The Collected Stories

by Earl

  Bromberg waved them back to their food. “But what evil has been done can be undone. The Unidum is not yet corrupt; Molier has only made a start. Once his power is broken, all will be well. That is the primary purpose of the Brotherhood—to strike at the vitals of Molier’s insidious scheme, the Eugenics Law and the Brain-control Act.”

  “But isn’t the threat of tyranny sort of unreal?” asked Williams. “After all, Molier is but a man; he must die soon. After his death will not the whole scheme puff away like a breath of foul air?”

  “You don’t know Molier,” returned Bromberg. “His evil genius foresees that his perverted ideals must live after him or his work is for nothing. Accordingly, he has poured poisoned words into the ears of many Unidum Scientists. He has painted for them a lurid picture of a future in which the unintellectual masses will not be there to hinder the advance of Science. It is so easy to sway a Scientist with talk of Scientific Utopias. Accordingly, he has many staunch adherents; they form a sort of unorganized, yet growingly powerful, sect. Through Andrew Grant, secretary to Executive Ashley, we have obtained the names of the Scientists who are known to favor Molier. We have even learned who it is that Molier has picked to succeed him when he dies. Professor Jorgen is his name, a man hardly less cunning and ruthless than Molier—”

  Terry and Williams looked at one another in astonishment. Professor Jorgen, the Scientist to whom Lila was to be married! At Bromberg’s query, Terry quickly explained the matter.

  “Heaven forbid!” exclaimed Bromberg, “that your sweetheart should marry such a fiend. He, no less than Molier, must be stripped of all authority and power if Unitaria is not to become a vast experimental laboratory for a group of mad Scientists.”

  “I wish he were standing right here in front of me,” said Terry, eyes blazing. “I would smash him to pulp! I’d. . . . I’d. . . .”

  “Yes, of course you would—if you could get such a chance. But not in that way could their schemes be destroyed. You two are now Marshals in an organization that will either smash Molier and save the Unidum, or. . . . but we must not admit that there can be failure. Three days from today, the Brothers of Humanity will rise in all their righteousness.”

  * * *

  “It is a decision I cannot make,” said Agarth. “I will have to refer it to one of the Generals. Come, we will see them about it.”

  They left the room in which Williams, Terry, and M’bopo had slept and traversed underground corridors to the central office. Bromberg looked up from various papers with a tired smile.

  “Sorry to disturb you at such a time,” began Agarth, “but I must ask for your decision. Marshal Williams has made a request to be delegated to the poisoning of the Boston Brain-control!”

  Bromberg turned to Williams in surprise. “What! You wish to risk your life—”

  “I do,” said Williams with determination in his voice. “The Boston Brain-control has in it my sister’s brain. I tried to smash tire globe which holds it once before, and it led to my sentence for treason, Terry with me. Since that time it has been my secret vow to release my sister from that mental torture which you and Doctor Hagen have proven torments a brain in a Brain-control. Furthermore, I feel that I have done nothing noteworthy for the Brotherhood as yet. At least, in being one of the poisoners, I will have done my part.”

  “Marshal Williams,” said Bromberg slowly, “I will not attempt to dissuade you, for I can understand your personal feelings about the matter. Let me shake your hand—you are a brave. . . . man.”

  For the first time, Terry and Williams had an insight into the humanness of the professor. Hitherto he had been merely impersonal, the leader of a great movement. Now his eye was moistened in feeling.

  “And if I may make a request,” said Terry, “I wish to accompany Williams!”

  “Terry, no! You—” It was Williams, shaking his head.

  “General Bromberg,” continued Terry. “Your answer?”

  “Go, and God be with you! It is such spirit as yours that will save us from tyranny. Major Agarth, attend to the details.”

  They left the General then, and only after an hour of instruction did Agarth leave them after a hearty hand-clasp. In another hour, Terry, Williams, and M’bopo were escorted from the underground headquarters into a cold, clear night. A silent guide took them to an auto which left the vicinity with an almost noiseless purr of its motors. Reaching the coast an hour later, they were hurried to a waiting airplane, a speedy Sansrun. In it they were to be taken to a small city in California, from thence to embark for Boston in a public air-liner. Each of the agents sent out that night to American cities for the poisoning of the brains, embarked from a different city. In Europe, the same careful system had been used.

  In another ten hours, in the early morning of the next day, two thousand members of the Brotherhood would simultaneously look at clocks, open the black metal nutrition boxes after destroying the locks, and pour a small vial of deadly poison into the jar from which the pump sucked liquid food to send to the brain in the globe above. . . .

  CHAPTER XIII

  Death to the Brains

  l “We are in constant danger of arrest,” said Terry as they stepped from an electro-car in Boston, “if anyone recognizes us as the same two men who not two weeks ago tried to smash the Brain-control.” His eyes searched around for the blue and red of Unidum police.

  “I suppose so,” said Williams, stepping forth boldly. “Yet I think the very daring of it is our protection.”

  Escalators took them downward. Passing a loitering policeman on the way to the food products building, Terry held his breath. Cold eyes fastened on them for a moment, then flicked aimlessly away. Terry soothed a beating heart; they were unrecognized! After all, they looked no different from the thousands of other men on the streets; and M’bopo was not the only negro in Boston. Why should the Unidum guards, intent on keeping law and order every day, be thinking only of those two, bold, bad men who had many days before blunderingly thrown a wrench in a Brain-control? Terry began to realize that it was only natural no police should stop them with an eye of suspicion.

  As for them entering food products, as they now did, to see the awesome contrivance which ran dozens of machines, were there not visitors daily doing the same thing? The Unidum could have no suspicion that within an hour all the Brain-controls would cease to function. Yet the nearer they approached, the more nervous Terry became. He felt for the tiny flat aspirator in his inside coat pocket. It was there safe enough, and Williams—he had in his pocket a tiny vial of a virulent poison.

  The early morning—it was only nine o’clock—had been picked for the zero hour as there were few sightseers abroad at that time. They stepped into an empty Toom.

  “Five minutes,” whispered Terry. That closely had everything been planned.

  Williams drew a long breath as he once again gazed upon the globe which held his sister’s brain. He felt a fierce exultation, but the hallucination that his sister was talking to him did not come as it had that other time. He was sane and cool now. He had an important commission to perform, and it must be done carefully and quietly—no blundering and losing one’s head. Agarth trusted him to do the job right.

  Williams spoke to M’bopo in dialect, then to Terry. “M’bopo will watch at the far door. You stand at the near one. If all is clear, I’ll go ahead. If not—we’ll take the chance that all the other Brothers are taking all over Unitaria and go through with it. Give me the acid.”

  When Terry at one door and M’bopo at the other nodded, Williams sprang lightly to the pit level. With calm fingers, he inserted the aspirator nozzle in the keyhole of the black box and pressed the bulb. There was a sharp hiss. He glanced at the alarm bulb above; it was dark. He tried the handle. It stuck!

  More acid with the nozzle twisting in his fingers. Louder hissing but still the handle would not turn! Keeping his eye on the alarm bulb, he sprayed again and again, till a strong smell of chlorinic substances pervaded the room. Sarto! Wha
t spiteful thing kept that half-destroyed lock from yielding? Beads of sweat were on his forehead now. He wondered if the other agents of the Brotherhood were having the same trouble.

  A fierce whisper from Terry startled him. “Something coming! Hurry!”

  Williams squirted the acid till it was gone and desperately threw his weight on the handle. With a loud click it suddenly yielded. Swinging the door open, Williams stretched trembling hands toward the foremost of two jars. Guided by Agarth’s descriptions and instructions, it was easy for him to unscrew a threaded cap at the top.

  “Goodbye, Helen!” he said in low tones as he dropped the gelatin vial into the jar. “It is for the best!” The action of water on the gelatin would turn it porous and let the poison out.

  Williams swung the door shut and turned, ready for anything.

  “Jump up here quickly,” hissed Terry. “They won’t know. . . .”

  It was only two elderly women, loudly telling each other all about the Brain-control and too busy at that occupation to notice that two men looked flushed and excited about something. Waving to M’bopo to join them in the corridor, Williams and Terry left the chamber.

  It had worked perfectly. It might be hours before the erratic behavior of the machines below would be detected. They left the building as calmly as they could and in a few minutes stepped from the escalator onto an electro-car platform.

  Williams felt as though a great load had been taken from his shoulders. “It is done! It is done!” These words constantly revolving in his mind brought him a deep peace. Then he noticed that Terry had grasped his arm and was pulling him toward one side of the island platform.

  “What—?”

  “Didn’t you hear me, man? I said I’m going to call up Hackworth, tell him we’ve succeeded and are all right. And. . . . ask about Lila!”

  Terry stepped into a phone booth while his companions waited outside. He emerged a minute later with a happy smile on his face. “Lila! She is still ‘sleeping’ soundly! Hackworth was overjoyed to hear my voice. Knowing the zero hour, he knew we must be safe. He wanted us to visit him but I told him it would be inviting disaster.”

  “Right, Terry. It won’t be healthy for us here in Boston, or anywhere in the east in a few hours. We must get to the west coast—”

  They turned startled at a shout. A man in blue and red uniform was tugging at the lightning pistol in his holster and running toward them. Already two other guards at the far end of the platform were running to join him.

  “We’re recognized!” gasped Terry. Instinctively he glanced at Williams for the initiative.

  The latter swept an eye to take in the scene; the long and narrow platform, sparsely populated, was a bad place to be confronted by police. Yet the escalator was too far to make a run for it. They would meet the guards at its entrance. Far down the tunnel-like span he could see an approaching electro-car in its multiple grooves. No escape—but there were only three guards to. . . .

  l Williams whispered rapidly to Terry and then to M’bopo. The latter nodded with a fierce grin. Terry set his jaw grimly, pale but resolute.

  The guard who had first shouted hurled explanations to the two who came up and together they ran to where the three men waited quietly.

  “You’re under arrest!” cried the foremost minion of the Unidum. He waved his pistol threateningly. “Better come quietly.”

  “Just a minute,” said Williams with mock surprise. “Why are we under arrest? What have we done?”

  Sensing something out of the ordinary, a small crowd formed about them. The police waved them back as they crowded eagerly close.

  “Aren’t you two Dan Williams and Terry Spath, wanted for treason and jailbreaking?” asked the guard, somewhat taken aback by Williams’ calm demeanor. “Of course you are! I recognize your features—”

  “Why. . . . why. . . . such insolence!” exclaimed Williams, looking hurt as though insulted. “Do you hear that, Briggs?”—turning to Terry—“Suggests we are those arch-criminals who tried to wreck a Brain-control!” He faced the guard sternly. “Sir, do you mean to say out of three million people in Boston you had to pick out us upon whom to practice some sort of misdirected horse-play!

  Really now, we resent this and shall report you!”

  The guard had changed color at the bland words. The hand that held the pistol lowered in indecision. His fellow guards who had not recognized the questioned persons, but had merely flocked to their companion’s aid at his shouts, looked around embarrassed at the crowd’s tittering.

  “Well, I must do my duty as I see it,” said the first guard doggedly. “You two closely resemble those criminals. At least I shall have to ask you to come with me to the nearest police office for a check-up.”

  “Shall we allow this fellow to disgrace us?” asked Williams, half-turned to Terry. “Or shall we”—the electro-car had now come up and was hissing to a stop—“Give them what they deserve!”

  It was the signal Terry was waiting for. As one, the three of them leaped forward suddenly. Three hard fists knocked three uniformed men flat. The quickness of the attack had forestalled the latter from even raising their pistols, which they had been holding loosely at their sides during the conversation.

  The crowd scattered with cries of alarm, most of them toward the escalator. The rest stampeded into the electro-car, and with them were Williams and his companions. It being an automatic transfer station, there was no conductor to raise an alarm. The driver in the motor compartment, seeing nothing of the fracas, pursued his scheduled duty, and the electro-car hummed away from the platform on which lay three prone figures. One of them staggered erect, shouting futilely for the car to stop. Then he picked his fellow guards up, looked hastily for pistols which he could not find, and raced to the phone booth to raise an alarm.

  Inside the electro-car, Williams, Terry, and M’bopo grinned at one another as they sat down near the exit. The few people who had witnessed the affair and knew the culprits, looked terrorized in their direction as though expecting them to jump up and begin a general massacre.

  The rest of the passengers, sensing the excitement, looked around avidly curious and asked one another what it was all about.

  “Safe for the moment,” breathed Williams. “But they’ll be on the lookout for us. We must get out of Boston and the sooner, the better.”

  “I have a plan,” said Terry hurriedly. “They’re liable to have guards at every station on this line, looking for us before long. In a few minutes we’ll be at the next automatic transfer station. If we transfer from there to a lower level line, we’ll slip out of their hands, because they can’t have guards looking for us at every station in this city.”

  “Good,” returned Williams. He pulled something from his pocket and thrust it into Terry’s hand without revealing it to nearby passengers.

  Terry gasped as he felt the smooth outline of a lightning pistol.

  “Just before I ran to the electro-car,” explained Williams, “I picked up two of them, one for you and one for me. They were dying there so handy and it only took me a second. How do you work them?”

  “Button on the side where you hold your index finger,” said Terry. “But be careful with it! The catch near the firing button has two positions: the one for a paralyzing charge; the other for a killing charge. And if we ever get caught with these—”

  Williams smiled. “Terry, you forget we’re already criminals with a death sentence. The possession of pistols can’t make us worse felons. And we may yet have a use for them before we get away scot-free. . . .”

  Terry jumped up, releasing his seat-bands, as the electro-car came to a halt. “Come on. We transfer here.”

  Followed by the wondering eyes of several of the other passengers, they stepped from the door. Williams glanced hastily up and down the platform and breathed in relief. Not a policeman in sight. Terry led the way to an escalator. At the next lower level he turned into a banistered walk that took them to the middle of one of three pl
atforms. The car grooves ran into an enclosed span which right-angled the span above from which they had come.

  While waiting for the next electro-car to come up, Terry looked apprehensively around, fearing that the Unidum guards thereabouts might already have received instructions to search for the criminals. An electro-car rumbled out of the rear span and stopped before them. As they entered, Terry saw a blue and red figure dash from the escalator opposite, waving its arms and shouting. But too late; the electro-car whisked away.

  “They’re on our trail,” Terry informed Williams. “To fool them we’ll skip the next station and stop at a terminal. We’ll pay another fare, but take a sixth-level span; express service, hardly any stops.

  There were no shouting guards at the terminal, and the three embarked safely on a sixth-level span car. It rumbled on its grooves at frightful speed.

  “Now let them locate us,” smiled Terry grimly, “with three misleading transfers between us.”

  “Now how do we get out of Boston?”

  Terry was silent in thought for a moment. “At the next transfer station, I’ll take a look at the city guide, because, frankly, I don’t know where we are in Boston! Then we can get to an air-port and—”

  He frowned. “Only thing is, Williams, word will have been received by now at every air-port to watch for us. There are always plenty of police at air-ports. Us three, especially with M’bopo along, don’t stand a chance to get aboard without being stopped. Every train depot will have notice; so will the hyp-marine depots and docks. And there’s only one way left to get out of the city—with the exception of walking, which is foolhardy—and that is by automobile.”

  “Then by auto it is,” said Williams.

  “But you don’t understand! There is no such thing as public service in autos. They are all owned privately. We would have to. . . . to confiscate one, like thieves!”