NEMESIS

The edifice of the World Council was packed to the doors.

Hither had come the scientists, engineers, social workers, mathematicians—the whole living, breathing network of mentalities responsible for cohesion in this despot-controlled world of the twenty-fourth century.

Bruce Lanning arrived late. The aerobus ways had been choked with craft all heading to the centre of Governopolis. He pushed his way in at last between the mighty black doors, and his permit gave him immediate admission to his reserved seat. Astronomer Lanning was a valued member of the Governopolis Council...and Drayton Konda, the Master, knew it well. Perhaps—too well.

Lanning’s sharp grey eyes went over the sea of faces white, yellow, and black. Men and women of every clime. Some rustled papers, others silent recorders for personal use; still others just sat and waited. It was the most impressive gathering Lanning had ever seen in his ten years as chief-astronomer. Some knew why the meeting had been convened. Others did not.

Lanning was one of those who did. and he had come to make a stand. The Master dare not. A hush fell. Muttering subsided. A loudspeaker in the black cupola of roof gave forth the harsh, impartial announcement so often heard throughout the world—

“Silence for the Master! Silence for He Who Rules!”

Automatically opened doors back of the immense rostrum permitted a figure to appear. There was not a soul in the Solar System who did not recognise him—massive, well over six feet, ox-shouldered, heavy-necked, with a truly remarkable and altogether round bald head. His brow went up in a straight line, curved over the top of his hairless skull, then went down in a straight line at the back. Intellectual, unsentimental, utterly stubborn.

As usual he was quietly dressed in the lounge suit of the time. In two strides he reached the main desk, flicked the microphone switch, and waited. Far overhead winked the eyes of television cameras. His image was being picked up and hurled to the furthest reaches of the cosmos.... Bruce Lanning smiled a little crookedly. Though from his position he could not see the face clearly he knew it well enough. Hook-nosed, tight-lipped, square-jawed. Eyes as blue and cold as a glacier.

Drayton Konda had set himself out to master the world and the Solar System, and what was more important, he had done it. Whether for ill or for good nobody seemed to know. Perhaps because nobody was permitted to say....

Konda spoke. His voice was hard-etched, biting, purposeful. He went straight to his subject without friendly preamble.

“I have decided we need more power! Vast power! Endless power!”

Transiently he looked about him, lips out-thrust as though he challenged denial. None came. He continued talking:

“When I gained control of Earth and the Solar System, I promised it should be for a definite purpose. It was. We cannot be confined to a mere Solar System whose boundaries end with the known planets. All the neighbour worlds and satellite colonies are under the control of Earth. Therefore, I shall reach further. Outward to Alpha Centauri; then to the furthest stars! But here on Earth there is not enough power for the construction of interstellar ships; not enough power to feed endless chains of factories. We have atomic force and we have the natural power of Earth itself generated at the north magnetic pole, but more is needed! More! There remains one powerhouse still to be tapped, the greatest of them all. The sun!”

There was a murmur and then silence. Lanning’s eyes narrowed. Now it was coming, just as he had expected.

Konda continued: “My solar engineers inform me that it is possible to erect a vast powerhouse for the sole purpose of utilising the sun’s surplus power. We all know that the vast percentage of the sun’s power is wasted. Drawn to a focus by magnetism it can be used, transformed to feed our chains of factories. Our output can be tripled. In five years we shall be ready to launch the greatest attempt to conquer the Universe within the history of Mankind. War? No, conquest! For this purpose of erecting a giant magnetic power plant I have convened this meeting, so that you can make the depositions for the necessary labour.

“Engineers, you will submit plans for the intended powerhouse. Labour chiefs, you will estimate the labour required. Social workers, you will broadcast statements on the benefits that can accrue. Mathematicians, you will determine the calculations. Astronomers, you will determine the effects of this process—”

“That I have already done!”

Bruce Lanning had jumped up, his voice cutting across the Master’s and echoing through the hall’s vast reaches. There was a dumbfounded silence. That anybody should dare to interrupt He Who Rules....

Then the automatic analyser gave forth a harsh announcement: “The interrupter is Bruce Lanning. First Astronomer to the Council of Governopolis. Guards, remove him!”

“Remove me if you will,” Lanning said, standing his ground, “but I am determined that certain facts shall be known—”

“You have dared to interrupt He Who Rules,” stated the Voice.

“And I will again, if it be in the common interest!”

Gathering uproar, amazement, a desperate pulling at Lanning’s coat tails by his nearest neighbours—then the Master spoke.

“You may speak, Astronomer Lanning, provided it is in the interests of Governopolis. Continue.”

“I submit, sir, that your scheme for harnessing solar power will bring more destruction than benefit. In my position as Astronomer to the Council I have known for some time of your intention to utilise the sun’s surplus power. Your scheme, as I see it, involves a system of magnetism between Earth and sun, by which process you intend to draw—as indeed Earth itself draws already in a more diffuse form—the electrons and energy streams which would otherwise scatter in space. This vast surplus you intend to convert in your powerhouse, and so supply your chains of lesser normal powerhouses....”

“You are correct,” the Master conceded.

“Do that,” Lanning stated deliberately, “and you will destroy the world! Firstly, your magnetism system will not only draw electronic streams, but also the brickbats and flying fragments forever hurtling through space. On this planet there will descend an incessant bombardment of incendiary material. Fires will break out. Hundreds of thousands of people will be killed. The extra amount of power gained will be counterbalanced by losses in labour and material.”

Silence. And the Master meditated.

“That will not be all,” Lanning added. “It is a well-known fact that electrical storms and radio interference are brought about entirely by electronic activity from the sun, worse at some periods than others. Increase the stream of electronic energy, and the whole world will be blanketed by radio static. Storms beyond imagination will lash the Earth. There are limits, sir, beyond which a man may not go.”

Lanning remained silent, strained, and white-faced. The battering, watchful thousands of eyes was a vast ordeal. Then at last the Master spoke again.

“Your statement has been interesting, Astronomer Lanning, in spite of its variance from truth. You have overlooked that all the cities of the world, and Governopolis in particular, are fire- and invasion-proof. We need fear no attack from weapons of war: therefore even less need we fear a pseudo-invasion in the form of brickbats and meteorites. Storms are possible, but of trifling consequence. Radio we can control by static eliminators. Taken by and large, Astronomer Lanning, your statement may be summed up as a reactionary attempt to disturb this meeting.”

Konda turned his head slightly. “You are ordered to strike out Astronomer Lanning’s statements; No summary of them is to be published or transmitted. And, Lanning”—the bald head turned—“you will report to my office immediately after this meeting.”

“But, sir, I—”

“Leave us!” Konda ordered.

“Astronomer Lanning, you are commanded to leave!” thundered the loudspeaker. “Guards, open the doors....”

Lanning’s shoulders drooped. He knew—yes, and Drayton Konda knew too—that he was right. But if one man rules, and that man is determined to have extra power no matter what the cost....

Lanning went out through the assembly without uttering another word. The black doors closed soundlessly behind him.

* * * *

On the colonnaded terrace outside the doors there was a scattering of people, mainly radio, television and press representatives. Gloomily Lanning glanced at them, then he wandered to the balcony and gazed out over the city from this high elevation.

Preposterous city, Governopolis! Mile-high towers of black ebonoid metal, lacy bridges, beacon towers, the streets incredibly distant below and picked out like serpents of smooth flickerless light. The quiet of the summer evening was upon Governopolis. There was no sound save the lazy hum of eternal power. The stars sprinkled the serene, purple heavens. Far away, the Earth-Mars space liner nosed silently to rest. Peaceful. A Paradise.

No, a mask! A mask for subdued humanity under the heel of omnipotent science. Science in the hands of a man convinced of his own godlike power, a man to whom human pity and kindness were unknown.

“And so shall this insubstantial pageant fade...,” Lanning murmured, contemplating the crazy expanse.

“...and leave not a wrack behind,” whispered a soft voice close to his ear.

Lanning turned abruptly, gazing into the eyes of a slender woman in a light, Grecian-style gown. Her eyes were brown and warm, eyes that still had not become clouded by the heel of oppression. The soft wind blew back the chestnut hair from a serene, oval face.

“Eleanor dearest, whatever are you doing here?” Lanning caught at her slim hands. “You know the wives of delegates are not really allowed....”

“No?” Her gaze slanted down the file of waiting people. “There are women there—wives too. They wait.”

“But they are the wives of the Council members. I am only an astronomer—”

“The First—and the greatest in the world,” Eleanor said gently. “Konda or no Konda, that is the truth.”

“Take care what you say about Konda, dearest. The city is worm-eaten with pick-up cells. One word against him and—”

“Did you say your piece?” the girl interrupted. quietly.

“Oh yes, I said it.” Lanning’s jaw tightened. “I was told to get out.”

“I expected that. But you are so right, Bruce. If Konda dares to go ahead—”

“Hush, dearest, hush!” Lanning laid a finger on her lips. “If such words as yours were ever to reach him, it would be the end.”

“I wonder...would that matter so much?”

Lanning was silent for a moment, then: “As long as we still have each other, and I have a moderately good position, we can perhaps make out. At least we can hope for better things even if they never come....”

Lanning paused as the black doors of the hall swung wide open and the delegates began to emerge with sombre faces. Lanning moved to the nearest one and caught at his arm.

“What was the final decision?” he asked quickly.

“As we expected,” the man shrugged. “The power of the sun will be harnessed at the earliest moment.”

The man went on his way; and on each man and woman who passed there was the brand of the Master. It was maddening. Inevitable. Lanning turned away at last and caught Eleanor’s arm.

“I have to see the Master, dearest. His orders.”

Eleanor nodded silent assent and Lanning hurried off. He pushed his way through the crowd along the galleries, through the immense ebonoid tunnel which linked up the buildings, up a gently rising staircase, and so at last to the mighty sealed doors behind which lay the sacrosanct territory of the Master of the System....

Lanning waited whilst a miscellany of instruments identified him, checked for weapons, registered him—then the three invincible doors opened one by one, and he was in Konda’s presence. Slowly he walked to the massive desk and waited.

Konda’s bald head was a white patch where the desk light shone upon it. The remainder of the great office was thickly shadowed. Then he looked up suddenly and the white patch was replaced with the friendless, glacier-blue eyes.

“What I have to say will not take long, Astronomer Lanning. You are suspended from duty for a period of eight weeks.”

Lanning stared. “What! Just because I stated truths at—”

“What you said, was calculated to cast a reflection on my knowledge, and that I cannot allow. It was finally decided that the powerhouse for solar energy shall be erected immediately. And if you remain in your position, it will be believed that I am in secret agreement with you. Therefore, for the period of time occupied in building the powerhouse—eight weeks—you will be absent.”

“But, sir, in a city like this, without work— It means starvation!” Lanning clutched at the edge of the desk. “You are taking away my only means of livelihood. You are tearing up my privilege-ticket for food, my voucher for money, my permit as an honoured Council member—”

“You should have thought of these possibilities before you dared to question my judgment at the meeting. You may go.”

Lanning turned bemusedly, backing towards the huge door. Half-aware, he heard the buzz of the Master’s desk phone. Then suddenly:

“Lanning!”

Lanning looked up eagerly and marched back to the desk. But there was no sign of recant in those pale blue eyes.

“Lanning, you and your wife discussed matters beyond your province on the colonnade tonight. That was most unwise.”

Lanning’s face tautened. “It was nothing important—”

“I know exactly what you said, and your wife too. The electronic ear recorded every word of it. I have just heard it from headquarters. I gather that I am drunk with power, that you are right and I am wrong. Your wife spoke very unwisely, Lanning.”

“Look, Konda, if you even dare to touch her I’ll—”

Lanning stopped dead, gulping down his surging fury as the black shadows suddenly sprouted with the grim muzzles of ray guns. He remembered. Robot guards, controlled from the desk. They were everywhere, all over the city, prying, peeping, protecting the baleful genius who was Master of the System.

“Sit down!” Konda commanded, and then snapped a switch. “Find Eleanor Lanning and bring her here immediately.”

During the leaden silence that followed there was no sound save the scratch of the Master’s pen as he went on with his work. Lanning sat and sweated, inwardly scalded with murderous fury. There was a click and a concealed door opened. A man in black entered, a man with a pick-axe face, dark, shrunken eyes, and pinched forehead.

Melicot! The most hated man in the System outside Konda, a legal wizard in whose hands rested the absolute enforcement of law. All infractions, however small, were examined by Melicot with ruthless thoroughness.

He sat down beside Konda and relaxed, his mouth a thin scratch and the rest of his face in shadow. Then Eleanor came in by the main doorway, calmly showing no trace of fear, though she must have known that only an ominous reason could have needed her presence here. The city guards released her.

“Eleanor!” Lanning leapt up and seized her hand.

She smiled—that slow, confident smile. Then the Master spoke.

“Eleanor Lanning, I understand you disapprove of my leadership?”

“Entirely!” Eleanor faced Konda steadily.

“Eleanor!”

“The Master asked my opinion, and I have given it,” Eleanor said simply. “In fact, Konda, I loathe everything you stand for. There will come a day when—”

“Be silent,” Konda interrupted. He snapped a switch, and the conversation on the terrace was played back into the shadowy gloom.

“Yes, I said all that,” Eleanor admitted, when it was over.

“You realise just how much you have broken the law?”

Eleanor nodded. “Yes, I do. But I would sooner die a speaker of truth than live a liar. If there were only one man or woman with character and courage in this despot-crushed world, you would no longer rule millions from this desk.”

“Eleanor!” Bruce Lanning groaned.

“I mean that for you too, Bruce,” she said, turning. “It is said that one cannot overthrow this dictatorship. One man can because one man became dictator. If it comes to a choice of characters, the Master is the stronger because he got what he set out for. Somewhere, someday, there must rise one strong enough to break him—”

Melicot’s acid voice broke in: “Schedule 19, Ruling 22. Anybody who speaks in condemnation of the supreme authority exercised by He Who Rules shall suffer the full penalty of the law. The penalty is death.”

Konda stood up. “You have heard the sentence, Eleanor Lanning. It will be exacted at dawn tomorrow.” He motioned the guards.

“You can’t do it!” Lanning screamed. “You can’t condemn my wife like that, just to satisfy your damned, stinking laws! I’ll break you for this, Konda! I’ll tear the blasted city in pieces to get you—”

“Bruce....” It was Eleanor’s quiet voice. She laid a hand on his arm. Konda did not stop her. Deep down in his cast-iron soul there was a vague admiration for her serenity.

“Bruce, I knew after what I said that it would be the end. But I would rather die than live any longer in the hell that Konda has made of this world. Even Konda cannot forever separate us. I’ll be waiting for you.”

“No! No!” Lanning flung out a protecting arm but the blow of a guard sent him reeling back. Dazed, he shook himself, watching as the girl was led from the office. Then, like a tiger, he swung back on Konda. Melicot had already melted into the shadows.

“I’m going to stop this, Konda! My wife shall not die! You hear? You can’t get away with it! Just because her opinion doesn’t happen to conform to regulations!”

Konda gazed like a snake. “Eight weeks’ suspension, Astronomer Lanning, then you can return to your post. You tried to prevent your wife’s foolish utterances whilst on the terrace, and that weighs in your favour. Your life shall be spared. You may go.”

“You bet I’ll go! And I’ll give you all-fired hell before I’m through!”

Lanning went, but with, the deep inner consciousness of having spoken useless words. Konda was supreme.

* * * *

Cooling from anger, grief descended upon Lanning. Grief and helpless fury. He wandered the pedestrian-ways instead of going back to the apartment. And he knew that all the time he was watched. Sometimes the watcher was human; at other times he could sense the faint static bristling through his scalp which denoted a television beam fixed upon him from headquarters—watching and recording every move.

Once he pondered committing suicide as he gazed down from the mile-high ramparts into the bowls of light below. But where would be the good of that? Before he could have fallen any distance automatic nets would have thrust out from the building face to save him. Suicides were almost unknown in Governopolis. Konda took good care of his workers. He needed them. Surgery, too, could rapidly put things right in the case of a self-inflicted injury....

So Lanning wandered again, stunned nearly into amnesia by the tragedy that had descended upon him. Every time he paused he found he was in a different part of the city and not quite sure how he had got there. As before, his wanderings were not interfered with. As long as he made no attempt to end his life he was safe. Safe! What a mockery!

And each time he paused he seemed to see one of the giant city clocks slicing off more of the night hours. Slowly the summer dawn began to creep over the eternally wakeful city, and he was drawn by an irresistible impulse to the vast grey façade of the city prison—there to wait, dispirited and hag-ridden, outside the walls.

Upon the stroke of four a.m. he saw the telltale light signal wink and expire on the prison roof, the sole announcement to the unheeding millions that one of their number was dead.

“Eleanor...,” Lanning whispered, his eyes unashamedly blurred with tears. “Eleanor...!”

The City, merciless and unfeeling. absorbed Bruce Lanning into its matrix thereafter. It assimilated him completely, threw him out afterwards as indigestible, branded its brutal machine-stamp upon him as he moved from place to place in a half-waking nightmare. Deprived of his work, without any amenities, he became one of the drifters that must always lie back of a titanic monster of power like Governopolis.

He did not know why he tried to keep himself alive—and yet he did. Without realising it he drifted down to the lowest regions where the scum of outcast workers survived, those for whom the City no longer had any use and who were left to starve or die as circumstance dictated. Konda had his reasons for this. too. To let them rot and starve there just beyond the City was a good example to other workers if they ever thought of rebellion. Even enslavement was better than the pitiless struggle waged against death in the dark sombre alleys of the City’s backwaters.

Then one night light came back into Lanning’s hammered brain. It was rekindled by a few words from the man who had trailed around with him in the past weeks—a shoddy, old, bitter man with cavernous eyes and a consumptive cough.

“They finished the solar power plant today, Lanning.”

“They—finished—the—plant?” Lanning said the words haltingly “Finished the—” He stopped. The words had sunk in. It suddenly linked him up with the past. The solar power plant! Eleanor!

“How long did it take?” he asked deliberately

“Eight weeks, but it’s finished.”

Lanning looked down at his hands, as though he had never seen them before. He inspected his torn and ragged clothing felt at his bristling stubble.

“Crawford,” he said at length, “my punishment is over. I am entitled to go back there— There!” He jerked his head to the infinite blaze of light and power. “I was suspended.”

“I know. I heard.” Crawford coughed sepulchrally. “You can go back, take orders, and do as you’re damn well told.”

“But at least I can live,” Lanning breathed. “Not rot in this stinking backwater. Isn’t that worth something?”

Crawford spat. “I’d sooner die than work anymore for Konda. He threw me out, so I stay out. Rotting maybe, but out! And you are still willing to obey him after he had your wife executed? I just can’t believe that.”

“She died because she spoke the truth.” Lanning got up. “Yes, because she dared to stand alone in this godless emptiness and denounce Konda to his face. There was courage, Crawford—courage such as this world hasn’t seen for generations. I was not worthy of her. It was right for her to be taken away from me. But now— Now I’m changed.”

“You’re going to get revenge? Can’t be done.”

“She said that one man—” Lanning spoke half to himself. “One man—and she meant it for me. One man to free the world! Yes, Crawford, I’m going back to take up my old job, praying to God I shall not be such a coward as I once was. Then one day—”

He straightened up. “I have to get myself in order. The past died in these eight weeks of hell. For me there is only the future....”

* * * *

So Lanning reported for duty again, and with the impartiality of the law his social security was restored to him. He returned to being a cog in the Council machine, but he knew he was eternally watched. The mark of suspicion was upon him—but he did nothing to nurture that suspicion.

That he had returned for vengeance there was no doubt, but to want it and achieve it were as apart as the galaxies. All he could do was wait for an opportunity and keep his mouth shut. At least he had a better chance in the Council than in being a drifter.

He made his astronomical reports with religious exactness, came and went from and to his coldly empty apartment every day, never made mistakes and never appeared rebellious. But it was noticed that he never smiled. Never.

Then, little by little, some of the things he had predicted for the solar magnetiser began to occur. At intervals there were showers of brickbats upon the city. In some parts of the world the showers were heavy enough to inflict considerable injury and damage. It then became part of his work to predict the paths of the meteor streams. When he had the prediction complete the magnetiser was switched off to allow the meteor fields to stream past unattracted.

To Lanning it simply meant that his postulations were correct. Nothing more. He had been justified in his warnings, but he was not avenged. Not yet.

Storms came next, stirred up by the onslaught of electronic streams upon the higher planes of the atmosphere. In six nights out of seven, as the heat of the summer gave way to the coolness of the autumn, there were rolling thunderstorms over monstrous Governopolis. Lightning exploded itself in random bolts at the mile-high towers with their huge insulator-caps. Rain descended in a flood from the raging, tortured heaven. The world over, radio became impossible at such times, despite the unceasing influence of the static-eliminator plants....

These were the nights that Lanning loved. Perched high in the major observatory, he was alone, the rest of the staff being isolated in other parts of the building. Here he could watch the furious blaze of the storm around the giant dome of warpless glass, could feel at one with the fury because it had something in common with his own tortured soul. On such nights as these he could imagine the spirit of Eleanor abroad. Her name now was like a timeless echo. A bold, magnificent woman who had died because she had spoken the truth.

“Truth!” Lanning whispered, his eyes fixed on the tumult. “Truth—and vengeance! A bridge between! I am that bridge!”

Lightning crackled violet fire.

“If only there were one man—!” screamed the wind.

“Konda! Konda! KONDA!” crashed the thunderbolts.

“I shall be waiting....” A faint, clear thread of remembrance.

“Vengeance!” Lanning breathed, his face wet with the fury of his emotions. “Yes, there shall be vengeance! Eleanor!” He tore the safety-window open and yelled into the wind and rain. “Eleanor, do you hear me? You shall be avenged. I am the bridge!”

Then he turned away, cold and calm, and fastened the window. These moods were common now. Perhaps he was half mad: he did not know. And slowly the storm began to die away. The stars winked into view. Lanning calmed then settled himself in the chair of the giant telescope to make his nightly charts.

It was quite by chance that the huge instrument was turned on the eastern heaven, and since Earth had shifted since the last observation the instrument was not trained on the previous night’s field but upon the orbit of Nemesis, the massive meteorite-comet which made a round trip in something like seventy-seven years. First appearing at the beginning of the previous century, having been somehow diverted from the outer deeps of the Solar System, it had pursued its journey regularly, always coming near to but never touching Earth.

But this time! Lanning stared, and stared. The sweeping tail of Nemesis was different. It was foreshortened, and it had never been foreshortened before.

Lanning found his hand trembling on the controls. This meant something big. Suddenly he deserted his chair and hurried over to the files concerning the visitor. Hurriedly, tensely, he waded through spectro-heliographs, plates, mathematical computations. No doubt about it! Nemesis was off course! But why? What cosmic accident had caused this thing?

Back of his mind Lanning knew what had caused it, but he did not dare just then to give his imagination free rein. It seemed impossible that Fate had given him such a supreme chance to prove himself right.

All that night he remained at the telescope, spent the next day making calculations; then when the next night came—clear and calm for a change—he went to work again. Swinging the giant instrument to where the comet should appear, if following its normal orbit, he found no trace of it! Tensely, he swung back to the position of the previous night. Nemesis was still there, a trifle larger, deep yellow in colour, and the tail had gone.

Stunned. Lanning stared at the unbelievable. It could only mean one thing. Nemesis had turned right off her course and the tail was now invisible because it was streaming right out behind her and could not be seen from Earth. Nemesis was hurtling towards Earth from outer space, inexorably drawn, and there was a reason for that, too.

With the dispassionate calm of the true astronomer, shelving for the time his personal hates and bitterness, Lanning went to work. When he had all his notes complete—and it took him a week, during which time Nemesis had grown enormously—he gathered them up and left the observatory.

Dawn had just broken. He took the quiet routes that led to Drayton Konda’s headquarters. The Master always reached his desk at dawn, and had just arrived when Lanning was shown in to him.

“Well, Astronomer Lanning?”

If the Master was surprised at the early call he did not show it, but his steely eyes had curiosity in them.

Lanning said briefly: “When you first erected the solar power plant, sir, I warned you of danger. You refused to listen. I forecast the doom of the world. That doom—is coming!”

Konda’s face was expressionless. “Explain yourself.”

“A meteorite-comet, Nemesis by name, has been swung aside from her normal path of seventy-seven years circuit. The reason for that is the immense force field generated by your power station reaching out into space. You are using magnetism. This meteorite has a large percentage of magnetic oxide of iron, instantly drawn by magnetism, far more so than by gravitation, which is not magnetism. It has been caught in the field of your magnet and is heading straight for Earth. Its speed is seven thousand miles a minute: its size, half that of the moon. Its gas envelope is highly poisonous. Here are the official records.”

Konda took them, studied them, then tightened his lips.

“I will give orders for the power station to be cut off instantly and so free this thing whilst it is still far away.”

“That will avail exactly nothing!” Lanning smiled icily. “It is in a fixed path now and on the opposite side from the sun. It is making a beeline for Earth and nothing can stop it hitting us. The damage is done!”

“We could go underground,” Konda mused. “That way we could withstand the impact.”

“Its speed, when it reaches here, will be in the region of eight thousand miles a second,” Lanning stated. “You have eight days in which to get below—no more. Even if you could do it, it wouldn’t save you. I warned you, Konda, that too much power would break you one day. Now it’s my turn! I shall tell the people of the world what your blind ambition has brought upon them! The end of the world! Some of them may still be able to escape to another planet.”

“I think not,” Konda said slowly. “The people shall know nothing of this. That you have come to me first with the information saves the situation. They shall know nothing!”

“You can’t do it, Konda! When the comet becomes visible in the next night or two explanations will be demanded from you, the Master!”

“And if the Master is not here?” Konda asked softly.

“What?” Lanning stared at him. “You can’t mean—you’re going to desert Earth?”

“My life is more valuable than that of the worker. If this planet is doomed, I shall move to one that is not. I have the mastery of every planet in the System—don’t forget that. I owe you a debt, Astronomer Lanning, for bringing this matter to my notice.”

“So you’ll make good your escape and leave the millions who’ve sweated and died for you? This is one time you won’t get away with it—”

“Lanning, you’re becoming a nuisance,” Konda said, a ray gun suddenly in his hand. “It is time to be rid of you, but not in a way that anybody can know what happened to you. If inquiry is made, you have simply become deranged and been removed. I shall withdraw all other astronomers from duty before the threat of Nemesis can be fully ascertained. I shall not even entrust you to an executioner, because he may talk. You shall go into space, amongst those beloved stars of yours—to die!”

“Now wait a minute!” Lanning snapped. “All right, I’m half mad. I want revenge for the death of my wife—all right again. But duty to humanity comes first. There may yet be a way to avert this catastrophe. Fleets of space machines firing neutron guns could perhaps explode this comet before it strikes us—its metallic core, anyway. The gas we would have to provide against. Or you might arrange counter-attractors on other planets to draw it aside and neutralise its danger. There are many things—”

“You said eight days, Lanning. There is not the time. Besides, I have never considered it wise to trifle with the cosmos. If I cannot be certain of beating it I allow it full play.”

Konda got up suddenly. “Walk!” he commanded. “It is a favourable moment for your departure, before the staff gets here. Walk!”

Lanning clenched his fists, wondering which was best—space-death as Konda had planned for him, or the sudden death of the flame-gun. Finally he walked. Life is not an easy thing to sell as long as there is a spark of hope left....

With the gun in his back he walked the still deserted galleries in the fresh morning air, ascended the spiral stairway, and finally reached the private spacedrome on top of the executive building. Konda motioned him to a one-man flyer. He climbed in and sat down in the control chair. Before he realised what had happened manacles snapped into position around wrists and ankles. He raised a startled face.

“You were prepared for this then, Konda?”

“No. But there have been others whom it was necessary to be rid of in the same quiet way as this. This ship is specially constructed for undesirables....”

He leaned over the switchboard and made adjustments to the complicated mechanism, checked the fuel gauge, then turned an expressionless face.

“The time-switch mechanism is set to start in five minutes,” he said. “It will operate, hurtle the ship well clear of Earth, and will then send it on a straight-line journey. You will travel clear out of the Solar System, will keep on going until the power fails. By then you will be beyond Pluto and will maintain a constant velocity until some cosmic body attracts the ship. If by then you have not starved, you will die, ground to powder, and no man will ever know.”

Lanning could not think of anything to say. The merciless workings of Konda’s mind were beyond his gauging. First it had been Eleanor, because she had spoken the truth. Now it was himself, for exactly the same reason. And he had thought he had found a perfect lever to bring Konda’s kingdom crashing—!

The airlock clicked shut. Lanning stared bleakly at the control board, striving without avail to break the grip of the manacles. He waited through the longest five minutes he had ever known.

Suddenly the crushing pressure of the start was upon him. In his ears was the roar of the rocket jets, and through the ports he saw Earth bathed in pallid morning mist as he climbed into the infinite. Straight as an arrow, perfectly charted, the vessel hurtled into the star-pricked immensity of space

Lanning sat immovable, pinned down, but after a while a sensation of deepening alarm settled upon him as he felt a distant pull of the ship out of its charted direction

The nose was turning, slowly and inexorably, into the field of the titanic solar powerhouse magnet, a field existing between Earth and sun. Lanning found himself wondering what would happen. So far no spaceship had ever been near that deadly line. Paths had been charted to give it as wide a berth as possible...but in his urgency to be rid of his greatest enemy Konda had overlooked that this was only a small ship unprotected by giant rockets able to fire it away from the counter-pull.

The next thing he knew he was in the midst of the mystery-field. He could not analyse what was happening to him. His body was shot through with mind-numbing pain. He was alive and yet dead, caught in a fiery cramp that felt as though each nerve were exploding separately. His brain, right out of tune with his body, made him feel as though he were in two places at once, then the sensation blasted into a white-heat of anguish as his body felt as though it were bulging to breaking point. He stared at hands and arms bloated like balloons save for the narrow necks where the manacles gripped.

A ripping sensation made him scream with pain, but with it his mind returned to normal and the pain stopped. For a second or two he revelled in the sweet langour pervading him. Then he began to look around him. His hands caught his attention. Something was desperately wrong. His hands were like glass! He could see through them! Frightened, he looked down at himself. Everything that clothing did not hide was transparent!

Nor was this all, for with a sudden effort he lifted his hands clean through the manacles! Just as though his wrists were ploughing through cloying dough. Even as he got shakily to his feet he noticed he sank a little into the metal floor, finding solidity at about two inches’ depth It took him a long time to master himself; then terror gave way to scientific curiosity.

Turning to the switchboard he found he had just sufficient solidity in his fingers to move the levers. He cast aside the automatic devices and gave full blast to the rear tubes. Gradually he got the ship pulling away from the magnetic beam. He waited, wondering if he would regain his normal appearance once he was back in free space. His amazement was complete when transparency remained even when clear of the magnetic beam.

Puzzled, he started to think, going back over each of his sensations. Magnetism? Opposing forces. The truth filtered in slowly and made him gasp. The atoms of his body had coordinated! That was it.... Normally, the atoms and molecules of his body—any body—should be chasing hither and yon, the products of disorganized magnetism. Yet each atom and molecule possesses north and south poles. Magnetism. Disorganized. But if a gigantic force. a strange form of magnetism—such as that issuing from Konda’s magnetic powerhouse—were to cause all those atoms to turn their poles in one direction?

“I’d become as a ghost,” Lanning whispered. “Semi-transparent and able to walk through matter. The stray atoms still not turned by magnetism would make for a slight resistance. That is the ‘dough’ effect and the reason why I sink right through the floor. The majority of the atoms and molecules in my body have been turned in one direction, swung by the magnetism from Konda’s power plant. His magnetism reacts on human structure, evidently, but not on the artificially toughened matter of the ship.”

This puzzled him for a moment, but when he came to look closely, he saw that the vessel had also suffered a slight transparency.

“And nothing can put me right except demagnetisation,” Lanning mused. “Any more than an ordinary magnet can lose its magnetism without special treatment.”

Slowly the possibilities began to dawn upon him. He was unkillable, changed by the scientific fluke into a man to whom matter was no barrier, to whom a bullet meant no danger, to whom a death ray meant no more than a flash of light. Vengeance was his to exact at last! There remained—Konda! He had said he would escape to another world. Good! Lanning smiled icily. He would wait for him.

But two days and nights passed without any sign of spaceships leaving Earth. The reason was fairly obvious. The perturbations from onrushing Nemesis were making space itself like a stormy sea. Lanning could feel his own vessel rocking constantly. Time was moving fast. The comet had grown hugely in forty-eight hours.... So Lanning went back to Earth. The moment he was in the atmosphere he was amidst hot vapours, the view hidden in a smoky haze of dust brought about by the meteoric matter streaming ahead of the comet-meteorite itself. At intervals Lanning caught glimpses of men and women coming and going.

He landed at the space port amidst a fiery gloom. Eventually he beheld a spaceport official in the murk and caught hold of him. The man’s eyes stared as though they would drop out.

“Bruce Lanning!” he whispered. “The ghost of Bruce Lanning!”

“Where is Konda?” Lanning demanded.

“Nobody knows. The people got wise to this approaching asteroid and demanded Konda should protect them. He said he couldn’t. He fled into the city somewhere—”

Lanning was on his way, striding into the smoke. He went first to the main centre of the city. Heat-haze was everywhere. Moving, terrified people were too concerned with themselves to notice this hazy ghost of a man who sought revenge. Lanning went on, across bridges, through walls, through sealed doors. On and on until the night fell. Here Lanning paused, took what food he could find—for he still needed it—rested, and then set to again. Night was baleful in its terror. Nemesis was fully visible through the heat-fog, filling half the heavens, rolling and swelling and pouring its insufferable warmth down on the world. So suddenly had it appeared, so completely had Konda suppressed all news of it, there was no time left to avoid it. Four days and nights maybe, then—

Lanning’s jaw tightened. Something like ninety-six hours left in which to find Konda.

Night—and day again. Night again. Day again. Night— And still he searched, and ate, and rested. The heavens were a mass of orange light; the sky a vortex. His endless searching took him through buildings in which were huddles of people praying for deliverance....

The heavens changed to flaming scum. In two hours maybe the atmosphere would ignite. Life would vanish like tinder in a furnace. So Lanning came at last to the great solar powerhouse. Its engines were quiet and the staff had gone. But there was one lone figure with a bald head. Lanning smiled and walked down the main aisleway. Presently Konda caught sight of him and stared in frozen horror.

“How’d—how’d you get here?” he whispered. “You’re a ghost!”

“Does that matter?” Lanning demanded. “In a matter of minutes Nemesis will hit Earth. Our atmosphere will go. Tons of liquid rock will crash down into this powerhouse. Only space could have saved you, and you couldn’t get away from the mob. Millions will, die because of you, but at this moment I’m thinking of my wife who died because she told the truth. Damn you, Konda—damn you!”

Lanning’s semi-transparent hands flashed out, seizing Konda’s powerful neck. The fingers sunk further than normal, but at last they found resistance. They crushed, harder and harder, until Konda sank to his knees.

“Lanning!” he choked desperately. “Lanning, a chance!”

Lanning gave no answer. He screwed his fingers until he felt them crack. A faint smile curved his lips as he saw the purpling face and starting eyes....

Suddenly it came. The powerhouse shook. Heat rolled suddenly through the place, as though it had been dipped in molten lead. Walls, floor, ceiling, machines—all began to liquefy. Flames caught the dead Konda’s clothes and set them blazing. Lanning, too, felt the insufferable anguish of heat as the atoms and molecules of his body began to regain their normal haphazard positions under the influence of rising temperature. But to what end?

Hotter—and hotter. He felt himself melting away. But across the tumult of a dying world, there came a faint clear echo.

“I shall be waiting....”

“Leave—not—a—wrack—behind,” Lanning found himself thinking, and the inhuman truth of it blazed across his dying brain.