Planet Stories Super Pack #2. Ray Bradbury, Nelson S. Bond, Leigh Brackett

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СКАЧАТЬ which still held a salient against Garroway’s might on the planetoid Iris.

      Other occurrences were more violent…the kind that not even a ruthlessly controlled press can keep from public knowledge. The shocking demolition of the Overlord’s strongest Asiatic fortress at Chuen-tzwan, keypoint from which his troops dominated all of what had once been Southern China. At six-fifteen in an evening, according to testimony given by the commanding officer at the subsequent investigation, from out of nowhere had appeared a placard, advising the entire garrison to withdraw immediately from the fortress, advising its component members, moreover, to rebel against Garroway. This ultimatum had teeth in it. Midnight was set as the deadline for obedience.

      When at midnight the garrison was still abristle with an aroused and suspicious force of armed men, from a dozen key points had broken out instantaneous fires. "Only a member of the Imperial High Command," testified the wretched officer, "could have known where to set those fires. Each was at a vitally strategic place: near a munitions bin, a water supply depot, or a warehouse of inflammables. We were helpless. In an hour the entire fortress was doomed. I was lucky to save a tenth of my men."

      He was not so fortunate in facing Garroway’s wrath. The ex-commanding officer was put to death, along with every other ranking officer of the destroyed battalion.

      This summary execution seemed bootless, though, when a day or so later a similar flame destroyed the spaceport wherein was cradled one quarter of the Emperor’s fleet. It was revealed by those who escaped this debacle that it had been impossible to salvage a single one of the spacecraft. "They were not merely attacked with fire from without," one official avowed. "Each vessel was found to have been tampered with by someone of the crew. The hypos were smashed as if with sledges, vital running parts were broken or stolen. We were helpless!"

      Helpless…helpless…helpless! There were excuses Garroway heard often, far too often, during the next weeks. It was a word he learned to hate fiercely, because it was so true. In quick succession he saw fall his outpost in Lower Africa, the well-fortified city of Buenos Aires, the central armaments depot on Lake Huron. And each time the apologies were the same. "We saw no one…heard no one…until it was too late."

      *

      Meanwhile, trouble had reared its head challengingly in the capital city itself. Here, as elsewhere, a frightened populace began by asking, "Why?" and rapidly changed its query to the more daring, "Why not?"

      Rumor, despite Garroway’s every attempt to still it, ran like quicksilver through the city. If the press was silent on a new disaster, a common man or woman walking the streets might hear at his elbow a mysterious Voice asking, "Did you know that last night the fortress at Toulon fell? The city is freed of the Emperor’s rule; already the people have declared their independence, set up a provisional government. You can do the same. The hour is near! "

      Or a child, playing with his little companions on the streets, would suddenly stop and look about him strangely, listen as to an unseen speaker…then run home to his parents with the inexplicable words of a Voice: "Yesterday the Territory of Mexico threw off the Overlord’s bonds. In a short while you may do the same. Prepare! "

      Or an unwimpled nun, praying in the sanctuary of a forbidden cloister—Black Garroway had long since outlawed the Church—might hear the vengeful, whispered tones of an unecclesiastic visitant: "On Timor the Cross is worshipped openly since the Overlord’s force has been broken. Here it will soon be the same. Spread the word! "

      Thus the message was passed from person to person, and through a citizenry for decades apathetic to its own plight a new sense of hope and courage pulsed. Garroway’s warriors sought in vain the refuge of the Group, upon the heads of whose members the Emperor had long since placed a tremendous price. But any common man who felt the urge to add his contribution to the rising tide of revolt could find that refuge with ease…for at his work, or by his side, or in the heart of a crowd would be a Voice to tell him its location.

      So grew revolt like a tropic vine, reaching out new tentacles with every rising dawn, developing new strength with every failure of Garroway’s heretofore supposedly invulnerable war machine, gathering new converts with every fresh disaster. And the mute whisperings of fearful people began to thrum with a new and heady tone…the spirit of daring, the renascense of the flame of liberty. The voice of the people…which is the will of God.

      Graed Garroway heard the bruitings of this voice, and was afraid.

      *

      Graed Garroway, whose boast had ever been he feared no man, heard the slow, insistent voice of revolt closing in about him…and was afraid.

      For the first time in his brutal career he had met an enemy he could not crush with ruthless blows, destroy by force, obliterate with a flick of the hand. His armies had fallen twice…thrice…a dozen times before a phantom, a will-o’-the-wisp that struck and fled, leaving terror, awe, and desolation in its wake.

      He was baffled and confused, was Black Garroway. A terror was upon him that he could neither escape nor admit, for his confession of this fear to his commanders might be the last thing needed to send them, too, fleeing from his banner.

      There was but one living soul to whom he dared admit this fear. That was his own flesh and blood, the Princess Lenore. Yet even to her he would not make an open avowal. His admission came in the form of blustering attack.

      "Cowards!" he stormed, pacing the floor of his daughter’s boudoir. "Snivelling cowards…the lot of them! All this nonsense about a Voice…a ghost that destroys strong forts…a phantom that passes unscathed through flame ... pah! It’s lies, lies…nothing but lies!"

      Princess Lenore studied her father lazily. She was not of the type easily stirred to fear. Under other circumstances, born the daughter of a lesser man than Black Garroway, Lenore Garroway might have made a name for herself in the world. As an adventuress…a fighting-woman…a daring woman.

      She drawled, half amusedly, "Lies? Are you so sure of that, my father?"

      "Sure?" snorted Graed Garroway. "Of course, I’m sure! There is no such thing as invisibility! My scientists have proven that time and time again in laboratories. The fabled ‘magic cloak’ of invisibility is both hypothetically and actually impossible. Where matter exists, there must be either reflection, refraction, or occultation—"

      The Princess yawned.

      "I do not understand these high-sounding words," she said, "nor need I. Because, you see, I have met the Galactic Ghost myself."

      "Nonsense!" fumed her parent. "It was an hallucination you suffered. Sympathetic reaction set up by nervousness. The medical examiner testified—"

      "Sometimes," interrupted the girl coldly, "you allow your ultrascientific viewpoint to warp your better judgment, my father. You talk nonsense! Could a nervous reaction account for the theft of my jewels, or the shattering of my mirror?"

      "I am not denying," protested Black Garroway stiffly, "that the…the Ghost visited you. Possibly he hypnotized you into believing him invisible. As for your broken mirror, that might have happened in a dozen ways—"

      "The mirror was broken," said Lenore, "by the Ghost! Because I saw him reflected in it!"

      "Furthermore, it is ridiculous to assume—" The Emperor stopped abruptly, his brow congealing—"Eh? What did you say? You saw—"

      "I tried to tell you," purred the girl, "at the time. But you were too concerned with the loss of my gems to listen to СКАЧАТЬ