Cadmus leaned against the coruscating wall. A thrill of returning memory flooded him.
Freedom! That was the key word. Zaleel had said that if the Machine were destroyed the word would be on millions of lips.
Ironic that Consar should have spoken the word unwittingly and set Cadmus' mental fountain of memory free. Behind closed eyes, in a brief flash of recollection, Cadmus' memory, his destiny, his potentiality, returned.
His father, the first Cadmus of the newer myth. The greatest hero of the System. For years, since the Machine had been placed in power, his father had worked toward its destruction. A shadow, a mystery in the starways. He had gotten scientists and had constructed secret arsenals. He had constructed small matter transmatters and installed a secret transmat underground between the three worlds and the asteroids.
In the asteroid belt had been thousands of free men who hadn't had the disciplinary bands installed in their skulls because they had been born there in the belt, away from all legislative control, of mucker parents. Men and women and children who were inaccessible in the thousands of uncharted little worlds between Terra and Mars.
Led by his father, they had attacked through the transmats and had marched on the council tower and the Machine. But they had been defeated, slain and taken into slavery. Only a few escaped. Only three. Two children, Cadmus and Zaleel. And Johlan. They returned to the asteroids to plan the second revolt.
But they had marched on the Machine, knowing it was surrounded by half a mile of deadly radioactivity. And now Cadmus knew how his father had expected to overthrow the Machine in spite of this barrier. His father had planned the direct assault on the Machine--alone. His father had trusted no one. He had lain the groundwork, had accomplished the whole preparation himself. He had been intending to launch the direct attack on the Machine by releasing the armed men.
... _slew a dragon and sowed its teeth. From these sprang armed men_ ...
Young as he had been then, Cadmus still remembered starkly. His father had given him the information and directions. No one else knew. Johlan had suspected. That was why he had blanked out Cadmus' mind until his own terrible plan had been achieved.