Vulcan's Hammer Read Online Free PDF

informational discussions, our public relations programs.”
    She said, “You’re so suspicious. You see things that aren’t there.” That was something her father had said; she remembered that. He had said,
They’re paranoids. Suspicious even of each
other. Any opposition is the work of the devil.
    “The Healers,” Dill was saying, “take advantage of the superstitions of the masses. The masses are ignorant, you see. They believe in crazy things: magic, gods and miracles, healing, the Touch. This cynical cult is playing on basic emotional hysterias familiar to all our sociologists, manipulating the masses like sheep, exploiting them to gain power.”
    “You have the power,” she said. “All of it. My father says you’ve got a monopoly on it.”
    “The masses have a desire for religious certainty, the comforting balm of faith. You grasp what I’m saying, don’t you? You seem to be a bright child.”
    She nodded faintly.
    “They don’t live by reason. They can’t; they haven’t the courage and discipline. They demand the metaphysical absolutes that started to go out as early as 1700. But war keeps bringing it back—the whole pack of frauds.”
    “Do you believe that?” she said. “That it’s all frauds?”
    Dill said, “I know that a man who says he has the Truth is a fraud. A man who peddles snake oil, like your—” He broke off. “A man,” he said finally, “like your father. A spellbinder who fans up the flames of hate, inflames a mob until it kills.”
    To that she said nothing.
    Jason Dill slid a piece of paper before her eyes. “Read this. It’s about a man named Pitt—not a very important man, but it was worth your father’s while to have him brutally murdered. Ever hear of him?”
    “No,” she said.
    “Read it!” Dill said.
    She took the report and examined it, her lips moving slowly.
    “The mob,” Dill said, “led by your father, pulled the man from his car and tore him to bits. What do you think of that?”
    Marion pushed the paper back to him, saying nothing.
    Leaning toward her, Dill yelled, “Why? What are they after? Do they want to bring back the old days? The war and hatred and international violence? These madmen are sweeping us back into the chaos and darkness of the past! And who gains? Nobody, except these spellbinders; they gain power. Is it worth it? Is it worth killing off half of mankind, wrecking cities—”
    She interrupted, “That’s not so. My father never said he was going to do anything like that.” She felt herself become rigid with anger. “You’re lying again, like you always do.”
    “Then what does he want? You tell me.”
    “They want Vulcan 3.”
    “I don’t know what you mean.” He scowled at her. “They’re wasting their time. It repairs and maintains itself; we merely feed it data and the parts and supplies it wants. Nobody knows exactly where it is. Pitt didn’t know.”
    “
You
know.”
    “Yes, I know.” He studied her with such ferocity that she could not meet his gaze. “The worst thing that’s happened to the world,” he said at last, “in the time that you’ve been alive, is your father’s escape from the Atlanta Psych Labs. A warped, psychopathic, deranged madman . . .” His voice sank to a mutter.
    “If you met him,” she said, “you’d like him.”
    Dill stared at her. And then, abruptly, he began to laugh. “Anyhow,” he said when he had ceased laughing, “you’ll stay here in the Unity offices. I’ll be talking to you again from time to time. If we don’t get results we can send you to Atlanta. But I’d rather not.”
    He stabbed a button on his desk and two armed Unity guards appeared at the office door. “Take this girl down to the third subsurface level; don’t let anything happen that might harm her.” Out of her earshot, he gave the guards instructions; she tried to hear but she could not.
    I’ll bet he was lying when he said there’d be other kids for me to play with, she thought. She had