A MATTER OF ORDER
BY FOX B. HOLDEN
Balance is a fundamental law of
order. How, then, can integrity
cancel such a principle even though
the future of Mankind demands it?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"I don't like it at all," the tall thin man said. His name was Tharn, and he was known throughout the sprawling colony for the high-strung nervousness that was understandable enough in a youth of fifty, but hardly normal for a man of his years. You had to be careful how you talked to Tharn, even if you were Angelo, Dean of Masters, himself. "I don't like it," Tharn reiterated, with another dramatic sweep of his long bony arm, "one bit, Angelo. Look at them, circling up there."
The thin, lined face turned squarely to Angelo's own, and the large, almost protruding black eyes snapped with all the vibrant fire of the fine artistic mind that boiled constantly behind them.
Angelo turned his own eyes upward, momentarily following Tharn's still-upthrust arm. Although he did not need to look again. It was as the Second-Eldest of the colony said, of course. The slender, stylus-shaped object that reflected the golden midday sunlight in splintering shards against the almost cloudless cobalt of the sky still circled.
It would land at the edge of the great colony. Angelo knew this, Tharn knew it, the colony knew it.