retly puts in a new God-King. Plastic surgery would guarantee facial
resemblance, and, of course, the rank and file citizen would probably
never be allowed close enough to discover that their God-King seemed
different every couple of decades. At any rate, it's been working for some
time."

"And there's been no revolt against this religious aristocracy?"

She shook her head. "Evidently not. It takes a brave man to revolt against
both his king and his God at the same time."

"But what happened now?" Ronny pursued.

"Evidently, right in the midst of a particularly important religious
ceremony, with practically the whole planet watching on TV, the God-King
was killed with a bomb. No doubt about it, definitely killed. There are
going to be a lot of people on New Delos wondering how it can be that an
immortal God-King can die."

"And Sid thinks it's Tommy Paine's work?"

She shifted dainty shoulders in a shrug. "It's the sort of thing he does.
I suppose we'll learn when we get there."

-------------------------------------

Even on the fast Space Forces cruiser, the trip was going to take a week,
and there was precious little Ronny Bronston could do until arrival. He
spent most of his time reading up on New Delos and the several other
planets in the UP organization which had fairly similar regimes. More than
a few theocracies had come and gone during the history of man's
development into the stars.

He also spent considerable time playing Battle Chess or talking with Tog
and with the ship's officers.

These latter were a dedicated group, high in morale, enthusiastic about
their work which evidently involved the combined duties of a Navy, a Coast
Guard, and a Coast and Geodetic Survey system, if we use the ocean going
services of an earlier age for analogy.

They all had the dream. The enthusiasm of men participating in a race's
expansion to glory. There was the feeling, even stronger here in space
than back on Earth, of man's destiny being fulfilled, that humanity had
finally emerged from its infancy, that the fledgling had finally found its
wings and got off the ground.

After one of his studying binges, Ronny Bronston had spent an hour or so
once with the captain of the craft, while that officer stood an easy watch
on the ship's bridge. There was little enough to do in space, practically
nothing, but there was always an officer on watch.

They leaned back in the acceleration chairs before th