ystem itself, were in the last wild frenzy
of a decaying social order. They had lived so long in the atmosphere
of relative truths, they had so carefully schooled themselves to avoid
all absolutes, that they were unable to elude the simplest processes
of logic. Their very efforts to be objective made them too honest to
reject a conclusion once Dirrul had demonstrated the careful structure
that seemed to support it.

* * * * *

A month passed. Dirrul felt divorced from the Movement, existing in
suspended animation in a cloud of wordy unreality. Then abruptly the
slow-moving dream ended. Late one night Paul Sorgel slipped into
Dirrul's apartment and announced in an emotionless whisper, "The
Plan's ready. You'll have to carry the details to Vinin. We can't use
the teleray--the Union monitors might pick up the message and decode
it."

"Naturally our Vininese Headquarters will want to know, Paul," said
Eddie, "but can't that wait? We'll need every man here when we--"

Sorgel interrupted him. "I've made one or two changes in Glenna's
original plan. It was too impractical. A handful of men can't take
over half a galaxy."

"Glenna and Hurd weren't after the entire Planetary Union,
Paul--that's out of the question. We meant to liberate Agron first.
The capital is here and for awhile the government would be disrupted.
When the people on the other planets saw how much better our social
organization had become, modeled on the Vininese system, they would
stage their own revolutions just like ourselves."

Sorgel laughed scornfully. "And in the meantime, of course, none of
them would think of attacking you and throwing your people out?"

"Not if we seized the Nuclear Beam Transmitters," said Dirrul, "no
space-fleet could come near us then."

"Eddie, you've lived in Agron too long. You're not thinking straight
when you try to build the Plan around a single weapon."

"Why not, Paul? It's a perfect defense. In less than thirty seconds
the Beam Transmitters can charge the entire stratospheric envelope of
Agron. Nothing can move through it without disintegrating, yet life on
the surface of the planet would go on quite normally because the
atmosphere serves as an insulation."

"Technically it's a change in the form of energy, not a
disintegration," Sorgel reminded him. "The beamed electrons unite with
the atoms of visible material substances and alter them. I quite
understand the process, Eddie--V