Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 by Various (best ereader for academics .txt) š
- Author: Various
Book online Ā«Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 by Various (best ereader for academics .txt) šĀ». Author Various
āBah! A reason! Youāve kept me in this misery and squalor for a reason! Whoās my father?ā
He flung Rudolph to the floor, where the old man crouched in apprehensive misery.
āPlease Karlādonāt! I can explain. Just give me time. Itās a long story.ā
āTime! Time! For twenty-odd years youāve lied to me; cheated me. My birthrightāwhere is it?ā
He menaced his supposed uncle; was about to strike him. Then suddenly he was ashamed. He turned on his heel.
āIām leaving,ā he said shortly.
āKarlāmy boy,ā begged Rudolph Krassin, struggling to his feet. āYou canāt! That lad in thereāheāā
But Karl was too angry to reason.
āTo hell with him!ā he raged, āand to hell with you! Iām through!ā
He stamped from the room and out into the eery shadows of the Way. Karl was done with his old life. Heād go to the upper levels and claim his rights. Some day, too, heād punish the man whoād stolen them away. God! Born to the purple! To think heād missed it all! Probably was kidnaped by the old rascal heād been calling uncle. But heād find out. Rudolph didnāt have to explain. Fingerprint records would clear his name; establish his rightful station in life. He dived into a passage that would lead him to one of the express lifts. Heād soon be overhead.
A sergeant of the red police looked up startled from his desk as a tall youth in the gray denim of forty levels below appeared before him.
āWell?ā he growled. The stalwart young worker had stared belligerently and insolently, he thought.
āI want to check my fingerprint record, Sergeant.ā
āHm. Pretty cocky, arenāt you? The records for such as you are down below, where you belong.ā
āNot mine, I think.ā
āSo? And who the devil are you?ā
āThatās what Iām here to find out. Iāve got a triangle branded on my right hip.ā
āA what?ā
āTriangle. Hereālook!ā
The amazing youngster had raised his jacket and was pulling at his shirt. 358 The sergeant stared at what was revealed, his eyes bulging as he looked.
āLord!ā he gasped, āa Van Dornāin the gray!ā
Quickly he turned to the radiovision and made rapid connection with several persons in turnāimportant ones, by the appearance of the features of each in the brilliant disc of the instrument.
Karl was confused by the sudden turn of things. The sergeant talked so rapidly he could not catch the sense of his words. And that name, Van Dorn, eluded him. He knew he had heard it before, in the little shop down there in Astor Way. But he could not place it. He wished fervently that he had paid more attention to the desires of old Rudolph; had studied more and read the books the old man had begged him to read. His new surroundings confused him, too, and he knew that he was the center of some great new excitement.
Then they were in the room; two individuals, one in the red uniform of a captain of police, the other a pompous, whiskered man in purple. Others followed and it seemed to Karl that the room was filled with them, strangers all, and they stared at him and chattered incessantly. He experienced an overwhelming impulse to run, but mastered it and faced them boldly.
A square of plate glass was placed under his outstretched fingers. It was smeared with something sticky and he watched the whiskered man as he held it up to the light and studied the impressions. Then there was more confusion. Everyone talked at once and the pompous one in purple made use of the radiovision, holding the square of glass near its disc for observation by the person he had called. The identification number was repeated aloud, a string of figures and letters that were a meaningless jumble to Karl. The room became quiet while the police captain thumbed the pages of a huge book he had taken from among many similar ones that filled a rack behind the desk.
Karlās blood froze in his veins at the rumbling swish of a car speeding through the pneumatic tube beneath their feet. His nerves were on edge. Then the captain of police looked up from the book and there was a peculiar glint in his eyes as he spoke.
āPeter Van Dorn. Missing since 2085. Wanted by Continental Government. Ha!ā
The words came to Karlās ears through a growing sensation of unreality. It seemed that the speaker was miles away and that his voice and features were those of a radiovision likeness. Wanted by the great power across the Atlantic! It was unthinkable. Why, he had been but an infant in 2085! What possible crime could he have committed? But the red police captain was speaking again, this time in a chill voice. And the room of the police, thick with the smoke of a dozen cigars, became suddenly stifling.
āWhere have you been these twenty-three years, Peter Van Dorn?ā asked the captain. āWho have you lived with, I mean?ā
Something warned him to protect old Rudolph. And somehow he wished he had not treated the old fellow as he did when he left. His self-possession returned. A wave of hot resentment swept over him.
āThatās my affair,ā he said defiantly.
The captain shrugged his shoulders. āOh, well,ā he said, āyou neednāt answerānow. Weāll find out when itās necessary. In the meanwhile weāll have to turn you over to the Continental Ambassador.ā
Two of the red police advanced toward him and the rest drew back.
āYou mean Iām under arrest?ā asked Karl incredulously.
āCertainly. Of course youāre not to be harmed.ā
One of the guards had him by the arm and he saw the glint of handcuffs. They couldnāt do this! If it had been 359 for rioting in the Square it would be different. But this! It meant he was a prisoner of a foreign government, for what reason he could not guess. He lost his head completely.
The captain cried out in amazement as one of his huskiest guards went sprawling under a well-planted punch. This youngster must be as crazy as was his father before him. But he was a whirlwind. Before he could be stopped he had tackled the other guard and with a mighty heave flung him halfway across the room where he fell with a thud that left him dazed and gasping. The pompous little man in the purple crawled under the desk as the sergeant leveled a slender tube at the young giant in gray.
Karl ducked instinctively at sight of the weapon, but the spiteful crackle of its mechanism was too quick for him. A faintly luminous ray struck him full in the breast and stopped him in his tracks. A thrill of intense cold chased up his spine and a thunderbolt crashed in his brain. The captain caught his stiffened body as he fell.
Karlārefusing to think of himself as Peter Van Dornācame to his senses as from a troubled sleep. His head ached miserably and he turned it slowly to view his surroundings. Then, in a flash, he remembered. The paralyzing ray of the red police! They never used it in the lower levels; but overheadāwhy, the swine! He sat suddenly erect and glared into a pair of green eyes that regarded him curiously.
A quick glance showed him that he was in a small padded compartment like that of the pneumatic tube cars. At one end there was an amazing array of machinery with glittering levers and handwheelsāa control board on which numberless tiny lights blinked and flickered in rapid succession. At these controls squatted the twisted figure of a dwarf. A second of the creatures sat at his side and stared with those horrible green eyes.
āLord!ā he muttered. āAm I still asleep?ā
āNo,ā smiled the dwarf, āyouāre awake, Peter Van Dorn.ā The misshapen creature did not seem unfriendly.
āThen where am I, and who are you?ā
āYouāre in one of the Zarās rocket cars, speeding toward Dorn. We are but two of the Zarās servantsāMoon men.ā
āRocket car? Moon men?ā Karl was aghast. He wanted to pinch himself. But a hollow roar to the rear told him he was in a rapidly moving vessel of some sort. Certainly, too, these dwarfs were not figments of his imagination.
āYouāve been kept completely ignorant?ā asked the dwarf.
āItāit seems so.ā Karl was bewildered. āYou mean we are out in the openātraveling in spaceāto the Moon perhaps?ā
The dwarf laughed. āNo, I wish we were,ā he replied. āBut we are about halfway to the capital of the Continental Empire, greatest of world powers. Weāll be there in an hour.ā
āBut I donāt understand.ā
āStupid. Didnāt you ever hear of the rocket ships that cross the ocean like a projectile, mounting a thousand miles from the surface and making the trip in two hours?ā
āNo!ā Karl was aghast. āAre we really in such a contraption?ā he faltered.
āSay! Are you kidding me?ā The dwarf was incredulous. āDo you mean to tell me you know so little of your world as that? Have you never read anything? The news broadcasts, the thought exchangersādonāt you follow them at all?ā
Karl shook his head in growing wonder. Truly Rudolph had kept him in ignorance. Or was it his own fault? He had refused to dig into the volumes old Krassin had begged him to read. The broadcasts and the thought machinesāwell, only those of the purple had access to those.
360āHey, Laro!ā called the dwarf to his companion, āthis mole is as dumb as can be. Doesnāt know heās alive hardly. And a Van Dorn!ā
The two laughed uproariously and Karl raged inwardly. Mole! So thatās what they called wearers of the gray! He clenched his fists and rose unsteadily to his feet.
āSorry,ā apologized his tormentor. āMustnāt get sore now. It seems so funny to us though. And listen, kid, youāll never have another chance to hear it all. So, if youāll sit down and calm yourself a bit Iāll give you an earful.ā
Mollified, Karl listened. A marvelous tale it was, of a disgruntled scientist of the Eastern Hemisphere who had conquered that portion of the world with the aid of the inhabitants he had found on the outer side of the Moon; of the scientist who still ruled the EastāZar of the Continental Empire. A horrible warāin 2085, the year of his own birthādepopulated the countries of Asia, Europe and Africa and reduced them to subjection. There was no combatting the destructive rays and chemical warfare of the Moon men. The United Americas, still weakened from a civil war of their own, remained aloof and, for some strange reason, the Zar left them in peace, contenting himself with his conquest of practically all of the rest of the world. Now, it seemed, the two major powers were as separate as if on different planets, there being no traffic between them save by governmental sanction; and that was rarely given.
It grew uncomfortably warm in the compartment as the rocket car entered the lower atmosphere but Karl listened spellbound to the astounding revelations of the Moon man. There came a pause in the discourse of the dwarf as a number of relays clicked furiously on the control board and the vessel slackened its speed perceptibly.
āBut,ā said Karl, thinking aloud rather than meaning to interrupt, āwhat has all this to do with me? Why does the government of this Zar want me?ā
The dwarf bent close and eyed him cautiously. āPoor kid!ā he whispered, āit doesnāt seem right that you should suffer for something that happened when you were born; something you know nothing about. But the Zar knows best. Youāā
There came a stabbing pencil of light from over Karlās shoulder and the green eyes of the dwarf went wide with horrified surprise. He clutched at his breast where the flame had contacted, then slowly collapsed in a pitiful, distorted heap. Karl recoiled from the odor of putrefaction that immediately filled the compartment. He whirled to face the new danger but saw nothing but the padded walls.
Then they were in darkness save for the blinking lights of the control board. He was thrown forward violently and the piercing screech of compressed air rushing past the vessel told him they had entered the receiving tube at their destination and were being retarded in speed for the landing. This much he had gathered from the explanations of the now silenced dwarf.
Laro, the other Moon man, remained mute at the controls. His companion evidently had talked too much.
The vessel had stopped and a section of the padded rear wall of the compartment moved back to reveal a second chamber. There were three other occupants of the ship and Karl knew now at whose hands the talkative Moon man had met his death. One of the threeāall wearers of the purpleāstill held the generator of the dazzling ray in his hands. He decided wisely that resistance was useless and followed meekly when he was led from the ship.
Endlessly they rode upward in a high-speed lift, dismounting finally at a pneumatic tube entrance. A special car whisked them roaring into the 361 blackness. Then they were shot forth into the open and Karl saw the light of the sun for the first time in many years. They were on the upper surface of a great city, Dorn, the capital of the Continental Empire.
The air was filled with darting ships of all sorts and sizes, most of them being pleasure craft of the wearers of the purple. To Karl it was the sudden realization of his dreams. He was one of them. He, too, should be wearing the purple. Then his heart sank as one of his guards prodded him into action. His dream already
Comments (0)