Tyrants Need To Be Loved — Murray Leinster

Here is a sardonic tale which proves once again that... TYRANTS NEED TO BE LOVED


Excerpt

Doctor Zoch had said that nobody wants to be loved as much as a tyrant, because to be all-powerful is to live in constant fear. But tonight Igor felt no love at all for the Ruler. He felt a sickening terror, which he tried to turn into fury for the sake of courage. But it did not work for Mm.

All of Diane's moons were below the horizon, and the night was pitch-dark, but there was light ahead and his teeth tended to chatter. The light was that rectangular lane of pitiless glare which was the fence about the prison-camp. Doctor Zoch was a prisoner in it. Already Igor could see the fence itself -- woven barbed wire -- and the guard-towers -- raised on stilt-like metal legs -- and he imagined that he could see in the center that huddle of noisesomeness which was the barracks for the prisoners condemned to hard labor on one-fourth rations until they died.

He halted and looked at his companions. Like himself they wore dark clothing, with dark masks and thick dark gloves. Two of them carried stunners -- bulky, hand-made objects good for three hundred yards. Two others carried spidery, insulated aluminum ladders. Igor carried other hand-made pocket stunners -- they had been developed at the Institute and discreetly kept secret -- and a flask for Doctor Zoch if the impossible happened and they got him out of the prisoncamp.

"We're getting too close," said Igor, in a tone which surprised him by its steadiness. "We crawl from here."