Part 2

The satellite was orbiting. He had taken an anti-hypnosis pill. So too, although he hadn't bothered to tell them about it, had Viola and Garten, in their coffee. "Well, Captain. Your problems with Nirva are over. I--" he drew himself up in full executive-command stance--"am going to straighten the place out. In five weeks, when you return to pick us up, you will find Nirva, under my administration, a sound, sensible, stable colony. And we three will all return with you."

"Oh?" The captain was a skeptic.

"Of course," said Viola, "When my husband says a thing will be done, you can count it done."

"And this other gentleman, Secast Garten?"

"Naturally, sir. Secad Screed is a man of his word. Not even Nirva could alter his determination."

"I see. Well, I'm not a betting man, of course. Regulations. But if I were--"

"Yes, Captain?" Secad Screed's voice cracked icily.

"I would like to bet a year's salary that all three of you won't go back with me."

"Well, Captain. As Senior Service Officer aboard, I make the regulations here. I'll just take that bet. A year's salary, against yours. Nice odds for you there, Captain. That is a bet. Garten, you and Viola are witness."

The Captain smiled sourly and nodded. Screed turned on his heel, annoyed. "Come Viola; Garten." Viola bowed her head and followed. Garten lingered a minute.

"Captain? If you'd care to hedge a bit of that bet, I'll take, say, half of it?"

The captain looked at him. An ordinary man. Not young, not old; not big, not small. Just a man, almost extraordinarily ordinary. And certainly not too bright since, as he clearly intended to stay on Nirva, what good would it do him to win half of that old snake Screed's bet? The Captain shook his head. "Thanks, Secast Garten, but since you won't--well. No, thanks, I'll keep it."

Garten shrugged regretfully. "So? Well, I could use the money but no matter. I think you have a good bet, Captain. It's my bet, too."

A half hour and the ship settled gently on the surface of the planet. The three passengers for Nirva were ready at the air-lock.

"_Down screen!_"

Screed heard the words over the intercom. For a moment a sense of confusion, of uncertainty of purpose touched with dizzying, empty fear, swept over him. Abruptly it was gone. Confidence, more certain and invincible than ever, flooded back. He knew what he must do. And he knew that he would surely do it.

A thrill of anticipatory triumph brought a little twisted smile to his thin lips but, half turning his head toward Viola and Garten, all he said was, peremptorily, "Come."

* * * * *

They stood, three small figures, on the surface of Nirva, the dream planet, beside the space ship.

They were edged away from it by a discomforting mental pressure as the ship's force field snapped back on. Nirva. It seemed nothing so much. Pleasant enough, perhaps, but in a shockingly disordered, unimproved sort of way. Much the sort of thing Screed had expected.

There was a bright sun overhead with a slight rosy-pink tint to it, low green hills and some sort of town or settlement in the near distance. The sky was a deep blue, almost purple, dotted with feathery, pinkish clouds. All right. Probably it was quite suitable for exploitation as an agricultural planet. Not too much quick profit in it, perhaps, but well worth salvage.

Screed, Viola and Garten were standing near the center of a cleared field, possibly a bungled excuse for a space port. Across it, a ramshackle building leaned tiredly to one side. As the space ship rose silently behind them, some sort of wheeled vehicle started toward them from the building, raising a small cloud of pinkish-white dust as it came.

"How awful," said Viola, echoing Screed's thoughts. "It's so shamefully run-down and neglected looking."

"A Galactic disgrace," agreed Garten from the other side.

"So," said Secad Screed, the leader. "You see?"

The native vehicle, a rattle-trap affair reminiscent of ancient earth internal combustion wagons, clattered up. The driver was unclearly human under a slovenly, unkempt exterior; he was also middle-aged, fat and anxious as he stumbled out. "Ah," he said eagerly, "distinguished visitors! And--uh--is it possible--that is, I mean to say, I--we all in fact, wonder if it could be you who is responsible for the sudden, total change that seems to have affected our--ah--perceptive climate?"

"And if we are," snapped Screed, "it was certainly a degenerative situation that desperately needed changing. You and all your people should thank me for it. And you will."

"Oh yes," said the native. "We already do, indeed. But--uh--the thing is, not that we aren't grateful for the awakening, but it is all so horribly confusing to us. You see, what I mean to say, we don't know exactly what--"

"You need leadership! Strong, efficient leadership."

"That's it exactly. If only you would--"

"I shall." He made an expansive, condescending gesture. "I, with the help of Mrs. Screed--I, by the way, am Secad Screed, the Leader--and my assistant, will take full command of all administration immediately. You will find that I will soon whip you into shape."

"Ah, sir, how can we ever repay you?"

"Perhaps something may be worked out. Now, we must get started. Take me at once to your ruling body."

"Ah. Do you suppose the Council of Dreamers--?"

"Hmph; just the sort of thing we shall have done with once and for all. But we must start someplace, I suppose. Let us proceed."

They all climbed somewhat apprehensively into the vehicle. They proceeded.

Screed proceeded.

* * * * *

He proceeded, with Viola and Garten cheering and trailing along some little distance to the rear, to carry out his total plan. It was almost too easy.

"Almost," thought Screed as the obedient, grateful citizens of Nirva labored frantically to remake their world into a model Class II, Galactic Service AgPlan. "But then, no one else could ever make a start here. It is simply that, to a mind and character like mine, all things are easy."

He was, not for the first time, mildly surprised at his own brilliance, and totally admiring.

Perhaps he was justified. Certainly both Viola and the sometimes cynical seeming Garten were all awed respect. The reformation of Nirva advanced at a remarkable pace. The people, rudely awakened from a generations-long dream, were confused, aimless, purposeless. Like the bewildered representative at the space port, they wanted nothing more than a firm leader to give them direction. Having apparently no will of their own, they went to work with a will. Screed's will.

Screed was pleasantly surprised. It seemed that before the development of the "dream world of the group mind," some five hundred years before, they had been a progressive people with a modestly advanced technology. With the group mind, all of the old knowledge and technical abilities had, quite inadvertently, been passed on from generation to generation. Direction was all they needed. Having no power of resistance, they accepted it with total obedience. When Screed said, as he often did, "You people are not here to think; you're here to do what I tell you," they smiled in whole-hearted agreement and did just what he told them. It was delightful.

In five short weeks the reconstruction of Nirva was well advanced. New cities and smoke-belching factories were rising from old ruins. Fields were plowed and sowed.

And the space ship came back.

* * * * *

Reluctantly Screed cut short a series of final instruction conferences with his newly appointed deputy directors and administrators. He picked up Viola and Garten from their quarters in the refurbished ruin of an ancient mansion on a hill overlooking the new capital and they rode to the space port in his vehicle, primitive in design but gleaming, shining like new in the rosy-pink sunshine.

The citizenry lined the roadway, torn between sobs and cheers. Screed, smiling, and sternly gracious, waved a regretful farewell. At the ship he paused for a last word with his senior deputy. In unfamiliar tones of anxious concern, he said, "Now, you have all my memos and instructions. You're sure you can handle it? Carry on just the way I have directed?"

"Of course, glorious supreme leader. In your wisdom you have pointed us the way. We shall not stray."

"Well--everything has been going well, very well. In a way I hate to leave and take the chance on your fouling everything up."

"We shall do our poor best, great leader."

"Yes," said Screed, doubtfully. "True enough. But even so--"

They could feel the space ship's screen cut off. The port opened.

From the vast crowd of Nirvans spread across the space port there came a great whispering noise, something between a sigh and a moan of sad farewell, as Screed turned and followed the other two through the port and into the ship.

"Ah, Captain," said Screed, smiling a thin smile of triumph. "You doubted my ability to remake Nirva. But now you have seen it. Quite a change, eh?"

"Oh sure. Quite a change. Of course, there always is."

"And, Captain, you will note that we are all here. All three of us. You have, I fear, lost your bet."

The Captain shrugged. "Better get to your cabin now, ready for take off."

In the cabin Screed settled back in a chair and looked up at the other two with an odd air of defiance. "All right," he said, "I did it, didn't I? Just the way I told you."

"Screen on," said the Captain over the intercom.

To the three in the cabin the air seemed to turn shimmery, hazy, indistinct for a moment. Then it cleared.

Garten and Viola stood by the doorway, arm in arm, staring. Screed, Secad Screed, the leader, was gone.

* * * * *

"There," said Garten with deep satisfaction, "He did do it."

Viola sighed, smiling. "Darling! He did! It worked just the way you said it would. But I'm still not sure I quite understand why--or how."

"It doesn't really matter. But--you noticed he quit taking the anti-hypnotic pills after the first week?"

"Yes. Did that make any difference? The satellite worked, didn't it? And everything else went just the way he wanted it. It all seemed perfect--for him."

"Sure it did. And that was what he couldn't face losing."

"Hmm?"

"Well, it seemed that everything went exactly the way he imagined it would. The satellite worked. The people followed him. Everything. But maybe we all only imagined it. How can we be sure? After all, those things--plus our purely personal concerns that he was far too busy to take any note of--"

Viola blushed, quite charmingly for a plain, mousy little woman.

"--were what we were expecting too. How can we know, for sure, what was real and what was illusion?"

Viola looked suddenly offended.

"About the planet, I mean."

Viola looked mollified.

"But the planet--I think Screed is running the thing; I'm not sure. As long as he is there, he _knows_ he is running it. Here--who knows? That was the chance he couldn't take, the chance his mind refused to face. If he were here, _could he still be sure he was right_?"

Viola smiled the feminine smile that dismisses a question no longer of personal consequence and snuggled closer to Garten. "Well," she said, "at least we know he isn't here. That's all that matters."