Mack Reynolds - Dawnman Planet

Birdman hesitated. “UP has a small craft assigned to it. But if we utilize that, I have no doubt that the Baron will lower the boom on all UP personnel, the moment we’re gone. He’s got a reputation for ruthlessness, when he gets excited about something.”

Metaxa shook his head. “They’ll have to take their chances. You and Ronny and the girl get yourselves out. There’s a Space Forces cruiser heading at top speed for you. They’ll be there in five days, Earth time.”

“Then what do we do?” Birdman said, though he could see it coming. “Return Ronny to Earth for whatever treatment he can get?”

Ross Metaxa looked at him bleakly. “The Baron is going to head immediately for those Dawnworlds. You take off after him. In a week’s time, Bronston will have recovered.”

The Indian said flatly, “Ronny Bronston will never recover, as you well know, Commissioner. He’s lost at least twenty years in that jazzed up phoney-time he went into. Five years from now, he’ll look and be twenty-five years older than he is today.”

Metaxa said evenly, “He knew what he was doing, Birdman. He did what he had to do. He wouldn’t have been Ronald Bronston otherwise. He’ll recover within a week. As you know, the age doesn’t come immediately, but over a period of time. For awhile, it won’t effect him. When he has recovered, give him the story and make your way immediately after the Baron.”

The Indian operative scowled. “How do you know the Baron, personally, will go out to the Dawnworlds?”

“Because when men like Maximilian Wyler really get in the clutch there’s nobody they dare trust. He could never be certain that his closest right-hand man wouldn’t take over the reins, given some of those gismos the Dawnmen evidently have. No, you can be sure that the Baron will go himself.”

His face faded from the screen.

Birdman looked at the now opaque screen for a long moment. “So everybody’s expendable, including the complete UP staff on Phrygia. The party’s getting rough.”

Ross Metaxa had been right. By the time the four man Space Forces cruiser reached them, Ronny Bronston was in his old shape. Good food and rest had done it. He felt the same as ever. All except, deep within, he knew that he had thrown away at least twenty years, the good years, of life. A few Earth years from now and he would look and be as old as Metaxa himself. It wasn’t the happiest of prospects.

No effort whatsoever was being made to apprehend them. The Baron’s regard for his niece evidently precluded any attempt by the Phrygian spaceforces to find and destroy their craft.

It occured to Ronny Bronston that if the girl were as close as all that to the would-be dictator, perhaps she had information about the man that might be of use in later developments. As he rested in the small space vessel that they had taken over from UP, he tried to pump her, though with precious little luck.

To the extent she could, in the confined space allotted to her and the two Section G operatives, she tried to ignore them. From time to time, though, temper flared and she allowed herself to be drawn into argument.

The time, for instance, that she snapped out of a clear sky, “I don’t see why you don’t recognize that UP needs a leader such as Uncle Max.”

Ronny said mildly, “Perhaps it does.”

“Then why are you trying to hinder him? Why don’t you join him?” she demanded.

Ronny looked at her wryly, “He hasn’t proven to my satisfaction, as yet, that he’s the man he thinks he is. Perhaps history will prove otherwise. As you pointed out the other day, it is strewn with the wreckage of would-be strongmen, who didn’t make it.”

“My uncle will make it!” The girl’s natural attractiveness was accentuated in anger.

“Meanwhile”—Phil Birdman grinned at her—“there are a few of us who don’t think so.”

Ronny said, “Many aspire to supreme power, few are chosen. Take those examples you gave me the other day: Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler. They each supply a lesson.

“Alexander, for instance. He conquered the biggest empire known up to that time, but died at about my age from his inability to conquer himself. And when he died he left precious little. His immediate family, including his son, were killed off. That wonderful team of his fell apart, each trying to seize absolute power. Of them all, Ptolemy didn’t do so badly; he and his descendants got Egypt as their chunk of the pie. But the next fifty years and more was spent by the Macedonians trying to find another strongman, and failing”— Ronny twisted his mouth— “Their energies might have been put to better use.

“Or take your other example, Napoleon. He had his absolute power for while, but he was still in his forties when they kicked him out and he wound up his life there on St. Helena. And his team? They didn’t do so well, either. Some turned traitor on him, when the bets were down. Some were shot. Of them all, Bernadotte, who became king of Sweden, was about the only one who came out ahead of the game.

“And Hitler …”

“Oh, he’s the best lesson of all.” Phil laughed. “That’s the fella who taught me to believe in strongmen.”

Rita Daniels was flushing, and on her it looked remarkably good, Ronny Bronston decided. However, something came to him and he brought himself up. As a man in his early thirties, he could consider a girl of Rita’s age and weigh her in the balance as a potential life companion. But as a man past fifty, as he would be, all too soon, it wasn’t in the cards. If Ronny Bronston were ever to consider marriage, he’d better steel himself to the fact that he had better begin looking at widows in their middle-forties, not freckle-nosed girls in their twenties—no matter how provocative their pony tail hairdos.

Rita said snappishly, “The end of the strongman isn’t always disaster. Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane founded dynasties. And though Alexander died a young man, and didn’t leave one, still, it was through his efforts that Hellenism emerged and the Greek culture was spread from the Mediterranean to India. And Napoleon. When he stepped onto the scene, Europe was almost entirely feudalistic. When he left it, there was a new and more progressive socio-economic system.”

Ronny continued to needle her. “Whether or not Hellenism was an advance over the Persian culture can be debated, my dear. The Greeks wrote the history books, since they won the war, but there are some doubts about just how progressive they were. If Hitler had won his war, you can be sure that the villains who came down to us would have been Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin—not Adolph the Aryan, who would have been properly deified, as was Alexander before him.”

Phil Birdman snorted and went over to check the control screens. “This waxes too intellectual for me,” he complained. “I’m simple at heart. I just don’t like guys in a position above me to make arbitrary decisions. Sometimes it hurts—me.”

“Sometimes we need men with the ability to make quick, arbitrary decisions,” Rita snapped.

“Yeah,” Phil agreed over his shoulder. “But I like to be in a position to help decide who it’s going to be. Any of these stutes with big ambitions will tell you they’ve got super abilities and you ought to let them make the decisions. But if those abilities of theirs aren’t really so super, then I’m the cloddy who winds up crisp.”

Ronny added mildly, “Our friend Hitler was a good example. He let the German people know he was the superman to end all. And they believed him.”

“Oh, you’re both flats!” Rita flared.

Ronny said, “Well, your Uncle Max is evidently making his play. I hope we’re alive to see whether or not he succeeds.”

Rita said scornfully, “If he makes it, my friend, I doubt if you’ll survive long enough to enjoy the advantages of his guided political system.” But even as she said it, her facial expression changed, and she looked at Ronny anxiously.