From all the corners, from the big screens, glittered the Dictator, above the crowds that gathered and shoved each other and hurrahed his words. Novik stared with smarting eyes; his head buzzed and he could not assemble his thoughts. He turned away and plodded on, and on the next corner met again the voice and gestures of the leader, his compelling gaze from the glowing screen.
"History demands that we prevail. If any fresh proof of that fact were needed—as all of you know that it is not—it would be provided by the new scientific discovery which at the same time reaffirms the fundamental, objective truth of our way of life and thought, and provides us with the ultimate weapon for enforcing our way on the backward regions of the world....
"Only evil men, warped minds oppose us. The virus attacks such minds and completes the ruin which their own perversion has begun. Those who are clean and upright in thought and deed, loyal to their fatherland and the great idea of the Diktatura, have nothing to fear from it; they are immune. Therefore we can use it as a weapon without apprehension or compunction, for we shall only be wiping out the vermin of the Earth...."
Novik started to run. Heart thudding, breath rasping in his throat, he shouldered through the ecstatically listening crowds. In their ears he screamed: "It's not so! We mustn't use it!"
They stared after him, some shouted "Stop him!" but no one wanted to miss the Dictator's epoch making speech.
It was over a mile to the Dictatorial palace, and Novik ran all the way. He was reeling with exhaustion when he got there, and he had to lean against a pillar and wrestle with nausea for a time before he was able to produce his wallet and show the card in it to the tall Guardsman at the gate.
The Guardsman raised his eyebrows; the disheveled and panting young man before him didn't look much like a Popo agent.
Beyond the gates, though, Novik encountered officials who knew him, and in a remarkably short time he was led before the Dictator. Since Chaber's demise, the leader had appointed no successor to the post, taking care of the most important police matters himself. Now he was still flushed from his speech to the people and delighted by the first reports of the people's reaction.
Novik faced the Dictator, holding himself erect with an effort. He said thickly, "Agent Novik reporting, sir, in the case of Dr. Joseph Euge...."
"What's the matter with you?" The Dictator stared at him from under knitting brows. "Are you drunk?"