Frederik Pohl is one of the collaboratin'est men even in this field in which multiple authorship is so commonFrederik 
Pohl is one of the collaboration'est men even in this field in which multiple 
authorship is so common. He is best known, of course, for his excellent novels 
(both science fiction and "straight") with C. M. Kornbluth. He has worked with 
Jack Williamson on a likable series of teen-age books; and he has further 
collaborated, in an all but impenetrable haze of pseudonyms, with Isaac Asimov, 
Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr., Robert W. Lowndes, Dirk Wylie .. 
This story is, I believe, his first with F&SF's Broadway critic William 
Morrison. Fittingly it deals with collaborationif in quite a different sense: 
the sense which the word acquired, in World War II, of helping the invader to 
maintain his control over one's own people. This control is, fortunately for the 
world, not so simple a matter as a galactic Viceroy may think. There is, Messrs. 
Morrison and Pohl shrewdly point out, a certain inevitable flaw in any 
collaborationist structure. 
 
Stepping Stone
by WILLIAM MORRISON and FREDERIK POHL
 
ARTHUR CHESLEY WAS A CHEMIST, but you mustn't think of him as a scientist. He 
was nothing of the kind. 
He didn't inquire into the secrets of naturemaybe once he had, but then the 
foundation grants ran out; and since his specialty couldn't be twisted to sound 
as though it had anything to do with either nuclear energy or cancer cure it was 
a matter of get a job or starve. So he got a job. He spent eight hours a night, 
six nights a week, watching a stainless steel kettle with his fingers crossed. 
"She's getting hot, Mr. Chesley!" one of the lab assistants would yell, and he'd 
have to run over and tell them what to do. "Pressure's up, Mr. Chesley!" another 
would cry, and he'd have to do something about thator anyway, tell the 
assistants what to do, because the union rules were pretty strong about who did 
the actual work. It was all a matter of polymerization, which is cooking little 
short molecules into big long molecules, and what came out of it all was rubber, 
or maybe plastic wrappers, or the stuff that goes into children's toys, 
depending on what was needed right thenand also on whether or not the kettle 
exploded. Well, it was an easy job, except when the pressure suddenly climbed. 
And it was night work, so Chesley had his days free. He kind of liked it, partly 
because he got to boss the crew of assistants around. And they didn't mind. They 
thought the whole thing was pretty funny, partly because they got two-forty an 
hour against Chesley's dollar-seventy-five. 
Chesley's wife didn't think that was funny at all. What she said was: 
"Stepping stone! Arthur, you've been in a rut for seven years and I want to tell 
you that I'm getting tired of stepping stones that don't step anywhere and 
Another thing, why can't you work days like anybody else instead of sleeping all 
the time I'm trying to clean the house? Did you ever stop to think how much 
trouble that makes for me? Can't you have any consideration for anybody else 
and And why can't you make your own lunch to take to the plant? Other men make 
their own lunches. If you wouldn't sit around the house watching television 
you'd have time to make your lunch, not to mention doing a few other little 
That reminds me, what's keeping you from putting up the screens? The house will 
be crawling, and I mean crawling, with every bug in the Bronx if you don't get 
around to it. You hear me? Or is that too menial a job for a real chemista real 
chemist that's got a job that's a stepping stone to a fine career of Arthur! 
Arthur, I'm talking to you! You come back here!" 
But the job did leave his days free. Chesley escaped from the house and headed 
down toward the corner bar, where the barkeep drew him a beer with a half-inch 
collar without waiting to be asked. "You're early," said the bartender, handing 
Chesley his change. "I thought you'd be watching television." 
"That's what I wanted," Chesley said bitterly. "I wanted to see that new program 
they're talking about." 
The barkeep said, "That Viceroy thing?" 
"Yeah. The one they cancelled all the other shows for. Harry, what's the matter 
with you that you don't have a TV like every other bar in the Bronx?" 
"It's my wife," the bartender explained; and maybe that wouldn't have been 
enough for any other man, but it was enough for Arthur Chesley. The bartender 
said, "Say, whyn't you go see it in person?" 
"You mean at the studio?" 
"Nah. No studio. Here." And the bartender picked a card off the top of a stack 
at the end of the counter. "Fellow left these here this morning." 
Chesley read it, sipping his beer. FREE ONE DOLLAR FREE it said at the top, and 
that was pretty interesting. These nuts, he thought, I wonder how they're going 
to wiggle out of it in the fine print? Chesley had a wide experience of things 
marked "free," and they had always, always turned out to be not so very free at 
all. The small printnot very small, eithersaid only: 
The Viceroy will make an announcement of unparalleled importance to every person 
in the world TODAY At the Yankee Stadium 
* ONE DOLLAR FREE to every person attending 
* FIVE ADDITIONAL DOLLARS FREE to every person who stays to the end of the 
program. 
"Whoever he is," Chesley said, offering to return the card. 
"Keep it. It's probably some kind of advertising deal, you know?" 
"If it is, it costs plenty of money," said Chesley. "Why, the Stadium must hold 
more than seventy-five thousand people. If everybody gets six bucks, whyhey, 
that's nearly half a million dollars!" 
"Nah. Nobody's going to spend half a million," said Harry positively. 
"Um," said Chesley. He finished his beer and put the card in his pocket. "I 
don't know," he said, "maybe I'll take a look." And why not? Because after all 
it was nearly twelve hours until it was time to polymerize some more molecules, 
and the only other place he could think of was home. 
They really did give away a dollar. Somebody had hooked up gadgets to the 
turnstiles, and when you pushed your way through there was a click and a rattle 
and a dollar bill popped up through a slot like a paper towel in a restaurant 
washroom. It looked real, too. 
There were seats down in the field, just like at a prize fight, and about where 
the pitcher's box usually was, there was a platform with microphones and TV 
cameras. There must have been plenty of people in the Bronx who enjoyed getting 
a dollar FREE, because the seats filled up rapidly. 
Arthur was earlythat was his habit; and he got a good seat. He had nothing to 
do but chat with his neighbors and eat. He bought himself two hot dogs and an 
ice cream cone. Ordinarily he was careful about his moneythat is, his wife was 
careful about money and he was careful about his wife but he regarded the 
dollar as found money, and he had every intention of staying on to the bitter 
end, regardless, in order to collect the other five. 
At about the time all the seats were filled he discovered that he really was 
going to stay on, regardless. Because as soon as the Stadium was full the gates 
were closed; and Chesley could see that they were being locked, and that guards 
were standing firmly in front of them, turning people away. 
There wasn't any way out. 
And then the field lights flickered and spots came on, beaming down at the 
platform. And a man appeared. 
He appeared. He didn't walk quickly up the stairs, or come out from behind a 
curtain. He appeared. The only part of that statement that is questionable is 
that he was "a man." Chesley thought that, taking everything into account, he 
looked like a man. 
But he was ten feet tall; and he had a halo that glowed all around him. 
He said good evening, and his voice was heard all over the park. Maybe it was 
the microphones, but Chesley didn't think the sound came from the microphones; 
it seemed to come from the speaker himself; and the voice was odd. Not metallic. 
Not foreign. Not any of the words that people use to describe the voices of 
people. It sounded non-peoplish; it sounded strange. 
Out of the corner of his eye Chesley saw commotion, and realized that some 
people were fainting. But not him. He did choke a little on the last of his ice 
cream cone, but he managed to get it down. Still and all, he did have a sick 
feeling in his stomach. It wasn't from the hot dogs. 
The man said: "I am not a man." 
A muffled moan from eighty thousand voices. Chesley only nodded. 
"I take the form of a man in order to permit you to see me," boomed the voice. 
"I am your Viceroy." 
A couple of hundred people, near the exits, had had all they could take. No mere 
five dollars was enough to make them stay. But the Viceroy was. The desperate 
ones jumped up from their seats, ran shouting toward the guards; and maybe the 
guards couldn't have stopped them, but the Viceroy could; he pointed his finger. 
They stopped. In fact, they were frozen. Most of them toppled over, rigid. 
Arthur Chesley thought that this was very interesting. 
Living with his wife had done things to his temperament; he was so unused to 
strong emotion that he didn't recognize it when it came. He was scared to death. 
His heart was beating wildly; he had violent cramps in his stomach. But since he 
had never been terribly afraid before, he didn't realize it. 
He even tried to order a bottle of soda pop. But apparently the vendor knew more 
about his emotions than Chesley did; because he had disappeared. 
The Viceroy went on: "I have been sent by my people to prepare this planet for 
their habitation." 
Moans again, and another nod from Chesley. That figured, he thought; it would 
have to be something like that. He began to shake, and wondered why. 
"I have been sent alone," boomed the voice, "because I need no aid. I myself can 
cope with any force your puny Earth can send against me. Singlehanded I can 
destroy every Army." 
The audience had stopped moaning; it was stunned, or most of it was. Then the 
first shock began to wear off and Chesley began to hear voices. "Fake!" cried 
someone, and "Who're you kidding?" screamed someone else. And there were uglier 
noises than that, too. 
"I can do some things that you do not even suspect!" cried the Viceroy in a 
terrible voice. "Watch, Earthlings! Watch me and see!" 
He began to grow. 
The eighty thousand throats rasped in unison as every person present caught his 
breath. The Viceroy lengthened, like a stretched string. Ten feet tall? He 
became fifteen feet talltwenty feetthirty. Not an inch broader, but he towered 
as high as the top of the stands themselves before he was through. "See!" he 
bellowed, and the giant organ voice, nowhere near the microphones now, made the 
concrete walls of the Stadium shudder. "Watch now!" he commanded; and he began 
to broaden. Now he was a giant, not a string man; still thirty feet tall, but 
nearly ten feet across the shoulders, too. And then he began to shrinkonly 
downwards, until he was a squashed butter-man, pressed down to a height that was 
less than his thickness, an oblate spheroid with a gross flat head at the top 
and gross chunky legs underneath. And then he shrank his width, until he was the 
same size and shape as at first. 
The halo flashed orange sparks. Mirrors? Chesley wondered. Probably it was 
mirrors. All the same, it was a good thing that he hadn't been able to buy that 
soda pop, because it would have gone down his windpipe. 
The Viceroy thundered in a far-more-than-human voice: "I shall inform certain of 
you of what their duties will be. The rest of you may continue with your 
piddling little human livesfor the time being." 
The halo flared violet. "Meanwhile," rumbled the enormous voice, "do not think 
of resistance. It cannot succeed. I shall prove to you that I am invulnerable. 
Absolutely invulnerable! To weapons" 
A barrage of machine-gun fire from a battery at the side of the speaker's stand. 
Bright yellowish tracers ricocheted up and out over the cringing audience. 
"To poison gas" 
A man in a blue uniform climbed onto the stand and directed a flexible hose at 
the Viceroy. Chesley shrugged; what difference did it make? The machine-gun 
bullets had been all the evidence anyone really needed. But there was more: 
"To fire" 
A flame-thrower squirted a flaring blob of napalm; it clung to the Viceroy's 
halo; flickered; went out. 
"To atomic energy" Chesley half rose"but I shall not demonstrate that at this 
time, as too many of you would be casualties. Now you may go. My peace be with 
you." 
And the halo flared white, and he was gone. 
Chesley slowly joined the fleeing crowd. 
Such things, Chesley realized, could be faked. But they impressed him none the 
less. And they impressed a lot of other peoplefor example, the man who went 
through the exit turnstile ahead of Chesley, who was in such a sweat that he 
raced through without stopping to pick up his five-dollar-bill, leaving it for 
Chesleyalong with Chesley's own. 
He came home with ten dollars and change and his wife, for the first time in 
some years, was immensely pleased. 
So were a very few other persons throughout the worldnearly one half of whom 
had seen the Viceroy in person or on television, or had heard his voice on the 
radio. But even they didn't stay pleased, not for very long. 
 
II 
 
By the time that most of the world's population was very displeased indeed, 
Chesley's wife was sayingor screeching: 
"Stepping stone! Now you've done it, Arthur, you've stepped your stepping stone 
right out of a job entirely! How are we going to face my mother, Arthur? How? I 
ask you, how can I go to see her in her new thirty-five-thousand dollar house 
and tell her the man I married over her objections is fired? And what about 
these taxes? We can't pay them, you know that! If you were half a man you'd go 
to work in the V.G. like Elsie Morgenstern's husband down the block. They don't 
have to worry about where their next meal is coming from and And what about 
those people that were blown up yesterday? They were out of a job. The Viceroy 
just killed them all, killed them, and I'd like to know what would happen to me 
if Arthur! Now, come back here!" 
Harry swabbed a damp cloth over the bar and looked up morosely. "What'll it be, 
Arthur? Reeky-Cola, lemon fizz, a shot of ginger ale?" 
"I'll take milk," said Chesley, sliding onto a stool. It wasn't the same, of 
course. Taking one consideration with another, Chesley thought judiciously, the 
Viceroy hadn't done a bad job of reorganizing the Earth in five weeks, even if 
his most recent step was to abolish the production of certain synthetic rubber 
articles which, in turn, abolished Chesley's job. But he shouldn't have 
prohibited beer. 
Harry poured the milk glumly and leaned on the bar, watching Chesley sip it. 
"You know Flaherty?" he asked. "Well, he was one of them that got it yesterday." 

"Flaherty? Ronald Flaherty?" Chesley was shocked. "You mean he was in that bunch 
of out-of-work people that the Viceroy ki" 
"They was misled by corrupt agitators," Harry interrupted. 
"Oh, no, Harry. I mean, Flaherty wasn't" 
"They was misled by corrupt agitators," Harry repeated with great emphasis, and 
he nodded his head toward the back of the bar. Where stacks of bottles once had 
been, now there was a floral display around a placard that read: 
Loyalty to the Viceroy is every Earthling's first duty. 
-THE VICEROY 
And under the placard, a microphone. 
"I see what you mean," Chesley said quickly. "Yeah, they certainly were misled 
by corrupt agitators." 
He tasted his milk, and the milk wasn't sourno, no milk was sour, not after the 
Viceroy had made a few examples of persons dealing in spoiled foodstuffs. But 
Chesley's thoughts were. Those fifty persons had been picketing the Viceregal 
Deputy Zone Commander's Headquarters, asking for jobs. And, bam, a violet flare; 
and they were all dead. 
It didn't pay to be unemployed, that was the first conclusion he reached. 
But what could he do about it? Dr. Pebrick, Chief Managing Chemist of the 
synthetic rubber works, had made it very clear that he was lucky to hang onto 
his job, and there was no possibility whatever that Chesley would be rehired. 
He would have to get a job somewhere else. That was the second conclusion. 
Chesley sighed and finished his milk. "Say, Harry," he called. "Got a New York 
Times?" 
"Yeah." The barkeep pulled a folded paper out of the otherwise empty bar-tools 
rack under the counter. "Here." 
"Thanks," said Chesley, opening it to the Help Wanted section. "And let me have 
a be" 
"You mean," interrupted Harry, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the 
placard and the mike, "you would like another glass of delicious, invigorating, 
one-hundred-per-cent pure milk, which the Viceroy recommends above all other 
beverages for human consumption?" 
"Yes," sighed Chesley. "Another milk." 
The agency was crowded, but since it was the only one in the paper that had 
listed in its ad, Man, chmcl trng, admstv pos, sal open, he had no choice but to 
wait out the line. It took nearly half a day, which Chesley passed, as best he 
could, by conversation with the others in lineguarded at first, then more and 
more open, until the man ahead of him happened to glance up at the picture of 
the Viceroy that hung on the wall over his head. He turned white; sweat broke 
out on his forehead; he slumped, caught himself, started to speak, and then 
burst out of his place in line and raced back through the long hall to the 
elevators. 
There was a microphone under the picture. 
Chesley shook his head ruefully and kept silent for the rest of the time. It 
didn't pay to talk too much. The Viceroy wasn't everywherethough, being far 
from human, he was in an astonishing number of places at astonishing times. But 
his Guard, the V.G., was in even more places all the time. Chesley had passed 
one just outside the doora man in a blinding blue uniform, who parked blatantly 
near a fire hydrant and strolled away. In a matter of seconds a traffic cop 
caught sight of the car and charged toward it, fire in his eye and one hand 
dragging his summons pad out of his pocket. But then the cop caught sight of the 
magic letters V.G. on the place where the license plate would have beenif the 
Viceregal Guard bothered with license platesand he turned pale and staggered 
away as though he had had a narrow escape. 
Which he had. 
Chesley shook his head again. It was hard to reconcile the idea of old Iry 
Morgenstern down-the-block with the total and awful powers of a member of the 
V.G. But there were too many things these days that couldn't be reconciled, he 
wasn't going to bother his head about them. The Viceregal Guard served a 
function, he supposed. That is, if the Viceroy served a function, well, then the 
Guard was pretty necessary. The Viceroy could reach down and strike any human, 
anywhere; but apparently he couldn't find the human who was thwarting his 
efforts without a little on-the-spot help from the V.G. He was perfectly capable 
of wiping out a whole city if it angered himwitness Omaha, in the second week 
of his reignbut it happened that Omaha was not the site of any of his own 
special projects. Most every other city in the world did have a high-priority 
Viceroy's Project goingincreasing the rate of births, building up human health, 
building cryptic objects for unknown purposesoh, there was no limit to the 
things the Viceroy wanted Earth to do in preparation for the landing of his own 
extra-solar race. And it was the Viceregal Guard that was charged with seeing 
that they were done. From the moment he arrived he had been recruiting, and 
paying well. It was his first human helpers who had turned up at the offices of 
the radio and television networks with fabulous bundles of cash in their 
pockets, who had rented Yankee Stadium for a fantastic price; and those human 
helpers were now the colonels and generals and marshals and generalissimos of 
the V.G. 
The V.G. seldom killed anybody, but they had power of life and death all the 
same. Forannoyinglypeople kept trying to take advantage of the Viceroy. They 
knew it meant death to be discovered, but there were persons who complained 
because they couldn't afford the taxes and because they were thrown out of jobs 
they'd held for decades and because their homes were ripped down to make room 
for Viceroy's Projects. Some of the Projects didn't make all the sense in the 
world, Chesley thoughtfor example, did the Viceroy really need the four-acre 
swimming pool he was putting up on the lots that Rockefeller Center had once 
inhabited? But there was no questioning them; those who questioned were 
punished. Others sold impure foodsthe Viceroy was vehement about human health, 
apparently because his people were going to want plenty of good, strong 
servants. Others insanely sold inferior or incorrect materials to the Projects 
themselves. Others did forbidden researchthere was a long, long list of 
prohibited topics. And the Viceregal Guards tracked them down, and then, as soon 
as the busy Viceroy could get it onto his schedule, somewhere on the Earth's 
face there was a bam and a violet flare, and another sinner had met his fate. 
All it took was one word from a member of the V.G., and . . . bam. 
So it didn't pay to tangle with the V.G., because
Chesley stopped in mid-thought, disconcerted. "What?" Somebody was saying 
impatiently, "You, there! Come on, you're holding up the whole line. Next!" 
"Sorry," mumbled Chesley. He had been waiting so long that it was a shock to 
realize he had finally gained the threshold of one of the employment agency's 
interviewers. He stumbled in, laid his hat on the desk, hastily picked it up 
again, put it on his lap and said: "I'm here about that ad in this morning's N. 
Y. Times" 
"So," sighed the red-headed, weary-eyed girl behind the desk, "are six hundred 
others. But wait a minuteyou're a chemist? Oh. Well" 
Chesley listened in growing consternation. Chemical training, the ad had said, 
administrative position. He had thought, naturally, that it would be checking 
over some manufacturing company's crude materials supply orders, or maybe, at 
the most daring, a little routine analysis. It turned out to be anything but 
those. It was, in fact, so different from what he had expected that it terrified 
him. 
He stammered, "I'm s-sorry, sir I mean, ma'am, but I don't th-think I'm 
qualified." 
"We're the best judges of that," the interviewer told him sternly. She paused 
significantly. "Of course," she added, "we're not forcing the work on you. 
You're free to take the job or leave it, as you choose. However, if you leave 
it" 
She stopped there. 
Chelsey thought about what would happen if he refused: the loyalty 
investigation, the arrest, the disgrace, the report to the Viceroy, the violet 
flare and the bam. 
He nodded. "Yes, ma'am," he said timidly. "You're right, ma'am. I'll take it, of 
course." 
It seemed that there was a uniform that went with the worka blinding blue 
uniform, and on every bright chromium button were stamped the letters: V.G. 
 
III 
 
For a very short time Chesley's wife was impressed. She said the uniform looked 
nice on him, so trim and neat, and it broadened his shoulders and made him look 
like a soldier. And Chesley himself, when he stopped being afraid of himself, 
found that it scared the pants off practically everybody who saw it except other 
members of the V.G. For the first time in his life he felt the surge of personal 
power through his previously calm veins. 
"But why on earth should they hire you?" his wife demanded. "You're not a 
policeman." 
"They don't need policemen. They need people with chemical training, for 
instance. I'm a Research Investigator." 
"But you're not a researcher!" Chesley said loftily, "You don't understand. I 
don't do research, I investigate people who do research. Remember? Some kinds of 
research are forbidden. I check up on them, see? For instance, one of the first 
things I'm going to do is drop in on the rubber works. I want to talk to Dr. 
Pebrick." 
"Your boss? About time!" his wife exclaimed. "I never thought I'd live to see 
it, Arthur, you getting up enough nerve to tell that fat" 
"It isn't a question of nerve, dear," he explained. "When I worked for him it 
was different. Now I'm a member of the V.G.and not a private, either! No, sir." 
He patted his stripes proudly. "See, dear? I'm a corporal!" 
"Corporal?" 
He nodded triumphantly. 
She asked, with a dangerous note in her voice, "Is corporal higher than major?" 
Chesley was shocked. "Oh, no, dear. Major is much higher. There's sergeant, top 
sergeant, lieutenant, captain" 
"Major is higher?" Mrs. Chesley stamped her plump foot. "You mean," she 
demanded, "that you're going to have to take orders from Elsie Morgenstern's 
husband? Arthur, I swear, I don't think you ever take into consideration the 
fact that I'm entitled to some respect in this neighborhood! Oh, I can't face 
Elsie Morgenstern after this! She'll put on that cat-eats-the-canary look 
andArthur, what's my mother going to say? My sister Caroline's husband's a 
lieutenant, and he's three years younger than you, and I always thought he was 
the biggest Arthur, I never should have listened to you! Stepping stones! I go 
through seven years of misery and scrimping on your stepping stones, and then 
when you finally get a chance to make a man out of yourself with a half-way 
decent job in the V.G., you take the first offer they make, showing no guts, no 
strength, and  Arthur! Arthur, I'm warning you, don't you dare leave this 
house!" 
Still, Chesley's first official act was to visit his old employer, and that made 
up for a lot, There is no need to go into details about it. Chesley was not yet 
used to throwing his weight around, but he knew the principles of throwing a 
scare into the lesser breeds, having been subjected to the technique many times, 
and it is of record that fifteen minutes after he had left the laboratory where 
he had formerly slaved, Dr. Pebrick called up his lawyer and made the will he 
had been putting off for ten years. 
After that Chesley began to see the world. 
He was amazed to see what sort of a world it was. 
There are people who take seriously the pronouncements of politicians and 
government leaders, who realize the connection between a change of policy on 
bimetallism and the fact that today or tomorrow the price of eggs will go up or 
bombs will fall on Nova Scotia. Chesley was not one of them. He had heard 
everything the Viceroy had had to say, but it simply had not registered. 
For example, there was the Viceroy's long and famous General Orders Number One, 
which prescribed exactly what the human race was required to do in order to make 
their miserable little pebble of a planet fit to be occupied by the Viceroy's 
race. The celebrated Para. iv (c) of those orders read: 
It is contemplated that 50% of the human race will be required for maintenance 
duties under the occupation. Since the other 50% will not be adequate to the 
task of feeding the maintainers, it will be necessary to increase the adult, 
healthy human population as quickly as possible. 
Therefore no beer; therefore no drugs; therefore no time wasted on amusements; 
therefore children, children, children. It was the Viceroy's orders. And the 
penalty for failure to comply was a violet flare and bam. 
It had never occurred to Chesley that the flare might some day consume him. It 
simply didn't seem to matter. If it had been guaranteed that he would get it at 
a specific time, why, then, he might have paid some attention. But the danger 
was so indefinite that it seemed foolish to waste time on it. 
Others were not so placid. 
The old life was disintegrating. The mores of the world were changing every 
dayat least on paper; for what was permitted was compulsory, and nearly 
everything that was not compulsory was verboten. Artists were giving up their 
art ("non-essential") and musicians their music ("manpower-wasting") in order to 
go to work on a Viceroy's Project. It was like a great war effort. And yet there 
was none of the self-sacrifice, none of the shared resources that mark a people 
fighting a war. Everywhere there was springing up a shoddy second growth of new 
companies, new plants, that would somehow cash in on the great Projects. With 
the Viceroy creating money as he pleased, while governments stood by helpless, 
there was a fantastic spiral of inflation. The governments themselves were 
falling apart; no one would work for them. It paid off much better to be an 
agent of the Viceroy than to serve some possessor of minute authority like the 
American Government, the Russian, even the UN. 
And there was one universal solventmoney. 
On the first day of Chesley's employment in the V.G. he was offered a bribe. 
Berkeley Project Six Four Three had ordered a thousand bags of Portland cement; 
it was nearly half sand; the salesman grasped Chesley's hand anxiously and said, 
half pleading, half in contempt: "What's the difference, pal? A little sand 
isn't gonna hurt saves putting the sand in later, right? Everybody's doing it." 
And when he took his hand away there was a thousand-dollar bill, wadded damply 
tight, left in Chesley's. 
Chesley walked out of there and made a little note in his book; that was the 
first rule of the V.G.; anyone offering a bribe was to be reported for 
punishment. 
But, somehow, that didn't seem to stop it. By the end of the second day he had 
been offered money to suppress a report on inferior steel alloy in fourteen 
thousand tons of I-beams; to help throw a contract to a firm that lacked plant, 
raw materials and employees; to change the wording of a bid specification so 
that a speculator could unload water-damaged organic chemicals, utterly 
worthless for any purpose. He was even bribed on general principlesbecause he 
was a member of the V.G., as a sort of general prophylaxis against any future 
illegal activities. 
Chesley took his notebook in hand and reported to the District Sub-Office. 
It was in a Project buildinga spidery tripod a mile and a half high. Steel 
skeleton and blue-plastic frame, it rose on three thin legs, one planted firmly 
on lower Manhattan, one rooted in Staten Island, one plunging into the river off 
the Jersey piers. Chesley stepped into a glassy capsule at the base of the 
Manhattan leg and was blown by pneumatic force straight up the leg. It was a 
whirling, dizzying experience, but he could catch sight of the other Project 
buildings scattered across the land and seathe giant bubbly dome over Astoria, 
Queens, with its revolving ruby lights; the pale, square monstrosity that 
floated in the ocean just off Coney Island; the sun glinting from the twenty 
enormous swimming pools the Viceroy had commanded all over New York and New 
Jersey. 
Some day the Projects, all of them, would be used by the Viceroy's people, for 
purposes that were far outside of human understanding. But for now they belonged 
to the V.G., six-foot humans occupying rooms scaled for a race of no fixed size 
or shape, where some doors were so tiny a man had to crawl through on his belly, 
some ceilings so high that the lights had to be swung at the end of twenty-foot 
cables. Chesley slid through a narrow elliptical door marked AREA COMMANDER, 
saluted the first man he saw and said: "Sir, I wish to speak to Captain 
Carsten." 
"Sit down, bud." The wind screamed and the overhead lights swung at the end of 
their long cables. Chesley took a seat on a curiously shallow bench at one end 
of the triangular room. It was full of members of the V.G., male and female, all 
in the blinding blue uniforms. They seemed to pay no attention to himand even 
less attention to the TV repeaters that were scattered all over every room in 
the Project buildings, where every minute of every day the face of the Viceroy 
was in the screen ordering, exhorting, commanding his followers. Perhaps it was 
a recording, Chesley thought; although it seemed live, for at every twentieth 
word or so the Viceroy had to pause in what he was saying to glance at a 
memorandum handed him by a sweating human aide, or to stop, and close his eyes, 
and seem to concentrate for a second, while the faint halo flared around him. It 
was: 
"no human who dares interfere with the occupation of"pause, while he glanced 
at a slip"this miserable little planet by"pause, while he closed his eyes and 
the halo glowed bright"the invincible race I represent will escape. No, not 
one! And if any"pause for another slip from another messenger"human is 
presumptuous enough" pause, while the halo flared"to attempt to thwart my plan 
for" pause again; and words and pauses and words and ... 
Chesley stopped a girl in the blue uniform. "What's he doing?" he asked. 
She stared at him. "Oh, a rookie. That's how he blasts 'em, boy," she said, and 
bustled on. Chesley was very impressed. Imagine seeing the Viceroy in the actual 
act of execution! It didn't seem to be very difficult for himand yet, Chesley 
thought, if you assume that one person out of a thousand needs execution every 
year, and that there are three billion persons alive on the Earth, those three 
million annual executions must occur at an average rate ofof of, he finally 
computed, one every ten seconds or so, night, day, weekends and Sundays 
included. No wonder the Viceroy was harried! 
"You!" barked a plump old V.G. with a lieutenant's shoulder bars. "You want to 
see the Captain? Come on in." 
Chesley marched into an office with a soft and slanting floor and, keeping his 
balance with some difficulty, saluted, reported, and turned over his list of 
persons who had offered him bribes. 
Captain Carsten stared at him in frank incredulity. "They tried to bribe you?" 
he asked. 
"Yes, sir." 
"And youyou're reporting them to me?" 
"Yes, sir." 
"I see." Carsten shook his head slowly, as though it were impossible to believe. 
And, in fact, he was baffled. He tried to clear up the confusion in his own 
mind. "You mean to say," he began, "that these people all offered you bribes, 
that you accepted the money, that you have brought the money to me here as 
evidence, and that you are turning their names in for punishment?" 
"That's absolutely right, sir," Chesley said gratefully. He was very relieved; 
at first he had almost thought the captain didn't understand. 
"I see," said the captain again. He picked up the pile of bills and the list of 
would-be bribe-givers. "There's quite a respectable sum here, Chesley," he said 
warmly. "And it requires a great deal of fortitude to resist keeping it. I must 
commend you." 
"Thank you very much, sir!" Chesley felt the stirrings of pleasure in his 
tranquil little heart. "Shall I keep them under observation?" 
"Eh? Keep who?" 
"The people on the list, sir." 
"Oh." The captain pursed his lips. "No," he said, "that won't be necessary. I'll 
take over, Chesley. I see that you have much more uncommon abilities than I had 
suspected, so that I think perhaps you should be transferred toto a more 
advanced position." He nodded briskly, wadded up the money and put it in his 
pocket. "I'll keep the, uh, evidence. Pending the proper time, of course. Now, 
Chesley, dismissed!" 
Chesley marched out, feeling quite gooduntil a couple of days later, when he 
made another routine check and came across the Portland cement salesman. "You?" 
Chesley said, astonished. "But I thought" 
"You thought what, pal?" the salesman snarled. 
"I thought" Chesley had been going to say that he'd thought the salesman would 
long since have passed on, accompanied by a violet flare and a bam. But 
obviously that hadn't happened, and he floundered. 
"Ah," snarled the salesman, "you give me a pain. A thousand bucks wasn't enough 
for you, huh? You had to pass me on to Carsten, huh? What do you think I was 
bothering with you for? Just because I couldn't afford his pricesand now he's 
got me down for a weekly payoff, and, believe me, it isn't any measly grand. Get 
out of here, you! I don't have to bother with you small-timers any morenow that 
I'm paying for real protection, I'm going to get it!" 
Truly, thought Chesley in his analytical way, the V.G. was a strange and 
educational organization. 
But time went on, and Chesley's ears slowly dried, and it was only a matter of 
months before he had his own list, and more than five hundred lesser V.G.s under 
him to help in the collections. For the mortality rate among the human 
population itself was high, but among that segment of the race that had joined 
the V.G., it was fabulous. Nearly one execution out of ten, Chesley discovered 
with interest, was of a V.G.V.G. caught conspiring to defraud, V.G. caught 
suborning forbidden research, V.G. under the influence of alcohol, V.G.more 
often than any of thesethe victim of a de sire for advancement on the part of 
one of his subordinates. 
For if mortality was rapid, so was advancement. It was Major Chesley now, and 
the old apartment up the block from Mrs. Morgenstern was only a memory; the 
Chesleys lived in a penthouse over a pagoda-shaped Project of orange crystal. 
The Viceroy could have blotted out his enemies en masse only at the cost of 
blotting out the human race, and forfeiting the work he wanted done. For his own 
sake, he had to ferret out hostile groups and individuals and destroy them 
without destroying too many of the others at the same time. Hence, he needed his 
international army, the V.G. 
But the army was shot through with corruption. Men who spied on their fellow men 
for the sake of an inhuman ruler had little of ordinary human feelings. They 
robbed and reported for annihilation with relative impunityat least until they 
aroused the opposition of other V.G. men. Then they themselves were robbed and 
reported. And another violet flare and bam. 
Captain Carstennow Colonel Carstengot it one fine day. Major Morgensternnow 
General Morgensternfound out he was on a marshal's list, and hanged himself in 
panic. Major Chesley watched and profited; he made it a point never, never to 
interfere with an other V.G. man, at least one of superior rank. 
And so, when the Viceroy at last was impelled to act in enormous wholesale 
fashion, Major Chesley ceased being even a major; there was a renewed loyalty 
check and a doubling of the hidden microphones; Major Chesley became 
Generalissimo Chesley. 
The long procession of stepping stones, it seemed, had finally led to a goal. 
 
IV 
 
Chesley's wife cooed: 
"Arthur, you look so handsome! Just think, my Arthur's a generalissimo! Oh, if 
only Elsie Morgenstern's husband down the block could see you now!" 
"I have to go," Chesley said. 
"Oh, don't go yet, Arthur. Let me look at you. My, blue is your color. And those 
comets on your shoulderArthur, you're handsomer than you were when we were 
married." She giggled. 
Chesley said uneasily, "Dear, I must go. The Viceroy himself has sent for me." 
"The Viceroy?" His wife's mouth went wide with surpriseyes, and with fright. 
"Arthur! You mean" 
"I only know that he sent for me," Chesley said. 
"But that's what happened with Elsie Morgenstern's husband, Arthur! The Viceroy 
sent for him, and Elsie said the poor man knew it wasAnd he just couldn't bear 
the suspense, knowing that he was on somebody's list, so he Arthur, please 
don't go. Stay here, Arthur! Oh, Arthur, I knew all this would end up with some 
kind of terrible thing. How can I tell my mother if you And think of the 
disgrace! My own husband blasted by the Viceroy for disloyalty! I won't be able 
to hold up my head. Just when the other ladies wereArthur, come back here!" 
But it wasn't his death sentence that was being passed after all. Chesley had 
been pretty sure it wasn't thatthough there were uneasy moments, waiting in the 
purplish gloom of the Viceroy's own outer office, when he would have given his 
blue V.G. uniform and his generalissimo's comets cheerfully for the privilege of 
once again being an ordinary common citizen in an ordinary world. 
But it wasn't bad news; it was good; how good, Chesley would never have dared to 
guess. 
The Viceroy's personal aide-de-camp, white-faced, sweating, let Chesley in. 
Chesley walked past the man and thought objectively how terrible it must be to 
be exposed continually to the ultimate wrath of the Viceroyand how short the 
life expectancy of a personal aide had come to be, with the average duration in 
the post running to not much over a week. 
But then he was in the presence of the Viceroy, and he had no time to think of 
things concerning mere humans. 
And yetthe Viceroy himself, even, had an aura of humanity that was new and 
strange. 
It wasn't that he looked human. His features were twice the size of a man's, and 
utterly blank, carved out of heartless granite, as though it weren't worth the 
trouble to him of assuming an expression. It wasn't as though he sounded human 
his voice had a curious mechanical harshness, more so than ever before, as 
though he had not bothered to dress it up with earthly intonations and 
overtones. 
But the Viceroy was . . . upset. 
That was the only word to express it. He had blazed with angry power during the 
reorganization of the V.G. that brought Chesley his comets, and the blaze was 
still smoldering. There was worry and hatred in his bearinghatred at the stupid 
illogic of this mindless human race that was incapable of resisting him, and yet 
ran the highest risks of annihilation for the sake of making a few filthy 
dollars. There was passion surrounding the Viceroy; and Chesley was very nearly 
afraid. 
He saw death pervading the very air in front of him, death and annihilation. And 
yet it was not directed at Chesley, for what the Viceroy said, when he took time 
at last from reading memos and pausing to make the effort of will that, 
somewhere on the face of the earth, blasted another enemy with a violet flare, 
was: 
"You once refused a bribe." 
Chesley had to think backit was that hard to remember. Then he recalled the 
scene in Captain Carsten's office, and realized that even there the Viceroy had 
had his hidden microphones or his spies. He said, "That's true." 
The Viceroy went on in a harsh and somber voice: "You no longer refuse them." 
"That's true too," admitted Chesley. 
"Yes," said the Viceroy, and was silent for a moment while he read a memo and 
squelched another enemy. Then he said: "You need not refuse bribes. But do not 
fail to be logical. From this moment, you are chief of all my Guard." 
And that was the end of the interview. 
A human dictator might have appealed for personal loyalty. What the Viceroy 
wanted, Chesley realized, was clarity of viewthe realization that Chesley's own 
selfish interests were best served by doing whatever he could for his master, 
the Viceroy. 
Chesley left, understanding the Viceroy's difficulty.
The Viceroy had no time. 
He had to be all over the world, punishing and searching out offenders. And for 
all his superior power, he was baffled and enraged when human beings risked his 
anger forto himstupid reasons. 
Chesley didn't know much about fear from personal experience, since his mind had 
never worked that way. But he had learned to recognize its objective symptoms in 
others: Baffled rage, extending outward; puzzlement; inability to comprehend the 
nature of a danger. 
In other wordswhat the Viceroy himself was now demonstrating. 
Chesley, being no coward, was also no hero. He had never thought of himself as 
courageous, and yet, the very next week, he did a courageous thing. 
A report came to his desk: 
Captain-General Gorminster, aide-de-camp to the Viceroy, has accepted a bribe 
for destroying a memorandum relating to the disloyalty of five members of the 
San Diego Area Command. 
Chesley's job was to initial it, return it for filing, and inform the Viceroy of 
its contentsdirectly, since the man accused was the Viceroy's own aide-de-camp. 
It was Gorminster's death sentence. 
Chesley did nothing of the kind. He initialed it, thought it over, and tucked it 
in a pocket. 
And two days later, he found the Viceroy's aide-de-camp dragging himself, 
shaking, up the long humped ramp that led toward the purplish recesses of the 
headquarters. Chesley stopped him. 
"General Gorminster," he said, "take a look at this, will you?" 
Gorminster glanced at it impatiently, then snatched it from Chesley's hands, 
read it and reread it, stared for a horrified moment at Chesley, and seemed 
about to faint. 
"I haven't turned it in," said Chesley. 
Gorminster only stared. He was a pitiable sight, no courage left to him and no 
strength. 
"And I am not going to," Chesley went on. "I think it is an unjust accusation." 
"Oh, thank you," gasped Gorminster. 
"I only want you to remember," said Chesley, "that I have helped you. I may need 
help myself sometime." 
"I understand," said Gorminster after a moment, and then he smiled. It was a 
workable arrangementthe supreme commander of the V.G. and the Viceroy's 
personal aide, working hand-in-glove; they could protect each other 
indefinitely. 
Chesley returned to his work feeling more comfortable than he had for some time. 

That was the sole act of disloyalty of which he was guilty. He made up for it by 
intensifying his investigation of the rest of the Viceregal Guard. Half the 
members of the V.G. were always busy investigating the other half, and each half 
was likewise split into quarters that investigated each other. Only rarely did 
Chesley report directly that any individual or group was disloyal, for he had 
seen enough to know that the most dangerous thing a man in his uncertainly 
powerful position could do was to make enemies. 
But he saw to it that the right members of the warring factions discovered the 
right damning evidence on their opponents. And then it was only a matter of 
piously transmitting the initialed reports; and the Viceroy himself blasted the 
offenders, and Chesley could wash his hands like any Pilate. 
He worked hard. 
Under the new regime, feeling for others was a luxury and only selfishness was a 
virtue. But selfishness precluded any genuine loyalty to a ruler who ruled by 
fear alone. Thus greed arose to combat fear and to nullify it; and disloyalty 
was inevitable. 
The task of investigating and reporting was endless and exhausting. Chesley 
began to feel it draining him after the first few days in his mighty new office. 
And yet, he wondered, what must it be for the Viceroy? He spent more and more 
time with that inhuman tyrant, and saw that humanitythat is, worry and 
doubtwere burgeon- ing in him like toadstools after a spring rain. Chesley 
could trust no one fully. The Viceroy could trust no one at all. 
The Viceroy spent all his time doing what Chesley didbut more quickly, more 
efficiently, without human limitations on his ability to think and act. And 
without rest. 
Chesley began to sense that something might happensomething that the Viceroy 
feared. 
But it would not happen, he knew, of itself. 
He thought, and remembered, and was careful. It must be made to happenand he 
must arrange it. 
He continued with his work. 
The number of reports he sent in increased. He discovered disloyalty everywhere 
It was only a matter of time until someone somehow reported Chesley himself. And 
one day when Captain-General Gorminster, in a tottering panic, hurried to 
Chesley's side with a summons from the Viceroy himselfand dared everything to 
whisper, "It's the Ottawa Area Chief! He's reported you directI couldn't stop 
it!"Chesley knew that the time had come. 
There was the Viceroy, twelve feet tall, shimmering with a golden fire-flecked 
glow. He was shouting into a television scanner connected with Sydney, 
Australia; in his hand was a sheaf of denunciations; he paused, spoke, paused 
again in the moments while Chesley was waiting, and each pause was an execution. 

The Viceroy spoke, his face granite: "You are a spy in my Guard." 
Chesley felt his stomach knotted into hard lumps and wondered what he had eaten 
that disagreed with him so; he found that he was sweating and was astonished, 
for it was not warm. He said: "I have followed your orders. I have acted 
loyally." 
"Loyally!" Chesley felt the seething of inhuman rage that radiated out from the 
Viceroy. "You obeyed because you knew obedience would harm me!" cried the 
Viceroy. "Yours is a race of worms! You know no reason and no logic!" 
It was true. 
The realization hit Chesley and hit him hard: All of his obedience, all of his 
following orders, had had the effect of damaging the Viceroy's cause. For the 
Viceroy's orders had been to root out disloyalty and destroy it; and the nature 
of the Viceregal Guard was that disloyalty had to be its hallmark, treachery its 
sign. 
What other sort of person would join the V.G.? 
And so, the more the officers spied and reported, the weaker the organization 
became. Blue-uniformed turncoats remained turncoats. The task of rooting out 
corruption from the Guard was impossibleby definition: for corruption was its 
source and spawning ground. 
And knowing that, Chesley knew one more thing: He knew at last that he was 
afraid. 
He said: "You yourself created an illogical situation." 
The Viceroy stopped in mid-breath. Death was very near for Chesley, but at least 
the Viceroy was listening. Was it his imagination, or did the Viceroy seem to be 
swelling slightlyas though the strain of carrying a planet on his inhuman 
shoulders was beginning to tell? Chesley said, "You hoped to rule us by fearbut 
fear destroys you. When we are afraid, we act irrationally; and we are too many 
for you." 
"I shall destroy your filthy race!" 
"Oh," said Chesley, calm now, nodding, "yes, you will. You will destroy us, 
Viceroy. In fact, you are destroying us now. And what then? If you destroy us 
all, there will be no servants for your peopleand then you will be punished." 
The giant figure wavered like smoke. It cried wordlesslyor in words that were 
not human; and then it said: "Stop!"
"Why?" asked Chesley. "You will blast me anyhowyou can only do it once, you 
know. That's your basic error, Viceroy, you have only one punishment for any 
crime, so why should a man be content with a small crime? Might as well commit a 
large one. No, if you had been logical, you might have" 
"Stop!" bawled the vast, inhuman voice, and the purple-lined room shook. "Stop, 
man!" 
He was swelling with anger, Chesley noted with a surgeon's detachment. Ah, what 
was the difference? He went on, finishing out his thought, confident that it 
would be the last thought he would have in this life: "And so, by failing to be 
logical, you have failed in your mission. It is you who are disloyal, Viceroy. 
You have betrayed your people. You can never prepare the Earth for their 
coming." 
"Disloyal?" boomed the enormous voice. 
Chesley nodded and closed his eyes. 
There was a pause 
And, even through his closed eyes, a violet flare
And a crash louder than anything Chesley had ever heard. This is dying, he 
thought; but then he opened his eyes and it was not. 
It was the Viceroy who had blasted himself; disloyalty had to be punished; there 
was only one punishment; logic required that it be administered. The Viceroy's 
broken body lay sprawled across the floor, shattered from within under the 
pressure of a storm of uncontrollable energy. It was not destroyed completely, 
as any human body would have been; and in death it was no longer human at all. 
There was plenty of money in the vaults of the Viceregal Guard, and plenty of 
time to take it and get away, before any other human dared approach the 
Viceroy's inner headquarters. Quickly home, quickly with his wife to the 
airport, quickly in a V.G. plane, with a pilot he could trust, flying south high 
and fast. And his wife was saying: 
"But Arthur, if the Viceroy's dead and the V.G. is going to be out of existence 
as soon as the people find out about it, then what will we do? You'll be out of 
a job, and And if the rest of the race will be trying to lynch the V.G., like 
you say, then how will we be safe? Don't you ever think of me, Arthur? You can 
grow a mustache and change your namebut what about Mother? How will I ever 
dare And why must we take that filthy trunk? I don't know what you've got in 
it, but I simply cannot abide the smell of it, and Arthur! You're not paying 
attention!" 
Chesley said wearily, "Don't worry about it, dear. Look." 
He opened the briefcase and showed her the stacks of bills it contained. 
"Butbut that's stealing!" she cried. 
He said, "It's my own money, honestly grafted. Besides, it won't be good for 
anything once the governments take over again. But meanwhile it will buy us a 
place to live, and a stock of food to see us through, and a laboratory." 
"A laboratory?" His wife looked as though she had at last realized her husband 
had gone utterly mad. "You meanresearch? That stuff in the trunk?" 
He nodded. "Those are the fragments of the Viceroy's body. If I can find out 
what he was made of, I think I can find out how he was able to blast peopleand 
then we'll be ready for the next Viceroy his race sends down. If they ever send 
another. We know that the blast works on them as well as on ushe proved that." 
He smiled, and pointed down to the palm-fringed airfield which they were 
circling for a landing. "Our new home," he said. 
There was much more that he could have saidfor example, that when he had 
learned the secret of the Viceroy's blast he could, if he wished, rule the world 
as the Viceroy had; or that with a few other little items he had looted from the 
Viceroy's quarters they could be fabulously wealthy all the years of their 
lives. But it was not Chesley's way to be communicative, particularly with his 
wife; and all that he did say was: 
"So you see? 
That job was a stepping stone, after all." 
 