Personality has a physical basis and what is in itself bio-chemical can be modified by bio-chemical means. The new formula could dissolve a man's personality into a state of plasticity from which almost any kind of temperament could be re-fashioned. Worlds were at war. With technologies resting in an uneasy equilibrium victory or defeat depended upon morale. Morale depended upon personality. Personality depended upon the new formula! A weapon as insidious as that could work both ways. An unscrupulous government could use it to control men's minds to a degree which had never been possible before. The Automatic State lay just around the corner. Bill Stokes and his underground movement were faced with a savage dilemma. Disloyalty could mean defeat for their own people, but to keep faith with the present regime could lead to the end of individual human independence.
Release date:
December 30, 2013
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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BIG DAN MATHESON came out of the government building deep in thought. He was a tall, broad-shouldered individual, with bushy brows, clear, intelligent eyes, and an open, honest face. Dan Matheson was that rather rara avis, an honest politician. Perhaps more unusual still, he was a sound man in every respect. Dan Matheson was more than sound, he was a good man. Not good in a pious, sanctimonious way, but good in the sense of being trustworthy, loyal, honest, reliable and humane. He was the personification of the programme on which his party fought their elections, and if the colonists on Gimel, the third planet of Alpha Centauri, had really taken their judgment with them to the ballot box Dan Matheson’s radicals would have been the overall party, instead of prominent members of the coalition. But even as one of the bulwarks of the coalition, Dan Matheson made his presence felt very considerably. But running with a coalition, working with other men inside the limits of agreement, and the narrow margins of democratic safety, took a great deal of thought, tact and diplomacy; a great deal of patience and negotiation. Matheson was a good negotiator; he was broad minded enough to take a wide judgment and to see the other fellow’s point of view, even when it was at variance with those humanitarian principles which inspired his own reforming ideals.
He raised a hand automatically as a hovercraft taxi glided along the broad plaza, in front of the government buildings. The door opened as the driver pressed the automatic control button in his cab, and without even glancing up, Matheson climbed into the hover-car.
“Parliamentary domestic quarters, please,” he said down the speaking tube connecting the passenger compartment with the driver’s cab.
“Certainly sir.” The voice had rather an odd edge to it, but the fact was lost on Matheson at that moment. His mind was completely absorbed in the problems of what looked like becoming an inevitable war. Dan Matheson detested war! But he could see no possible alternative at this moment. He smiled rather grimly as he thought of the recent rather stormy scenes in debate. The Gimel parliament was modelled, as far as its procedure was concerned, on the parliament of ancient distant earth. In some ways it was slow and cumbrous; they had even imported some of the traditions and ceremonials, but the humanoid colonists of Gimel, third planet of Alpha Centauri, the third and outermost planet of Alpha Centauri, for that matter … were of terrestrial stock, and, as is sometimes the way with colonists, they had a greater admiration for the old traditions, and the cultures of distant Earth than Earthmen who had not left their native world.
In the bygone days of the 20th century, half a millennia ago, it had been a frequently observed fact that Australians and Canadians, holidaying in the Old Country, were eager souvenir hunters, and enthusiastic pursuers of antiques, ancient monuments and the like. It suddenly occurred to Dan Matheson that the taxi was taking rather a long time to reach the residential buildings, where the parliamentarians of Gimel lived and moved, and had their being while the planetary parliament was in session.
Dan glanced up. For a second he did not recognize the scenery. When he did his great bushy brows knitted together in a frown of anger and surprise. He picked up the speaking tube.
“And just where the devil do you think you’re going?” he asked. His only answer was a laugh from the driver. Dan was the kind of man to whom panic and fear were as alien and foreign as green spotted pseudopods. He had no more in common with nervous anxiety than he had with Angolian honkligungles. His philosophy was simple, direct, straightforward, and hitherto, effective. When big Dan Matheson found himself faced with some difficulty he went straight at it. Not blindly, like a bull at a gate, but forcefully like a battering ram at a door.
“Kidnapped!” He thought aloud, grimly; at my age! There could only be one possible explanation, and Dan Matheson knew it. The present democratic coalition was not only threatened by the prospect of external conflict from the peculiar Zurgas of Aleph, the innermost planet of the system, nor, solely from the reptilian Quen of the jungles of Beth. The most insidious danger was the danger from their own world, danger here on Gimel. Political danger in the form of Karl Recman and his uniformed thugs. If there was one thing about which the moderate democratic Right and the moderate democratic Left could agree, it was in their common dislike of the insane, prejudiced policies of Karl Recman, would-be totalitarian dictator of Gimel … The constant raids on the humanoid planet by Zurgas and Quen had added fuel to the flames of Recman’s protests. Not all the colonists were by any means as level-headed as the Socialist leader. A threat of war had driven large numbers of them into that political hysteria in which men can be stampeded into handing over power to a dictator. Whatever powers Karl Recman lacked, he did not lack political ability. He was ruthless, dangerous and completely unscrupulous. All sorts of thoughts began ashing through Dan Matheson’s mind.
The recent stormy debates had left the coalition in a singularly perilous position. He and his opposite number, the conservative leader, were as close to dissolving the coalition as they had ever been. There had been a very heated exchange and the popular Press of Gimel had naturally played it up for all it was worth. Some of the less responsible and more sensational dailies, not to mention some of the more excitable vidio-screen correspondents, had almost given the impression that there was a strong personal breach developing between the two men. The pattern of Recman’s scheme took shape in the shrewd socialist leader’s mind. Soon he could analyse the situation; the Fascist’s plan would be to remove him quietly and to allow the blame to rest upon the conservative leader. The seasoned old campaigners probably wouldn’t fall for it, but some of the more excitable younger men very likely would. If enough of them in both the moderate democratic parties got excited enough, that could spell the end of the coalition. A country, or a planet, threatened from outside cannot afford to be without a government. Recman would then use all the publicity which his highly financed organization could command, and having screamed from the housetops that democracy had failed Gimel when Gimel was in its hour of need, it would be a comparatively simple matter for his uniformed thugs to seize power without any serious protest or opposition and once a regime like Recman’s Fascist party had seized power, it would be impossible to unseat them without a great deal of bloodshed and sacrifice, without getting rid of Recman himself, first.
Above all things else Dan Matheson was a very practical man. He was a man in whose make up there was no place for selfishness. If he disappeared without trace, then it would be very easy for the Fascist leader to throw the blame upon the Conservatives. Matheson was not prepared for any such thing to happen if he could possibly avoid it. He was a very muscular man, and, despite his grey hairs, he was as strong as he had ever been. The speaking tube was not the firmest of fixtures. If he could crash the hovercraft, then to be found dead among the wreckage would not cast the blame on anybody. There was also the chance of getting out in repairable shape. The question was to lure the driver into unhooking his end of the tube. Matheson took a very firm grip on his part of the tube.
“Driver,” he said, “I think you and I might be able to do a little deal. I’m talking money, big money.” There was silence for a second, but he had not misjudged his man.
“How big are you talking?” asked the driver’s voice.
‘This big!” shouted Matheson, and pulled savagely.
Under the impetus of those great muscles, the tube was wrenched from its moorings. The hooked end which the driver held was rather like a shepherd’s crook. It hooked around his neck, and as Matheson tugged savagely there was a strangled scream from the other end. The hover-car veered wildly out of control. Matheson hung on grimly. They were in an open space, there was no other vehicle in sight. One side of the car dipped down. There was jolting and there were Sparks,. . .
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