Authors: E. E. 'Doc' Smith
Brookings had but one motto, one tenet – ‘get it.’ By fair play at times, although this method was employed but seldom; by bribery, corruption, and sabotage as the usual thing; by murder, arson, mayhem, and all other known forms of foul play if necessary or desirable – Steel GOT IT.
To be found out was the only sin, and that was usually only venial instead of cardinal; for it was because of that sometimes unavoidable contingency that Steel not only retained the shrewdest legal minds in the world, but also wielded subterranean forces sufficiently powerful to sway even supposedly incorruptible courts of justice.
Occasionally, of course, the sin was cardinal; the
transgression irremediable; the court unreachable. In that case the octopus lost a very minor tentacle; but the men really guilty had never been brought to book.
Into the center of this web, then, DuQuesne drove his projection and listened. For a whole long week he kept at Brookings’ elbow, day and night. He listened and spied, studied and planned until his now gigantic mentality not only had grasped every detail of everything that had developed during his long absence and of everything that was then going on, but also had planned meticulously the course which he would pursue. Then, late one afternoon, he cut in his audio and spoke.
‘I knew of course that you would try to double-cross me, Brookings, but even I had no idea that you would make such an utter fool of yourself as you have.’
As he heard the sneering, cutting tone of the scientist’s well-remembered voice, the magnate seemed to shrink bodily, his face turning a pasty gray as the blood receded from it.
‘DuQuesne!’ he gasped. ‘Where – are you?’
‘I’m right beside you, and I have been for over a week.’ DuQuesne thickened his image to full visibility and grinned sardonically as the man at the desk reached hesitantly toward a button. ‘Go ahead and push it – and see what happens. Surely even you are not dumb enough to suppose that a man with my brain – even the brain I had when I left here – would take any chances with such a rat as you have always shown yourself to be?’
Brookings sank back into his chair, shaking visibly. ‘What are you, anyway? You look like DuQuesne, and yet …’ His voice died away.
‘That’s better, Brookings. Don’t ever start anything that you can’t finish. You are and always were a physical coward. You’re one of the world’s best at bossing dirty work from a distance, but as soon as it gets close to you, you fold up like an accordion.
‘As to what this is that I am talking and seeing from, it is technically known as a projection. You don’t know enough to understand it even if I should try to explain it to you, which I have no intention of doing. It’s enough for you to know that it is something that has all the advantages of an appearance in person, and none of the disadvantages.
None
of them – remember that word.
‘Now I’ll get down to business. When I left here I told you to hold your cockeyed ideas in check – that I would be back in less than five years, with enough stuff to do things in a big way. You didn’t wait five days, but started right in with your pussyfooting and gumshoeing around, with the usual result – instead of cleaning up the mess, you made it messier than ever. You see, I’ve got all the dope on you – I even know that you were going to try to gyp me out of my back pay.’
‘Oh, no, doctor; you are mistaken, really,’ Brookings assured him, oilily. He was fast regaining his usual poise, and his mind was again
functioning in its wonted devious fashion. ‘We have really been trying to carry on until you got back, exactly as you told us to. And your salary has been continued in full, of course – you can draw it all at any time.’
‘I know I can, in spite of you. However, I am no longer interested in money. I never cared for it except for the power it gave, and I have brought back with me power far beyond that of money. Also I have learned that knowledge is even greater than power. I have also learned, however, that in order to increase my present knowledge – yes, even to protect that which I already have – I shall soon need a supply of energy a million times greater than the present peak output of all the generators of Earth. As a first step in my project I am taking control of Steel right now, and I am going to do things the way they should be done.’
‘But you can’t do that, doctor!’ protested Brookings volubly. ‘We will give you anything you ask, of course, but …’
‘But nothing!’ interrupted DuQuesne. ‘I’m not asking a thing of you, Brookings – I’m
telling
you!’
‘You think you are!’ Brookings, goaded to action at last, pressed a button, savagely, while DuQuesne looked on in calm contempt.
Behind the desk, ports flashed open and rifles roared thunderously in the confined space. Heavy bullets tore through the peculiar substance of the projection and smashed into the plastered wall behind it, but DuQuesne’s contemptuous grin did not change. He moved slowly forward, hands outthrust. Brookings screamed once – a scream that died away to a gurgle as fingers of tremendous strength closed about his flabby neck.
There had been four riflemen on guard. Two of them threw down their guns and fled in panic, amazed and terrified at the failure of their bullets to take effect. Those guards died in their tracks as they ran. The other two rushed upon DuQuesne with weapons clubbed. But steel barrel and wooden stock alike rebounded harmlessly from that pattern of force, fiercely driven knives penetrated it but left no wound, and the utmost strength of the two brawny men could not even shift the position of the weird being’s inhumanly powerful fingers upon the throat of their employer. Therefore they stopped their fruitless attempts at a rescue and stood, dumbfounded.
‘Good work, boys,’ DuQuesne commended. ‘You’ve got nerve – that’s why I didn’t bump you off. You can keep on guarding this idiot here after I get done teaching him a thing or two. As for you, Brookings,’ he continued, loosening his grip sufficiently so that his victim could retain consciousness, ‘I let you try that to show you the real meaning of futility. I told you particularly to remember that this projection has
none
of the disadvantages of a personal appearance, but apparently you didn’t have enough brain power to grasp the thought. Now, are you going to work with me the way I want you to or not?’
‘Yes, yes – I’ll do anything you say,’ Brookings promised.
‘All right, then.’ DuQuesne resumed his former position
in front of the desk. ‘You are wondering why I didn’t finish choking you to death, since you know that I am not at all squeamish about such things. I’ll tell you. I didn’t kill you because I may be able to use you. I am going to make World Steel the real government of the Earth, and its president will therefore be dictator of the world. I do not want the job myself because I will be too busy extending and consolidating my authority, and with other things, to bother about the details of governing the planet. As I have said before, you are probably the best manager alive today; but when it comes to formulating policies you’re a complete bust. I am giving you the job of world dictator under one condition – that you run it
exactly
as I tell you to.’
‘Ah, a wonderful opportunity, doctor! I assure you that—’
‘Just a minute, Brookings! I can read your mind like an open book. You are still thinking that you can slip one over on me. Know now, once and for all, that it can’t be done. I am keeping on you continuously automatic devices that are recording every order that you give, every message that you receive or send, and every thought that you think. The first time that you try any more of your funny work on me, I will come back here and finish up the job I started a few minutes ago. Play along with me and you can run the Earth as you please, subject only to my direction in broad matters of policy; try to double-cross me and you pass out of the picture. Get me?’
‘I understand you thoroughly.’ Brookings’ agile mind flashed over the possibilities of DuQuesne’s stupendous plan. His eyes sparkled as he thought of his own place in that plan, and he became his usual blandly alert self. ‘As world dictator, I would of course be in a higher place than any that World Steel, as at present organized, could possibly offer. Therefore I will be glad to accept your offer, without reservations. Now, if you will, go ahead and give me an outline of what you propose. I will admit that I did harbor a few mental reservations at first, but you have convinced me that you actually can deliver the goods.’
‘That’s better. I have prepared full plans for the rebuilding of all our stations and Seaton’s into my new type of power plant, for the erection of a new plant at every strategic point throughout the world, and for interlocking all these stations into one system. Here they are.’ A bound volume of data and a mass of blueprints materialized in the air and dropped upon the desk. ‘As soon as I have gone you can call in the chiefs of the engineering staff and put them to work.’
‘I perceive what seem to me to be obstacles,’ Brookings remarked, after his practiced eye had run over the salient points of the project and he had leafed over the pile of blueprints. ‘We have not been able to do anything with Seaton’s plants because of their enormous reserves of power, and his number one plant is to be the key station of our new network.
Also, there simply are not men enough to do this work. These are slack times, I know, but even if we could get every unemployed man we still would not have enough. And, by the way, what became of Seaton? He apparently has not been around for some time.’
‘You needn’t worry about Seaton’s plants – I’ll line them up for you myself. As for Seaton, he was chased into the fourth dimension. He hasn’t got back yet, and he probably won’t; as I will explain to his crowd when I take them over. As for men, we shall have the combined personnel of all the armies and navies of the world. You think that even that force won’t be enough, but it will. As you go over those plans in detail, you will see that by the proper use of dirigible forces we shall have plenty of manpower.’
‘How do you intend to subdue the armies and navies of the world?’
‘It would take too long to go into detail. Turn on that radio there and listen, however, and you’ll get it all – in fact, being on the inside, you’ll be able to do a lot of reading between the lines that no one else will. Also, what I am going to do next will settle the doubt that is still in your mind as to whether I’ve really got the stuff.’
The projection vanished, and in a few minutes every radio receiving set throughout the world burst into stentorian voice. DuQuesne was broadcasting simultaneously upon every channel from five meters to five thousand, using a wave of such tremendous power that even two-million-watt stations were smothered at the very bases of their own transmitting towers.
‘People of Earth, attention!’ the speakers blared. ‘I am speaking for the World Steel Corporation. From this time on the governments of all nations of the Earth will be advised and guided by the World Steel Corporation. For a long time I have sought some method of doing away with the stupidities of the present national governments. I have studied the possibilities of doing away with war and its attendant horrors. I have considered all feasible methods of correcting your present economic system, under which you have had constantly recurring cycles of boom and panic.
‘Most of you have thought for years that something should be done about all these things. You are not only unorganized, however; you are and always have been racially distrustful and hence easily exploited by every self-seeking demagogue who has arisen to proclaim the dawn of a new day. Thus you have been able to do nothing to improve world conditions.
‘It was not difficult to solve the problem of the welfare of mankind. It was quite another matter, however, to find a way of enforcing that solution. At last I have found it. I have developed a power sufficiently great to compel world-wide disarmament and to inaugurate productive employment of all men now bearing arms, as well as all persons now unemployed, at shorter hours and larger wages than any heretofore known. I have also developed means whereby I can trace with absolute certainty the perpetrators
of any known crime, past or present; and I have both the power and the will to deal summarily with habitual criminals.
‘The revolution which I am accomplishing will harm no one except parasites upon the body politic. National boundaries and customs shall remain as they are now. Governments will be overruled only when and as they impede the progress of civilization. War, however, will not be tolerated. I shall prevent it, not by killing the soldiers who would do the actual fighting, but by putting out of existence every person who attempts to foment strife. Those schemers I shall kill without mercy, long before their plans shall have matured.
‘Trade shall be encouraged, and industry. Prosperity shall be world-wide and continuous, because of the high level of employment and remuneration. I do not ask you to believe all this, I am merely telling you. Wait and see – it will come true in less than thirty days.
‘I shall now demonstrate my power by rendering the navy of the United States helpless, without taking a single life. I am now poised low over the city of Washington. I invite the Seventieth Bombing Squadron, which I see has already taken to the air, to drop their heaviest bombs upon me. I shall move out over the Potomac, so that the fragments will do no damage, and I shall not retaliate. I could wipe out that squadron without effort, but I have no desire to destroy brave men who are only obeying blindly the dictates of an outworn system.’
The spaceship, which had extended across the city from Chevy Chase to Anacostia, moved out over the river, followed by the relatively tiny bombers. After a time the entire countryside was shaken by the detonations of the world’s heaviest projectiles, but DuQuesne’s cold, clear voice went on:
‘The bombers have done their best, but they have not even marred the outer plating of my ship. I will now show you what I can do if I should decide to do it. There is an obsolete battleship anchored off the Cape, which was to have been sunk by naval gunfire. I direct a force upon it – it is gone; volatilized almost instantly.