It was a night of rejoicing throughout the Great City; and on every mirror in the Empire it was pictured for those who could not be present.
A time of rejoicing. Yet then—as always those days—my heart was heavy. Elza was held by Tarrano. We knew he had taken her to the City of Ice. There was of course, no radio communication with the Cold Country. We had tried eavesdropping upon it, but to no avail. Tarrano's close-flung barrage checked every wave we could send against it.
Time passed—a month or more. We were worried over Elza naturally. Yet the saving grace was that we knew Tarrano would treat her kindly; that for the present at least, she was in no danger.
Georg and Maida took possession of the Central State. Their rule started auspiciously, for by a series of speeches—a reorganization of money payments—the slaans seemed well satisfied. Loyal, and with a growing patriotism, an eagerness to help in the coming war with Tarrano. Georg—without actually saying so—made them believe that the only hope of everlasting life was the recovery from Tarrano of the Brende model. The model was in the City of Ice; it must be captured.
As a matter of fact, to us of the government, the Brende model was not indispensable. The greatest factor was that the threat of Tarrano's universal conquest must be forever removed. Like a rocket-bomb, this man of genius had risen from obscurity—had all but conquered the three greatest worlds of the universe.
I think that the height of Tarrano's power was reached that day on the eve of the Water Festival when he made his triumphant entry into the Great City. Venus was his at that moment; all of Venus. Mars was his; the Hairless Men—savages who had fallen readily to his wiles, had conquered the civilized, ruling Little People. And the Earth, over-run by his spies, deluged by his propaganda which, insidiously as rust will eat away a metal, was eating into the loyalty of our Earth-public—our own great Earth was in a dangerous position. The Earth Council realized it. The Almighty only could know how many of our officials, our men in trusted positions, were at heart loyal to Tarrano!
The thing was obvious. The assassination of our three rulers—leaders of the white, yellow and black races—with which Tarrano's campaign in the open had begun—those assassinations could never have taken place had not our military organization been diseased.
Facts like these were constantly coming to us now, here in the Great City. A brief time of physical inactivity. Yet underneath the calm, we realized there was a struggle going on everywhere; a struggle of sentiment, of propaganda, of public opinion.
Warfare, with modern weapons by which a man single-handed might destroy a city—is no longer a matter of men. The citizen—unarmed—united in sentiment and desire with a million of his kind—becomes the real ruler. You cannot—because you have a weapon—destroy a million of your brothers.
We realized this. And in the ultimate decision—the popular fancy almost—of our publics—lay our real success or downfall.