The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack

by Robert Silverberg

  “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 like 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. I’ll 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 I’ll 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 overheard. 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 whoever’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, burn 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 printshop, feeling like a goldfish bowl.

  CHAPTER IV

  Ed Clark 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.”

  “PP?”

  “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 say! 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-Thebold 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 torn-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 there, 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 quietly 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.”

  “Bravo!” she said. “Spoken like a true Cavalier.”

  She gathered up her books. The instructor, without interrupting 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. I’ll 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 I’ll have a chance to ask some questions. Will your father be there?”

  “I’m sure he will. He’s a great meeting-caller. I’ll 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 hand
s, 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 gentleman 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 presently, 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 degrees 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.”