The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack

by Robert Silverberg

  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 Atlantic 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,” Thebold 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, silk-like 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 Battle 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! 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 Garet’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 and Thebold’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 fire!” he shouted to his men. “We don’t shoot women, children, or crackpots.” He said to Professor Garet, “All right, mastermind, untie me.”

  CHAPTER XI

  A submarine surfaced on the Atlantic, 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 down. 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 apparently 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-Rubach 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 gently 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, tha
t other time—all that mumbo-jumbo with the Anagrams.”

  “It must have been, unless they learn 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 Hustler,” 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 corner.”