Free The Universe Maker by A. E. van Vogt

making sure that no one else had the opportunity to control the floater folk.
    Abruptly, Cargill shut off the instrument and sat frowning. His purpose, like a fire, threatened to consume him. And yet, once he took the plunge, he'd be even more of a marked man than he was now.
    From the nearby control chair, Lela said anxiously, "What's the matter, honey?"
    Cargill said slowly, "We can't go on like this forever —with everybody against us. We’ve got to have somebody around who will help us in an emergency or if something goes wrong."
    Lela nodded uneasily, said reluctantly: "I've been thinking about that once in a while."
    Cargill guessed that instead she had probably been making the effort not to think about it. Aloud, he said, "We've got to do more than think about it. We've got to do something."
    "What, for instance?"
    Cargill frowned. "There's one thing I've got to get straightened out first."
    "What's that?"
    "It's about something you told me once—which I can't quite believe anymore—about how many floater people there are. You said fifteen million."
    She nodded, bright-eyed. "That's right. I wasn't fooling."
    "Lela, it's impossible." He spoke urgently. "If there were that many people in the air, we'd be running into them continuously, every hour, every day, by the score."
    The girl was silent. "It's a big country," she said at last, stubbornly, "and I've heard Carmean and the other bosses of this area talking about it, and those are the figures they give. And, besides, you're not always looking out. I see lots of floaters, but I've been sort of trying to keep distance between us and them."
    Cargill recalled her twenty-four-hour vigils in the control room and felt abruptly impressed. Remembering how tense she always was, he thought that perhaps he had underestimated the girl's perceptiveness. He still couldn't accept her figures, but he guessed that she just didn't have the information he wanted. His own estimate would be that there were fewer than five million Planiacs, perhaps not more than half that many. Cargill leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "Lela, what do people think of Carmean? Do they like her?"
    It was a question which she would not actually be able to answer, since she couldn't know what millions of people thought. But people sometimes had extremely sensitive impressions. Lela said savagely, "Nobody likes Carmean. She's a skunk."
    Cargill sighed but pressed on. "What about the other bosses? What do people think of them?"
    "Why, you just put up with them," said Lela in a surprised tone. "There they are. They're part of life."
    "I see," said Cargill, with satisfaction. She might not know it but her answer was more significant than any direct statement she might make. It reflected the beliefs and attitudes of a culture, the automatically accepted credos, the rigidities behind every thought and action. He opened his eyes and asked another question: "How did Carmean get to be a boss?"
    "Just like any of the others, I guess," Lela said. "The Shadows started to give her things to give to the rest of us, and pretty soon we were all doing as she said to get our share."
    Cargill nodded and asked, "And how did the Shadows come to pick up her?"
    "Gosh, I don't know." Lela looked puzzled. "I never thought of that." She brightened, "I guess they looked her over and figured she had the stuff."
    It was so superficial an answer that Cargill abandoned that lure of questioning. He drew a deep breath and said, "Have you ever heard of a revolution?"
    She hesitated, frowning. "You mean, where somebody starts a fight?"
    Cargill smiled. "Something like that, but on a large scale. In the twentieth century, where I come from, we had possibly the most competent and determined revolutionists in the history of the world. Before they were even slowed down, they took over half the world. It took a long time for the rest of us to catch on to what they were doing, but finally it dawned on us, and we began to look into their