Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 7 — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- ? . wi KT ah Pi +e FOR THE By IRVING COX, Jr. ae ts ye Dye sve GLORY OF AGON. The essence of dictatorship is not merely that no citizen trusts any other nation; it is that no citizen trusts any other person whatever. Somehow break that mutual distrust, however. 7" the red glare of the late afternoon sun they turbed away from the pioneer settlement, cut in the red soil of the desert. Brad headed the triangular-winged car toward the dome of the Earth colony which gleamed iridescently on the far horizon. He pulled his oxygen mask over his face, while the Martian watched him anxiously. “Their story makes sense,” the Martian said. He spoke slowly and precisely; his - voice was soft and high-pitched, as deli- cate as his slim, whispy, six-armed body. “They could be lying, Ran,” Brad answered. “They’ve been Rationalized!” “Two hundred thousand of them? Six months ago they invaded the Solar Federation; now they’re a member colony. Ran, the Rationalizer can’t cure every—” “The Rationalizer isn’t a cure; it’s not a machine, Brad. It merely persuades rationally thinking people to think rationally. The three hundred haven't - escaped; they’ve simply taken one of their own ships and—” “Which was prohibited when they sur- rendered.” «.. And gone back to Agon to arrange a treaty. That’s their story, Brad; it’s true because it’s logical. We’ve converted them to our way of thinking. Why shouldn't they want to take our technology back to their own people?” “On the other hand, how do we know they haven’t simply gone to explain the way we made them surrender?” Brad laughed, but without pleasure. “That surrender was, a trick. A bluff! We don’t have a weapon that could stand up against theirs.” “No. Nothing but civilization.” “You Martians are all alike. I suppose you’d turn back your enemies with a book of sonnets, or a nicely pointed dramatic oration. You can’t answer a technological development like their time-power with a handful of fancy words.” “Granted, their material technology out- strips ours; we’ve never built a Solar ship that could reach the stars and the Cen- taurians have discovered time-power. They attacked us with weapons that could wipe out a planet. Still, Brad, three Earth- people forced their fleet to surrender.” “Fortunately. It gave us a breathing space—time to prepare for their next attack. And what do we do? Waste it studying their culture, when we should be building weapons!” “Brad, if we sacrificed all the resources on all our planets, we still couldn’t build a war machine to equal theirs. The Solar Federation wasn’t built on force. If we take our solution to the problem, we'll be- tray ourselves defending ourselves.” “More- Martian double-talkk. What do you want us to do? Sit and talk while we wait for them to come again? When I make my report to the Assembly, Ran, I intend—” “At least consider the data I’ve col- lected, Brad.” The Martian put two of his arms on the younger man’s shoulder, in the traditional Martian gesture of friendship. “You’ve only gathered infor- mation about their ambassadorship; you need my data to fill out the picture.” “Ambassadorship! I dare say the motives of our Centaurian colony were logical enough. The trouble is, Ran, their rationalization may. destroy us. As long as the Centaurians didn’t know why their first invasion fleet surrendered, they hesi- tated about sending in the second team. How could they be sure we weren’t better armed? Now these three hundred starry- 54 oO Ss (€©) Yr ) We mires are : << se * ae? > GEOmiIGcdoo