Red lights closing in. How could he get past the Spaceguard battery? Sheila's voice fought back the darkness. Speed, that was what he needed. And more guts than he'd ever had to use in his life before. And luck.
"Keep talking, Sheila. Keep me awake."
"... Hilton boomed his discovery. The people were worn out with six years of struggle. They wanted Hiltonism, Peace and Happiness. The passion for escape from life drove them like lunatics."
He found the emergency lever and thrust it down. The last ounce of hoarded power slammed into the rocket tubes. The Falcon reared and staggered.
Then she shot straight for Mercury, with the thin high scream of tortured metal shivering along the cabin walls.
Spaceshells burst. They shook the Falcon, but they were far behind. The ring of red lights was falling away. Acceleration tore at Falken's body, but the web of sleep was loosening. Sheila's voice cried to him, the story of man's slavery.
The naked, hungry peaks of Mercury snarled at Falken. And then the guns of the Spaceguard post woke up.
"Talk, Sheila!" he cried. "Keep talking!"
"So Gantry Hilton made himself a sort of God, regulating the thoughts and emotions of his people. There is no opposition now, except for the Unregenerates, and we have no power. Humanity walks in a placid stupor. It cannot feel dissatisfaction, disloyalty, or the will to grow and change. It cannot fight, even morally.
"Gantry Hilton is a god. His son after him will be a god. And humanity is dying."