"He doesn't know?--or suspect?"
"He shouldn't Sir. Our men took over and began covering up at once.
You know the atrocious condition of world communications systems. The
Empire could fall and Rome might not hear of it for days."
"That's what I was counting on ... that and the Disturber. The
degeneracy of the field military is terrible. They are allowing
themselves to get lazy and fat and careless."
"Yes, Sir."
"Have my car ready to drive to the Square behind Caesar's tomorrow.
See that the covermen in the houses around the Square are doubled and
double-checked. But when we go to the show, let's not have too great an
exhibition of Imperial power. We don't want this thing to backfire and
cut our own throats."
"Yes, Sir." Del Ponta's grin widened.
"Dismissed."
Del Ponta came to attention, saluted and about-faced and left.
Prefect Lamberti opened his desk drawer and took out his old service
pistol. It was a gamma gun. He had not released any of the deadly,
slow-acting rays from its chamber in seven years. But it was ready.
He opened another drawer and took out a white cloak, marked across the
back with a blue dove and the single word 'Liberacione.'
He checked the pistol.
* * * * *
"Does the Emissary from 1954 get to meet Caesar?" Jay wanted to know.
"Later. He's to make a speech tomorrow afternoon. It will be
world-televised."
"He looks very old and very tired," Jay ventured. He'd seen Caesar on
transcriptions of old speeches and on old newsreels.
"He's about ... forty, I think. Somewhat weak. Very lenient."
"I would've guessed him to be a good deal older." Then "Why weak?
Because he's lenient?"
Ilaria smiled. "Remember, Jay, 'Pax per Bello.' Too much leniency leads
one's subjects to be bold. Over-bold."
"One man's opinion?"
The Tribune shrugged. "No. Caesar doesn't get along with his advisors
too well. They criticize him for being too ready to forgive and forget."
The more Jay saw of this perfect world, the more he realized how cruel
and hard people must be to maintain a paradise. If everyone is to be
happy, someone must be unhappy.
The trouble is, people don't like to be told "This is for your own
good."
Jay said so.
"But if they're sat on hard enough," Ilaria rebutted, "they don't have
a chance ever to try anything else which they might _think_ is for
their own good...."
Jay nodded. Very true. As Ilaria left the room Jay went to the window
and looked out at the Louisville of 2054. For the millionth time in the
seven days he'd been here, he wished he had a cigarette. They had been
outlawed as detrimental to health long ago.
The fact that it had been seven days reminded him of something else
left behind.
Julie.
"You're a fool," he finally told himself. No wonder Julie'd been on
edge and acting what he termed 'odd' lately! She was scared. He'd been
out of school three and a half years. He was twenty-five. He'd just
bought a new Olds. He'd begun buying his clothes at _The_ Store rather
than a store. Hell, he should've been married long ago. His days here
were full. There were meetings with scientists and historians and
militarists and linguists and everyone else Kevin could think up. He
talked and listened and discussed and lectured. But he thought of her
every night. Every morning before he rose. At times like this, when he
was alone for a few minutes.
Of course it was love! He'd always thought too many people threw the
word around too much. He'd always been afraid to use it because he
wasn't sure of its meaning. He's used it once. And he'd been kicked in
the teeth by the girl. He hadn't used it since.
When was a guy ever sure?
Hogwash! Now he knew that each man forms his own definition. True,
too many people used the word love indiscriminately. It's mistreated.
Kicked around. Assumed and taken off. Dragged through messes and
scandals and law courts and through the mud. But to a man like Jay
Welch, to a man who has been afraid--yes, afraid--to use it, it _must_
be there when he begins thinking in those terms.
Love. He'd had to come across one-hundred years to realize he'd found
its meaning. To realize he'd known its meaning a long time. To realize
that love is whatever you make it, what you, yourself, call it. You
define it yourself. Then you apply it.
It had been there all the time. You don't include someone in everything
you do and everything you think without it. You don't try to change her
and yourself. To make her perfect. To make yourself perfect with--and
for--her without it. This business about "accepting" little faults--as
well as big ones--, he decided, is for the birds. It's human nature to
translate other people in terms of yourself and try to change them in
terms of yourself. To argue and be proud and hate like hell to have
to make up. But you don't make a project of it with everyone. Not
unless....
He and Julie had a lot to talk about.
Then he remembered where he was and when he was. He thought of Doctor
Schink. And suddenly he was scared. He remembered what Ilaria had said
about Schink. 'He's there for good....'
"He's never said a word about my going back!"
"Neither have you," came Ilaria's voice, and Jay whirled around to see
the big psychologist coming through the door.
"We'd like to keep you here as long as possible. But not against your
wishes, of course. You were shanghaied, not kidnaped." The left corner
of his wide mouth pulled back in that slow, reassuring smile.
"I stand chastised. Now I've thought of it, though, I can hardly wait."
"The day after tomorrow? I want you to hear Caesar speak. Then I want
to talk a good deal more."
"Early, the day after tomorrow." Then, little-boyishly, Jay hurriedly
added a couple of reasons. "I'm getting tired of talking and being
questioned. I feel like a talking animal in the zoo."
Ilaria nodded, smiling. "Julie?
"I figured it would occur to you sooner or later. Just because you
think a little more deeply and carefully than most men of your time
doesn't make you immune to love. That belongs to _all_ times. Good luck
and a lot of children."
Jay grinned. He'd met Ilaria's wife and five of his six children the
night before. He turned to look out the window once more.
Beautiful. The elevated streets, with gyro-cars hurtling along ... the
sky full of more winged gyros and planes ... the streets below full of
happy, white-faced, white-clad people....
White-faced!
"Kevin, you avoided my question the day before yesterday. I've been
almost afraid to ask you again. Why no Negroes?"
"It will be hard for you to accept, with your antiquated democratic
ideas." Ilaria breathed a deep sigh. "Certain elements of dissension
and unrest, Jay, are better eliminated. Coloreds have always bred both.
People are just like that. Whites and yellows and tans and reds can get
along, but not blacks."
Jay had gotten along with them all his life. "In ancient Rome there
were slaves ..." he said, trying to understand.
"Not in this Rome. I said, better eliminated, Jay." Ilaria went to the
window and looked down at the scene below. He explained:
"We exterminated them."
A hammer crashed down. A door slammed. A glass shattered. A siren
screeched. A punch caught Jay in the solar plexus. Jay had experienced
all these. Ilaria's flat statement was worse.
"Exter--No! Oh, No!" He swung around to face the big psychologist.
Ilaria's usual smile was gone. He looked solemn and very grim.
"You weren't ready for it. I don't think we can discuss it. Just
remember this: When you've a bunch of dogs and they all get along with
one another except one, you don't leave them together and you don't try
to keep them separated by a chicken-wire fence. It's too unpleasant.
You get rid of the troublemaker."
* * * * *
During the night the rebel forces moved out of Tel Aviv and took over
Israel. They captured the entire devastated Washington area, a series
of ten cities ringing Rome, and hundreds of other key spots. The
world's largest airbase at Madrid, Spain, was taken. Forces sent to the
aid of the base defenders were met by an onslaught of their own planes.
The troops didn't have a chance.
Dr. Montmorency Trumperi's Wave Disturber had been outlawed in 2001.
The plans were carefully filed away and the machine's component parts
junked. But the Disturber suddenly reappeared on the night of June 9,
2054, and world communications were stopped. Lamberti's scientists had
come up with a counter-radio mechanism, of course, so that the Rebels
were able to maintain contacts.
Louisville was not attacked. Lamberti and his men knew about the
emissary from the past sheltered there, and informed their fifth
columnists at Standiford they wanted both the Man From 1954 and Tribune
Kevin Ilaria alive.
New York was attacked by land and air. Tokyo fell. Everywhere white
flags with the blue Liberacione and the picture of a dove fluttered
above smoking battlegrounds. Everywhere men were on the march.
* * * * *
When Tribune Kevin Ilaria stormed in twelve hours later, Jay noticed
his friend was wearing his gun again. The cyanide pistol had not swung
at his hip since the day of Jay's arrival. He was also surprised to
note that Ilaria wore boots and carried a steel helmet under his arm.
There was a new quality in his voice. Brittle, static. The soft tones
of the psychologist were gone.
Jay realized that this was Tribune Ilaria of the Forces, not Dr. Ilaria
the psychologist.
"You sure you want to leave here tomorrow?" he demanded curtly.
Instantly Jay was on the defence. "I am," he said coldly.
Ilaria's smile looked forced. "I've been authorized to offer you a
Sub-Tribunate in the Forces."
"What?"
"You've had experience. None of us have. You've been in actual combat,
in the Air Force."
"Why? I don't--"
"War," Ilaria said simply. "Rebellion."
Jay stared at him. He couldn't think of anything to say.
Ilaria turned away. "Paradise. The Iron Hand. One religion and one
language and all that. Utterly cock-sure. But ... we were wrong.
They've been getting ready. Training and planning. Collecting men and
arms. They began even before the empire was established."--Jay noticed
he said empire rather than republic--"All this time they've been
preparing and planning and ... waiting."