Cadmus fired. Not at Johlan. The Venusian's recorded message stopped as the blast from Cadmus' gun melted the audio unit. The thundering voice from the Tower's summit died. Johlan turned quickly.
"That was enough of that speech," said Cadmus. "So far, you spoke very well. There'll be a new tri-planetary government, but the Venusians aren't dictating terms from this Tower. No one world will dictate any terms from anywhere."
"Wait," interrupted Johlan. "Don't fire, Cadmus. We can rule together."
Cadmus' voice was brittle as steel. "You're worse than Consar, worse than the Machine. Millions have died today because of you. Because of old greeds and ambitions you couldn't bury--dreams of Venusian imperialism."
"The Venusians never got fair representation from the System," cried Johlan. "They never will. Fishmen! That's what you call us!"
His lidless eyes gleamed as his hand flashed. Cadmus yelled once, then fell to his knees as a ray of neuron-shattering force from a paralysis gun swept across his knees. His legs crumbled him to his side. Another stream soaked into his arm. His neutron gun toppled from nerveless fingers.
The fingers of his other hand crawled toward it. That arm went dead. Only his torso was still capable of sensation. Cadmus turned fevered eyes on Johlan. He waited, his heart pounding. The little Venusian's scales glinted with triumph as he padded forward on webbed feet.
"You did a fine job, Cadmus," he said, looking down. "No one else but you could have accomplished it. No one else had the will, the courage, or the strength and audacity. Nor the human gullibility. That's why I used you."
Johlan paused. He looked away from the window. A splash of white moonlight flooded down, rippled over the mosaic floor. It glinted from Johlan's scales and danced in his lidless eyes. His voice was dreamy with power. "My question to the Machine was simple. I merely devised a series of opposed questions, requiring one answer for all of them. In other words, the Machine was forced to make a compromise. But the Machine was fixed. It couldn't make a compromise. It had to go insane."
He looked back down at Cadmus. "That was a magnificent idea of your father's--those ancient tanks from the atom war. He was a great man. Maybe the greatest Terran who ever lived. But I'm a Venusian. I am greater, because I used him. And I used you, his son. So Cadmus slew the dragon and sowed its teeth, and from these sprang armed men!"