"Our swiftness may well depend on instant communication, which you clearly do not have." The face began speaking louder and more rapidly, as if in haste. "Very well. I have a great deal to tell you. I can give you instant communication and power that depends on sunlight instead of muscle. I can tell you of the universe beyond what you know. I can show you how to link your little tribes into one great State, and to link your State to the stars you now see for the first time. Come to me as soon as you can . .

The voice of Kendy died in a most peculiar fashion, blurring into mere noise, as the brutal face blurred into a wash of colored lines. Then the voice was silent, and the storm pattern around Gold glowed blue and white through the bow window.

Chapter Twenty-two - Citizens' Tree

KENDY'S READINGS WERE BEGINNING TO BLUR. FRUSTRATINGLY, the CARM's aft and ventral cameras worked perfectly. He had two fine views of the stars and the thickening Smoke Ring atmosphere. Plasma streamed past the dorsal camera, and Kendy sought the spectral lines of silicon and metals: signs that the CARM's hull was boiling away. There was some ablation, not much more than he would have expected when the CARM was new.

Inside the cabin the CO2 content was building. The jolting looked bad enough to tenderize meat. The passengers were suffering: mouths wide, chests heaving. Temperature was up to normal and rising. A blurred figure snapped its safety bands loose and struggled to tear its clothing away. Kendy couldn't get medical readings through the growing ionization, but the pilot had been under terrific tension earlier.

It looked chancy, whether the CARM would live or die. Kendy wasn't sure which he preferred.

He had bungled.

The principle was simple and had served the State before. To further the cause, a potential convert was ordered to commit some obscene crime. He could never repudiate the cause after that. To do so would be to admit that he had committed an abomination.

The caveat was simple too. One must never give such an order unless it would be obeyed.

Kendy was ashamed and angry. He had attempted to bind their loyalty to him by ordering an execution. Instead, he had almost turned them all into mutineers! He'd had to back down gracefully and fast.

He'd had no chance to recover from that, with the ionosphere building up around the CARM, cutting communications. His medical readings

told him that they had lied to him, somewhere. He shouldn't have

forced them to do that either! He didn't know enough even to guess at

what they were hiding.

Too late now. If he sent some lethal course correction now, ionization

would garble it. If they lived, they would tell of a Kendy who was

powerful but gullible, a Kendy who could be intimidated. If they died

Kendy would remain a legend fading into a misty past.