Last Enemy | Page 8

Akor-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
respectably 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 was as good as anything on his own
paratime level. The wide dispersal of buildings, he knew, was a heritage of a series of
disastrous atomic wars of several thousand years before; the Akor-Neb people had come

to love the wide inter-vistas 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 Khiftan
civilization, only a few thousand parayears 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 Outtime Export and Import man, Zortan
Brend, here known as Brarnend of Zorda. The other two were Akor-Neb people, and both
wore the black tunics and the winged-bullet badges of the Society of Assassins. Unlike
Verkan Vall and Zortan Brend, 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 Virzal," Zortan Brend 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--Olirzon, and Marnik."
Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them.
"Virzal of Verkan," he identified himself. "I am satisfied to intrust myself to you."
"We'll do our best for you, Lord Virzal," the older of the pair, Olirzon, said. He hesitated
for a moment, then continued: "Understand, Lord Virzal, I only ask for information
useful in serving and protecting you. But is this of the Lady Dallona a political matter?"
"Not from our side," Verkan Vall told him. "The Lady Dallona is a scientist, entirely
nonpolitical. The Honorable Brarnend is a business man; 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-rot in the zerfa plants, and poison
roaches, and javelin bugs, without getting into politics. But psychic science is
inextricably mixed with politics, and the Lady Dallona's work had evidently tended to
discredit the theory of Statistical Reincarnation."
"Do you often make understatements like that, Lord Virzal?" Olirzon grinned. "In the last
six months, she's knocked 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 land-owner 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 unseated land there, and too many personal opportunities, to make socialism
attractive to anybody."

"Well, that's about it," Zortan Brend told him. "I'm not enough of a psychicist to know
what the Lady Dallona's been doing, but she's knocked the theoretical basis from under
Statistical Reincarnation, and that's the basis, in turn, of Statistical Socialism. I think we'll
find that the Statisticalist Party is responsible for whatever happened to her."
Marnik, the younger of the two Assassins, hesitated for a moment, then addressed Verkan
Vall:
"Lord Virzal, 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 Dallona and the
Assassin Dirzed may have gone somewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dirzed, and
he has many qualities which women find attractive, and he is by no means indifferent to
the opposite sex. You understand, Lord Virzal--"
"I understand all too perfectly, Marnik," Verkan Vall replied, out of the fullness of
experience. "The Lady Dallona has had affairs with a number of men, myself among
them. But under the