Classic Audiobook Collection - Last Enemy by H. Beam Piper ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Last Enemy by H. Beam Piper audiobook. Genre: scifi In Last Enemy, H. Beam Piper drops the listener into a polished, tradition-bound society where reincarnation is more than faith - it is the foundation of law, status, and power. Dallona of Hadron, a gifted psychic researcher, is on the verge of a breakthrough that could turn that foundation into something measurable, provable, and therefore dangerously disruptive. Her test is set to unfold at an elegant dinner party hosted by Garnon of Roxor, a gathering that is not a celebration at all but a carefully staged discarnation feast: a voluntary death meant to serve science. When the moment arrives, a trained sensitive in hypnotic trance becomes a living conduit, and the after-death testimony that follows threatens to make death itself a solved problem. But in a world where belief systems are political weapons, proof can be as lethal as any lie. As factions maneuver to control, suppress, or exploit what Dallona has uncovered, she finds herself forced to weigh truth against the human cost of revealing it - and to consider what happens to a civilization when its oldest fear loses its teeth. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:34:55) Chapter 2 (01:09:37) Chapter 3 (01:40:08) Chapter 4 (02:14:34) Chapter 5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last enemy The last enemy was the toughest of all, and conquering him was in itself almost as dangerous as not conquering. For a strange pattern of beliefs can make assassination an honorable profession. Along the U-shaped table the subdued clatter of dinnerware and the buzz of conversation was dying out. The soft music that drifted down from the overhead sound outlets seemed louder as the competing noises diminished.

The feast was drawing to a close, and Delona of Hadron fidgeted nervously with the stem of her wine-glass, as last-moment doubts assailed her. The old man, at whose right she sat, noticed, and reached out to lay his hand on hers. "'My dear, you're worried,' he said softly. "'You of all people shouldn't be, you know.' "'The theory isn't complete,' she replied. "'And I could wish for more positive verification. I'd hate to think I'd got you into this." Garnon of Rocksword laughed.

"'No, no,' he assured her. "'I'd decided upon this long before you announced the results of your experiments. Ask Gerson, he'll bear me out.' "'That's true,' the young man who sat at Garnon's left, said, leaning forward. "'Father has meant to take this step for a long time. He was waiting until after the election, and then he decided to do it now. to give you an opportunity to make experimental use of it. The man on Delona's right added his voice.

Like the others at the table, he was of medium stature, brown-skinned, and dark-eyed, with a wide-mouth, prominent cheekbones, and a short square jaw. Unlike the others, he was armed. With a knife and pistol on his belt, and on the breast of his black tunic, he wore a scarlet oval patch on which a pair of black wings with a tapering silver object between them had been superimposed. Yes, Lady Delona, the Lord Garnon and I discussed this, oh, two years ago at the least. Really, I'm surprised that you seem to shrink from it now.

Of course, your Venus-born, and customs there may be different, but, with your scientific knowledge—' "'That may be the trouble, deers it,' Delona told him. A scientist gets in the way of doubting, and one doubting. and one doubts one's own theories most of all. That's the scientific attitude, I'm told, Deerzid replied, smiling. But somehow I cannot think of you as a scientist. His eyes traveled over her in a way

that would have made most women, scientists or otherwise, blush. It gave Delona of Hadron a feeling of pleasure. Men often looked at her that way, especially here at Darsh. Novelty had something to do with it. Her skin was considerably lighter than usual, and there was a pleasing oddness about the structure of her face. Her alleged Venusian origin was probably accepted as the explanation of that, as of so many other things.

As she was about to reply, a man in dark grey, one of the upper servants who were accepted as social equals by the Acorn Neb Nobles, approached the table. He nodded respectfully to Garnon of Roxor. I hate to seem to hurry things, sir, but the boy's ready. He's in a trance state now, he reported, pointing to the pair of visiplates at the end of the room. Both of the ten-foot-square plates were activated. One was a solid, luminous white. On the other was the image of a boy of twelve or fourteen, seated at a big writing-machine.

Even allowing for the fact that the boy was in a hypnotic trance, there was an expression of idiocy on his loose-lipped, slack-jawed face, a pervading dullness. "'One of our best sensitives,' a man with a beard, several places down the table on Delona's right said. "'You remember him, Delona. He produced that communication from the Discarnate Assassin, Sears him. Normally he's a low-grade imbecile, but in trance state he's wonderful,

and there can be no argument that the communications he produces originates in his own mind. He doesn't have mind enough of his own to operate that machine. Garnon of Roxor rose to his feet, the others rising with him. He unfastened a jewel from the front of his tunic and handed it to Delona. "'Here, my lady Delona, I want you to have this,' he said. "'It's been in the family of Roxor for six generations, but I know that you will appreciate and cherish it.' He twisted a heavy ring from his left hand and gave it to his son.

He unstrapped his wristwatch and passed it across the table to the gray-clad upper servant. He gave a pocketcase containing writing tools, slide rule, and magnifier to the bearded man on the other side of Delona. Something you can use, Dr. Harnash, he said. Then he took a belt, with a knife and holstered pistol from a servant who had brought it to him and gave it to the man with the red badge. "'And something for you, Deerset. The pistols by far nor of Yand, and the knife was forged and tempered on Luna.' The man with the winged bullet badge took the weapons, exclaiming in appreciation. Then he removed his own belt and buckled on the gift. "'The pistols fully loaded,' Garnon told him.

Deerzid drew it and checked. A man of his craft took no statement about weapons without verification, then slipped it back into the holster. "'Shall I use it?' he asked. "'By all means. I had that in mind when I selected it for you.' Another man, to the left of Gerson, received a cigarette case and a lighter. He and Garnon hooked fingers and clapped shoulders. "'Our views haven't been the same, Garnon,' he said. "'But I've always valued your friendship.

"'I'm sorry you're doing this now. I believe you'll be disappointed.' Garnan chuckled. "'Would you care to make a small wager on that, Nierzav?' he asked. "'You know what I'm putting up. If I'm proven right, will you accept the volitionalist theory as verified?' Nierzav chewed his mustache for a moment. "'Yes, Garnon, I will.' He pointed toward the blankly white screen.

"'If we get anything conclusive on that, I'll have no other choice.' "'All right, friends,' Garnon said to those around him. "'Will you walk with me to the end of the room?' "'Servants removed a section from the table in front of him "'to allow him and a few others to pass through. "'The rest of the guests remain standing at the table, "'facing toward the inside of the room. "'Garnon's son, Gierzon, and the grey-mustached Nierzav of Shona

"'warked on his left, Dallona of Hadron, and Dr. Harnash of Hosh on his right. "'The grey-clad upper servant and two or three ladies, "'and a nobleman with a small chin-beard, and several others joined them. Of those who had sat close to Garnon, only the man in the black tunic with the scarlet badge hung back. He stood still, by the break in the table, watching Garnon of Roxor walk away from him. Then, Deerzid the assassin, drew the pistol he had lately received as a gift, hefted it in his hand, thumbed off the safety, and aimed at the back of Garnon's head. They had nearly reached the end of the room when the pistol cracked.

The lona of Hadron started, almost as though the bullet had crashed into her own body, then caught herself and kept on walking. She closed her eyes and laid a hand on Dr. Harnish's arm for guidance, concentrating her mind upon a single question. The others went on as though Garnon of Roxor were still walking among them. "'Look!' Harnash of Hosh cried, pointing to the image in the Vizsaplate ahead. "'He's under control!'

They all stopped short, and Deerzid, holstering his pistol, hurried forward to join them. Behind, a couple of servants had approached with a stretcher and were gathering up the crumpled figure that had, a moment ago, Ben Garnon. A change had come over the boy at the writing machine. His eyes were still glazed with the stupor of the hypnotic trance, but the slack jaw had stiffened, and the loose mouth was compressed in a purposeful line. As they watched, his hands went out to the keyboard in front of him and began to move over it, and as they did, letters appeared on the white screen on the left.

Garnon of Roxor, Discarnate, Communicating, they read. The machine stopped for a moment, then began again. To Delona of Hadron, the question you asked, after I discarnated, was, What was the last book I read before the feast? While waiting for my valet to prepare my bath, I read the first ten verses of the fourth canto of Splendor of Space by Larnov of Horka in my bedroom. When the bath was ready, I marked the page with a strip of message tape, containing a message from the bailiff of my estate on the Sheva River, concerning a breakdown at the power plant,

and laid the book on the ivory inlaid table beside the big red chair. Harnash of Hosh looked at Delona inquiringly. She nodded. I rejected the question I had in my mind and substituted that one after the shot, she said. He turned quickly to the upper servant. Check on that right away, Kierzan, he directed. As the upper servant hurried out, the writing machine started again. And to my son, Gierzon.

I will not use your son, Garnon, as a reincarnation. vehicle. I will remain discarnate until he is grown and has a son of his own. If he has no male child, I will reincarnate in the first available male child of the family of Roxor, or of some

family allied to us by marriage. In any case, I will communicate before reincarnating. To Nierzav of Shona. Ten days ago, when I dined at your home, I took a small knife and cut three notches, two close to

and one a little apart from the others, on the underside of the table. As I remember, I sat two places down on the left. If you find them, you will know that I have won that wager that I spoke of a few minutes ago. I'll have my butler check on that right away, Nierzavs said. His eyes were wide with amazement, and he had begun to sweat. A man does not casually watch the beliefs of a lifetime, invalidated in a few moments. "'To Dierzed the assassin,' the machine continued. "'You have served me faithfully in the last ten years, never more so than with the last shot you fired in my service. After you fired, the thought was in your mind that you would like to take service with the Lady Delona of Hadron,

whom you believe will need the protection of a member of the Society of Assassins. I advise you to do so, and I advise her to accept your offer. Her work, since she has come to Darsh, has not made her popular in some quarters. No doubt Nierzav of Shona can bear me out on that. I won't betray things told me in confidence, or said at the councils of the statisticalists, but he's right, Nierzav said, You need a good assassin, and there are few better than Dierzad. I see that this sensitive is growing weary, the letters on the screen spelled out.

His body is not strong enough for prolonged communication. I bid you all farewell for the time. I will communicate again. Good evening, my friends, and I thank you for your presence at the feast. The boy, on the other screen, slumped back in his chair, his face relaxing into its customary expression of vacancy. Will you accept my offer of service, Lady Delona? Deerzad asked.

It's, as Garnon said, you've made enemies. Delona smiled at him. I've not been too deep in my work to know that. I'm glad to accept your offer, Deerzad. Nierzav of Shona had already turned away from the group and was hurrying from the room to call his home for a confirmation on the notches made on the underside of his dining table. As he went out the door, he almost collided with the upper servant,

who was rushing in with a book in his hand. "'Here it is,' the latter exclaimed, holding up the book. Larnov's Splendor of Space, just where he said it would be. I had a couple of servants with me as witnesses. I can call them in now if you wish." He handed the book to Harnash of Hosh. See, a strip of message tape in it, at the tenth verse of the fourth canto. Nierzav of Shona re-entered the room.

He was chewing his mustache and muttering to himself. As he rejoined the group in front of the now-dark visiplates, he raised his voice, addressed them all generally. My butler found the notches, just as the communication described, he said. This settles it. Garnon, if you're where you can hear me, you've won. I can't believe in the statisticalist doctrines after this, or in the political program based upon them.

I'll announce my change of attitude at the next meeting of the Executive Council and resign my seat. I was elected by statisticalist vote. votes, and I cannot hold office as a volitionalist. "'You'll need a couple of assassins, too,' the nobleman with the Chinbeer told him. Your former colleagues and fellow party members are regrettably given to the forcible discarnation of those who differ with them. "'I've never employed personal assassins before,' Nierzov replied.

"'But I think you'll right. As soon as I get home, I'll call Assassin's Hall and make the necessary arrangements. Better do it now, Geerzan of Roxor told him, lowering his voice. There are over a hundred guests here, and I can't vouch for all of them. The statisticalists would be sure to have a spy planted among them. My father was one of their most dangerous opponents, when he was on the council. They've always been afraid he'd come out of retirement and stand for re-election.

They'd want to make sure he was really discarnate. And if that's the case, you can be sure your change of attitude is known to old Mirzak of Barshad by this time. He won't dare allow you to make a public renunciation of statisticalism. He turned to the other nobleman. Prince Jerzan, why don't you call the volitionalist headquarters and have a couple of our assassins sent over here to escort Lord Nierzav home? I'll do that immediately, Jirzan of Starfa said. It's as Lord Girzon says. We can be pretty sure.

there was a spy among the guests, and now that you've come over to our way of thinking, we are responsible for your safety." He left the room to make the necessary visiphone call. Delona, accompanied by Deerzid, returned to her place at the table, where she was joined by Harnash of Hosh and some of the others. "'There's no question about the results,' Harnash was exulting. "'I'll grant that the boy might have picked up some of that stuff telepathically from the carnate minds present here, even from the mind of Garnon before he was discarnated.

But he could not have picked up enough data in that way to make a connected and coherent communication. It takes a sensitive with a powerful mind of his own to practice telesthesia, and that boy's almost an idiot. He turned to Delona. You asked a question mentally after Garnon was discarnate, and got an answer that could have been contained only in Garnon's mind. I think it's conclusive proof that the discarnate garnon was fully conscious and communicating.

Deerzid also asked a question mentally after the discarnation and got an answer. Dr. Harnash, we can state positively that the surviving individuality is fully conscious in the discarnate state, is telepathically sensitive, and is capable of telepathic communication with other minds. Delona agreed. And in view of our earlier work with memory recalls, we're justified in stating positively that the individual is capable of exercising choice

in reincarnation vehicles. My father has been considering voluntary discarnation for a long time, Gierzon of Roxor said. Ever since the discarnation of my mother, he deferred that step because he was unwilling to deprive the volitionalist party of his support, Now it would seem that he has done more to combat statisticalism by discarnating than he ever did in his carnate existence. "'I don't know, Gierzon,' Gierzin of Starpha said, as he joined the group.

"'The statisticalist will denounce the whole thing as a pre-arranged fraud. And if they can discarnate the Lady Delona before she can record her testimony under truth hypnosis or on a lie detector, we're no better off than we were before. you have a great responsibility in guarding the Lady Delona. Some extraordinary security precautions will be needed. In his office, in the first-level city of Jergabar, Tortha Karf, chief of Paratime Police, leaned forward in his chair to hold his lighter for his special assistant, Verkan Vall, then lit his own cigarette.

He was a man of middle age. His 300th birthday was only a decade or so off, and he had begun to acquire a double chin and a bulge at his wife. waistline. His hair, once black, had turned a uniform iron gray, and was beginning to thin in front. "'What do you know about the second-level Acorn Nebsector-Val?' he inquired. "'Ever work in that paratime area?' Verkan Vall's handsome features became even more immobile than usual, as he mentally pronounced the verbal trigger symbols, which should bring the hypnotically acquired knowledge into his conscious mind.

Then he shook his head. "'Must be a singularly well-behaved sector, sir,' he said. "'Or else we've been lucky so far. I never was on an Acorn Neb operation. Don't even have a hypnomech for that sector. All I know is from general reading.' Like all on the second level, its timelines descend from the probability of one or more shiploads of colonists

having come to Terra from Mars about 75 to 100,000 years ago. and then having been cut off from the home planet and forced to develop a civilization of their own here. The Acorn Neb civilization is of a fairly high culture order, even for second level. An atomic power, interplanetary culture, gravity counteraction, direct conversion of nuclear energy to electrical power, that sort of thing. We buy fine synthetic plastics and fabrics from them. He fingered the material of his smartly cut green police uniform. I think this cloth is Acorn Neb. We sell a lot of Venusian Zerpha leaf. They smoke it, straight, and mixed with tobacco. They have a single system-wide government, a single race, and a universal

language. They're a dark brown race, which evolved in its present form about 50,000 years ago. The present civilization is about 10,000 years old, developed out of the wreckage of several earlier civilizations, which decayed or fell through wars, exhaustion of resources, etc. They have legends, maybe historical records, of their extraterrestrial origin. Tortha Karf nodded. Pretty good for a consciously acquired knowledge, he commented. Well, our luck's run out on that sector. We have troubles there now.

I want you to go iron them out. I know you've been going to go iron them out. pretty hard lately. That night-hound business on the fourth-level Europo-American sector wasn't any picnic. But the fact is that a lot of my ordinary and deputy assistants have a little too much regard for the alleged sanctity of human life, and this is something that may need some pretty drastic action. Some of our people getting out of line, Verkan Vall asked. Well, the data isn't too complete, but one of our people has run into trouble,

on that sector and needs rescuing. A psychic science researcher. A young lady named Hadron Dala. I believe you know her, don't you? Tortha Karf asked innocently. Slightly, Verkan Vall deadpanned. I enjoyed a brief but rather hectic companionate marriage with her

about twenty years ago. What sort of a jam's little Dala got herself into now? Well, frankly, we don't know. I hope she's still alive. but I'm not unduly optimistic. It seems that about a year ago, Dr. Hadron transposed to the second level to study alleged proof of reincarnation

which the Acorn Neb people were reported to possess. She went to Gindrabar on Venus and transposed to the second paratime level, to a station maintained by out-time import and export trading corporation, a Zerpha plantation, just each of the High Ridge Country. There, she assumed an identity as the daughter of a planter, and took the name of Delona of Hadron. Paranthetically, all Acorn Neb family names are prepositional.

Family names were originally place names. I believe that ancient Acorn-Neb marital relations were too complicated to permit exact establishment of paternity. And all Acorn-Men's personal names have ears or Arn inserted in the middle, and women's names end in Itra or Ona. You could call yourself Virzala Verkan, for instance. Anyhow, she made the second-level Venus Terra trip on a regular passenger liner, and landed at the Acorn Neb City of Gamma on the Upper Nile.

There, she established contact with the Outtime Trading Corporation representative, Zortan Brand, locally known as Brarnend of Zorda. He couldn't call himself Brarnend of Zortan. In the Acorn-Neb language, Zortan is a particularly nasty, dirty word. Hadron Dalla spent a few weeks at his residence, briefing herself on local conditions. Then she went to the capital city, Darsh, in Eastern Europe,

and enrolled as a student at something called the Independent Institute for Reincarnation Research, having secured a letter of introduction to its director, a Dr. Harnash of Hosh. Almost at once she began sending and reports to her home organization, the Rogam Memorial Foundation of Psychic Science, here at Jergabar, through Zortan Brand. The people there were wildly enthusiastic. I don't have more than the average intelligent, I hope, layman's knowledge of psychics,

but Dr. Volzavdarv Darv, the director of Rogam Foundation, tells me that even in the present incomplete form, her reports have opened whole new horizons in the science. It seems that the these Acorn Neb people have actually demonstrated as a scientific fact that the human individuality reincarnates after physical death, that your personality and mind have existed as such for ages and will exist for ages to come. More, they have means of recovering from almost anybody, memories of past reincarnations. Well, after about a month, the people at this reincarnation institute realized that this Delona of Hadron wasn't any ordinary student.

She probably had trouble keeping down to the local level of psychic knowledge. So, as soon as she'd learned their techniques, she was allowed to undertake experimental work of her own. I imagine she'd let herself out on that. As soon as she'd mastered the standard Acorn-Neb methods of recovering memories of past reincarnations, she began refining and developing them more than the local Yocals had been able to do in the past thousand years.

I can't tell you just what she did, because I don't know the subject, but she must have lit things up properly. She got quite a lot of local publicity, not only scientific journals, but general newscast. Then, four days ago, she disappeared, and her disappearance seemed to have been coincidence with an unsuccessful attempt on her life. We don't know as much about this as we should. All we have is Zortan Bren's account. It seems that on the evening of her disappearance she had been attending a voluntary discarnation feast, suicide party, of a prominent nobleman named Garnon of Roxor. Evidently, when the Acorn Neb people get tired of their current reincarnation, they invite

in their friends, throw a big party, and then do themselves in in an atmosphere of general conviviality. Frequently they take poison or inhale lethal gas. This fellow had his personal trigger man shoot him through the head. Dala was one of the guests of honor, along with this Harnash of hush. They made rather elaborate preparations, and after the shooting they got a detailed and apparent authentic spirit communication from the late Garnon. The voluntary discarnation was just a routine social event, it seems, but the communication caused quite an uproar, and rated top place on the system-wide newscasts, and started a storm of controversy. After the shooting and the communication, Dalla took the officiating gun artist, one Dierzed,

into her own service. This Dierzad was spoken of as a generally respected member of something called the Society of Assassins, and that'll give you an idea of what things are like on that sector, and why I don't want to send anybody who might develop trigger-finger-crap at the wrong moment. She and Deerzad left the home of the gentleman who had just had himself discarnated, presumably for Dalla's apartment, about a hundred miles away. That's the last that's been heard of either of them. This attempt on Dalla's life occurred while the premortem revels were still going on. She lived in a six-room apartment with three servants, on one of the upper floors of a three thousand-foot tower.

Acorn-Neb cities are built vertically, with considerable interval between units. And while she was at this feast, a package was delivered at the apartment, ostensibly from the Reincarnation Institute, and made up to look as though it contained record tapes. One of the servants accepted it from the service employee of the apartments. The next morning, a little before noon,

Dr. Harnash of Hosh called her on the visiphone and got no answer. He then called the apartment manager who entered the apartment. He found all three of the servants dead, from a lethal gas bomb which had exploded when one of them had opened this package. However, Hadron Dalla had never returned to the apartment the night before. Verkan Vall was sitting motionless, his face expressionless, as he ran toward the Carf's narrative through the intricate semantic and psychological processes of the first-level mentality. The fact that Hadron Della had been a former wife of his had been relegated to one corner of his consciousness and contained there. It was not a fact that would, at the moment, contribute to the problem or to his treatment of it.

The package was delivered while she was at this suicide party, he considered. It must, therefore, have been sent by somebody who either did not know she would be out of the apartment, or did not expect it to function until after her return. On the other hand, if her disappearance was due to hostile action, it was the work of somebody who knew she was at the feast and did not want her to reach her apartment again. This would seem to exclude the sender of the package bomb. Tortha Karf nodded. He had reached that conclusion himself. Thus, Verkan Vall continued,

If her disappearance was the work of an enemy, she must have two enemies, each working in ignorance of the others' plans. What do you think she did to provoke such enmity? Well, of course, it just might be that Dalla's normally complicated love-life had got a little more complicated than usual and short-circuited on her, Verkan Vall said, out of the fullness of personal knowledge. But I doubt that at the moment. I would think that this affair has political implications.

Don't you see, Chief, the Special Assistant asked, We find a belief in reincarnation on many timelines, as a religious doctrine, but these people accepted as a scientific fact. Such acceptance would carry much more conviction. It would influence a people's entire thinking. We see it reflected in their disregard for death. Suicide is a social function, this society of assassins and the like. It would naturally color their political thinking, because politics is nothing but common action to secure more favorable living conditions, and to these people the term living conditions includes not only the present life, but also an indefinite number of future lives as well. I find this title, Independent Institute

suggestive. Independent of what? Possibly of partisan affiliation. But wouldn't these people be grateful to her for her new discoveries, which would enable them to plan their future reincarnations more intelligently?" Tortha Karf asked. "'Oh, Chief,' Verkan Vall reproached, "'you know better than that. How many times have our people got in trouble on other timelines, because they divulged some useful scientific fact that conflicted with the locally revered nonsense? You show me ten men who cherish some religious doctrine or political ideology, and I'll show you nine men whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such evidence as a criminal, who ought to be suppressed. For instance, on the fourth level Europo-American sector, where I was just working, there is a political sect, the communists, who, in the territory under their control, forbid the teaching of certain well-established facts of genetics and heredity, because those facts do not fit the world picture demanded by their political doctrines.

On the same sector, a religious sect recently tried, in some sections successfully, to outlaw the teaching of evolution by national, selection." Tortha Karf nodded. I remember some stories my grandfather told me about his narrow escapes from an organization called the Holy Inquisition, when he was a paratime trader on the fourth level, about four hundred years ago. I believe that thing's still operating, on the Europo-American sector, under the name of NKVD.

So you think Dala may have proven something that conflicted with local reincarnation theories, and somebody who had a vested interest in maintaining those theories is trying to stop her? You spoke of a controversy over the communication alleged to have originated with this voluntarily discarnated nobleman. That would suggest a difference of opinion on the manner of nature of reincarnation or the discarnate state. This difference may mark the dividing line between the different political parties. Now, to get to this Darsh place, do I have to go to Venus as Dala did? No. The out-time trading corporation has transposition facilities at Ravenan on the Nile, which is spatially coexistent with the city of Gamma on the Acorn Neb sector, where Zortan

Bren is. You transpose through there, and Zortan Brin will furnish you transportation to Darsh. It'll take you about two days here, getting your hypnomech indoctrinations and having your skin pigmented and your hair turned black. I'll notify Zortan Brin, at once that you're coming through. Is there anything special you want? Why, I'll want an abstract of the reports Dala sent back to Rogam Foundation. It's likely that there is some clue among them as to whom her discoveries may have antagonized. I'm going to be a Venusian Zerpha planter, a friend of her father's. I'll want full hypnomach indoctrination to enable me to play that part. And I'll want to familiarize myself with Acorn Neb Weapon.

and combat techniques. I think that will be all, Chief. End of Part 1. Part 2 of Last Enemy by H. Beam Piper, read by Mark Nelson. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Last Enemy The last of the tall city units of Gamma

were sliding out of sight as the ship passed over them, shaft-like buildings that rose two or three, 3,000 feet above the ground, in clumps of three or four or six, one at each corner of the landing stages set in series between them. Each of these units stood in the middle of a wooded park some five-mile square. No unit was much more or less than 20 miles from its nearest neighbor, and the land between was the uniform golden brown of ripening grain, criss-crossed with the threads of irrigation canals, and dotted here and there with sturdy farm-village building,

and tall stack-like granaries. There were a few other ships in the air at the 50,000 foot level, and below, swarms of small airboats darted back and forth on different levels, depending on speed and direction. Far ahead to the northeast was the shimmer of the Red Sea and the hazy bulk of Asia Minor beyond. Verkan Vall, the Lord Verzil of Verkan temporarily, stood at the glass front of the observation deck looking down.

He was a different Verkan Vall from the man who had talked with Tortha Karf in the latter's office two days before. The first-level cosmetacists had worked miracles upon him with their art. His skin was a soft chocolate brown now. His hair was jet black, and so were his eyes. And in his subconscious mind, instantly available to consciousness, was a vast body of knowledge about conditions on the Acorn Neb sector, as well as a complete command of the local language, all hypnotically acquired.

He knew that he was looking down upon one of the minor provincial cities of a very respectively advanced civilization, a civilization which built its cities vertically, since it had learned to counteract gravitation, a civilization which still depended upon natural cereals for food, but one which had learned to make the most efficient use of its soil. The network of dams and irrigation canals which he saw were as good as anything on his own paradigm level. The wide dispersal of buildings he knew was a heritage of a series of disastrous atomic wars of several thousand years before.

The Acorn Neb people had come to love the wide intervistas of open country and forest, and had continued to scatter their buildings even after the necessity had passed. But the slim, towering buildings could only have been reared by a people who had banished nationalism, and with it the threat of total war. He contrasted them with the ground-hugging dome cities of the Kiftyan civilization, only a few thousand peri years distant. Three men came out of the lounge behind him and joined him. One was, like himself, a disguised paratimer from the first level,

the out-time export and importman, Zortan Brand, here known as Brarnend of Zorda. The other two were Acorn Neb people, and both wore the black tunics and the winged bullet badges of the Society of Assassins. Unlike Verkan Vall and Zortan Brand, who wore shoulder holsters under their short tunics, the assassins openly displayed pistols and knives on their belts. We heard that you were coming two days ago, Lord Virzl, Zortan Brand said. We delayed the take-off of this ship so that you could travel to Darsh as inconspicuously as possible. I also booked a suite for you at the Solar Hotel at Darsh, and these are your assassins, Olorzan and Marnik.

Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them. Virzan of Verkan, he identified himself. I am satisfied to entrust myself. to you. We'll do our best for you, Lord Verzel, the older of the pair, Older Zahn said. He hesitated for a moment, then continued. Understand, Lord Verzel,

I only ask for information useful in serving and protecting you. But is this of the Lady Delona a political matter? Not from our side, Verkan Vall told him. The Lady Delona is a scientist, entirely non-political. The Honorable Brarnand is a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of, businessman. He doesn't meddle with politics as long as the politicians leave him alone. And I'm a planter on Venus. I have enough troubles with the natives and the weather, and blue-rod in the zirpha plants, and poison roaches and javelin bugs, without getting into politics.

But psychic science is inextricably mixed with politics, and the Lady Delona's work had evidently tended to discredit the theory of statistical reincarnation. Do you often make understatements like that, Lord Verzel? Older's ungrinned. In the last six months, she's knock statistical reincarnation to splinters. Well, I'm not a psychic scientist, and as I said, I don't know much about Terran politics, Verkan Vall replied. I know that the statisticalists favor complete socialization and political control of the whole

economy, because they want everybody to have the same opportunities in every reincarnation. And the volitionalists believe that everybody reincarnates as he pleases, and so they favor continuance of the present system of private ownership of wealth and private profit under a system of free competition. And that's about all I do know. Naturally, as a landowner and the holder of a title of nobility, I'm a volitionalist in politics, but the socialization issue isn't important on Venus. There is still too much unseeded land there and too many personal opportunities to make socialism attractive to anybody. Well, that's about it, Zortan Beren told him. I'm not enough of a psychosist to know what the Lady Delon has been doing, but she's not the

theoretical basis from under statistical reincarnation, and that's the basis, in turn, of statistical socialism. I think we'll find that the statisticalism. I think we'll find that the statistical party is responsible for whatever happened to her. Marnik, the younger of the two assassins, hesitated for a moment, then addressed Verkan Vall. Lord Verzel, I know none of the personalities involved in this matter, and I speak without wishing to give offense. But is it not possible that the Lady Delona and the assassin Dierzid may have gone somewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dierzid, and he has many qualities which women find attractive, and he has many qualities which women find attractive, and he is

is by no means indifferent to the opposite sex. You understand, Lord Verzel. I understand all too perfectly, Marnik, Verkan Vall replied, out of the fullness of experience. The Lady Delona has had affairs with a number of men, myself among them, but under the circumstances I find that explanation unthinkable. Marnik looked at him in open skepticism. Evidently, in his book, where an attractive of man and a beautiful woman were concerned, that explanation was never unthinkable. The Lady Delona is a scientist, Verkan Vall elaborated. She is not above diverting herself with love affairs, but that's all they are, a not too important form of diversion. And, if you recall, she had just participated in a most significant experiment.

You can be sure that she had other things on her mind at the time than pleasure jaunts with good-looking assassins. The ship was passing around the Caucasus Mountains, with the Caspian Sea and side ahead, when several of the crew appeared on the observation deck and began preparing the shielding to protect the deck from gunfire. Zortan Brend inquired of the petty officer in charge of the work as to the necessity. We've been getting reports of trouble at Dars, sir, the man said. Newscast bulletins every couple of minutes, rioting in different parts of the city.

Started yesterday afternoon, when a couple of statisticalist members of the Executive Council resigned and went over to the volitionalists. Lord Nierzav of Shona, the only nobleman of any importance in the statisticalist party, was one of them. He was shot immediately afterward while leaving the council chambers, along with a couple of assassins who were with him. Some people in an airboat sprayed them with a machine rifle as they came out onto the landing stage. The two assassins exclaimed in horrified anger over this. That wasn't the work of members of the Society of Assassins, Oler-Zahn declared.

Even after he'd resigned, the Lord Nierzav was still immune till he left the government building. There's two blasted much illegal assassination going on. What happened next, Verkan Vall wanted to know? About what you'd expect, sir. The volitionalists weren't going to take that quietly. In the past 18 hours, four prominent statisticalists were forcibly discarnated, and there was even a fight in Mirzak of Bashad's house, when volitionalist assassins broke in. Three of them and four of

Mirzak's assassins were discarnated. You know, something is going to have to be done about that, too, Orler Zon said to Marnik. It's getting to a point where these political faction fights are being carried on entirely between members of the society. In Gamma alone last year, 30 or 40 of our members were discarnated that way. Plug in a newscast visit plate, Carnal, Zortan Bryn told the petty officer. Let's see what's going on in Darsh now. In Darsh, it seemed, an uneasy peace was being established.

Verkan Vall watched heavily armed airboats and light combat ships patrolling among the high towers of the city. He saw a couple of minor riots being broken up by the blue-uniformed constabulary. with considerable shooting and a ruthless disregard for who might get shot. It wasn't exactly the sort of policing that would have been tolerated in the first-level civil order section, but it seemed to suit Acorn Neb conditions. And he listened to a series of angry recriminations and contradictory statements by different politicians, all of whom blamed the disorders on their opponents.

The volitionalists spoke of the statisticalists as insane criminals, and underminer's of social stability, and the statisticalists called the volitionalists reactionary criminals and enemies of social progress. Politicians he had observed differ little in their vocabularies from one timeline to another. This kept up all the while the ship was passing over the Caspian Sea. As they were turning up the Volga Valley,

one of the ship's officers came down from the control deck above. We're coming in to Darsh now, he said, and as Verkan Vall turned from the visiplate to the forward windows, he could see the white and pastel-tinted towers of the city, rising above the hardwood forests that covered the whole Volga basin on this sector. Your luggage has been put into the airboat, Lord Verzel, and honorable assassins, and it's ready for launching whenever you are. The officer glanced at his watch. We dock at Commercial Center in twenty minutes. We'll be passing the solar hotel in ten. The all rose and Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with the Zortan brand. Good luck, Lady Verzel, the latter said.

I hope you find the Lady Delona safe and carnate. If you need help, I'll be at the mercantile house for the next day or so. If you get back to Gamma before I do, you know who to ask for there. A number of assassins loitered in the hallways and offices of the Independent Institute of Reincarnation Research, when Verkan Vall, accompanied by Marnik, called there that afternoon. Some of them carried submachine guns or sleep gas projectors, and they were stopping people and questioning them. Marnik needed only to give them a quick gesture in the words, Assassin's truce, and he and his client were allowed to pass. They entered a lifter tube and floated up to the office of Dr. Harnash of Hosh, with whom Verkan Vall had made an

appointment. I'm sorry, Lord Verzel, the director of the Institute told him, but I have no idea what has befallen the Lady Delona, or even if she is still carnate. I am quite worried. I admired her extremely, both as an individual and as a scientist. I do hope she hasn't been discarnated. That would be a serious blow to science. It is fortunate that she accomplished as much as she did while she did.

she was with us. You think she is no longer carnate, then? I'm afraid so. The political effects of her discoveries, Harnash of Ha shrugged, sadly. She was devoted, to a rare degree to her work. I am sure that nothing but her discarnation could have taken her away from us at this time,

with so many important experiments still uncompleted. Marnik nodded to Verkan Vall, as much as to say, you were right. Well, I intend acting upon the assumption that she is still carnate and in need of help, until I am positive to the contrary, Verkan Vall said, and in the latter case I intend finding out who discarnated her and send him to apologize for it in person.

People don't forcibly discarnate my friends with impunity. Sound attitude, Dr. Harnash commented. There is certainly no positive evidence that, that she isn't still carnate. I'll gladly give you all the assistance I can if you'll only tell me what you want." Well, in the first place, Verkan, just what sort of work was she doing? He already knew the answer to that, from the report she had sent back to the first level, but he wanted to hear Dr. Harnash's version. And what exactly are the political effects you mentioned?

Understand, Dr. Harnash, I am really quite eager. ignorant of any scientific subject unrelated to Zerpha culture, and equally so of Terran politics. Politics on Venus is mainly a question of who gets how much graft out of what. Dr. Harnar smiled. Evidently, he had heard about Venusian politics. Ah, yes, of course. But you are familiar with the main differences between statistical and volitional reincarnation theories? In a general way, the volitionalist hold that the discarnate individuality is fully conscious and is capable of something analogous to sense perception, and is also capable of exercising

choice in the matter of reincarnation vehicles, and can reincarnate or remain in the discarnate state as it chooses. They also believe that discarnate individualities can communicate with one another, and with at least some carnate individualities by telepathy, he said. The statisticalists deny all this. Their opinion is that the discarnate individuality is in a more or less somnambulistic state, that it is drawn by a process akin to tropism to the nearest available reincarnation vehicle, and that it must reincarnate in and only in that vehicle. They are labeled statisticalists because they believe that the primary,

of reincarnation is purely at random, or governed by unknown and uncontrollable causes, and is unpredictable, except as to aggregates. That's a fairly good generalized summary, Dr. Harnash of Hosh grudged, unwilling to give a mere layman too much credit. He dipped a spoon into a tobacco humidor, dusted the tobacco lightly with dried zirpha, and rammed it into his pipe. You must understand that our modern statisticalists are the intellectual heirs of those ancient materialistic thinkers who denied the possibility of any discarnate existence, or of any extra-physical mind, or even of extrasensory perception.

Since all these things have been demonstrated to be facts, the materialist dogma has been brought to include them, but always strictly within the frame of materialism. We have proven, for instance, that the human individuality can exist in a discarnate state, and that it reincarnates into the body of an infant shortly after birth. But the statisticalists cannot accept the idea of discarnate consciousness, since they conceive of consciousness purely as a function of the physical brain. So they postulate an unconscious discarnate personality, or, as you put it, one in a somnambulistic state. They have to concede memory to this discarnate personality, since it was by recovery of memories

of previous reincarnations, that discarnate existence and reincarnation were proven to be facts. So they picture the discarnate individuality as a material object, or physical event, of negligible but actual mass, in which an indefinite number of memories can be stored as electronic charges. And they picture it as being drawn irresistible. to the body of the nearest non-incarnated infant. Curiously enough, the reincarnation vehicle chosen is almost always of the same sex as the vehicle of the previous reincarnation, the exceptions being cases of persons who had

a previous history of psychological sex inversion. Dr. Harnash remembered the unlighted pipe in his hand, thrust it into his mouth, and lit it. For a moment he sat with it jutting out of his black beard until it was drawing to his satisfaction. This belief in immediate reincarnation leads the statisticalists, when they fight duels or perform voluntary discarnation, to do so in the neighborhood of maternity hospitals, he added, I know personally of one reincarnation memory recall in which the subject, a statisticalist, voluntarily discarnated by lethal gas inhaler in a private room at one of our local maternity

hospitals and reincarnated 20 years later in the city of Jeddell, 3,000 miles away. The square black beard jiggled as the scientist laughed. Now, as to the political implications of these contradictory theories. Since the statisticalists believe that they will reincarnate entirely at random, their aim is to create an utterly classless social and economic order, in which, theoretically, each individuality will, reincarnate into a condition of equality with everybody else. Their political program, therefore, is one of complete socialization of all means of production

and distribution, abolition of hereditary titles and inherited wealth, eventually all private wealth, and total government control of all economic, social, and cultural activities. Of course, Dr. Harnash apologized, politics isn't my subject. I wouldn't presume to judge, how that would function in practice. I would, Verkan Vall said shortly, thinking of all the different timelines on which he had seen systems like that in operation. You wouldn't like it, Doctor.

And the volitionalists? Well, since they believe that they are able to choose the circumstances of their next reincarnation for themselves, they are the party of the status quo. Naturally, almost all the nobles, almost all the wealthy trading and manufacturing families, and almost all the professional people, are volitionalists. Most of the workers and peasants are statisticalists.

Or, at least they were, for the most part, before we began announcing the results of the Lady Delona's experimental work. Ah, now we come to it, Verkan Vall said, as the story clarified. Yes, in somewhat oversimplified form, the situation is rather like, this, Dr. Harnash of Har said. The Lady Delona introduced a number of refinements and some outright innovations into our technique of recovering memories of past reincarnations. Previously, it was necessary to keep the subject in an hypnotic trance, during which he or she would narrate what was remembered of past reincarnations, and this would be recorded. On emerging

from the trance, the subject would remember nothing. The tape recorded, the tape recorded. would be all that would be left. But the Lady Delona devised a technique by which these memories would remain in what might be called the fore-part of the subject's subconscious mind, so that they would be brought to the level of consciousness at will. More, she was able to recover memories of past discarnate existences, something we had never been able to do heretofore. Dr. Harnas shook his head. And to think, when I first met her, I thought she was just another sensation-seeking young lady of wealth, and was almost about to refuse her enrollment. He wasn't the only one whom little Dala had surprised, Verkan Vall thought. At least he had been

pleasantly surprised. You see, this entirely disproves the statistical theory of reincarnation. For example, we got a fine set of memory recalls from one subject for four previous reincarnations and four intercarnations. In the first of these, the subject had been a peasant on the estate of a wealthy noble. Unlike most of his fellows, who reincarnated into other peasant families almost immediately after discarnation, this man waited for fifty years in the discarnate state for an opportunity to reincarnate as the son of an over-servant. In his next reincarnation, he was the son of a technician and received a technical education.

He became a physics researcher. For his next reincarnation, he chose the son of a nobleman by a concubine as his vehicle. In his present reincarnation, he is a member of a wealthy manufacturing family, and married into a family of the nobility. In five reincarnations he has climbed from the lowest to the next to highest rung of the social ladder. Few individuals of this class from whence he began this ascent possessed so much persistence or determination. Then, of course, there was the case of Lord Garnon of Roxor." He went on to describe the last experiment in which Hadron Dalla had participated.

"'Well, that all sounds pretty conclusive,' Verkan Vall commented. "'I take it the leaders of the Volitionless Party here are pleased with the result of the Lady Delona's work.' "'Pleased! My dear Lord Verzel! They're fairly bursting with glee over it!' Harnash of Hosh declared. As I pointed out, the statisticalist program of socialization is based entirely on the proposition that no one can choose the circumstances of his next reincarnation, and that's been demonstrated to be utter nonsense.

Until the Lady Delona's discoveries were announced, they were the dominant party, controlling a majority of the seats in the Parliament and on the Executive Council. Only the Constitution kept them from enacting their entire socialization program long ago, and they were about to legislate constitutional changes which would remove that barrier. They had expected to be able to do so after the forthcoming general elections. But now, social inequality has become desirable. It gives people something to look forward to in the next reincarnation. Instead of wanting to abolish wealth and privilege and nobility, the proletariat want to reincarnate into them. Harnish of Hosh laughed happily.

So, you can see how furious the Statisticalist Party organization is. There's a catch to this somewhere, Marnik, the assassin, speaking for the first time, declared. They can't all reincarnate as princes. There aren't enough vacancies to go round. And no noble is going to reincarnate as a tractor driver to make room for a tractor driver who wants to reincarnate as a noble. That's correct, Dr. Harnash replied. There is a catch to it. A catch, most people would never admit, even to themselves.

Very few individuals possess the willpower, the intelligence, or the capacity for mental effort displayed by the subject of the case I just quoted. The average man's interests are almost entirely on the physical side. He actually finds mental effort painful, and makes as little of it as possible. And that is the only sort of effort a discarnate individual. can exert. So, unable to endure the fifty or so years needed to make a really good reincarnation, he reincarnates in a year or so out of pure boredom, into the first vehicle he can find, usually one nobody else wants. Dr. Harnash dug out the heel of his pipe and blew through the

stem. But nobody will admit his own mental inferiority, even to himself. Now, every machine operator and field hand on the planet thinks he can reincarnate as a prince or a millionaire. Politics isn't my subject, but I'm willing to bet that since statistical reincarnation is an exploded psychic theory, statisticalist socialism has been caught in the blast area and destroyed along with it. Old Erzahn was in the drawing-room of the hotel suite when they returned, sitting on the middle of his spinal column in a reclining chair, smoking a pipe, dressing the edge of his knife with a pocket hone, and gazing letcherously at a young woman in the visiplate. She was an extremely well-designed young woman in a rather fragmentary costume,

and she was heaving her bosom at the invisible audience in anger, sorrow, scorn, entreaty, and numerous other emotions. This revolting crime, she was declaiming, in a husky contralto, as Verkan Vall and Marnik entered. Foul even for the criminal beasts who conceived and perceived and perpetrated it. She pointed an accusing finger. This murder of the beautiful Lady Delona of Hadron! Verkan Vall stopped short, considering the possibility of something having been discovered lately of which he was ignorant. Olirzan must have guessed his thought. He grinned reassuringly. "'Thake nothing of it, Lord Verzal,' he said, waving his knife at the visiplate.

Just political propaganda. Strictly for the sparrows. Nice propagandist, though. And now, the woman with the magnificent natural resources lowered her voice reverently, We bring you the last image of the Lady Delona, and of Deerzid, her faithful assassin, taken just before they vanished, never to be seen again. The plate darkened, and there were strains of slow, dirge-like music. Then it lighted again, presenting a view of a broad hallway, thronged with men and women in bright, very colored costumes. In the foreground, wearing a tight skirt of deep blue and a short red jacket, was Hadron Dalla, just as she had looked in the solidographs taken in Jergabar after her alteration by the

first-level cosmeticians, to conform to the appearance of the Malayoid Akkore Neb people. She was holding the arm of a man who wore the black tunic and red badge of an assassin, a handsome specimen of the acorn nebrace. Trust little Dalla for that, Verkan Vall thought. The figures were moving with exaggerated slowness, as though a very fleeting picture were being stretched out as far as possible. Having already memorized his former wife's changed appearance, Verkan Vall concentrated on the man beside her until the picture faded.

All right, old Erzan, what did you get? he asked. Well, first of all, at Assassin's Hall. O'Learzan said, rolling up his left sleeve, holding his bare forearm to the light, and shaving a few fine hairs from it to test the edge of his knife. Of course, they never tell one assassin anything about the client of another assassin, that standard practice. But I was in the Lodge Secretary's office where nobody but assassins are ever admitted. They have a big panel in there, with the name of the name of the sergeant's office.

of all the lodge members on it in light letters. That's standard in all lodges. If an assassin is unattached and free to accept a client, his name's in white light. If he has a client, the lights change to blue, and the name of the client goes up under his. If his whereabouts are unknown, the lights change to amber. If he's discarnated, his name's removed entirely, unless the circumstances of his discarnation are such as to constitute an injury to the society. In that case, the name's in red light, until he's been properly avenged, or, as we say, till his blood's been mopped up. Well, the name of Deerzid is up in blue light, with the name of Delonov Hadron under it. I found out that the light had been amber for two days

after the disappearance, and then had been changed back to blue. Get it, Lord Verzal? Verkan Vall nodded. I think so. I've been considering that as a possibility from the first. Then what? Then I was about and around for a couple of hours, buying drinks for people, unattached assassins, constabulary detectives, political workers, newscast people. You owe me fifteen system monetary units for that, Lord Verzal.

What I got, when it's all sorted out, I taped it in detail as soon as I got back, reduces to this. The volitionalists are moving mountains to find out who was the spy at Garnon of Roxor's Discarnation Feast, but are doing nothing but nothing at all to find the Lady Delona or Deers-It. The statisticalists are making all sorts of secret efforts to find out what happened to her. The constabulary blamed the Statistos for the package bomb. They're interested in that, because of the discarnation of the three servants by an illegal weapon of indiscriminate effect. They claimed that the disappearance of Deerset and the Lady Delona was a publicity hoax.

The volitionalists are preparing a line of publicity to deny this. Verkan Vall nodded. That ties in with what you learned at Assassin's Hall, he said. They're hiding out somewhere. Is there any chance of reaching Deerset through the Society of Assassins? O'Leersen shook his head. If you're right, and that's the way it looks to me, too, he's probably just called in and notified the society that he still carnate,

and so is the Lady Delona, and called off any search the society might be making for him. And I've got to find the Lady Delona as soon as I can. Well, if I can't reach her, maybe I can get her to send word to me, Verkan Vall said. That's going to take some doing, too. What did you find out, Lord Verzel? Olerzen asked. He had a piece of soft leather now, and we'll be able to take some doing, too. was polishing his blade lovingly.

The reincarnation research people don't know anything, Verkan Vall replied. Dr. Harnash of Hosh thinks she's discarnate. I did find out that the experimental work she's done so far has absolutely disproved the theory of statistical reincarnation. The volitionalist theory is solidly established. Yes, what do you think, O'Learzen, Marnik added. They have a case on record of a man who work up from field-hand to millionaire in five reincarnations, deliberately, that is.

He went on to repeat what Harnash of Hosh had said. He must have possessed an almost idetic memory, for he gave the bearded psychasist's words verbatim, and threw in the gestures and voice inflections. O'learzin grinned. You know, there's a chance for the easy money, boys, he considered. You too can reincarnate as a millionaire. Let Dr. Nierzutz of Futspots help you. Only 4998 system monetary units for the secret, infallible, auto-suggestive formula. And it would sell. He put away the hone in the bit of leather and slipped his knife back into its sheath.

If I weren't a respectable assassin, I'd give it a try myself. Verkan Vall looked at his watch. "'We'd better get something to eat,' he said. "'We'll go down to the main dining-room, the Martian room. room, I think they call it. I've got to think of some way to let the Lady Delona know I'm looking for her. End of Part 2. Part 3 of Last Enemy by H. Beam Piper, read by Mark Nelson. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The Martian Room, 15 stories down, was a big place, occupying almost half of the floor space of one corner tower. It had been fitted to resemble one of

the ruined buildings of the ancient and vanished race of Mars, who were the ancestors of Terran humanity. One whole side of the room was a gigantic cinnitheligraph screen, on which the gully desolation of Martian landscape was projected. In the course of about two hours, the scene changed from sunrise through daylight and night to sunrise again. It was high noon when they entered and found a table. By the time they had finished their dinner, the night was ending, and the first

glow of dawn was tinting the distant hills. They sat for a while, watching the light grow stronger, then got up and left the table. There were five men at a table near them. They had come in before the stars had grown dim, and the waiters were just bringing their first dishes. Two were assassins, and the other three were of a breed Verkan Vall had learned to recognize on any timeline, the arrogant, cocksure, ambitious, leftist politician, who knows what is best for everybody better than anybody else does, and who is convinced that he is inescapably right, and that whoever differs with him is not only an ignoramus, but a venal scoundrel as well. One was a beefy man in a gold-laced, cream-colored dress tunic. He had thick lips and a two-ready

laugh. Another was a rather monkish-looking young man who spoke earnestly and rolled his eyes upward, as though at some celestial vision. The third had the first faint powdering of gray in his black hair, which was, among the Acorn Neb people, almost the only indication of advanced age. "'Of course it is. The whole thing is a fraud,' the monkish young man was saying angrily. "'But we can't prove it.' "'Oh, Zirzab here can prove anything, if you give him time,' the beefy one laughed. "'The trouble is, there isn't too much time. We know that that communication was a fake,

pre-arranged by the volitionalists, with Dr. Harnash and this Delona of Hadron as their tools. They fed the whole thing to that idiot boy hypnotically, in advance, and then, on a signal, he began typing out his spurious communication. And then, of course, Delona and this assassin of hers run off somewhere together, so that we'd be blamed with discarnating or abducting them, and so that they wouldn't be able to testify about the communication on a lie detector. A sudden, happy smile touched Verkan Vall's eyes. He caught each of his assassins by an arm.

Marnik, cover my back, he ordered. Olderzan, cover everybody at the table. Come on. Then he stepped forward, halting between the chairs of the young man and the man with the gray hair and facing the beefy man in the light tunic. You, he barked. I mean you! The beefy man stopped laughing and stared at him. then sprang to his feet. His hand, streaking toward his left armpit, stopped and dropped to his side as O'Learzan aimed a pistol at him. The others sat motionless.

"'You,' Verkan Vall continued, "'are a complete, deliberate, malicious, and unmitigated liar. The Lady Delonov-Hadron is a scientist of integrity, incapable of falsifying her experimental work. What's more, her father is one of my best friends. In his name, and in hers, I demand a full retraction of the slanderous statements you have just made. Do you know who I am? The beefy one shouted. I know what you are, Verkan Vall shouted back. Like most ancient languages, the Acorn Neb speech included an elaborate, delicately shaded, and utterly vile vocabulary of abuse.

Verkan Vall culled from it judiciously and at length. And if I don't make myself understood verbally, we'll go down to the object level, he added, snatching a bowl of soup from in front of the monkish-looking young man and throwing it across the table. The soup was a dark brown, almost black. It contained bits of meat and mushrooms and slices of hard-boiled egg,

and yellow Martian rock-lichen. It produced, on the light tunic, a most spectacular effect. For a moment, Verkan Vall was afraid the fellow would have an apoplectic stroke, or an epileptic fit. Mastering himself, however, he bowed jerkily. Marnark of Bashad, he identified himself. When and where can my friends consult yours? Lord Virzal of Verkan, the paratimer bowed.

back. Your friends can negotiate with mine here and now. I am represented by these gentlemen assassins. I won't submit my friends to the indignity of negotiating with them,' Marnark retorted. I insist that you be represented by persons of your own quality and mine. Oh, you do, old ears and broke in. Well, is your objection personal to me or to assassins as a class? In the first case, I'll remember to make a private project of you, as soon as I'm through with my present employment. If it's the latter, I'll report your attitude to the society. I'll see what Clarnood, our President General, thinks of your views. A crowd had begun to accumulate around the table. Some of them

were persons in evening dress, some were assassins on the hotel payroll, and some were unattached assassins. "'Well, you won't have far to look for him,' one of the latter said, pushing through the crowd to the table. He was a man of middle-age, inclined to stoutness. He made Verkan Vall think of a chocolate figure of Tortha Karf. The red badge on his breast was surrounded with gold lace, and instead of black wings and a silver bullet, it bore silver wings and a golden dagger. He bowed contemptuously at Marnark of Bashad. Clarnud, President General of the Society of Assassins, he announced. "'Marnark of Bashad, did I hear you say that you considered members of the society as

unworthy to negotiate an affair of honor with your friends, on behalf of this nobleman who has been courteous enough to accept your challenge?' he demanded. "'Marnark of Bashad's arrogance suffered considerable evaporation loss. His tone became almost servile. "'Not at all, honorable assassin president,' he protested. But, as I was going to ask these gentlemen to represent me, I thought it would be more fitting for the other gentlemen to be represented by personal friends also. In that way, sorry, Marnark, the gray-haired man at the table said. I can't second you.

I have a quarrel with Lord Versal, too. He rose and bowed. Sirzab of Ebo. Inasmuch as the Honorable Marnark is a guest at my table, an affront to him is an affront to me. In my quality as his host, I must demand satisfaction from you, Lord Verzal." "'Why, gladly, Honorable Sirzab,' Verkan Vall replied. "'This was getting better and better every moment. Of course, your friend, the Honorable Marnark, enjoys priority of challenge.

I'll take care of you, as soon as I have, shall we say, satisfied him.' The earnest and rather consecrated-looking young man rose also, bowing to Verkan Vall. Yerzal of Narva. I, too, have a quarrel with you, Lord Verzal. I cannot submit to the indignity of having my food snatch from in front of me, as you just did. I also demand satisfaction. And quite rightly, Honorable Yerzal, Verkan Vall approved.

It looks like such a good soup, too, he sorrowed, inspecting the front of Marnock's tunic. My seconds will negotiate with yours immediately. Your satisfaction, of course, must come after that of Honorable Sirzab. If I may intrude, Clarnood put in smoothly, may I suggest that as the Lord Verzal is represented by his assassins, yours can represent all three of you at the same time. I will gladly offer my own good offices as impartial supervisor. Verkan Vall turned and bowed,

as to royalty. An honor, assassin president. I am sure no one would act in that capacity more satisfactorily. Well, when would it be most convenient to arrange the details? Carnute inquired. I am completely at your disposal, gentlemen. Why, here and now, while we're all together, Verkan Vall replied. I object to that, Marnak of Bashad vociferated.

We can't make arrangements here. Why, all these hotel people, from the manager down, are nothing but tipsters for the newscast services?' "'Well, what's wrong with that?' Verkan Vall demanded. "'You knew that when you slandered the Lady Delona in their hearing.' "'The Lord Verzal of Verkan is correct,' Clarnood ruled. "'And the offences for which you have challenged him are also committed in public. "'By all means, let's discuss the arrangements now.' He turned to Verkan Vall.

As the challenged party, you have the choice of weapons. Your opponents, then, have the right to name the conditions under which they are to be used. Marnak of Bashad raised another outcry over that. The assault upon him by the Lord Verzal of Verkan was deliberately provocative, and therefore tantamount to a challenge. He himself had the right to name the weapons. Clarnud upheld him. Do the other gentleman make the same clarendon,

claim, Verkan Vall wanted to know. "'If they do, I won't allow it,' Clarnood replied. "'You deliberately provoke Honorable Marnark, but the offences of provoking him at Honorable Seerzob's table and of throwing Honorable Yersov's soup at him were not given with intent to provoke. These gentlemen have a right to challenge, but not to consider themselves provoked.'

"'Well, I choose knives, then,' Marnark hastened to say. Verkan Vall smiled thinly. He had learned knife-play among the greatest masters of that art in all paratime, the third-level Canga pirates of the Caribbean Islands. And we fight barefoot, stripped to the waist, and without any parrying weapon in the left hand, Verkan Vall stipulated. The beefy monarch fairly licked his chops in anticipation. He outweighed Verkan Vall by forty pounds.

He saw an easy victory ahead. Verkan Vall's own confidence increased at these signs of his opponent's assurance. And as for Honorable Sirzab and Honorable Yerzal, I chose pistols, he added. Seerzob and Yerzal held a hasty whispered conference. Speaking both for Honorable Yerzal and for myself, Sirzab announced, We stipulate that the distance shall be 20 meters, that the pistol shall be fully loaded, and that fire shall be at will after the command. Twenty rounds! Fire at will at twenty meters! O'Learzan hooted. You must think our

principles as bad a shot as you are!' The four assassins stepped aside and held a long discussion about something, with considerable argument and gesticulation. Clarnood, observing Verkan Vall's impatience, lean close to him and whispered, This is highly irregular. We must pretend ignorance and be patient. They're laying bets on the outcome. You must do your best, Lord Verzal. You don't want your supporters to lose money.

He said it quite seriously, as though the outcome were otherwise a matter of indifference to Verkan Vall. Marnark wanted to discuss time and place, and proposed that all three duels be fought at dawn, on the fourth landing stage of Darce, Central Hospital. That was closest to the maternity wards, and statistics showed that most births occurred just before that hour. Certainly not, Verkan Vall vetoed. We'll fight here and now. I don't propose going a couple of hundred miles to meet you at any such unholy hour. We'll fight

in the nearest hallway that provides 20-meter shooting distance." Marnark, Sirzob, and Yerzal all clamored in protest. Verkan Vall shouted them down, drawing. on his hypnotically acquired knowledge of Acorn Neb dueling customs. The code explicitly states that satisfaction shall be rendered as promptly as possible, and I insist on a literal interpretation. I'm not going to inconvenience myself and assassin President Clarnute and these four gentlemen assassins just to humor statisticalist superstitions. The manager of the hotel, drawn to the Martian Room by the Uproar,

offered a hallway connecting the kitchens with the refrigerator rooms. It was fifty meters long by five in width, was well-lighted and soundproof, and had a bay in which the seconds and others could stand during the firing. They repaired thither in a body, Clarnood gathering up several hotel servants on the way through the kitchen. Verkan Vall stripped to the waist, pulled off his ankle boots, and examined Olerzon's knife. Its tapering eight-inch blade was done, double-edged at the point, and its handle was covered with black velvet to afford a good grip, and wound with gold wire. He nodded approvingly, gripped it with his index finger,

crooked around the cross-guard, and advanced to meet Marnark of Bashad. As he had expected, the burly politician was depending upon his greater brawn to overpower his antagonist. He advanced with a sideling, spread-legged gate, his knife-hand against his right hip, and his left hand extended in front. Verkan Vall nodded with plea satisfaction, a wrist-grabber. Then he blinked. Why, the fellow was actually holding his knife reversed,

his little finger to the guard, and his thumb on the pommel. Verkan Vall went briskly to meet him, made a faint at his knife-hand with his own left, and then sidestepped quickly to the right. As Marnark's left hand grabbed at his right wrist, his left hand brushed against it and closed into a fist, with Marnark's left thumb inside of it. He gave a quick, downward twist with his wrist, pulling Marnark off balance. Caught by surprise, Marnark stumbled, his knife flailing wildly away from Verkan Vall.

As he stumbled forward, Verkan Vall pivoted on his left heel and drove the point of his knife into the back of Marnark's neck, twisting it as he jerked it free. At the same time he released Marnark's thumb. The politician continued his stumble and fell forward on his face, blood spurting from his neck. He gave a twitch or so, and was still. Verkan Vall stooped and wiped the blood on the dead man's clothes, another Conga pirate gesture, and then returned it to O'learzan. "'Nice weapon, O'learzen,' he said.

"'It fitted my hand as though I'd been born holding it. "'You used it as though you had, Lord Verzel,' the assassin replied. "'Only eight seconds from the time you closed with him.' The function of the hotel servants whom Clarnute had gathered up now became apparent. They advanced, took the body of Marnark by the heels, and dragged it out of the way. The others watched this removal with mixed emotions. The two remaining principles were impassive and frozen-faced. Their two assassins, who had probably bet heavily on Marnark, were chagrined.

And Clarnood was looking at Verkan Vall with a considerable accretion of respect. Verkan Vall pulled on his boots and resumed his clothing. There followed some argument about the pistols. It was finally decided that each combatant should use his own shoulder-holster weapon. All three were nearly enough alike, small weapons, rather heavier than they looked, firing a tiny ten-grain bullet at ten thousand foot seconds. On impact, such a bullet would almost disintegrate. A man hid anywhere in the body with one would be killed instantly.

His nervous system paralyzed and his heart stopped by internal pressure. Each of the pistols carried twenty rounds in the magazine. Verkan Vall and Sirzabaveo took their places, their pistols lowered at their sides, facing each other across a measured twenty meters. "'Are you ready, gentlemen?' Clarnute asked. "'You will not raise your pistols until the command to fire. You may fire at will after it. "'Ready? Fire!' Both pistols swung up to level. Verkan Vall found Seerzob's head in his sights and squeezed.

The pistol kicked back in his hand and he saw a lance of blue flame jump from the muzzle of Seerzobs. Both weapons barked together, and with the double report came the whip-cracking sound of Sirzab's bullet passing Verkan Vall's head. Then Sirzab's face altered its appearance unpleasantly, and he pitched forward. Verkan Vall thumbed on his safety and stood motionless, while the servants advanced, took Zirzab's body by the heels, and dragged it over beside Marnarks. All right, Honorable Yerzal, you're next. Verkan Vall called out.

The Lord Virzal has fired one shot, one of the opposing seconds objected, and the Honorable Yerzal has a full magazine. The Lord Vizal should put in another magazine. I grant him the advantage, let's get on with it, Verkan Vall said. Yerzal of Narva advanced to the firing point. He was not afraid of death. None of the Acorn Neb people were. Their language contained no word to express the concept of

total and final extinction, and discarnation by gunshot was almost entirely painless. But he was beginning to suspect that he had made a fool of himself by getting into this affair. He had work in his present reincarnation which he wanted to finish, and his political party would suffer loss, both of his services and of prestige. "'Are you ready, gentlemen?' Clarnood intained ritualistically. "'You will not raise your pistols until the commandant, to fire. You may fire at will after it. Ready? Fire! Verkan Vall shot Yerzal of Narva through the head before the latter had his pistol half raised. Yerzal fell forward on the splash

of blood Seerzob had made, and the servants came forward and dragged his body over with the others. It reminded Verkan Vall of some sort of industrial assembly line operation. He replaced the two expended rounds in his magazine with fresh ones and slid the pistol back into its holster. The two assassins whose principles had been so expeditiously massacred were beginning to count up their losses and pay off the winners. Clarnood, the President General of the Society of Assassins, came over, hooking fingers and clapping shoulders with Verkan Vall. "'Lord Verzil, I've seen quite a few duels, but nothing quite like that,' he said.

"'You should have been an assassin!' That was a considerable compliment. Verkan Vall thanked him modestly. "'I'd like to talk to you privately,' the assassin president continued. "'I think it'll be worth your while if we have a few words together.' Verkan Vall nodded. "'My suite is on the fifteenth floor above. Will that be all right?'

He waited until the losers had finished settling their bets, then motioned to his own pair of assassins. As they emerged into the Martian room again, the manager was waiting. He looked as though he were about to demand that Verkan Vall vacate his suite. However, when he saw the arm of the President General of the Society of Assassins draped amically over his guest's shoulder, he came forward, bowing and smiling. "'Larnorm, I want you to put five of your best assassins to guarding the approaches to the Lord Vierzel's suite,' Clarnute told him.

"'I'll send five more from Assassin's Hall to replace them their ordinary duties. And I'll hold you responsible with your carnate existence for the Lord Verzal's safety in this hotel. Understand? Oh, yes, Honorable Assassin President, you may trust me. The Lord Virzal will be perfectly safe. In Verkan Vall's suite above, Clarnute sat down and got out his pipe, filling it with tobacco lightly mixed with Zerpha.

To his surprise, he saw his host light a plain tobacco cigarette. "'Don't you use Zerpha?' he asked. "'Very little,' Verkan Vall replied. "'I grow it. If you'd see the bums who hang around our drying sheds on Venus, cadging rejected leaves and smoking themselves into a stupor, you'd be frugal in using it, too.' Clarnoon nodded. "'You know, most men would want a pipe of fifty percent,

or a straight Zerpha cigarette, after what you've been through,' he said. "'I'd need something like that. to deaden my conscience, if I had one to deaden," Verkan Vall said. As it is, I feel like a murderer of babes. That overgrown fool, Marnark, handled his knife like a cow butcher. The young fellow couldn't handle a pistol at all. I suppose the old fellow, Zirzab, was a fair shot, but dropping him wasn't any great feet of arms either. Clarnud looked at him curiously for a moment.

"'You know,' he said at length, I believe you actually mean that." Well, until he met you, Marnark of Bashad was rated as the best knife-fighter in Darsh. Seerzab had ten dueling victories to his credit, and young Gierzal four. He puffed slowly on his pipe. "'I like you, Lord Vizal. A great assassin was lost when you decided to reincarnate as a Venusian landowner. I'd hate to see you discarnated without proper warning. I take it, you're ignorant of a Venusian landowner.

the intricacies of Terran politics? To a large extent, yes. Well, do you know who those three men were? When Verkan Vall shook his head, Clarnood continued. Marnark was the son and right-hand associate of old Mirzark of Bashad, the Statisticalist Party leader. Sir Zerzabaveo was their propaganda director, and Yerzal of Narva was their leading socio-economic theorist,

and their candidate for executive chairman. In six minutes, and with one knife thrust and two shots, you did the statisticalist party in injury second only to that done them by the young lady in whose name you were fighting. In two weeks there will be a planet-wide general election. As it stands, the statisticalists have a majority of the seats in Parliament and on the executive council. As a result of your work and the Lady Delonis, they'll lose that majority, and more,

when the votes are tallied. Is that another reason why you like me? Verkan Vall asked. Un Officially, yes. As President General of the Society of Assassins, I must be non-political. The Society is rigidly so. If we let ourselves become involved

as an organization in politics, we could control the system government inside of five years, and we'd be wiped out of existence in 50 years by the very forces we sought to control, Clarnood said. But personally, I would like to see the Statisticalist Party destroyed. If they succeed in their program of socialization, the society would be finished. A socialist state is, in its final development, an absolute total state.

No total state can tolerate extra-legal and para-governmental organizations. So, we have adopted the policy of giving a little, inconspicuous aid, here and there, to people who are dangerous to the statisticalists. The Lady Delon of Hadron and Dr. Hanash of Hosh are such persons. You appear to be another. That's why I ordered that fellow Lornorm to make sure you are safe in his hotel. Where is the Lady Delona, Verkan Vall asked? From your use of the present tense, I assume you believe her to be still carnate.

Clarnood looked at Verkan Vall keenly. "'That's a pretty blunt question, Lord Verzal,' he said. "'I wish I knew a little more about you. When you and your assassin started inquiring about the Lady Delona, I tried to check up on you. I found out that you had come to Darsh from Gamma, on a ship of the family of Zorda, accompanied by Brarnand of Zorda himself. And that's all I could find out. You claim to be a Venusian planter, and you might be. Any Terran who can handle weapons as you can would have come to my notice long ago.

But you have no more ascertainable history than if you'd stepped out of another dimension. That was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. In fact, it was the truth. Verkan Vall laughed. Well, confidentially, he said, I'm from the Arcturus system. I follow the Lady Delona here from our home planet, and when I have rescued her from among you Salarians, I shall, according to our customs, receive her hand in marriage. As she is the daughter of the Emperor of Arcturus, that'll be quite a good thing for me."

Clarnood chuckled. "'You know, you'd only have to tell me that about three or four times, and I'd start believing it,' he said. And Dr. Harnash of Hosh would believe it the first time. He's been talking to himself ever since the Lady Delona started her experimental work here. Lord Verzal, I'm going to take a chance on you. The Lady Delona is still carnate, or was four days ago, and the same for Dursad. They both went into hiding after the discarnation feast of Garnon of Roxor, to escape the enmity of the statisticalists.

Two days after they disappeared, Derset called Assassin's Hall and reported this, but told us nothing more. I suppose, in about three or four days, I could re-establish contact with it. them. We want the public to think that the statisticalist made away with the Lady Delona at least until the election's over." Verkan Vall nodded. "'I was pretty sure that was the situation,' he said. "'It may well be that they will get in touch with me. If they don't, I'll need your help in reaching them.' "'Why do you think the Lady Delona will try to reach you?'

"'She needs all the help she can get. She knows she can get plenty from me.' Why do you think I interrupted my search for her and risked my carnate existence to fight those people over a matter of verbalisms and political propaganda? Verkan Vall went to the newscast Visiplate and snapped it on. We'll see if I'm getting results yet. The plate lighted, and a handsome young man in a gold-laced green suit was speaking out of it. Where he is heavily guarded by assassins. However, in an exclusive interview with representatives, of this service, the assassin Herezif, one of the two who seconded the men the Lord Verzal fought, said that in his opinion all of the three were so outclassed

as to have had no chance whatever, and that he had already refused an offer of 10,000 system monetary units to discarnate the Lord Verzal for the statisticalist party. When I want to discarnate, here's if the assassin said, I'll invite in my friends and do it properly. Until I do, I wouldn't. go up against the Lord Verzal of Verkan for ten million SMU." Verkan Vall snapped off the visiplate.

"'See what I mean?' he asked. "'I fought those politicians just for the advertising. If Delona and Deerzit are anywhere near a visiplate, they'll know how to reach me.' "'Here's if shouldn't have talked about refusing that retainer,' Clarnood frowned. "'That isn't good assassin ethics.' "'Why, yes, Lord Verzo, that was cleverly planned.' It ought to get results, but I wish you'd get the Lady Delona out of Darsh, and preferably off Terra as soon as you can.

We've benefited by this so far, but I shouldn't like to see things go much further. A real civil war could develop out of this situation, and I don't want that. Call on me for help. I'll give you a code word to use at Assassin's Hall. End of Part 3. Part 4 of Last Enemy by H. Beam Piper. Read by Mark Nelson. This Librovoc's recording is in the public domain. A real civil war was developing, even as Clarnood spoke.

By mid-morning of the next day, the fighting that had been partially suppressed by the constabulary had broken out anew. The assassins employed by the Solar Hotel, heavily reinforced during the night, had fought a pitched battle with statisticalist partisans on the landing stage above Verkan Vall's suite, and now several constabulary airboats were patrolling around the building. The rule on constabulary interference seemed to be that, while individuals had an unquestionable right to shoot out their differences among themselves, any fighting likely to endanger non-participants was taboo.

Just how successful in enforcing this rule the constabulary were was open to some doubt. Ever since arising, Verkan Vall had heard the crash of small arms and the hammering of automatic weapons in other parts of the towering city unit. There hadn't been a civil war on the Acorn Neb sector for over five centuries, he knew, but then Hadron Dalla, Doctor of Psychic Science, and Intertemporal Trouble Carrier Extraordinary, had only been on this sector for a little under a year. If anything, he was surprised that the explosion had taken so long to occur. One of the servants furnished to him by the hotel management approached him in the drawing-room,

holding a four-inch-square wafer of white plastic. Lord Virzal, there is a masked assassin in the hallway who brought this under assassin's truce, he said. Verkan Vall took the wafer and paired off three of the four edges, which showed black where they had been fused. Unfolding it, he found, as he had expected, that the pyrographed message within was in the alphabet and language of the first paratime level.

Val, darling, Am I glad you got here? This time I really am in the middle, but good. The assassin, Deerzid, who brings this, is in my service. You can trust him implicitly. He's about the only person in Darsh you can trust. He'll bring you to where I am. Dalla.

P.S. I hope you're not still angry about that musician. I told you at the time that he was just helping me with an experiment in telepathy. D. Verkan Vall. grinned at the post-script. That had been twenty years ago when he'd been eighty, and she'd been seventy. He supposed she'd expect him to take up his old relationship with her again. It probably wouldn't last any longer than it had the other time. He recalled a fourth-level proverb about the leopard and his spots. It certainly wouldn't be boring, though.

Tell the assassin to come in, he directed. Then he tossed the message down on a table. Outside of himself, nobody in Darsh could read it but the woman who had sent it. If, as he thought highly probable, the statisticalists had spies among the hotel staff, it might serve to reduce some cryptanalyst to gibbering insanity. The assassin entered, drawing off a cow-like mask. He was the man whose armed Dalla had been holding in the visiplate picture. Verkan Vall even recognized the extremely ornate pistol and knife on his belt. "'Deerzid the assassin,' he named himself.

"'If you wish, we can Visiphone Assassin's Hall for verification of my identity. "'Lord Virzal, Overkin, and my assassins, Marnik and Orleirzan.' They all hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with the newcomer. "'That won't be needed,' Verkan Vall told Deersad. "'I know you from seeing you with the Lady Delona on the Visiplate. "'Your Deerset, her faithful assassin.' Deerset's face, normally the color of a good walnut gunstock, turned almost black. He used shockingly bad language.

And that's why I have to wear this abomination, he finished, displaying the mask. The Lady Delona and I can't show our faces anywhere. If we did, every statisticalist and his six-year-old brat would know us, and we'd be fighting off an army of them in five minutes. Where's the Lady Delona now? In hiding, Lord Virzel, at a private dwelling dome in the forest. She's most anxious to see you. I'm to take you to her, and I would strongly advise that you bring your assassins along.

There are people at this dome, and they are not personally loyal to the Lady Delona. I've no reason to suspect them of secret enmity, but their friendship is based entirely on political expediency. And political expediency is subject to change without notice, Verkan Vall finery. finished for him. "'Have you an airboat?' "'On the landing-stage below. Shall we go now, Lord Virzal?' "'Yes.' Verkan Vall made a two-handed gesture to his assassins as though gripping a submachine gun. They nodded, went into another room, and returned carrying light automatic

weapons in their hands and pouches of spare drum slung over their shoulders. "'And may I suggest, Deerset, that one of my assassins drives the airboat? I want you on the back seat with me to explain the situation as we go." Deerset's teeth flashed white against his brown skin as he gave Verkan Vall a quick smile. By all means, Lord Verzal, I would much rather be distrusted than to find that my client's friends were not discreet. There were a couple of hotel assassins guarding Deerset's airboat on the landing stage. Marnik climbed in under the controls with Olerzin beside him.

Verkan Vall and Deerset entered the rear seat. Deerzad gave Marnik the coordinate reference for their destination. Now, what sort of a place is this where we're going? Verkan Vall asked. And who's there whom we may or may not trust? Well, it's a dome house belonging to the family of Starpha. They own a five-mile radius around it, oak and beach forest and underbrush, stocked with deer and boar, a hunting lodge.

Prince Jerzan of Starpha, Lord Girzon of Roxor, and a few other top-level volitionalists know that the Lady Delona is hiding there. They're keeping her out of sight till after the election, for propaganda purposes. We've been hiding there since immediately after the Discarnation Feast of the Lord Garnon of Roxor. What happened after the feast, Verkan Vall wanted to know? Well, you know how the Lady Delona and Dr. Harnash of Hosh had this. telepathic sensitive there, in a trance and drugged with a Zerpha derivative alkaloid the Lady Delona had developed. I was Lord Garnon's assassin. I discarnated him myself. Why, I hadn't

even put my pistol away before he was in control of this sensitive in a room five stories above the banquet hall. He began communicating at once. We had visiplates to show us what was going on. Right away, Nierzav of Shona, one of the statisticalist leaders, who was a personal friend of Lord Garnon's in spite of his politics, renounced statisticalism and went over to the volitionalists on the strength of this communication. Prince Gierzin and Lord Gierzon, the new family head of Roxor, decided that there would be trouble in the next few days, so they advised the Lady Delona to come to this hunting lodge for safety.

She and I came there in her airboat, directly from the feast. A good thing we did, too. If we'd gone to her apartment, we'd have walked in before that lethal gas had time to clear. There are four assassins of the family of Starpha, and six men-servants, and an upper-servant named Tarnad, the gamekeeper. The Starpha assassins and I have been keeping the rest under observation. I left one of the Starpha assassins guarding the Lady Delona when I came for you, under brotherly oath to protect her in my name till I returned.

The airboat was skimming rinking. rapidly above the treetops toward the northern part of the city. What's known about that package bomb? Verkan Vall asked. Who sent it? Deersage shrugged. The statisticalists, of course. The wrapper was stolen from the Reincarnation Research Institute. So was the case. The constabulary are working on it. Deersage shrugged again. The dome, about 150 feet in width and some 50 in height, stood among the trees ahead. It was almost invisible from any distance. The concrete dome was of model green and gray concrete. Trees grew so close as to brush it with their branches, and the little pavilion on the flattened top was

roofed with translucent green plastic. As the airboat came in, a couple of men in Assassin's garb emerged from the pavilion to meet them. Marnik, stay at the controls, Verkan Vall directed. I'll send a liarsan up for you if I want you. If there's any trouble, take off for Assassin's Hall. and give the code word, then come back with twice as many men as you think you'll need." Deersad raised his eyebrows over this. "'I had known the assassin president had given you a code word, Lord Verzal,' he commented. "'That doesn't happen very often.' "'The assassin president has honored me with his friendship,' Verkan Vall replied noncommittally

as he, Deersad, and O'Learzen climbed out of the airboat. Marnik was holding it an unobtrusive inch or so about. above the flat top of the dome, away from the edge of the pavilion roof. Two assassins greeted him, and a man in upper servant's garb and wearing a hunting-knife and a long hunting-pistol approached. Lord Verzal of Verkan, welcome to Starve-Dome. The Lady Delona awaits you below. Verkan Vall had never been in an Acorn-Neb dwelling dome, but a description of such structures

had been included in his hypnomec indoctrination. Originally, they had been the standard structure for all purposes. About 2,000 elapsed years ago, when nationalism had still existed on the Acorn Neb sector, the cities have been almost entirely underground, as protection from air attack. Even now, the design had been retained by those who wish to live apart from the towering city units to preserve the natural appearance of the landscape. The Starpha Hunting Lodge was typical of such domes. Under it was a circular well, 80 feet in depth and 50 in width, with a fountain and shallow circular pool at the bottom.

The storerooms, kitchens, and servants' quarters were at the top, the living quarters at the bottom, in segments of a wide circle around the well, back of the balconies. Tarzad, the gamekeeper, Dierzid performed the introductions, and Irarno and Kierzal, assassins. Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them. Tarnad accompanied them to the lifter tubes, two percent positive gravitation for descent and two percent negative for assent, and they all floated down the former, like air-filled balloons, to the bottom level. The Lady Delona is in the gun-room, Tarnad informed Verkan Vall, making as though to guide him.

Thanks, Tarnad, we know the way, Dierzod told him shortly, turning his back on the upper servant and walking toward a closed door on the other side of the fountain. Verkan Vall and Olerzan followed. For a moment, Tarnad stood looking after them. Then he followed the other two assassins into the ascent tube. I don't relish that fellow, Deerzit explained. The family of Starpha used him for work they couldn't hire an assassin to do at any price.

I've been here often when I was with the Lord Garnon. I've always thought he had some. something on Prince Jerzen. He knocked sharply on the closed door with the butt of his pistol. In a moment it slid open, and a young assassin with a narrow mustache and a tuft of chin-beard looked out. Ah, Deerzid, he stepped outside. The Lady Delona is within. I return her to your care. Verkan Vall entered, followed by Deersad and Olerzin. The big room was fitted with reclining chairs and couches and low tables. Its walls were hung. with the heads of deer and boar and wolves, and with racks holding rifles and hunting pistols

and fowling pieces. It was filled with a soft glow of indirect cold light. At the far side of the room a young woman was seated at a desk, speaking softly into a sound transcriber. As they entered, she snapped it off and rose. Hadron Dalla wore the same costume Verkan Vall had seen on the visiplate. He recognized her instantly. It took her a second or two, to perceive Verkan Vall under the brown skin and black hair of the Lord Verzal of Verkan. Then her face lighted with a happy smile. "'Why, Val!' she whooped, running across the room and tossing herself into his not particularly reluctant arms. After all, it had been twenty years.

"'I didn't know you at first!' "'You mean in these clothes?' he asked, seeing that she had forgotten, for the moment, the presence of the two assassins. She had even called him by his first-level name, but that was unimportant. The Acorn Neb affectionate diminutive was formed by omitting the ears or arn. Well, they're not exactly what I generally wear on the plantation.

He kissed her again, then turned to his companions. Your pardon, gentlemen assassins, it's been something over a year since we've seen each other. O'Learzen was smiling at the affectionate reunions. Union. Deerset wore a look of amused resignation, as though he might have expected something like this to happen. Verkan Vall and Dala sat down on a couch near the desk. "'That was really sweet of you, Val, fighting those men for talking about me,' she began. "'You took an awful chance, though. But if you hadn't, I'd never have known you were in Darsh.

Oh, oh, that's why you did it, wasn't it? Well, I had to do something. Everybody either didn't know or weren't saying where you were. I assumed, from the circumstances, that you were hiding somewhere. Tell me, Dalla, do you really have scientific proof of reincarnation? I mean, as an established fact. Oh, yes. These people on this sector have had that for over ten centuries.

They have hypnotic techniques for getting back into a part of the subconscious mind that we've never been able to reach. And after I found out how they did it, I was able to adapt some of our hypno-epistomological techniques to it, and— "'All right, that's what I wanted to know,' he cut her off. "'We're getting out of here, right away.' "'But where?' Gama, in an airboat I have outside, and then back to the first level,

unless there's a paratime transposition conveyor somewhere nearer. But why, Val? I'm not ready to go back. I have a lot of work to do here yet. They're getting ready to set up a series of control experiments at the Institute, and then I'm in the middle of an experiment, a 200-subject memory-recall experiment. See, I distributed 200 sets of equipment for my new technique,

injection ampules of this Zerpha derivative drug, and sound records of the hypnotic. suggestion formula, which can be played on an ordinary reproducer. It's just a crude variant of our hypnomech process, except that instead of implanting information in the subconscious mind, to be brought at will to the level of consciousness, it works the other way, and draws into conscious knowledge information already in the subconscious mind. The way these people have always done has been to put the subject in an hypnotic trance, and then record verbal statements made in the trance state. When the subject comes out of the trance, the record is all there is, because the

memories of past reincarnations have never been in the conscious mind. But with my process, the subject can consciously remember everything about his last reincarnation, and as many reincarnations before that as he wishes to. I haven't heard from any of the people who received the auto-recall kits, and I really must, Dala. I don't want to have to pull Paratime Police Authority on you, but so help me, if you don't come back voluntarily with me, I will. Security of the Secret of Paratime Transposition." Oh, my eye, Dalla exclaimed. Don't give me that, Val. Look, Dalla, suppose you get discarnated here, Verkan Vall said.

You say reincarnation is a scientific form. fact. Well, you'd reincarnate on this sector, and then you'd take a memory-recall under hypnosis, and when you did, the paratime secret wouldn't be a secret anymore. Oh, Dalla's hand went to her mouth in consternation. Like every paratimer, she was conditioned to shrink with all her being from the mere thought of revealing to any out-time dweller the secret ability of her race to pass to other timelines, or even the existence of alternate lines of probability. And if I took one of the old-fashioned trance recalls,

I'd blad out everything. I wouldn't be able to keep a thing back. And I even know the principles of transposition. She looked at him aghast. When I get back, I'm going to put a recommendation through department channels that this whole sector be declared out of bounds for all paratime transposition, until you people at Rogam Foundation work out the problem of discarnate return to the first level, he told her.

Now, have you any notes or anything you want to take back with you? She rose. Yes, just what's on the desk. Find me something to put the tape spools and notebooks in while I'm getting them in order. He secured a large game bag from under a rack of fowling pieces and held it while she sorted the material rapidly, stuffing spools of record tape and notebooks into it. They had barely begun when the door slid open, and O'Learzan, who had gone outside, sprang into the room, his pistol drawn, swearing vilely.

"'They've double-crossed us,' he cried. "'The servants of Starpha have turned on us.' He holstered his pistol and snatched up his submachine gun, taking cover behind the edge of the door and letting go with a burst in the direction of the lifter tubes. "'Got that one,' he grunted. "'What happened, Olerzen?' Verkan Vall asked, dropping the game-bag on the and hurrying across the room. I went up to see how Marnik was making out. As I came out of the lifter tube, one of the obscenities took a shot at me with a hunting pistol. He missed

me. I didn't miss him. Then a couple more of them were coming up with fowling pieces. I shot one of them before they could fire and jumped into the descent tube and came down heels over ears. I don't know what's happened to Marnik. He fired another burst and swore. Missed him. "'Assassin's truce! Assassin's truce!' a voice howled out of the descent tube. "'Hold your fire! We want to parley!' "'Who is it?' Derset shouted, over Orleans's shoulder. "'You Sarnax! Come on out! We won't shoot!'

The young assassin with the mustache and chin-beard emerged from the descent tube, his weapons sheathed and his clasped hands extended in front of him in a peculiarly ecclesiastical looking manner. Deerzid and O'Learzan stepped out of the gun-room, followed by Verkan Vall and Hadron Dalla. Olirzan had left his submachine gun behind. They met the other assassin by the rim of the fountain pool. Lady Delona of Hadron, the Starpha assassin began, I and my colleagues, in the employ of the family of Starpha, have received orders from our clients to withdraw our protection from you, and to discarnate you, and all with you who undertake to protect or support you.

That much sounded like a recitation of some established formula. Then his voice became more conversational. I, my colleagues, Errano and Kyrzal and Harniff, offer our apologies for the barbarity of the servants of the family of Starpha, in attacking without declaration of cessation of friendship. Was anybody hurt or discarnated? "'None of us,' Olerzan said. "'How about Marnik?'

He was warned before hostilities were begun against him,' Sarnax replied. "'We will allow five minutes until—' O'Learzen, who had been looking up the well, suddenly sprang at Dala, knocked her flat, and at the same time jerking out his pistol. Before he could raise it, a shot banged from above, and he fell on his face. Deerzid, Verkan Vall, and Sarnax all drew their pistols, but whoever had fired the shot had vanished. There was an outburst of shouting above.

Get to cover, Sarnax told the others. We'll let you know when we're ready to attack. We'll have to deal with whoever fired that shot first. He looked at the dead body on the floor, exclaimed angrily, and hurried to the ascent tube, springing upward. Verkan Vall replaced the small pistol in his shoulder holster and took Olerzin's belt, with his knife and heavier pistol. Well, there you see, Deerzad said, as they went back to the gun-room.

So much for political expediency. I think I understand why your picture and the Lady Delonas were exhibited so widely, Verkan Vall said. Now anybody would recognize your bodies, and blame the statisticalist for discarnating you. That thought had occurred to me, Lord Verzel, Dersad said. I suppose our bodies will be atrociously, but not under-a-earned. identifiably mutilated to further enrage the public, he added placidly. "'If I get out of this carnate, I'm going to pay somebody off for it.'

After a few minutes there was more shouting of Assassin's Truce from the dissent tube. The two assassins, Irarno and Kyrzal, emerged, dragging the gamekeeper, Tarnad between them. The upper servant's face was bloody and his jaw seemed to be broken. Sarnax followed, carrying a long hunting pistol in his hand. "'Here he is,' he announced. "'He fired during assassin's truce. "'He's subject to assassin's justice.' He nodded to the others.

They threw the gamekeeper forward on the floor, and Sarnak shot him through the head, then tossed the pistol down beside him. "'Any more of these people who violate the decencies "'will be treated similarly,' he promised. "'Thank you, Sarnax,' Dersid spoke up. "'But we lost an assassin, Discarnating this lackey won't equalize that.

We think you should retire one of your number. That, at least, Dyrzid. Wait a moment. The three assassins conferred at some length, then Sarnax hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with his companions. See you in the next reincarnation, brothers, he told them, walking toward the gun-room door, where Verkan Vall, Dala, and Dersed stood. I'm joining you, people.

You had two assassins when the parley began, you'll have two when the shooting starts. Verkan Vall looked at Dursed in some surprise. Hadron Dalla's assassin nodded. He's entitled to do that, Lord Verzel. The assassin's code provides for such changes of allegiance. Welcome Sarnax, Verkan Vall said, hooking fingers with him. I hope we'll all be together when this is over. We will be, Sarnax assured him cheerfully. Discarnate. We won't get out of this in the body, Lord Verzel. A submachine gun hammered from above, the bullets lashing the

fountain pool. The water actually steamed so great was their velocity. All right, a voice called down. Assassin's truce is over. Another burst of automatic fire smashed out the lights at the bottom of the ascent tube. Dersad and Dalla

struggle across the room, pushing a heavy steel cabinet between them. Verkan Vall, who was holding Olerzin's submachine gun, moved decide to allow them to drop it on edge in the open doorway, then wedge the door half shut against it. Sarnax came over, bringing rifles, hunting pistols, and ammunition. What's the situation up there? Verkan Vall asked him. What force have they, and why did they turn against us? Lord Verzel, Dierzit objected, scandalized. You have no right to ask Sarnax to

betray confidences. Sarnax spat against the door. In the face of Jerzin of Starpha, he said, and in the face of his Zortan mother, and of his father, whoever he was. Deerzad, do not talk foolishly. One does not speak of betraying betrayers. He turned to Verkan Vall. They have three men-servants of the family of Starpha. Your assassin, Olerzen, discarnated the other three. There is one of Prince Jerzin's poor relations, named Gierzad. There are three other men, volitionalist precinct workers, who came with Gierzad, and four assassins, the three who were here, and one who came with Gierzad. Eleven against the three of us. The four of us, Sarnax, Dala corrected. She had buckled on a hunting pistol and had a light deer rifle under her arm.

Something moved at the bottom of the descent tube. Verkan Vall gave it a short burst, though it was probably only a dummy, dropped to draw fire. The four of us, Lady Delona, Sarnax agreed. As to your other assassin, the one who stayed in the airboat, I don't know how he fared. You see, about twenty minutes ago, this Gerzad arrived in an airboat, with an assassin and these three volitionalist workers. Errarno and I were at the top of the dome when he came in.

He told us that he had orders from Prince Jerzan to discarnate the Lady Delona and Deerzad at once. Tarnad, the gamekeeper, Sarnak spat ceremoniously against the door again, told him you were here, and that Marnik was one of your men. He was going to shoot Marnik at once, but I Rarano and I and his assassin stopped him. We warned Marnik about the change in the situation, according to the code, expecting Marnik to go down here and join you. Instead, he lifted the airboat, zoomed over Gierzad's boat, and let go a rocket blast. setting Gierzad's boat on fire.

Well, that was a hostile act, so we all fired after him. We must have hit something, because the boat went down, trailing smoke, about ten miles away. Geersad got another airboat out of the hangar, and he and his assassin started after your man. About that time your assassin, Olerzin, happy reincarnation to him, came up, and the starved a servant fired at him, and he fired back and discarnated two of them. and then jumped down the descent tube. One of the servants jumped after him. I found his body at the bottom when I came down to warn you formally.

You know what happened after that. But why did Prince Jerzan order our discarnation, Dalla wanted to know? Was it to blame the statisticalists with it? Sarnax, about to answer, broke off suddenly and began firing at the opening of the ascent tube with a hunting pistol. I got him, he said in a pleased tone. That was Ararno. He was always playing tricks with the tubes, climbing down against negative gravity and up against positive gravity. His body will float up to the top. Why, Lady Delona,

that was only part of it. You didn't hear about the big scandal on the newscast then? We didn't have it on. What scandal? Sarnax laughed. Oh, the very father and family head of all scandals! You ought to know about it, because you started it. That's why Prince Jerzin wants you out of the body. You devised a process by which people could give themselves memory recalls of previous reincarnations, didn't you? And distributed apparatus to do it with?

And gave one set to young Tarnov, the son of Lord Tiersov of Fasthor? Dalla nodded. Sarnax continued. Well, last evening, Tarnox of Fasor used his recall outfit, and what do you think? It seems that thirty years ago, in his last reincarnation, he was Jerzid of Starpha, Jirzin's older brother. Jirzid was betrothed to the Lady Anitra of Zabna. Well, his younger brother was carrying on a clandestine affair with the Lady Anitra,

and he also wanted the title of Prince and family head of Starpha. So he bribed this fellow Tarnad, whom I had the pleasure of discarnating, and who was an underservant here at the hunting lodge. Between them, they shot Jerzid during a boar hunt. An accident, of course. So Jerzin married the Lady Anitra, and when old Prince Jarned, his father, discarnated a year later, he succeeded to the title. And immediately Tarnad was made head gamekeeper here.

"'What did I tell you, Lord Verzel? I knew that son of a Zortan had something on Jerzan of Starpha,' Dierzit exclaimed. A nice family, this of Starpha." "'Well, that's not the end of it,' Sarnax continued. This morning, Tarnov of Fastor, late Gierzid of Starpha, went before the High Court of Estates and entered suit to change his name to Gierzit of Starpha, and laid claim to the title of Starpha family head. The case has just been entered, so there's been no hearing, but there's the blazes of an argument among all the nobles about it. Some are claiming,

that the individuality doesn't change from one reincarnation to the next, and others claiming that property and titles should pass along the line of physical descent, no matter what individuality has reincarnated into what body. They're the ones who want the Lady Delona discarnated and her discovery suppressed. And there's talk about revising the entire system of estate ownership and estate inheritance. Oh, it's an utter obscenity of a business. business. This, Verkan Vall told Dala, is something we will not emphasize when we get home. That was as close as he dared come to it, but she caught his meaning. The working of major

changes in out-time social structures was not viewed with approval by the Paratime Commission on the first level. If we get home, he added, then an idea occurred to him. Dierzid, Sarnax. This place must have been used by the leaders of the volitionalists for top-level conferences. Is there a secret passage anywhere?' Sarnak shook his head. Not from here. There is one, on the floor above, but they control it. And even if there were one down here, they would be guarding the outlet. That's what I was counting on. I'd hope to simulate an escape that way, then make a rush up the regular tubes. Verkan Vall shrugged. I suppose Manric's our only chance. I hope he got away

safely. He was going for help? I was surprised that an assassin would desert his client. I should have thought of that, Sarnak said. Well, even if he got down Carnate, and if Gierzad didn't catch him, he'd still be a foot ten miles from the nearest city unit. That gives us a little chance, about one in a thousand. Is there any way they can get at us except by those tubes? Dala asked. They could cut a hole in the floor, or burn one through, Sarnax replied. They have plenty of thermite. They could detonate a charge of explosives over our heads, or clear out of the dome and drop one down the well.

They could use lethal gas or radio dust, but their assassins wouldn't permit such illegal methods. Or they could shoot sleep gas down at us and then come down and cut our throats at their leisure. We'll have to get out of this room, then, Verkan Vall decided. They know we've barricaded ourselves in here. This is where they'll attack. So, we'll patrol the perimeter of the well. We'll be out of danger from above if we keep close to the wall, and we'll inspect all the rooms on this floor for evidence of cutting through from above. Sarnax nodded. That's sense, Lord Verzel. How about the lifter tubes? We'll have to barricade them.

Sarnax, you and Deerzid know the layout of this place better than the latest. Delona or I. Suppose you two check the rooms while we cover the tubes and the well, Verkan Vall directed. Come on, now. End of Part 4. Part 5 of Last Enemy by H. Beam Piper, read by Mark Nelson. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Last Enemy, part five. They pushed the door wide open and went out past the cabinet. Hugging the wall, they began a slow circuit of the well, Verkan Vall in the lead with the submachine gun, then Sarnax endears it, the former with a heavy bore rifle, and the latter with a hunting pistol in each hand, and had Drandalla brought up the rear with her rifle. It was she who noticed a movement

along the rim of the balcony above and snapped a shot at it. There was a crash above, and a shower of glass and plastic and metal fragments rattled on the pavement of the court. Somebody had been trying to lower a scanner or a visiplate pickup or something of the sort. The exact nature of the instrument was not evident from the wreckage Dala's bullet had made of it. The rooms Dierzit and Sarnax entered were all quiet. Nobody seemed to be attempting to cut through the ceiling, 15 feet above. They dragged furniture from a couple of rooms, blocking the openings of the lifter tubes, and continued around the well until they had reached the gun room again. Dierz had suggested that they moved some of the weapons and ammunition stored the,

there to Prince Jerzin's private apartment, halfway around to the lifter tubes, so that another place of refuge would be stocked with munitions in event of there being driven from the gunroom. Leaving him on guard outside, Verkan Vall, Dala, and Sarnax entered the gunroom and began gathering weapons and boxes of ammunition. Dalla finished packing her game bag with the recorded data and notes of her experiments. Verkan Vall selected four more of the heavy hunting pistols, more accurate than his shoulder holster weapon or the dead Olerzin's belt arm, and capable of either full or semi-automatic fire. Sarnax chose a couple more bore rifles.

Dalla slung her bag of recorded notes and another bag of ammunition and secured another deer rifle. They carried this accumulation of munitions to the private apartments of Prince Jirzin, dumping everything in the middle of the drawing room, except the bag of notes from which Dala refused to separate herself. "'Maybe we'd better put some stuff over in one of the rooms on the other side of the well,' Deers had suggested. "'They haven't really begun to come after us.

When they do, we'll probably be attacked from two or three directions at once.' They returned to the gun-room, casting anxious glances at the edge of the balcony above, and at the barricade they had erected across the openings to the lifter-tubes. Verkan Vall was not satisfied with this last. It looked to him as though they had provided a breastwork for somebody to fire on from, more than anything else. He was about to step around the cabinet, which partially blocked the gun-room door, when he glanced up, and saw a six-foot circle on the ceiling, turning slowly brown.

There was a smell of scorched plastic. He grabbed Sarnax by the arm and pointed. Thermite, the assassin whispered. The ceiling's got six inches of spaceship insulation between it and the floor above. It'll take them a few minutes to burn through it. He stooped and pushed on the barricade, shoving it into the room. room. Keep back. They'll probably drop a grenade or so through first, before they jump down. If we're quick, we can get a couple of them." Deerzad and Sarnax crouched, one at either side

of the door, with weapons ready. Verkan Vall and Dalla had been ordered, rather peremptorily, to stay behind them. In a place of danger, an assassin was obliged to shield his client. Verkan Vall, unable to see what was going on inside the room, kept his eyes and his gun muzzle on the barricade across the openings to the lifter tubes, the erection of which he was now regretting as a major tactical error. Inside the gunroom there was a sudden crash, as the circle of thermite burned through and a section of ceiling dropped out and hit the floor. Instantly, Deerzid flung himself back against Verkan Vall, and there was a tremendous explosion inside, followed by another and another. A second or so passed, then Deersad, leaning around

the corner of the door, began fire. firing rapidly into the room. From the other side of the door, Sarnax began blazing away with his rifle. Verkan Vall kept his position, covering the lifter tubes. Suddenly, from behind the barricade, a blue-white gun flash leaped into being and a pistol banged. He sprayed the opening between a couch and a section of bookcase from whence it had come, releasing his trigger as the gun rose with the recoil, squeezing and releasing and squeezing again. Then he jumped to his feet. "'Come on, the other place. Hurry,' he ordered.

Sarnax swore in exasperation. "'Help me with her, Dyrzid,' he implored. Verkan Vall turned his head to see the two assassins drag Dala to her feet and hustle her away from the gun-room. She was quite senseless, and they had to drag her between them. Verkan Vall gave a quick glance into the gun-room. Two of the Starfa servants and a man in a rather flashy civil dress were lying on the floor, where they had been shot as they had jumped down from above. He saw a movement at the edge of the irregular smoking hole in the ceiling

and gave it a short burst, then fired another at the exit from the descent tube. Then he took to his heels and followed the assassins and had run Dalla into Prince Jirzin's apartment. As he ran through the open door, the assassins were letting Dalla down into a chair. They instantly threw themselves into the work of barricading the doorway so as to provide cover and at the same time allow them to fire out into the central well. For an instant, as he bent over her, he thought Dala had been killed, an assumption justified by his knowledge of the deadliness of Acorn Neb bullets.

Then he saw her eyelids flicker. A moment later he had the explanation of her escape. The bullet had hit the game bag at her side. It was full of spools of metal tape in metal cases, and no doubt. in written form, pyrographed upon sheets of plastic ring, fastened into metal binders. Because of their extreme velocity, Acorn Neb bullets were sure killers when they struck animal tissue, but for the same reason they had very poor penetration on hard objects. The alloy steel tape and the steel spools and spool cases and the notebook binders had been enough to shatter

the little bullets into splinters of magnesium nickel alloy, and the stout leather back of the game bag had stopped all of these. But the impact, even distributed as it had been through the contents of the bag, had been enough to knock the girl unconscious. He found a bottle of some sort of brandy and a glass on a serving table nearby and poured her a drink, holding it to her lips. She spluttered over the first mouthful, then took the glass from him and sipped the rest. "'What happened?' she asked. "'I thought those bullets were sure death.' "'Your notes. The bullet hit the bag. Are you all right now?'

She finished the brandy. "'I think so.' She put a hand into the game bag and brought out a snarled and tangled mess of steel tape. "'Oh, blast! That stuff was important. All the records on the preliminary auto-recall experiments.' She shrugged. "'Well, it wouldn't have been worth much if I'd stop that bullet myself.' She slipped the strap over her shoulder and started to rise. As she did, a bedlam of firing broke out, both from the two assassins at the door and

from outside. They both hit the floor and crawled out of line of the partly open door. Verkan Vall recovered his submachine gun, which he had set down beside Dalla's chair. Sarnax was firing with his rifle at some target in the direction of the lifter tubes. Deers had lay slumped over the barricade, and one glance at his crumpled figure was enough to tell Verkan Vall that he was dead. You fill magazines for us, he told Dalla, then crawl to Deerset's place at the door. What happened, Sarnax? They shoved over the barricade at the lifter tubes and came out into the well.

I got a couple, they got Dierzid, and now they're holed up in rooms all around the circle. They—ah! He fired three shots, quickly around the edge of the door. That stopped that! The assassin crouched to insert a fresh magazine into his rifle. Verkan Vall wrist one eye around the corner of the doorway, and as he did, there was a red flash and a dull roar, unlike the blue flashes and sharp-cracking reports of the pistols and rifles from the doorway of the gun-room. He wondered for a split second if it might be one of the

fowling pieces he had seen there, and then something whizzed past his head and exploded with a soft plop behind him. Turning, he saw a pool of gray vapor beginning to spread in the middle of the room. Dala must have got a breath of it, for she was slumped over the chair from which she had just risen. Dropping the Sudmachine gun and gulping a lungful of fresh air from outside, Berkenval rushed to her, caught her by the heels, and dragged her into Prince Jerzin's bedroom beyond. Leaving her in the middle of the floor, he took another deep breath and returned to the drawing-room, where Sarnax was already overcome by the sleep gas. He saw the serving table from which he got the brandy and dragged it over to the bedroom door,

overturning it and laying it across the doorway, its legs in the air. Like most Acorn Neb's serving tables, it had a gravitation counteraction unit under it. He set this for double minus gravitation and snapped it on. As it was now above the inverted table, the table did not rise, but a tendril of sleep gas curling toward it, bent upward and drifted away from the doorway. Satisfied that he had made a temporary barrier against the sleep gas, Verkan Vall secured Dalla's hunting pistol and spare magazines and laid down at the bedroom door. For some time there was silence outside. The besiegers evidently decided that the sleep gas attack had been a success.

An assassin, wearing a gas mask and carrying a submachine gun, appeared in the doorway, and behind him came a tall man in a tan tunic similarly masked. They stepped into the room and looked around. Knowing that he would be shooting over a 200% negative gravitation field, Verkan Vall aimed for the assassin's belt buckle and squeezed. The bullet caught him in the throat. Evidently, the bullet had not only been lifted in the negative gravitation, but lifted point first and deflected upward. He held his front sight just above the other man's knee and hit him in the chest. As he fired, he saw a wisp of gas come sliding around the edge of the inverted table.

There was silence outside, and for an instant he was tempted to abandon his post and go to the bathroom, back of the bedroom, for wet towels to improvise a mask. Then, when he tried to crawl backward, he could not. There was an impression of distant shouting which turned into a roaring sound in his head. He tried to lift his pistol, but it slipped from his fingers. When consciousness returned, he was lying on his back, and something cold and rubbery was pressing into his face. He raised his arms to fight off whatever it was, and opened his eyes, to find that he was staring directly at the red oval and winged bullet of the society of assassins. A hand caught his wrist as he reached for the small pistol under his arm.

The pressure on his face eased. "'It's all right, Lord Verzel,' a voice came to him. "'Assassin's truce!' He nodded stupidly, and repeated the words. "'Assasson's truce, I won't shoot. What happened?' Then he sat up and looked around. Prince Jerzin's bedchamber was full of a assassin's. assassins. Dalla, recovering from her touch of sleep gas, was sitting grogly in a chair,

while five or six of them fussed around her, getting in each other's way, handing her drinks, chafing her wrists, holding damp cloths on her brow. That was standard procedure when any group of males thought Dala needed any help. Another assassin, beside the bed, was putting away an oxygen mask outfit, and the assassin who had prevented Verkan Vall from drawing his pistol was his own follower, Marnik. And Clarnood, the assassin president, was sitting on the foot of the bed, smoking one of Prince Jerzen's monogrammed and crested cigarettes critically. Verkan Vall looked at Marnik, and then at Clarnood, and back to Marnik. You got through, he said. Good work, Marnik. I thought they downed you. They did. I had to crash land in the woods. I went about a mile on foot,

and then I found a man and a woman and two children, hiding in one. of these little log-range shelters. They had an airboat, a good one. It seemed that rioting had broken out in the city unit where they lived, and they'd taken to the woods till things quieted down again. I offered them Assassin's protection if they'd take me to Assassin's Hall, and they did. By luck I was in when Marnik arrived, Clarnood took over. We brought three boatloads of men and came here at once.

Just as we got here, two boatloads of Starfa dependents arrived. They tried to give us an argument, and we discarnated the lot of them. Then we came down here, crying assassin's truce. One of the Starpha assassins, Kyrzal, was still carnate. He told us what had been going on. The President General's face became grim. You know, I take a rather poor view of Prince Jerzin's procedure in this matter, not to mention that of his underlings.

I'll have to speak to him about this. Now, how about you and the Lady Delona? What do you intend doing?" "'We're getting out of here,' Verkan Vall said. "'I'd like air transport and protection as far as Gamma to the establishment of the family of Zorda. Brarnend of Zorda has a private space yacht. He'll get us to Venus.'

Clarnood gave a sigh of obvious relief. "'I'll have you and the Lady Delona airborne and off for Gamma as soon as you wish,' he promised. "'I will, frankly, be delighted to see the last of both of you. The Lady Delona has started a fire here at Darsh that won't burn out in a half-century, and who knows what it may consume. He was interrupted by a heaving shock that made the underground dome dwelling shake like a light airboat in turbulence.

Even 80 feet under the ground they could hear a continued crashing roar. It was an appreciable interval before the sound and the shock ceased. For an instant there was silence, and then an excited bedlam of shouting broke from the assassins in the room. Clarnute's face was frozen in horror. "'That was a fission bomb,' he exclaimed. "'The first one that has been exploded on this planet in hostility in a thousand years.' He turned to Verkan Vall. "'If you feel well enough to walk, Lord Verzel, come with us. I must see what's happened.'

They hurried from the room and went streaming up the ascent tube to the top of the dome. About forty miles away to the south, Verkan Vall saw the sin and the Senate of the room. Mr. Thing that he had seen on so many other timelines and in so many other paradigm sectors, a great pillar of very colored fire-shot smoke, rising to a mushroom head fifty thousand feet above. Well, that's it, Clarnute said sadly. That is Civil War. May I make a suggestion, Assassin President, Verkan Vall asked? I understand that Assassin's truce is binding even upon non-assassons.

Is that correct? Well, not exactly. It's generally kept by such non-assassassons as want to remain in their present reincarnations, though. That's what I meant. Well, suppose you declare a general, planet-wide assassin's truce in this political war, and make the leaders of both parties responsible for keeping it. Publish lists of the top two or three thousand statisticalists and volitionalists, starting with Mirzak of Bashad and Prince Jerzan of Starfa.

and informed them that they will be assassinated in order if the fighting doesn't cease. Well, a smile grew on Clarnute's face. Lord Verzal, my thanks, a good suggestion. I'll try it, and furthermore, I'll withdraw all assassin protection permanently from anybody involved in political activity, and forbid any assassin to accept any retainer connected with political factionalism. It's about time our member stopped discarnating each other in these political squabbles. He pointed to the three airboats drawn up on the top of the dome, speedy black craft bearing the red oval and winged bullet.

Take your choice, Lord Verzel. I'll lend you a couple of my men, and you'll be in Gamma in three hours. He hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with Verkan Vall, bent over Dalla's hand. I still like you, Lord Verzil, and I have seldom met a more charming lady than you. you, Lady Delona, but I sincerely hope I never see either of you again." The ship for Jergabar was driving north and west. At seventy thousand feet it was still daylight, but the world below was wrapping itself in darkness. In the big visis screens, which served in lieu of the windows which could never have withstood the pressure and friction heat of

the ship's speed, the sun was sliding out of sight over the horizon to port. Verkan Vall and and Dalla sat together, watching the the blazing western sky, the sky of their own first-level timeline. I blame myself terribly, Val, Dala was saying, and I didn't mean any of them the least harm. All I was interested in was learning the facts. I know, that sounds like, I didn't know it was loaded, but—it sounds to me like those fourth-level Europo-American sector physicists who are giving themselves guilt complexes because they designed an atomic bomb, Verkan Vall replied. All you were interested in was learning the facts. Well, as a scientist, that's all you're

supposed to be interested in. You don't have to worry about any social or political implications. People have to learn to live with newly discovered facts. If they don't, they die of them. But, Val, that sounds dreadfully irresponsible. Does it? You're worrying about the results of your reincarnation memory-recall discoveries, the shootings and riotings and the bombings we saw. He touched the pommel of Alyerson's knife, which he still wore. You're no more guilty of that than the man who forged this blade is guilty of the death of Marnak of Barshad. If he'd never lived, I'd have killed Marnak with some other knife somebody else made. And what's more, you can't know the results of your discoveries. All you can

see is a thin film of events on the surface of an immediate situation, so you can't say whether the long-term results will be beneficial or calamitous. Take this fourth-level Europo-American atomic bomb, for example. I choose that because we both know that sector, but I could think of a hundred other examples in other paratime areas. Those people, because of deforestation, bad agricultural methods, and general mismanagement, are eroding away their arable soil at an alarming rate. At the same time, they're breeding like rabbits. In other words, each successive generation has less and less food to divide among more and more people, and for inherited traditional and superstitious reasons,

they refuse to adopt any rational program of birth control and population limitation. But fortunately, they now have the atomic bomb, and they are developing radioactive poisons, weapons of mass effect. And their racial, nationalistic, and ideological conflicts are rapidly reaching the explosion point. A series of all-out atomic wars is just what that sector needs to bring their population down to their world's carrying capacity. In a century or so, the inventors of the atomic bomb will be hailed as the saviors of their species. But how about my work on the Acorn Neb sector? Dalla asked. It seems that my memory recall technique is more explosive than any fishing bomb. I've laid the train for a century-long reign of anarchy.

I doubt that. I think Clarnood will take hold, now that he has committed himself to it. You know, in spite of his sanguinary profession, he's the nearest thing to a real man of goodwill I've found on that sector. And here's something else you haven't considered. Our own first-level life expectancy is from four to five hundred years. That's the main reason. why we've accomplished as much as we have. We have, individually, time to accomplish things. On the Acorn-Neb sector, a scientist or artist or scholar or statesman will grow senile and die before he's as old as either of us. But now, a young student of 20 or so can take one of your auto-recall treatments and immediately have available all the knowledge and experience gained in

four or five previous lives. He can start where he left off in his last reincarnation. In other words, you've made those people time-benders, individually, as well as racially. Isn't that worth the temporary discarnation of a lot of ward-heelers and plug-uglies, or even a few decent types like Deerzid and Olerzin? If it isn't, I don't know what scales of values you're using. Val, Dalla's eyes glowed with enthusiasm. I never thought of that. And you said, temporary discarnation. That's just what it is. It is. Deerzid and Olerzin and the others aren't dead. They're just waiting, discarnate,

between physical lives. You know, in the sacred writings of one of the fourth-level peoples, it is stated, death is the last enemy. By proving that death is just a cyclic condition of continued individual existence, these people have conquered their last enemy. Last enemy, but one, Verkan Vall corrected. They still have one enemy to go. an enemy within themselves. Call it semantic confusion or illogic or incomprehension or just plain stupidity. Like Clarnute, stymied by verbal objections to something labeled political intervention. He'd never have consented to use the power of his society if he hadn't been shocked out of his inhibitions by that nuclear bomb.

Or the statisticalists, trying to create a classless order of society through a political program, which would only result in universal servitude to an omnipotent government. Or the volitionalist nobles, trying to preserve their hereditary feudal privileges, and now they can't even agree on a definition of the term hereditary. Might they not recover all the silly prejudices of their past lives, along with the knowledge and wisdom? But I thought you said—Dala was puzzled, a little hurt. Verkan Vall's arm squeezed around her waist, and he laughed comfortingly.

You see, any sort of result is possible, good or bad, so don't blame yourself in advance for something you can't possibly estimate. An idea occurred to him, and he straightened in the seat. Tell you what, if you people at Rogam Foundation can get the problem of discarnate paratime transposition licked by then, lets you and I go back to the Acorn Neb sector in about a hundred years, and see what sort of a mess those people have made of things. A hundred years.

That would be year 22 of the next millennium. It's a date, Val. We'll do it. They bent to light their cigarettes together at his lighter. When they raised their heads again and got the flame glare out of their eyes, the sky was purple black, dusted with stars, and dead ahead, spilling up over the horizon, was a golden glow, the lights of Jergabar and home. The End of Last Enemy by H. Beam Piper.