Stepping Stone

IV

Chesley's wife cooed:

"Arthur, you look so handsome! Just think, my Arthur's a generalissimo! Oh, if only Elsie Morgenstern's husband down the block could see you now!"

"I have to go," Chesley said.

"Oh, don't go yet, Arthur. Let me look at you. My, blue is your color. And those comets on your shoulder—Arthur, you're handsomer than you were when we were married." She giggled.

Chesley said uneasily, "Dear, I must go. The Viceroy himself has sent for me."

"The Viceroy?" His wife's mouth went wide with surprise—yes, and with fright. "Arthur! You mean—"

"I only know that he sent for me," Chesley said.

"But that's what happened with Elsie Morgenstern's husband, Arthur! The Viceroy sent for him, and Elsie said the poor man knew it was—And he just couldn't bear the suspense, knowing that he was on somebody's list, so he— Arthur, please don't go. Stay here, Arthur! Oh, Arthur, I knew all this would end up with some kind of terrible thing. How can I tell my mother if you— And think of the disgrace! My own husband blasted by the Viceroy for disloyalty! I won't be able to hold up my head. Just when the other ladies were—Arthur, come back here!"

But it wasn't his death sentence that was being passed after all. Chesley had been pretty sure it wasn't that—though there were uneasy moments, waiting in the purplish gloom of the Viceroy's own outer office, when he would have given his blue V.G. uniform and his generalissimo's comets cheerfully for the privilege of once again being an ordinary common citizen in an ordinary world.

But it wasn't bad news; it was good; how good, Chesley would never have dared to guess.

The Viceroy's personal aide-de-camp, white-faced, sweating, let Chesley in. Chesley walked past the man and thought objectively how terrible it must be to be exposed continually to the ultimate wrath of the Viceroy—and how short the life expectancy of a personal aide had come to be, with the average duration in the post running to not much over a week.

But then he was in the presence of the Viceroy, and he had no time to think of things concerning mere humans.

And yet—the Viceroy himself, even, had an aura of humanity that was new and strange.

It wasn't that he looked human. His features were twice the size of a man's, and utterly blank, carved out of heartless granite, as though it weren't worth the trouble to him of assuming an expression. It wasn't as though he sounded human —his voice had a curious mechanical harshness, more so than ever before, as though he had not bothered to dress it up with earthly intonations and overtones.

But the Viceroy was . . . upset.

That was the only word to express it. He had blazed with angry power during the reorganization of the V.G. that brought Chesley his comets, and the blaze was still smoldering. There was worry and hatred in his bearing—hatred at the stupid illogic of this mindless human race that was incapable of resisting him, and yet ran the highest risks of annihilation for the sake of making a few filthy dollars. There was passion surrounding the Viceroy; and Chesley was very nearly afraid.

He saw death pervading the very air in front of him, death and annihilation. And yet it was not directed at Chesley, for what the Viceroy said, when he took time at last from reading memos and pausing to make the effort of will that, somewhere on the face of the earth, blasted another enemy with a violet flare, was:

"You once refused a bribe."

Chesley had to think back—it was that hard to remember. Then he recalled the scene in Captain Carsten's office, and realized that even there the Viceroy had had his hidden microphones or his spies. He said, "That's true."

The Viceroy went on in a harsh and somber voice: "You no longer refuse them."

"That's true too," admitted Chesley.

"Yes," said the Viceroy, and was silent for a moment while he read a memo and squelched another enemy. Then he said: "You need not refuse bribes. But do not fail to be logical. From this moment, you are chief of all my Guard."

And that was the end of the interview.

A human dictator might have appealed for personal loyalty. What the Viceroy wanted, Chesley realized, was clarity of view—the realization that Chesley's own selfish interests were best served by doing whatever he could for his master, the Viceroy.

Chesley left, understanding the Viceroy's difficulty.

The Viceroy had no time.

He had to be all over the world, punishing and searching out offenders. And for all his superior power, he was baffled and enraged when human beings risked his anger for—to him—stupid reasons.

Chesley didn't know much about fear from personal experience, since his mind had never worked that way. But he had learned to recognize its objective symptoms in others: Baffled rage, extending outward; puzzlement; inability to comprehend the nature of a danger.

In other words—what the Viceroy himself was now demonstrating.

Chesley, being no coward, was also no hero. He had never thought of himself as courageous, and yet, the very next week, he did a courageous thing.

A report came to his desk:

Captain-General Gorminster, aide-de-camp to the Viceroy, has accepted a bribe for destroying a memorandum relating to the disloyalty of five members of the San Diego Area Command.

Chesley's job was to initial it, return it for filing, and inform the Viceroy of its contents—directly, since the man accused was the Viceroy's own aide-de-camp. It was Gorminster's death sentence.

Chesley did nothing of the kind. He initialed it, thought it over, and tucked it in a pocket.

And two days later, he found the Viceroy's aide-de-camp dragging himself, shaking, up the long humped ramp that led toward the purplish recesses of the headquarters. Chesley stopped him.

"General Gorminster," he said, "take a look at this, will you?"

Gorminster glanced at it impatiently, then snatched it from Chesley's hands, read it and reread it, stared for a horrified moment at Chesley, and seemed about to faint.

"I haven't turned it in," said Chesley.

Gorminster only stared. He was a pitiable sight, no courage left to him and no strength.

"And I am not going to," Chesley went on. "I think it is an unjust accusation."

"Oh, thank you," gasped Gorminster.

"I only want you to remember," said Chesley, "that I have helped you. I may need help myself sometime."

"I understand," said Gorminster after a moment, and then he smiled. It was a workable arrangement—the supreme commander of the V.G. and the Viceroy's personal aide, working hand-in-glove; they could protect each other indefinitely.

Chesley returned to his work feeling more comfortable than he had for some time.

That was the sole act of disloyalty of which he was guilty. He made up for it by intensifying his investigation of the rest of the Viceregal Guard. Half the members of the V.G. were always busy investigating the other half, and each half was likewise split into quarters that investigated each other. Only rarely did Chesley report directly that any individual or group was disloyal, for he had seen enough to know that the most dangerous thing a man in his uncertainly powerful position could do was to make enemies.

But he saw to it that the right members of the warring factions discovered the right damning evidence on their opponents. And then it was only a matter of piously transmitting the initialed reports; and the Viceroy himself blasted the offenders, and Chesley could wash his hands like any Pilate.

He worked hard.

Under the new regime, feeling for others was a luxury and only selfishness was a virtue. But selfishness precluded any genuine loyalty to a ruler who ruled by fear alone. Thus greed arose to combat fear and to nullify it; and disloyalty was inevitable.

The task of investigating and reporting was endless and exhausting. Chesley began to feel it draining him after the first few days in his mighty new office. And yet, he wondered, what must it be for the Viceroy? He spent more and more time with that inhuman tyrant, and saw that humanity—that is, worry and doubt—were burgeon- ing in him like toadstools after a spring rain. Chesley could trust no one fully. The Viceroy could trust no one at all.

The Viceroy spent all his time doing what Chesley did—but more quickly, more efficiently, without human limitations on his ability to think and act. And without rest.

Chesley began to sense that something might happen—something that the Viceroy feared.

But it would not happen, he knew, of itself.

He thought, and remembered, and was careful. It must be made to happen—and he must arrange it.

He continued with his work.

The number of reports he sent in increased. He discovered disloyalty everywhere

It was only a matter of time until someone somehow reported Chesley himself. And one day when Captain-General Gorminster, in a tottering panic, hurried to Chesley's side with a summons from the Viceroy himself—and dared everything to whisper, "It's the Ottawa Area Chief! He's reported you direct—I couldn't stop it!"—Chesley knew that the time had come.

There was the Viceroy, twelve feet tall, shimmering with a golden fire-flecked glow. He was shouting into a television scanner connected with Sydney, Australia; in his hand was a sheaf of denunciations; he paused, spoke, paused again in the moments while Chesley was waiting, and each pause was an execution.

The Viceroy spoke, his face granite: "You are a spy in my Guard."

Chesley felt his stomach knotted into hard lumps and wondered what he had eaten that disagreed with him so; he found that he was sweating and was astonished, for it was not warm. He said: "I have followed your orders. I have acted loyally."

"Loyally!" Chesley felt the seething of inhuman rage that radiated out from the Viceroy. "You obeyed because you knew obedience would harm me!" cried the Viceroy. "Yours is a race of worms! You know no reason and no logic!"

It was true.

The realization hit Chesley and hit him hard: All of his obedience, all of his following orders, had had the effect of damaging the Viceroy's cause. For the Viceroy's orders had been to root out disloyalty and destroy it; and the nature of the Viceregal Guard was that disloyalty had to be its hallmark, treachery its sign.

What other sort of person would join the V.G.?

And so, the more the officers spied and reported, the weaker the organization became. Blue-uniformed turncoats remained turncoats. The task of rooting out corruption from the Guard was impossible—by definition: for corruption was its source and spawning ground.

And knowing that, Chesley knew one more thing: He knew at last that he was afraid.

He said: "You yourself created an illogical situation."

The Viceroy stopped in mid-breath. Death was very near for Chesley, but at least the Viceroy was listening. Was it his imagination, or did the Viceroy seem to be swelling slightly—as though the strain of carrying a planet on his inhuman shoulders was beginning to tell? Chesley said, "You hoped to rule us by fear—but fear destroys you. When we are afraid, we act irrationally; and we are too many for you."

"I shall destroy your filthy race!"

"Oh," said Chesley, calm now, nodding, "yes, you will. You will destroy us, Viceroy. In fact, you are destroying us now. And what then? If you destroy us all, there will be no servants for your people—and then you will be punished."

The giant figure wavered like smoke. It cried wordlessly—or in words that were not human; and then it said: "Stop!"

"Why?" asked Chesley. "You will blast me anyhow—you can only do it once, you know. That's your basic error, Viceroy, you have only one punishment for any crime, so why should a man be content with a small crime? Might as well commit a large one. No, if you had been logical, you might have—"

"Stop!" bawled the vast, inhuman voice, and the purple-lined room shook. "Stop, man!"

He was swelling with anger, Chesley noted with a surgeon's detachment. Ah, what was the difference? He went on, finishing out his thought, confident that it would be the last thought he would have in this life: "And so, by failing to be logical, you have failed in your mission. It is you who are disloyal, Viceroy. You have betrayed your people. You can never prepare the Earth for their coming."

"Disloyal?" boomed the enormous voice.

Chesley nodded and closed his eyes.

There was a pause

And, even through his closed eyes, a violet flare—

And a crash louder than anything Chesley had ever heard. This is dying, he thought; but then he opened his eyes and it was not.

It was the Viceroy who had blasted himself; disloyalty had to be punished; there was only one punishment; logic required that it be administered. The Viceroy's broken body lay sprawled across the floor, shattered from within under the pressure of a storm of uncontrollable energy. It was not destroyed completely, as any human body would have been; and in death it was no longer human at all.

There was plenty of money in the vaults of the Viceregal Guard, and plenty of time to take it and get away, before any other human dared approach the Viceroy's inner headquarters. Quickly home, quickly with his wife to the airport, quickly in a V.G. plane, with a pilot he could trust, flying south high and fast. And his wife was saying:

"But Arthur, if the Viceroy's dead and the V.G. is going to be out of existence as soon as the people find out about it, then what will we do? You'll be out of a job, and— And if the rest of the race will be trying to lynch the V.G., like you say, then how will we be safe? Don't you ever think of me, Arthur? You can grow a mustache and change your name—but what about Mother? How will I ever dare— And why must we take that filthy trunk? I don't know what you've got in it, but I simply cannot abide the smell of it, and— Arthur! You're not paying attention!"

Chesley said wearily, "Don't worry about it, dear. Look."

He opened the briefcase and showed her the stacks of bills it contained. "But—but that's stealing!" she cried.

He said, "It's my own money, honestly grafted. Besides, it won't be good for anything once the governments take over again. But meanwhile it will buy us a place to live, and a stock of food to see us through, and a laboratory."

"A laboratory?" His wife looked as though she had at last realized her husband had gone utterly mad. "You mean—research? That stuff in the trunk?"

He nodded. "Those are the fragments of the Viceroy's body. If I can find out what he was made of, I think I can find out how he was able to blast people—and then we'll be ready for the next Viceroy his race sends down. If they ever send another. We know that the blast works on them as well as on us—he proved that." He smiled, and pointed down to the palm-fringed airfield which they were circling for a landing. "Our new home," he said.

There was much more that he could have said—for example, that when he had learned the secret of the Viceroy's blast he could, if he wished, rule the world as the Viceroy had; or that with a few other little items he had looted from the Viceroy's quarters they could be fabulously wealthy all the years of their lives. But it was not Chesley's way to be communicative, particularly with his wife; and all that he did say was:

"So you see?

That job was a stepping stone, after all."