Free Firechild by Jack Williamson

toppling democracies. Democracies rotting and falling, as they all rot and fall, because they are finally infected with the virus of mobology.”
    Kneeland turned in his chair, frowning a silent question at the editor. The editor shook his head.
    “Look at the list!” Clegg boomed on. “Look at Alexander and Caesar and Napoleon and a thousand others, even down to Hitler. All caught in the same dilemma, trapped between the mobs and their own grand designs. To hold the mobs behind them, they had to wage foreign wars. Victorious or not, they wasted their nations and the nations around them, and they died by violence.
    “Our own hazards are the same. Those mobs would murder us gladly if they had any hint of what we are and what we plan. That’s why our oath of secrecy must be enforced so sternly. We have chosen a safer strategy than the best of our famous predecessors—and we must hold to it, gentlemen, even under this threat of genetic doom. Our control can be firm as any emperor’s, but we must use it with skill and caution.
    “We Catonians must remain invisible. Our rule must be through indirection, through all our means of influence, through our command of money and the media, through electronics and psychology, through a shrewd control of proxy politicos who must never know they’re proxies—not even those few unfortunates we may have to sacrifice.
    “Okay, Gus?” He swung to challenge Kneeland. “Are you with us?”
    “Of course I am!” Kneeland’s voice rose testily. “But you’ve got to remember where I am. Most of you are free to act. I serve two masters—”
    “You swore an oath!”
    “I’ll keep it. The Catonian Plan will always come first. But I should tell you that my other master has grown new teeth. In this emergency, the President wants total discipline. It isn’t martial law—not for us and not quite yet. But he was close to panic when he got us together in the Oval Room early this afternoon.
    “Can you blame him?” Kneeland moved as if to rise. “Suspecting everybody. The Russians. The Puerto Ri-cans. The revived Weathermen. Determined to hush up the crisis till we know what’s going on. If there’s any news leak from official sources, he threatens to have his Secret Service people run the new omnigraph on everybody and shoot suspects without further trial.” His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “I’m in danger, revealing even that.”
    “We’re all in danger.” Clegg shrugged. “Thank you, Gus, for your update on that chaos in the executive branch. Fortunately, we Catonians are in a better situation. The difference is that they’re trapped and helpless in their ignorance and indecision, while we know what to do. We’re going to do it.”
    He swung to face the group with an air almost of triumph.
    “Gentlemen, I have spoken to the President since that session in the Oval Room, and I was able to cool his panic. Slightly, anyhow. I doubt that many of you know that he has always been a secret Catonian. He has agreed to let us activate Plan Black Cat.”
    The men around the table stirred, exchanging puzzled glances.
    “A top secret plan,” he told them. “Developed by our Inner Council. An executive program designed to call up our resources for emergency action. As you are all aware, we do have resources. We have members in the military and the major corporations. People with money. People in the laboratories. We have Bioscience Alert. We have—”
    Kneeland was squinting at his watch.
    “Hold it, Gus. Just a moment more.” Clegg paused again, staring away at something beyond the old mahogany walls and the tall shelves of never-read Victorians. His deepset eyes came back to Kneeland, his tone harshly accusing. “You need to hear this, Gus, because you’ve let those fools at Enfield open the gates of hell. In spite of all your stonewalling, it’s clear enough that you’ve conspired with those fools in the Pentagon to let this demon out of hell.
    “In plainer English,