* * *
Drums pounded in his brain… the drums of rebellion out in space, of rebellion on those other worlds… drums that were drowning out and shattering forever the dream that he had woven. He had wanted economic dictatorship… not the cold, passionless, terrible dictatorship that Stutsman typified… but one that would bring peace and prosperity and happiness to the Solar System.
He closed his eyes and thought. Snatches of ambition, snatches of hopes… but it was useless to think, for the drums and the imagined shouting drowned out his thoughts.
Mankind didn't give a damn for good business administration, nor a hoot for prosperity or peace or happiness. Liberty and the right to rule, the right to go risk one's neck… to climb a mountain or cross a desert or explore a swamp, the right to aim one's sights at distant stars, to fling a taunting challenge into the teeth of space, to probe with clumsy fingers and force nature to lay bare her secrets… that was what mankind wanted. That was what those men out on Mars and Venus and in the Jovian worlds were fighting for. Not against Spencer Chambers or Ludwig Stutsman or Interplanetary Power, but for the thing that drove man on and made of him a flame that others might follow. Fighting for a heritage that was first expressed when the first man growled at the entrance to his cave and dared the world to take it from him.
Spencer Chambers closed his eyes and rocked back and forth in the tilting office chair.
It had been a good fight, a hard fight He had had a lot of fun out of it. But he was licked, after all these years. He had held the biggest dream of any man who ever lived. Alexander and Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and those other fellows had been pikers alongside of Spencer Chambers. They had only aimed at Earthly conquest while he had reached out to grab at all the worlds. But by heaven, he'd almost made it!
A door grated open.
"Chambers!” said a voice.
His feet hit the floor with a thud and he sat stiff and staring at the figure in the door.
It was Craven and the man was excited. His glasses were slid far down on his nose, his hair was standing on end, his tie was all awry.