The Collected Stories

by Earl

  It was a long and dreary afternoon. Both immersed in gloom and feeling the pain throbs of bruises and wrenched muscles, they spoke little.

  The trial was short that evening. It took place in a huge court-room filled with curious crowds. The judge, emotionless and stern, peered at the defendants as though they were irresponsible children. Every man of the jury wore the blue cape with the symbolic insignia of Science. The very atmosphere of the place seemed cold, implacable, pitiless. Facing the jury of Scientists, Terry and Williams pleaded guilty to the initial charge of treasonable action against the Unidum. This took the court by surprise and prevented them putting in any further charges of conspiracy had they denied the misdemeanor and been cross-examined.

  The technical presentation of the charge after the judge had deliberated the case, delivered in funereal tones, Williams hardly heard. The sentence—what would that be? He looked at the austere frown on the judge’s brow and knew it could not be light. Terry sat trembling beside him, his face bloodless and drawn in suspense.

  Then came the announcement of the sentence. Williams heard clearly a group of words that struck at his understanding like powerful blows:

  “—just punishment will be painless death by gas, with the unmerited honor of having their cerebral organs installed in Brain-controls in the—”

  Williams heard no more. The voice ceased soon after and there was deathly silence. He vaguely comprehended that everyone was looking at him and that Terry beside him had turned to stone. What were those words again? Something about “death” and “Brain-controls.” Death? To die! Could that be their sentence? Then the wall of resistance broke down and the meaning flooded in to his consciousness.

  Everyone in the court-room, even the Scientists, shuddered at the sudden harsh, aimless laugh that came from the older of the two men’s lips. Then he was led away. But at the door he jerked to a stop and faced the still, quiet court-room. His voice rang out for all to hear:

  “Someday the Unidum will be sorry it ever permitted the inhuman Brain-control to become lawful!”

  There was a murmur from the crowd and the Scientists looked at one another uneasily. The judge reddened in anger and seemed about to recall the case and inflict a worse sentence; but no worse sentence could be thought of. He waved for them to take the prisoners out. Terry had to be prodded several times before he realized it was over.

  Escorted by a dozen Unidum guards, they were taken upward by elevator and brought before a different room than they had had previous to the trial. The door clanged shut behind them and after the grating of key in lock, there was silence. Williams had a queer look of defiance on his face. But his eyes were dazed; the dread sentence had struck hard. Suddenly his face turned fierce.

  “My brain in a Brain-control! What diabolical irony! God! If I had only succeeded in releasing Helen, then it would be easier to take. But just think, Terry, for ages the memory of having failed in that will run through my dead-alive brain . . .

  It was a ghastly thought and Terry shuddered.

  “But they haven’t executed us yet,” Williams went on vehemently, “and may the Seven Devils of the Seven Hills of Ok-Ok eat my heart out if I lose hope of. . . . escape!”

  Terry thought the man had gone mad, for he began to prow about the dark cell as though looking for a secret doorway. He stopped at the real door with its heavy bars and shook them experimentally. Nothing could be solider. The cell itself was steel-lined. The one window had heavy steel bars like the door. Through it could be seen the fairy-like picture of Boston at night; but it was impossible to see the street level sixty stories down. Nearby the dark bulk of a huge enclosed span jutted from the building, extending across the street canyon. It carried electro-car service to the Unidum sub-headquarters.

  Terry sat down with a feeling of pity for the old man. Apparently the strain had unsettled his mind. Perhaps he thought he was back in Africa, imprisoned in some rickety thatch hut that he could batter down if he wished. Certainly the look in his eyes was far from normal, and from his twitching lips came a muttered stream of clipped African gibberish. That there was no escape, Terry knew. There were hundreds of Unidum police outside the door throughout the building. The door’s lock could not be picked for it had no key-hole on the inside. The walls were proof against human strength. And the one and only window let out upon a sheer drop of a thousand feet.

  When the crouching man sneaked cat-footed to the window and cocked one ear as though hearing something besides the drone of aircraft above, Terry thought it time to do something. Gently, but firmly, he tugged him away from the window avoiding the perplexed look in his eyes, and pushed him to the wall bunk. Williams struggled hesitantly and then fell back flat. He slept.

  Terry sighed heavily and threw himself on his bunk. The utter hopelessness and despair of their situation crushed him mercilessly. They were in the steel claws of the Unidum whose justice was alloyed only with mercilessness.

  CHAPTER VIII

  M’bopo’s Plan

  l Hackworth spent the morning of the day Terry and Williams had gone to Boston writing a detailed report of the north route to interior Congo. With M’bopo to clear up certain tricky points in the geography of the land inhabited by Bantu tribes, he had made a comprehensive report which he planned sending to the Federated States of Africa. M’bopo displayed a degree of intelligence that surprised the white man; he traced unerringly the ramifications of the route along unexplored rivers and through unnamed deserts.

  Hackworth had undertaken the voluntary task more to keep his mind occupied than because of keen interest. In the afternoon he visited the hospital in which Lila lay, asleep beyond the puzzled efforts of the doctors to awaken her.

  When Terry and Williams failed to appear at the evening meal, he began to worry. Yet what could have happened? Alone, Williams might have done something rash, but not with Terry along. The double shock of hearing about the Brain-controls, and hearing that his sister’s brain was in one of them, had shaken Williams deeply, Hackworth knew. That was why he had insisted on the young chemist accompanying him. Probably taking in a few of the sights around Boston, reflected Hackworth.

  At seven o’clock he tuned in the radionews of the day, uneasy and weighed down by apprehension. Then his worst suspicions were confirmed by the radio as the announcer told of the hectic fight in the Brain-control room: two men attack Scientist, attempt to smash control, resist Unidum guards, finally subdued and jailed, to be sentenced at the Science Court.

  For a while all Hackworth could do was run up and down the room aimlessly.

  Then he fell to cursing his cousin, cursing Terry, and finally reviling the Unidum. When M’bopo stuck his head in the doorway, he poured out the story to him in a mixture of Bantu and English. M’bopo stood as though frozen.

  “Let us go to Onto Akku,” said M’bopo when Hackworth had exhausted himself. “I will fight. Sarto Brut I will kill all the guards and take my master from prison.”

  “No, no,” said Hackworth. “This is not Africa, M’bopo. There are hundreds of guards. They would kill you.”

  “I do not care,” said the black man impassively. “Take me to Onto Akku. I will fight for him.”

  Hackworth suddenly realized that M’bopo was not asking but demanding. There had come a strange gleam in the Bantu’s eyes. His primitive emotions were arising. Even the super-civilization of Unitaria could not daunt him.

  “All right, M’bopo. But not tonight. They would not let us in. Tomorrow morning we will go.”

  M’bopo grunted and sat himself cross-legged on the floor.

  The next morning Hackworth and the black man were waiting in the foyer of the Unidum sub-headquarters in Boston till visiting hours began. Finally at nine o’clock they were led upward to the sixtieth story.

  The two prisoners were standing at the window dejectedly looking out upon the bustle of a large city. They turned in surprise when the door swung open.

  “Hackworth!” cried Terry. “How did you find o
ut about this so quickly?”

  “Heard about it over the radio last night,” answered Hackworth. He faced his cousin with deep reproach in his face. “Dan—”

  “Yes, I know,” interrupted Williams. “How could I be such a fool? I can hardly explain it myself. As I stood there looking at the globe and realized that Helen’s. . . . brain was in it, something just snapped in me.”

  Hackworth nodded. “You’re hardly to be blamed.” He changed his tone to a hesitant whisper. “Mow did the trial turn out?”

  “Death! and our brains to be used in Brain-controls!”

  “Great God in Heaven!” gasped Hackworth. “Not that!” He sank limply to a chair. He seemed to have fainted except that his eyes were open wide—and they reflected a great horror.

  Terry did not have to tell Hack worth, and he had already told Williams, that the execution would take place in three days. All sentences for treasonable crimes in 1973 were consummated or started in three days. It was the policy of the Unidum to let no unnecessary delay hinder the progress of its iron justice.

  “Lila! Lila! What will happen to her?” moaned Hackworth suddenly. “With Terry gone she will never wake up again!”

  “Yes she will,” returned Williams. “Eventually the drug will lose its effect; but it might be years. And she will awaken only to find her lover gone and a Scientist-husband awaiting her.”

  The three men looked haggardly at one another. Everything had now gone awry. Even Andrew Grant’s help would do no good, for there would be no purpose in freeing Lila from the Eugenics Law with Terry dead.

  “We must, simply must, try to do something,” said Hackworth suddenly, springing to his feet and pacing up and down. “Jail-breaking is impossible—”

  Terry and Williams smiled wanly at one another, thinking of the previous evening when the latter, in some mental lapse, had snooped around as though planning an escape. In the morning, awaking in full possession of his faculties, Williams had seen clearly how impossible it was to flee their prison in any way.

  “—but there are other things,” went on Hackworth. His voice sank to a whisper. “Perhaps I can bribe the man with the keys. If not that I might approach higher authority and let the sunlight flash on gold. I’ve got less than three days. . . . well, I’ll do what I can.”

  But his tones were forlorn and unconfident, and Terry gave no sign of interest. They both knew the Unidum. They both knew how little hope there was for a man condemned by the Science Court. And from their very tones and actions, Williams knew too.

  There was a strained silence. M’bopo, who had kept a respectful poise in the corner, suddenly confronted his master.

  “Orno Akku wishes to go free?” he asked in Bantu. “Come, M’bopo will fight for you. We will kill the guards and fly away in a metal bird.”

  “No, M’bopo,” said Williams, smiling despite the seriousness of the occasion. “There are too many guards and they have guns.” Terry had described the building they were in before Hackworth arrived. It being the Unidum sub-head-quarters, it literally swarmed with guards who patrolled all the corridors and floors. To follow M’bopo’s plan, they would have to fight their way through each set of guards in turn before even reaching the street level or some outlet. Even then, a clever alarm system would immediately place armed police at all entrances and exits of the building.

  “Then I will stay here with you,” said the black man promptly.

  It took Williams many minutes to convince M’bopo that his loyalty was misplaced under the circumstances, and he finished with a suggestion of tears in his eyes at the black man’s unselfish devotion.

  Then the guard at the door announced that their time was up. Hackworth and M’bopo were forced to leave. The former tried to say something cheerful as he left, but it was a dismal failure.

  The public landing field and hangar at which Hackworth had left his Sansrun before entering the Unidum building was located on the flat top of a building but a block away. He had a choice of three lanes by which to leave and by mere chance took the one that passed the prison side of the Unidum building. As the plane took altitude, they passed several rows of windows heavily barred.

  “Your master is in one of them,” said Hackworth, pointing in the general direction of the steel-barred windows.

  M’bopo strained his eyes to them. Although it was two hundred yards away, he suddenly recognized Williams’ face peering out of one of them. He excitedly pointed it out to Hackworth and the latter swung as close as the lane signals would allow to wave a last goodbye. Then he had to climb again, up and up till they were high above all buildings.

  He felt a clutch on his arm. Words poured into his ear—Bantu words, startling words. Hackworth listened, enrapt. He asked a few questions. The replies brought a thoughtful gleam to his eyes. He guided his Sansrun along angled turns that circled the Unidum sub-headquarters. Again they fell to the lowest lane on the other side and climbed across the face of the barred windows. This time both of them strained their eyes in the direction of the window which framed Williams’ tanned face. So absorbed was Hackworth in certain configurations that he had to shoot his ship upward with a jerk to avoid crashing into an enclosed span.

  Then he sent the ship away from Boston. All the way back to New York, he and M’bopo talked excitedly. Could it be done? The black man claimed it could. Perhaps he was right! It was worth a trial.

  * * *

  Lying on his bunk in a darkness broken only by the dim light that came through the window, Williams found it hard to sleep. The soft, regular sound of Terry’s breathing came to him except when the drone of an airplane passing near filled the little cell. Poor young Terry! All that day he had been despondent and moody. The few times he had talked he had talked only of Lila, about happy memories of the past. Clearly, he had resigned himself to fate. Williams asked himself, while tossing fitfully, whether there was any hope. No, hardly. Hackworth could do nothing, even with his entire wealth. Andrew Grant could do nothing. And there was no one else to depend on for help. They were inevitably doomed. First the painless death. Then a rude awakening of some mystic sort with the gradual realization of being a part of a complicated apparatus, forced to send nerve-impulses along thin silver wires. . . .

  Williams perspired in a half-waking nightmare. He seemed to hear already the clicking of magnet relays. How relieved to feel the hard bunk beneath him; he was not in a Brain-control yet. But the clicking! It was still there! And a sibilant sound. . . . like rubbing!

  He jerked his head erect. The sound came from the window. There was something there! With thought came action. He leaped from the bunk and toward the window. He stumbled over it—a rope! At its end was a small stone, clicking as some agency at the other end dragged it slowly over the floor.

  Williams did not stop to ponder the inexplicable presence of a rope, but tied its end to a bar, giving it a final jerk to indicate its being done. In another moment, after several scraping sounds outside, M’bopo appeared, struggling violently. One of his hands gripped a bar; then the other. With a suppressed grunt, M’bopo contracted wiry arm muscles and pulled his body upward till his knees rested on the window ledge. He rested in that position panting.

  “M’bopo! How did you get here? What is this all about?”

  “Orno Akku,” gasped the black man. “I come to rescue you. The way I come, that way you go.”

  “How did you come?”

  “I climb down long box that crosses ditch. I balance on rope. I walk to end of rope. Rope high as a man can reach, I jump. Here I am.”

  In a flash Williams understood M’bopo’s enigmatical words of Bantu which could barely cover the subject. “Long box” was span, the nearby electrocar enclosed span. “Rope” was cable support. Williams became excited. Then he cursed.

  “But these bars, M’bopo!”

  The black man silently probed in his pockets and brought out a small bottle which he handed through the bars.

  “You hurry, Omo Akku. Hackworth, he waits.�
�

  And Williams did hurry, but not with the nervous rapidity of a drowning man clutching at a straw. He had suddenly become cool, calm, efficient with a cold haste. A hand on Terry’s shoulder, a few whispered words, a quick series of decision, and the young chemist became imbued with the same swift efficiency. Their lives depended on how quickly they worked.

  Williams crouched near the door, placing his ear against it. He waved to Terry. The young chemist opened the bottle, poured out of it at the base of one of the window bars. There was a prolonged hiss. Then the bar was loose from its mooring, completely eaten through. Another drawn-out hiss and again a bar was loose. Five bars were thus treated. Terry found time to thank the gods that there was an acid like that which attacked steel as viciously and quickly as sodium metal attacks water. Williams, at the door, watched the process with wonder. He knew there had never been a compound like that in 1933. But the results interested him far more. When the final bar had been severed by the acid, he leaped noiselessly to the window. A word to M’bopo and he grasped the first bar and pulled outward. Terry held the black man by the belt and Williams helped bend the bar. With faint protest, the steel gave and curled upward. With a frantic strength, they bent the other four.

  “Now,” said Williams, panting, “comes the hardest part. That cable support that leads to the span is about ten feet below, says M’bopo. We must hang by our hands from the sill and climb down the rope to the cable. Then we must walk along it to the span. It’s dangerous—one slip and——”

  Terry shuddered in understanding. It was a thousand feet straight down.

  “Let’s go,” he said steadily.

  Williams motioned for him to go first and Terry lost no time, in clambering through the window. His first glance at the view from his precarious perch on the sill brought a chill to his heart. Far below, only partially revealed by lights, was the ground level. At various heights were both enclosed and platform spans, hung with red lights. All about were the cadaverous heights of slim towers. It was a dizzying spectacle. Terry recovered his shaken nerves, twisted carefully about, and lowered himself, glad to feel the firm rope in his hands. He descended hand over hand till his feet struck something solid, and a strong hand steadied him. M’bopo’s round eyes peered into his.