Free This Fortress World by James Gunn

tossed the dagger in the air, caught it by the handle, and giggled as he slipped it back into his sleeve.
    "I like you, Dane," he said. "We could be good friends if you'd let your mind do the thinking. Come back and sit down."
    I came back and sat down. I sat down on the davenport where Siller had thrown my gun. I didn't pick it up. I was afraid.
    "I can't understand you, Dane," he said. "Maybe it's because you don't understand me. Look at the galaxy! Tell me what you see!"
    His voice was friendly and sensible. He acted as if nothing had happened, as if I were not a prisoner. But it was not easy for me to forget, and I sat there, chilled and unhappy, thinking that as long as we were talking sensibly nothing else would happen.
    "Stars," I said. "The scattered stars."
    "And I see billions upon billions of serfs, slaves, and freed-men," he said slowly, his gaze distant, "and above them millions of mercenaries, some Peddlers, some clerks, and a few nobles. But at the bottom of everything the serfs, slaves, and freedmen. You may have seen them when they came into the Cathedral, but you don't know how they live. Despair, disease, and death—that is their life. A little plot of ground or a narrow room—that is their world."
    He stood up. He seemed taller.
    "You don't know how they live," he repeated. "I know. You don't know what it is never to have enough to eat. Never. Not once in a lifetime. I know. What do they understand? Nothing but the most basic impulses. They breed, they struggle for a few years, they die. Animals. Worse than animals." He paused. He turned toward me. His voice softened. "If you saw one of them torturing his land into furrows with a crooked stick, would you give him a plow and land of his own? If you saw one of them filling rocket warheads with radioactive metals until the flesh dropped from his bones, would you take him out into the living air?"
    "Yes," I said, looking into his eyes.
    "Then give me the pebble," he almost whispered. "It is their only chance."
    I tore my eyes away. My hand crept toward the gun. "Why?" I asked.
    "Would you like to give it to the Emperor? What would he do with it?"
    I didn't answer.
    "He'd grip Brancusi a little tighter. Or, if the secret is potent enough, he'd look around for something to conquer. He's not too old, and there hasn't been a conquest in the imperial family since his great-grandfather. He'd like to be remembered as the Emperor who conquered Thayer.
    "Or maybe you'd rather give it to the Peddlers."
    I looked at him, waiting. My hand gained an inch toward the gun.
    "They'd peddle it. To some ruler, perhaps, for a few concessions. It would go to the highest bidder. Perhaps you'd rather donate it to the Church."
    I glanced away, flushing.
    "The Church would turn it over to the secular authorities, you know," Siller said softly. That's what the Abbot wanted to do. Just as he turned you over—"
    "You're wrong," I said. "It was the young acolyte."
    Siller shrugged. "Was it? The point is—there's no one. No one on the side of justice, change, progress, humanity. Except—"
    "Who?" I asked. "Who are so noble that they alone can be trusted with the pebble?"
    "The Citizens," he said.
    Somewhere I had heard the name, but it was only a name. "And what would they do with it?"
    "They would make a united galaxy. Without emperors, dictators, or oligarchs. The power would be where it belongs—in the hands of the people."
    "A pleasant dream," I said. "But your book insists that it is impossible." My fingers crept closer.
    "The Dynamics?" he said. His eyes grew bright. "An excellent book. But pessimistic. It did not consider the one possible solution."
    He walked toward me, leaned over, picked up the gun. I sat, unmoving, watching him as he juggled it thoughtfully in his hand. Then he smiled, bent toward me, and slipped the gun back into the pocket inside my jacket.
    "Now we can talk more easily," he said.
    I had the gun now, and I should have felt more like a man. But I didn't.