Design For Doomsday By Bryce Walton Slogging through Venus' reeking muck and groping horrors toward the forbidding dome of Solar Science City--treasure-vault of the best brains in the System--Guardsman Venard remembered the frightened whispers: "An evil god rules there!" [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The tone of the slurred, emotionless voice was cold and deadly, as were the tones of all Martians who had taken to their grotesque hearts the mystic, dictatorial disease of Zharkonism. It droned an implacable death song from the audio. It echoed horribly down the shadow-eaten labyrinth of that sprawling death-mart which was officially labeled Terro Concentration Camp Seven. ... _Another exalted warrior of the Occupational Armies of Zharkon, the Undying--Zharkon, the ever-just and divine director of the Solar System--Zharkon, the voice of the Gods--has been brutally slain by terran underground subversives. In retaliation, five hundred Terran inferiors will go to the experimental wards by decree of our divine Martian Zharkon--Zharkon, our illustrious solar father_ ... The audio droned on. But none of the tier on tier of doomed men imprisoned in the rehabilitated ruins of Washington's subterranean levels listened any more. They were ragged, skeletal shapes crouched like frightened animals in the filthy shadows. Feverishly bright eyes stared with a fanatic's hunger for death, the release from hopeless, mind-shattering pain and indignity. Those who would not wilfully sign away their futures to colonial slavery under the Martian dictatorship were killed in devious and ghastly ways. The death toll was high. In each of the little prison cubicles two figures waited, helpless behind cold metal. It would seem impossible to find even one face which did not wear the terrible scar of resignation which marks the souls of the hopeless. Yet in one of these prison cubicles there were two such. Two Terran Guardsmen. The great Terran Guards, what few remained of the once colorful and renowned Solar Patrol, semantically-trained, objective yet warmly human, knew there was no resignation. That was death if carried to its obvious conclusion. While one lived, one moved, acted, and was acted upon. While one lived there was conflict, and there was always hope. Although perhaps only the few remnants of the Guards and the small Underground which flourished dangerously somewhere in the ruins of the Earth retained this pre-Solar War attitude. Perhaps this stubborn minority totaled one percent. Perhaps. No one knew.