Last Enemy | Page 4

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," Nirzav replied, "but I think you're right.
As soon as I get home, I'll call Assassins' Hall and make the necessary arrangements."
"Better do it now," Girzon 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 Mirzark of Bashad by this
time. He won't dare allow you to make a public renunciation of Statisticalism." He turned
to the other nobleman. "Prince Jirzyn, why don't you call the Volitionist headquarters and
have a couple of our Assassins sent here to escort Lord Nirzav home?"
"I'll do that immediately," Jirzyn of Starpha 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're responsible for your safety."
He left the room to make the necessary visiphone call. Dallona, accompanied by Dirzed,
returned to her place at the table, where she was joined by Harnosh of Hosh and some of
the others.
"There's no question about the results," Harnosh 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 Dallona. "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."
"Dirzed also asked a question, mentally, after the discarnation, and got an answer. Dr.
Harnosh, 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," Dallona 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 had been considering voluntary discarnation for a long time," Girzon 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, Girzon," Jirzyn of Starpha said, as he joined the group. "The Statisticalists
will denounce the whole thing as a prearranged fraud. And if they can discarnate the
Lady Dallona before she can record her testimony under truth hypnosis or on a lie
detector, we're no better off than we were before. Dirzed, you have a great responsibility
in guarding the Lady Dallona; some extraordinary security precautions will be needed."
* * * * *
In his office, in the First Level city of Dhergabar, 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 three hundredth birthday was only
a decade or so off--and he had begun to acquire a double chin and a bulge at his 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 Akor-Neb Sector, Vall?" 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 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 Akor-Neb operation; don't even have a hypno-mech for that sector. All
I know is from general reading.
"Like all the Second Level, its time-lines descend from the probability of one or more
shiploads of colonists having come to Terra from Mars about seventy-five to a hundred
thousand years ago, and then having been cut off from the home planet and forced to