The Iron Dream (12 page)

Heldon, and the extension of Helder dominion over new areas and the purification of their gene pools wherever possible. This is the formula for a renaissance of true humanity—thus the name Human Renaissance Party."

Feric rose slowly and placed his right hand casually on the handle of the Great Truncheon of Held; all eyes were instantly upon him. Would they now actually witness the wielding of the Steel Commander? There was a moment of silence in which only the whispered roar of the bonfire in the great stone fireplace could be heard.

Feric's voice broke this stillness: "Is there any nuance of what you have said not implicit in the symbol of the swastika?"

Abruptly, Parmerob's face creased in a smile. "You are right of course," he said. "Your name for the Party is infinitely superior to mine. Sons of the Swastika we are indeed."

Feric reseated himself without hefting the Great Truncheon, though he kept his hand upon it. "Very well,"

he said, "that's decided. I've designed a Party flag, armband, and various emblems around the swastika motif.

I've also designed a uniform for the Knights of the Swastika, our storm-troop arm. The men you see here are the nucleus of that force; presently the Knights of the Swastika number two score, but I have plans for a troop of at least five thousand."

"The generals of the Star Command would not look with favor or indifference on such a private army," Dugel pointed out.

Feric smiled. "I don't doubt for a moment the fanatic patriotism of the professional officer corps," he said. "We share a common cause with the army, and ways shall be found to convince the Star Command of that fact. No doubt your own experience and expertise in these areas will prove invaluable in this regard."

Dugel's concern seemed somewhat eased, though a certain hint of skepticism still lingered on his countenance. As for the others, Haulman had not revealed himself at all while the two Party orators, Bluth and Decker, radiated a certain aura of hostility; Parmerob and Marker seemed keen and enthusiastic, Bogel was of course his original champion, and Stopa was dedicated to his person with a childlike fervor. As things stood now, he could easily dispose of any hostile elements within the Party if he so 81

chose; it would be better, however, to win the unquestioned loyalty of all at the outset.

"It but remains to organize our first mass demonstration," Feric continued slowly.

But at this point, Heermark Bluth interrupted loudly and somewhat belligerently. "What about the question of leadership?" he demanded. "We haven't voted on that.

Bogel is at present our Secretary-General and titular head; you, Trueman Jaggar, have no title at all."

"I'm perfectly willing to resign the Secretary-Generalship in favor of Feric," Bogel suggested. "I would content myself with the title of Executive Chairman under his leadership."

"We haven't elected Jaggar our leader as yet," Bluth insisted. "I demand a vote."

Feric pondered the situation. Bogel, Parmerob, and Marker would undoubtedly vote in his favor; Bluth and Decker would probably vote against him; the positions of Haulman and Dugel were unknown, though in a pinch he could probably rely on the retired brigadier. Moreover, he could rightfully claim a voice for himself, and, for that matter, for Stopa. He could not lose a vote.

Nevertheless, he would lose a certain measure of absolute authority if he allowed the Party officials to vote him the leadership, and to permit any such vote to be less than unanimous would be disastrous. He must lead by unassail-able right, not by leave of some council of notables.

"You will retain the title of Secretary-General, Bogel,"

he said. "It suits your style better than mine. For my part, I am content to be known simply as Commander."

The challenge was clear: Feric was claiming the title of Commander of the Sons of the Swastika and all that it implied by right, not by vote. Bluth grew greatly agitated, and Decker also seemed almost ready to foam at the mouth. Bogel, Marker, Parmerob, and Stopa obviously understood and agreed, while Haulman still did not reveal himself, and Sigmark Dugel seemed to approve of the martial ring of the new title of absolute leadership.

Decker finally asked the question that Feric had hoped would be put: "By what right do you claim the leadership of the Party without benefit of a vote?"

Once again Peric rose deliberately to his feet, his right hand still resting lightly upon the Great Truncheon of Held. A gust of^wind blew into the room from the open doors behind Feric, setting the torches around the ceiling 82

to Dickering wildly. Behind him, the late afternoon sky was a deep blue tinged with traces of orange, and the great central plain of Heldon lay spread at the foot of the mountaintop beyond the bastion of the forest. Framed by this mighty vista in the flickering torchlight, his hand on the primeval sceptre of the Helder nation, Feric seemed the incarnation of the legendary heroes of the dim past, and even Bluth and Decker could not but be somewhat awed.

"He who wields this Great Truncheon is the true ruler of all Heldon by genetic right, a right that goes far deeper than any law of Party or Council," Peric said. "Is there a man among you who believes that the Great Truncheon of Held is his to wield?"

All were cowed to silence.

Slowly and deliberately, Feric clasped his right hand around the handle of the Steel Commander. With an easy motion, he swept the Great Truncheon into the air high over his head.

Then he brought the Steel Commander down upon the heavy oaken tabletop and smashed it to flinders.

It was Bluth himself who led the others to their feet, saluting smartly, and shouting, "Hail Jaggarl"

6

Roaring across the plain toward the suburbs of Walder came a grand procession, the dash, sound, and color of which was enough to take the breath away and set the heart singing: two long rows of motorcycles howling down the road at fifty miles an hour at the rear of a sleek black gas car. Gone were the barbarian rags of the Black Avengers, replaced by the stylishly cut brown leather uniform of the Knights of the Swastika, set off with high-peaked foresters' caps also of brown leather, bearing bronze medallions of the new Party crest: an eagle bearing a swastika shield. Behind each motoroyclist trailed a red cloak emblazoned with a bold black swastika in a circle of purest white; this was repeated on the red armband each man wore on his right sleeve. The cloaks and armbands were miniatures of the four great red, black, and white Party flags secured to the frames of the motorcycles at the front and the rear of the double column. These flags, flapping in the wind of passage, were dominated by the black-and-white swastika emblems at their centers, and affixed to sturdy brazen poles capped with the Party shield. The motorcycles had themselves been redecorated to a uniform scheme: the frames were bright red, the fuel tanks done up in the color and design of the Party flag, the panniers finished in unadorned gleaming chrome, the tail fins likewise of chrome and formed into the shapes of great lightning bolts. Feric had well calculated the overall effect to stir the spirit and capture the eye of any true Helder.

The black command car itself was unadorned save for small Party flags above each front wheel. In the cab of the car were two uniformed Knights of the Swastika: a driver in the left seat, and a trooper beside him for the sake of symmetry. In the front of the open cabin sat Seph Bogel and Sigmark Dugel. Behind them, on a higher seat, sat Feric. Bogel, Dugel, and Feric were dressed in the uniform which Feric had designed for the Party elite. This was of black leather, tailored quite snugly, trimmed with chrome brightwork, and set off at the throat with red scarves secured with white-and-black swastika clasps. The armbands and cloaks were of a design identical with those of the Knights of the Swastika, but the black leather caps were more sleekly cut, with narrow chromed visors, and the Party crest done in silver, with the swastika etched in black.

Secured to Feric's waist, with a wide leather belt set off with chrome studs, was the Great Truncheon of Held, polished till it shone like a mirror.

Thus would Feric Jaggar enter the second city of Heldon

—at the head of a dashing storm troop, a pageant of sound and power and color carefully designed by his own hand to set the soul of the beholder soaring.

Indeed, the procession had already gathered a small following of private motorcycles, gas cars, and even bicy-

clists, pedaling frantically at top speed to keep up, by the time it reached the southern suburbs of Walder and slackened its pace to thirty miles an hour. Peric realized that these folk had been drawn by the exciting spectacle of 84

uniformed men dashing down the road at high speed, rather than by any loyalty to the Party, since the new colors had never before been displayed; still those who responded to such a sight with fervent enthusiasm were most likely men of the proper Helder spirit.

By some sixth sense—not to mention the mighty din that the column sent as a herald before it—the people of Walder were alerted to its passage long enough beforehand to line the streets before their sturdy and spotless brick homes as Feric's car sped by. The clean concrete streets, the bright houses with their lawns and flower patches, the robust working folk in their clean blues, grays, and browns, the shopkeepers in their white tunics trimmed with all sorts of piping, the healthy-cheeked children—all presented a most pleasant aspect to Feric's eye as he drove past the crowded walkways. The scene spoke well of the Helder gene pool and the healthy quality of the life of the city; it was bracing to view so many fine specimens of true humanity among such spotless surroundings.

As the column drove deeper into the city, the crowds on the walkways thickened somewhat, and the buildings grew somewhat larger; four- and five-story apartment dwellings dominated now, rather than private houses. They too were of brick, much of it glazed in bright colors, and were graced with all manner of ornately carved wooden facades and private balconies. Trees and shrubbery provided shade and a soothing spectacle to the eye. The folk in this neighborhood seemed to Feric to be somewhat less prosperous, for their garb was somewhat drabber and the shops a bit plainer, but he found the cleanliness and repair of everything in sight nothing less than exemplary.

Here, too, the street was wider, and there was traffic of sorts which was constrained to scatter out of the path of the motorized parade: great numbers of bicycles, some gas cars and motorcycles, steamtrucks of various sorts, and a municipal roadsteamer or two. Every time the column was forced to swerve around some oafish vehicle that was unable to clear the road in time, the command car and the motorcycles roared around the roadblock without slackening speed, and with a great loud rapping of the motorcycles' engines, to the delight of the crowds on the walkway, who broke into spontaneous cheering. The ragged army of bicyclists and assorted motorized vehicles that trailed along in the van of the storm troop had to follow the line of the parade as best they could.

85

The proportion of shops to residential buildings increased as the parade neared the center of the city, and the buildings themselves were more imposing. Many reached ten or even fifteen stories in height and they were constructed of brick or concrete or cement, faced with marble, brasswork, or carved stone fa?ades. On street level, the buildings housed broad-windowed shops offering a rich variety of goods: foods of all sorts, wearing ap-parel, steam engines for the home with slave devices, home furnishings of every description, paintings and wall hangings, statuary, even private gas cars for those who could afford them. Judging from the sounds of machinery that could be heard and the bustling workers Feric glimpsed occasionally through the upper windows, the upper stories of these great buildings were devoted to craft and industry. No doubt many of the goods offered for sale in the shops below were turned out right on the spot.

There was a certain amount of dust in the air in this beehive of commerce and industry, but still the streets were free of any sort of offal, the walkways in every way admirably maintained and inviting. What a far cry from the ghastly sweat pits of Gormond! Feric could sense the power of the city all around him in these precincts. No one could doubt that the racial genotype which constructed cities such as these was the genetic superior of any other population of sapient beings on the face of the earth. The world was rightfully Helder by dint of evolutionary fitness.

Here in the commercial center of the city, the crowds, stopping along the walkways as the spectacle roared by with a grand flourish of scarlet and swastikas, were quite impressed, and many of the good folk shouted out their spontaneous approval. Though few or none of them could have any idea of what the parade was about, or who the hero riding in state was, Feric felt constrained to reward their instinctive approval with an occasional modest Party salute. The good people would comprehend the significance of the gesture soon enough, and the spirit of enthusiasm that was being generated surely required some formal acknowledgment.

Feric was delighted at the great throngs that greeted the motorcade^ as it debouched upon the Emerald Promenade, the great wide boulevard which ran through the 86

cultural and governmental heart of the city; throngs appropriate to the heroic scale of the official architecture.

Here were some of the largest and most visible proofs of the grandeur of Helder civilization. The City Hall was a massive edifice of white marble with a resplendent flight of formal stairs and a heroic facade of pillars, each capped with a bronze of a notable figure out of Helder history, the whole surmounted by a great dome of weathered green bronze. Each of the eight tiers of the Municipal Theater had its own facing of stone pillars supporting pediments rich with bas-reliefs of appropriate

" subjects, giving the whole massive building the airmess of a baker's confection. The Museum of Fine Arts was a low building of only three stories, but was designed as an endless series of wings that rambled off in all directions like a natural growth. This inviting treasure-house of art had been Grafted of diverse materials, the style of architecture varying slightly from wing to wing, and each wing was set off with sculptures of a different artistic period, so that, the whole of the exterior mirrored the manifold wonders within.