The Project Gutenberg EBook of Empire, by Clifford Donald Simak

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Title: Empire

Author: Clifford Donald Simak

Release Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #28215]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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EMPIRE

A Powerful Novel of Intrigue and Action
in the Not-So-Distant Future

_by_

CLIFFORD D. SIMAK

_A Complete ORIGINAL Book_, UNABRIDGED

WORLD EDITIONS, INC.
105 WEST 40TH STREET
NEW YORK 18, NEW YORK

_Copyright 1951_
_by_
WORLD EDITIONS, INC.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

Transcriber's Note:

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.

_CHAPTER ONE_

Spencer Chambers frowned at the spacegram on the desk before him. John
Moore Mallory. That was the man who had caused so much trouble in the
Jovian elections. The troublemaker who had shouted for an investigation
of Interplanetary Power. The man who had said that Spencer Chambers and
Interplanetary Power were waging economic war against the people of the
Solar System.

Chambers smiled. With long, well-kept fingers, he rubbed his iron-gray
mustache.

John Moore Mallory was right; for that reason, he was a dangerous man.
Prison was the place for him, but probably a prison outside the Jovian
confederacy. Perhaps one of the prison ships that plied to the edge of
the System, clear to the orbit of Pluto. Or would the prison on Mercury
be better?

Spencer Chambers leaned back in his chair and matched his fingertips,
staring at them, frowning again.

Mercury was a hard place. A man's life wasn't worth much there. Working
in the power plants, where the Sun poured out its flaming blast of heat,
and radiations sucked the energy from one's body, in six months, a year
at most, any man was finished.

Chambers shook his head. Not Mercury. He had