"Inside Venus compensation limit, sir. They've taken over. Inversion
in three minutes; jet-down at NMHQ in twelve. Secondary check please,
sergeant."
Space had been monotonous. After the first thrill of watching Earth
grow smaller and smaller until it was nothing more than another planet
in the heavens, after the realization that the studded blackness to
each side was real, and not some gigantic planetarium show, the trip
had been a seemingly motionless thing, like high flight in a light
plane at less than cruising speed. They had licked the problem of
weightlessness by an artificial gravity set-up which functioned, as
far as he was able to find out from the captain, on a complex system
of gyroscopes--but not even they furnished so much as a tremor to the
deck plates, and he might as well have been planted firmly on Earth for
all the sensation there was of movement. Even when inversion began, the
gyro system automatically compensated for its inertia effects, and he
would have been unaware of it had it not been for the series of oral
checks between sergeant and captain, captain and the base on Venus.
Then suddenly, the second planet loomed large and white--it blotted out
the blackness, and then there was no more blackness, and the telescreen
seemed to be swimming in pea-soup fog.
"Six minutes, sir."
The syrupy whiteness seemed limitless and for a moment Doug felt little
pangs of panic, of fear that they must be falling into a great pit to
which there was no bottom, only the eternity of the falling itself.
Then suddenly it was above them like a diffuse, infinite ceiling,
receding quickly at first, then more slowly, more slowly....
There was a gentle pressure beneath his feet. The gyros had compensated
to their limit and had automatically cut out, and true gravity and
inertia once more were settling their grip about the sleek ship.
"Switch the screen aft, captain."
"As she blasts, sir."
Blue. Great, incredible expanses of blue in every shade of color, every
intensity of pastel, forced to the bending curve of a horizon that
seemed like some great arching bulwark against the heavy, stifling
whiteness that was the sky. For moments he was not able to distinguish
land from ocean, but then he discerned it as the midnight blue,
near-black mass that undulated slowly, in long, even swells--and it
was the vari-shaded, lighter area, smaller in size than the state of
Connecticut--that was the northern land mass. And it was toward that
which they descended. Their formation had already split and far to
starboard, he saw two long darts of silver pair off to land on the
planet's southwestern mass.
He drew the cloak about his shoulders, secured the decorative dress
sword at his waist.
Down. As silently as had been the long drift through Space, save for
the nearly inaudible rumble of the great engine as it had checked
in for deceleration. The descent was so perfectly controlled that if
there was the heavy whine of atmosphere about their hull from too-great
downward speed, he could not hear it. Down.
He drew on the gauntlets.
There was a gentle jar.
* * * * *
Their escort formed at once midway between his ship and Tayne's. They
marched abreast, flanked by echelons of cadre officers and Quadrature
Academy cadets. They marched silently toward a great, shining building
that commanded the entire edge of the landing plaza. Its size alone
made Doug catch his breath, yet it was dwarfed by a frozen human sea
of tan-bodied pygmies, amassed before it in wave after spreading wave
of superbly formed divisions. To realize at once that they were not
formations of some stunted denizens of the planet, but children of
Earth not yet eleven years old, was almost impossible for him although
he had known, had seen the terrifying figures.... But here were the
statistics, immobile, at rigid attention, not in black and white, but
in the hue of living flesh, with red blood still coursing through them.
Here were what tomorrow would be the numbers--small still things,
cold, impersonal, and dead. Here was the stability factor of a people
which had forged a device for peace. Here was the monument to their
stupidity, the warrant for their ultimate place in infamy.
They faced the building in a long arc at the far edge of the plaza, an
arc that Doug judged over a mile in length, easily 300 yards in depth.
In it were the children of two full quadrants, his and Tayne's--perhaps
a half-million--and the number would be matched on the southwestern
mass, where Klauss and Vladkow had landed later, the survivors of their
commands would be shipped here, and there would be the last battle. It
had been planned that way for key psychological reasons.
After the first taste of battle, then the indeterminate time of
waiting.... And suddenly the waiting would cease, the sea-going troops
at last would land, and swarm from their swift ships, clanging in
droves to the attack. And the small, still dead things would mount
again. Until margin was reached. Then they would stop.
Midway the length of the arc, where it was cleft by a distance of
about a quarter-mile, the escort halted. It faced left. Doug and Tayne
followed suit. The escort fell back to each side, once again forming
the impressive flying wedge with the two Quadrates at its point. Then,
facing the fantastically pretentious edifice looming silently before
them, the great assemblage waited, the mute silence broken only by the
rustling sound of a half-million sword-sheaths as they swung gently in
the warm gentle breeze.
Gradually, then, the sound grew. A rumble like far-off thunder was
above them, and it mounted slowly to a vibrant roar. The milk-white sky
suddenly swirled as if in indecision, then was ripped asunder, and torn
tendrils of it groped to fill the gaping rent in it as a great, silver
shape plunged through, descended on a seething pillar of flame.
It landed atop the building itself. It was like a towering, silver
spire there, as though to become an integral fixture to transform the
sprawling Colossus from administrative nerve-center to the temple of
empire. Doug's own ship beside it would have been as a sloop to a
battleship. He knew that in a moment the main port of the flagship
would open, and through it would be escorted the Prelate General
himself.
A half-million pairs of ears were tuned sharply to hear the voice of
their God. And when it had thrown them into conflict here, the mighty
ship would rise and vanish as it had come, to bear its high priest to
the southwest, where the lesson would be read for the second and final
time.
* * * * *
Doug tensed, knowing as he did from sleepless study what was to come.
Suddenly, from well-concealed amplifiers through which the Prelate
General's voice would soon sound, there were the first thunderous
strains of The Battle Hymn To Peace. Doug whirled, faced Tayne.
"Quadrants to salute!"
Tayne pivoted.
"Division leaders, give your divisions present arms!"
A hundred cadets about-faced in turn, bawled in unison "_Regimental
sachens, give your regiments present arms!_"
And the command was passed in swelling unison from regiment to
battalion, battalion to company, and the timing had been perfect. As
the surging hymn of hysteria struck its climaxing strain, a cacophony
of two thousand young voices swelled hysterically above it--"...
PRE-SENT--_ARMS_!"
There was a piercing shriek of sound as 500,000 broadswords whipped
from their scabbards, glittered like the teeth of some Hell-spawned,
pulsating monster as they flashed in salute.
And Doug sickened. For he had seen it before, and only the sound had
been different. There had been the resounding slap of taut rifle-slings
against the wood of polished stocks....
The terrible music ended on a measure of rolling drums, and the command
was relayed for order arms. There was the crash of a half-million
blades slammed home in their scabbards as one, and then the silence
fell as though some great impenetrable curtain had fallen.
The Prelatinate General, borne in a highly-polished sedan chair of
lightweight metal on the shoulders of the colorfully-uniformed members
of the Inner Prelatinate, appeared in the pocket-like balcony which was
dwarfed only by the immensity of the building itself. Visible only as a
jewel-encrusted shadow behind the transparent metal enclosure in which
he was ensconced, he began his speech. The two quadrants stood again as
statues.
"Once again, for the glory of the highest order of life and with the
blessing of the Prelatinate Saints, we unite to do battle for the
salvation of Man. May our mission be one of success."
A great rolling murmur of sound swelled from the throats of the
half-million, subsided.... The word was undistinguishable, but Doug
knew what it was. They had said "_Amen._"
"Our sacred duty to the One World, to the Universal State is before
us, and handed down to us by the will of the people as they worship in
their countless community senates, we shall discharge it without fear,
and for the love of our way of life. Sobeit.
"It behooves us all, as children of a mighty government, to believe
without contest in the inviolate concepts upon which our all-powerful
way of living and thought is built. There have been those who were
unbelievers; there have been those who would profess to debase
government and political philosophy to the level of mere intellectual
function and enterprise of policy, yet even those were heard to admit
before paying the terrible price for their heresies that, because their
beliefs were different, they must have of course been wrong.
"For those of us who aspire and pray that we may one day hold a seat
in the great Quorum of the Perfectly Governed, let there be no doubt,
let there be no threat to the mightiness of the glorious order which we
foster....
"As it is to be found in the immortal words of the Constitutional
Commandments, and I read from Four Chapter 18, Book of Sections,
_Section 932: 'There shall be great honor to those who give of their
blood that the One World shall live, and great reverence for the
glorious memories of those who give of their lives that the One World
shall not perish.'_ Sobeit."
Once again the rolling murmur of a half-million voices. "Amen...."
"It is then to you that I command, go forth, and perform the duties of
your great faith; go forth, for the dead shall inherit the living!"
And as at a signal, the air was rent with a deafening surge of voices
strained to their topmost in a savage cheer.
* * * * *
Slowly then, it subsided, and the Prelatinate General raised his left
hand as though in half-salute, half-benediction. And again, there was
silence, and the living things that were statues had lost their shape
and form, and had become row upon row of symmetrically-hewn markers
dotting a large graveyard on Sunday afternoon in July.
"And now, let us join minds as we listen to the ancient tongue voicing
the Prelatinate's Creed which has taught us to believe...."
And the sounds were strange, their meaning neither having been taught
nor studied for the century and a half that English had been decreed
by law as the universal tongue. Doug knew that only he, of all the
half-million, understood the sounds. With difficulty at first, then
with increasing facility, he translated the Latin. The Latin which
the others heard and obeyed. And which they had never, nor ever would
understand.
"... believe in the purchase of everlasting peace with the blood of the
young; in eternal adherence to the regime of the Prelatinate because
it is the sole existing concept in which to adhere; in sacrifice of
thought upon the omnipotent altar of Belief to Government Almighty,
and in the everlasting spirit of the Founders, to whom we daily pray
for the strength to forever remain unchanged, unchangeable, despite
the temptations of knowledge, progress, and human feeling: Sobeit. I
believe in the infinite divinity of the two parties, and in the concept
of truth as they shall dictate, rather than as it may seem to exist
through exercise of mere reason; in the...."
The sing-song tones droned with heavy monotony through the hidden
speakers, as though weaving some hypnotic spell to insure the captivity
of the young myrmidons upon whose ears they fell, unintelligible, but
Law.
The sea of young heads was bowed and a million eyes were focused
unmoving on the ground, for to view the heavens and to think upon their
unbounded freedom, with which they sought to lure the mind away from
the patterns which had been decreed for it, would be tantamount to
heresy.
And then suddenly the drone had ceased. There was movement in the
balcony. Two of the Inner Prelatinate, cloaks swaying heavily with the
weight of the precious metals with which they were gaudily embroidered,
took posts as though sentinels at each side of the Prelate General's
shoulder-borne sedan. The naked broadswords in their hands swung upward
slowly until their lips touched directly above it. And the Latin came
again, in low, swift cadences.
"... _You who are about to die, go forth_ ..."
And as the words were intoned, the broadswords were brought level, were
swung slowly, in wide, horizontal half-arcs above the high-held heads
of the regimented multitude.
"_God_ ..." Doug thought, "_God! A blessing!_"
Then the ceremony was over, and the strains of the hymn again burst
forth, and Doug caught himself almost too late. He whirled.
"Troops pass in review!"
Tayne returned the salute, relayed the order until within seconds it
was a surging, shrieking thing, the more frightening for its perfect
unison. _Hysteria_, Doug thought, _by the numbers!_
He knew the plan. The ranks that formed the long arc of formations
would face right, and then, at simultaneous commands, would step off
to the beat of the terrible hymn, preserving the curvature of the arc
so that the actual line of march would be a perfect circle nearly a
mile and a half at its inner diameter, with the great building as its
precise center. And the ranks would be kept in perfect dress as they
fanned out in 300 yard-lengths, and the cover of each endless column
would be of such precision that at a command, the inner columns of each
quadrate would march to the rear, and the spectacle would be one of
four immense, counter-marching arcs. As they met at the opposite pole
of the great diameter, the perfection of their circle would be proven.
He took his station near the edge of the inner circumference. Tayne
took his, nearly a half-mile to Doug's rear. The cadre officers and
Quadrature Academy cadets took posts of command at equally spaced
intervals for the entire length of the arc, marching to them along
invisible radii as the thousands of young section and squad leaders
shrilled their commands.
* * * * *
Doug drew his sword then, held it high over his head, then swept it
in flashing salute to the ground. And together, he and Tayne gave the
first order.
"Troops march forward!"
The cadremen and cadets repeated it.
"_For-ward_--"
And like an echo bounding its way into infinity, the word magnified
into an undistinguishable roar.
"_MARCH!_"
The throbbing hymn was again at its climax, and the volume of sound was
so great about him that the tiny shrill note which his ear had singled
out for the briefest instant could only have been in his subconscious.
Yet for a split-second, it had been by itself, for it had been out of
timing with the rest. And it had been near him.
He would listen again, when the counter-march command was given.
Impossible, of course. Unthinkable, unthinkable....
It seemed suddenly that the two-hour long march about the 5-mile mean
circumference would take two days. The display was ridiculous and
time-consuming, but he was thankful for it even as he cursed it. For he
must hear the sound again. Yet if he heard it, then the spectacle must
never end.
Slowly, slowly, at a measured, tireless step the Prelate General's
Review marched in indefatigable tribute.
And at length, at the half-way mark, Doug raised his sword for the
command, whipped it downward.
"Inner columns march to the rear!"
The relay began.
"Inner columns as assigned, to the rear--"
And the last words were magnified to the proportion of thunder, but his
ears heard it only as a faraway thing. And again he heard the near-by
command, again a split-second off.
"_MARCH!_"
This time it was unmistakable. A recently designed section or
squad-leader, of course, who had not yet mastered the timing of
commands to perfection. Nearby. He looked desperately into the files
of marching boys at his side, now muddled as the centermost columns
marched to the rear. The command would not have been relayed to the
outside columns, since they were continuing their march forward. Then
he must quickly search the reverse column as it shuttled its obscured
way to the rear.
But of course not! He would not recognize a face, even as--as his
had gone unrecognized! But the voice he had heard it three times,
three split-seconds! And somehow it was, it was Terry's voice! In
there somewhere--Terry, Terry and Mike! Swords and maces swinging
rhythmically at their sides....