---

---

Amplifiers swelled the clarion call of the trumpet above the keening Martian wind which swept into the great central plaza of Syrtis Major City. Two hundred thousand outworld citizens, the entire population of Syrtis, huddled together in the cold and watched the blue and gold banner of the Outworld Federation run up the pole to flutter proudly beside the globe-and-stars flag of Earth.

There was a tremendous roar from the crowd as Alan Tremaine climbed the long flight of steps leading to the platform in the center of the plaza. It's really my father they're applauding, Alan Tremaine thought. The elder Tremaine, dead these two weeks, had made the dream of independence a reality for the Outworlds. Then, on the eve of success, he had been struck down by a still unknown assassin. Alan had been rushed from New Washington University on Earth by the Outworld Federation, to bring the magic name of Tremaine to the ceremony on Mars.

Above him now, Alan could see the military governor of Mars, Lieutenant General Roderick Olmstead, waiting alongside the banks of huge television screens which showed similar scenes on Venus, on Saturn's great moon Titan, on the four large Jovian satellites. But the eyes of all the Outworlds were here on Mars as Alan Tremaine mounted the platform to accept the Declaration of Sovereignty from the governor.

A hush descended on the crowd as General Olmstead unrolled the scroll and held it before the television cameras. "On behalf of the government of Earth," he said, his voice booming across the Syrtis plaza on the amplifiers, "I present this Declaration of Sovereignty to the people of all the Outworlds. The five hundred million citizens of Mars, Venus, Titan and the Jovian Moons will hereafter march alongside the peoples of Earth in Equal Union."

Two hundred thousand voices rose in a thunderous peal of acclaim.

"It is to your everlasting credit," General Olmstead went on, "that your great struggle for freedom bears fruit today bloodlessly. History shall long remember this moment, for the grim alternative of war was always present but shunned by your very great leader, Richard Tremaine."

There was not a sound now in all the vast crowd. Alan Tremaine thought it must be the same elsewhere, with half a billion Outworld citizens watching on their television screens across the solar system.

"The one tragedy of your greatest moment," General Olmstead concluded, "is that Richard Tremaine did not live to see it become a reality. I now place this scroll in the hands of his only son, Alan Tremaine."

His eyes suddenly misty, Alan accepted the Declaration of Sovereignty from General Olmstead. The long political struggle, climaxed today on the windswept plaza of Syrtis Major City, was not his. Attending New Washington University on Earth, he had missed the dramatic sequence of events which led to this day. Almost, he felt like an outsider. But he believed in their fight even if he had had no active part in it. And the name Tremaine was now lifted into the pale sky above Syrtis Plaza on two hundred thousand voices.

"Tremaine! Tremaine! Speech! Speech!"

Alan took a deep breath and cleared his throat. Faces as numerous as the desert sands of Mars gazed up at him. Untold millions more watched their television screens on the other Outworlds. Seated beside her father, Laura Olmstead smiled at him.

"I humbly accept this Declaration of Sovereignty on behalf of all the Outworlds and on behalf of my father," Alan said. "I'm sure that on this day my father would offer thanks to God that our freedom was achieved without violence."

---

Just then the television screens depicting smaller ceremonies on the other Outworlds erupted into violent activity. There was muted thunder from the Venus screen. People could be seen running about wildly, the drone of jets was heard. Brilliant light flared, blanking the screen momentarily. When it could be seen again, a mushroom-topped atomic cloud was rising from the crater which had been the Governor's Headquarters on Venus. The scene was the same on Titan and the four Jovian Moons.

A voice blared: "Attention! Attention Mars. This is Government Station, Ganymede. Seconds ago, the Outworld Federation met freedom with treachery. Even as tactical atomic weapons were used on the Government Headquarters, their speakers were proclaiming peaceful union. But now the masses have risen behind the spectre of military violence. 'Equal Union is not enough,' their leaders cry. 'We're ready to fight for total independence!' The traitorous Federation militia is marching on the underground Government Station here. Protect yourself, Mars!" Abruptly, the staccato blast of an automatic hand weapon could be heard. The voice from Ganymede was stilled.

General Olmstead rushed to the microphone, pushing Alan roughly aside. "All Martian units!" he cried. "Prepare for war. Directive A-2, this headquarters, put into immediate effect. Martial law is proclaimed. All civilian authority is hereby terminated. Protect the spacefield and the government station. All commissioned leaders of the Outworld Federation on Mars will surrender themselves, weaponless, to the military authorities. Those who resist face immediate arrest." All at once, the microphone squawked into silence. Someone had cut off the generators below the platform.

"Tremaine," General Olmstead raged, "your father is better off dead. Seeing this happen would have killed him. Your name will go down in history, all right—as the worst traitor since Benedict Arnold."

Alan shook his head. It all had happened so fast, his senses were still numb with shock. The Federation had told him nothing about this. The Federation had been content with Equal Union, his father's dream. True, a militant minority group within the Federation had longed for total independence, through violence if necessary, but Richard Tremaine had always opposed this. Now, it had happened.

Military control of Venus, Titan and the Jovian moons was inadequate. In hours, the governments would fall. The same was true for the smaller centers of Martian population, but Earth maintained its strongest military garrison in Syrtis Major City. Here the Earth forces, under General Olmstead, could probably hold their own.

But it was open revolt now, something which the dead Richard Tremaine had opposed as steadfastly as he had opposed Earth domination of the Outworlds.

"I didn't know," Alan began. "Nobody told me...."

His voice was drowned in a swirling sea of sound as Federation militiamen threw their wind cloaks and revealed the uniforms beneath them as they charged up the steps toward the platform. Government soldiers, storming up the other side, waited for them. As yet, not a weapon had been fired in Syrtis.

"Stop!" Alan cried, rushing to the edge of the platform. "Are you insane? We wanted Equal Union. We've been granted Equal Union. Put down your weapons and go home."

---

The front rank of the militiamen, three abreast on the stairs, paused. This was a Tremaine talking. There was a difference between father and son, of course, but a Tremaine had made this day possible.

The leader of the militiamen, a bearded fellow in the uniform of a major, shook his head. "You don't know, Mr. Tremaine. You weren't here when your father spoke his last words. We're carrying out the orders of Richard Tremaine!"

Two government soldiers who had mounted the other side of the platform came up behind Alan and pinned his arms to his sides. "Go ahead and fire," one of them said. "Kill Tremaine's son, why don't you?"

The front rank of militiamen was being pressed up the stairs from behind, but had returned their weapons to their sides. Alan struggled with the soldiers who held him. Below the platform, the vast crowd was seething restlessly, watching the drama unfold above them. The thin sprinkling of government soldiers in their midst could be swept under in seconds unless government station reinforcements were sent at once.

Alan thrust his elbow back, felt it jar against the ribs of one of the soldiers. The man gasped as the air was forced from his lungs. Still gasping, he was spun around by Alan and hurled down on the militiamen mounting the stairs at the head of the platform. Alan whirled, but the second soldier was on him, circling his neck with a powerful arm. They went down together, thrashing and rolling across the platform.

Something roared overhead. Alan was aware of General Olmstead, his daughter Laura huddled behind him, pointing up at the sky. Then a shadow passed swiftly over the platform, came back—and hovered. The roar was replaced by a loud clattering. Still wrestling with the soldier, Alan could see a jet-copter, switching from jets to rotors, hanging half a dozen feet above the platform like an enormous black grasshopper.

More militiamen leaped from the copter to join those swarming up the stairs, their hand weapons spitting death at the first rank of government soldiers which had come up the other side of the platform. The revolution in Syrtis Major City was an actual fact now.

"Get down!" General Olmstead told his daughter. "Flatten yourself."

But the brief firing atop the platform had cleared it of government soldiers. Rope ladders were dropped from the jet-copter.

"Tremaine," someone called from above. "Climb up quickly."

To remain here in Syrtis Major City was madness. Alan could accomplish nothing in the chaos of revolt. Besides, the militiaman had said this was his father's final wish. Armed rebellion for total independence. He had to find out. He caught the swaying rope ladder in his hands and mounted it. At the same moment, General Olmstead and his daughter were forced up another rope ladder at atomic pistol point.

Its passengers securely inside, the jet-copter rose a hundred feet above the platform on its flashing, clattering rotors. Then the jets were cut in and the craft streaked north from Syrtis Major City at supersonic speed.

---

CHAPTER II

"Lies," General Olmstead said bitterly. "Don't tell me anything. It's all lies."

"I swear I knew nothing about this," Alan insisted.

"Do you realize what you've done? Thousands of innocent people must have died already in the atomic explosions on the Outworlds. Millions more will perish before this war comes to an end. For it's war you've brought to the solar system, Alan Tremaine. Is that what your father would have wanted?"

"I brought nothing," Alan said. "I don't know what my father would have wanted."

"I believe him, Dad," Laura Olmstead said. Alan had met her for the first time two weeks ago on the spaceship from Earth. She was going to join her father on Mars for the Declaration of Sovereignty ceremony. Alan had struck up a quick friendship with her in his darkest moments—when the death of his father had seemed so tragic, bringing Alan's world tumbling down about him. Laura Olmstead's understanding, her frank sympathy, then her cheerful talk and companionship as the two week space journey wore on, had done much to help Alan. They had parted at the Syrtis Major space-port, to meet again three days later as revolution unexpectedly engulfed Mars and the other Outworlds.

"Alan Tremaine is a traitor to Earth and his own people as well," General Olmstead told his daughter now. "I won't hear anything more about it."

Half a dozen militiamen sat about the cabin of the jet-copter with them. Up front, a pilot and a co-pilot were at the controls.

"Alan's new on Mars, Dad. He's been at school on Earth, remember that."

The leader of the militiamen turned to Alan and said, "We're approaching Red Sands now, sir. Do you wish to go right down or look over the fortifications from the air?"

"Red Sands?" Alan asked. "What's that?"

"Operation Headquarters, sir. Your lieutenants are waiting for you to take charge of the revolution, sir."

"So he's new on Mars," General Olmstead told his daughter. "So he doesn't know a thing about this. He's running the whole show, Laura. He's got us for hostages, too, or didn't you realize it? Earth will think twice about attacking Federation Headquarters with us prisoner there."

Alan was going to tell General Olmstead and his daughter they wouldn't remain hostages long if he could help it, but the militiaman was waiting for his answer. He said, "Let's go right down. Who's in charge of the Headquarters, soldier?"

"Why, you are, sir."

"No. I mean right now."

"Bennett Keifer, sir. Your father's right-hand man."

"Let's go down and meet this Bennett Keifer," Alan said. And, to Laura: "Don't worry about anything, Laura. It's going to be all right."

But when he reached for her hand, she withdrew it and would not meet his eyes directly.

---

There was nothing but the ochre wastelands of Mars, the dunes marching, windswept, from horizon to horizon. Far away to the east, a thin green line knifed across the rusty sands where vegetation clung precariously to the banks of a Martian canal, nurtured by the waters it brought down from the melting polar cap.

The militiamen flanked them on either side as they walked across the desert, two uniformed figures remaining behind long enough to cover the jet-copter with an ochre-colored tarpaulin which would effectively camouflage it from the air. It was like something from the Arabian Nights, Alan thought as they approached a low, rocky escarpment thrusting up through the sand. The leader of the militiamen placed his hand against a polished spot on the surface of the rock, which pulsed with the contact as a hidden device checked the pattern and whorls of the militiaman's fingerprints. The effect was the same as the Open Sesame of the Arabian Nights, for a great slab-like section of the escarpment rolled ponderously aside, revealing a dark cavity.

"Red Sands," the militiaman said proudly, and led the way inside.

Alan was totally unprepared for what happened next. The door in the rock rolled shut behind them. Lights blazed inside the cavern, brighter than the pale Martian day. A throbbing, busy city was spread out before them below the surface of Mars.

Throngs of men, women and children lined the short road to the city on both sides. A great cry went up from them as Alan, the militiamen, General Olmstead and his daughter approached.

"Hail, Tremaine!" The cry echoed from the rock walls of the underground city. "Hail, Tremaine!" It rolled from the far throbbing reaches of the bustling city. "Tremaine, Tremaine, Tremaine!"

Not for me, Alan thought. For my father. What actually did he know about all this? Perhaps a revolution directed from the secret base here at Red Sands had been his father's secret dream. The adulation with which the people of Red Sands greeted him filled him with a sense of pride. Not for his own accomplishments, but for his father's. Laura Olmstead was, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, part of a different world. Alan shrugged, deciding to suspend judgment until he met and talked with Bennett Keifer.

Now there were cries of: "He looks like his father!" "See, the same brow, the same bearing!" "The eyes are the same, I tell you. We have Richard Tremaine with us all over again!" And always, from all sides: "Hail, Tremaine!"

Alan caught Laura's gaze and tried to smile at her. She was on the verge of tears. "The sycophantic hypocrites," she said. "It's disgusting, carrying on like this while people are dying all over the solar system."

"It isn't for me," Alan told her desperately. "It's in memory of my father."

Laura's eyelids squeezed shut. Tears on her cheeks, she walked blindly ahead, supported by her father's arm. "I hate you, Alan Tremaine," she said.

---

"Tremaine," Bennett Keifer said half an hour later, shaking his hand with vigorous enthusiasm. "You look so much like your dead father I could have picked you out of any crowd. Sit down, boy."

Alan shook his head. "Thanks, but I'll stand." General Olmstead and his daughter had been left off elsewhere while Alan had been ushered into the Administration Center of Red Sands, a great rectangular structure carved from the subterranean rock of Mars. Finally, he had stood face to face with Bennett Keifer. A big, handsome man in the uniform of a Federation colonel, Keifer had flashing eyes and a direct manner which Alan found disarming.

"I'm sure you have many questions," Keifer said.

"Just one. Did my father sanction this armed revolt?"

"What a strange question. Of course he did."

"Nobody told me before."

"We couldn't reveal it today, Tremaine. Not even to you. We couldn't chance revealing it until our forces had moved on all the Outworlds."

"In his letters, my father always said the glorious thing about the Outworld Federation was how it had achieved its ends bloodlessly."

"Tremaine, I'm telling you. I was here. They brought your father here after he was shot. He died with me at his side. He died saying that the Earth government was trying to trick us. Equal Union was a farce, he said. Equal Union—with Earth bleeding the Outworlds dry of their resources! Don't you see, Tremaine? Earth needs our mineral wealth—heavy water from Venus, iron from Mars, lithium and cobalt from the Jovian moons and Titan. They'll bleed us dry and pay next to nothing for our mineral wealth. Since theirs is the only market, we have no choice. The only alternative was armed revolt for the full freedom Earth wouldn't grant us."

"But in Equal Union we had an equal, representative vote for the first time. This Earth granted us."

"Representative vote, Tremaine. There's the catch. There are ten people on Earth for every Outworlder. What kind of equality is that?"

"I don't know," Alan admitted. "I think my father would have—"

"I'm telling you what your father said. I was there. Why don't you do this, Tremaine: get acquainted with our city. I don't want to rush you. When you're ready to take over and make the decisions, I'll step aside. How does that sound?"

"I don't want to usurp your authority just because my name's Tremaine," Alan said. "I don't understand this, not yet. I'm going to try, though." He was suddenly weary. It was the same feeling he had when news of his father's death had reached him on Earth. The world tumbling down about his shoulders. Atlas trying to hold up the globe but shorn of all his strength.

He said, "Is there someplace I can go to clean up? My head feels like it's spinning."

"Someplace to go," Keifer repeated the words, smiling. "Your father's apartment here in Red Sands is yours. I'll have one of our enlisted men show you the way. And take your time about things, Tremaine. No one is rushing you."

Alan thanked him and said, "What about General Olmstead and his daughter?"

"Don't you worry. Naturally, they're prisoners of war. But they'll be well-cared-for here. We're civilized people, Tremaine."

---

They shook hands again, then Alan followed a militiaman outside, through the corridors of Red Sands to a large apartment quarried in the rock wall of the underground city. He dismissed the enlisted man and found a bent, elderly figure waiting for him inside.

The man had gray hair and thin, stooped shoulders—as if he had spent the better part of his life pouring over books. He spoke in a thin, reedy voice, choked with emotion. "Is any one waiting for you outside?" he inquired.

Alan shook his head.

"Then listen to me. I shouldn't be here. If Keifer knew—" the elderly man shrugged "—I don't know what might happen. Alan, I am Eugene Talbrick. Does the name mean anything to you?"

"Yes," Alan nodded. "My father wrote about you often. He said you were always a pillar of strength to him, a...."

"No matter," said Talbrick. "You have heard of me. Alan, the good name of Tremaine is being used to bathe the solar system in blood!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Keifer. He says your father secretly wanted armed revolt. It's not true, Alan. And do you realize what Keifer plans to make of you?"

Alan frowned. Eugene Talbrick, his father had always written, was an inspirational figure behind everything the Outworld Federation stood for. If Richard Tremaine had been the eloquent spokesman for freedom, Talbrick was the thinker. If Tremaine could be compared to Washington historically, then surely Talbrick could be compared to an older Thomas Jefferson, or Ben Franklin perhaps. "No," Alan said. "I've only just met Keifer."

"You'll be a figurehead, Alan. Listen."

Talbrick walked to a television screen on the wall and soon had it working. A grave-faced news commentator was saying, "... riots all over Syrtis Major City. The magic name of Tremaine is on everyone's lips, Richard the father, Alan the son. If Richard Tremaine had not sanctioned this revolution, the people say, their forces never would have struck all over the solar system. If Alan Tremaine was not here to lead them, they might have accepted the Declaration of Sovereignty. But with the memory of one Tremaine and the leadership of another, they will fight now for total freedom.

"Elsewhere on the revolution front, search jets are sweeping wide over the Martian desert for some trace of Governor General Olmstead, who was kidnapped by Federation forces along with his daughter. Up to this moment, no trace of them has been found....