The Blue Tower, Evelyn E. Smith [brene brown rising strong txt] 📗

"Please, young man——" the Belphin began. "You don't understand. Let me explain."

But Ludovick destroyed the thing before it could say anything further, and he passed right through the barrier. He had to get to the top and warn The Belphin of Belphins, whoever or whatever he (or it) was, that the Flockharts had a secret weapon which might be able to annihilate it (or him). Belphin after Belphin Ludovick destroyed, and barrier after barrier he penetrated until he reached the top. At the head of the stairs was a vast golden door.

"Go no further, Ludovick Eversole!" a mighty voice roared from within. "To open that door is to bring disaster upon your race."

But all Ludovick knew was that he had to get to The Belphin within and warn him. He battered down the door; that is, he would have battered down the door if it had not turned out to be unlocked. A stream of noxious vapor rushed out of the opening, causing him to black out.

When he came to, most of the vapor had dissipated. The Belphin of Belphins was already dying of asphyxiation, since it was, in fact, a single alien entity who breathed another combination of elements. The room at the head of the stairs had been its tank.

"You fool...." it gasped. "Through your muddle-headed integrity ... you have destroyed not only me ... but Earth's future. I tried to make ... this planet a better place for humanity ... and this is my reward...."

"But I don't understand!" Ludovick wept. "Why did you let me do it? Why were Mieczyslaw and George and all the others killed? Why was it that I could pass the barriers and they could not?"

"The barriers were triggered ... to respond to hostility.... You meant well ... so our defenses ... could not work." Ludovick had to bend low to hear the creature's last words: "There is ... Earth proverb ... should have warned me ... 'I can protect myself ... against my enemies ... but who will protect me ... from my friends'...?"

The Belphin of Belphins died in Ludovick's arms. He was the last of his race, so far as Earth was concerned, for no more came. If, as they had said themselves, some outside power had sent them to take care of the human race, then that power had given up the race as a bad job. If they were merely exploiting Earth, as the malcontents had kept suggesting, apparently it had proven too dangerous or too costly a venture.

Shortly after The Belphin's demise, the Flockharts arrived en masse. "We won't need your secret weapons now," Ludovick told them dully. "The Belphin of Belphins is dead."

Corisande gave one of the rippling laughs he was to grow to hate so much. "Darling, you were my secret weapon all along!" She beamed at her "relatives," and it was then he noticed the faint lines of her forehead. "I told you I could use the power of love to destroy the Belphins!" And then she added gently: "I think there is no doubt who is head of 'this family' now."

The uncle gave a strained laugh. "You're going to have a great little first lady there, boy," he said to Ludovick.

"First lady?" Ludovick repeated, still absorbed in his grief.

"Yes, I imagine the people will want to make you our first President by popular acclaim."

Ludovick looked at him through a haze of tears. "But I killed The Belphin. I didn't mean to, but ... they must hate me!"

"Nonsense, my boy; they'll adore you. You'll be a hero!"

Events proved him right. Even those people who had lived in apparent content under the Belphins, accepting what they were given and seemingly enjoying their carefree lives, now declared themselves to have been suffering in silent resentment all along. They hurled flowers and adulatory speeches at Ludovick and composed extremely flattering songs about him.

Shortly after he was universally acclaimed President, he married Corisande. He couldn't escape.

"Why doesn't she become President herself?" he wailed, when the relatives came and found him hiding in the ruins of the Blue Tower. The people had torn the Tower down as soon as they were sure The Belphin was dead and the others thereby rendered inoperant. "It would spare her a lot of bother."

"Because she is not The Belphin-slayer," the uncle said, dragging him out. "Besides, she loves you. Come on, Ludovick, be a man." So they hauled him off to the wedding and, amid much feasting, he was married to Corisande.

He never drew another happy breath. In the first place, now that The Belphin was dead, all the machinery that had been operated by him stopped and no one knew how to fix it. The sidewalks stopped moving, the air conditioners stopped conditioning, the food synthesizers stopped synthesizing, and so on. And, of course, everybody blamed it all on Ludovick—even that year's run of bad weather.

There were famines, riots, plagues, and, after the waves of mob hostility had coalesced into national groupings, wars. It was like the old days again, precisely as described in the textbooks.

In the second place, Ludovick could never forget that, when Corisande had sent him to the Blue Tower, she could not have been sure that her secret weapon would work. Love might not have conquered all—in fact, it was the more likely hypothesis that it wouldn't—and he would have been killed by the first barrier. And no husband likes to think that his wife thinks he's expendable; it makes him feel she doesn't really love him.

So, in thirtieth year of his reign as Dictator of Earth, Ludovick poisoned Corisande—that is, had her poisoned, for by now he had a Minister of Assassination to handle such little matters—and married a very pretty, very young, very affectionate blonde. He wasn't particularly happy with her, either, but at least it was a change.

—EVELYN E. SMITH