Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov (best novels of all time .txt) 📗

Arvardan’s smile broadened.

The guards saw them while they were still a distance from the main entrance and fell back. They emerged into a little space of emptiness and a strange hush. The whine of the army cars was almost upon them.

And then there were armored cars in the square and groups of glass-globe–headed soldiers springing out therefrom. The crowds scattered before them in panic, aided in their scramblings by clipped shouts and thrusts with the butt ends of the neuronic whips.

Lieutenant Claudy, in the lead, approached an Earthman guard at the main entrance. “All right, you, who’s got the fever?”

His face was slightly distorted within the enclosing glass, with its content of pure air. His voice was slightly metallic as a result of radioamplification.

The guard bent his head in deep respect. “If it please your honor, we have isolated the patient within the store. The two who were with the patient are now standing in the doorway before you.”

“They are, are they? Good! Let them stand there. Now—in the first place, I want this mob out of here. Sergeant! Clear the square!”

There was a grim efficiency in the proceedings thereafter. The deepening twilight gloomed over Chica as the crowd melted into the darkening air. The streets were beginning to gleam in soft, artificial lighting.

Lieutenant Claudy tapped his heavy boots with the butt of his neuronic whip. “You’re sure the sick Earthie is inside?”

“He has not left, your honor. He must be.”

“Well, we’ll assume he is and waste no time about it. Sergeant! Decontaminate the building!”

A contingent of soldiers, hermetically sealed away from all contact with Terrestrial environment, charged into the building. A slow quarter hour passed, while Arvardan watched all in absorbed fashion. It was a field experiment in intercultural relationships that he was professionally reluctant to disturb.

The last of the soldiers were out again, and the store was shrouded in deepening night.

“Seal the doors!”

Another few minutes and then the cans of disinfectant which had been placed in several spots on each floor were discharged at long distance. In the recesses of the building those cans were flung open and the thick vapors rolled out and curled up the walls, clinging to every square inch of surface, reaching through the air and into the inmost crannies. No protoplasm, from germ to man, could remain alive in its presence, and chemical flushing of the most painstaking type would be required eventually for decontamination.

But now the lieutenant was approaching Arvardan and Pola.

“What was his name?” There was not even cruelty in his voice, merely utter indifference. An Earthman, he thought, had been killed. Well, he had killed a fly that day also. That made two.

He received no answer, Pola bending her head meekly and Arvardan watching curiously. The Imperial officer did not take his eyes off them. He beckoned curtly. “Check them for infection.”

An officer bearing the insignia of the Imperial Medical Corps approached them, and was not gentle in his investigation. His gloved hands pushed hard under their armpits and yanked at the corners of their mouths so that he might investigate the inner surfaces of their cheeks.

“No infection, Lieutenant. If they had been exposed this afternoon, the stigmata would be clearly visible by now if infection had occurred.”

“Umm.” Lieutenant Claudy carefully removed his globe and enjoyed the touch of “live” air, even that of Earth. He tucked the ungainly glass object into the crook of his left elbow and said harshly, “Your name, Earthie-squaw?”

The term itself was richly insulting; the tone in which it was uttered added disgrace to it, but Pola showed no sign of resentment.

“Pola Shekt, sir,” she responded in a whisper.

“Your papers!”

She reached into the small pocket of her white jacket and removed the pink folder.

He took it, flared it open in the light of his pocket flash, and studied it. Then he tossed it back. It fell, fluttering, to the floor, and Pola bent quickly for it.

“Stand up,” the officer ordered impatiently, and kicked the booklet out of reach. Pola, white-faced, snatched her fingers away.

Arvardan frowned and decided it was time to interfere. He said, “Say, look here, now.”

The lieutenant turned on him in a flash, his lips drawn back. “What did you say, Earthie?”

Pola was between them at once. “If you please, sir, this man has nothing to do with anything that has happened today. I never saw him before—”

The lieutenant yanked her aside. “I said, What did you say, Earthie?”

Arvardan returned his stare coolly. “I said, Look here, now. And I was going to say further that I don’t like the way you treat women and that I’d advise you to improve your manners.”

He was far too irritated to correct the lieutenant’s impression of his planetary origin.

Lieutenant Claudy smiled without humor. “And where have you been brought up, Earthie? Don’t you believe in saying ‘sir’ when you address a man? You don’t know your place, do you? Well, it’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of teaching the way of life to a nice big Earthie-buck. Here, how’s this—”

And quickly, like the flick of a snake, his open palm was out and across Arvardan’s face, back and forth, once, twice. Arvardan stepped back in surprise and then felt the roaring in his ears. His hand shot out to catch the extended arm that pecked at him. He saw the other’s face twist in surprise—

The muscles in his shoulders writhed easily.

The lieutenant was on the pavement with a crashing thud that sent the glass globe rolling into shattered fragments. He lay still, and Arvardan’s half-smile was ferocious. He dusted his hands lightly. “Any other bastard here think he can play patty-cake on my face?”

But the sergeant had raised his neuronic whip. The contact closed and there was the dim violet flash that reached out and licked at the tall archaeologist.

Every muscle in Arvardan’s body stiffened in unbearable pain, and he sank slowly to his knees. Then, with total paralysis upon him, he blacked out.

When