"You have asked for enough food to insure health in your children and have been told that synthetic-parturition will take care of your offspring, as indeed it does, and you never see them again! You who have asked but a measure of happiness and have been giving all you possess in energy, loyalty and obedience, and are given in return a brutalizing drug that robs you of the will to live! You who through the intrigues and machinations of the Inner Circle have been brutally thrust into the Second, the Third and even the Fourth Levels without a trial, without a hearing merely to satisfy the sadistic minds that rule us from the City of the Sphere.... YOU, would you want a compromise?"
The negative roar that rose in response, shook the lofty ceiling of the cavern and was like a whirlwind. When it had died down, Paulan stood up again.
"I resign," he said simply. "Younger hands than mine will have to lead you. Perhaps you're right, Guerlan, if so, take my place as Commander in Chief, my son."
For a moment there was silence, and then another multi-throated roar of approval.
Guerlan was silent before the majestic dignity of the old man, and something akin to pity welled out of his heart for the great patriarch; but Perlac was on her feet, her sculptured arms flung above her head demanding attention from the great multitude.
"I second the nomination!" Her limpid tones carried far.
"And I ... and I ... and I!" Thousands of voices strove to be heard, down into the farthest reaches of the linked caverns, as those who could not see, heard through the inter-connecting teleradio.
"Then," Guerlan spoke firmly, almost coldly, "the Council of War is called to session, we will meet in the Venusian spacer. All troops stand by for orders."
"Lead, Commander!" exclaimed a rich baritone voice.
It was Carladin, winged, diminutive, proud that the first session of the Council of War should be held in his magnificent atomo-plane, the one that had been repaired in the cavern beneath Plastica. He was proud, too, of Venus' inventive genius in converting the secret electronic formula of the electro-flash into a magnification of that weapon, to the size of a cannon, and raised to the sixth power, enough to practically blast an atomo-plane out of space. As for his special gift to the cause, that was an ironic touch that only a Venusian mind was capable of conceiving, for although unbelievably kind, they never forgave. "Poetic Justice," Carladin had called it, and insisted on the use of his special gift, even bringing a battalion of Venusians to handle it.