort whatsoever was being made to apprehend them. The Baron’s regard for his niece evidently precluded any attempt by the Phrygian spaceforces to find and destroy their craft.

It occured to Ronny Bronston that if the girl were as close as all that to the would-be dictator, perhaps she had information about the man that might be of use in later developments. As he rested in the small space vessel that they had taken over from UP, he tried to pump her, though with precious little luck.

To the extent she could, in the confined space allotted to her and the two Section G operatives, she tried to ignore them. From time to time, though, temper flared and she allowed herself to be drawn into argument.

The time, for instance, that she snapped out of a clear sky, “I don’t see why you don’t recognize that UP needs a leader such as Uncle Max.”

Ronny said mildly, “Perhaps it does.”

“Then why are you trying to hinder him? Why don’t you join him?” she demanded.

Ronny looked at her wryly, “He hasn’t proven to my satisfaction, as yet, that he’s the man he thinks he is. Perhaps history will prove otherwise. As you pointed out the other day, it is strewn with the wreckage of would-be strongmen, who didn’t make it.”

“My uncle will make it!” The girl’s natural attractiveness was accentuated in anger.

“Meanwhile”—Phil Birdman grinned at her—“there are a few of us who don’t think so.”

Ronny said, “Many aspire to supreme power, few are chosen. Take those examples you gave me the other day: Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler. They each supply a lesson.

“Alexander, for instance. He conquered the biggest empire known up to that time, but died at about my age from his inability to conquer himself. And when he died he left precious little. His immediate family, including his son, were killed off. That wonderful team of his fell apart, each trying to seize absolute power. Of them all, Ptolemy didn’t do so badly; he and his descendants got Egypt as their chunk of the pie. But the next fifty years and more was spent by the Macedonians trying to find another strongman, and failing”— Ronny twisted his mouth— “Their energies might have been put to better use.

“Or take your other example, Napoleon. He had his absolute power for while, but he was still in his forties when they kicked him out and he wound up his life there on St. Helena. And his team? They didn’t do so well, either. Some turned traitor on him, when the bets were down. Some were shot. Of them all, Bernadotte, who became king of Sweden, was about the only one who came out ahead of the game.

“And Hitler …”

“Oh, he’s the best lesson of all.” Phil laughed. “That’s the fella who taught me to believe in strongmen.”

Rita Daniels was flushing, and on her it looked remarkably good, Ronny Bronston decided. However, something came to him and he brought himself up. As a man in his early thirties, he could consider a girl of Rita’s age and weigh her in the balance as a potential life companion. But as a man past fifty, as he would be, all too soon, it wasn’t in the cards. If Ronny Bronston were ever to consider marriage, he’d better steel himself to the fact that he had better begin looking at widows in their middle-forties, not freckle-nosed girls in their twenties—no matter how provocative their pony tail hairdos.

Rita said snappishly, “The end of the strongman isn’t always disaster. Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane founded dynasties. And though Alexander died a young man, and didn’t leave one, still, it was through his efforts that Hellenism emerged and the Greek culture was spread from the Mediterranean to India. And Napoleon. When he stepped onto the scene, Europe was almost entirely feudalistic. When he left it, there was a new and more progressive socio-economic system.”

Ronny continued to needle her. “Whether or not Hellenism was an advance over the Persian culture can be debated, my dear. The Greeks wrote the history books, since they won the war, but there are some doubts about just how progressive they were. If Hitler had won his war, you can be sure that the villains who came down to us would have been Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin—not Adolph the Aryan, who would have been properly deified, as was Alexander before him.”

Phil Birdman snorted and went over to check the control screens. “This waxes too intellectual for me,” he complained. “I’m simple at heart. I just don’t like guys in a position above me to make arbitrary decisions. Sometimes it hurts—me.”

“Sometimes we need men with the ability to make quick, arbitrary decisions,” Rita snapped.

“Yeah,” Phil agreed over his shoulder. “But I like to be in a position to help decide who it’s going to be. Any of these stutes with big ambitions will tell you they’ve got super abilities and you ought to let them make the decisions. But if those abilities of theirs aren’t really so super, then I’m the cloddy who winds up crisp.”

Ronny added mildly, “Our friend Hitler was a good example. He let the German people know he was the superman to end all. And they believed him.”

“Oh, you’re both flats!” Rita flared.

Ronny said, “Well, your Uncle Max is evidently making his play. I hope we’re alive to see whether or not he succeeds.”

Rita said scornfully, “If he makes it, my friend, I doubt if you’ll survive long enough to enjoy the advantages of his guided political system.” But even as she said it, her facial expression changed, and she looked at Ronny anxiously.

Phil, from the controls, laughed. “Touché. She’s got you there, Ronny.” He looked into a zoom-screen. “Hey, I think our Space Forces cruiser is coming in.”

They considered, briefly, releasing the girl and allowing her to return to Phrygia in the small spacecraft they had taken over from the UP, which had been their home for the past week.

In fact, they called the UP Building with the intention of discussing her release, in return for leniency toward the United Planets personnel.

The only response was from a uniformed Phrygia security police colonel, who informed them coldly that there were no longer any UP personnel in the building and that he was not free to discuss the situation. He inquired after the health of their prisoner, but showed no emotion when he was told that it was excellent.

Phil Birdman looked at his colleague. “We’d better take her.”

Ronny didn’t like it, but he had no valid argument against continuing to keep an obviously valuable hostage. Whatever force the Baron had taken to the Dawnworld’s with him, always assuming that their guess was correct and he actually was on his way, was most certainly more than this tiny space Cruiser with its crew of four.

He said unhappily, “There’ll be six of us in that small ship as it is… She’d make it seven. Besides, who knows what trouble she might kick up? She’s fanatically for her Uncle Max and might try to blow us all up, just on the off chance that it might help him.”

Phil Birdman looked at him questioningly.

Ronny said, “We’d have to have her under guard for the whole trip.”

Phil said reasonably, “Why not put her into cold for the duration? We can arouse her as soon as we want her awake. It won’t hurt her.”

Ronny said grudgingly, “I suppose we could do that.”

The skipper and the three junior Space Forces officers of the little cruiser were taken aback by the fact that they were to have a feminine fellow passenger, and a pretty one. And not to speak of the fact that she was the kidnapped member of the royal family of Phrygia.

This particular vessel, the Space Cruiser Pisa, had been the nearest to Phrygia when the crisis arose. Ross Metaxa had thrown his weight around and quickly had the Pisa diverted to the trouble spot. The instructions were to put ship and crew at the service of the two Section G operatives. Captain Gary Volos and his three juniors hadn’t the vaguest idea of what the assignment was to be.

Rita Daniels didn’t help matters any.

At the first opportunity, and before Ronny could hardly more than begin his explanations to the Space Forces skipper, she had yelped, “I am being detained illegally. I am the Countess Rita Daniels Wyler, niece of the Supreme Commandant of the member planet Phrygia of the United Planets, and these criminals are violating Article One of the United Planets Charter. I demand to be returned to my uncle’s palace on Phrygia immediately.”

Captain Volos was shocked. His eyes went from her to the two Section G agents in disbelief.

“Some squaw,” Birdman muttered.

Only then did it come to Ronny Bronston that he had been concentrating so long on the present emergency that he had forgotten that not one person in a billion, in the overall population of the United Planets, knew that the emergency existed. The average member of the human race had no knowledge of the existence of the original little intelligent alien life form, not to speak of the Dawnworlds and the Dawnmen.

He rapped, “Captain, your orders are to place your ship and yourself and men under the command of Agent Birdman and myself. We’ll hold you to that.”

Volos, staring, retorted, “My superiors made no mention of my condoning the breaking of the United Planets Charter. Do you deny this citizeness’ words?”

Ronny shook his head wearily. “Substantially, she is telling the truth. However, the circumstances are drastic.”

“Drastic!” one of the junior officers retorted. “How can anything be so drastic that the UP Charter be violated? Why, that’s the reason for the existence of the Space Forces. That’s why I joined it. To preserve the United Planets Charter—with my life, if necessary.”

“Oh fine,” Phil muttered. “A flag waver. Just what we need.”

“You’re going to have your chance to die for United Planets,” Ronny snapped back, impatiently. “This young lady’s uncle is attempting to subvert it. Right now, he’s on his way to some newly discovered planets with a type of man far in advance of the… well, the human race. He hopes to get ultra weapons and techniques that will enable him to take over complete control of every planet, United Planets members and otherwise, which our species has colonized. That’s why you were sent out here: To help us stop him.”

The four spacemen were staring at him as though he had gone completely around the bend.

Rita saw her opportunity. “See?” she demanded. “He’s out of his mind.”

“Obviously,” the flag waver said, his eyes wide.

“Knock it, Richardson,” his captain ordered. “I’ll take care of this.” He turned back to the two Section G agents. “I don’t know what’s doing on here, but I’m going to land and check with the local delegation of United Planets.”

“That’ll be a neat trick, as Sid Jakes would say,” Birdman muttered. “The local delegation of UP has either been shot or thrown into the cooler.”

“I keep telling you,” Ronny said, trying to maintain reasonableness in his tone, “Phrygia is in a condition of armed aggression against her fellow members of UP and in revolt against the UP as a whole.”

“You mean to tell me,” Captain Volos demanded unbelievingly, “that this planet wants to take on all three thousand worlds of the UP and conquer them?”

Rita laughed mockingly.

Ronny Bronston closed his eyes in pain. He opened them again.

He said, “Phil, cover them!” A Model H gun flowed into Phil Birdman’s hand.

XII

“Captain,” Ronny said mildly, “your orders are to put yourselves and your cruiser under the command of Agent Birdman and myself. We are going to insist you observe them.”

The skipper’s eyes went down to the gun. He recognized the competent manner in which it was being handled. He also recognized the weapon and its potentialities. He checked his three juniors with his eyes. Even Richardson avoided the question in his commanding officer’s face.

Captain Volos said coldly, “I am acting under coercion, Citizen Bronston, and wish the fact to be entered into the Pisa’s log.”

“Very well. Within a short time, I’m going to prove to you what we’ve tried to put over. You don’t seem to be a flat. When the proof is obvious, then Citizen Birdman and I will expect more hearty cooperation on the part of you and your men. Meanwhile, here is a chart. We are to head for the first of these sun systems marked in red.”

The four hesitated for a long moment.

Birdman jiggled his gun, meaningfully.

The captain took the torn chart, scowled at it, took it over to his navigating table.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked grudgingly.

“It’s a long story,” Ronny told him. “Once we get underway, I’ll tell you at least part of it. Suffice to say, for the moment, that I liberated it from our friends on Phrygia, who are trying to take over control of every human being alive.”

The captain looked with continued disbelief at him, then turned down to the chart.

Phil Birdman said cheerfully, “I think we’d better chill the squaw here, like I suggested. She’s already caused enough trouble in just these past few minutes. What could she accomplish working on our cloddy friends, here, over a period of a couple of Earth weeks, or so.”

Rita looked at Ronny. “You plan to put me in cold?”

“Can you think of something better to do with you?”

“I refuse!”

He didn’t bother to answer her.

“That’s illegal!” one of the other junior officers said belligerently. “Illegal, without the permission of the subject.”

The Indian laughed. “Friend,” he said, “you’re probably going to see one hell of a lot of illegality in the next few weeks, so you might as well start getting acclimated to it.” He looked at Ronny. “You realize we’re going to have to take this in shifts, don’t you? We aren’t going to be allowed to both sleep at once.”

Ronny sighed and nodded. “Now let’s see about this girl’s shot.”

The trip to the Dawnworlds went with little incident.

Ronny Bronston and Phil Birdman made no effort to interfere with ship routine and Captain Gary Volos’ prerogatives. They conducted themselves as passengers with but one great difference.

They stood alternating eight hour watches. Never was there a time when both slept. Never was there a time when their weapons weren’t immediately to hand.

They had taken measures, the first day, to put the Pisa’s small arms under lock, and remained the only men aboard with guns.

Largely, they spent their time playing battle chess with young Richardson, or with Mendlesohn or Takashi, the other two junior officers. The skipper himself refused to associate with the Section G agents beyond what was necessary to operate the spacecraft.

Ronny had thought he was making some progress with Richardson and Takashi, at least. Since they were going to be as exposed to the dangers of the Dawnworlds as anyone, he could see no reason for not giving the others all the information he held himself. This included a complete rundown on the true nature of United Planets and of Section G. It included the information about the little aliens, and the further information that this species had evidently been wiped out in their entirety by the Dawnmen.

He told them about the desperate efforts being made by Ross Metaxa and other ranking officials of the Octagon to bring complete unity to the United Planets, in order to prepare men for the eventuality of the touching of the two cultures. And he told them of Baron Wyler’s ambitions and his present expedition to the Dawnworlds.

He had thought he had been making progress and was disillusioned the seventh Earth day after they had left the vicinity of Phrygia.

Phil Birdman had been playing battle chess with Mendlesohn, by far the best player aboard, which irritated the Indian since he rather fancied his own game. At this point, Birdman’s double line of pawns were in full retreat before the other’s strong armor attack. And Phil was muttering unhappily to himself, even as he tried to fight a delaying action until he could bring up his own heavier pieces.

Richardson, seemingly about nothing more important than crossing the small mess hall lounge for coffee, suddenly launched himself on the Section G agent’s back.

Birdman, with no time to unholster his weapon, fell to the floor, the other clinging desperately to him, and tried to roll out. Mendlesohn, his eyes wide, scurried about the two threshing men as though not quite sure whether to throw his inconsiderable weight into the fray.

From the doorway, H gun in hand, Ronny snapped, “All right. Break it up. Richardson! On your feet, or I’ll muffle you.”

The aggressive ensign stood up, panting, his face unrepentant.

Phil Birdman sat there for a moment, shaking his head ruefully. “Why’d you stop it?” he growled at Ronny. “Now I’ll never know if I could have clobbered the young yoke.”

Ronny said, “You’re too old to be rolling around on the deck.”

“Huh,” Birdman snorted, pushing himself erect. “Look who’s talking. It won’t be long before…” He cut himself short.

Ronny Bronston looked at him bleakly.

“Sorry,” Phil said. “That’s the trouble with wisecrackers. A supposedly smart quip gets out before you realize it’s jetsam.”

Ronny said to Richardson, “What was the idea?”

The other glowered resentment, in spite of the leveled gun. “What do you think it was? You’ve taken over the ship at gun point. I was trying to recapture it.”

The captain entered from the compartment entrance opposite the one Ronny occupied. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

“This cloddy here is making like a hero,” Ronny said mildly. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to put him in cold, Captain Volos.”

“He’s a necessary member of my crew!”

Phil Birdman muttered, “He’s about as necessary as a coronary.”

Ronny Bronston, still holding the gun, said, “So long as we’re in underspace, you could handle the ship singlehanded, Captain, as you well know.”

“I refuse to put a man into cold without his permission.”

Ensign Richardson glared defiantly at the Section G agent.

Ronny said mildly, “Then I’ll have to shoot him. I can’t afford to take the chance of having him loose. Next time, he might succeed.”

“Not if he tried it on me,” Birdman said nastily.

Ronny looked at Richardson, then the skipper. “The fat’s in the fire, gentlemen. One man’s life isn’t very important.”

Richardson said tightly, “Captain, I think he means it.”

Captain Gary Volos rasped, “Very well, but I insist that this, too, be entered in the ship’s log.”

“That log is going to be plumb full before this trip’s over.” Birdman grinned.

Afterwards the two agents sat in the lounge alone over hot drinks.

Ronny growled, “It was lucky I couldn’t sleep.”

“Aw, I could’ve scalped that molly,” the Indian grumbled.

“Not if Mendlesohn would have got around to slugging you on the back of the head.”

Birdman chuckled. “Two down and only three left to go. You think we’ll ever get there without putting them all in the cold? The party gets rougher and rougher.”

Ronny asked suddenly, “Phil, why’d you join Section G?”

“Who, me?” Phil seemed embarrassed. “I don’t know. Better job than I had. Chance to see a lot of the different planets. Get out of the rut. That sort of thing.”

Ronny Bronston went on, as though he hadn’t really heard his companion. “When I was a kid I had the United Planets dream but good. Man exploding out into space, carrying our species to the stars. Going every which way, trying every scheme ever dreamed up from Plato’s Republic to Howard Scott’s technocracy. Trying out every proposed ethic. Trying out a hundred methods of improving the race, by breeding in this, or breeding out that. Planets colonized by nothing but Negroes, others by only people over six and a half feet tall, others by Zen Buddhists, others by persons with I.Q.s of over one-fifty, others by vegetarians, and on and on.”

Phil snorted, missing the earnestness in the other’s tone. “How about Amazonia? A few thousand feminists. No men at all, at first. Artificial insemination. Then when boy kids came along, they enslaved them.”

Ronny said impatiently, “Sure, a lot of them are purely from jetsam, but they’re balanced out by those that are finding new paths, new truths, and really advancing the species. The United Planets dream. An opportunity for everybody to try anything. But what’s the ultimate aim? What’s the goal? To dominate the whole galaxy, the way Rita sees it?”

Phil looked at him questioningly. “Does there have to be a goal?” He was beginning to catch the other’s mood.

“That’s my point. I wonder if there should be. I wonder if the dream wasn’t going better before the Octagon stepped in and decided that UP needed direction.”

“Well, you know how the Old Man would answer that. It was fine to let mankind take off in all directions back when we had no reason to believe there was other intelligent life in the galaxy. But when we ran into those little fellows, then we had to get underway.”

Ronny’s expression was strange. “But underway where? A comparatively small group of men, of Ross Metaxa’s type, decided it was up to them to steer. But of what are they composed that they should know best? Why should Ross Metaxa, and his various supervisors such as Sid Jakes and Lee Chang Chu, be allowed to decide that the government of this planet Amazonia, for instance, should be overthrown and a bi-sexual regime encouraged? Perhaps the matriarchy they’re experimenting with is superior.”

“Yeah.” Phil grinned. “And perhaps not. Especially for me .”

“Yes, but my point is, who is Metaxa to decide? There are tens of billions of members of the race. What makes him so special that he can throw Section G into a local situation on some planet colonized by this opinion group, or that, of their own free will and conscious of what they were going into?”

At long last, Phil Birdman turned throughful. “Maybe I don’t know the answer,” he admitted. “And maybe my decision was a wrong one. But I’m in my mid-forties now and I took my stand quite a time ago. I’m not going to change it now.” He looked at Ronny. “Are you?”

Ronny grunted self-deprecation. “I wouldn’t know what to change it to.”

Ronny Bronston came up behind Captain Volos, who was standing watch in the Pisa’s control compartment. He said, “What’s wrong?”

The skipper was bug-eying into a zoom-screen. “A spacecraft! I’ve never seen another ship in underspace before. But…but that’s not it. It’s the size. It’s as large as a medium-sized satellite.”

Ronny said, “Let me see.”

The captain grudgingly made room for him.

“I don’t see anything,” Ronny said.

The captain scowled at him and bent over the horizon* tal screen again. “It’s gone!” he blurted. “It can’t be gone!”

“We seem to be approaching the Dawnworlds,” Ronny said dryly. “From what little I know about the Dawnmen, shortly, we’re going to be witnessing a good many things that simply can’t be.”

Gary Volos was still gaping into the zoom-screen.

Ronny said, “How far out are we?”

The captain at last stood erect. “Not very far,” he said. ” I can’t be too sure. I have no references except that chart you gave me. Possibly the coordinates are off. However, we should be coming out of underspace before long.”

He looked at Ronny Bronston with puzzlement in his face, and also a touch of accusation. He said, “That craft I just saw was far and beyond anything that could be built on any United Planet’s world.”

Ronny said mildly, “I told you that the Dawnworlds are evidently fantastically beyond us, technically.”

Volos shook his head. “I didn’t believe your story. I didn’t know what your game was, but I didn’t believe this tale about other intelligent life forms.”

“Well, Captain, you’d better start thinking about it. The more cool minds we’ve got around, when we come out of underspace, the better off we’re going to be. We have only one small bit of evidence that these critters won’t crisp us immediately upon our materializing.”

“What’s that?” Volos asked, a shade of apprehension in his tone now.

“Those little aliens had photographs, both still and movies, on them. That would indicate that the little fellows actually landed on at least one of the Dawnworlds and were allowed to use whatever camera devices they had and then leave again.”

He indicated the chart on the navigation table. “And that star chart. It shows hundreds of star systems in red. I’ve assumed that those are all Dawnman settled. The little fellas must have sent out various expeditions to compile that extensive a chart. Which means, in turn, that the Dawnmen allowed them to do it.”

“Didn’t you say that the atmosphere of the planets the little aliens were on was changed to what was poison for them?”

“That’s right. Eventually, they must have done something to irritate these Dawnmen; but before they did, they must have done considerable exploring about the Dawnmen domains.”

Ronny thought for a moment, then said, “I suppose you might as well start the process of reviving Rita Daniels and young Richardson. We’re not going to be in any position to remain divided among ourselves after breakout from underspace.”

“All right,” the captain said nervously. He spoke into an order box.

Ronny said, “Look. This trip hasn’t been any too happy, thus far, which isn’t surprising. But now that we’re here, I want to let you know that so far as the operation of the Pisa is concerned, Agent Birdman and I want to cooperate. You’re the captain. We’ll follow orders.”

Volos looked shamefaced. “My instructions were to put myself and command under your orders. I’m sorry I got around to following them so tardily. Very well. I captain the Pisa , but the overall decisions are yours.”

His eyes flicked to the control panels. “We’re coming out.” He reached over and threw an alarm.

Within moments, Birdman and Lieutenant Takashi hurried into the compartment.

Takashi, his characteristically bland face showing un-oriental-like excitement, said, “Mendlesohn’s bringing the others out of the cold.”

The captain said, “We’re emerging.”

They came out in the planetary system of a sun remarkably like Sol, and within reasonable distance of a planet most remarkably similar to Earth.

The captain muttered, “The coordinates were as perfect as any I’ve ever seen. Much better, in fact.”

Phil Birdman said, “We told you, those little aliens were far and gone in advance of us. Evidently in interplanetary navigation as well as elsewhere.”

Rita Daniels and Ensign Richardson, both looking a bit green about the gills, came into the compartment, cups of some steaming broth in hand.

The captain, his eyes magnetized to the large screen whiph took up a full half of one control compartment wall, threw a lever. Richardson put down his cup and slid into a control chair, so did Takashi.

The captain said to Ronny Bronston, “Well?” Ronny shrugged. “Why put it off? Let’s go closer.” He had an afterthought and said, “You people have some method of detecting any craft down below using nuclear propulsion, haven’t you?”

“Of course. It’s part of the equipment utilized to locate possible wrecks of spacecraft, which have crashed.”

“Could you locate the Baron’s ship, or fleet, as the case may be?”

Volos frowned. “Why do you think he’s here? There are hundreds of star systems on that chart.”

“I’m not sure he is,” Ronny told him. “But this is the nearest of them all. Why should he go further, if he’s in a hurry?”

Rita snapped, “I demand to be put in instant communication with my uncle!”

She was universally ignored, even by young Richardson.

“We can detect him easy enough,” Volos said. “But how can we tell if it’s him, rather than one of these Dawnworld craft? Although I suppose it’s possible that they no longer use nuclear power.”

Richardson turned and stared at him. “Has he talked you into believing that jetsam, sir?”

“I saw a starship at least a thousand times larger than anything in United Planets,” his skipper told him without inflection. “Mr. Richardson, and you others, consider yourselves under the command of Citizens Bronston and Birdman. Countess Wyler, if that is your correct name, you attempted to confound me. Please keep in mind that I am captain of this vessel, no matter who your uncle may be. I expect the respect and cooperation of everyone aboard.”

It was half an hour later before he spoke again.

And then it was to say, “On the face of it, below we have one of your Dawnworlds. It could be nothing else.”

Below them was a world that was a park.

XIII

It was as though you took a planet, approximately the size of Earth itself and transformed the whole into a landscaped garden. As though you made of the whole, a cinema set portraying the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Allah, the Promised Land, the Islands of the Blest, Zion, the Elysian Fields… what will you, for Paradise?

Rita Daniels hissed her breath in.

Takashi said shakily, “I can detect a nuclear powered ship. Only one. Seemingly larger than our own size.”

Rita said, unthinking, “Uncle Max’s yacht. It’s the fastest…” Then she clammed up.

Ronny said, “Try to pinpoint it, Lieutenant.” He looked at the captain. “No radio contact? No nothing?”

The captain shook his head. “I would think there would be some sort of patrol. Some sort of defense mechanism. But there doesn’t seem to be. I can’t even pick up any radio waves.”

“Possibly they don’t use radio waves any longer,” Birdman muttered.

Richardson looked at him in disgust. “You’ve got to use radio waves,” he said. “You can’t run an advanced technology without radio waves.”

Phil Birdman said, “You mean, you can’t run our technology without radio waves.”

Richardson blinked. “Just how far ahead of us are they supposed to be?”

Nobody answered him.

Ronny said to the captain, “What do you say we orbit her a few times, coming closer slowly?”

Several hours later, it was Rita who said, mystified, “But there aren’t any cities.”

And Phil Birdman said, disbelief in his own voice, “Maybe they don’t use cities, either.”

Takashi said, “There are a few worlds in United Planets that don’t have cities.”

“Yes,” the captain muttered, “but the most backward of all. Places like Kropotkin, the anarchist experiment, arid the planet Mother, with the Stone Age naturalists. By the looks of this world, the whole thing has been landscaped. That’s not exactly within the capabilities of either anarchists or nature lovers, who refuse to utilize any inventions more complicated than the bow and arrow.”

Ronny said thoughtfully, “Early man didn’t have cities. They first came in as defense centers for the new developing agriculturalists, against raiding nomads. Later on, they became centers for trade, and when social labor came in, large numbers of people had to live close together to work in manufacture.”

“What are you getting at?” Rita asked.

“Well, perhaps these people, if they actually have matter converters, no longer need manufacturing or trade. No longer have to live in each others’ laps.”

The captain muttered, “I can’t even make out individual houses. Or, for that matter, any signs of agriculture.”

Mendlesohn said, awe in his voice, “Do you think that this could be a whole planet just devoted to being a park? Possibly their other planets are so built up and crowded that they’ve kept this one just for the sheer beauty of it.”

Phil Birdman said, “Look at that herd of deer, or whatever they are!” His voice tuned low. “The Happy Hunting Ground.”

“What?” Ronny asked.

“Nothing. How long does it take to breed out of a people, the instinct of the chase?”

Takashi said suddenly, “There. There’s a city for you. And it’s not too far from where I detected the nuclear powered spacecraft.”

It was an area of possibly a square mile and the buildings were unique, even at a distance.

The captain looked at Ronny Bronston.

Ronny thought about it. “Let’s drop closer,” he said. “From all we know, if they’d wanted to crisp us they could have done so long before this. A race that could produce a spaceship as large as the one you saw, would have weapons to match.”

They hovered over the complex of buildings, descending slowly, until the screens could pick out considerable detail.

“There in the center,” Richardson said, “a pyramid. It looks like a Mayan pyramid.”

“What is a Mayan pyramid?” Rita asked. Her voice held the same awe of this strange world as did the others.

Ronny said, “Your Earth history has been neglected, my dear. You spent too much of your time reading up on the strongmen. The Mayans were an early civilization in the southern part of North America. They…” He broke off suddenly as something came to him. “This isn’t a city. It’s a complex of religious buildings. Maybe schools, things like that, too. But it’s not a city. Not in the sense of large numbers of persons living in it.”

“There’s one thing for sure”—Phil nodded—“there aren’t a good many people down there. What’s that, on top of the pyramid?”

The skipper focused the small zoom-screen, quickly flashed it off again, his face pale.

“What’s the matter, Captain?” Richardson asked. “Why didn’t you throw it up on the large screen for the rest of us?”

Volos said to Ronny tightly, “Didn’t you tell us that these so-called Dawnmen were sort of a copperish color?”

“That’s right. Great, beautiful physical specimens. Rather a golden color.”

The captain fiddled with his small zoomer again, finally located something and switched it to the compartment’s large screen for all to see.

It was a small group of the Dawnworld people, both men and women. All were dressed in no more than loin cloths, or short kilts. All seemed approximately twenty-five years of age. All were in obvious sparkling health.

“These, eh?” the captain said, his voice strange.

Ronny looked at him. “Yes, of course. Those are the Dawnmen. They don’t look particularly hostile or aggressive, do they?”

Volos said very slowly, “That wasn’t a Dawnman on the top of the pyramid.”

Ronny said, “If Baron Wyler is in the vicinity, it means two things: No matter how much of a headstart he got on us, he hasn’t managed to get what he came after, as yet. Which means, in turn, that we’ve got to get a move on.”

All the others looked at him.

“Well, what’s the program?” Birdman asked.

“The Baron—if that’s his craft we’ve detected—is on the ground,” Ronny said thoughtfully. “We’re going to have to land, too. Skipper, what say that you edge over a mile or so, beyond the limits of this city, or whatever it is, and drop one of us to reconnoiter?”

The captain turned to his control panel, silently.

He drifted the Pisa to the north, brought it down carefully in what was seemingly an isolated glen, devoid of life.

Ronny went to the hatch, Birdman and Takashi accompanying him, the others remaining in the control compartment, glued to the screens.

Lieutenant Takashi eyed the scanners built into the bulkhead over the hatch. “Almost identical to Earth atmosphere, Bronston,” he reported.

Ronny said, “Well, here goes nothing, then.”

The captain came up behind them.

“Citizen Birdman, Lieutenant, would you leave me with Citizen Bronston for a moment?”

Phil’s eyebrows raised and he looked at Ronny, but then shrugged, and following the junior officer, went back into the control room.

Ronny asked, “What was it you saw at the top of the pyramid?”

“That’s what I came back to tell you. I thought perhaps you’d just as well not alarm the girl—and the balance of the ship’s complement, for that matter.”

Ronny looked at him.

The captain cleared his throat. “It was what seemed to be an altar, and on it, a man.”

“A Dawnman?”

“An Earthman. Or, to be more accurate, I suppose, a Phrygian. But, at any rate, a member of the human race, not a Dawnman.”

Ronny sucked in air. Finally, he said, “All right. Drop me. Then take off again. I’ll keep in touch, through Agent Birdman. If anything happens to me, he’s in command.”

“Right,” Volos said. There was a certain respect in his voice now, which had hardly been there in his early dealings with the Section G operatives.

When Ronny Bronston had gotten a good thousand yards from the Pisa, he turned and waved; and seconds later, it lifted off. He watched it fade away, upward and out.

He turned and looked about him.

It was still a park. A garden.

He shook his head in disbelief.

And not ten feet from him, some sort of door opened in empty space. For the briefest of moments, he could see into what seemed to be living quarters of a man-type being. Chairs, tables, decorations…

But then a body blocked his view. A Dawnman came out and began walking toward him. The door, or whatever the opening was closed again.

Ronny was gaping, his jaw sagging. He shook his head for clarity.

The Dawnman, walking briskly and looking to neither left nor right, passed him by no more than three feet.

He could have stepped off a pedestal in a Greek temple devoted to the god Apollo. He was approximately six and a half feet tall and would have weighed approximately one hundred and ninety. His skin was golden, his hair dark cream. His eyes were blue and very clear, and there was the slightest of smiles on his lips.

He wasn’t ignoring Ronny Bronston blindly, he was ignoring him enthusiastically, avidly, even vigorously, if that made sense.

He walked right on by and went about his business.

Ronny stood there for a long moment, blankly.

Perhaps the other was blind.

No. Ridiculous. A man didn’t stride along as carefree as this young man was doing, without benefit of sight. He was about to top a slight hill, and would be lost to view. On an impulse, Ronny ran after him.

He called, “Say!”

The Dawnman either didn’t hear, or didn’t bother to answer. He strode on. Back from him floated a trill of song. Well, not exactly a song. Sort of a happy cross between song and whistle. It had a beautiful lilt.

Ronny called, realizing that the use of Earth Basic was ridiculous, “Wait! I want to talk to you!”

But the Dawnman passed over the rise and, by the time Ronny Bronston got to the top of the hillock, the Dawnman had disappeared.

Ronny looked about him, bewildered. There was no place for him to have gone in such short order. But then he remembered how the Dawnman had emerged from what had seemed open space. Without doubt, he had disappeared into another such… such… What was it?

And even with these thoughts in mind, Ronny walked full into… what was it? He smashed, at full pace, into an invisible barrier. He sat down, abruptly, his hand to his nose, which, he at first thought, must be broken. It wasn’t. In a couple of minutes, still sitting, he got the nosebleed under control.

Then he stared accusingly at… at what? At nothing. Immediately before him seemed a beautifully kept lawn leading to a small grove of trees. Beyond the grove he could see a stream of unbelievably clear water.

He reached a hand forward, tentatively.

He could feel… what? A glass-like substance? He supposed so. He traced it from the ground up as far as he could reach, and then he walked slowly along it, ever feeling.

Seemingly, it was a wall. But he could see through it perfectly. No matter how close he brought his eyes, he could not see it, however.

He could hear his communicator hum in his pocket. He took it out and flicked open the lid. Phil Birdman was on the screen.

He said, anxiously, “For a minute, there, we thought we saw one of these Dawnmen right near you.”

“You did.”

“Well, what happened to him?”

Ronny said sourly, “He evidently came out of one house, walked down the street aways and into another.”

Phil said, “Are you all right?”

“Except for a busted nose, I’m all right. This planet isn’t depopulated. They evidently just don’t like the idea of cluttering up the scenery with a lot of buildings, so they camouflage them. For all I know. I’m in the middle of a big city right now. No, I guess I couldn’t be, or I’d see more people out here in the open.”

“Camouflage? We don’t see any camouflage.”

“Oh, knock it,” Ronny told him. “It’s perfect camouflage, of course, you can’t see it. Have you got in touch with Earth?”

“Right. I talked with Sid Jakes. He said to play it by ear.”

Ronny grunted. “Tell him I’m playing it by nose, instead.” He flicked the communicator off.

With no other idea of what to do in mind, he walked in the direction of the city, or religious buildings, or whatever they were.

He rounded a bend and came upon what could only be a picnic. A group of the Dawnpeople, about ten of them, were seated on the bank of a stream. There were both men and women, all seemingly somewhere between the ages of twenty and thirty: All absolutely perfect physical specimens. If anything, the perfection was its own drawback. They were, Bronston decided, too perfect.

Not a woman nor a man among them but wouldn’t have met the highest standards of Tri-Di sex symbol back on Earth, or any of the other planets that continued the fan system of theater. No Greek goddess could have rivaled a single of these women in pulchritude. Paris would have had his work cut out, choosing whom to give his apple.

Ronny hesitated. Obviously, these people were at their leisure, enjoying themselves. He disliked to intrude.

But then it came to him, that given fusion power and matter converters, they must have considerable in the way of leisure. Besides, they would be interested in him as a complete alien. He might as well take the plunge.

He stepped nearer and said, “I beg your pardon,” feeling like a flat at the words, but the ice had to be broken somehow. He assumed that a race this advanced would have some method of communicating with him. Some technician who…

But then, Baron Wyler’s words came back to him: these Dawnpeople are not intelligent.

Nonsense! On the face of it…

But on the face of it, they didn’t even see him.

He stepped closer.

They went on with their picnic, if that’s what it was. They ignored him, completely, enthusiastically. He stepped so close that they couldn’t possibly have missed his presence.

And it wasn’t as though they were blind. He could see them performing actions that obviously required the coordination of hand and eye.

One of them, an absolutely perfectly formed girl wearing nothing but sandals and a colorful kilt, picked up a handful of sand and gravel from the stream’s bank and turned with it to a low table. There was, on the table, a device that reminded Ronny of nothing so much as a primitive coffee grinder he had once seen in an Earth museum. She poured the dirt into a funnel-shaped hole on the top and touched a switch or stud.

She opened a small door and brought forth what was seemingly a piece of fruit, though unrecognizable as to type by the Section G agent. She began to munch it.

Ronny Bronston closed his eyes in surrender.

He said, in sudden exasperation, “Look, won’t somebody give me a steer?”

They still didn’t notice him.

He looked at the gathering more closely. There were several of the coffee-grinder devices. Evidently, they were in continual use. Some of the Dawnpeople were drinking from intricately shaped glasses, some eating various unidentifiable foodstuffs. They laughed. One or two sang, from time to time, in that strange trilling manner Ronny had heard earlier from his first contact.

They were obviously having one whale of a time.

He stared at the devices.

With unbelievably good luck, he had stumbled, within a half hour of the first landing on the Dawnworld, on one of their matter converters. They were paying no attention to him. He might as well have not existed. Suppose he took one of the things up. What would they do? It was hard to believe that any of these people were apt to resort to violence. And most certainly they carried no weapons.

But that gave him pause. Given the occasion, who could say but that they were capable of pouring a handful of sand into one of their gismos and bring forth a pistol to end all pistols?

But this was his obvious chance. For whatever reason, the Baron was evidently still on this planet. His expedition, thus far, had failed. If Ronny could acquire one of these working models of matter transformers, Section G’s technicians could possibly take it apart, duplicate it, come up with larger models.

He went so far as to tentatively reach forth a hand toward the nearest. They continued to ignore him. By not a flicker of eye did they admit to his presence.

Ronny drew his hand back.

He wondered wildly if he were invisible to them. But no. Obviously these people were human. Perhaps not exactly of his genus, but most certainly they were of the species Homo. This world of theirs had obviously been landscaped to please their own taste. It pleased his as well. They saw what he saw.

He stared at the matter converter. There it was. There was victory over the Baron and his plans to dominate.

Something kept him. Intuition? What? He didn’t know. He was disgusted with himself. Why not snatch it up?

His communicator hummed. Impatiently, he snatched it from his pocket. It was Birdman again.

“What is it?” Ronny snapped.

“Baron Wyler,” the Indian said urgently. “He’s made contact with us.”

“Oh.” Ronny paused. The Baron’s space yacht was considerably larger than the four man United Planets Space Cruiser. Ronny had no doubt that it was armed with the most efficient weapons the Baron could find.

He asked, “What does he want?”

“Help.”

XIV

For the moment, he didn’t allow himself to dwell further on that. He snapped, “Tell the skipper to get down here and pick me up.”

“Right,” Phil said, and faded.

Ronny Bronston went back to the grove in which the Pisa had set him down such a short time before. His mind was in a whirl. He held in abeyance Birdman’s information about the Baron, and tried to find some rhyme or reason about his own discoveries.

Wyler and Fitzjames must have been right. These people were not intelligent in the sense of the word that Homo sapiens implied. Intelligent, somehow, he supposed. But with a different intelligence. He shook his head in exasperation.

The Pisa came gently to rest, and he went over to it as quickly as was safe.

The captain and Birdman were at the lock when he entered.

Ronny snapped, “What’s all this… ?”

Phil Birdman said, “Wyler took the initiative. I suppose he picked us up as quickly as we did his yacht. At any rate, he contacted us. He says he wants help.”

“Help from what?”

“He didn’t say.”

They went back to the control room and joined the others.

Ronny said, “It’s a trap, he’s trying to suck us in.”

Captain Volos shook his head. “I don’t think so. On the screen, he looked like a broken man. Obviously, he knows you’ll place him under arrest. That all his plans are shot.”

Phil Birdman said, “Listen, let’s leave him in whatever juice he’s stewing in. If it’s a trap, we won’t spring it. If he’s really in trouble, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

Rita held a small fist to her mouth.

Ronny shook his head. “No,” he said. “Let’s get over there. No matter what, he’s our people, and we’re all in a strange land.” He grumbled, “A damnably strange land.”

While the captain and his crew turned to their ship’s controls, Rita looked at Ronny Bronston. She said softly, “You’re not the worst person around, young fella.”

Ronny chuckled wryly. “The term is old man, not young fella.” He turned to the others and gave them a quick rundown on his meagre adventures.

He earned their disbelieving stares.

Phil Birdman blurted, “Why didn’t you slap one of them across the chops? That would have got a rise.”

Ronny looked at him. “I didn’t think of that.” He paused. Then, “You wouldn’t have, either. Somehow, there’s a no-touch feeling in the air.”

“Why didn’t you put the lift on one of the converters, or whatever they are?”

Ronny scowled, “I don’t know. The no-touch atmosphere entered into that, too.”

Takashi said, “There is the Phrygian ship.”

They brought it into the large screen.

“No sign of a fight, or anything,” Phil Birdman said. The space yacht was at rest in a lovely dell. Voids looked at the Section G operatives. Ronny took a breath and said, “All right. Set down next to them.” He looked at the Pisa’s three junior officers, finally deciding on Richardson. He said, “If I give you a gun, do you think you can keep from shooting me with it?”

The young ensign was embarrassed. “Yes, sir. Sorry about our earlier difficulties, sir.”

Ronny said, “Richardson and I will go over and case the situation. I’ll keep my communicator on, and in constant touch. Anything goes wrong, you take off. Birdman will be in charge. Does Wyler know that Citizeness Daniels is aboard?”

“I talked with Uncle Max,” she said worriedly. “Can’t I go with you?”

“Not yet,” he said apologetically. “I’m afraid you’re still a hostage. I doubt if he’ll attack the Pisa as long as you’re aboard.”

Rita shook her head. “He wouldn’t attack it, anyway. Something terrible has happened.”

“We’ll see,” Ronny said. “Come on, Ensign.” Takashi saw them through the lock, and closed it behind. They crossed the seemingly neatly trimmed grass to the other craft. Ronny looked it over. A luxurious, highly powered yacht, probably as fast as anything UP could produce. And, obviously, well-armed to boot.

He had expected to be met by well disciplined, nattily uniformed spacemen of the Phrygian space forces, but instead, Count Fitzjames was the only one at the lock to greet them.

Ronny made a brief introduction, not hiding the fact that he was holding his communicator up. His right hand was ready for a quick draw.

Count Fitzjames said, the usual worry in his voice, “The Supreme Commandant is in his lounge. This way.”

Baron Wyler was indeed in the lounge. He was sprawled, as though exhausted, in a deep chair. His eyes were wide and unseeing, and there was despair in his face. Ronny stood before him and he looked up. There was no more of the hail-fellow-well-met tone of voice. No friendly projection of personality, no all-embracing charm of the born leader of men.

Ronny and Ensign Richardson had seen no others on their way through the ship. It came to Ronny that whatever had happened, this was no trap. Neither Wyler nor Fitzjames were shamming. Somehow, their expedition had become a cropper.

“All right,” Ronny said. “What happened? What did you mean when you radioed us for help?”

The Baron said wearily, “I can’t navigate this craft, nor can the Count. We have no way of getting back.”

Ronny stared at him. “Where’s your crew?”

“They’ve evidently been sacrificed to the gods—or something along that line. Cutting the heart out with what looked like an obsidian knife!” A spasm of horror went over the former strongman’s face.

The Baron didn’t seem to be particularly coherent. Ronny sat himself down and looked at the scholarly Count. “Suppose you bring me up to date.”

“I am not sure I can, in complete detail; but I have a theory.”

“All right, take your time. Richardson, take a look through the ship.”

Richardson left.

“The Count said unhappily, “I am not quite sure where to start.” He looked into Ronny’s face. “Citizen Bronston, has it ever occurred to you that perhaps primitive man, say Cro-Magnon man, might have been more intelligent than modern man?” He hurried on before getting an answer. “Don’t confuse intelligence with accumulated knowledge. You can take a man with an I.Q. of ninety and fill him with a great deal of accumulated knowledge. Keep at it long enough and you can get him a doctor’s degree. On the other hand, you can take a man with an I.Q. of 150 and place him in the right—or rather, the wrong—surroundings and he’ll wind up with very little education at all. He’ll be smart, but will possess little accumulated knowledge.

“In primitive times, if a man was slow in the head, he died. The race needed better brains and bred for them. But as we solved the problems of defense against other animals and against nature, as we learned to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves, the need became less pressing. Our less intelligent survived, and lived to breed. Finally we achieved to the point where there was an abundance of everything for all, and the need of having superior brains fell away. No longer were the most brainy in the community given the best food, the best women—the best the community could offer in all desirable things. They were no longer at a premium.”

“What in Zen are you driving at?” Ronny asked impatiently.

“One of my theories is that these Dawnmen are the end product of having an abundance for all for a megayear or so. They don’t need intelligence.”

Ronny took a breath. “All right, and what are some more of your theories?” Through this, the Baron was sitting, staring into emptiness again.

Fitzjames said, “If I am correct, in the Dawnworld culture, the form of their early industrial revolution differed from ours on Earth. Remember my using the example of the caste system in India? Well, on the first Dawnworld, wherever it was, automation didn’t finally take over, conformity did. What it became was a very high industrial level, beehive-type culture. The individual workers are genetically predisposed to particular kinds of endeavor, and very readily and rapidly learn that specialty… but can’t learn anything else.

“They’re a contented people, a happy people. Everybody is happy—or he’s a genetic defective, and disposed of. Because he is a genetic defective, or he’d be happy.”

Ronny was staring at him. The scholar cleared his throat and went on. “They are evidently not aggressive or warlike. But they’re insect-like in the all-out-and-no-counting-the-casualties defense of their territories and their ways of doing things. They probably can’t be aggressive, because they’re one hundred percent ritualistic, and they have no ritual for aggression, nor for exploiting a new planet. Their expanding to new planets probably ended megayears ago.

“We were at first amazed, when we landed, that they ignored our presence. But they couldn’t do anything else, because they don’t have any rituals that acknowledge our existence. They haven’t any rituals that take strangers, whatever their business, into account at all.”

The Baron looked up. He sighed deeply and said, “Tell him, Fitzjames. I grow weary of your pedantic talk.”

The count hurried on. “They do have rituals that concern treatment of criminals. Steal something from them, and you come under those rituals and your classification as stranger —to be ignored—is superceded by the new classification criminal, and that, they do react to.”

“Tell him,” the Baron said petulantly.

“Their defectives are killed in a human sacrifice ceremony, which must have religious aspects going back to the very dawn of their culture.”

Ronny looked from one of them to the other. “You sent out your men to grab any of their devices not nailed down.”

“Yes,” the Baron said.

The count continued. “My theory is that the little aliens, whose planets were destroyed by changing their atmospheres, did much the same. They took a longer time. They charted a considerable number of the star systems the Dawnmen occupy. They photographed. They operated very slowly, evidently fascinated. But then they took their steps and tried to appropriate some of the devices these Dawnmen use. Perhaps they tried to trade for them, buy them, loan them, or whatever, but there was no possible way to do so. The Dawnmen are simply not interested in any contact whatsoever with any alien race. So the little aliens finally resorted to theft— and that was their end.”

Richardson came back into the lounge. He said to Ronny, “There’s nobody else aboard.”

The Baron said, “We watched it all, the Count and I. The men were taken one by one to the top of the pyramid. It was an elaborate ceremony. It must go back to a period when they were on the level of the Aztecs. They cut open the chest cavity and pulled the still throbbing heart out. The Count and I watched from an altitude of about one hundred feet. There was nothing we could do. It was obvious to us that if we attempted to use weapons, they would have destroyed us in split seconds.”

“Had we interfered,” the count said, “we, too, would have become criminals. As it was, we were the only ones who had not attempted theft, and hence were left alone.”

The Baron ended the story. “I can operate this craft well enough to take off and land, but I am no navigator. I request that one or two of your officers be sent to help us.”

Ronny opened his mouth to answer, but, at that moment, a new element entered into the lounge of the spacecraft.

From nowhere a voice came into the consciousness of each of them.

You are at last correct, Maximilian Wyler. You must return to the planet which our researching of your mind tells us you think of as Mother Earth. There is naught for you here.

Ronald Bronston, we detect that your motives for landing upon this… Dawnworld… were not criminal in intent, nor have you committed depredation upon us. It is our custom to send warning to stranger worlds—who are potential depredators—by the way of strangers who have landed among us, but have committed no criminal act. You are such. However, our researching your health indicated that your life span has been so altered that perhaps it would not encompass the period required to spread the warning. Hence, we have made certain rectifications so that your span of years will equal that of a normal lifetime as we know it to be—some two and a half of what you call centuries. Ronny Bronston sucked in air.

“Who are you?” Count Fitzjames blurted.

Researching your own mind, Felix Fitzjames, brings to our attention that in attempting to analyze our culture, you compared our society to the cast system of your India. Indeed, you had elements of correctness. By why did you forget about the Brahmins among us? Why did you assume that the equivalents of the sudras with whom you have come in contact, were the sum total of our race ? The voice addressed them as a group again. Go back to your Mother Earth. Do not be afraid of the Dawnworlds. Felix Fitzjames was correct to this extent: We are not aggressive. We have no designs against you. So long as you have none against us, our cultures need never conflict. Farewell. . . .

“Wait!” Baron Wyler cried out. “Why should I go back to Mother Earth? Why not to my own planet, Phrygia?”

You would find it difficult to breath, Maximilian Wyler. When our people are interfered with, they trace back to the planet from which the criminal element came so as to preserve themselves from additional predators in the future. The atmosphere of Phrygia is now composed of methane, ammonia and hydrogen. To the extent that Ronald Bronston succeeds in his mission of warning, a like fate will be saved your other worlds. And now we will communicate with you no longer. Farewell…

And suddenly there was an emptiness in the space yacht’s lounge.

At long last, Ronny Bronston looked at the aging Count Fitzjames. “Are you still so sure they aren’t intelligent?” he asked wryly. “At least on the highest level, we can expect cooperation. Where there’s logical intelligence, you can communicate.”

But Felix Fitzjames, his lips pale, was shaking his head. “Is a Brahmin less castebound than the lower castes? Does a queen bee have any more freedom of will than a worker?”

Ronny, and, to a lesser degree, Baron Wyler, were scowling at him.

The aged scholar was still shaking his head. “Perhaps the voice we just heard came from those who think of themselves as intelligent; but if it’s gone through two mega-years of this culture, it must live by pure ritual, too. Because its rituals are somewhat different and more complex than the lower castes’, it possibly believes it isn’t a pre-programmed mechanism.”

“I’m not sure I get what you’re driving at,” Ronny muttered.

Fitzjames was feeling it out, even as he talked. “One of the early problems of the cybernetic researchers was the fact that—to be intelligent, an entity must be capable of inconsistent behavior. But that means not to be logically predictable. This brings the frustration that an intelligent-inconsistent machine—which would be capable of exercising judgment—cannot be reliable in the sense of predictable. That is, the closer they come to a truly intelligent cybernetic device, the more it approaches the unreliable performance of a living organism.”

The Baron shifted in his chair, as though not following. He had remained silent, in shock, since the revelation of the end of his ambition, his dream… his very world.

Fitzjames turned his full attention to Ronny. “Ants are very reliable living organisms, an entymologist can predict exactly what a particular ant of a particular type will do. It’s genetically pre-programmed. The voice we just heard is a part also of a genetically pre-programmed system; it must be just as reliable and, therefore, invariable as the lower castes. An anthill, termitarium, or beehive is a true totalitarian state—and in a true totalitarian state, the Führer, Dictator, Caesar, or whatever, is just as much controlled by the rituals and taboos as every other member of the state. This Dawnworld culture would not have been stable for such a period, if its Brahmins had not been just as rigidly unintelligent as every other entity in the system.”

He shook his head once again, an element of despair in the movement. “I am afraid we can look for no hope of eventual understanding between our cultures to these supposed intelligent elements in the Dawnworlds.”

The two Section G agents, Rita Daniels, and Lieutenant Takashi moved from the Pisa to the Baron Wyler’s space yacht for the trip in return to United Planets.

For the first few days there was little communication between them. No desire for words. There was a pervading atmosphere of mental lassitude, ennui.

It was toward the end of this period that Ronny Bronston found himself alone in the lounge with Rita Daniels. They had not been avoiding each other, it was just that they had failed to contact.

He brought her a drink from the bar and one for himself.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

She looked at him thoughtfully. “I suppose I’ll stick with Uncle Max. He… he needs someone now.”

“The last member of the team, eh?”

She looked to see if there was bitterness in his face, but it was neutral.

“I suppose so,” she said. “I believe Count Fitzjames plans to offer his services to the Octagon. After all, he is the nearest thing to an authority we have on the Dawnworlds.”

Ronny said, “Don’t worry about your uncle. The Wylers in life make out all right. Through his power hunger, in one fell swoop, he was the cause of the deaths of more people than Ghengis Kahn, Tamerlane, Stalin and Hitler all rolled into an unhappy one. But he’ll make out.”

She said lowly, “You hate my uncle, don’t you?”

He shook his head at her. “I don’t hate anyone. I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that the more you learn about the workings of individuals, cultures and even the ultimate destiny of the species, the less possible is it to hate anybody. As I recall, you were particularly interested in the ultimate destiny of the race.”

“I was” she said wryly. “Now, I’m not so sure about it.”