Jonnie, too, had not seen these. Unless one looked hard, the moon seemed to be turning into gas. And then the gas began to liquefy in the intense cold of space.
The scenes of the piece of scrap iron falling in had a part in it Jonnie had not seen. Just before it entered the surface of the moon, a tongue of lightning roared at it. For an instant it went red hot and then, striking the liquefying gas, crumbled as it visibly drifted down to the still-fluid core.
That moon was now a ball, not just of gas, but of uncountable quintillions of megavolts of electricity. The separation of atoms had generated enormous charge, but there being no oxygen and no second pole to cause flow, the intense cold of space had frozen the resulting electricity. Jonnie realized this was how Psychlo fuel worked, but it had no heavy metal in it, only the more base metals. And that moon would kill any ship that came near it, not by disintegration but by huge powerful charges of electricity. Ah, there came a meteor! Lightning flashed out and melted it.
The emissaries had seen a planet roar into the heat of a sun.
Now they were seeing a moon vanish and then congeal into a cold, deadly, frigid mass of destruction.
Sir Robert's voice went into them like shock waves. "He can do that to your home planet at will"
Had he hit them with a stun gun he could not have produced a more frozen effect.
," cried Sir Robert, "there is nothing you can do to stop it!"
Jonnie had not planned it this strong. But Sir Robert was getting his revenge.
The mine spotlight hit Jonnie.
Sir Robert shouted at them, “He is going to put twenty-eight firing platforms in twenty-eight separate places– none of them on this planet. Your home planet coordinates are going to be set. Those twenty-eight platforms are going to fire, all twenty-eight of them, if any one of you turns hostile!”
This was not what Jonnie had told him to say. The twenty-eight platforms, yes. But not-
“All you have to do,” Sir Robert bellowed at them, “is get one small inch out of line, and all your home planets will become exactly like that moon!”
They were in paralyzed shock.
“You,” cried Sir Robert, “all of you are going to sign a treaty, a treaty that forbids war with us and war between yourselves. If you don't, your home planets, all of them, will disintegrate just like that moon, and you and all your people will go with them!” He pointed again at Jonnie. “He can do it and will do it! So get right to work and sign a treaty Bedlam!
Every emissary came out of his seat, screaming with rage.
Colonel Ivan and the troopers tensed. The din almost caved in one's ears.
Sir Robert glared at them, feeling triumphant.
Jonnie walked to the center of the platform. The spotlight followed him. He raised his hands to quiet them. The tumult eased off a bit.
A final cry from Browl expressed the sentiments of them all. “This is a declaration of
Jonnie stood there. Gradually his presence brought silence.
“It is not a declaration of war,” he said. “It is a declaration of peace!"
“I know that your economics are geared to war. I know that you consider the best way to get rid of excess population, which you feel you all have, is to engage in war.
“But in wars, one or another of the combatants is going to lose. Each one feels that it could not be he. But there is an even chance it will be.
“So, in declaring peace, we are only protecting you from each other.”
Fowljopan suddenly shouted, “When we get home we can send vast armadas against you! Even if you slay all of us, those fleets will still come and destroy you. And as for you, you have laid yourself open to assassination!”
Sir Robert was suddenly in front of Jonnie. “Your fleets will not save your own planets. There is no defense you have against these platforms. Only this one man would know where they are. And if thirty days passed without his resetting them, if anything happened to him and he was not there, those platforms would fire automatically. If something happened to him or to Earth, the home planets of every one of you would be destroyed.
“Also, he has doubles. They look exactly like him; you cannot tell the difference. If you thought you were assassinating him, you would probably only be assassinating a double. And if any double is harmed or touched, those firing platforms fire. All of them!
“It is up to you to protect Earth and to protect him. The lives of you, your rulers, and your people depend upon it.
“And as to your fleets coming and destroying us, they might well do so. But if you don't get home, they won't know. They would attack here and have no base or people or rulers to return to. Think about that!”
“You are threatening emissaries!” shouted Browl.
“He is protecting emissaries!” snapped Sir Robert. “With your war industries tooling up to go full blast, there is more than one in this room who will be representing a government conquered by another!
“You should look at a principle known as force manure. It means that an unexpected and uncontrollable event has suddenly entered upon the universes. A superior force!
“This man and what he can do is an event of force manure. It changes the way things were. It determines how the future will be.
“I am a man of war. You are diplomats! You have it in your power as of this moment to exert an influence on this force manure. If you do not avail yourselves of it, you are not diplomats but fools and suicidal fools at that!”
“How can we control this?” said a small lord at the back.
Jonnie gently guided Sir Robert to the side. It had not gone as planned. Sir Robert had his own ideas. But Sir Robert had actually done very well.
They were listening.
“Before the platforms fired,” said Jonnie, “a conference of emissaries would be called. Any unjustness in the action, any mistaken idea, could be handled.”
He saw he had some interest.
“The platforms could operate as an arm of such a conference as this,” he said.
He could see them sorting it out. He could see that at least some of them were edging toward the idea that this might give them, as individuals, a new power in their governments. It was in their manner. They were not speculating on him but on themselves. They were looking down at their fingers or talons. They were casting their heads to one side or another. But he knew he didn't have them yet.
“It’s still an awesome threat,” said one.
“It solves nothing in our economies,” said another. “On the contrary, it will produce chaos.”
Jonnie looked at them. Then he began to realize what he was really dealing with. Every one of these lords and all their peoples had been bred for eons in the shadow of the cruel and sadistic Psychlos. They may have remained politically free but they were stamped with the Psychlo philosophy– all beings are just animals. Greed, profit, and corruption were understood to be the nature of every individual. There were no decencies or virtues. The brand of the Psychlo!
Such sentiments were the ideas of madmen. The Psychlos had tailor-made life this way and had then said, see? this is the way life is.
How could he reach these mighty lords?
“Our industries,” another cried, “are geared to war. An intergalactic peace would ruin us, every one!”
Yes, thought Jonnie. The Psychlos wanted any they did business with at war with one another. Who cared what these “free planets” did so long as they bought metal? The Psychlos could crush them at any time. The Psychlos wanted them fighting like animals, believed they were only animals!