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kissed her vehemently. He suddenly realized that he had been wanting to do it all along.
    He felt Edith’s hands on his chest pushing and Maxwell’s hands on his shoulders pulling him away. At arm’s length Edith gave him a stinging slap on the face. Maxwell shook his fist at him.
    He turned and ran. When he had run half a block he glanced back. He was relieved to find that both his followers were running after him. At least, he thought, they won’t bother the Maxwells.
    He walked directly to his hotel.
    When he had got to his room he closed the door (it was illegal, he had found, for Proletarians to lock their doors) and examined the room from base to ceiling to see whether it was wired for sound reception.
    He found two tiny microphones built into the walls at diagonally opposite corners.
    He sank onto the bed.

Chapter 6
    STALENIN, pipe in hand, walked slowly back and forth, “I’m going to tell you something, Peter, that is known to nobody on earth except my personal physician and my private secretary.... About six weeks ago I had a stroke...”
    “Oh!”
    “I recovered in four days. It seemed to leave no mark. But my doctor warns me that I may have another, more serious. It may affect my heart, my brain—paralyze me—carry me off. That’s primarily why I brought you from Bermuda two weeks ago.... 1 don’t know whether your mother ever made clear to you the real reason for our breakup.”
    “You said, Your Supremacy, that she objected to the Great Purge that carried away her brother—” “Yes, yes. But our real split came earlier. It was ideological, like all real splits. She accused me of betraying the revolution! Me! She insisted that the kind of communism I had put into effect was not Marxian-Leninism! It was, of course, the essence of Marxism and Leninism. If I had had her liquidated then and there, as I first thought of doing, she would have gone to her death convinced that she was right. I was determined to force her to change her mind, and really change it, before she died. And that was why I kept her alive, guarded and isolated, on that island. I was going to show her, when the job was done, the great classless society that I could bring into being. I was going to lead her through a world flowing with milk and honey. Her accusation was a monstrous lie! I was going to prove even to her that it was a lie! So far from betraying the revolution, it has been my supreme mission to carry the revolution to its destined fulfillment!”
    His pace quickened and his excitement grew as he spoke. Suddenly he put his hand to his heart, and Peter saw that he was making a deliberate effort to calm himself. After a pause he went on:
    “Time was not on my side.... She died too soon. And now, perhaps, I am going to die too soon.... And that is why I sent for you.”
    He walked slowly to his desk and shook the ashes out of his pipe. “Since your mother insisted that I was not creating true communism, maybe you can. I’m going to let you try.”
    Peter was staggered. “But, Your Supremacy, I know nothing—”
    “If you know nothing, it’s because you were taught nothing. You were educated precisely in accordance with your mother’s views. I chose the best teachers in Wonworld to teach you the subjects that she wanted you taught. And she didn’t want you to be taught anything about politics or economics or history because, she claimed, you would only be indoctrinated with corrupted views. Well, let’s see what you can do with the views she taught you!”
    “But, Your Supremacy, I wouldn’t have the remotest idea of where to begin! You wouldn’t want me to wreck Wonworld, but that is precisely what I would probably do. I don’t even know what my mother’s principal objection was to your regime. She never spoke to me about it.”
    Stalenin looked astonished. “She never spoke to you about it?” “She seldom talked about the world outside. She seldom mentioned your name.” Stalenin was taken aback. He