THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP
The
town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its namel In what was
undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply picked itself
up one night and rose two full miles above Earthl
Radio
messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But Don Cort,
stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that nothing was simple
about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they accepted their rise in the
world as being due to one of their local townspeople, a crackpot professor.
But
after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious that the
professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up to Cort: either
find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his days on the
smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy!
Turn
this book over for second complete novel
RICHARD
WILSON, a part-time novelist, is a full-time newsman for an international press service (Reuters). He is the author of two previous books and several dozen short stories in science-fiction magazines since 1940.
He finds time for his fiction writing at night and on week ends in the attic workroom of his century-old ex-farmhouse exactly 35 miles, as the odometer on his Volkswagen computes it, from Times Square.
Reviewers have not exactly compared his writing to those of some others who once labored in Reuters' 109-year-old vineyards, among them John Buchan and Edgar Wallace. But one New York Times critic praised "his whacky humor," which he said has "the bite of shrewd satire behind its madness," and the New
York Heralds-Tribune's man maintained that "there's not another male in the science-fiction field who can beat Wilson in the easy, intimate exposition of the private lives of the space-future."
And Then the Town Took Off
by
RICHARD
WILSON
ACE
BOOKS, INC. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
and then the town took off
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved
For Felicitas
K. Wilson
the sioux spaceman
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
I
The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night
of October 31,
A
truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had been
highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent over a
second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If he'd gone
another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where Superior had been.
Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit
because it was too dark, but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had
blown up, which was his first thought. He backed up
two hundred feet, set out flares, then sped off to a telephone.
The
state police converged on the former site of Superior from several directions.
Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they confirmed that the town
undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to the National Guard.
The
guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were needed—to keep
people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over it reported that it
looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into the Ohio countryside.
The
Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains was missing.
The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not stop at Superior at 11:58.
That seemed to fix the time
of the disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery
shortly after midnight.
Someone
pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was the
witching hour.
Somebody
else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil defense
official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook it and rapped
on it, it refused to click.
A
National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit, having
found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but when he came
out the other side he reported that the pit was concave, relatively smooth, and
did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no people, no houses—no sign of
anything except the pit itself.
The
Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes had been over
the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic Energy Commission
denied that they had been conducting secret experiments.
Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown
up.
The town's biggest' factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest made bubble
gum.
A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on
the morning of November 1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen
a flying saucer and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The
object loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed
course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his co-pilot
also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the terrific speed
flying saucers were allegedly capable of.
Then he saw the church
steeple on it.
A
few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of Ohio,
addressed to whom it might concern:
It said that Superior had
seceded from Earth.
One
other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first day. A ham
radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying plaintively:
"Cold up herel"
Don
Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye Cannonball
when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window, hoping this was
Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it wasn't Columbus. All
he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen hurried along the tracks.
The
conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom Don had
taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did we
stop?"
"Somebody
flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station stop
at Superior on this run."
The
girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the club car he'd
seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair along the part was dark.
Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the opportunity for a brief study of
her face. The cheeks were full and untouched by make-up. There were lines at
the comers of her mouth which indicated a tendency to arrange her expression
into one of disapproval. The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was
obvious that the scarlet lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than
the one nature had given her.
Her
glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had been about
to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe that it was more
than adequate.
If
the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had been a
trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in his
mid-twenties—about her age —lean, tall and straight-shouldered, with once-blond
hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome nor ugly, and a habit
of drawing the inside of his left cheek between his teeth and nibbling at it
thoughtfully.
But
it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he carried, attached
by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.
"Will we be here long?" Don asked
the conductor. He didn't want to miss his plane at Columbus: The sooner he got
to Washington, the sooner he'd get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was
attached to was one reason why his interest in the redhead had been only
passing.
"Can't
say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and went down to
the tracks.
Don
hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed
the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it sat in
the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive and found a
bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.
Some
sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was covered with
every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red lanterns, both battery
and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even an old red shirt.
Don
saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking to an old
bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat and riding boots.
"You'd
go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.
"If
you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "111 plow
right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"
"Look
for yourself," the old man in the white helmet
said. "Go ahead. Look."
The
engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor the
old man. Then let's go."
The
bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet— went off with the fireman. Don
followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along the gravel when the
fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge? I don't see
nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever
into the darkness.
"It's
another half mile or so," the professor said. "Well, let's hurry up.
We haven't got all night." The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you
have."
They
came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet swelled with
pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.
"Behold,"
he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The
edge of the world."
True,
everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on the horizon
where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.
Don
Cort and the fireman -walked cautiously toward the edge while the professor
ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there before. But there
was a wind and they did not venture too close. Nevertheless, Don could see that
it apparently was a neat, sharp edge, not one of your old ragged, random edges
such as might have been caused by an explosion. This one had the feeling of
design behind it.
Standing
on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over the edge. He
didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit on the edge of his
seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the situation seemed to call for
it. Over the edge could be seen a big section of Ohio. At least he supposed it
was Ohio.
Don
looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his face, then at
the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.
"You
see what I mean" he said. "You would have gone right
over. I believe you would have had a two-mile fall."
"Of
course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the old
Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at
Cavalier."
Don
Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the club car,
asked, "Cavalier?"
"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you say your name
was, miss?"
"Jen Jervis," she
said. "Geneva Jervis, formally.''
"Miss Jervis. I'm
Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."
The
girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded
and grinned.
"There's
plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't exacdy
pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."
"Are you connected
with the college?" Don asked.
"Me?
No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the world,
hasn't it?"
"Overnight,"
Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say is true. I
haven't seen the edge myself."
"You'll
have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor said,
"if we don't settle back in the meantime."
"Was there any sort of
explosion?" Don asked.
"No.
There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was watching the late
show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and reception isn't very good,
especially with old English movies. Well, all of a sudden the picture sharpened
up and I could see just as plain. Then the phone rang and it was Professor
Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Yes.
Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of Applied
Sciences."
"Professor
of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor Garet telephoned
and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector Civek—'everything's up in the air.'
He was having his little joke, of course. I said, 'What?' and then he told
me."
"Told
you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory about
it?"
"He
has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey was that
this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?"
Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a
politician, not a scientist. Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on
the telephone, about magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as
a courtesy, so the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing
his town had flown the coop."
"What's the population
of Superior?"
"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand and forty, counting you
people from the train. I guess you'll be with us for a while."
"What do you mean by
that?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Well, I don't see how
you can get down. Do you?"
"Does
Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to
Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.
"Nope,"
Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."
"Maybe not a plane," Don said,
"but a helicopter could land just about anywhere." "No
helicopters here, either."
"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."
"Hm,"
said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the rearview
mirror. "I'suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier. You go
right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor Garet. I've
got to see him—excuse me."
The
mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who was
frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was
perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"
"I'm
thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie
another night, then taken a plane to Washington."
"Washington?"
Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I was going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,
Miss Jervis?"
"I work for the Government. Doesn't
everybody?" "Not everybody. Me, for instance."
"No?"
she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have thought
you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."
He laughed quickly and loudly because she was
getting uncomfortably close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs National
Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"
"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold,
S.O.B."
Don laughed again. "He sure is."
"Mister
Cort!" she said,
annoyed. "You know as well as I do that S.O.B. stands for Senate Office
Building. I'm his secretary."
"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find
a place to sleep. It's getting late."
"Places to sleep," she corrected. She looked
angry.
"Of
course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put
you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of this
cuff."
He
took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired woman who
introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you
comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh?
The professor is simply beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since
the cosmolineator blew up."
They
had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going around a comer,
gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white laboratory smock.
II
Don Cort
had slept, but not well. He
had tried to fold the brief case to pull it through his sleeve so he could take
his coat off, but whatever was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had
given him a room to himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants
off but had had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty,
and did what little dressing was necessary.
It was eight o'clock, according to the watch
on the un-handcuffed wrist, and things were going on. He had a view of the campus
from his window. A bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a
squat building, and other people going in random directions. The first were
students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty members.
The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct. Only then did he
remember completely that he and the whole town of Superior were up in the air.
He
went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The others had
gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped outdoors. It was crisp,
if not freezing, and his breath came out visibly. First he'd eat, he decided,
so he'd be strong enough to go take a good look over the edge, in broad
daylight, to the Earth below.
The
mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he got in line
with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he knew, but as he was
looking for a table a willowy
blonde girl smiled and gestured to the empty place opposite her.
"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't
yon join me?"
"Thanks,"
he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"
"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm Alis—that's
A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did you escape from
jail?"
"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual
name. Professor Garet's daughter?"
"The
same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty
chance of going to OSU. As it is, I'm duty-bound to represent the second
generation at the nut factory."
"Nut
factoryP You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate
knife and fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief
case.
"Here,
let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order them
scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot
theory and the latter-day alchemist."
"I'm
sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out of here by
then."
"How
do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get down from
ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"
"Ill
find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I
got up here."
"You were levitated,
like everybody else."
"You
make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a whole patch of
real estate for some fell purpose."
"Scarcely
fell, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that
seems to be a matter of opinion. Apparendy you haven't seen the papers."
"I didn't know there
were any."
"Actually
there's only one, the Superior
Sentry, a
weekly. This is an extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it
out." She opened her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.
Don blinked at the
headline:
Town
Gets High
"Ed
Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior," Alis
said.
Don
read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an apparendy
grave situation.
Residents
having business beyond the outskirts of town today are advised not to. It's a
long way down. Where Superior was surrounded
by Ohio,
as usual,
today Superior ends literally at the
town line.
A Citizens' Emergency
Fence-Building Committee is being formed,
but in
the meantime
all are
warned to stay well away from
the edge.
The law
of gravity
seems to have been repealed for the town but
it is
doubtful if the same exemption
would apply to a dubious
individual bent on investigating ...
Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see
anything about it being deliberate."
Alis
had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across to him and
said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't get along, so
you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three, bottom."
Don
creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his thanks, and
read:
Mayor
Claims Secession From Earth
Mayor Hector Civek,
in a
proclamation issued locally by hand and
dropped to the rest of
the world
in a
plastic shatter-proof bottle, said today
that Superior
has seceded
from Earth. His reasons were as
vague as his explanation.
The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has
been discriminated
against by county, state and
federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has
been held
up to
global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited) colleges and
universities; and (3) chicle exporters have
conspired against the Superior Bubble Gum
Company by unreasonably raising prices.
The "explanation" consists of
a 63-page
treatise on applied magnology by
Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier
which the editor (a) does not
understand; (b) lacks space to
publish; and which (it being
atrociously handwritten) he (c) has not
the temerity
to ask
his linotype
operator to set.
Don said, "I'm
beginning to like this Ed Clark."
"He's
a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up to
Father."
"Does
your father claim that he levitated Superior off the face of the
Earth?"
"Not
to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a skeptic. He gave
up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a science teacher in high
school-not in Superior, incidentally—who gave me all kinds of embarrassing
questions to ask Father. I asked them, being a natural-born needier, and Father
has disowned me intellectually ever since."
"How old are you, Miss
Garet, if I may ask?"
She
sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt, emphasizing her
good figure. To a male friend Don would have described the figure as
outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth of such moist red
softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be kissed. All in all she could
have been the queen of a campus much more densely populated with co-eds than
Cavalier was.
"You may call me
Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."
Don grinned. "Going
on?"
"Three
months past. How old are you, Mr.
Cort?" "Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use
it."
"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go with you
to the end of the world."
"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead
from the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this
morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been solicited.
He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll
admit to the double
entendre," Alis
said. "What I meant—for now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior
used to be attached to the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along
without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity
1, at nine o'clock.
But
I'm a demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior
at my advanced age. On to the brinkl"
They walked south from the campus and came to
the railroad track. The train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had
been abandoned except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night
aboard.
"What's
happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down
there?"
"Not
that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Caret. "What are
you going to do?"
"What can I do?" the conductor asked.
"You
can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's
going to steal your old train."
The
conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.
"You
know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train
stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."
"South Creek,"
Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."
"Is
it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that Superior's
water supply?"
Alis
shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water. Let's
go look at the creek."
They found it coursing
along between the banks.
"Looks just about the
same," she said.
"That's funny. Come
on; let's follow it to the edge."
The
brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight. Everything
stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with the withered
stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was
South Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees, with
a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.
"Where
is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."
"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earthpeople."
"I
should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."
"Don't! You'll fall
off!"
"I'll
be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed him, a
few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for a spell of
dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a topographer's map, far below.
Don took another wary step, then sat down.
"Chicken,"
said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down,
too.
"I
still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on his
stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."
Finally
he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he could almost reach
the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of his right hand closed over
the brink. For a moment he lay there, panting, head pressed to the ground.
"How do you
feel?" Alis asked.
"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."
Alis
put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took
hold of his ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes
along," she said.
"Thanks.
It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. Damn."
"What?"
"It still isn't clear.
Do you have a pocket mirror?"
"I
have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and tossed
it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going over the edge.
Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved and had to put his head
back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.
Don
opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand. He held it
out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the end of the creek.
"Now I've got it. The water isn't going
off the edge!" "It isn't? Then where is it going?"
"Down, of course, but it's as if it's
going into a well, or a vertical tunnel, just short of the edge."
"Why? How?"
"I
can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming. back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed
himself off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go
next."
"The
other end of the creek?"
"Exactly."
South
Creek did. not bisect Superior, as Don thought it
might, but flowed in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about
two miles to go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis
said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball out of
play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.
But
as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of the creek,
they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis said.
The
fence, which had a sign on it, warning—electrified,
was semicircular, with each
end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it so they could see the mouth of the
creek. The water flowed from under the tarp and fence.
"Look how it comes in
spurts," Alis said.
"As
if it's being pumped."
Smaller print on the sign said: Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of two
sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is sufficient to
kill. It was signed: Vincent Grande, Chief of Police, Hector
Civek, Mayor.
"What's
the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don asked.
"North
Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed to
swim."
"Is the lake entirely
within the town limits?''
"I don't know."
"If
it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder what would happen?"
"I
know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you found
out."
She
took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth below and to
the west.
"It's
impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way
over there?"
He
patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I mean,
how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here as it used to
down there?"
"We could tell by the
sun, silly."
"Of
course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not high enough to see very far.
If we were we'd be able to see the Great Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway."
They
were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a cloudbank and, a
second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL on the underside of a
wing. As it turned they imagined they could see faces peering out of the
windows. They waved and thought they saw one or two people wave back. Then the
plane climbed toward the east and was gone.
"Well,"
Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know that they
know. Maybe well begin to get some answers. Or, if not answers,
then transportation."
"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you like it
here?"
"If
you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if I don't
get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into clean clothes,
you're not going to like me."
"You're
still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still holding his
arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me," she said,
"before you deteriorate."
They were in the midst of an extremely
pleasant kiss when the brief case at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to
him.
Ill
Much
of the rest of the world
was inclined to regard the elevation of Superior, Ohio, as a Fortean phenomenon
in the same category as flying saucers and sea monsters.
The
press had a field day. Most of the headlines were whimsical:
Town Takes Off Superior
Lives Up To Name
A Rising
Community The city council of Superior, Wisconsin, passed
a resolution urging its Ohio namesake to come back down. The Superiors in
Nebraska, Wyoming, Arizona and West Virginia, glad to have the publicity, added
their voices to the plea.
The
Pennsylvania Railroad filed a suit demanding that the state of Ohio return
forthwith one train and five miles of right-of-way.
The
price of bubble gum went up from one cent to three for a nickel.
In
Parliament a Labour member rose to ask the Home Secretary for assurances that
all British cities were firmly fastened down.
An
Ohio waterworks put in a bid for the sixteen square miles of hole that
Superior had left behind, explaining that it would make a fine reservoir.
A
company that leased out big advertising signs in Times Square offered Superior a quarter of a million dollars for exelusive rights to
advertising space on its bottom, or Earthward, side. It sent the offer by air
mail, leaving delivery up to the post office.
In
Washington, Senator Bobby Thebold ascertained that his red-haired secretary,
Jen Jervis, had been aboard the train levitated with Superior and registered a
series of complaints by telephone, starting with the Interstate Commerce
Commission and the railroad brotherhoods. He asked the FBI to investigate the
possibility of kidnaping and muttered about the likelihood of it all being a
Communist plot.
A
little-known congressman from Ohio started a rumor that raising
of Superior was an experiment connected with the United States earth satellite
program. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration issued a quick
denial.
Two men talked eamesdy in an
efficient-looking room at the end of one of the more intricate mazes in the
Pentagon Building. Neither wore a uniform but the younger man called the other
sir, or chief, or general.
"We've
established definitely that Sergeant Cort was on that train, have we?" the
general asked.
"Yes,
sir. No
doubt about it."
"And he has the item
with him?"
"He must have. The only keys are here
and at the other end. He couldn't open the handcuff or the brief case."
"The only known
keys, that is."
"Oh? How's that, General?"
"The
sergeant can open the brief case and use the item if we tell him how."
"You
think it's time to use it? I thought we were saving if]
"That
was before Superior defected. Now we can use it to more advantage than any
theoretical use it might be put to in the foreseeable future."
"We
could evacuate Cort. Take him off in a helicopter or drop him a parachute and let
him jump."
"No.
Having him -there is a piece of luck. No one knows who he is. Well assign him
there for the duration and have him report regularly. Let's go to the message
center."
Senator Bobby Thebold was an imposing six
feet two, a muscular 195, a youthful-looking 43. He wore his steel-gray hair
cut short and his skin was tan the year round. He was a bachelor. He had been a
fighter pilot in World War II and his conversation was peppered with Air Force
slang, much of it out of date. Thebold was good newspaper copy and one segment
of the press, admiring his fighting ways, had dubbed him Bobby the Bold. The
Senator did not mind a bit.
At
the moment Senator Thebold was pacing the carpet in the ample working space
he'd fought to acquire in the Senate Office Building. He was momentarily at a
loss. His inquiries about Jen Jervis had- - elicited no satisfaction from the
ICC, the FBI, or the CIA. He was in an alphabetical train of thought and went
on to consider the CAA, the CAB and the CAP. He snapped his fingers at CAP. He
had it.
The
Civil Air Patrol itself he considered a la-de-da outfit of gentleman flyers,
skittering around in light planes, admittedly doing some good, but by and
large nothing to excite a former P-38 pilot who'd won a chestful of ribbons
for action in the Southwest Pacific.
Ah,
but the PP. There was an organizationl Bobby Thebold had been one of the
founders of the Private Pilots, a hard-flying outfit that zoomed into the wild
blue yonder on week ends and holidays, engines aroar, propellers aglint, white
silk scarves aflap. PP's members were wealthy industrialists, stunt flyers,
sportsmen—the elite of the air.
PP
was a paramilitary organization with the rank of its. officers
patterned after the Royal Air Force. Thus Bobby Thebold, by virute of his war
record, his charter membership and his national eminence, was Wing Commander
Thebold, DFC.
Wing Commander Thebold swung into action. He
barked into the intercom: "Miss Riley I Get the
airport. Have them rev up Charger. Tell
them 111 be there for oh-nine-fifty-eight take-off. Ten-hundred will do. And
get my car."
Charger
was Bobby the Bold's war
surplus F-38 Lightning, a sleek, twin-boomed two engine fighter plane restored
to its gleaming, pointless aluminum. Actually it was an unarmed
photo-reconnaissance version of the famous war horse of the Pacific, a fact the
wing commander preferred to ignore. In compensation, he belted on a .45
whenever he climbed into the cockpit.
Thebold
got onto Operations in PP*s midwestem headquarters in Chicago. He barked, long
distance:
"Jack
Perley? Group Captain Perley, that is? Bobby, that's right. Wing
Commander Thebold now. We've got a mission, Jack. Scramble
Blue Squadron. What? Of course you can; this is an emergency. Well
rendezvous north of Columbus— I'll give you the exact grid in half an hour,
when I'm airborne. Can do? Good-ol ETA? Eleven-twenty EST. Well, maybe that is optimistic, but I
hate to see the day slipping by. Make it eleven-Jorty-five. What? Objective? Objective Superiorl Got
it? Okay—rogerl"
Wing
Commander Bobby Thebold took his Lindbergh-style helmet and goggles from a desk
drawer, caressing the limp leather fondly, and put them in a dispatch case. He
gave a soft salute to the door behind which Jen Jervis customarily worked,
more as his second-in-command than his secretary, and said half aloud:
"Okay, Jen, we're coming to get
you."
He
didn't know quite how, but Bobby the Bold and Charger would soon be on their
way.
Don
Cort regretfully detached himself from Alis Garet. "What was that?"
he said.
"That
was me—Alis the love-starved. You could be a bit more gallant Even 'How was
that?,' though corny, would have been preferable.
"No—I
mean I thought I heard a voice. Didn't you hear anything?"
"To
be perfecdy frank—and I say it with some pique—I was totally absorbed.
Obviously you weren't."
"It
was very nice." The countryside, from the edge to the golf course, was deserted.
"Well,
thanks. Thanks a bunch. Such enthusiasm is more than I can bear. I have to go
now. There's an eleven o'clock class in magnetic flux that I'm simply dying to
audit."
She
gave her shoulder-length blonde hair a toss and started back. Don hesitated,
looked suspiciously at the brief case dangling from his wrist, shook his head,
then followed her. The voice, wherever it came from, had not spoken again.
"Don't
be angry, Alis." He fell into step on her left and took her arm with his
free hand. "It's just that everything is so crazy and nobody seems to be
taking it seriously. A town doesn't just get up and take off, and yet nobody up
here seems terribly concerned."
Alis
squeezed the hand that held her arm, mollified. "You've got lipstick on
your whiskers."
"Good. Ill never shave again."
"Ah,"
she laughed, "gallantry at last. Ill tell you what let's do. Well go see
Ed Clark, the editor of the Sentry. Maybe
hell give you some intelligent conversation."
The
newspaper office was in a ramshackle one-story building on Lyric Avenue, a
block off Broadway, Superior's main street. It was in an ordinary store front
whose windows displayed various ancient stand-up cardboard posters calling
attention to a church supper, a state fair, an auto race, and a movie starring
H. B. Warner. A dust-covered banner urged the election as president of Alfred E. Smith.
There was no one in the front of the shop. Alis led Don to the rear where a tall skinny man with straggly
gray hair was setting type.
"Good morning, Mr. Clark," she
said. "What's that you're setting—an anti-Hoover
handbill?"
"Hello, Al. How are
you this fine altitudinous day?"
"Super.
Or should it be supra? I want you to meet Don Cort. Don, Mr. Clark."
The
men shook hands and Clark looked curiously at Don's handcuff.
"It's
my theory he's an embezzler," Alis said, "and he's made this his
getaway town."
"As
a matter of fact," Don said, "the Riggs National Bank will be worried
if I don't get in touch with them soon. I guess you'd know, Mr. Clark—is there
any communication at all out of town?" By prearrangement, a message from
Don to Riggs would be forwarded to Military Intelligence.
"I
don't know of any, except for the Civek method—a bottle tossed over the edge.
The telegraph and telephone lines are cut, of course. There is a radio station
in town, WCAV, operated from the campus, but it's been silent ever since the
great severance. At least nothing local has come over my old Atwater
Kent."
"Isn't anybody doing anything?" Don asked.
"Sure,"
Clark said. "I'm getting out my paper—there was even an extra this
morning—and doing job printing. The job is for a jeweler in Ladenburg. I don't
know how 111 deliver it, but no one's told me to stop so
I'm doing it. I guess everybody's carrying on pretty much as before."
"That's
what I mean. Business as usual. But
how about the people who do business out of town? What's Western Union
doing, for instance? And the trucking companies? And the factories? You have two factories, I understand, and
pretty soon there's going to be a mighty big surplus of kitchen sinks and
chewing gum."
"You two go on settling our fate,"
Alis said. "I'd better get back to school. Look me up later, Don."
She waved and went out.
"Fine
girl, that Alis," Clark said. "Got her old man's
gumption without his nutty streak. To answer your question, the Western
Union man here is catching up on his bookkeeping and accepting outgoing
messages contingent on restoration of service. The sink factory made a shipment
two days ago and won't have another ready till next week, so they're carrying
on. They have enough raw material for a month. I was
planning to visit the bubble gum people this afternoon to see how they're
doing. Maybe you'd hke to come."
"Yes, I would. I still
chew it once in a while, on the sly."
Clark
grinned. "I won't tell. Would you like to tidy up, Don? There's a washroom
out back, with a razor and some mysterious running water. Now there's a phenomenon I'd like to get to the bottom
of."
"Thanks.
Ill shave with it now and worry about its source
later. Do you think Professor Garet and his magnology cult has anything to do
with it?"
"He'd
like to think so, I'm sure." Clark shrugged. "We've been airborne
less than twelve hours. I guess the answers will come in time. You go clean up
and 111 get back to my job."
Don
felt better when he had shaved. It had been awkward because he hadn't been
able to take off his coat or shirt, but he'd managed. He was drying his face
when the voice came again. This time there was no doubt it came from the brief
case chained to his handcuff.
"Are you alone
now?" it asked.
Startled, Don said,
"Yes."
"Good. Speak closer to the brief case so
we won't be over-
heard. This is Captain Simmons, Sergeant."
"Yes, sir." '
"Take out your ID
card. Separate the two pieces of plastic.
There's
a flat plastic key next to the card. Open the brief case lock with it."
The
voice was silent until Don, with the help of a razor blade, had done as he was
directed. "All right, sir; that's done."
"Open
the brief case, take out the package, open the package and put the wrappings
back in the brief case." , Again the voice
stopped. Don unwrapped something that looked like a flat cigarette case with
two appendages, one a disk of perforated hard rubber the size of a half dollar,
and the other a three-quarter-inch-wide ribbon of opaque plastic. "I've
got it, sir."
"Good.
What you see is a highly advanced radio transmitter and receiver. You can
imagine its value in the field. It's a pilot model you were bringing back from
the contractor for tests here. But this seems as useful a way to test it as
any other."
"It's range is
fantastic, Captain—if you're in Washington."
"I
am. Now. The key also unlocks the handcuff. Unlock it.
Strip to the waist. Bend the plastic strip to fit over your shoulder—either
one, as you choose. Arrange the perforated disk so it's at the base of your
neck, under your shirt collar. The thing that looks like a cigarette case is
the power pack."
Don
followed the instructions, rubbing his wrist in relief as the handcuff came
off. The radio had been well designed and its components went into place as if
they had been built to his measure. They tickled a little on his bare skin, that was all. The power pack was surprisingly light.
"That's done, sir," Don said.
The
answer came softly. "So I hear.
You almost blasted my ear off. From now on, when you speak to me, or who-ever's
at this end, a barely audible murmur will be sufficient. Try it."
"Yes, Captain," Don whispered.
"I'm trying it now." "Don't whisper. I can hear you all right,
but so could people you wouldn't want overhearing at your end. A whisper
carries farther than you think. Talk low."
Don practiced while he put
his shirt, tie and coat back on.
"Good,"
Captain Simmons said. "Practice talking without moving your lips, for
occasions when you might have to transmit to us in someone's view. Now put your
handcuff back on and lock it."
"Oh, damn," Don
said under his breath.
"I heard that."
"Sorry, sir, but it is
a nuisance."
"I
know, but you have to get rid of it logically. When you get a chance go to the
local bank. It's the Superior State Bank on McEntee Street. Show them your
credentials from Riggs National and ask them to keep your brief case in their
vault. Get a receipt. Then, at your first opportunity, bum the plastic key and
your ID card."
"Yes,
sir."
"Keep
up your masquerade as a bank messenger and try to find out, as if you were an
ordinary curiosity-seeker, all you can about Cavalier Institute. You've made a
good start with the Garet girl. Get to know her father, the professor."
"Yes, sir." Don realized with embarrassment that his little romantic interlude with
Alis must have been eavesdropped on. "Are there any particular times I'm
to report?"
"You
will be reporting constantly. That's the beauty of this radio."
"You
mean I can't turn it off? I won't have any privacy? There'll always be somebody
listening?"
"Exactly. But you mustn't be inhibited. Your private life is still your own and
no one will criticize. Your unofficial actions will simply be ignored."
"Oh, great!"
"You
must rely on our discretion, Sergeant. I'm sure you'll get used "to it. Enough of this for now. We mustn't excite Clark's
suspicions. Go back to him now and carry on. You'll receive further
instructions as they are necessary. And remember—don't be inhibited."
"No,
sir," Don said ruefully. He went back to the print-shop, feeling like a
goldfish bowl.
IV
Ed Clare
took Don to the Superior
State Bank and introduced him to the president, who was delighted to do business
with a representative of Riggs National of Washington, D. C. Don told him
nothing about the contents of the brief case, but the banker seemed to be under
the impression they were securities or maybe even a million dollars cash, and
Don said nothing to spoil his pleasure.
Outside
again, with the receipt in his wallet, Don stood with Clark on the corner of
McEntee Street and Broadway.
"This
is the heart of town, you might say," the newspaper editor said. "The
bubble gum factory is over that way, on the railroad spur. Maybe you can smell
it. Smells real nice, I think."
Don
rubbed the wrist that had been manacled for so long. He was sniffing politely
when there was a roar of engines and a squadron of fighter planes buzzed
Broadway.
They
screamed over at little more than roof level, then
were gone. They were overhead so briefly that Don noticed only that they were
P-38's, at least four of them.
"Things
are beginning to happen," Don said. "The Air Force is having a
look-see."
Clark
shook his head. "That wasn't the Air Force. Those were the PP boys.
They're the only ones who fly those Lightnings these days."
«ppp»
"Private Pilots. Bobby
the Bold's airborne vigilantes. Wonder what they're up to?"
"Oh.
Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B." "If you want to put
it that way, yes."
"It's
a private joke. But I think I know what they're up to—or why. The Senator's
secretary is marooned up here, like me. She was on the train, too."
"You
don't sayl I got scooped on that one. Which one is she?"
"The redhead. Geneva Jervis. I
haven't seen her since last night, come to think of it."
The
P-38's screamed over again, this time from west to east. Don counted six planes
now and made out the PP markings. People had come out of stores and business
buildings and were looking out of upstairs windows at the sky. They were
rewarded by a third thundering flypast of the fighter planes. They were higher
this time, spread out laterally as if to search maximum terrain.
"Big
deal," Clark said. "This show would bring anyone outdoors, but even
if they see her what do you suppose they can do about
it? There's no place in town flat enough for a Piper Cub to land, let alone a fighter
plane."
"How
about the golf course?"
"Raleigh?
Worst set of links in the whole United States. A
helicopter could put down there, but that's about all. What's old Bobby so
worked up about, I wonder? Unless there's something to that gossip about this
Jervis girl being his mistress and he's showing off for her."
"He'd
show off for anybody, they tell me," Don said. Then he remembered that
Military Intelligence was listening in. If any pro-Theobold people were among
his eavesdroppers, he hoped they respected his private right to be
anti-Thebold.
At
that moment he and Clark were thrown against the side of the bank building.
They clung to each other and Don noticed that the sun had moved a few degrees in the sky.
"Oh-oh," Clark grunted.
"Superior's taking evasive action. Thinks it's
being attacked." As they regained their footing he asked, "Do you
feel heavy in the legs?"
"Yes. As if I were going up in an express elevator."
'"Exactly. Somebody's getting us up beyond the reach of these pesky planes, I'd
guess."
The
P-38's were overhead again, but now they seemed to be diving on the town. More
likely, if Clark's theory was right, it was an illusion—the planes were flying
level but the town was rising fast.
"They'd better
climb," Don said, "or they'll crash!"
There
was the sound of a crash almost immediately, from the south end of town. Don
and Clark ran toward it, fighting the heaviness in their legs.
A
dozen others were ahead of them, running sluggishly across South Creek Bridge.
Beyond, just short of the edge, was the wreckage of a fighter plane and, behind
it, the tom-up ground of a crash landing. There was no fire.
The
pilot struggled out of the cockpit. He dropped to the ground, felt himself to
see if any bones were broken, then saw the crowd
running toward him.
The
pilot hesitated, then ran toward the edge. Shouts came
from the crowd. With a last glance over his shoulder, the pilot leaped and went
over the edge.
The
crowd, Don and Clark among them, approached more cautiously. They made out a
falling dot and, a second later, saw a parachute blossom open. The other planes
appeared and flew a wide protective circle around the chutist. •
"Do you think that's
Bobby Thebold?" Don asked.
"Probably not. That was the last plane in the formation. Thebold would be the
leader."
They
went back past the crashed plane, surrounded by a growing crowd from town, and
recrossed the bridge.
"Look at the
water," the editor said. "Ice is forming."
"And
we're still rising," Don said, "if my legs are any judge. Do you
think there's a connection?"
Clark shrugged. He turned up his coat collar
and rubbed his hands. "All I know is the higher we go the colder we get.
Come on back to the shop and warm up."
They
turned at the sound of engines. Two of the five remaining P-38's had detached
themselves from their cover of the chutist and were flying around the rim of
Superior—as if unwilling to risk another flight across the surface of the town
that seemed determined to become a satellite of Earth.
When Don Cort reached the campus he was
shivering, in spite of the sweater and topcoat Ed Clark had lent him. He asked
a student where the Administration Building was and at the desk inquired for
Professor Garet.
A
gray-haired, dedicated-looking woman told him impatiently that Professor Garet
was in his laboratory and couldn't be disturbed. She wouldn't tell him
where the laboratory was.
"Have
you seen Miss Jervis?" Don wondered whether the redhead appreciated the
demonstration her boss, the flying Senator, had put on for her.
The
woman behind the desk shook her head. "You're two of the people from the
train, aren't you? Well, you're all supposed to report to the dining room at
two o'clock."
"What
for?"
"You'll find out at
two o'clock."
It
was obvious he would get no more information from her. Don left the building.
It was half-past one. He crossed the near-deserted campus. His legs still felt
heavy and he assumed Superior was still rising. It certainly seemed to be
getting increasingly colder.
He wondered how high they were^ and whether
it would snow. He hoped not. How high did you have to be before you got up
where it didn't snow any more? He had no idea. He did recall that Mount Everest
was 29,000 feet up and that it snowed up there. Or would it be down mere, relatively speaking? How high could they be, and didn't anybody
care?
The frosty old receptionist seemed to be
typical in her business-as-usual, come-what-may attitude. Even Ed Clark didn't
seem as concerned as he ought to be about Superior's ascent into the
stratosphere. Clark was interested, certainly, but he'd given Don the
impression that he was no more curious than he would be about any other
phenomenon he'd write about in next week's paper—a two-headed calf, for instance.
Don remembered now that the conquerors of
Everest had needed oxygen in the rarefied atmosphere near the summit and. he
experimentally took a couple of deep breaths. No difficulty. Therefore they
weren't 29,000 feet up—yet. Small comfort, he thought, as he shivered again.
He
picked out a building at random. Classes were in session behind the closed but
windowed doors along the hall. From the third door he saw Alis Garet, sitting
at the back of a small classroom. Her attention had wandered from the
instructor and when she saw Don she smiled and beckoned. He hesitated, then
opened the door and went in as quietiy as he could. The instructor paused
briefly, nodded, then went back to a droning lecture.
It seemed to be an English literature class.
Alis
cleared some books off a chair next to her and Don sat down. "Who turned
you loose?" she whispered.
He
realized she was referring to his de-handcuffed wrist and grinned, indicating
that he'd tell her later.
"I
see you've been outfitted for our new climate," she went on. A student in
the row of chairs ahead turned and frowned. The instructor talked on,
oblivious.
Don nodded and said "Sh."
"Don't let them intimidate you. Did you
see the planes?" More students were turning and glaring and Don's embarrassment
grew. "Come on," he said. "Let's cut this class."
"Bravol" she said. "Spoken like a true Cavalier."
She gathered up her books. The instructor,
without in-'terrupting his lecture, followed them with his eyes as they left
the room.
"Now
I'll never know whether the young princes got out of the tower alive," she
said.
"They didn't. The
question is, will we?"
"I certainly hope so.
Ill have to speak to Father about it."
"He's
locked up in his lab, they tell me. Where would that be?"
"In the tower, as a matter of fact. The bell tower that the
founding fathers built and then didn't have enough money to buy bells for.
But you can't go up there—it's the holy of holies."
"Can you?"
"No.
Why? You don't think Father is making all this happen, do you?"
"Somebody
is. Professor Garet seems as good a suspect as any/'
"Oh,
he likes to act mysterious, but it's all an act. Poor old Father is just a
crackpot theorist. I told you that. He couldn't pick up steel filing with a
magnet."
"I
wonder. Look, somebody's called a meeting for us outsiders from the train at
two o'clock. It's almost that now. Maybe 111 have a chance to ask some questions. Will
your father be there?"
"I'm
sure he will. He's a great meeting-caller. Ill go with
you. And, since you have two free hands now, you can hold my books. Maybe later
you'll get a chance to hold me."
Among the people sitting around the bare
tables in the dining room, Don recognized the conductor and other trainmen,
two stocky individuals who had the look of traveling salesmen, an elderly
couple who held hands, a young couple with a baby, two nuns, a soldier
apparently going on or returning from furlough, and a tall, hawk-nosed man Don
classified on no evidence at all as a Shakespearean actor. All had been on the
train. He didn't see Geneva Jervis anywhere.
An
improvised speaker's table had been set up at one end of the room, near the
door to the kitchen. A heavy-set man sat at the table talking to Mrs. Garet,
the professor's wife.
"The
stoutish gentieman next to Mother is the president of Cavalier," Alis
said. "Maynard Rubach. When you talk to him be sure to call him Doctor Rubach. He's not a Ph.D. and he's sensitive about it, but he did used to
be a veterinarian."
They
sat down near the big table and Mrs. Garet smiled and waved at them. Mayor
Civek came in through the kitchen door, licking a finger as if he'd been
sampling something on the way, and sat down next to Mrs. Garet.
At
that moment Don's stomach gave a hop and he felt blood rushing to his head.
Others also had pained or nauseous expressions.
"Ugh," Alis said.
"Now what?"
"I'd
guess," Don said when his stomach had settled back in place, "that
we've stopped rising."
"You mean we've gone
as high as we're going to go?"
"I hope so. We'd run out of air if we
went much higher."
Professor
Garet came in presendy, looking pleased with himself.
He nodded to his wife and the men next to her and cleared his throat as he
looked out over the room.
"Altitude
21,500 feet," he announced without preamble. "Temperature
sixteen degress Fahrenheit. From here on out —" he paused, repeated
"out" and chuckled—"it's going to be a bit chilly. Those of you
who are inadequately clothed will see my wife for extra garments. I believe you
have been comfortably housed and fed. There will, of course,
be no charge for these services while you are the guests of the Cavalier
Institute of Applied Sciences. Thank you. I now present Mr. Hector
Civek, the mayor of Superior, who will answer any other questions you may
have."
Don looked at Alis, who shrugged.
The conductor stood and opened a notebook which he consulted. "I have a
few questions, Mr. Mayor. These people have asked me to speak for them and
there's one question that outweighs all the others. That is—are you going to
take us back to Earth? If so, when? And how?"
Civek
cleared his throat. He took a Sip of water. "As for the first question—we
certainly hope to take you and ourselves back to Earth. I can't answer the
others."
"You hope to?"
"Earnestly. I turn blue easily myself, and I'm as anxious as you are to get back.
But when that will be depends entirely on circumstances. Circumstances,
uh, beyond my control."
"Who's
controlling them, then? Your friend with the whiskers?"
Professor
Garet smiled amiably and patted his beard. The portly Maynard Rubach got up and
Civek sat down.
"I
am Dr. Maynard Rubach, president of Cavalier. Tmust insist that in common
decency we all refrain from personal references. Mr. Civek has done his best to
give you an explanation, but of course he is a layman and, while he has many
excellent qualities, we cannot expect him to be conversant with the principles
of science. I will therefore attempt to explain.
"As
you know, science has been aware for hundreds of years that the Earth is a
giant magnet. .."
Don
saw Geneva Jervis. She was at the kitchen door beyond the speaker's table.
.. the isogenic and
the isoclinic..."
The
red-haired Miss Jervis saw Don now and put her finger to her hps.
"... an ultimote, which is simultaneously an
integral part of..."
Now
the redhead was beckoning to him urgendy. He excused himself to Alis, who
frowned when she saw the other girl; then he Went back of the speaker's table (". . . 1,257 tenescopes to the square
centimeter ...") into the kitchen. Jen Jervis was by now at the far end of
it, motioning him to hurry up.
"I've found something," she said.
She was wearing a shapeless fur coat, apparently borrowed. "Come on.
You'll have to see it." "All right, but why me?"
"Aside
from myself you seem to be the only one from the train
with any gumption. I know you've been spying around doing things while
everybody else sat back and waited for deliverance. Though I can't say I admire
your choice of companions. That tawdry blonde—"
"Now,
really, Miss Jervis!"
"Tawny, then;
sometimes I mix up my words."
"I'll bet."
She
led him out the back door and across the frozen ground past several buildings.
They reached what once must have been an athletic field.
"At the far end,"
she said. "Come on."
"Where
were you when your boy friend and his daredevil aces came over?" "I
saw them." "Did they see you?" "None of
your business."
He
shrugged. They were at a section of the grandstand at the end of the field. Jen
Jervis indicated a door and Don opened it. It led to a big room under the
stands. "What does this remind you of?" she asked.
Don looked blank. In the
dim light he could see some planking, a long-deflated football, ancient peanut
shells and an empty pint bottle. "I don't know. What?"
"Stagg
Field? At the University of Chicago? Under the
stands where they first made an atomic pile work?" She looked at
him with the air of an investigator hot on the scent.
He shrugged. "Never
been there. So what?"
"It's a pattern. This is where they've
hidden their secret."
"It
looks more like the place a co-ed and her boy friend might go to have a little
fun. In wanner weather, of course."
"Oh!" she said.
"You're disgusting! Look over there."
He
looked, wondering what made this young attractive woman hypersensitive on the
subject of sex. This was the second, time she'd blazed up over nothing. What he
saw where she pointed was a door at a 45-degree angle to the ground, set into a
triangular block of concrete. "Where does that go?" he asked.
"Down,"
she said as they walked toward it. "And there's some machinery or
something down there. I heard it. Or maybe I only felt the vibrations. It
throbs, anyway."
"Probably
the generator for the school's lighting system. Did you go down and look?"
"No."
"All right,
then." He opened the door. "Down we go."
At
the bottom of a flight of steps there was a corridor lit by dim electric light
bulbs along one wall. The corridor became a tunnel, sloping gradually
downward. They had been going north, Don judged, but then the tunnel made a
right turn and now they were following it due east. "I don't hear any
throbbing," he said.
"Well,
I did, and from way up here. They must have turned it off."
"How long ago was
that?"
"An
hour, maybe."
"While we were still rising. That would make sense. We've stopped again,
you know. Professor Garet gave us a bulletin on it."
He
had been going ahead of her in the narrow tunnel. Now it widened and they were
able to walk side by side. There seemed to be no end to it. But then they came
to a sturdy-looking door, padlocked.
"That's that," Don said.
"That's
that nothing," she said. "Break it down." He laughed. "You
flatter me. Come on back."
"Don't
you think this is at all peculiar? A tunnel starting under an
abandoned grandstand, running all this way and ending in a locked door?"
"Maybe this was a station on the
underground railway. It looks old enough."
"We're
going through that door." She opened her purse and took out a key ring. On
it was an extensive collection of keys. Eventually she found one that opened
the padlock.
"Well!" he said.
"Who taught you that?"
"Open the door."
The
corridor beyond the door was lined—walls, ceiling and floor—with a silvery
metal. It continued east a hundred yards or so, swung north and then went east
again, widening all the time.
It
ended in a great room whose far wall was glass or some equally transparent
substance. The room was a huge observatory at the end of Superior but below
its rim. They could look down from it, not without a touch of nausea, to the
Earth four miles below.
Don,
thinking of the surface of Superior above, thought it was as if they were
looking out of the gondola slung beneath a dirigible.
Or from one of the lower
portholes in a giant flying saucer.
V
There
were clouds below that
occasionally hid the Earth from sight. For a minute or more they gazed in
silence at the magnificent view.
"This wasn't built in
a day," Jen Jervis said at last.
"I should say
not," Don agreed. "Millions of years."
She looked at him sharply. "I wasn't
talking about the age of the Earth. I mean this room—this lookout post—whatever
it is."
He
grinned at her. "I agree with you there, too. I'm really a very agreeable
fellow, Miss Jervis. Obviously, whoever built it knew well in advance that
Superior was going to take off. They also knew how much of it was going up and ex-acdy where this
would have to be built so it would be at the edge."
"Under the edge, you
mean, with a downward view."
"That's
right. From a distance I'd say Superior looked as if someone had cut the end
off an orange. The flat part-where the cut was made—is the surface and we're
looking out from a piece of the convex skin."
"You
put things so simply, Mr. Cort, that even a child could understand," she
said acidly.
"Thank
you," he said complacentíy.
He had remembered that
whoever was listening in for Military Intelligence through the tiny radio under
his shirt could have only a vague idea of what was going on. Any litde word
pictures he could supply, therefore, would help them understand. He had to risk
the fact that his companion might think him a bit of an idiot.
Of
course with this Geneva Jervis it was easy to lay himself open to the scathing
comment and the barbed retort. He imagined she was extremely useful in her role
as Girl Friday to Senator Bobby Thebold.
"I
don't think this is the work of those boobies at the booby hatch," she was
saying.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The Cavalier Institution of Applied Foolishness, whatever they
call it.
They just wouldn't be capable of an undertaking of this scope."
"Oh,
I agree. That's why I let you drag me away from the meeting. It was a lot of
pseudoscientific malarkey. Old Doc Rubach, D.V.M., was going on about the ultimóte being connected to the thighbone, way up in
the middle of the air. Tell me, who do you think
is behind it all?"
She
was walking around the "big-sided room as if taking mental inventory.
There wasn't much to catalogue—six straight chairs, heavy and modem-looking,
with a large wooden table, a framed piece of dark glass that might be a
television set, and a gray steel box about the size and shape of a three-drawer
filing cabinet. This last was near the big window-wall and had three black
buttons on its otherwise smooth top. Don itched to push the buttons to see what
would happen. Jen Jervis seemed to have the same urge. She drummed on the box
with her long fingernails.
"I?" she said. "Behind it all?"
"Yes.
What's your theory? Is this something for the Un-Earthly Activities Committee
to investigate?"
"Don't
be impertinent. If the Senator thinks it's his duty to look into it, he will.
He undoubtedly is already. In the meantime, I can do no less than gather
whatever information I can while I'm on the scene."
"Very patriotic. What do you conclude from your information-gathering so far?"
"Obviously
there's some kind of conspiracy—" she began, then
stopped as if she suspected a trap.
"—afoot,"
Don said with a grin. "As I see it, all you do is have Bobby the Bold
subpoena everybody up here—every last man-jack of 'em—to testify before his
committee. They wouldn't dare refuse."
"I
don't find you a bit amusing, Mr. Cort, though I have no doubt this sophomoric
humor makes a big hit with your teen-age blonde. We'd
better get back. I can see it was a mistake to expect any co-operation from
you."
"As you like, Madame Investigator." Don gave her a mock bow,
then turned for a last look down at the vast segment of Earth below.
Geneva Jervis screamed.
He whirled to see her standing, big-eyed and
openmouthed, in front of the framed dark glass he had taken for a television screen. Her face was contorted in horror,
and as Don's gaze flicked to the screen he had the barest glimpse of a pair of eyes fading with a dissolving image. Then the screen was blank
and Don wasn't sure whether there had been a face to go with the eyes—an
inhuman, un-earthly face —or whether his imagination had supplied it. The girl
slumped to the floor in a faint.
COLUMBUS, OHIO, Nov. 1 (AP)-
Sen. Robert (Bobby)
Thebold landed here today after leading his Private Pilots (PP) squadron of P-38's on a reconnaissance flight which resulted in the loss of one of
the six World War II fighters in a
crash landing on the mysteriously airborne town of Superior, Ohio. The pilot of
the crashed plane parachuted safely
to Earth.
Sen. Theobold told reporters grimly:
"There is no doubt in my mind that mysterious forces are at work
when a town of 3,000 population can rise in a body off the face of the Earth. My reconnaissance has shown conclusively that the town is intact
and its inhabitants alive. On one of my passes I saw my secretary, Miss Geneva Jervis."
Sen. Thebold said he was confident Miss Jervis would contact him the
moment she had anything to report, indicating she would make an on-the-spot
investigation.
The Senator said in reply to a question that
he was "'amazed' at official Washington's "complete inaction" in
the matter, and declared he would demand a probe by the Senate Investigations
Subcommittee, of which he is a
member. He indicated witnesses might
include officials of the Defense
Department, the Central Intelligence^ Agency, and "possibly others."
LADENBURGH,
Ohio, Nov. 1 (UPI)-Little Ladenburg, former neighbor of "The City in the Sky,"
complained today of a rain of empty beer cans and other rubbish,
apparently being tossed over the edge by residents of airborne Superior.
"They're
not so high and mighty," one sanitation official here said, "that they
can make Ladenburg their garbage dump.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (Reuters)-American
officials today were at a loss to explain the strange behaviour of Superior,
Ohio, "the town that took off."
Authoritative sources assured Reuters that no military or scientific
experiments were in progress which could account for the phenomenon of a town
being lifted intact thousands of feet into the_air.
Rumors circulating to the effect that a
"Communist plot" was at work were greeted with extreme scepticism in
official quarters.
Bulletin
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 1 (UPI)-The airborne town of Superior began to drift east across Ohio late
today.
VI
The unconscious Geneva Jervis, lying crumpled up in the
oversized fur coat, was the immediate problem. Don Cort straightened her out so
she lay on her back, took off her shoes and propped
her ankles on the lower rung of a chair. He found she was wearing a belt and
loosened it. It was obvious that she was also wearing a girdle but there wasn't
anything he wanted to do about that. He was rubbing one of her wrists when her
eyes fluttered open.
She
smiled self-consciously. "I guess I was a sissy."
"Not at all. I saw it, too. A pair of
eyes."
"And
a face! A horrible, horrible face."
"I wasn't sure about the face. Can you
describe it?"
She
darted a tentative look at the screen but it was comfortingly blank. "It
wasn't human. And it was staring right into me. It was>awful!"
"Did it have a nose,
ears, mouth?"
"I—I
can't be sure. Let's get out of here. I'm all right now. Thanks
for being so good to me—Don."
"Don't
mention it—Jen. Here, put your shoes on." ^
When
he had closed the big wooden door behind them, Don padlocked it again. He
preferred to leave things as they'd found them, even though their visit to the
observation room was no longer a secret.
He
was relieved when they had scrambled up the steps under the grandstand. There
had been no sense of anyone or anything following them or spying on them during
their long walk through the tunnel.
They
were silent with their separate thoughts as they crossed the frosty ground and
Jen held Don's arm, more for companionship than support. At the campus the girl
excused herself, saying she still felt shaky and wanted to rest in her room.
Don went back to the dining room.
The
meeting was over but Alis Garet was there, having a cup of tea and reading a
book.
"Well,
sir," she said, giving him an intent look, "how was the
rendezvous?"
"Fair to middling." He was relieved to see that she wasn't
angry. "Did anybody say anything while I was gone?"
"Not a coherent word. You don't deserve
it but I made notes for you. Running off with that redhead
when you have a perfectly adequate blonde. Did you kiss her?"
"Of course not. It was strictly business. Let me see the
notes, you angel."
"Notes,
then."
She handed over a wad of paper.
"Rubach," he read, "Magnology
stuff stuff stuff etc. etc. Nothing.
"Q. (Conductor Jas Brown) Wht abt Mayor's proclamation Superior
seceded frm Earth?
"A.
(Civek) repeated stuff abt discrimination agnst Spr & Cavlr & bubl gum
prices.
"Q.
Wht u xpct gain?
"A. Stuff abt end
discrimination.
"Q.
Sovereignty?
"A.
How's that?
"Q. R u trying set up Spr as separate city-state w/govt independent
of U S or Earth?
('That Conductor Brown is sharper than I gave him credit for,' Alis
elaborated.)
"A.
Hem & haw.
Well now.
"Q. Well, r u?
"A. (Father, rescuing Civek:)
Q of sovereignty must remain temporarily up in the air. Laughter
(Father's). When & if Spr returns wil acpt state-fed laws as b4 but
meantime circs warrant adapt to prevailing conditions.
"Rest
of mtg was abt sleeping arngmnts, meals, recreation privileges, clothing
etc."
Don folded the notes and put them in his
pocket. "Thanks. I see I didn't miss much. The only thing it seems to add
is that Mayor Civek is a figurehead, and that if the
Cavalier people know anything they're not talking, except in
gobbledygook."
"Check," Alis
said. "Now let's go take a look at Pittsburgh."
"Pittsburgh?"
"That's
where we are now. One of the students who lives there
peeped over the edge a while ago. I was waiting for you to come back before I
went to have a look."
"Pittsburgh?"
Don repeated. "You mean Superior's drifting across the United
States?"
"Either that or it's being pushed. Let's
go see."
There hadn't been much to see and it had been
too cold to watch for long. The lights of Pittsburgh were beginning to go on in
the dusk and the city looked pretty and far away. A Pennsylvania Air National
Guard plane came up to investigate, but from a respectful distance. Then it
flew off.
Don
left Alis, shivering, at her door and decided he wanted a drink. He remembered
having seen a sign, Club
Lyric, down the street from
the Sentry office and he headed for it.
"Sergeant Cort,"
said a muffled voice under his collar.
Don
jumped. He'd forgotten for the moment that he was a walking radio station.
"Yes?" he said.
"Reception
has been excellent," the voice said. It was no longer that of Captain
Simmons. "You needn't recapitulate. We've heard all your conversations and
feel we know as much as you do. You'll have to admit it isn't much."
"I'm
afraid not. What do you want me to do now? Should I go back and investigate
that underground room again? That seems to be the best lead so far."
"No.
You're just a bank messenger whose biggest concern was to safeguard the
contents of the brief case. Now that the contents are presumably in the bank
vault your official worries are over, and though you're curious to know why
Superior's acting the way it is, you're willing to let somebody else do
something about it."
"But
they saw me in the room. Those eyes, whatever they are. I had the feeling—well,
that they weren't human."
"Nonsensel"
the voice from the Pentagon said. "An ordinary
closed-circuit television hookup. Don't let your imagination run away
with you, and above all don't play spy. If they're suspicious of anyone it will
be of Geneva Jervis because of her connection with Senator Thebold. Where are
you going now?"
"Well,
sir, I thought—that is, if there's no objection—I thought I'd go have a drink.
See what the townspeople are saying."
"Good idea. Do that."
"What are they saying in Washington?
Does anybody put any stock in this magnology stuff of Professor Garet's?"
"Facts
are being collated. There's been no evaluation yet. You'll hear from us again
when there's something to tell you. For now, Cort, carry on. You're doing a
splendid job."
The
streets were cold, dark, and deserted. The few street lights were feeble and
the lights in houses and other buildings seemed dimmer than normal. A biting
wind had sprung up and Don was glad when he saw the neon words Club Lyric ahead.
The
bartender greeted him cheerfully. "It ain't a fit night.
What'llitbe?"
Don
decided on a straight shot, to start. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Where's the old town going?"
The
bartender shrugged. "Let Civek worry about that. It's what we pay him for,
ain't it?"
"I suppose so. How're
you fixed for liquor? Big supply?"
"Last
a coupla weeks unless people start drinking more than
usual. BeerTl run out first."
"That's
right, I guess. But aren't you worried about being up in the air like
this?"
The
bartender shrugged again. "Not much I can do about it, is there? Want
another shot?"
"Mix
it this time. A little soda. Is that the general
attitude? Business as usual?"
"I
hear some business is picking up. Lot of people buying winter clothes, for one thing,
weather turning cold the way it did. And Dabney Brothers—they run the coal and
fuel oil company—got enough orders to keep them going night and day for a
week."
"That's
fine. But when they eventually run out, like you, then what? Everybody freeze
to death?"
The
bartender made a thoughtful face. "You got something there. Oh, hello, Ed. Kinda brisk tonight."
It
was Ed Clark, the newspaperman. Clark nodded to the bartender, who began to mix
him a martini. "Freeze the ears off a brass
monkey," Clark said, joining Don. "I have an extra pair of earmuffs
if you'd like them."
"Thanks,"
Don said, "but I think I'd better buy myself some winter clothes tomorrow
and return yours."
"Suit yourself.
Planning to setde down here?"
"I
don't seem to have much choice. Anything new at your
end?"
Clark
lifted his brimming glass and took a sip. "Here's to a mild winter. New? I guess you know we're in Pennsylvania now and not
Ohio. Over Pennsylvania, I should say. Don't ask me why, unless Hector Civek thinks
Superior will get a better break, taxwise."
"You think the mayor's
behind it all?"
"He
has his delusions of grandeur, like a lot of people here. But I do think Hector
knows more than he's telling. Some of the merchants—mostly those whose business
hasn't benefited by the cold wave—have called a meeting for tomorrow. They
want to pump him."
"He
wasn't exactly a flowing spout at Cavalier this afternoon when the people from
the train wanted answers."
"So
that's where he was. They couldn't find him at Town Hall."
"Where's it all going to end? If we keep
on drifting well be over the Atlantic—next stop Europe. Then Superior will be
crossing national boundaries instead of just state lines, and some country may
decide we're violating its air space and shoot us out of the sky."
"I see you take the
long view," Clark said.
"Is
there any other?" Don asked. "The alternative is to kid ourselves
that everything's all right and trust in Providence and Hector Civek. What is
it with you people? You don't seem to realize that sixteen square miles of
solid earth, and three thousand people, have taken off to go waltzing through
the sky. That isn't just something that happens. Something or somebody's making
it happen. The question is who ,or what, and what are
you going to do about it?"
The
bartender said, "The boy's right, Ed. How do we know they won't take us up
higher—up where there's no air? Then we'd be cooked."
Clark laughed. "
'Cooked' is hardly the word. But I agree that things are getting out of
hand." He set down his glass with a clink. "I know the man we want. Old Doc Bendy. He could stir things up. Remember the time
they tried to run the pipeline through town and Doc formed a citizens committee
and stopped them?"
"Stopped
them dead," the bartender recalled, then cleared his throat. "Speak
of the devil." He raised his voice and greeted the man who had just walked
in. "Well, Doc. Long time since we've had the pleasure of your company. Nice to see you."
Doc
Bendy was an imposing old gendeman of more than average height and magnificent
girth. He carried a paunch with authority. His hands, at the ends of short
arms, seemed to fall naturally to it, and he patted the paunch with satisfaction
as he spoke. He was dressed for the cold weather in an old frock coat, black
turning green, with a double line of oversized buttons down the front and huge
eighteenth-century lapels. He wore a battered black slouch hat which long ago
had given up the pretense of holding any particular shape.
"Salutations, gendemen!" Doc Bendy boomed, striding majestically
toward the bar. "They tell me our peripatetic litde town has just passed
Pittsburgh. I'd have thought it more likely we'd crossed the Arctic Circle.
Rum, bartender, is the only suitable potable for the occasion."
Clark
introduced Don, who saw that close up Doc Bendy's face
was full and firm rather than fat. The nose had begun to develop the network
of visible blood vessels which indicated a fondness for the bottie. Shaggy
white eyebrows matched the fringe of white hair that sprouted from under the
sides and back of the slouch hat. The eyes themselves were alert and humorous.
The mouth rose subtly at the comers and, though Bendy never seemed to smile
outright, it conveyed the same humor as the eyes. These two features, in fact,
saved the old man from seeming pompous.
Don
noticed that the rum the bartender poured for Bendy was 151 proof and the
portion was a generous one.
Bendy
raised his glass. "Your health, gendemen."
He took a sip and put it down. "I might also drink to a happy voyage,
destination unknown."
"Don here thinks we're
in danger of drifting over Europe."
"A
distinct possibility," Bendy said. "Your passports are in order, I
trust? I remember the first time I went to the Continent. It was with Black
Jack Pershing and the AEF."
"Were you in the
Medical Corps, sir?" Don asked.
Doc
Bendy boomed with laughter, holding his paunch. "Bless your soul, lad, I'm
no doctor. I was on the board of directors of Superior's first hospital, hence
the tide. A mere courtesy, conferred on me by a grateful citizenry."
"The
citizens might be looking to you again, Doc," Clark said, "since
their elected representatives are letting them down."
"But
not bringing them down, eh? Suppose you tell me what you
know, Mr. Editor. I assume you're the best-informed man on the situation,
barring the conspirators who have dragged us aloft."
"You think it's a
conspiracy?"
"It's not an act of
God."
Clark
began to fill an ancient pipe, so well caked that the pencil with which he
tamped the tobacco barely fitted into the bowl. By the time the pipe was ready
for a match he had exhausted the solid facts. Don then took over and described
the underground passage he had seen that afternoon. He was about to go further
when the old man held up a hand.
"The
facts only, if you please. Mr. Cort, what you saw in the underground chamber
fits in remarkably with something I stumbled on this afternoon while I was skating."
"Skating?" Clark
said.
"Ice skating. At North Lake. It's
completely frozen over and I'm not so decrepit that I can't glide on a pair of
blades. Well, I was gliding along, humming the Skater's Waltz, when I tripped over a stump. When I said I
stumbled on something I was speaking literally, because I fell flat. While I
lay there, with the breath knocked out of me, my face was only an inch from the
ice and I realized I was eye-to-eye with a thing. Just as you
were, Mr. Cort."
"You mean there was
something under the ice?"
"Exactly. Staring up at me. Balefully, I suppose you
could say, as if it resented my presence."
"Did you see the whole
face?"
"I'd
be embroidering if I said yes. It seemed—but I must stick to the facts. I saw
only the eyes. Two perfecdy circular eyes, which glared at me for a moment,
then disappeared."
"It could have been a
fish," Clark said.
"No.
A fish is about the most expressionless thing there is, while these eyes had
intelligence behind them. None of your empty, fishy stares."
Clark
knocked his pipe against the edge of the bar so the ashes fell in the vicinity
of an old brass cuspidor. "So, since what you and Don saw were both under
the surface, we could put two and two together and assume that some kind of
alien beings have taken up residence in Superior's lower levels?"
"Only
if you think two and two make five," Doc Bendy said. "But even if
they don't, there's a great deal more going on than Civek knows, or the
Garet-Rubach crowd at Cavalier will admit. It seems to me, gendemen, that it's
time I set up a committee."
Miss
Leora Frisbie,
spinster, was found dead in the mushroom cellar of her home on Ryder Avenue in
the northeastern part of town. She had been sitting in a camp chair, bundled in
heavy clothing, when she died. She had been subject to heart trouble and that
fact, coupled with notes she had been making on a pad in her lap, led the
coroner to believe she had been frightened to death.
The
first entry on the pad said: Someone stealing my mushrooms; must keep vigil. The notes continued:
Sitting in chair near stairs. Single 60-w. bulb dims, gravity increases. Superior rising again? Movement in
corner-soil being pushed up from underneath. Hand.
Hand? Clawl
Claw withdraws.
Head. Rat? No. Bigger.
Human? No. But the eyes eyes ey
That was all.
Photostatic copies of the late Miss Frisbie's
notes and the coroner's report became exhibits one and two in Doc Bendy's
dossier. Exhibit three was a carbon copy of a report by the stock control clerk
at the bubble gum factory.
Bubble gum had been piling up in the
warehouse on the railroad siding back of Reilly Street. The stock control
clerk, Armand Specht, was taking inventory when he saw a movement at the far
end of the warehouse. His report follows:
Investigated
and found carton had been dislodged from top of pile and broken into. Gross of
Cheeky brand missing. Saw something sitting with back to me opening packages,
stuffing gum into mouth, wax paper and all, half-dozen at time. Looked like
overgrown chimpanzee. It turned and saw me, continuing to chew. Didn't get
clear look before it disappeared but noticed two things: one,
that its cheeks bulged out from chewing so much gum at once, and other,
that its
eyes were round and bright, even in dim comer. Then animal turned and
disappeared behind pile of Cheekys. No chimpanzee. Didn't follow right away but
when I did it was gone.
Exhibit four:
Dear Diary:
There wasn't any TV tonight and I asked
Grandfather Bendy what to do and he said "Marie, when I was young, boys
and girls made their own fun" and so I got out the Scrabble and asked Mom
and Dad to play but they said no they had to goto the Warners and play bridge.
So they went and I was playing pretending I was both sides when the door opened
and I said Hello Grandfather but it wasn't him it was like a kangaroo and it
had big eyes that were friendly.
After a while I went over and scratched its
ears and it liked that and then it went over to the table and looked at the
Scrabble. I thought wouldn't it be funny if
it could play but it couldn't. But it could spelll It had hands like claws with
long black fingernails and fur on them (the fingers) and it pushed the letters
around so they speUed Name and I spelled out Marie.
Then I spelled out Who are you and it spelled
Gizl.
Then I spelled How old are you and it put all
the blank spaces together.
I said Where do you
live and it spelled Here. Then I changed to Where do
you come from and it pointed to the blanks again.
The gizl went away before Mom and Dad came
home and I didn't tell them about it but I'll tell Grandfather Bendy because he
understands better about things like the time I had an invisible friend.
Don Cort went to bed in the dormitory at
Cavalier with the surprised realization that it had been only twenty-four hours
since Superior took off. It seemed more like a week. When he woke up the
floating town was over New York.
Some high-flying skywriters were at work. Welcome Superior—Drink Pepsi-Cola their message said.
Don
dressed quickly and hurried to the brink. Alis Garet was there among a little crowd, bundled up in a parka.
"Is
that the Hudson River?" she asked him. "Where's the Empire State
Building?"
"Yes,"
he said. "Haven't you ever been to New York? I can't quite make it out.
It's somewhere south of that patch of green—that's Central Park."
"No,
I've never been out of Ohio. I thought New York was a big city."
"It's
big enough. Don't forget we're four miles up. Have you seen any planes besides
the skywriters?"
"Just
some airliners, way down," she said. "Were you expecting
someone?"
"Seeing
how it's our last port of call, I thought there might be some Federal boys
flying around. I shouldn't think they'd want a chunk of their real estate
exported to Europe."
"Are we going to
Europe?"
"Bound
to if we don't change course."
"Why?"
"My
very next words were going to be 'Don't ask me why.' I ask you. You're closer
to the horse's mouth than I am."
"If
you mean Father," Alis said, "I told you I don't enjoy his
confidence."
"Haven't you even got
an inkling of what he's up to?"
"I'm
sure he's not the Master Mind, if that's what you mean."
"Then
who is? Rubach? Civek? The chief of police? Or the bubble gum king, whoever he
is?"
"Cheeky McFerson?" She laughed. "I went to grade school
with him and if he's got a mind I never noticed it."
"McFerson? He's just a kid, isn't he?"
"His
father died a couple of years ago and Cheeky's the president on paper, but the
business office runs things. We call him Cheeky because he always had a wad of
company gum in his cheek. Supposed to be an advertisement.
But he never gave me any and I always chewed Wrigley's for spite."
"Oh."
Don chewed the inside of his own cheek and watched the coastline. "That's
Connecticut now," he said. "We're certainly not slowing down for
customs."
A
speck, trailing vapor through the cold upper air, headed toward them from the
general direction of New England. As it came closer Don saw that it was a B-58
Husder bomber. He recognized it by the mysterious pod it carried under its
body, three-quarters as long as the fuselage.
"It's not going to
shoot us down, is it?" Alis asked.
"Hardly. I'm glad to see it. It's about time somebody took an interest in us
besides Bobby Thebold and his leftover Lightnings."
The
B-58 rapidly closed the last few miles between them, banked and circled
Superior.
"Attention
people of Superior," a voice from the plane said. The magnified words
reached them distincüy through the cold air. "Inasmuch as you are now
leaving the continental United States, this aircraft has been assigned to
accompany you. From this point on you are under the protection of the United
States Air Force."
"That's
better," Don said. "It's not much, but at least somebody's doing
something."
The
B-58 streaked off and took up a course in a vast circle around them.
"I'm
not so sure I like having it around," Alis said. "I mean suppose they
find out that Superior's controlled by— I don't know—let's say a foreign power,
or an alien race. Once we're out over the Atiantic where nobody else could get
hurt, wouldn't they maybe consider it a small sacrifice to wipe out Superior to
get rid of the—the alien?"
Don
looked at her closely. "What's this about an alien? What do you
know?"
"I
don't know anything. It's just a feeling I have, that
this is bigger than Father and Mayor Civek and all the self-important yip's in
Superior put together." She squeezed his arm as if to draw comfort from
him. "Maybe it's seeing the ocean and realizing the vastness of it, but
for the first time I'm beginning to feel a little scared."
"I
won't say there's nothing to be afraid of," Don said. He pulled her hand
through his arm. "It isn't as though this were a precedented situation. But
whatever's going on, remember there are some pretty good people on our side,
too."
"I know," she
said. "And you're one of them."
He
wondered what she meant by that. Nothing, probably, except "Thank you for
the reassurance." He decided that was it; the mechanical eavesdropper he
wore under his collar was making him too self-conscious. He tried to think of
something appropriate to say to her that he wouldn't mind having overheard in
the Pentagon.
Nothing
occurred to him, so he drew Alis closer and gave her a quick, quiet kiss.
The crowd of people looking over the edge had
grown. Judging by their number, few people were in school or at their jobs
today. Yesterday they had seemed only mildly interested in what their town was
up to but today, with the North American continent about to be left behind,
they were paying more attention. Yet Don could see no signs of alarm on their
faces. At most there was a reflection of wonder, but not much more than there
might be among a group of Europeans seeing New York Harbor from shipboard for
the first time. An apathetic bunch, he decided, who would be resigned to their
situation so long as the usual pattern of their lives was not interfered with
unduly. What they lacked, of course, was leadership.
"It's
big, isn't it?" Alis said. She was looking at the Atlantic, which was
virtually the only thing left to see except the bright blue sky, a strip of the
New England coast, and the circling bomber.
"It's going to get bigger," Don
said. "Shall we go across town and take a last look at the States?"
He also wanted to see what, if anything, was going on
in town.
"Not the last, I hope.
I'd prefer a round trip."
An
enterprising cab driver opened his door for them. "Special excursion rate
to the west end," he said. "One buck."
"You're on," Don
said. "How's business?"
"Not
what you'd call booming. No trains to meet. No buses. Hi,
Alis. This isn't one of your father's brainstorms come to life, is
it?"
"Hi,
Chuck," she said. "I seriously doubt it, though I'm sure you'd never
get him to admit it. How are your wife and the boy?"
"Fine. That boy, he's got some imagination. He's digging a hole in the back
yard. Last week he told us he was getting close to China. This week it's
Australia. He said at supper last night that they must have heard about this
hole and started digging from the other end. They've connected up, according to
him, and he had quite a conversation with a kangaroo."
"A
kangaroo?"
Don sat up straight.
"Yeah. You know how kids are. I guess he's studying Australia in
geography."
"What did the kangaroo
tell your son?"
The
cab driver laughed defensively. "There's nothing wrong with the boy. He's
just got an active mind."
"Of course. When I was a kid I used to talk to bears. But what did he say the
kangaroo talked about?"
"Oh,
just crazy stuff—like the kangaroos didn't like it Down Under any more and were
coming up here because it was safer."
Later that morning, at about the time Don
Cort estimated that Superior had passed the twelve-mile limit—east from the
coast, not up—the Superior State Bank was held up.
A
man clearly recognized as Joe Negus, a small-time gambler, and one other man
had driven up to the bank in Negus' flashy Buick convertible. They walked up to
the head teller, threatened him with pistols and demanded all the money in all
the tills. They stuffed the bills in a sack, got into their car and drove off.
They took nothing from the customers and made no attempt to take anything from
the vault.
The
fact that they ignored the vault made Don feel better. He thought when he
first heard about the robbery that the men might have been after the brief case
he'd stored there, which would have meant that he was under suspicion. But
apparently the job was a genuine heist, not a cover-up for something else.
Police
Chief Vincent Grande reached the scene half an hour after the criminals left
it. His car had frozen up and wouldn't start. He arrived by taxi, red-faced,
fingering the butt of his holstered service automatic.
Negus
and his confederate, identified as a poolroom lounger named Hank Stacy, had
gotten away with a hundred thousand dollars.
"I
didn't know there was that much money in town," was Grande's comment on
that. While he was asking other questions the telephone rang and someone told
the bank president he'd seen Negus and Stacy go into the poolroom. In fact,
the robbers' convertible was parked blatantly in front of the place.
Grande,
looking as if he'd rather be dog catcher, got back into the taxi.
Joe
Negus and Hank Stacy were sitting on opposite sides of a pool table when the
police chief got there, dividing the money in three piles. A third man stood
by, watching closely. He was Jerry Lynch, a lawyer. He greeted Grande.
"Morning,
Vince," he said easily. "Come to shoot a litde pool?"
"Ill
shoot some bank robbers if they don't hand over that money," Grande said.
He had his gun out and looked almost purposeful.
Negus and Stacy made no attempt to go for their guns;
Stacy
seemed nervous but Negus went on counting the. money
without looking up.
"Is it your money,
Vince?" Jerry Lynch asked.
"You
know damn well whose money it is. Now let's have it."
"I'm
afraid I couldn't do that," the lawyer said. "In the first place I
wouldn't want to, thirty-three and a third per cent of it being mine, and in
the second place you have no authority."
"I'm
the chief of police," Grande said doggedly. "I don't want to spill
any blood—"
"Don't
flash your badge at me, Vince," Lynch said. Negus had finished counting
the money and the lawyer took one of the piles and put it in various pockets.
"I said you had no authority. Bank robbery is a federal offense. Not that
I admit there's been a robbery. But if you suspect a crime it's your duty to go
to the proper authorities. The FBI would be indicated, if you know where they
can be reached."
"Yeah,"
Joe Negus said. "Go take a flying jump for yourself, Chief."
"Listen, you cheap
crook—"
"Hardly
cheap, Vince," Lynch said. "And not even a crook, in my professional
opiniofi. Mr. Negus pleads extraterritoriality."
That was the start of
Superior's crime wave.
Somebody
broke the plate-glass window of George Tocher's dry-goods store and got away
with blankets, half a dozen overcoats and several sets of woolen underwear.
A fuel-oil truck disappeared from the street
outside of Dabney Brothers' and was found abandoned in the morning. About nine
hundred gallons had been drained out—as if someone had filled his cellar tank
and a couple of his neighbors'.
The back door of the supermarket was forced
and somebody made off with a variety of groceries. The missing goods would
have just about filled one Car.
Each of these crimes was
understandable—Superior's growing food and fuel shortage and icy temperatures
had led a few people to desperation.
But
there were other incidents. Somebody smashed the window at Kimbrough's Jewelry
Store and snatched a display of medium-priced watches.
Half
a dozen young vandals sneaked into the Catholic Church and began toppling
statues of the saints. When they were surprised by Father Brian they fled,
bombarding him with prayer books. One of the books shattered a stained-glass
window depicting Christ dispensing loaves and fishes.
Somebody
started a fire in the movie-house balcony and nearly caused a panic.
Vincent
Grande rushed from place to place, investigating, but rarely learned enough to
make an arrest. The situation was becoming unpleasant. Superior had always been
a friendly place to live, where everyone knew everyone else, at least to say
hello to-, but now there was suspicion and fear, not to mention increasing cold
and threatened famine.
Everyone
was cheered up, therefore, when Mayor Hector Civek announced a mass meeting in
Town Square. Bonfires were lit and the reviewing stand that was used for the
annual Founders' Day parade was hauled out as a speaker's platform.
Civek
was late. The crowd, bundled up against the cold, was stamping their feet and
beginning to shout a bit when he arrived. There was a medium-sized cheer as the
mayor climbed to the platform.
"Fellow
citizens," he began, then stopped to search
through his overcoat pockets.
"Well,"
he went on, "I guess I put the speech in an inside pocket and it's too
cold to look for it. I know what it says, anyway."
This brought a few laughs. Don Cort stood
near the edge of the crowd and watched the people around him. They mosdy had a
no-nonsense look about them, as if they were not going to be satisfied with
more oratory.
Civek
said, "I'm not going to keep you standing in the cold and tell you what
you already know—how our food supplies are dwindling, how we're using up our
stocks of coal and fuel oil with no immediate hope of replacement—you know all
that."
"We sure do,
Hector," somebody called out.
"Yes;
so, as I say, I'm not going to talk about what the problem is. We don't need
words—we need action."
He
paused as if he expected a cheer, or applause, but the crowd merely waited for
him to go on.
"If
Superior had been hit by a flood or a tornado," Civek said, "we could
look to the Red Cross and the State or Federal Government for help. But we've
been the victims of a far greater misfortune, torn from the bosom of Mother
Earth and flung—"
"Oh,
come on, Hector," an old woman said. "We're getting froze."
"I'm
sorry about that, Mrs. Potts," Civek said. "You should be home where
it's warm."
"We
ran out of coal for the furnace andv now
we're running out of logs. Are you going to do something about that?"
"Ill
tell you what I'm going to do, Mrs. Potts, for you and all the other wonderful
people here tonight. We're going to put a stop to this lawlessness we never had
before. We're going to make Superior a place to be proud of. Superior has
changed—risen, you might say, to a new status. We're more than a town, now.
We're free and separate, not only from Ohio, but from the United States.
"We're
a sovereign place, a—a sovereignty, and we need new methods to cope with new
conditions, to restore law and order, to see that all our subjects—our
citizen-subjects —are provided for."
The crowd had become hushed as Civek neared
his point
"To that noble end," Civek went on,
"I dedicate myself, and I take this momentous step and hereby proclaim the
existence of the Kingdom of Superior"—he paused to take a deep
breath—"and proclaim myself its first King."
He
stopped. His oratory had carried him to a climax and he didn't quite know where
to go from there. Maybe he expected cheers to carry him over, but none came.
There was complete silence except for the crackling of the bonfires.
But
after a moment there was a shuffling of feet and a whispering that grew to a
murmur. Then out of the murmur came derisive shouts and catcalls.
"King Hector the First!" somebody hooted. "Long live the
king!" ^
The
words could have been gratifying but the tone of voice was all wrong.
"Where's
Hector's crown?" somebody else cried. "Hey, Jack, did you forget to
bring the crown?"
"Yeah,"
Jack said. "I forgot. But I got a rope over on my truck. We could elevate
him that way."
Jack
was obviously joking, but a group of men in another part of the crowd pushed
toward the platform. "Yeah," one of them said, 'let's string him
up."
A
woman at the back of the crowd screamed. Two hairy figures about five feet tall
appeared from the darkness. They were kangaroo-like, with long tails. No one
tried to stop them, and the creatines reached the platform and pulled Hector
down. They placed him between them and, their way clear now, began to hop away.
Their
hops grew longer as they reached the edge of the square. Their leaps had become
prodigious as they disappeared in the direction of North Lake, Civek in his
heavy coat looking almost like one of them.
Don
Cort couldn't tell whether the creatures were kidnaping Civek or rescuing him.
Hector Civek hadn't been found by the tune Judge Helms'
court convened at 10:00 A.M.
Joe
Negus was there, wearing a new suit and looking confident. His confederate,
Hank Stacy, was obviously trying to achieve the same poise but not succeeding.
Jerry Lynch, their
lawyer, was talking to Ed
Clark.
Don
Cort took a seat the editor had saved for him in the front row. Alis Caret came
in and sat next to him. "I cut my sociology class," she told him.
"Anybody find His Majesty yet?"
"No," Don said.
"Who gave him that crackpot idea?"
"He's
had big ideas ever since he ran for the State Assembly. He got licked then,
but this is the first time he's been kidnaped. Or should it be kanganaped? Poor
Hector. I shouldn't joke about it."
Judge
Helms, who was really a justice of the peace, came
in through a side door and the clerk banged his gavel. But the business of the
court did not get under way immediately. Someone burst in from the street and
shouted:
"He's backl Civek's
backl"
The
people at the rear of the room rushed out to see. In a moment they were
crowding back in behind Hector Civek's grand entrance.
"Oh, no," Alis
said. "Don't tell me he made it this timel"
Civek
was wearing the trappings of royalty. He walked with dignity down the aisle, an
ermine robe on his shoulders, a crown on his head and a scepter in his right
hand.
He
nodded benignly about him. "Good morning, Judge," he said. To the
clerk he said, "Frank, see to our horses, will you?"
"Horses?" the clerk said, blinking.
"Our
royal coach is without, and the horses need attending to," Civek said
patientiy. "You don't think a king walks, do you?"
The clerk went out, puzzled. Judge Helms took
off his pince-nez and regarded the spectacle of Hector Civek in ermine.
"What is all this, Hector?" he asked.
"You weren't serious about that king business, were you? Nice to see you back safe, by the way."
"We would prefer to be addressed the
first time as Your Majesty, Judge," Civek said. "After that you can
call us sir."
"Us?" the judge
asked. "Somebody with you?"
"The
royal 'we,' " Civek said. "I see 111 have to
issue a proclamation on the proper forms of address. I mean, we'll have to. Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn't it?"
"Quite
a bit," the judge agreed. "But right now, if you don't mind, this court
is in session and has a case before it. Suppose you make your royal self
comfortable and well get on with it—as soon as my clerk is back from attending
to the royal horses."
The
clerk returned and whispered in the judge's ear. Helms looked at Civek and shook
his head. "Six of them, eh? Ill have a look
later. Bight now we've got a bank robbery case on the
calendar."
Vincent
Grande talked and Jerry Lynch talked and Judge Helms listened and looked up
statutes and pursed his Hps thoughtfully. Joe Negus cleaned his nails. Hank
Stacy bit his.
Finally
the judge said, "I hate to admit this, but I'm afraid I must agree with
you, counselor. The alleged crime contravened no local statute, and in the
absence of a representative of the Federal Government I must regretfully
dismiss the charges."
Joe Negus prompdy got up
and began to walk out.
"Just a minute there,
varletl"
It was Hector Civek doing
his king bit.
Negus, who probably had been called
everything else in his life, paused and looked over his shoulder "Approach!"
Civek thundered.
"Nuts,
Your Kingship," Negus said. "Nobody stops me now." But before he
got to the door something stopped him in mid-stride.
Civek
had pointed his scepter at Negus in that instant. Negus,
stiff as a stop-action photograph, toppled to the floor.
"Now,"
Civek said, motioning to Judge Helms to vacate the bench, "we'll dispense
some royal justice."
He
sat down, arranging his robes and shifting his heavy crown. "Mr. Counselor
Lynch, we take it you represent the defendants?"
"Yes,
Your Majesty," said the lawyer, an adaptable man.
"What happened to Negus, sir? Is he dead?"
"He
could have been, if we'd given him another notch. No, he's just suspended. Let
him be an example to anyone else who might incur our royal wrath. Now, counselor,
we are familiar enough with the case to render an impartial verdict. We find
the defendants guilty of bank robbery."
"But
Your Majesty," Lynch said, "bank robbery is not a crime under the
laws of Superior. I submit that there has been no crime—inasmuch as the
incident occurred after Superior became detached from Earth, and therefore
from its laws."
"There
is the King's Law," Civek said. "We decree bank robbery a crime,
together with all other offenses against the county, state and country which are
not specifically covered in Superior's statutes."
"Retroactively?" Lynch asked.
"Of course. We will now pronounce sentence. First, restitution of the money, except for ten per cent to the
King's Bench. Second, indefinite paralysis for Negus.
We'll straighten out his arms and legs so he'll take up less room. Third, probation for Hank Stacy here, with a warning to him to stay
out of bad company. Court's adjourned."
Civek
wouldn't say where he'd got the costume or the coach-and-six or the paralyzing
scepter. He refused to say where the two kangaroo-like creatures had taken him.
He allowed his ermine to be fingered, holding the scepter out of reach, talked
vaguely about better times to come now that Superior was a monarchy, then
ordered his coach.
By
royal decree Hank Stacy, who had been inching toward the door, became royal
coachman, commanded to serve out his probation in the king's custody. Stacy
drove Civek home. No one seemed to remember who had been at the reins when the
coach first appeared.
IX
Ed Clark was setting type for an extra when Don and
Alis visited his shop.
King's in Business, the headline said.
You don't sound like a
loyal subject," Don said.
"Can't
say I am," Clark admitted. "Guess I won't get to be a royal
printer."
"What's
the story about?" Alis asked. "The splendid triumph
of justice in court this morning?"
"No.
Everybody knows all about that already. I've got the inside story—what happens
next. Just like The New
York Times."
Where'd you get it?" Don asked.
Clark
winked. "Like Scotty Reston, I am not at liberty to divulge my sources.
Let's just say it was learned authoritative-
ly."
"Well,"
Alis said, "what does happen next?"
" 'His Unconstitutional Majesty, King Hector I, will attempt to prop up his
shaky monarchy by seeking an ambassador from the United States, the Sentry learned today. Such recognition, if obtained, would be followed
immediately by a demand for "foreign aid."
'It
is the thesis of the self-proclaimed king—known until 24 hours ago as just
plain Hector—that the satellite status of Superior, the traveling townoid,
makes it a potentially effective arm of U. S. diplomacy. King Hector will
point out to the State Department the benefits of bolstering Superior's
economy, especially during its expected foray over Europe and, barring such
misfortune as being shot down en route, into the Soviet domain.
'The
King will not suggest in so many words that Superior would make a good spy
platform, but the implication is there. It will also be implied that unless economic
aid— which in plain English means food and fuel to keep Superior from starving
and freezing to death—is forthcoming from the United States, Superior may
choose the path of neutral-ity ■.
"That's as far as I've
got," Clark said.
"I
suppose the 'path of neutrality' means Superior might consider hiring itself
out to the highest bidder?" Don asked.
"That
would be one way of putting it," Clark said. "Undiplomatic
but accurate."
"How
does Civek intend to get his message to Washington?" asked Don, aware
that it had already been transmitted to the Pentagon via the transceiver under
his collar. "Bottle over the side?"
"My
sources tell me they've got WCAV working on short wave. That right, Alis?"
"Don't ask me. I only
live there."
"Do
you still think Civek is fronting for the Cavalier crowd?" Don asked her.
"I
don't remember saying that," she said. "I think I agreed with you
when you said Civek was ineffectual. Who do you think is behind him? Do you think he's king of the kangaroos?"
"Well," Don said, "they're the
ones who took him away last night. And when he came back this morning he had
all the trappings. He didn't get that coach-and-six from foreign aid."
Ed Clark said, "This is all very
fascinating, ldds, but it's not helping me get out my extra. Don, why don't you
take the little lady out to lunch? You can continue your theorizing over the
blueplate special at the Riverside Inn. Only place in town still open, they
tell me."
Doc Bendy was hurrying out of the Riverside
Inn as they reached it. He waved to them. "Save your money. His Gracious
Majesty is throwing a free lunch for everybody."
"Where?"
"At
the palace, of course."
"What palace?"
Alis asked.
"The
bubble gum factory. He's taken it over."
"Why
the gum factory?"
"Cheeky
McFerson offered it to him. Not the factory itself but the. big
old house near the west wing. The mansion that's been closed up since the old
man died. They say Cheeky's been given a title as part of the bargain."
"Sir
Cheeky?"
Alis asked, giggling.
"Something
like that Lord Chicle, maybe, or Baron de Mouthful.
Come on. It should be quite a show."
Dozens
of people were in the streets, all heading in the same direction. Word of the
king's largess spread fast and, on the factory grounds, guards were directing
the crowd to a line that disappeared into a side door of the old McFerson
mansion.
A
flag flew from the top of a pole at the front of the house. It was whipping in
a stiff breeze and Don couldn't make out the device, except that a crown formed
part of it.
One
of the guards recognized Alis Garet and directed her to the front door. She
took Doc Bendy and Don by their arms. "Come on," she said.
"We're VEP's. Father must have sworn allegiance."
The
chief of police was sitting behind a desk in the wide front hall "but he
now wore a military tunic with a chestful of decorations (including the Good
Conduct Medal, Sergeant Cort noticed), and the visor of his military cap was
overrun with gold curlicues.
"Well,
Vince," Bendy said. "I see you got in on the ground floor."
"General Sir Vincent Grande, Minister of
Defense," Grande said with a stiff little bow, "at your
service."
"Enchanted," Bendy safd, bowing back. "Tell me, Vince, how do you keep a
straight face?"
"Ill
overlook that, Bendy, and 111 give you a friendly tip. The country is on a
sound basis now and we intend to keep it that way. Obstructionists will be
dealt with."
"The country, eh? Well, let's go in and see how it's being run."
A clattery hubbub came from the big room on
the right. To Don it sounded like any GI mess hall. It also looked like one.
The line of people coming in through the side door helped themselves to tin
trays and silverware, then moved slowly past a row of huge pots from which
white-coated men and women ladled out food. At the end of the
serving line stood Cheeky McFerson, splendid in purple velvet. He was
putting a piece of bubble gum on each tray.
On
the other side of the room, opposite the servers, King Hector sat on a raised
chair, crown on head, scepter in hand, nodding benevolendy to anyone who looked
at him. On each side of the king, sitting in lower chairs, were members of what
must have been his court. Professor Osbert Garet was one of them, and Maynard
Rubach, president of the Cava: her Institute of Applied Sciences, was another.
"Oh,
dear, there's Father," Alis said in dismay. "What is that silly hat
he's wearing? It makes him look like Merlin."
"But
Civek doesn't look a bit like King Arthur," Bendy said. "Let's go pay
our respects. Straight faces, now."
"Ah,
my dear," the king said when he saw Alis. "And gentlemen. Welcome to
our court. May we introduce two of our associates? Sir Osbert Garet, Royal
Astronaut, and Lord Rubach, Minister of Education."
"Father!" Alis spoke sharply to the Royal Astronaut. "How silly can you
get?"
"Now,
now, child," the king said reprovingly. "You must not risk our
displeasure. For the time being our rule must be
absolute—until the safety of our kingdom has been assured. Sir
Osbert," he said, "we trust that at a more propitious time you will
have a serious talk with your charming but impetuous daughter."
"My
liege, I shall deal with her," the Royal Astronaut said, glowering at
Alis. "As Your Majesty has so wisely observed, she is but a slip of a
girl."
Her
father's apparent sincerity left Alis speechless. She looked from Bendy to Don,
but they seemed to consider discretion and masklike faces the better part of
candor.
"Well
spoken, Sir Osbert," the king said. He clapped his hands and a servant
jumped. "Dinner for these three. Find a table, my
friends, and you will be served."
Don
firmly guided Alis away. She had seemed about to explode. They found an empty
table out of earshot of the king, and three footmen looking like refugees from Alice in Wonderland immediately began to serve them.
Bendy
spread a napkin over his lap. "Let's curb our snickers and fill our
stomachs," he said, "and later we can go out behind the barn and
laugh our heads off. Meanwhile, keep your eyes open."
They
were eating meat loaf and potatoes. The meat loaf was so highly spiced that it
could have been almost anything.
"I wonder where His Worship got all the
grub," Alis said.
"I don't know," Don said, "but
it certainly doesn't look as if he needs any foreign aid."
Alis
put down her fork suddenly and her eyes got big. She said, "You don't
suppose—"
"Suppose what?"
Bendy said, spearing a small potato.
"I
just had a horrible thought." She laughed feebly. "It's ridiculous,
of course, but I wondered if by any chance we were eating Joe Negus."
"Don't be silly,"
Don said, but he put down his fork too.
"Of
course it's ridiculous," Bendy said. "Hector only put Negus to sleep.
He didn't kill him. Besides, Joe Negus wouldn't stretch far enough to feed this
crowd."
"Is that why you're
not eating any more?" Alis asked him.
"Why,
no," Bendy said. "It's merely that I've had enough. It's true that
Hector could have used his scepter on other transgressors, but—no, I refuse to
admit that he's turned cannibal."
"He isn't eating," Don pointed out.
"Ill
guarantee you he has, though. I've never known Hector to miss a meal. No.
Hector may be a fool and a dupe, and power-hungry to boot, but he's not a cruel
man, or a deranged one."
"No?"
Alis said. "I dare you to ask him what's in the meat loaf."
"All right." Bendy got up. "Ill ask to see the
kitchen— to compliment the chef. Want to come?"
"No,
thanks. I
might be mean to Father again."
She
and Don watched Doc Bendy go to the improvised throne and talk to Civek. The
king laughed and stood up and he and Bendy crossed the room. They went through
a door behind the line of servers.
Don pushed his plate away. "You've
certainly spoiled my appetite."
"I'm
sorry," Alis said. "Maybe it's hereditary. Look at Father in that
idiot hat. Sir Osbertl Honesdy, Don, if we ever get back to Earth I'm going to
get out of Superior as fast as I can. What's it like in Washington?"
"Dull,"
he said. "Humid in the summer. And when you've
exhausted the national monuments there's nothing to do."
"Nothing? Don't tell me you don't have a girl friend back there. No, don't tell me—I don't want to know. Oh, Don, what a terribly boring place this
must be for you."
"BoringI"
he said. "I've never had such a wild, crazy time in my life.
Furthermore," he said, "there's nobody like you back in
Washington."
She
beamed. "I'd lass you right here, only Doc Bendy's coming back. Heck, I'll
kiss you anyway."
She did.
"Ahem,"
said Bendy. "Also cough-cough. If you two can
spare the time, there's someone I'd like you to meet."
"We're through, for
now," Alis said. "Who?"
"One of our hosts. The power behind the shaky throne of Hector the
First. I think you'll like him. He has a magnificent tail."
"Hector was very co-operative," Doc
Bendy said. "I guess he figured he couldn't keep it a secret for long
anyhow, so he decided to be frank. After all, half the town saw them take him
away."
"You
mean Civek admits he's only a figurehead?" Don asked.
"Oh,
he wouldn't admit that. His story is that it's a working arrangement—a treaty
of sorts. He's absolute monarch as far as the human inhabitants are concerned,
but the kangaroos control Superior as a piece of geography."
"I knew Father
couldn't have done it," Alis murmured.
They
went down a flight of stairs off the main hall to a basement room. It was luxuriously furnished,
as every room in the mansion must have been. There was a rug over inlaid
linoleum and a blazing fireplace. A huge round mahogany table stood in the
center of the room.
Hector
Civek sat in one of the half-dozen leather armchairs drawn up to the table. In
another sat a furry, genial-looking blue-gray kangaroo.
Only
it wasn't really a kangaroo, Don realized. It was more human than animal in
several ways. Its bearing, for instance, had dignity, and its round eyes had
intelligence. A thick tail at least three feet long stuck through a space under
the backrest of the armchair. As Doc Bendy had said, the tail was magnificent.
Civek
nodded and smiled, apparendy willing to forget his
flare-up at Alis. "Ill introduce you," Civek said. "I mean we'll introduce you. Oh, the hell with the royal 'we,' as long I'm among
friends. This is Gizl, and what I'm trying to say is that he doesn't speak
English. Doesn't talk at all, as far as I can tell.
But he understands the language and he can read and write it. That's why all
this."
He
indicated the letter and number squares on the table. They were from sets of
games—Scrabble, Anagrams, I-Qubes, Lotto and poker dice.
"My
granddaughter met Gizl, you'll recall," Doc Bendy said. "Either
this one or one like him. We don't know yet whether Gizl is a personal
name or a generic one."
"Let's
find out," Don said. He sat down at the table and began to form squares
into a question.
"Wait
a minute." Doc Bendy brpke up Don's sequence. "The amenities first. Spell out 'Greetings,' or some
such things. Manners, boy."
"Sorry."
Don started over. He spelled Greetings, then Alis Garet, then Don Coht, and pointed from the squares to Alis and himself.
"I assume you've already introduced yourself?" he asked Bendy.
Bendy nodded and the kangaroo-like creature
inclined his furry head in acknowledgment to Alis and Don. Then he-Don had
already stopped thinking of the creature as an "it" —formed two words
with his tapering, black-nailed fingers.
Pleasant, he communicated. "Gizl."
And he tapped his chest.
Don turned to Bendy.
"Now can I àsk him?"
"With His Majesty's permission,"
Bendy said solemnly.
Hector
nodded. Don left the three names intact, distributing the rest, then put three
squares together to spell Man.
He pointed to the word and
then to Civek, Bendy, Alis and himself, excluding the creature.
"Well, I like
that!" Alis said. "Do I look like a man?"
"Let's keep it simple,
woman," Don said.
The
creature nodded and pointed again to Gizl, then to himself, "He doesn't
understand," Don said.
"It's
quite possible his people don't have individual names," Bendy said.
"Let's call him Gizl for now and go on."
"Okay."
Don thought for a moment, then formed a question.
"Might as well get basic," he said.
q. Abe
you from earth.
A. No.
At
the risk of irritating the others, Don repeated the questions and answers
aloud for the benefit of his eavesdropper in the Pentagon.
q. Are
you from solar system
A. Not
yours
q. When
did you reach earth
A. 1948 your
calender
q. Why
A. Friendship
q. Why
has no one seen you sooner A. Fear
q. You mean you
frightened our people
A.
No i mean fear of your people
q. Why
A. Gizl
resemble earth animals
q. Was
superior the fdist place you landed
A. No
q. Where
was rr
A. Australia
"The
home of the kangaroo," Doc Bendy said. "No wonder they had a bad
time. I can imagine some stockman in the outback taking umbrage at a kangaroo
asserting its equality. Let me talk to him a while, Don."
q. how many abe
there of you
A. Many
Q. How many
A. No specific comment
q. Are
you responsible for raising superior
A. Entirely
Q. How
A. Impossible to explain with
these
q. Where
is superior going
A. East fob now
q. And
later
A. No specific comment
q. 3000 lives are in your
hands
A. ClZLS
have no malevolent designs
Q. Thanks You said
friendship brought you What
else.
A. Trade Cultural exchange
q. What have you to trade
A. Will discuss this
later with duly constituted authority
q. Who King hector
A. Terminating
interview with good will assurances "Wait," Alis said. "I haven't had a chance to talk to him."
She formed letters into words. "I don't think he's being very frank with us but
I have a few random questions."
q.
how many sexes have gizls
A. Three
q. Male
female and A. Neuter
q. Are
there babies among you
A. Babies abe neuter
and develop according to need
Q.
Confidentially what do you think of fathers science
A. Unfathomable
our meager knowledge Q. Flatterer
A. Ending
conversation with pleasant regard Q. Likewise
Gizl
slid back his chair and got up. King Hector stood and bowed as Gizl, who had
nodded politely to each in turn, walked manlike, without hopping, to a comer of
the room which then sank out of sight.
"He's
quite a guy, that Gizl," Hector said, taking off his crown and putting it
on the table. "Makes me sweat," he said, wiping his forehead.
"Are
you the duly constituted authority?" Bendy asked him.
"Who else? Somebody's got to be in charge till we get Superior back to
Earth."
"Sure," Bendy said, "but you
don't have to rig yourself up in ermine. I also have a sneaking suspicion that
you aren't exacdy anxious to get Superior down in a hurry."
"Ill overlook that remark for old time's
sake. But I defend
the kingship. A show of force was necessary to prevent crime
from running rampant." «
"Maybe,"
Bendy said. "Anyhow I appreciate your frankness in introducing us to Gizl
and what he modesdy describes as his meager knowledge. Since you've already
admitted that he's the one who provided the big feed, will you ease Alis's mind
now and assure her that what she was eating wasn't Negusburger?"
"Negusburger?" The king laughed. "Is that what you thought, Alis?"
"Not
really," she said. "But i couldn't help wondering where all the food
came from all of a sudden."
"Over
here." The king led them to the corner where Gizl had sunk from sight. The
top of the elevator, now level with the floor, blended exacdy with the linoleum
tile. "I don't know how it works, but Gizl and his people have their headquarters
down there somewhere. All I have to do is place the order and up comes food or
whatever I need. Would you like to try it?"
"LoVe to," Bendy
said. "What shall I ask for?"
"Anything."
"Anything?"
"Anything
at all."
"Well."
Bendy looked impressed. "This will take a moment of thought. How about a gallon—no, as long as I'm asking I might as well ask
for a keg—of rum, 151 proof."
Up it came, complete with
spigot and tankard.
"Fabulous!"
Bendy said. He rolled it out of the elevator and the elevator went down again.
"Let
me tryl" Alis said. "If Doc can get a keg, I ought to be able to
have—oh, say a pint of Chanel No. 5. Would that be too extravagant?"
"A
simple variation in formula, I should think," the king said.
What
came up for Alis didn't look in the least like an expensive Paris perfume. In
fact, it looked like a lard pail with a quantity of liquid sloshing lazily in
it. But its aroma belied its looks.
"Oh, heaven!" Alis said. "Smell it!" She lifted it by its handle, stuck a
finger in it and rubbed behind each ear.
"It's
a bit overpowering by the pint," Bendy said. He'd drained off part of a
tankard of rum and looked quite at peace with the world. "You'd better get
yourself a chaperone, Alis, if you're going to carry that around with
you."
"Ill
admit they're not very good in the packaging department,
but that's just a quibble. Could I have—how many ounces in a pint?—sixteen
one-ounce stoppered bottles? And a little funnel?"
"Easiest
thing in the world," the king said. "Don? Anything you'd like at the
same time? Save it a trip."
"I've got an idea,
Your Majesty, but I don't know whether you'd approve. Even though I work in a
bank, I've never seen a ten thousand dollar bill. Do you think they could whip
one up?"
"I really don't know," Hector said.
"It could upset the economy if we let the money get out of hand. But we
can always send it right back. Let's see what happens."
The
elevator came up with the bottles, the funnel and a green and gold bill.
It
was, on the face of it, a ten thousand dollar bill. But the portrait was that
of Hector Civek, crowned and ermined. And the legend on it was:
Payable to Bearer on
Demand, Ten Thousand Dollars. This Note is Legal Tender for all Debts, Public and Private, and is
Redeemable in Lawful Money at the Treasury of
the Kingdom of Superior. (Signed) Gizl, Secretary of the Treasury."
X
Don
didn't know what he might
leam by skulking around the freezing grounds of Hector's palace in the faint
moonlight. He hoped for a glimpse of the kangaroo-Gizl to see if he were as
sincere off-guard as he had been during their interview.
But his peering into basement windows had revealed nothing, and he was
about to head back to the campus for a night's sleep when someone called his
name.
It
was a girl's voice, from above. He looked up. Redheaded Geneva Jervis was
leaning out of one of the second-story windows.
"Well, hello," he
said. "What are you doing up there?"
"I've
sworn fealty," she said. "Come on up." "What?" he
said. "How?"
She
disappeared from his sight, then reappeared.
"Here." She dropped a rope ladder.
Don climbed it, feeling like Romeo.
"Where'd you get this?"
"They've got them in all the rooms. Fire
escapes. Old Mc-Ferson was a precautious man, evidendy." She pulled the
rope back in.
Jen Jervis had a spacious bedroom. She wore a
dressing gown.
"What do you mean, you swore
fealty?" Don asked. "To Hector?"
"Sure. What better way to find out what
he's up to? Besides, I was getting fed up with that dormitory at Cavalier. No
privacy. House mothers creeping around all the time.
Want a drink?"
Don
saw that she had a half-full glass on the dresser. Next to
the glass stood a bottle of bourbon with quite a bit gone from it.
"Why not?" he said. "Let's drink and be merry, for tomorrow
We may freeze to death."
"Or
be shot down by Reds." She poured him a stiff one. "Here's to happy
endings."
He
sipped his drink and she swallowed half of hers.
"I
didn't picture you as the drinking type, Jen."
"Revise
the picture. Come sit down." She backed to the big double bed and relaxed
into it, lying on one elbow.
Don
sat next to her, but upright. "Tell me about this fealty deal. What did you
have to do?"
"Oh,
renounce my American citizenship and swear to protect Superior against all
enemies, foreign and domestic. The usual thing."
"Have
you got a tide yet? Are you Dame Jervis?"
"Not
yet." She smiled. "I think I'm on probation. They know I'm close to
Bobby and they'd like to have him on their side, for all their avowed
independence. They're not so terribly convinced that Superior's going to stay
up forever. They're hedging their bets, it looks to me."
"It
looks to me that maybe Bobby Thebold might not understand. He's the kind of
man who demands absolute fealty, from what I've seen of him."
"Oh, to hell with Bobby Thebold." Jen took another swallow. "He's not
here. He's had plenty of time to come, if he was going to, and he hasn't. To hell with him. Let me get you another drink."
"No, thanks. This will do me fine." He drank it and set the empty glass on the
floor. Jen drank off the last of hers and put her glass next to his.
"Relax,"
she said. "I'm not going to bite you." She lay back and her dressing
gown opened in a V as far as the belt. She obviously wasn't wearing anything
under the gown.
Don looked away
self-consciously.
Jen
laughed. "What's the matter, boy? No red blood?" She rolled herself
off the end of the bed and went to the dresser. "Another
drink?"
"Don't you think
you've had enough?"
She
shook her red hair violendy. "Drinking is as drinking does. Trouble is, nobody's doing anything."
"Exacdy. Everybody's acting as if Superior's one big pleasure dome.
Civek's on the throne and all's well with his little world. Even you've joined
the parade. Why? I don't buy that double-agent explanation."
She
was looking in the bureau mirror at the reflection of the top of her head,
peering up from under her eyebrows. "I'm going to have to touch up the
tresses pretty soon or I won't be a redhead any more." She looked at his
reflection. "You don't like me, do you,
Donny-boy?"
"I never said
that."
"You
don't have to say it. But I don't blame you. I don't like myself sometimes. I'm
a cold fish. A cold, dedicated fish. Or I was. I've
decided to change my ways."
"I can see that."
"Can you?" She turned around and
leaned against the bureau, holding her glass. "How do you see me
now?"
"As an attractive woman with a glass in her hand. I wonder which is doing the talking."
"Rhetorical questions at this time of
night, Donny? I think it's me talking, not the whisky. Well know better in the
sober light of morning, won't we?"
"If that's an
invitation," Don began, "I'm afraid—"
Her
eyes blazed at him. "I think you're the rudest man i ever
met. And the most boorish." She tossed off the rest of her drink, then began to cry.
"Now,
Jen—" He went to her and patted her shoulder awkwardly.
"Oh,
Don." She put her head against his chest and wept. His arms automatically
went around her, comfortingly.
Then
he realized that Jen's muffled sobs were going direct to the Pentagon through
his transceiver. That piece of electronics equipment taped to his skin, he
told himself, was the least of the reasons why he could not have accepted Jen's
invitation—if it had been an invitation.
He
lifted her chin from his chest to spare the man in the Pentagon any further
sobs, which must have been reaching him in crescendo. Jen's face was
tear-stained. She looked into his eyes for a second, then
fastened her mouth firmly on his.
There'
was nothing a gentleman could do, Don thought, except
return the kiss. Rude, was he?
Jen broke away first.
"What's that?" she said.
Don
opened his eyes and his glance went automatically to the door. It would not
have surprised him to see King Hector coming through it in his royal night
clothes. But Jen was staring out the window. He turned.
The sky was bright as day over in the
direction of the golf course. Don made out a pinpoint
of brighter light
"It's a star
shell," he said. "A flare."
They went to the window and leaned out,
looking past a comer of the bubble gum factory.
"What's it for?" Jen asked.
Don pointed. "There. That's what
for."
"A blimp!" she said. "It's
landing!"
"Is it an Air Force
job? I can't make out the markings."
"I think I can," Jen said. "They re-PP."
"Private Pilots!
Senator Bobby the Bold!"
Jen
Jervis clutched his arm. "S.O.B.!" she whispered fiercely.
Don Cort was down the rope fire escape and
away from the mansion before it woke up to the
invasion. As he crossed the railroad spur he had a glimpse of Jen Jervis
hauling up the rope and of lights going on elsewhere in the building. There was
a lot of whisde-blowing and shouting and a lone shot which didn't seem to be
aimed at him.
Don
waited at the spur, behind a boxcar, to see how the Hectorites would react to
the landing of the blimp, A few men gathered at the front gate and looked
nervously into the sky and toward the golf course. Others joined them, armed
with shotguns, pistols, and a rifle or two, but not with 'King Hector's
paralysis gadget.
It
was clear that Hector had no intention of starting a battle. His men apparendy
were under orders only to guard the mansion and the bubble gum factory. No one
even went to see what the blimp was up to.
Don
found as he neared the golf course that the people from the blimp apparendy had
no immediate plan to attack, either. He found a sand trap to lie down in. From
it he could watch without being seen. The star shell had died out but he could
see the blimp silhouetted against the sky. Men in batde dress were establishing
a perimeter around the clubhouse. Each carried a weapon of some kind. It was
all very dim.
Don
remembered his communicator. "Cort here," he said sof
dy. "Do you read me?"
"Affirmative," a voice said. Don
didn't recognize it. He described the landing and asked, "Is this an
authorized landing or is it Senator Thebold's private party?"
"Negative,"
said the voice from the Pentagon, irritatingly GI.
"Negative what?" Don said. "You mean Thebold is leading it?"
"Affirmative,"
said the voice. "What's he up to?" Don asked. "Negative,"
the voice said.
Don
blew up. "If you mean you don't know, why the hell don't you say so? Who
is this, anyhow?"
"This
happens to be Major Johns, the O.O.D., Sergeant, and if you know what's good
for you—"
Don
stopped listening because a man in battle dress, ap-parendy attracted by his
voice, was standing on the green, looking down into the bunker where Don lay,
pointing a carbine at him.
"I'll
have to hang up now, Major," Don said quietly. "Something negative
has just happened to me. I've been captured."
The
man with the carbine shouted down to Don, "Okay, come out with your hands
over your head."
Don
did so. He hoped he was doing it affirmatively enough. He had no wish to be
shot by one of the Senator's men, regardless of whether that man was authorized
or unauthorized.
Senator
Thebold sat at a desk in the manager's office of the Raleigh Country Club. He
wore a leather trench coat and a fur hat. Wing commander's insignia glittered
on his shoulders and a cartridge belt was buckled around his waist. A holster
hung from it but Thebold had the heavy .45 on the desk in front of it. He
motioned to Don to sit down. Two guards stood at the door.
"Name?" Thebold snapped.
Don decided to use his own name but pretend
to be a local yolcel.
"Donald Cort."
"What
were you doing out there?" "I saw the lights."
"Who were you talking
to in the sand trap?"
"Nobody. I sometimes talk to myself."
"Oh,
you do. Do you ever talk to yourself' about a man named Osbert Garet or Hector
Civek?" Thebold looked at a big map of Superior that had been pinned to
the wall, thus giving Don the benefit of his strong profile.
"Hector's
the king now," Don said. "Things got pretty bad before that but we
got enough to eat now."
"Where did the food
come from?"
Don shrugged.
Thebold
drummed his fingers on the desk. "You're not ex-acdy a fount of
information, are you? What do you do for a living?"
"I
used to work in the gum factory but I got laid off." "Do you know
Geneva Jervis?" "Who's he?" Don said innocendy.
Thebold
stood up in irritation. "Take this man to O. & I.," he said to
one of the guards. "We've got to make a start some place. Are there any
others?"
"Four or five,"
the guard said.
"Send
me the brightest-looking one. Give this one and the rest a meal and a lecture
and turn them loose. It doesn't look as if Civek is going to give us any
trouble right away and there isn't too much we can do before daylight."
The
guard led Don out of the room and pinned a button on his lapel. It said: Bobby the Bold in Peace and War,
"What's O. & I.r Don asked him.
"Orientation and
Integration.
Nobody's going to hurt you. We're here to end partition, that's all."
"End partition?"
"Like in Ireland. Keep Superior in the U. S. A. They'll tell
you all about it at O. & I. Then you tell your friends. Want some more buttons?"
Don was fed, lectured, and
released, as promised.
Early
the next morning, after a cup of coffee with Alis Garet at Cavalier's
cafeteria, he started back for the golf course. Alis, in a class-cutting mood,
went with him.
The
glimpses of the Thebold Plan which Don had had from O. & I,
were being put into practice. Reilly Street, which provided a boundary line
between Raleigh Country Club and the gum-factory property, had been transformed
into a midway.
The
Thebold forces had strung bunting and set up booths along the south side of the
street. Hector's men, apparentiy relieved to find that the battle was to be
psychological rather than physical, rushed to prepare rival attractions on
their side. A growing crowd thronged the center of Reilly Street. Some wore
Thebold buttons. Some wore other buttons, twice as big, with a smiling picture
of Hector I on them. Some wore both.
The
sun was bright but the air was bitrngly cold. As a result one of the most
popular booths was on Hector's side of the street where Cheeky McFerson was
giving away an apparentiy inexhaustible supply of hand-warmers. Cheeky urged
everybody to take two, one for each pocket, and threw in handfuls of bubble
gum.
Two
of Hector's men set up ladders and strung a banner across two store-fronts. It
said in foot-high letters: Kingdom
of Superior, Land
of Plenty.
A
group of Thebold troubleshooters watched, then rushed
away and reappeared with brushes and paint. They transformed an advertising
sign to read, in- letters two feet high: Superior, U.S.A., Home
of the Free.
Hawkers
on opposite sides of the midway vied to give away hot dogs, boiled ears of com,
steaming coffee, hot chocolate, candy bars, and popcorn.
"There's a smart one." Alis pointed
to a sign in Thebold territory. The Gripe Room it
said over a vacant store. The Senator's, men had set up desks and chairs inside
and long lines had already formed.
Apparendy
a powerful complaint had been among the first to be registered because a
Thebold man was galvanized into action. He ran out of the store and within
minutes the sign painters were at work again. Their new banner, hoisted to dry
in the sun, proclaimed: Blimp
Mail.
Underneath, in smaller letters, it said: How long since you've heard from your loved
ones on Earth? The Thebold Blimp will carry your letters and small packages. Direct daily connections with U.
S. Mail.
"You
have to admire them," Alis said. "They're really organized."
"One's
as bad as the other," Don said. Impartially, he was eating a Hector hot
dog and drinking Thebold coffee. "Have you noticed the guns in the
upstairs windows?"
"No. You mean on the
Senator's side?"
"Both
sides.
Don't stare."
"I
see them now. Do you see any Gizl-sticks? The thing Hector used on Negus?"
"No.
Just conventional old rifles and shotguns. Let's hope
nobody starts anything."
"Look,"
Alis said, grabbing Don by the arm. "Isn't that Ed Clark going into the
Gripe Room?"
"It
sure is. Gathering material for another powerful editorial, I guess."
But
within minutes Clark's visit had provoked another bustle of activity. Two of
Thebold's men dashed out of the renovated store and off toward the country
club. They came back with the Senator himself, making his first public appearance.
Thebold
strode down the center of the midway, wearing his soft aviator's helmet with
the goggles pushed up on his forehead and his silk scarf fluttering behind him.
A group of small boys followed him, imitating his self-confident walk and
scrambling occasionally for the Thebold buttons he threw to them. The Senator
went into the Gripe Room.
"Looks
as if Ed has wangled an interview with the great man himself," Alis said.
"You
didn't say anything to Clark about our talk with the Gizl, did you?"
"I did mention it to
him," Alis said. "Was that bad?"
"Half an hour ago I would have said no.
Now I'm not so
A
speaker's platform had been erected on the Senator's side of Reilly Street, and
now canned but stirring band music was blaring out of a loudspeaker. Thebold
came out of the Gripe Room and mounted the platform. A fair-sized crowd was
waiting to hear him.
Thebold
raised his arms as if he were stilling a tumult. The music died away and
Thebold spoke.
"My
good friends and fellow Americans," the Senator began.
Then
a Hectorite sound-apparatus started to blare directly across the street. The
sound of hammering added to the disruption as workmen began to set up a rival
speaker's platform. Then the music on the north, side of Reilly Street became
a triumphal march and Hector I made his entrance. *
Thebold
spoke on doggedly. Don heard an occasional phrase through the din. ". . . reunion with the U. S. A. . . . end
this un-American, this literal partition . . ."
But
many in the crowd had turned to watch Hector, who was magnificent and
warm-looking in his ermine robe.
"Loyal
subjects of Superior, I exhort you not to listen to this outsider who has come
to meddle in our affairs," Hector said. "What can he offer that your
king has not provided? You have security, inexhaustible food supplies and,
above all, independence!"
Thebold increased his
volume and boomed:
"Ah, but do you have independence, my friends? Ask your puppet king who provides
this food—and for what price? And how secure do you feel as you whip through the atmosphere like an unguided missile?
You're over the Adantic now. Who knows at what second the controls may break
down and dump us all into the freezing water?"
Hector
pushed his crown back on his head as if it were a derby hat. "Who asked
the Senator here? Let me remind you that he does not
even represent our former—and I emphasize former—State of Ohio. We all know him as a political adventurer, but never
before has he attempted to meddle in the affairs of another country!"
"And
you know what lies beyond Western Europe," The-bold said. "Eastern Europe and Russia. Atheistic,
communistic Red Russia. Is that where you'd like to come down? For
that's where you're heading under Hector Civek's so-called leadership. King
Hector, he calls himself. Let me remind you, friends, that if there is anything
the Soviet Russians hate more than a democracy, it's a monarchy! I don't like to think what your chances would
be if you came down in Kremlinland. Remember what they did to the Czars."
Then Senator Bobby Thebold
played his ace:
"But
there's an even worse possibility, my poor misguided friends. And that's for
the creatures behind Hector Civek to decide to go back home—and take off into
outer space. Has Hector told you about the creatures? He has not. Has he told
you they're aliens from another planet? He has not. Some of you have seen
them—these kangaroo-like creatures who, for their own nefarious purposes, made
Hector what he is today.
"But,
my friends, these are not the cute and harmless kangaroos that abound in the
land of our friendly ally, Australia. No. These are intelligent alien beings who have no use for us at all, and who have brazenly stolen
a piece of American territory and are now in the process of making off with
it."
A
murmur came from the crowd and they looked over their shoulders at Hector,
whose oratory had run down and who seemed unsure how to answer.
"Yes,
my friends," Thebold went on, "you may well wonder what your fate
will be in the hands of that power-mad ex-mayor of yours. A few thousand feet
more of altitude and Superior will run out of air. Then you'll really be free
of the good old U.S.A. because you'll be dead of suffocation.
That, my friends—"
At
that point somebody took a shot at Senator Bobby Thebold. It missed him,
breaking a second-story window behind him.
Immediately a Thebold man behind that window
smashed the rest of the glass and fired back across Reilly Street, over the
heads of the crowd.
People
screamed and ran. Don grabbed Alis and pulled her away from the immediate zone
of fire. They looked back from behind a truck which, until a minute ago, had
been dispensing hot buttered popcorn.
"Hostilities
seem to have commenced," Alis said. She gave a nervous laugh. "I
guess it's my fault for blabbing to Ed Clark."
"It
was bound to happen, sooner or later," Don said. "I hope nobody gets
hurt."
Evidently
neither Thebold nor Hector personally had any such intention. Both'had
clambered down from the platforms and disappeared. Most of the crowd had fled
too, heading east toward the center of town, but a few, like Alis and Don, had
merely taken cover and were waiting to see what would happen next.
Sporadic
firing continued. Then there was a concentration of shooting from the Senator's
side, and a dozen or more of Thebold's men made a quick rush across the street
and into the stores and buildings on the north side. In a few minutes they
returned, under another protective burst, with prisoners.
"Slick," Don
said. "Hector's being outmaneuvered."
"I wonder why the
Gizls aren't helping him."
The
Thebold loudspeaker came to life. "Attention!" it boomed in the
Senator's voice. "Anyone who puts down his arms will be given safe conduct
to the free side of Reilly Street. Don't throw away your life for a dictator.
Come over to the side of Americanism and common sense." There was a pause,
and the voice added: "No reprisals."
The firing stopped.
The
Thebold loudspeaker began to play On the Sunny Side of the
Street.
But
nobody crossed over. Nor was there any further firing from Hector's side.
Lay Down Your Arms, the loudspeaker blared in another tune from tin-pan alley.
When
it became clear that Hector's forces had withdrawn completely from the Reilly
Street salient, Thebold's men crossed in strength.
They
worked their way block by block to the grounds of the bubble gum factory and
proceeded to lay siege to it
With
Hector Civek immobilized, Senator Bobby Thebold went looking for Geneva Jervis,
accompanied by two armed guards.
He
was trailed by the usual pack of small boys, several of them dressed in imitation
of their hero, in helmets, silklike scarves and toy guns at hips.
Alis,
unable to reach the besieged palace to see if her father was safe, had asked
Don to go back with her to Cavalier after the Batde of Reilly Street. Her
mother told Alis that the professor was not only safe on the campus but had
resigned his post as Royal Astronaut at Hector's court.
"Father
broke with Hector?" Alis asked. "Good for him I But
why?"
"He
and Dr. Rubach just up and walked out," Mrs. Caret said. "That's all I know. Your father never explains these things to me. But if my intuition
means anything, the professor is up to one of his tricks again. He's been
locked up in his lab all day."
The
campus had an air of expectancy about it. Students and instructors went from
building to building, exchanging knowing looks or whispered conversations.
A
rally was in progress in front of the Administration Building when Senator
Thebold arrived. Don and Alis joined the group of listeners for camouflage and
pretended to pay attention to what the speaker, an intense young man on the
back of a pickup truck, was saying.
"The
time has come," he said, "for men and women of, uh, perspicacity to
shun the extremes and tread the middle path. To avoid excesses as represented
on the one hand by the, uh, paternalistic dictatorship of the Hectorites, and
on the other by the, uh, pseudo-democracy of Senator Thebold which resorts to
force when thwarted. I proclaim, therefore, the course of reason, the way of
science and truth as exemplified by the, uh, the Garet-Rubach, uh—"
Senator
Thebold had been listening at the edge of the little crowd. He spoke up.
"The Garet-Rubach
Axis?" he suggested.
The speaker gave him a cold
stare. "And who are you?"
"Senator Robert Thebold, representing pseudo-democracy, as you call
it.
Speak on, my young friend. Like Voltaire, I will defend to the death—but you
know what Voltaire said."
"Yes,
sir," the speaker said, abashed. "No offense intended, Senator."
"Of
course you intended offense," Thebold said. "Stick to your guns, man.
Free academic discussion must never be curtailed. But at the moment I'm more
interested in meeting your Professor Garet. Where is he?"
"In—in the bell tower, sir. Right over there." He pointed.
"But you can't go in. No one can." He looked at Alis as if for
confirmation. She shook her head.
"We'll see about that," the Senator
said. "Carry on with your free and open discussion. And remember, stick to
your guns. Sorry I can't stay."
He headed for the bell
tower, followed by his guards.
Alis
waited till he had gone in, then tugged at Don's
sleeve. "Come on. Let's see the fun."
"Alis,"
the speaker called to her, "was that really Senator Thebold?"
"Sure
was. But what's this Garet-Rubach Axis? What's everybody up to?"
"Not
Axis. That was Thebold's propaganda word. It's a movement of—oh, never mind. You don't appreciate your own father."
"You can say that
again. Come on, Don."
As
Alis closed the door to the bell tower behind them, they heard Professor Caret's
voice from above.
"Attention
interlopers," it said. "You have come unasked and now you find
yourself paralyzed, unable to move a muscle except to breathe."
"Stay
down here," Alis whispered. "There's a sort of vestibule one flight
up. That's where Thebold must have got it. Father spends all his spare time
guarding his holy of holies. Nobody gets past the vestibule." She frowned.
"But I didn't know he had a paralysis thing, too."
"He
probably swiped it from Hector before he broke with him," Don said.
Professor
Garet's voice came again. "I shall now pass among you and relieve you of
your weapons. Why, if it isn't Senator Thebold and his strong-arm crew! I'm
honored, Senator. Here we are: three archaic ,45's
disposed of. Very soon now you'll have the pleasure of seeing a scientific weapon
in action."
Don,
standing with Alis on the steps of the Administration Building, didn't know
whether to be impressed or amused by the giant machine Professor Garet had
assembled. It was mounted on the flat bed of an old Reo truck, and various
parts of it went skyward in a dozen directions. Garet had driven it onto the
campus from a big shed behind the bell tower.
The machine's crowning glory was a big
bowl-shaped sort of thing that didn't quite succeed in looking like a radar
scanner. It was at the end of a universal joint which permitted it to aim in
any direction.
"What's it supposed to
do?" Don asked.
"From
what I gather," Alis said, "it's Hector's paralysis thing, adapted
for distance. Only of course nobody admits Father stole it. It's supposed to
have antigravity powers, too, like whatever it was
that took Superior up in the first place. Naturally I don't believe a word of
it."
"But where's he going
with it?"
"He's
ready to take on all comers, I gather. Please don't try to make sense out of
it. It's only Father."
The young man who had addressed the student rally took
over the driver's seat and Professor Garet hoisted himself
into a bucket seat at the rear of the truck near a panel which
presumably operated the machine. Maynard Rubach sat
next to the driver. The small army of dedicated students
who had been assembling fell in behind the truck. They were
unarmed, except with faith. /
Senator
Thebold and his two former bodyguards, de-paralyzed, sat trussed up in the
back of a weapons carrier, looking disgusted with everything.
"Are we ready?"
Professor Garet called.
A cheer went up.
"Then
on to the enemy—in the name of science!"
Don
shook his head. "But even if this crazy machine could knock out Hector's
andThebold's men and the Garet-Rubach Axis reigns supreme, then what? Does he-
claim he can get Superior back to Earth?"
Alis said only,
"Please, Don . .."
The
forces of science were ready to roll. There had been an embarrassing moment
when the old Reo's engine died, but a student worked a crank with a will and it
roared back to life.
The Garet machine, the weapons carrier and
the foot soldiers moved off the campus and onto Shaws Road toward Broadway and
the turn-off for the country club.
They
met an advance party of the Thebold forces just north of McEntee Street. There
were about twenty of them, armed with carbines and submachine guns. As soon as
they spotted the weird armada from Cavalier they dropped to the ground, weapons
aimed.
Senator
Thebold rose in his seat. "Hold your firel" he shouted to his men.
"We don't shoot women, children, or crackpots." He said to Professor
Garet, "All right, mastermind, untie me."
XI
A submarine surfaced on the Adantic, far below Superior.
It
was obvious to the commander of the submarine, which bore the markings of the
Soviet Union, that the runaway town of Superior, being populated entirely by
capitalist madmen, was a menace to humanity. The submarine commander made a
last-minute check with the radio room, then gave the
order to launch the guided missiles which would rid the world of this menace.
The first missile sped
skyward.
Superior immediately took
evasive action.
First,
in its terrific burst of acceleration, everybody was knocked flat.
Next,
Superior sped upward for a few hundred feet and everybody was crushed to the
ground.
At the same time the first missile, which was
now where Superior would have been had it maintained its original course,
exploded. A miniature mushroom cloud formed;
The
submarine fired again and a second missile streaked up.
Superior
dodged again. But this time its direction was dawn. Everyone who was
outdoors—and a few who had been under thin roofs—found himself momentarily
suspended in space.
Don and Alis, among the hundreds who had had
the ground snatched out from under them, clung to each other and began to fall.
All around them were the various adversaries who had been about to clash.
Professor Garet had been separated from his machine and they were following
separate downward orbits. Many of Thebold's men had dropped their guns but
others clung to them, as if it were better to cling to something than merely to
fall.
The
downward swoop of Superior had taken it out of the immediate path of the second
missile, but whoever had changed the townoid's course had apparendy failed to
take the inhabitants' inertia into immediate consideration. The missile was
headed into their midst.
Then
two things happened. The missile exploded well away from the falling people.
And scores of kangaroo-like Gizls appeared from everywhere and began to snatch
people to safety.
Great
jumps carried the Gizls into the air and they collected three or four human
beings at each leap. The leaps appeared to defy gravity, carrying the creatures
hundreds of feet up. The Gizls also appeared to have the faculty of changing
course while airborne, saving their charges from other
loose objects, but this might have been illusion.
At
any rate, Geneva Jervis, who had been hurled up from the roof of Hector's
palace, where she had gone in hopes of catching a glimpse of Senator Thebold,
was reunited with the Senator when they were rescued by the same Gizl, whose
leap had carried him in a great arc virtually from one edge of Superior to the
other.
Don
Cort, pressed close to Alis and grasped securely against the hairy chest of
their particular rescuer, was experiencing a combination of sensations. One,
of course, was relief at being snatched from certain death.
Another
was the delicious closeness of Alis, who he realized he hadn't been paying
enough attention to, in a personal way.
Another was surprise at the number of Gizls
who had appeared in the moment of crisis.
Finally
he saw beyond doubt that it was the Gizls who were running the entire show—that
Hector I, Bobby the Bold, and the pseudo-scientific Garet-Bubach Axis were
merely strutters on the stage.
It
was the Gizls who were maneuvering Superior as if it were a giant vehicle. It
was the Gizls who were exploding the missiles. And it was the alien Gizls who,
unlike the would-be belligerents among the Earth-people, "were scrupulously
saving human lives.
"Thanks,"
Don said to his rescuing Gizl as it set him and Alis down gendy on the hard ground
of the golf course.
"Don't
mention it," the Gizl said, then leaped off to
save others.
"He talked!" Alis
said.
Don watched the Gizl make a mid-air grab and
haul back a man who had looked as if he might otherwise have gone over the
edge. "He certainly did."
"Then
that must have been a masquerade, that other time —all that mumbo-jumbo with
the Anagrams." ,
"It must have been,
unless they leam awfully fast."
He and Alis clutched each other again as
Superior tilted. It remained steady otherwise and they were able to see the
ocean, whose surface was marked with splashes as a variety of loose objects
fell into it. Don had a glimpse of Professor
Garet's machine plummeting down in the midst of most of Superior's
vehicular population.
"There's
a plane]" Alis cried. "It's going after something on the
surface."
"It's the
Husder," Don said. "It's after the submarine."
The
B-58's long pod detached itself, became a guided missile and hit the submarine
square in the middle. There was a whooshing explosion, the B-58 banked and
disappeared from sight under Superior, and the sub went down.
"Sergeant
Cort," a voice said, and because Alis was lying with her head on Don's
chest she heard it first.
"Is that somebody talking to you, Don?
Are you a sergeant?"
"I'm
afraid so," he said. "I'll have to explain later. Sergeant Cort
here," he said to the Pentagon.
"Things
are getting out of hand, Sergeant," the voice of Captain Simmons said.
"Captain, that's the
understatement of the week."
"Whatever
it is, we can't allow the people of Superior to be endangered any longer."
"No,
sir. Is
there another submarine?"
"Not
as far as we know. I'm talking about the state of anarchy in Superior itself,
with each of three factions vying for power. Four, counting
the kangaroos."
"They're not
kangaroos, sir. They're Gizls."
"Whatever they are. You and I know they're creatures from some other world, and I've
managed to persuade the Chief of Staff that this is the case. He's in seeing
the Defense Secretary right now. But the State Department isn't buying
it."
"You mean they don't
believe in the Gizls?"
"They
don't believe they're interplanetary. Their whole orientation at State is
toward international trouble. Anything interplanetary sends them into a
complete flap. We can't even get them to discuss the exploration of the moon,
and that's practically around the comer." "What shall we do,
sir?"
"Between
you and me, Sergeant—" Captain Simmons' voice interrupted itself.
"Never mind that now. Here comes the Defense Secretary."
"Foghorn
Frank?"
Don asked.
"Sh."
Frank
Fogarty had earned his nickname in his younger years when he commanded a
tugboat in New York Harbor. That was before his quick rise in the shipbuilding
industry where he got the reputation as a wartime expediter that led to his
cabinet appointment.
"Is this the
gadget?" Don heard Fogarty say.
"Yes,
sir."
"Okay. Sergeant Cort?" Fogarty
boomed. "Can you hear me?" It was no wonder they called him Foghorn.
"Yes, sir," Don said, wincing.
"Fine. You've been doing a topnotch job. Don't think I don't know what's been
going on. I've heard the tapes. Now, son, are you ready for a litde action?
We're going to stir them up at State."
"Yes, sir," Don
said again.
"Good.
Then stand up. No, better not if Superior is still gyrating.
Just raise your right hand and 111 give you a field promotion to major. Temporary, of course. I can do that, can't'I, General?"
Apparendy the Chief of
Staff was there, and agreed.
"Right," Fogarty
said. "Now, Sergeant, repeat after me . . ."
Don,
too overwhelmed to^say anything else, repeated after him.
"Now
then, Major Cort, we're going to present the State Department with what they
would call a fait
accompli. You
are now Military Governor of Superior, son, with all the power of the U.S.
Defense Establishment behind you. A C-97 troop carrier plane is loading. Ill give you the ETA as soon as I know it. A
hundred paratroopers. Arrange to meet them at the golf course, near the
blimp. And if Senator Thebold tries to interfere—well, handle him tactfully.
But I think he'll go along. He's got his headlines and by now he should have
been able to find his missing lady friend. Help him in that personal matter if
you can. As for Hector Civek and Osbert Garet, be firm. I don't think they'll
give you any trouble."
"But,
sir," Don said. "Aren't you underestimating the Gizls? If they see
paratroops landing they're liable to get unfriendly fast. May I make a
suggestion?"
"Shoot, son."
"Well,
sir, I think I'd better go try to have a talk with them and see if we can't
work something out without a show of force. If you could hold off the troops
till I ask for them . . ."
Foghorn Frank said, "Want to make a
deal, eh? If you can do it, fine, but since State isn't willing to admit that
there's such a thing as an intelligent kangaroo, alien or otherwise, any little
deals you can make with them will have to be unofficial for the time being.
All right—I'll hold off on the paratroopers. The important thing is to
safeguard the civilian population and uphold the integrity of the United
States. You have practically unlimited authority."
"Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I'll do my
best."
"Good luck. I'll be listening."
"As I see it," Alis said after Don
had explained his connection with the Pentagon, "Senator Thebold licked
Hector Civek. Father, who defected from Hector, captured the Senator and vice
versa. But now the Gizls have taken over from everybody and you have to fight
them—all by your lonesome."
"Not fight them," Don said.
"Negotiate with them." "But the Gizls are on Hector's side. It
seems to come full circle. Where do you start?"
Superior had returned to an even keel and Don
helped her up. "Let's start by taking a walk over to the bubble gum
factory. Well try to see the Gizl-in-Chief."
There
didn't seem to be anyone on the grounds of the McFerson place. The boxcar which
had been on the siding near the factory was gone. It was probably at the bottom
of the Atlantic by now, along with everything else that hadn't been fastened
down. Don wondered if Superior's gyrations had been strong enough to dislodge
the train that had originally brought him to town. The Pennsylvania Railroad
wouldn't be happy about that.
They
saw no one in the mansion and started for the basement room in which they'd
had their talk with' the Gizl, passing through rooms where the furniture had
been knocked about as if by an angry giant. They were stopped en route by
Vincent Grande, ex-police chief now Minister of Defense. "All right,
kids," he said, "stick 'em up. Your Majesty," he called, "look what I got."
Hector
Civek, crownless but still wearing his ermine, came up the stairs. "Put
your gun away, Vince. Hello, Alis. Hello, Don. Glad to see you survived the
earthquake. I thought we were all headed for kingdom come."
Vincent
protested, "This is that traitor Garet's daughter. We can hold her hostage
to keep her father in line."
"Nuts,"
the king said. "I'm getting tired of all this foolishness. I'm sure
Osbert Garet is just as shaken up as we are. And that crazy
Senator, too. All I want now is for Superior to go back where it came
from, as soon as possible. And that's up to Gizl, I'm afraid."
"Have you seen him
since the excitement?" Don asked.
"No.
He went down that elevator of his when the submarine surfaced. I guess his
control room, or whatever it is that makes Superior go, is down there. Let's
take a look. Vince, will you put that gun away? Go help them clean up the mess
in the kitchen."
Vincent Grande grumbled and
went away.
In tie basement room, Hector went to the
corner and said, "Heyl Anybody down there?"
A
deep voice said, "Ascending," and the blue-gray kangaroo-like
creature appeared. He stepped off the elevator section. "Greetings,
friends."
"Well," Hector
said, "I didn't know you could talk."
"Forgive
my lack of frankness," Gizl said. "Alis," he said, bowing
slightly. "Your Majesty."
"Frankly,"
Hector said,
"I'm thinking of abdicating. I don't think I like being a figurehead. Not
when everybody knows about
it, anyhow."
"Major Cort,"
Gizl said.
Don looked startled.
"What? How did you know?"
"We
have excellent communications. We thank your military for its assistance with
the submarine."
"A pleasure. And we thank you and your people for saving us when we went
flying."
"Mutuality
of effort," Gizl said. "Ill admit a dilemma
ensued when the submarine attacked. But our obligation to safeguard human
lives outweighed the other alternative-escape to the safety of space. Now
suppose we have our conference. You, Major, represent Earth.
I, Rezar, represent the survivors of Gorel-zed. Agreed?"
"Rezar?" Don said. "I thought your name was Gizl. And what's
Gorel-zed?"
"Litde
Marie Bendy called me Gizl," Rezar said. "She couldn't pronounce
Gorel-zed. I'm afraid I haven't been entirely candid with you about a number
of things. But I think I know you better now. I heard your conversation with
Foghorn Frank."
Don
smiled. "Do you mean you've been listening in ever since I strapped on the
transceiver?"
"Oh,
yes," Rezar said.- "So recapitulation is
unnecessary. But we Gizls, so-called, are still a mystery to you, of course. I
suppose you'd like some background. Where from, where to, when, and all
that"
"I certainly would," Don said.
"So would everybody else, I imagine, especially King Hector here, and Mr.
Fogarty."
"By
all means let us communicate on the highest level," Rezar said. "First, where from, eh?"
"Right. Are you listening, Mr. Secretary?"
"I
sure am," Fogarty said. "What's more, son, you're being piped
directly into the White House—and a few other places."
"Good," Rezar
said. "Now marvel at our saga."
XII
The end of a civilization is a tragic thing.
On
the desert planet of Gorel-zed, the last world to survive the slow nova of its
sun, the Gizls, once the pests but now through brain surgery the possessors in
their hardy bodies of the accumulated knowledge of the frail human beings,
were preparing to flee. Their self-supporting ships were ready, capable of crossing
space to the ends of the universe.
But
their universe was barren. No planet could receive them. All were doomed as was
theirs, Gorel-zed. They set out for a new galaxy, knowing they would not reach
it but that their descendants might. They became nomads of space,
self-sufficient.
For
generations they wandered, their population diminishing.
Their scientist-philosophers evolved the theory that accounted for their
spacebom ennui with life, their acceptance of their fate, their eventual doom.
They had no roots, no place of their own. They had only the mechanistic world
of •their ships—which were vehicles, not a land. They must find a home of their
own, or die.
Several times in their odyssey they had come
to a planet which could have housed them. But each time an injunction which had
been built into them at the time of the brain surgery prevented them from
staying. The doomed human beings on Gorel-zed had built into the very fiber of
the Gizls —who were, after all, only animals—the injunction that no human being
could be harmed for their comfort.
This
meant that the world of Ladnora, whose gentle saffron inhabitants were
incapable of offering resistance, could not be conquered. The Ladnorans, in
their generosity, had offered the refugees from Gorel-zed a hemisphere of
their own. But the Gizls required a world of their own, not a half-world. They
accepted a small continent only and made it spaceborne and took it with them.
The
Crevisians were the next to be visited. They ruled a belt of fertile land around
the equator of their world—the rest was icy waste. The Gizls took a slice of
each polar region and, joining them, made them spacebome.
In time they reached the
system of Sol.
Mars
attracted them first because of its sands. Mars was like Gorel-zed in many
ways. But that very resemblance meant it was not for them. Mars was a dead
world, as their own Gorel-zed had become.
But
the next planet they came to was a green planet. The Gizls moored the
acquisitions in the asteroid belt and visited Earth.
Here,
at their planetfall, Australia, was the perfect land.
Even its inhabitants—the great kangaroos, the smaller wallabies—breathed Home
to the Gizls. But there were also the human beings who had made the land their
own. And though memory of their origin had weakened in the Gizls, the injunction
had not.
For
a time they set up a kind of camp in the great central desert and with delight
found their legs again. Out of the cramped ships they came, to bound in freedom and fresh breathable air across the wasteland.
But hardy, naked, black human beings lived in the desert and they attacked the
Gizls with their primitive weapons. And when the Gizls fled, not wishing to
harm them, they came to white men, who attacked them with explosive weapons.
And
so they took to their ships and were spaceborne again. Sut the attraction of
Earth was strong and they sought another continent, called North America.
And
in the center of it they found a great race whose technology was nearly as
great as their own. These people had an intelligence and drive which rivaled
that of their human antecedents, whose minds had been transferred to the
Gizl's hardy, cumbersome bodies.
Rezar paused. His intelligent eyes seemed
misplaced in his heavy animal body.
"What attracted you to
Superior, of all places?" Alis asked.
Rezar
seemed to smile. "Two things. Cavalier and bubble
gum."
"What?" Alis
said. "You're kidding!"
"No,"
Rezar said. "It's true. Bubble gum because after generations of
subsistence on capsule food our teeth had weakened and loosened, and bubble gum
strengthened them. Nourishment, no. Exercise, yes. And
Cavalier Institute because here were men who spoke in terms which paralleled
the secret of our spacedrive."
Alis
laughed. "This would make Father expire of joy," she said. "But
now you know he's just a phony."
"Alas,"
Rezar said. "Yes, alas. But he was so close. Mag-nology. Cosmolineation. It's
jargon merely, as we learned in time. Osbert Garet is mad. Harmless,
but mad."
Don asked Rezar, "But if this built-in
morality of yours is so strong, why didn't it prevent you from taking off with
Superior?"
Rezar
replied, "There are factions among us now. An evolution of a sort, I
suppose. Nothing is static. One faction"— he tapped his chest—"is
completely bound by the injunction.
But
in the other, self-preservation places a limit on the injunction."
The explanation seemed to be that the other
faction, which grew in strength with eVery failure to find a world of their
own, felt that on a planet such as Earth, with a history of men warring against
men, required the Gizls to be no more moral than the human inhabitants
themselves.
"The
Good Gizls versus the Bad Gizls?" Alis asked.
Rezar
seemed to smile. The Bad Gizls, led by one called Kaliz, had got the upper hand
for a time and elevated Superior, intending to join it to the bits and pieces
of other planets they had previously collected and stored in the asteroid
belt. But Rezar's influence had persuaded them not to head directly into
space—at least not until they had solved the problem of how to put Superior's
inhabitants "ashore" first.
Don,
unaccustomed to his new role of interplanetary arbitrator, said tentatively:
"I
can't authorize you to take Superior, even if you do put us all ashore, but
there must be a comparable piece of Earth we could let you have."
"But
Superior is not all," Rezar said. "To use one of your nautical
expressions, Superior merely represents a shakedown cruise. Our ability to
detach such a populated center had shown the feasibility of raising other
typical communities—such as New York, Magnitogorsk and Heidelberg—each a
different example of Earth culture."
Don
heard a gasp from the Pentagon—or it might have come from the White House.
"You
mean you've burrowed under each one of those 'communities'?" Don asked.
Rezar shrugged. "Kaliz's faction,"
he said, as if to dissociate himself from the project
of removing some of Earth's choicest property. "They aim at a
history-museum of habitable worlds."
"Interplanetary souvenirs," Alis
said. "With quick-frozen inhabitants? Don, what
are you going to do?"
Don didn't even know what tosay. His eyes met Hector's.
"Don't look at
me," Hector said. "I definitely abdicate."
"Look,"
Don said to Rezar, "how far advanced are these plans? I mean, is there a
deadline for this mass levitatJon?"
"Twenty-four hours,
your time," Rezar said.
"Can't you stop them?
Aren't you the boss?"
The
alien turned Don's question back on him. "Are you the boss?"
Don had started to shake his head when
Foghorn Frank's voice boomed out.
"Yes,
by thunder, he is the boss! Don, raise your right hand. I'm
going to make you a brigadier general. No, blast it, a full general. Repeat
after me..."
r
General
Don Cort squared his shoulders. He was almost getting used to these spot
promotions.
"Now
negotiate," Fogarty said. "You hear me, Mr. Gizl-Rezar? The United
States of America stands behind General Cort." There was no audible
objection from the White House. "Who stands behind you?"
"A democratic
government," Rezar said. "Like yours."-
"You represent
them?" Fogarty asked.
"With
my council, yes."
"Then
we can make a deal. Talk to him, Don. I'll shut up now."
Don said to Rezar, "Was it your decision
to burrow under New York and Magnitogorsk and Heidelberg?" "I agreed
to it, finally."
"But
you agreed to it in the belief that the Earth-people were a warring people and
that your old prohibitions did not apply. But we are not a warring people.
Earth is at peace." ' "Is it?" Rezar
asked sadly. "Your plane warred on the submarine."
"In self-defense," Don said.
"Don't forget that we defended you, too. And we'd do it again—but not
unless provoked."
Rezar looked thoughtful. He tapped his long
fingernails on the table. Finally he said, "I believe you. But I must talk
to my people first, as you have talked to yours. Let us meet later"—he
seemed to be making a mental calculation—"in three hours. Where? Here?"
"How about Cavalier?" Alis suggested. "It would be the first
important thing that ever happened there."
For the first time since Superior took off,
all of the town's elected or self-designated representatives met amicably. They
gathered in the common room at Cavalier Institute as they waited for Rezar and
his council to arrive for the talks which could decide,
not only the fate of Superior, but of New York and two foreign cities as well.
Apparentiy
the Pentagon expected Don to pretend he had authority to speak for Russia and
Germany as well as the United States. But could he speak for the United States
Constitutionally? He was sure that Bobby Thebold, comprising exacdy one
percent of that great deliberative body, the Senate, would let him know if he went
too far, crisis or no crisis.
The
Senator, reunited with Geneva Jervis, sat holding her hand on a sofa in front
of the fireplace in which logs blazed cheerfully. Thebold looked untypically
placid. Jen Jervis, completely sober and with her hair freshly reddened, had
greeted Don with a cool nod.
Thebold
had been chagrined at learning that Don Cort was not the yokel he had taken him
for. But he recovered quickly, saying that if there was any one thing he had
learned in his Senate career it was the art of compromise. He would go along
with the duly authorized representative of the Pentagon, with which he had
always had'the most cordial of relations.
"Isn't that so, sweetest of all the
pies?" he said to Jen Jervis.
Jen
looked uncomfortable. "Please, Bobby," she said. "Not in
public." The Senator squeezed her hand.
Professor
Garet, whose wife and daughter were serving tea, stood with Ed Clark near the
big bay window, through which they looked occasionally to see if the Gizls were
coming. Maynard Rubach sat in a leather armchair next to Hector Civek, who
had discarded his ermine and wore an old heavy tweed suit.
Doc Bendy sat off in a comer by himself. He was untypically quiet.
.
Don Cort, despite his four phantom stars, was telling himself he must not let
these middle-aged men make him feel like a boy. Each of them had had a chance
to do something positive and each had failed.
"Gentiemen,"
Don said, "my latest information from Washington confirms that the Gizls
have actually tunneled under the cities they say their militant faction wants
to take up to the asteroid belt, just as they dug in under Superior before it
took off. So they're not bluffing."
"How'd
we find out about Magnitogorsk?" Ed Clark asked. "Iron
curtain getting rusty?"
Don
told him that the Russians, impressed by the urgency of an unprecedented
telephone call from the White House to the Kremlin, had finally admitted that
their great industrial city was sitting on top of a honeycomb. The telephone
conversation had also touched delicately on the subject of the submarine that
had been sunk in mid-Atiantic, and there had been tacit agreement that the sub
commander had exceeded his authority in firing the missiles and that the
sinking would not be referred to again.
Maynard Rubach turned away from the window.
"Here they come. Three of them. But they're not
coming from the direction of the McFerson place."
"They could have come up from under the
grandstand."
Don
said. "Miss Jervis and I found one of their tunnels there. Remember,
Jen?"
Jen
Jervis colored slighdy and Don was sorry he'd brought it up. "Yes,"
she said. "I fainted and Don—Mr. Cort—General Cort—helped me."
"I'm obliged to the general,"
Senator Thebold said.
Professor
Garet went to the door. The three Gizls followed him into the room. Everyone
stood up formally. There was some embarrassed scurrying around because no one
had remembered that the Gizls required backless chairs to accommodate their
tails.
The
Gizls, looking remarkably alike, sat close together. Don tentatively addressed
the one in the middle.
"Gendemen,"
he said, "first it is my privilege to award to you in the name of the
President, the Medal of Merit in appreciation of your quick action in saving
uncounted lives during the submarine incident. The actual- medal
will be presented to you when we re-establish physical contact with
Earth."
Rezar,
who, it turned out, was the one in the middle, accepted with a grave bow.
"Our regret is that we were unable to prevent the loss of many valuable
objects as well," he said.
"Mr.
Razar," Don said, "I haven't been trained in diplomacy so 111 speak
plainly. We don't intend to give up New York. Contrary to general belief, there
are about eight million people who do want
to live there. And I'm sure the inhabitants of Heidelberg and Magnitogorsk
feel the same way about their cities."
"Then you yield Superior," Rezar
said.
"I didn't say that."
"Yield
Superior and we will guarantee safe passage to Earth for all its inhabitants.
We only want its physical facilities."
"Well
yield the bubble gum factory to help your dental problem—for suitable
reparations," Don said.
"Payment will be made for anything we
take. Give us Superior intact, including the factory and Cavalier Institute,
and we will transport to any place you name an area of equal size from the
planet Mars."
"Mars?" Don said. "That'd be a very valuable piece of real estate for the
researchers."
"Take it," Don
heard Frank Fogarty say from the Pentagon.
Professor
Garet spoke up. "If Cavalier goes, I go with it. I won't leave it."
"And
I won't leave you, Osbert," his wife said. "Will there be air up
there among the asteroids?"
"We
are air-breathers like you," Rezar said. "When we have assembled our
planet there will be plenty. You will be welcome, Professor and Mrs.
Garet."
"Hector?"
Don said. "You're still mayor of Cavalier. What do you think?"
"They
can have it," Hector said. "Ill take a nice steady civil service job
with the Federal Government, if you can arrange it."
"Hector,"
Ed Clark said, "I think that sums up why you've never been a howling
success in politics. You don't give a damn for the people. All you care about
is yourself."
Hector
shrugged. "You needn't be so holy-sounding, Eddie-boy," he said.
"Why isn't the Sentry
out this week? I'll tell
you why. Because you've been so busy filing to the Trimble-Grayson papers on
Thebold's private radio that you haven't had time for anything else. How much
are they paying you?"
Ed Clark, deflated,
muttered, "News is news."
"Is
that what you were doing in Senator Thebold's Gripe Room on the midway?"
Don asked Clark. "Making this deal?"
"Now,
General," Thebold said. "Would you deprive the people of their right
to know? Throughout my Senate career I have carried the torch against
government censorship, which is the path to a totalitarian state."
"I'm
sure part of the deal was that Clark's copy didn't make you anything less than
a hero," Don said.
"Don't be too
righteous, young man," Thebold said. " 'Lest
ye be judged,' as they say. Are you not at this moment bargaining away a piece
of a sovereign State of the sovereign United States? i don't happen to represent Ohio, but if I did
I would rise in the upper chamber to demand your court-martial."
"At ease, Senator!" Don ordered. "You're not in the upper
chamber now. You're on an artificial satellite which at any moment is apt to
take off into outer space."
Doc
Bendy spoke for the first time: "Oops-a-daisy! You tell 'im, Donny-boy.
Soo-perior—the town everybody looks up to."
Don frowned at him. Bendy had sunk deep into
his chair in his corner. He acknowledged Don's look with a broad smile that
vanished in a hiccup.
"Y'
don't have to say it, Donny. I been drinkin'. Ever since Superior looped the looperior and flung me feet over
forehead into the bee-yond. Shatterin' experience to
have nothin' but a kangaroo-hop between you and eternity. Yop, ol'
Bendy's been on a bender ever since. But you carry on, boy. Y'
doin' a great job."
"Thanks,"
Don said in irony. "I guess that completes the roster of those qualified
to speak for Superior. Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Rubach. Did you have something to
say?"
But
all the portly president of Cavalier had to say, though he said it at great
length, was that if Cavalier were taken as part of a package deal, its trustees
would have to receive adequate compensation. Professor Garet tugged at his
sleeve and said, "Sit down, Maynard. They've already said they'll
pay."
Fogarty's voice rumbled at Don: "Let's try
to speed things up, General. Close the deal on Superior, at least, before the press get there."
"The press?"
"The rest of the papers couldn't let the
Trimble-Grayson chain keep their exclusive. Clark's going to have lots of company
soon. The boys have hired a vertiplane. First one off the
assembly line. You've seen it. Lands anywhere."
"Okay,
111 try to hurry it up." To the Gizls Don said, "All right. You
take Superior, minus its people, and bring us a piece of Mars."
"Agreed,"
Rezar said. It was as easy as that. Nobody objected. Too many of Superior's
self-proclaimed saviors had been caught with their motives showing.
"You've
got to give up New York, though," Don said. He felt as if he were playing
a game of interplanetary Monopoly. "Well give you a chunk of the great
central desert instead, if Australia's willing. (Would that come under the
South East Asia Treaty Organization, Mr. Secretary?) Complete with kangaroos
and assorted wallabies, if you want .them."
"Agreed," said
Rezar.
Don
sighed quietly to himself. It should be smooth sailing now that the hurdle of
New York was past.
But
Kaliz, the one Alis had called the Bad Cizl, shook his head violendy and spoke
for the first time. "No," he said firmly. "We must have New
York. It is by far the greatest of our conquests and I will not yield it."
Rezar said sharply,
"We have foresworn conquest."
"I
am tired of your moralizing," Kaliz said. "We are dealing with
beings whose greatest respect is for power. If we temporize now we will lose
their respect. They will think our new world weak and itself open to conquest.
We have the power—let us use it. I say take New York and its people and hold them hostage. The city is ready for lifting."
"No!" Don said.
"You can't have New York",
Kaliz
seemed to smile. "We already have it. It's merely a question of
transporting it." He put a long-fingered hand to his furry chest where,
almost hidden in the blue-gray fur, was a flat perforated disk. He said into
it, "Show them that New York is ours!"
"Wait!" Rezar
said. .
"Merely a demonstration," Kaliz
told him, "for the moment at least."
Frank Fogarty's voice, alarmed, said
urgently, "Tell him we believe him. New York's reporting an earthquake, or something very like it. For God's sake tell
him to put it back while we reorient our thinking."
Kaliz
nodded in satisfaction. "The city is as it was. Our people under New York
raised it a mere fraction of an inch. It could as easily have been a mile. Do
not underestimate our power."
Rezar
was agitated. "We came in peace," he said to his fellow Gizl.
"Let us not leave in war. There s power on both sides, capable of untold
destruction. Neither must use it. We are a democratic people. Let us vote. I
say we must not take New York."
"And
I say we must," Kaliz told him, "in self-interest." They turned
to the third of their people, who had been looking from one to the other, his
eyes reflecting indecision. Kaliz barked at him: "Well, Ezial? Votel"
Ezial said, "I abstain." Deadlock.
Don
was sweating. He looked at the others in the room. They were tense but silent,
apparendy willing to leave it up to Don and his link with the Defense
Department.
Frank Fogarty's voice said:
"SAC has been airborne
in total strength for half an hour, General. It was a purely precautionary alert at the
time." Don started to interrupt.
"I
know they hear me," the Secretary of Defense said. "I intend that
they should. We don't want to fight but we will if we must. Son . . ." The
rough voice faltered for a moment. "If necessary, well destroy Superior to
kill this alien and save New York. As a soldier, I hope you understand.. It's the lives of three thousand people against the lives
of eight million."
Only Don and the Gizle had heard. Don looked
across the room and into Alis' eyes. She gave him a tentative smile, noting
his grave expression. "Yes, sir," Don said finally.
Rezar spoke. "This is folly." He
touched the disk in the fur of his own chest. "Nol" Kaliz cried.
"It is time," Rezar said. "We
are beginning to fail in our mission." He spoke reverendy into the disk,
"My lord, awake." Kaliz said quickly, "Raise New YorkI Take it
upl" "They will not obey you now," Razar said. "I have
invoked' the counsel of the Master."
The man was frail and incredibly old. He had
sparse white hair and a deeply lined face, but his eyes were alert and wise. He
wore a cloak-like garment of soft, warm-looking material. His expression was
one of kindliness but strength.
The
doorbell had rung and Mrs. Garet had answered it. The old man had walked slowly
into the room, followed respectfully by two Gizls.
"My
lord," said Rezar. He got to his feet and bowed, as did the other Gizls.
"I had hoped to let you sleep until your new world had been prepared for
you. But the risk was great that, if I delayed, your world would never be.
Forgive me."
"You did well,"
the old man said.
Don stood up too, feeling the sense of awe
that this personage inspired. "How do you do, sir," he said. "How do you do, General Cort." "You know my
name?"
"I
know many things. Too many for such a frail old body.
But someone had to preserve the heritage of our people, and I was chosen."
"Won't you sit down,
sir?"
"Ill
stand, thanks. I've rested long enough. Generations, as a matter of fact. Shall I answer some of
your obvious questions? I'd better say a few things quickly, before Foghorn
Frank hits the panic button."
Don smiled. "Can he hear yon or shall I repeat everything?"
"Oh,
he hears me. I've got gadgets galore, even though I'm between planets at the
moment. I must say it's a pleasure to be among people again." He nodded
pleasandy around the room.
Mrs. Garet smiled to him.
"Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Later,
perhaps, thank you. First I must
assure you and everyone of Earth that no one will be harmed by us and that we
want nothing for our new world that you are not willing to give."
"That's
good to hear," Don said. "I gather
you've been in some kind of suspended animation since you left your old world.
So I. wonder how you're able to speak English."
"Everything
was suspended but the subconscious. That kept perking along, absorbing
everything the Cizls fed into it. And they've been absorbing your culture for
ten years, so I'm pretty fluent. And I certainly know enough to apologize for
all the inconvenience my associates have caused you in their zeal to re-establish
the human race of Gorel-zed. In the case of Kaliz, of course, it was excessive
zeal which will necessitate his rehabilitation."
"Your pardon,
Master," Kaliz said humbly.
"Granted. But you'll be rehabilitated anyway."
Don
asked, "Did I understand you to say you plan to reestablish your race? Do
you mean there are more of you, aside from the kangaroo-people?"
"Oh,
yes. Young people. The youngest of
all from Gorel-zed. They were put to sleep like me, to be ready to carry
on when their new world is built. I won't wake them till then. I hope to live
that much longer."
"I'm sure you will,
sir."
"Kind of you. But let's get on with the horse trading. Of course we won't take New
York, or the two other cities." (There was a collection of sighs of relief
from Washington.) "But we would like some of your uninhabited jungle land—
the lusher the better, to help us out in the oxygen department. We'd also like
some of your air, if you can spare it. We've got a planet to supply now, not
just ships."
"How would you get air
across space?" Don asked.
"At
the moment," the Master said, "I'm afraid we're not prepared to
barter our scientific knowledge."
"I
didn't mean to pry. It just didn't seem to be something you could do. Do you
think we could spare some air, Mr. Secretary?"
"I'll
have to ask the science boys about that one," Frank Fogarty said.
"Meanwhile it's okay with Australia on the desert. But your Gizl friends
have to agree to relocate the aborigines from that tract, and they must take
every last rabbit or it's no deal."
"Agreed,"
the Master said with a smile. "But please ask their stockmen to hold their
fire. My friends only look
like kangaroos."
As Don and the Master were making
arrangements for Superior to touch down so its people could be transferred to
Earth, a blaze of fight stabbed down from the sky. Through the window they saw
the vertiplane settling slowly to the campus.
"It
sure beats a blimp," Senator Thebold said in admiration.
Professor
Garet got up to look. "It's the press," he said to his wife.
"You might as well invite them in. I hope we have enough tea."
The
vertiplane's door opened and the first wave of reporters spilled out.
As Superior
headed back across the
Adantic, the Earth-people were given a farewell tour. For the first time they
had an authorized look at the underground domain of the Gizls, which they
reached through the tunnel that led below from under Cavalier's grandstand.
The
observation room which Don and Jen Jervis had found was connected by a hidden
elevator to a vast main chamber. A control console formed the entire wall of
one end of it. Half a dozen Gizls stood at the base of the console. From time
to time one of them would launch himself upward with his powerful legs, grab a
protruding rung, make an adjustment, then drop lighdy
back to the floor.
Don
and Alis stood for a moment watching Professor Garet, who was tugging at his
beard as he became aware of the magnitude of the operation which drove Superior
through the skies and was soon to take it across space to the asteroid belt.
"Poor Father," Alis whispered to
Don. "Magnology in action, after all these years—and he didn't have a
thing to do with it."
"Is that why he wants
to go with the Master?"
"I
imagine so. If he stayed on Earth he'd have nothing. He's too old to start
again. It's kind of them to take him— and Mother. In a way, I suppose, his
going is justification for his years of work. He'll at least be close to the
things he might have developed in the right
circumstances."
"He
certainly won't be lonely," Don said. "Have you noticed the rush to
emigrate? Cheeky McFerson's decided to stick with his bubble gum factory. He
says the Gizls are a. ready-made market. He saw one of them cram five
Super-Bubs into his mouth, at one time. That's twenty-five, cents right
there."
Alis giggled. "And half of the student
body of Cavalier wants to go. You'd think they'd be disillusioned with Father,
but they're not. I guess they had to be crazy to enroll in the first
place."
"Senator Thebold's started campaigning
to be named U.S. Ambassador to Superior. I heard him talking to the man from
the New YorksTimes.
I suspect they'll give it
to him— they'll need his influence to get Senate approval of the treaty with
the Gizls."
"I had a little talk with Jen
Jervis," Alis said. "She's radiant, have you noticed? The Senator
finally asked her to marry him. That's all that was the matter with her—Bobby
the Bold had left her hanging by her thumbs too long."
"I
guess he did." Don sought a way to get the conversation away from Jen
Jervis. "Where's Doc Bendy? He certainly turned out to be a
disappointment."
"Poor Doc!" Alis said. "He's always the first to form a committee. But then
his enthusiasm wears off and he goes back to the bottle. Only now he's got a
keg."
Don
snapped his fingers. "The keg. I almost forgot
about that matter duplicator. If it can give you perfume and Doc rum . . . Come
on. Let's reopen negotiations with the Mas-er."
They
found the old man surrounded by a group of reporters, being charmingly evasive
with the science editor of Time. Professor
Garet had now joined this group, where he listened as eagerly as a student.
The
Master was showing the vault-like chamber in which he had spent the generations
since the spaceships left Gorel-zed. He let them examine the coffin-sized
drawer that had been his bed and indicated the others where the younger ones
still slept, awaiting the birth of their new planet. Don counted fewer than
three dozen drawers.
"Is that all?" he
asked.
"Infants
and children take up less room," the Master said. "There are two or
three in each drawer, and still others in the ships that never come to Earth.
Even so, we number fewer than a thousand."
"But
you have the matter duplicator," Don said. "Won't it work on
people?"
"Unfortunately, no. Transubstantiation has never worked on
living cells. Don't think we haven't tried. We shall have to encourage early
marriages and hope for a high birth rate."
"Now
about this transubstantiator," the Time man
said, and Garet's head cocked in delight, apparendy at the resounding sound of
the word. "What's the principle? You don't have to give away the
secret—just give me a general idea."
The Master shook his head.
Don
asked, "What will you trade for the transubstantiator and the paralysis
scepter you gave Hector?"
The
old man smiled. "Not even New York," he said. "Our moral code
couldn't permit us to trade either. Earth has enough problems already."
"Offer
him the formula for fusion," Frank Fogarty's voice said from the Pentagon.
The
old man shuddered. "I heard that," he said. "No, thank you, Mr.
Secretaryl"
"This
is the clean bomb," Fogarty said. "It ought to
come in very handy in construction work on your new planet."
"We
will try to manage in our own way," the Master said. He asked Garet,
"Wouldn't you say that magnology was suf-ficent for our purposes,
Professor?"
Alis' father beamed at being consulted and
hearing his own term applied to the Gorel-zed propulsion system.
"More
than sufficient," he said enthusiastically. "Preferable,
in fact. Magnology is safe, stressless, and
permanentiy powerful in stasis. It is the ultimate in gravity-beam
nullification. If anything can glue the asteroids back into the planet they
once were, magnology will do it. You can understand how I was misled. Your
system so fitted my theory that I imagined it was I who had caused Superior to
rise from Earth."
"I
understand perfectiy," the Master replied graciously. "And I cannot
say how glad I am that you and Mrs. Garet have chosen to stay with Cavalier and
Superior and become citizens of our new world."
-"What
will you call your new planet?" the AP man asked. "Asteroida?
Something like that?"
"We haven't decided. I
welcome suggestions."
The
UPI man was inspired. "How about Neworld?" he asked. "That
describes it perfectiy, doesn't it? New world —Neworld?"
He wrote it on a piece of paper and admired it.
"Thank
you," the Master said. "Well certainly consider ft."
The UPI man was satisfied.
He had a lead for his story.
SUPERIOR, Nov. 6 (AP)-The floating city of Superior,
Earth-bound again after nearly six days of
aerial meandering, prepared today to discharge its former residents. Its new
inhabitants, the kangaroo-like Gizls who came from beyond the stars to swing an
unprecedented barter deal involving the United States, Russia and Germany, said
they would leave almost immediately to join Superior with the new planet they
have been building in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter....
HEIDELBERG, Nov. 6 (AP)-This university city said good-by today to
some 400 interplanetary visitors it belatedly realized
had long been burrowed under it. The first officially acknowledged flying
saucer landed on Heidelberg's outskirts early today and took aboard the Gizls,
who, but for the shrewd maneuvering of
the 17. S. Secretary of
State, "Foghorn Frank" Fogarty, acting through a hastily
commissioned ex-sergeant troubleshooter, General Don Cort . . .
MOSCOW, Nov. 6 (Reuters)-The industrial city of
Magnitogorsk was assured of
remaining Soviet territory today with the departure of 1,000
kangaroo-like aliens. These
visitors from Gorel-zed, the doomed world whose survivors will increase the
number of planets in the solar system
to ten with the creation between Mars and Jupiter of .
..
From the editorial page of
the New York Daily News:
Nice
Knowing You,
Gizls, But—
Next time you visit us, how
about doing it openly, instead of
burrowing underground like a bunch of
Reds?
Bulletin
ABOARD THE
SPACESHIP SUPEBIOR, Nov. 6 (UPI)— This former Ohio town, adapted for
space travel, took off for the asteroid belt today after transferring 2,878 of its citizens to a convoy of
buses bound for a relocation center. The other 122 of its previous population of 3,000 chose to remain aboard to pioneer the birth of the tenth planet of
the solar system—Neworld.
Neworld, named by the United Press International correspondent
accompanying the survivors of the
burned-out planet of Corel-zed. will become the
second known inhabited planet in the solar system ...
"Just a minute,
Alis," Don said.
"No, sir, Sergeant-General Donald Cort, sir. Not a minute longer. You tell him now."
"All right. Sir," Don Cort (Gen., temp.) said to Frank Fogarty, Secretary of
Defense, "has the mission been accomplished?"
Don
and Alis were in the back seat of an army staff car that was leading the bus
convoy.
"Looks that way, son. Our best telescopes can't see them any more. I'd say Neworld was well
on its way to a-borning."
Alis
Garet, her arms around Don and her head on his shoulder, spoke directiy into
the transceiver. "Mr. Fogarty, are you aware that I haven't had a single
minute alone with this human radio station since I've know him? This is the
most inhibited man in the entire U. S,
Army."
"Miss
Garet," the Defense Secretary said, "I understand perfecdy. When I
was courting Mrs. Fogarty I was a pilot on the Meseck Line. . . . Well, never
mind that. Mission accomplished, General Cort, my boy."
"Then, sir," Don said,
"Sergeant Cort respectfully requests permission to disconnect this
blasted invasion of privacy so he can ask Miss Alis Garet if she thinks two of
us can live on a non-com's pay."
The
driver of the staff car, a sergeant himself, said over his shoulder,
"Can't be done, General."
Fogarty
said, "Don't be too anxious to revert to the ranks, my boy. Ill admit the
T/O for generals isn't wide open but I'm sure we can compromise somewhere
between three stripes and four stars. Suppose you take a ten-day delay en route
to Washington while we see what we can do. Ill meet
you in the White House on November sixteenth. The President tells me he wants
to pin a medal on you."
"Yes,
sir," Don said. Alis was very close and he was only half listening.
"Any further orders, sir?"
"Just one, Don. Kiss her for me, too. Over to you."
"Yes, sirl" Don said. "Over and out."