The PLANET of SHAME By BRUCE ELLIOTT Illustrated by FINLAY _One day, James Comstock's father took James aside and started to tell him the facts of life. Which was not so unusual--except that James was 35._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories May and June 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [Illustration: At 35, James Comstock was still an infant when it came to knowing what life was all about.] AT THE END.... The three who had endured so much sat and waited. Their reward was in sight. When you have fought for so long against forces strong beyond imagining, when you have struggled in despair, lived without hope, success when it finally comes, is almost anti-climactic. Despite the traps, the violence, the hurts, the fear, they were now where they had wanted to be. They sat quietly, their hands folded, and if any feeling of triumph was in them, it was so muted as not to be observable. At that precise moment, when they sat in the ante-room, waiting for their reward, waiting to become part of the Board of Fathers, working directly under The Grandfather, the only common emotion they shared was that they had fought the good fight. Fought as hard as it is in a person to fight for what they consider right.... The door opened and The Grandfather was in the room. His visage was marked by a high hooked nose, broad high forehead, and deep set harsh blue eyes, focussed on the middle distance. His strong old hands were crossed on his stomach just below his patriarchal beard. It was hard to believe. Hard to believe that they, or anyone below the rank of Father would ever actually behold Him in the flesh. When he spoke his voice was all the things they had known it would be. Deep as an organ bass, calm, full of authority, stern yet with a leavening of those other things that make up the whole man, his voice was almost gentle as he said, "Follow me, please." They rose and feeling like children, followed his tall spare back out of the ante-room, into that other room where the Board waited for them. There was no fear in them now as there would have been a year ago. For they were not coming before the Board for judgment, but to be rewarded. The Grandfather said, "These three are the ones...." There was silence. "They have come to join us," The Grandfather said. The silence expanded. "Gentlemen, Fathers all, these are the three new Fathers." The Grandfather's voice faded away and there was no other sound. None of the ten men who made up the Board of Fathers said a word. But the three who had fought their way up to this eminence stood in silence and looking about them, examined the ten men with whom they would now share the control of their whole world. This was the moment of their triumph. CHAPTER 1