Abou ZaM was less than either brave or a collected man, particularly when under pressure. Dark as his face was, he blanched as he cowered back in his seat.

  "No," he said hoarsely.

  Rex turned and handed the box to the Professor Casey. "Your proof," he said simply.

  "Wild, man," Whip Ford chuckled.

  But the Arab must have touched a button with his foot. The door sprang open and three of his bodyguards came charging through, the first one, gun in hand, the other two clawing their weapons from their holsters.

  Rex, caught by surprise, snatched for his own gun, the Gyro-jet confiscated from John Micksff.

  But there was an overly loud crack of a shot and the pistol of the lead guard went flying from his hand. He grabbed his fingers from which blood was spurting.

  "Naughty, naughty," Whip said, menacing the other two with his .22 target pistol.

  They came to a quick halt and held their hands away from their holsters. Rex covered them as well, stepped closer and relieved them of their weapons.

  He looked over at Whip Ford, "Holy Jumping Zen," he complained. "Who the hell do you think you are, Wyatt Earp?"

  Whip said modestly, "I didn't mention the fact that I was university champion in the pistol team."

  "Up against the wall," Rex said to the three guards. "Face first."

  Professor Casey, as soon as he had recovered from his shocked surprise at the action, looked at the shaken Abou Zaki.

  He said, "After this, it's obvious that you cannot remain in Grissom. I don't know whether or not you've had assistance in your attempted sabotage of Lagrangia. However, you and your staff will pack your possessions immediately. You will be confined to this building until returned to Earth as soon as transport is possible. There, of course, we will prepare criminal charges against you."

  Abou Zaki was too far gone even to answer.

  Rex Bader stepped closer to one of the three bodyguards, recognizing him. "Hand over my transceiver, you cheap crook," he growled.

  The Arab eyed him apprehensively. "I don't know what you're talking about," he got out.

  "My transceiver, you sonofabitch," Rex said. "Or should I say, you son of a sacred camel, or some such. At any rate, hand it over or I'll break that beak nose of yours with this pistol barrel."

  The other, glaring hatred, reached into his side pocket and brought forth the communications device in question.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The four of them left the Administrator's office, Rex and Whip still with guns in hand, the latter now with a Gyro-jet confiscated from the bodyguards. They didn't expect more trouble, but you never knew. The professor carried the two boxes of the drug, as though they were treasures. This was the ultimate evidence.

  Rex said, shaking his head, "Imagine the stupid bastard having the stuff right there in open view. He must have been planning to give the water another dose tomorrow and had it ready. In the confusion of us busting in and confronting him, he failed to hide it."

  Susie said, "It was a clever way of smuggling it into Grissom. As Administrator, they wouldn't have searched his things overly much, and the fact that it actually looked like cous-cous must have confused the searchers. There is such a thing as cous-cous, of course. I ate some of it in an Algerian restaurant in Paris once. It was terrible stuff."

  Professor Casey said, "Let's go up to the Council conference hall."

  Susie looked at him in surprise. "Why?"

  "The night's not over yet," he told her. "In fact, it has hardly begun."

  The four of them made their way up the remaining four stories to the Council's conference room on the Sixth Floor. Once there, Professor Casey slumped into the chairman's heavy seat and took a deep breath.

  He said, "You all might as well make yourselves comfortable. Well probably be here for awhile." He looked at Susie Hawkins. "My dear, will you get in touch with all members of the Council and request that they come here immediately for an emergency meeting?"

  She looked at him questioningly but he said nothing more, so she reached into her bag for her transceiver. She took it to the other end of the table and began talking into it in her usual clipped voice.

  Casey said to Rex and Whip, who had taken chairs flanking him, "It'll take time for them to assemble." He sent his eyes to the Black. "You might as well give me your story. Perhaps I'll be able to state my opinion to them tonight. They should be in a receptive mood. Everything seems to be going well, at least potentially, for a change."

  Whip cleared his throat and said, "I imagine Doctor Hawkins has given you the general idea. Our Promised Land Society wishes to build an Island of its own to colonize, probably in the asteroids."

  "So I understand. And you're all Blacks?"

  "That's correct, Our society has come to the conclusion that the final solution to the Negro problem is for us to start a world of our own, free from discrimination." His voice held some of the old sour quality that Rex Bader had come in contact with the first few times he had met the other.

  The professor said, unhappily, "My own hope, so far as racial problems are concerned, has been that the races would slowly blend until we were all one. The process has long been underway and of recent decades, with developing transportation and shifts of population, has been accelerating, particularly here in space where no one cares what your race is. For instance, how many Blacks do you know in the States who are one hundred percent Africans? Very few. Most so-called Blacks are probably as much as fifty percent white, American Indian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, or whatever. You, yourself, Mr. Ford, I would take for at least fifty percent Caucasian."

  "But I'm still a Black by the laws of the state in which I was born. Do you realized that in some of the states where such laws are still on the books the definition of a Black is a person who has any percentage of Negro blood whatsoever?"

  Rex laughed. I'm afraid that would take in just about every white in America as well."

  Whip said, not sure how to take that, "How do you mean?"

  "Consider it," Rex said. "The Romans drew no color line whatsoever. Actually, some of their later emperors were African. For two thousand years they bred with Blacks without a second thought. So did the Carthaginians before them. The Romans took over by far the greater part of Europe as well as the Mediterranean shore. They were in England for centuries and, of course, where man goes he breeds, leaving his genes behind, be they white, black or yellow. Following the Romans, the Arabs took over much of their former empire, including parts of Southern France and all of Spain and Portugal, not to mention all of the Balkans to as far as Vienna, and such islands as Sicily and Crete. The Moslems to this day draw no color line." Rex laughed again. "Consider it, gentlemen, in view of the fact that the Europeans have been breeding with Blacks or partial Blacks for thousands of years, what chance is there that any of us doesn't have some Negro blood?"

  "The point's well taken," Casey said. But he looked back to Whip and there was still an unhappy quality there. He said, "Mr. Ford, frankly there has been one aspect of space colonization that many Earth-side people have not known about. You see, we Lagrangists have not in mind colonizing space from Earth. We wish to seed space from Earth, using only the best seed. We wish to leave, to the extent possible, our genetic failures behind us."

  Whip Ford returned to his old coldness. He said, "And we Blacks are genetic failures?"

  Casey shook his head, quite emphatically. "That I didn't say. There are many Blacks in Lagrangia, Mr. Ford. I understand that you have met Washington

  Carver Smith, for instance. One of our most valued colonists."

  He thought for a moment before going on. Then, "You see, on Earth the human race is probably actually deteriorating. Cro-Magnon man probably averaged a higher intelligence than we boast today. Do not, obviously, confuse accumulated knowledge with intelligence. We have more accumulated knowledge than did our cave-dwelling ancestors, though Cro-Magnon had a larger brain pan. But in those days Nature winnowed out the unfit, the less intelligent, the less strong and healthy. Only the best elements of a Cro-Magnon clan survived. But as man continued he began to succor his weak and mentally unfit, though the Greeks and Romans, among others, exposed their children who weren't up to standards. For a time, famines, earthquakes, floods, plagues, and other disasters kept a curb on the unfit. They were the first to starve in a famine; their jerry-built homes were the first to collapse in an earthquake; they were the first to contract the plagues, since they were weak with malnutrition and since they had no means to flee the cities and retire to the more healthy hills."

  Both Rex and Whip were giving him their utmost attention.

  He said, "But with the coming of the modern age, steps were taken to combat famines, plagues, earthquakes, and all the rest. Millions of the unfit were preserved with our improving medicine, and our charities, to continue breeding and perpetuating their genes. In space, Mr. Ford, we have wished to continue man's progress, not to slip backward."

  Whip cleared his throat again. "What's that got to do with our Promised Land—the name of the Island we want to build?"

  The professor looked at him levelly. "What are the requirements of your colonists, besides that they be Blacks?"

  "Roughly, the same as yours."

  That set Casey back. "You mean…?" he let the question dribble away.

  Whip Ford was scornful. "Of course. We're not stupid. The Promised Land Society is composed of successful, progressive, highly-trained individuals. We may be race conscious, but we're not stupid. We realize that nine blacks out of ten aren't suitable for the Promised Land, they've been ground down too long. A Hottentot in South Africa may be black but he's not material for space. We decided to make the same requirements as you Lagrangists do. An I.Q. of at least 130, near physical perfection, and all the rest of it."

  "I'll be damned," Casey said, leaning back in his chair in surprise.

  Whip said, "Well, what kind of a report will you make to this Council of yours?"

  "An upbeat one, obviously. I have one suggestion to make, Mr. Ford."

  "Call me Whip. What is it? We of the Society could only think highly of your suggestions, Professor."

  "I suggest that learning Interlingua become one of your requirements. Once you are in full operation, we will all wish to cooperate in trade, mutual safety in our development of space, that sort of thing. Surely in space we will be able to leave many of the sins of Earth behind."

  "I'll take it up with the society. We're a democratic organization."

  Susie looked up from her transceiver and called, "Professor?"

  Casey got up and went down to her.

  Rex looked at Whip Ford. "Congratulations," he said, smiling. "You made it."

  Whip looked at him for a long moment. "It looks that way," he said. "Listen, Rex. Why don't you come in with us?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "Join the Promised Land. I'll swing all the weight I've got to bulldoze it through. Like you said, somewhere in your remote ancestory there's probably some Black blood. Okay, we'll make you an honorary nigger, or something." He grinned ruefully at that last.

  Rex shook his head. "Thanks, Whip," he said. "But it's no go. The Radicals already have offered to lower the requirements in my case if I'd go along with them. But you see what it means? If you lower your standards once, you'll do it again. And again. And pretty soon every incompetent earthworm Tom, Dick, and Harry will be streaming up here. And you'd soon have the old story—breeding dumb clucks, degrading the race."

  Whip looked at him. "Man, you're not easy on yourself."

  The door opened and the lumpy Doctor Karl Kes-singer came hurrying in. "George!" he said exuberant-iy-

  Professor Casey, who had been talking in a low voice to Susie, turned and smiled. "Hi, Karl," he said. "What spins?"

  "It would seem everything," the Communications Councilor said. "Where in the name of Zen have you been?"

  "The rest of the Council will be showing up," George Casey told him, responding to the other's hearty handshake. "I'll cover it all. Did you get those no-water-drinking announcements out?"

  "A thousand times over. This solves all of our problems, George. I thought that we'd had it."

  "Not quite, to both statements," Casey said, rubbing the back of his left hand over his lips.

  Shirley Ann Kneedler, Walt Hanse, and Sal Sinatri entered together, hesitated for a moment, but didn't approach the professor. They took three chairs at the table, side-by-side.

  Within the next few minutes, most of the Council had turned up, all except the three Radicals, to press around Casey, shaking hands, all talking at once, all demanding to know what had happened. The professor grinned through it all as best he could, but avoided their questions for the time.

  The last few stragglers entered and all took places at the long table. There wasn't even a raised eyebrow when Professor George Casey took the chairman's posi-tion at the table's head. Rex and Susie flanked him, Whip sat next to Rex. Susie had notebook and stylo in hand, a data screen before her.

  George Casey looked about the table, taking them in one at a time. Finally, he said, "It's getting late and we have a great deal of work to do. Following this meeting, with your approval, I propose to have Doctor Hawkins get in touch with our fellow Islands and call for an emergency convening of the Grand Council. We'll also have to begin formulating our manifesto."

  "Manifesto?" Doctor Fredric Economou said.

  The professor looked over to him. "Yes, our Declaration of Independence. My principle reason for, ah, disappearing was to avoid the necessity of testifying before the Reunited Nations Earth-side. But now that is meaningless. Frankly, I am of the opinion that it is somewhat premature but circumstances have given us such a favorable opportunity to cut all governmental ties with Earth that we can't ignore it. Such a weight of right is on our side at this time that few could honestly deny it."

  "Hear, hear!" Walt Hanse called.

  Doctor Hans Ober said, "How do you mean, George?"

  Professor Casey took the two boxes of supposed cous-cous from his pockets and put them on the table. "We have overwhelming, uncontestable proof that Administrator Abou Zaki has been poisoning our water supply with a drug that causes claustrophobia. When we release this information, Earth-side, there will be few to demur when we demand independence."

  "Can we swing it yet, George?" Franz Zeigler, of Research, said.

  The professor nodded. "I believe so. We are at present earning more from our sales of solar power Earthside than we are expending there. And the figure is increasing monthly as more SSPSs are turned out."

  For a time, there was a buzzing about the table, and Casey remained standing, but held silence until it subsided.

  When it did, he said, "There is another matter that I would like to see passed tonight and recommended to the Grand Council tomorrow. It pertains to Mr. Whip Ford, here." The professor indicated the Black seated next to Rex Bader. "Mr. Ford undoubtedly saved the day, at the risk of his own life, when we confronted Abou-Zaki and the Administrator called in his armed bodyguards."

  "What does he want?" Hanse said.

  The professor summed up the Promised Land project and highly recommended that the Lagrange Five Islands fully cooperate with all their resources.

  Hanse said, "What kind of control would we maintain over them after their Island was completed?"

  "None whatsoever," the professor said. "Our relationship would be strictly fraternal."

  "Then I'm against it," Hanse said definitely. "We Lagrangists should maintain control over the colonization of space. A strong control."

  "Do I hear a motion?" Casey said.

  Doctor Dorothy Weiss said, "I make a motion that the Lagrange Five Project support to its utmost the building of the Promised Land."

  "Second," Kessinger said.

  With the exception of the three members of the Radicals, the vote carried unanimously.

  Whip Ford's voice was shaky when he said, "Thank you."

  Professor Casey went on again. "There is one other matter. During my absence, the Executive Committee of the Radical wing of the Sons of Liberty made plans to subvert our institutions, to seize power from the Reunited Nations by force and violence, to plan subversive and even military action against Earth, and to declare themselves what amounts to a dictatorship."

  "That's a lie," Hanse shouted indignantly.

  "I'm afraid not," the professor said. "You told the whole story to Mr. Bader here and tried to entice him into your ranks by offering to make him not only a Lagrangist, for which he does not have the qualifications, but a member of this Council, to which he had not been elected, nor is it possible, under our institutions, for him to be so elected, since he is not employed in any of our functions."

  "He lies," Hanse said defiantly. "And it's his word against ours." He indicated Shirley Ann Kneedler and Sal Sinatri. Sinatri, at least, had the grace to look embarrassed, but said nothing.

  Whip Ford said softly, "I'm afraid that there's another witness. During your meeting with Bader, I was posted outside the window of your cottage. I'd been following Rex." He looked directly into Hanse's face. "So I back everything the professor has accused you of." He looked over at Rex and said, "By the way, that's when I started having second thoughts about you. You stood up to those cloddies pretty well, considering all they offered."

  Casey looked at Hanse and his two confederates again and said, "Doctor Hanse, in your advocating a change from our democratic to a more autocratic form of managing Lagrangia, you contended that democracy was too slow, too confused, to act quickly in an emergency. A dictatorship, though you didn't use that term, is supposedly faster. Very well, we shall see. We have few set rules in this Council but one of them is that a two-thirds majority can expel any Councilor from the body. Another is that the Council, by two-thirds vote, can expel any Lagrangist from the Islands, returning them to Earth."

  "Why you…!" The enraged Hanse blurted.

  Doctor Karl Kessinger said calmly, "I make a motion that Councilors Hanse, Kneedler, and Sinatri be ejected from the Council and I make a further motion that they be expelled from Lagrangia and returned to Earth."

 

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