[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Comet January 41.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
War! Years and decades of slaughter and hate and retrogression, of menagainst men, machines against machines, machines against men, in anever quickening tempo of destruction. The World War, the War of theWings, the War of the Rockets, the Pacifist War, the World Revolutiondrowning in the sea of its own blood, and at last peace, the Peace ofFear.
And in this Peace cities rose again on the surface of the earth, roadsfound new ways across the blasted continents, great ships again safelyplied the seas, the skies were burdened with commerce and everywherethe mighty deserts slowly shrank before the verdancy of nature and thegenius of man.
But the ground was soaked with blood of the lost generations marchingin endless columns to their sacrifice to hate. The vibrations of thehate were in the very ground beneath the cities. There was bitter hatein the hearts of the men who toiled to build the forms of civilizationwithout its spirit, urged on by the lash, the torture chamber and thepurge. And the focus of all this hatred was the Master, Protector ofthe Peace, betrayer and dictator of a world.
Once he had been the idol of the war-weary millions as he sent therobots of the Pacifist Democrats to victory after brilliant victory;as the regimented subjects of the brigand nations had broken theirchains to fight under the banners of the great League of Scientistswho promised peace and freedom and security; and as the League itselfgave him complete control over the mighty armaments contrived for man'ssalvation.
By the time the last stubborn flame-fort had surrendered, he stoodupon a dazzling pinnacle of glory such as men had only dreamed before,and he would not descend to be again a man among men. He refusedto return his dread powers to the League. When they insisted, heimprisoned them, and they escaped to raise his armies and all peoplesagainst him, shouting the war cries of freedom, so that the wholeworld seemed to batter against his citadel like a sea of thunderand flame. Yet he alone controlled the robots, and the robots wentforth bringing darkness to the sky and fire to the earth. The armiesof the people were defeated and scattered, only to fight again fromburied strongholds and mountain fastnesses. Then again and again therobots went forth, until the continents were shattered deserts and theunderground cities great smoking craters open to the sky.
While the Master's vengeance still flickered through the wastelands,his rebuilding had begun, and now he sat high and secure in his greatRoom of Power, that seemed to float as a miraculous campanulet ofsilver above the half mile peak of the Serene Tower. There was nosound in this room save the Master's breathing, but against its outerwalls of glass lapped the purr and whisper and whine of millions ofhorsepower performing their appointed tasks. From the Southern Portcame the drone of a great liner beating its way into the stratosphere,from where the thunder of its released rockets would come to him onlyas a faint orange streak is a dazzling sky. Through the air also camethe hum of hovering taxicopters far below, the muted rumbling of thegreat moving streets and freightways and the mutter and crash and clangof building machines, all dying against this shell of glass. Throughthe mighty frame of the building itself quivered the vibrations of thegiant factories, endlessly fabricating materials for more factories,more cities, more ships of the sky and sea, mere power and glory forthe Master. But these vibratio