Part 2

Rastol's acceptance of the job, not yet forthcoming, and his confirmation in it by Parliament, would be a kick in the teeth to Martian democracy. The reason for this off-in-the-corner Landing Day soiree became a little clearer--although Scott still was unable to figure out why he'd been invited.

Scott shook the hand Rastol extended and said something noncommittal. Most Martians looked almost alike to Earth's eyes, except for their sex differences, but Rastol was distinctive. He was corpulent, a thing most Martians were not, and he was hairless, which also was unusual. His skin was whiter than that of most of his planetmen, and he had no neck to speak of. If Scott had been a caricaturist, he'd have drawn Rastol as an egg.

Ylia had left the room. She came back now with a tray, and served drinks. Scott took one of the small pottery cups and told himself he mustn't drink more than two of them. They contained a syrupy blue liquid with the kick of a rocket-exhaust.

Kring raised his cup. "To the Republic," he said. They all sipped their drinks.

"I've asked you here," Kring said, "for a purpose. I should not have chosen Landing Day if it had not been important. Some of you have very generously broken other engagements or left your work--" he bowed to Scott--"to be here."

Rastol spoke in a low, resonant voice. "It is an honor to be asked to your home, Mr. Kring."

The "mister" was something Earthmen had brought. Mars, before the Rockheads set up their semi-feudal system, had had no such term of address.

Kring bowed again. "I am especially happy that you were able to come, Mr. Rastol, because what I have to say should be of particular interest to you." He turned to Toby Black. "You, Mr. Black, are interested in construction, of course, and Mr. Warren's news service has an interest in something similar--reconstruction. So we are well met."

Scott didn't know what this preamble was leading to, but he wished Kring would get on with it. He did.

"Mr. Warren," Kring went on, "may also have a news story of some value. You see, before Mr. Rastol leaves this room tonight, he will have announced that he cannot accept the post of minister of commerce in the Murain government."

Rastol didn't move, except for a narrowing of his eyes. Then he said, carefully: "Indeed?"

Kring smiled a little. "Yes," he said. "I think Mr. Rastol will find that his private affairs are of such a demanding nature that he will be forced regretfully to decline the honor tendered by President Murain."

Rastol said evenly: "I hesitate to differ with my gracious host, but it would seem to me that an individual might be considered to know his own affairs better than another."

"I am sure," said Kring, "that no one knows your affairs better than you, Mr. Rastol."

Scott looked at Toby Black, who had leaned forward in his chair as if trying to see the significance of it all. Scott knew that Toby knew as much about Rastol as anyone, and probably more. Toby was one of half a dozen men who were permitted to ride the private elevator to the private office of the director-general of World Government.

Rastol looked at a timepiece on the wall and rose from his chair. "I am afraid I must say good night. I had hoped to be better company, but I have just remembered an appointment."

"Please sit down, Mr. Rastol," said Kring. "We have much more to discuss."

Rastol moved toward the door. Ylia stepped in front of it. She had a Q-gun in her hand.

"I am quite proud of my daughter's marksmanship," said Kring. "She is the equal of any soldier at hitting a target. At short range she never misses by so much as a hair."

Rastol sat down.

He sipped his drink and appeared to relax. "Be good enough to tell me," he said, "why you think I would be so lacking in a sense of public duty as to reject an assignment to which my government has called me."

"The answer is simple," said Kring. "The Murain government is not your government. Your allegiance is to the totalitarian movement."

"I think the public record will show the falsehood of that statement," said Rastol. "The trial to which I was so cruelly subjected proved just the opposite. You will recall that the verdict was one of acquittal."

"Only," said Kring, "because some witnesses were bribed--and others were murdered."

Rastol smiled thinly. "Your proof?"

Kring smiled also. "Of that? None, I admit. But we have proof of other things--things without value in a court of law, perhaps, but which may persuade you to retire to private life, for your tranquillity of mind."

"Produce them," said Rastol.

He was a cool one, Scott had to admit. Then the newsman realized that Kring was looking at him.

"Mr. Warren," he said, "if you will be so kind." And he held out his hand.

Scott gave him the papers he had brought from the office. He had no idea what bearing they had on the situation now being unfolded.

Kring broke the seal on the envelope and opened it. He looked through the news reports--those which had been used and those which hadn't. Finally he found what he was looking for.

"You have heard of the Green Arrow," Kring asked Rastol.

"Of course. A bandit and outlaw who achieved some notoriety. What of him?"

"You may not have heard," said Kring, "that his real name became known. To myself and some others who cared to ask, after it was no longer a guarded secret. His name was Acton...."

Kring looked closely at Rastol. The big Martian gave no flicker of recognition.

"A not uncommon name," said Rastol.

"Acton was the name of your son, was it not?"

There was silence in the room. Kring's eyes looked steadily into Rastol's. Ylia stood at the door, her gun no longer pointing at the guest, but down at her side. Toby Black was stopped with a cigarette halfway to his lips.

Scott raised a hand to brush away what he thought might be an insect on the back of his neck. There was nothing there; it was part of the tension.

Kring spoke again. "Was not Acton the name of your son, and did he not fight against you and the things you stood for?"

Rastol's eyes went from one to another in the room. He made no other movement. Even his breathing was not apparent. At length he said:

"Yes, Acton was my son."

* * * * *

Kring's breath came hard, as if he had been holding it.

Then Rastol added: "But what of that? Really, gentlemen, this is a most ridiculous performance. To bring me to this house, to threaten me with weapons and with words and to produce mysterious papers with the flourish of a wandering mystic--this is childish. I must ask you to excuse me. I have an important letter to write President Murain."

"What will the letter say?"

"It will say that I accept humbly, yet with pride that I have been chosen, the position of minister of commerce in the government to which I owe allegiance and wish to serve to the best of my poor ability."

"Allegiance!" Kring spat the word. "You speak of allegiance, who have never known it to anything decent and honorable. You blaspheme the memory of your son's great deeds when you use the word."

"Neither my son nor any creature that crawls on the ground has any bearing on my decision. Your threats and blackmail are unworthy of you, Mr. Kring. And if you persist in this farce, or seek to use your information publicly, I shall be forced to make a noisy and patriotic speech which will look incongruous in my biography but which will have the stupid public applauding from the galleries. I shall say that as an older man I believed in gradual change and that no man was happier than I when Mars became a republic under the aegis of World Government. I shall say, if I am forced to, that of course I had publicly deplored the activities of the man called the Green Arrow, but that I was in good company, for did not Mr. Murain--then not yet President Murain of the Republic-to-be--also plead for peaceful methods of achieving freedom, and urge his followers to shun violence? And if someone is so unfeeling as to mention that Acton was my son, could not my impatience with his activities have been in reality a father's fears for the life of the boy he had loved from the cradle? Oh, I shall make them weep, Mr. Kring, and your petty plan will come to nothing. Furthermore, I shall demand your resignation as a sub-commissioner of commerce, and I have little doubt that I shall receive it."

"You are an excellent man with a speech," said Kring. "That I admit. But there is more which you pretend not to know."

"Is there?"

"Much more. You may or may not choose to recall--Druro."

Rastol chose to say nothing. Druro had been one of the blackest marks against the Rockhead regime. It was the name of an infamous concentration camp, in which thousands of prisoners had died of malnutrition and overwork and thousands more had been put to death because of their political views.

"I can tell you something about Druro," said Toby Black. "I was there as a guest of your government--the Rockhead government is the one I'm talking about, Rastol, not the one you claim you're suddenly so fond of."

Toby put out his cigarette and leaned forward. His thin face got hard.

"Kring is a gentleman even when he's dealing with a louse, Rastol, but I'm no diplomat. I'm just a hardheaded old trader from Earth, and maybe some people think my language is crude. But I say what I think, and I don't like you and your kind. Usually I don't mix in politics--my business is construction. I started when I was a young squirt and built things with my hands, and they got calloused. Now I sit in a fine office and scoot around in a fine air-car, and other men do the dirty work. But that's honest work. The dirty work I can't stomach is your kind, Rastol, and since I've got the chance to undo some of it, or maybe prevent some more of it, I asked Kring to let me speak my piece."

Scott could easily have been persuaded, if he hadn't known better, that World Government Investigator Toby Black was just that rockribbed businessman-with-a-conscience that he was pretending to be.

Toby went on: "The reason I saw Druro the way mighty few people saw it was that somebody slipped up. Druro was also a factory town and there was room there for a new plant. God knows you had enough slave labor to make it damned profitable. So I was invited by your Rockheads to look over parts of the town so my company could make a bid on building the plant they wanted. But I saw more than you fascists intended, Rastol. I'm an old country boy and I get up early. One day I got up earlier than those gorillas who were supposed to tag around with me to keep my nose clean. And my nose got good and dirty, Rastol. The stench of Druro is still in it. I got out and talked to the people in town, and the people had plenty to tell me about that camp just over the hill. Some of the people I spoke to had been inside it, and they knew what they were talking about."

"An interesting anecdote, Mr. Black," Rastol interrupted, "but I must confess that I see no relevance."

Toby lighted a cigarette and spat out the smoke. "The relevance is coming right up. I heard a lot of different things about Druro from a lot of different people, but one of the things I heard over and over again was the same. It was the name of the man whose signature sent those thousands to their death. I don't have to tell you, Rastol, what that name was. You sign your letters with it every day."

* * * * *

"You can prove nothing," snapped Rastol, his composure jolted for the first time. "It would be your word against mine, and why should anyone believe you?"

"That's true," said Toby. "There's no proof. After I heard of your acquittal I got good and mad about it, and I made a special trip to see if I could find some of those people I'd talked to back then--to get affidavits, if they wouldn't testify in person, to get new evidence. But you and your Rockheads did a good job, all right. You practically wiped out Druro. There wasn't a soul left who would testify against you or any other fascist."

"You see? You have no proof."

"No," said Kring, "no proof that would be good in court. But everyone in this room now is convinced of your guilt. That must be a terrible burden on your conscience. If I were you I should welcome this opportunity to make some slight amend. I appeal to you, Mr. Rastol, to decline the post of commerce minister."

Rastol laughed. "You appeal! You beg! This is the weakness of your system. You yourselves are so weak that your government cannot be strong. I know now that the threats against me tonight all were psychological. Even that Q-gun in your daughter's hands. You would not shoot me. It is against your principles. Fortunately I have no principles, and after I have become commerce minister there will be others like me in the cabinet. And then it will not be long before Mars again has the kind of government a planet like this needs. Now I am going--and if any of you decides to remember any of this in public I shall deny it. And then who do you think will be believed?

"Stand aside, young lady. I am leaving."

Rastol got up from his chair.

This wasn't Scott's show, but he spoke up anyway. It looked as if everything else had failed.

He said: "I have quite a story here, Rastol. I haven't been taking notes, but they say I have a stenographic ear."

Rastol whirled on him. "Use it, and I'll sue you and Galactic News Service for libel and everything else in the statutes. I'll deny everything and produce two witnesses for every one of yours. You're not dealing with an amateur, young man. And now I say good night, you fools."

Kring moved to stand beside his daughter. "There is yet more," he said. "We had hoped to spare you this, although I know now that our concern for your feelings was misguided."

"There is no more," said Rastol. "You have bluffed and you have lost." He whipped his hand through the air. "Stand aside. I am going."

"Stay," said a new voice.

Rastol turned slowly. At the end of the room opposite the door some hangings had parted. Through them from another room had come a tall, cloaked Martian, a young man. Rastol looked at him under a wrinkled forehead.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Hello, Father," said Acton.

Rastol peered across the room. His face seemed to come apart. It went slack, seemed to turn gray.

"You're dead!" cried Rastol. "This is a trick! A disguise! Turn up the lights!"

Acton stepped forward to within a foot of the older man. "Look well," he said. "Is it a disguise?"

"But you're dead. I know you're dead. I--"

"Yes, Father. I should be." Acton's eyes were steady, but without hate. They looked hurt and pitying. "I was at Druro, and you signed the order for my execution yourself. It was carried out, you thought, and the last witness against you was stilled. You thought."

The young man threw back his cloak. He had no left arm. "They took me for dead. The Q-rays burned away my arm and I fell with the others. I was buried among the corpses. But my friends found me later. There wasn't much life in me, but they nourished it, and I am here."

"No!" screamed Rastol. "It's not true! It's a lie!"

He wavered away from his son's gaze and half fell into a chair.

"You deny it," said Acton. "Come, we'll tell the people. They will decide. We'll go to the great square and ask them whom they believe--Rastol or the Green Arrow."

"No," said Rastol. "No ... no."

* * * * *

Back in the Galactic News Service bureau, Scott Warren came to the last paragraph of _Today on Mars_. He had written his quota of words about Landing Day and the speeches and parades and carnival. He had a story bigger than any of this, of course, but he couldn't use it. Toby Black asked him not to; not yet.

Rastol had declined Acton's challenge to go before the people. There in Kring's house, under the hard eyes of his son, Rastol had written a letter to President Murain and signed it.

The rest would come later. It took time to get the legal wheels in motion, to prepare a genocide case; but although World Government moved slowly sometimes, it did move. In two months or three or six, Rastol would be indicted and tried, and this time there would be no doubt of the verdict. In the meantime....

Scott wrote: "Elsewhere on Mars, these things happened: Fire broke out in Senalla, driving fifty persons from their homes. No one was injured, but damage to the apartment house block was extensive.... A collision between two air-cars sent three persons to the hospital in Iopa with critical injuries.... A sandstorm blowing across the desert 100 miles northeast of Iopa has cut communications with the town of Ramor.... And Rastol decided against accepting the post of commerce minister, which had been offered to him by President Murain. Rastol said he was honored by the offer, but that the pressure of private affairs made it impossible for him to accept."

Scott Warren typed "30" at the end of his copy and sent it off to Interradio for transmission to Earth. He resigned himself to the possibility that the night desk in the New York bureau would cut out his last paragraph to save space.