Part 2

"None. Caesar II died of a heart attack. Caesar III had a brain tumor which we learned about too late. His son never had a chance to prove himself, other than that he was brave and foolish. He swam the Rubicon at its widest point, then walked to Rome in his shorts in the dead of winter. He died of pneumonia. Caesar V, our Dictator today, is strong and quiet. He holds the Empire firmly unified. But he does nothing extraordinary. And he is too lenient."

"I just can't conceive of such perfection!"

Kevin Ilaria smiled. He walked over to the window and peered out. "_You_ couldn't. But this _is_ the perfect government. Everyone is satisfied. One ruler. One capitol. One army. One language. One nationality. One world. One religion."

"I realize--" Jay halted. "One religion?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"What is it?" He found himself afraid of the answer. The indications were there, in plain sight. He guessed it before Kevin Ilaria turned from the window and said:

"Caesarism."

* * * * *

The man called Gaius Julius Caesar Imperator V turned from the window and rubbed his hand over his graying hair.

"This is the first time I've ever run into anything of this sort."

The President of the Senate shrugged. He was an old man who had been placed in the Senate by his father in 1980. So long ago that people wondered when he would die. They were tired of these old men dictating to their ruler, as many people before them had been tired. The rise of the President of the Senate to leadership of that revered group had not been meteoric by any means. But his maintenance of the position had been tenacious. He was a careful man.

The President of the Senate shrugged. "It is. It is the first time anything of this sort has ever come up, Julius. Therefore it is up to you to set an example."

Caesar glanced over at General Bonadella. The General nodded in agreement with Senator Chianti.

"This sort of business can break up the Empire if it's allowed to continue, Caesar," he said, in his pompous military way. "I say death."

Major DeCosta nodded quietly.

"Thumbs down all around, is it?" Caesar sat down behind his desk and picked up the speaker of his private cable to London. He looked at the three men.

"Commander in charge of Garrison C," he said.

There was a silent moment.

They looked up as Prefect Lamberti of the Pretorians, the Imperial personal bodyguard (it had progressed far beyond that. Its enrollment was tremendous; its power second only to the Dictator's) came in. The Senator nodded. The two field soldiers turned quickly away. The men of the field did not get along with the Pretorian dandies.

"Commander? This is the Dictator," Caesar said unnecessarily. The garrison commander knew that only one person could call him on that line. The phone would react to no voice other than Caesar's.

"Have you the fellow who was preaching dissension? I say one year in prison. You heard me. Yes, one year. What? No! No torture!" He severed connections and looked up at his advisers.

Prefect Lamberti shook his head. Senator Chianti turned and stalked out. After a moment General Bonadella followed. The Major turned away to stare out the window. He shook his head.

"del Ponta? This is the Dictator," that quiet, flat voice said behind him. Caesar was calling the under-chief of the Pretoriani. "I will speak tomorrow from the balcony. Yes. 1400. Of course. World-wide. That's right. Oh, I suppose about a quarter 'til."

The man who ruled the world stood up and stared at Major DeCosta's back. At forty-one, Caesar was a gaunt man with stooped shoulders and sad lines running from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. His forehead was lined and re-lined, and the keen brown eyes were dulled with years of decisions and hard work.

He was tired.

They called him the Hound because his face bore the same sad, quiet look worn by those dogs. And they called him weak because he let offenders off too easily.

DeCosta turned around. The young Major met his Chief's gaze.

"Well?" The voice of the Dictator was quiet and calm.

DeCosta's eyes flickered. He straightened militarily. He shrugged.

"It is not for me to say, Sir."

A slow smile spread over those weary features. "And you, Farouk?"

Lamberti stretched out his arm and balled his fist with the thumb extended and pointing down. "You know me, Caesar."

"I do. Even my best friend disagrees with my decisions now, after all these years of elbow-rubbing.

"You are usually more out-spoken, Major DeCosta. Have you nothing more to say?"

DeCosta's reply was slow in coming but rapid in delivery. "I am around Caesar much of late," he rapped out. His back was stiff and military as he strode out of the Dictator's office.

Prefect Lamberti's gloved hand dropped to the butt of his gun, but Caesar shook his head in gentle negation.

Julius Caesar Imperator V gazed sadly at the closed door.

* * * * *

Jay had given up trying to reason with Ilaria about God. The man was intelligent as well as brilliant--there's a tremendous difference--about everything else, but he was stubbornly obstinate to Jay's arguments. At least in Jay's terminology he was stubbornly obstinate. All faith is stubborn obstinacy. Kevin Ilaria's faith was appalling. His arguments were beautiful. Flawless. Jay thought of his old friend, Father O'mare. Even that great psychologist-priest would be hard-put, he decided.

So he quit. He didn't give up. He just quit.

Can you tell a man the Earth's flat after he's been up in a jet?

Can you talk a bullet out of pursuing its path?

Can you reason with a Marxist?

"If a man can conquer the greatest enemy the world has ever faced, is he not God? If he can turn from killing and soldiering to soothing and pacifying, is he not God? If he can make the world one, after twenty-two centuries of 'world anarchism' is he not God? If he can maintain the peace and keep the people happy and heal all sores is he not God? If he just looks at you when you call him 'God' or 'Savior' and smiles and say 'I?' is he not God? If he chooses the perfect man to continue in his place, is he not God?"

"But that's proof! Why die? Isn't God immortal?"

"Only God could realize that one man can't continue to reign indefinitely. His ideas, yes. But he must create another to carry on his ideas. There must be variety and diversions."

Unshakeable. Unquestioning. Jay could never understand a person's sticking to the claim 'I'm a Christian' or 'I'm a Moslem' when he would be killed for it. Jay had always figured he'd have said to Nero's men 'Me? Me? A filthy Christian? Not I. I love Jupiter and Juno. Step inside and see my altars ...'

Now he was seeing what sturdy, rock-firm martyr faith was like.

So he quit.

Instead he learned about the gyro-jet cars which hugged the roads like lovers on a honeymoon. He watched them sprout stubby wings and breathe flame and soar straight up. He learned about saying 'Open' to a lock and having the electronic device 'recognize' him and let him in. He learned about personalphones which 'recognized' your voice. He learned about the tiny pellet of potassium cyanide and sulphuric acid with which the guns were loaded. The pellets struck and broke and the victim was dead in seconds. Very humane. No maimed or wounded. Just the dead.

He learned about self-shaping sandals--the most comfortable and most sensible shoes man had ever worn--and air baths and soft-voiced alarm clocks which politely told you it was time to get up and about unbreakable ring-finger chronos and about atomic heating and flawless plumbing and he saw plastic, plastic, plastic.

He learned about all of them. But his real delight was the depilatory cream. This, above all others, was man's greatest invention.

"No shaving ... no silly damned socks or tight, hot shoes or tie ... no battery stalling or flat tires ... I guess this is paradise, Kevin!"

"And the perfect government and the perfect religion! All one race! One religion! One nation! One language! One nationality! One God!" Ilaria added exuberantly.

"That reminds me. How come I never see any coloreds?"

"Haven't you? By the way, no murderous car insurance or alimony laws, either. And no need for them. All marriages are ideal."

Jay was readily detoured to this new novelty.

"Now, don't let's go too far. Identical religion and race and customs and ideals and opinions may lower the divorce rate a lot, but there's still ye olde sex angle. A couple can go together twenty years and break up on the wedding night. Some are hot and some are cold and some are slow and some are fast. The only thing you could have improved on, is sex education. It's astounding how many people of my time know nothing about the sexual part of marriage. The most important part!

"Of course it's doing what comes naturally; but what if two people have been taught from different viewpoints? Or if one hasn't been taught at all? Some people are actually ashamed or embarrassed. There are intelligent people who don't even know the biological facts! Few--especially women, know about the pleasure and the habit-forming angle. That's the one thing than can break up something beautiful in ten minutes.

"Education, maybe. Human nature, no."

"Whew!"

"Excuse me, Kevin, for launching into a Phillipic, but that's long been my pet peeve. Atrocious, deplorable, and all that."

"We don't _usually_ tamper with human nature, Jay. As a rule, that is. This is going to come as a shock to you, with your silly, 'atrocious and deplorable' 1954 ideas and morals.

"A trial period. A pre-marital period of living together for a couple of weeks. If the couple isn't sexually suited, they either attempt to have it remedied by a physician or break off."

"A shock, yes," Jay murmured, slowly shaking his head. "How did it ever start? Anyone who'd propound an idea like that in my time would be accused of being some sort of perverted sex-fiend!

"A foolproof, flawless plan to insure happy marriages!"

* * * * *

Half across the world a door swung open and a tall dark man with piercing black eyes and a twin-tufted beard came in. His dark-green garment, faintly resembling a trench-coat, was double-breasted and belted and military cut. His feet were encased in plastileather boots which clicked as he came to attention before the desk.

The plate on the desk read "Praefectus Praetoriani."

"Major del Ponta, Sir."

The man behind the desk looked up. "At ease, Major."

Major Ali ben del Ponta relaxed and waited.

The man behind the desk finished scanning the sheet of micro-paper, marked something on it with a stylo, stuck it in the pneumatube on the corner of his desk, and pushed the button to close his desk drawer. He looked up at Major Ali ben del Ponta.

"Well?" He put his hands together, fingers touching.

"It has begun, Prefect Lamberti. All over the world our local men are leading their followers in attack. Captain Abram Mazzoli has sent in his report from Tel Aviv. The city is in his hands. Captain Mahomet DiSanto's 'Raiders' have complete control of the Sahara. Captain Arnaldi's forces are firmly entrenched in the old Washington area of America. He will move northward to meet Colonel Magnani's forces from Canada and Commander Campisano. They--"

"Campisano's airborne ready to roll?"

"Yes, Sir. Arrangements have been made. The drop will be just outside New York."

"Alright. Then everything has gone off as scheduled?"

"Yes, Sir."

Prefect Farouk Lamberti regarded his deskchron thoughtfully.

"And Caesar will make his speech in twenty-five hours and thirty-three minutes?"

Major del Ponta glanced at his own chron, which was strapped to the third finger of his left hand. "Yes, Sir. At 1400, tomorrow."

"Have the twenty-foot 'visor screen activated for public showing. Mount it outside as we'd planned."

"It's being taken care of, Sir. The screen is on its way to the Square. There will be a crowd."

"Good. We all want to hear noble Caesar."

Del Ponta grinned. "Yes, Sir. We all do. Especially tomorrow."

"He doesn't know?--or suspect?"

"He shouldn't Sir. Our men took over and began covering up at once. You know the atrocious condition of world communications systems. The Empire could fall and Rome might not hear of it for days."

"That's what I was counting on ... that and the Disturber. The degeneracy of the field military is terrible. They are allowing themselves to get lazy and fat and careless."

"Yes, Sir."

"Have my car ready to drive to the Square behind Caesar's tomorrow. See that the covermen in the houses around the Square are doubled and double-checked. But when we go to the show, let's not have too great an exhibition of Imperial power. We don't want this thing to backfire and cut our own throats."

"Yes, Sir." Del Ponta's grin widened.

"Dismissed."

Del Ponta came to attention, saluted and about-faced and left.

Prefect Lamberti opened his desk drawer and took out his old service pistol. It was a gamma gun. He had not released any of the deadly, slow-acting rays from its chamber in seven years. But it was ready.

He opened another drawer and took out a white cloak, marked across the back with a blue dove and the single word 'Liberacione.'

He checked the pistol.

* * * * *

"Does the Emissary from 1954 get to meet Caesar?" Jay wanted to know.

"Later. He's to make a speech tomorrow afternoon. It will be world-televised."

"He looks very old and very tired," Jay ventured. He'd seen Caesar on transcriptions of old speeches and on old newsreels.

"He's about ... forty, I think. Somewhat weak. Very lenient."

"I would've guessed him to be a good deal older." Then "Why weak? Because he's lenient?"

Ilaria smiled. "Remember, Jay, 'Pax per Bello.' Too much leniency leads one's subjects to be bold. Over-bold."

"One man's opinion?"

The Tribune shrugged. "No. Caesar doesn't get along with his advisors too well. They criticize him for being too ready to forgive and forget."

The more Jay saw of this perfect world, the more he realized how cruel and hard people must be to maintain a paradise. If everyone is to be happy, someone must be unhappy.

The trouble is, people don't like to be told "This is for your own good."

Jay said so.

"But if they're sat on hard enough," Ilaria rebutted, "they don't have a chance ever to try anything else which they might _think_ is for their own good...."

Jay nodded. Very true. As Ilaria left the room Jay went to the window and looked out at the Louisville of 2054. For the millionth time in the seven days he'd been here, he wished he had a cigarette. They had been outlawed as detrimental to health long ago.

The fact that it had been seven days reminded him of something else left behind.

Julie.

"You're a fool," he finally told himself. No wonder Julie'd been on edge and acting what he termed 'odd' lately! She was scared. He'd been out of school three and a half years. He was twenty-five. He'd just bought a new Olds. He'd begun buying his clothes at _The_ Store rather than a store. Hell, he should've been married long ago. His days here were full. There were meetings with scientists and historians and militarists and linguists and everyone else Kevin could think up. He talked and listened and discussed and lectured. But he thought of her every night. Every morning before he rose. At times like this, when he was alone for a few minutes.

Of course it was love! He'd always thought too many people threw the word around too much. He'd always been afraid to use it because he wasn't sure of its meaning. He's used it once. And he'd been kicked in the teeth by the girl. He hadn't used it since.

When was a guy ever sure?

Hogwash! Now he knew that each man forms his own definition. True, too many people used the word love indiscriminately. It's mistreated. Kicked around. Assumed and taken off. Dragged through messes and scandals and law courts and through the mud. But to a man like Jay Welch, to a man who has been afraid--yes, afraid--to use it, it _must_ be there when he begins thinking in those terms.

Love. He'd had to come across one-hundred years to realize he'd found its meaning. To realize he'd known its meaning a long time. To realize that love is whatever you make it, what you, yourself, call it. You define it yourself. Then you apply it.

It had been there all the time. You don't include someone in everything you do and everything you think without it. You don't try to change her and yourself. To make her perfect. To make yourself perfect with--and for--her without it. This business about "accepting" little faults--as well as big ones--, he decided, is for the birds. It's human nature to translate other people in terms of yourself and try to change them in terms of yourself. To argue and be proud and hate like hell to have to make up. But you don't make a project of it with everyone. Not unless....

He and Julie had a lot to talk about.

Then he remembered where he was and when he was. He thought of Doctor Schink. And suddenly he was scared. He remembered what Ilaria had said about Schink. 'He's there for good....'

"He's never said a word about my going back!"

"Neither have you," came Ilaria's voice, and Jay whirled around to see the big psychologist coming through the door.

"We'd like to keep you here as long as possible. But not against your wishes, of course. You were shanghaied, not kidnaped." The left corner of his wide mouth pulled back in that slow, reassuring smile.

"I stand chastised. Now I've thought of it, though, I can hardly wait."

"The day after tomorrow? I want you to hear Caesar speak. Then I want to talk a good deal more."

"Early, the day after tomorrow." Then, little-boyishly, Jay hurriedly added a couple of reasons. "I'm getting tired of talking and being questioned. I feel like a talking animal in the zoo."

Ilaria nodded, smiling. "Julie?

"I figured it would occur to you sooner or later. Just because you think a little more deeply and carefully than most men of your time doesn't make you immune to love. That belongs to _all_ times. Good luck and a lot of children."

Jay grinned. He'd met Ilaria's wife and five of his six children the night before. He turned to look out the window once more.

Beautiful. The elevated streets, with gyro-cars hurtling along ... the sky full of more winged gyros and planes ... the streets below full of happy, white-faced, white-clad people....

White-faced!

"Kevin, you avoided my question the day before yesterday. I've been almost afraid to ask you again. Why no Negroes?"

"It will be hard for you to accept, with your antiquated democratic ideas." Ilaria breathed a deep sigh. "Certain elements of dissension and unrest, Jay, are better eliminated. Coloreds have always bred both. People are just like that. Whites and yellows and tans and reds can get along, but not blacks."

Jay had gotten along with them all his life. "In ancient Rome there were slaves ..." he said, trying to understand.

"Not in this Rome. I said, better eliminated, Jay." Ilaria went to the window and looked down at the scene below. He explained:

"We exterminated them."

A hammer crashed down. A door slammed. A glass shattered. A siren screeched. A punch caught Jay in the solar plexus. Jay had experienced all these. Ilaria's flat statement was worse.

"Exter--No! Oh, No!" He swung around to face the big psychologist. Ilaria's usual smile was gone. He looked solemn and very grim.

"You weren't ready for it. I don't think we can discuss it. Just remember this: When you've a bunch of dogs and they all get along with one another except one, you don't leave them together and you don't try to keep them separated by a chicken-wire fence. It's too unpleasant. You get rid of the troublemaker."

* * * * *

During the night the rebel forces moved out of Tel Aviv and took over Israel. They captured the entire devastated Washington area, a series of ten cities ringing Rome, and hundreds of other key spots. The world's largest airbase at Madrid, Spain, was taken. Forces sent to the aid of the base defenders were met by an onslaught of their own planes. The troops didn't have a chance.

Dr. Montmorency Trumperi's Wave Disturber had been outlawed in 2001. The plans were carefully filed away and the machine's component parts junked. But the Disturber suddenly reappeared on the night of June 9, 2054, and world communications were stopped. Lamberti's scientists had come up with a counter-radio mechanism, of course, so that the Rebels were able to maintain contacts.

Louisville was not attacked. Lamberti and his men knew about the emissary from the past sheltered there, and informed their fifth columnists at Standiford they wanted both the Man From 1954 and Tribune Kevin Ilaria alive.

New York was attacked by land and air. Tokyo fell. Everywhere white flags with the blue Liberacione and the picture of a dove fluttered above smoking battlegrounds. Everywhere men were on the march.

* * * * *

When Tribune Kevin Ilaria stormed in twelve hours later, Jay noticed his friend was wearing his gun again. The cyanide pistol had not swung at his hip since the day of Jay's arrival. He was also surprised to note that Ilaria wore boots and carried a steel helmet under his arm.

There was a new quality in his voice. Brittle, static. The soft tones of the psychologist were gone.

Jay realized that this was Tribune Ilaria of the Forces, not Dr. Ilaria the psychologist.

"You sure you want to leave here tomorrow?" he demanded curtly.

Instantly Jay was on the defence. "I am," he said coldly.

Ilaria's smile looked forced. "I've been authorized to offer you a Sub-Tribunate in the Forces."

"What?"

"You've had experience. None of us have. You've been in actual combat, in the Air Force."

"Why? I don't--"

"War," Ilaria said simply. "Rebellion."

Jay stared at him. He couldn't think of anything to say.

Ilaria turned away. "Paradise. The Iron Hand. One religion and one language and all that. Utterly cock-sure. But ... we were wrong. They've been getting ready. Training and planning. Collecting men and arms. They began even before the empire was established."--Jay noticed he said empire rather than republic--"All this time they've been preparing and planning and ... waiting."

Jay was dumbfounded. "How big is it?"

Kevin Ilaria spread his hands. "Big enough. Their attack seems to have been simultaneous all over the world. Something like commando or guerrilla tactics. Quick, quiet attacks on a small scale."

He told Jay about the Tel Aviv incident and about Captain Spagnoletti and a half-track disappearing in the rubble in the Washington area and about intercontinental communication being shut off.

"Bomb 'em out," Jay said, without thinking.

"You don't bomb out fifth columnists, Jay.

"Last night they captured London and Tokyo and two-thirds of New York and they captured Lollabrigida airbase in Madrid. They're wearing PR uniforms and some kind of new uniform they've dreamed up. Most of them aren't even uniformed. It's a hell of a mess."

"How long do you think it'll take to quell the thing?"

"I have no idea. I'm to take command at Standiford Field. Rinaldi solved the saboteur problem ... it was Colonel Di Orio. Rinaldi and some of his boys caught the Colonel and a few of _his_ men in the Radio Room on the special 'Liberacione' wave length."

"In irons?" Jay wanted to know.

"No. They put up a fight. They were killed."

"You're flying?"

"Doubt it. I'll be one of those behind-the-scenes men. Supposed to be valuable. Only in a mess like this you can't tell what's behind the scenes and what's front line. They're liable to start on Louisville next."

Ilaria hitched self-consciously at his gun-belt. He twisted his helmet around a couple of times before he set it gingerly on his head. He turned and opened the door and went out. His head came back in and said:

"I'm not sure it's the sort of thing you quell, Jay."