Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

some of the moons in the Juxt system. Like earlier reports over the past few years, these could not be verified. Some of his opponents have suggested that the reports were fabricated—that there was no way Penser could have lifted off-planet, with all space transportation in the hands of the Nar.”
    “Stuff that,” somebody heckled. “There’re plenty of loyal Penserites who’d be happy to loan him their identity for an off-planet trip.”
    “Be that as it may,” the short man said stiffly, “Penser’s various surfacings all seem to take place within small, loyal cadres of his followers, who then proceed to distribute his texts to a wider circle. Or vidtapes of Penser that could have been made anywhere. One or two of these purported appearances were even in other star systems. If that’s the case, we can only conclude that Penser can travel faster than light.”
    It was too much for Fraz. He jumped to his feet. “Whose side are you on, anyway, you son of a spoiled zygote?” he shouted. “How many legs you got under that smock?”
    The moderator banged with his block of wood. “Let the man talk,” he said.
    “Sit down, Fraz,” Pite ordered. “We’ve got him on our list. The main thing now is the message.”
    Still glaring, Fraz sank into his seat. His hands still made two big fists.
    The short man nodded thanks to the moderator. Looking annoyed, he went on. “There are no ‘sides’ in the struggle for human ascendancy. Or there shouldn’t be. I was signing petitions and working for the cause when some of the people in this room were a blob of jelly on a laboratory slide. And I won’t have my motives questioned. I may not agree with all of Penser’s positions, but I’m aware that he has a following here and on other worlds and that he is an important voice in the struggle for human ascendancy, no matter what his differences with the leadership on Juxt One. So I’m going to read his statement, and there will be printouts later for those who want them.”
    He twiddled the control on the little display screen in his palm until it came up with the text he wanted. He cleared his throat again and began to read.
    “The universe is within our grasp,” Bram heard, “but first we must make a fist. The stars like grains of sand will slip through separate fingers, but the human hand, clenched, is capable of possessing the cosmos.”
    With the very first words, the image of a fussy little man at a lectern, peering nearsightedly at a hand-held reader and mouthing someone else’s message, disappeared, and the room was filled with a powerful presence. Bram could almost sense Penser’s forceful personality hanging in the air.
    A hush had fallen over the assembly. The others could sense it, too, even those who had been antagonistic.
    The words themselves were extraordinary. Taken literally, they made no sense, as Bram realized later when he ran over them in his mind. Penser used a lot of repetition, repeating what evidently were his cant phrases: “No egg grows until it divides.” “We shall prevail.” “The matter must be forced.” “To build, we must first destroy.” “Some say there is no goal, only the road ahead; I say the results justify the methods.”
    But as the phrases mounted, building on simple rhythms, they cast a spell. It was language used as Bram had never heard language used before—not to convey information, but to bend and twist human emotion. The closest comparison Bram could think of was the preaching of some of the prophets invented by King James.
    Politics had been among the earliest of the human arts to be revived. It required only three people: two to disagree with each other and a third to be wooed for support. Bram had always thought of it as a dull but necessary instrument used to elect proctors and council members. But until now there had never been a Penser. He had rediscovered the art of demagoguery.
    Bram could see tears running down Eena’s face. In the seat to his right, Kerthin seemed to be in a trance; she sat like a statue, her face lifted and her eyes focused on an imaginary spot somewhere above the lectern.
    “Hold yourselves in readiness, for our time is come,” flowed the smooth words, rising now in peroration. “There is a universe to win.”
    Bram caught Pite nodding meaningfully at Fraz. Pite had been taking notes on the speech, but the notes seemed to consist of short groups of numbers. He saw Bram’s stare and buttoned his writing slate up in