Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/64

 sending him with a crash to the floor.

Tredel had the pistol in his hand, then, and stood, watchfully, waiting for Del to make some movement, watching for some sign that help had been called, or that there might be automatic defenses.

Del lay motionless.

There was a light, strong chain in the desk. Tredel passed it around Del, securing his arms, wondering if the chain had been meant for himself.

Then he stared down. He thought he saw movement. The blow wasn't hard enough to knock Del out, really.

"No use playing, Del. I saw you move.

"You know, I'm sorry on several counts. I wanted to believe in you. If I could have, if you could have trusted in me, I might have helped you. As it is—what can I do?

"Obviously, the weapons you've gathered will have to be destroyed. I can't introduce them to this day and age."

Tredel looked at the screens showing the huge stacks of supplies already gathered.

"I guess that can be done. The boxes can be ripped open, then the caves flooded with water. That should take care of them. That, and Time. Your friends in the Underground will get an awful shock, of course.

"Then I'll have to shut off production, break up your control of companies." He glanced toward the files. "All the information I need should be there. I guess the companies could be given to the employees with the compliments of whatever name you've used in each case. I'll close up your project, Del, once and for all."

He thought of the matter projector—Transmatter. Since history had him as the inventor—or discoverer—perhaps he could—No, that wouldn't be good. Destroy it, then work it out on his own, and come up with the crude form history would tell about.

"I wanted to believe in you, Del. I guess you had a right to succeed, taking the, gamble you did, doing what you've done—but I can't see letting a hundred thousand people take over ten billion. Sounds too much like a dictatorship movement of your own.

"If the Dictator is all you say, you had a simpler way out. You didn't have to come back in time and take over a body, build all these weapons. You could have operated in your own time, taken over the body and brain of the Dictator. That would be the easy way to straighten things out. That's what you would have done if the majority of the people would have supported your cause."

He stared at Del, looking for some sign of life, then shrugged and turned to the viewers, studying them, wondering what first step he would take to ruin those vast stacks of supplies showing on the screens, how to shut off the flow of those still 64