Kerry did not need to look at it to know that it was the editorial and rough draft of the news story he had written. He crushed it in his hand. Lew Fallon said bitterly, “I did the best I could, Mr. Donalson. Ben’s dead now. Like my Dad. And for what?” “Be quiet, Lew,” said Doctor Chapman in a resonant voice which had a little of the same blurred quality as Ben’s, but was made sharper by an accent of authority. “We appreciate what you did for Ben. Only--” “Only it was the wrong thing,” the commander interrupted. “We all appreciate it, and I, perhaps, most of all. But your mistaken kindness killed him, Fallon.” He leaned forward slightly, and said, “I shall be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Donalson. If you were a farmer, or a plumber, or the manager of a cigar store, we would let you talk all you pleased, for we could be quite sure that no one would listen. We could always have you confined--briefly of course--in a mental institution, as a precaution against anyone believing you. Or at the worst--” he paused. “At the worst we could have you listed as--another Pharig casualty.” Fallon burst out, “And they call this a free world!” The commander ignored him. “There are laws against inciting to riot,” he said slowly, as if searching for the right words. “And you are in the peculiar position of having a large communications medium at your command. I assure you we would have no compunctions about invoking those laws against you. However, we hope such drastic action may not be necessary. “At present, there are four other newspapers in your exact position. One in Buenos Aires, one in Dallas, Texas, one in Bombay and one in Sheffield, England. To the owners and editors of these newspapers, we have made the identical revelation we are making to you. Ben Thrusher was right. _There are no Pharigs._ There never were any.” “So Ben was right,” Dr. Chapman repeated, looking hard at Kerry. “We’ve actually got a military dictatorship.” Commander Lal said, “We had a military dictatorship after the Three Days’ War--or rather, we had two of them. The Asian Alliance--we freely admit it--were planning to use plague germs in the next war, and I don’t believe even your most rabid nationalists would deny that the Free Americas were making rocket-bombs with radiocobalt warheads. Atomic war is a lemming urge, and it would at least have remedied our worst problem--overpopulation. Natural resources were going fast. Coal and oil were virtually gone, and we had to save the heavy isotopes for space flight, or we’d never get off the earth, and die on a worn out planet.” * * * * * He shrugged heavily. “The Pharig invasion was a desperate expedient. The so-called military decision not to use H-bombs on the invaders was another. Actually, all the thermonuclear weapons had been dismantled to replace dwindling power resources until we could get workable solar power--and to conserve something for space flight.”