Cussick walked slowly along the dark sidewalk until he came to the first police barricade. "Okay," he told the helmeted sergeant. "You can unscramble it now."

The sergeant paid no attention to him; the squad of police were standing around their relay phones, listening fixedly to a closed-circuit audiocast.

Irritably, Cussick started to grab the officer by the shoulder. About that time he comprehended what he was hearing; he forgot the sergeant, Rafferty, the barricades, the Venusian mutants. Crouching down, he forced his way close to the speaker; rigidly, he listened.

"... the first stages of the attack brought into Security hands at least fifty percent of the criminal ringleaders. Throughout major metropolitan areas, weapons-teams are rounding up remaining policy-level personnel. The action is proceeding in orderly fashion... there is very little overt resistance. Reverend Floyd Jones himself has been reported wounded in a skirmish between his supporters and police units. A report from New York describes major street fighting between fanatical mobs and police tanks. All weapons-police in that area are ordered to report to their dispatch points; previous instructions are automatically cancelled. To repeat the original notification: the Supreme Council of the Federal World Government has declared the organization designated as Patriots United to be illegal, and all members of said organization are hereby classed as criminal elements. The enabling legislation instructs secret-service police to arrest on sight and turn over to Public Courts all members of the organization Patriots United, and all persons affiliated with subgroups such as the Youth Loyalty League, the Women's..."

Cussick turned away, his body half-frozen with the night cold. He stamped his feet, blew on his hands, flapped his arms around him. So Pearson had gone into action. The Council had ratified his program: Jones and his organization were being rounded up, sentenced, and dispersed to various labor camps. Under Clause Two, probably, the statute giving Security the authority to arrest members of charismatic cults that threatened the free dissemination of the principles of Relativism. A deliberately vague clause, put on the books as catch-all legislation: to cover any and all situations not otherwise controlled.

But Jones must have known. The organization must have expected the attack. One year ago, Jones must have anticipated that in his stern outrage, Pearson would go ahead, would make one great final effort to smash the burgeoning movement. Kaminski's betrayal had goaded Pearson on; he wanted to move, do something, make some last attempt to save Fedgov, before the whole thing was decided. But in Jones' mind it had already been decided.

As he stood listening to the police audiocast, Cussick wondered how Jones could possibly be caught off guard. Arrested and wounded. Unless, of course, he wanted to be arrested. Unless it was his plan to be shot. In that case, Pearson had probably sealed the final disposition of Fedgov.

Possibly, even probably, Pearson, in his furious desire to act, had made Jones' victory an absolute certainty.

THE CROWD roared. In the afternoon of that historic day the crowd blurred in the heat of the sun, and its combined voices thundered approval of the small man standing on the platform, the tiny figure that gestured and spoke and waved its arms. Loudspeakers carried the speech, amplified the original voice until it bellowed over the surge of crowd-noise. Beyond the mass of people were the ruins that had been Frankfurt, Germany.

"My friends," Jones shouted, "the entrenched plutocracy has tried to silence me. But they have grown soft; like great parasites they sit behind their desks running the world. They have grown fat on us; they have feasted well. But it is going to end. I can see it."

Shouted approval.

"We must strike out!" Jones raved on. "Beyond the world, beyond the dead systems. It is our destiny. The race cannot be denied its future. Nothing will stop us. We cannot be defeated."

On and on he went. And somewhere, standing silently among the spectators, untouched by the feverish harangue, waited the police assassin.

He had been a soldier in the war. He was a crack shot, with a suitcase full of medals. In the last stages of the war he became a professional assassin. The chance of his shot missing the target was one in a million.

On the day of the speech, Pratt was driven from the labor camp at Manresa, Spain, to the outskirts of Frankfurt. As the long, low-slung car purred over the twisting roads, he went over in his mind the way he was going to do it. There wasn't much to think about; his whole body was geared to the job ahead. After awhile he put his head back against the luxurious seat and enjoyed the pull of the powerful turbine.

The car let him off in a deserted area, a patch of ruin and gaping bomb craters that hadn't been reconstructed. Pratt sat down among the ruins, got out his lunch, and ate. Then he wiped his mouth, picked up his rifle, and trudged toward town. It was one-thirty; he had plenty of time. Along the road moved people and vehicles, a constant swell of individuals moving in to hear Jones. Pratt joined them; he was one of many. As he walked, he carried his rifle openly. It was a war-rifle, the one he had used in the final confused days. His decorations permitted him to carry it; the rifle was a badge of honor.

The speech did not interest him. He was too practical a man to be moved by the excited tumult of words. As Jones shouted and gestured, the lean-jawed soldier prowled around, looking for the point at which the march would originate, the spot where Jones would take command of his gray troopers.

This part of Frankfurt still lay in rubble. A residential section, it was the last to be repaired. The inhabitants were living in temporary barracks erected by the Government. As Jones' speech came to an end, groups of organization workers collected here and there, obviously in pre-arranged patterns. Pratt, standing with his rifle, watched with interest.

Before him lay what looked like a cement wheel. The wheel was a solid mass of followers, assembled together in a single grim heap. The crossed-retort flag fluttered on all sides. Everybody had armbands or uniforms. Ahead of the wheel of gray lay an open stretch of Landstrasse, the still undamaged highway leading into the town. The highway had existed from the time of the Third Reich; it had been constructed by the Nazi engineering genius, Doktor Todt, and his O. T. Gruppe. It was an excellent highway. In a little while, the gray wheel would unwind and march down it, toward the town.

The police had carefully cleared all traffic from the highway. Police patrols walked up and down the deserted strip, waving people angrily back. A few children and a stray dog scampered excitedly ahead of them.

The noise was already deafening. Milling lumps of spectators were breaking away from the nearby field, making toward the assembly point. Pratt winced as groups surged against him, their eyes glassy, mouths open and half-clogged with stale cheers. Lifting his rifle he climbed up on a heap of rubble, out of the way.

A corps of newspaper reporters with flash cameras were taking pictures of the crowd and the gray mass of organization agents that formed the first ranks. Helmeted police were everywhere, in pairs and threes. They all carried weapons; they looked cruel and uneasy in their brown uniforms. Where the stretch of highway began, four ambulances had been parked, two on each side. Elaborate TV equipment had been set up nearby; the technicians and medical teams stood joking and lounging. The reporters took pictures of them, too. They were taking pictures of everything.