\n
RANE RANDALL slouched in one of Limpy\u2019s chairs completely engrossed with thought. He didn\u2019t see the Air Cop eyeing him from the doorway; nor did he see Limpy nudge the barman and say:<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re after him again. Take him a highball and ask if he knows Moses.\u201d<\/p>\n
The barman looked at Randall, then at the Air Cop. \u201cI\u2019ll bet that\u2019s why they call him Rainy,\u201d he said mournfully; \u201cthere\u2019s always a storm when he\u2019s around.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d agreed Limpy with a grin, \u201cbut he\u2019s a good customer and always pays later for the damage when he tries to take the place apart, so get ready for a blackout.\u201d<\/p>\n
The barman took the drink to Randall\u2019s table, set it down and mopped the varnished wood with his towel. \u201cLimpy wants to know if you\u2019re acquainted with Moses,\u201d he muttered indetectably.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuh?\u201d asked Randall, looking up quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t look now,\u201d warned the barman, \u201cbut they\u2019re after you again.\u201d He nodded toward the door.<\/p>\n
The barman left and several seconds later Randall turned lazily to look at the doorway. He eyed the Air Cop, mildly surprised. So far as he knew, they couldn\u2019t pin anything on him except incipient vagrancy, and while the situation demanded attention\u2014immediate attention\u2014it wasn\u2019t a penitentiary offense. He turned back to his table, looked sternly at his glass and attempted to lose himself in a maze of low finance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWrane Randall, rocketman?\u201d asked a voice at his side a few moments later<\/p>\n
Randall looked up at the Air Cop, then got slowly to his feet. It appeared that he was being polite, but he had discovered long ago that there was nothing like being prepared.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that\u2019s me,\u201d he admitted. \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCome along.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Air Cop grasped Randall\u2019s wrist and tried to flip his arm up behind his back. But Randall couldn\u2019t see things that way and presented the Air Cop with a fistful of fingers.<\/p>\n
The Air Cop did a quick-step adagio backward<\/p>\n
on rubbery legs, tripped over a chair and went down. And the lights went out! Randall leaped for the nearest exit, went through to the alley and found himself in the grip of two husky patrolmen.<\/p>\n
This time each had an arm and he wasn\u2019t in any position to engage in sanguinary retaliations. Especially so, a moment later when one of the patrolmen jabbed a sapper into his side and turned on the juice. All the \u201cjump\u201d went out of Randall\u2019s body immediately.<\/p>\n
They carried him back to the entrance of Limpy\u2019s where they found the Air Cop waiting.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh, got him, I see,\u201d he approved, wiping the blood from his mouth with an expensive handkerchief. Nothing, in an Air Cop\u2019s opinion, was too good for an Air Cop, and as they were the private army of the Air Chief, outranking all local, state and national officers, they were in a position to indulge their opinions.<\/p>\n
THE paralysis of the sapper was wearing off.<\/p>\n
Randall gave a premonitory heave. One of the patrolmen brought out the sapper again to quiet him, but the Air Cop took the weapon and motioned the patrolman away.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo to headquarters and get a couple of squads of men, then come back here and rip all the wiring out of this dive. You needn\u2019t be gentle, and you needn\u2019t put it back,\u201d he said with a grin. \u201cTeach them a lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he turned to Randall. \u201cI have orders to bring you in, in good condition\u2014no bruises. So move along quietly and don\u2019t count on any chances for escape. At the first sign of your getting mean, I\u2019ll give you enough of the sapper to make you be a good boy for several hours. My ship is on the Administration Building roof. Now, march ahead!\u201d<\/p>\n
Randall staggered along, wishing his legs would behave, but somewhat relieved that he wasn\u2019t to be accorded the usual treatment. When the Air Cops went after someone, it was usually merely an informal sentence of death. For instance, when they had an Irredentist, the common procedure was to allow an attempt to escape, then take in a dead man.<\/p>\n
He was shoved into the tiny, steel cell at the rear of the one-man prison rocket, and the Air Cop went forward to the controls. A moment later Randall<\/p>\n
heard the thrumming roar of the rockets and felt their thrust. The air whined and screamed around the tiny ship, then subsided to a shrill whispering. And Randall knew they had reached the stratosphere.<\/p>\n
He was filled with sudden envy. There was power! And speed! But it was power and speed reserved for the exclusive use of the Air Chief and his men. Those rockets must be atomic, as it was rumored they were. Anyway, they were infinitely better than the crude, tricky hydrogen-oxygen rockets that the rest of the world used. And even those had been given to the world by the first predecessor of the present half-legendary, but very real ruling force that was called the Air Chief.<\/p>\n
Randall wondered at the genius of that man of a hundred years ago who had in one short year created these powerful atomic rockets, subdued all the nations of the world with his strange, invincible weapons, then started the construction of his vast city of Yss in central Asia. Only when the city was completed and his overlordship of the earth secure, had the Air Chief given the world the inferior rocketships and a thousand other equally harmless advantages to knit the world into one gigantic whole.<\/p>\n
Randall differed radically with those who fought the Air Chief, as did the Irredentists. He realized fully the international anarchy that had preceded the Air Chief\u2019s coming. Even a despotic international rule was better than none at all, he maintained. But riding rockets like these and realizing that he could never be at the controls of such a ship, was almost enough to make a flagwaving, speech-making nationalist out of the most peaceful rocketman in the world. With these rockets nothing would be impossible. The moon would be easy! Then Mars and Venus! Then Mercury, the Asteroids, and the Moons of Jupiter! And after those . . .<\/p>\n
FOR an hour he listened to the half-heard, halffelt roaring song of the rockets, and longing and envy filled his being. He even forgot the dangers of his own position. Then the rockets stuttered, the song shifted to the forepart of the ship, and jolted the ship strongly. The shrill whispering of the thin air rose to a scream and Randall knew they were descending.<\/p>\n
The plane shuddered again to the fore-rockets, then the keel jets wracked the ship, then abruptly the ship was still and silent. Randall wished that there was a window to his cell so he could see where they had landed.<\/p>\n
A moment later the wish proved unnecessary. The door of the cell opened and his captor motioned for him to come out. Randall stepped out into the bright sunlight, and was numbly aware that it had been night in New York when he had been taken.<\/p>\n
He stared around as two guards stepped forward to take positions at his sides. He marveled at the slender spires of the buildings, the thronged streets, flashing aircraft. And he knew he was in the forbidden city, Yss.<\/p>\n
They hurried him across the roof to the elevators, and started down at such a speed that Randall\u2019s stomach hadn\u2019t more than time enough for one good flip-flop, then his knees were buckling with the deceleration. They led him to a somberly quiet part of the building that Randall took for a hospital, and they halted at a desk. One of the guards spoke briefly with the girl. She looked curiously at Randall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll tell Dr. Brophy immediately,\u201d she said, rising and going into an inner office.<\/p>\n
When she returned, she stood to one side and motioned for them to enter. Randall and his guards went into the inner office and found themselves confronted by four men\u2014two of them were hospital orderlies who moved forward to take charge of Randall. One of the two older men dismissed the guards, then turned to his companion with a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell? . . . What do you think of him, Torvald?\u201d<\/p>\n
Torvald was eyeing Randall with critical eyes. \u201cWe could have done better,\u201d he said unenthusiastically.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re wrong,\u201d argued the one Randall thought to be Brophy. \u201cWe can tattoo this fellow\u2019s brown eyes blue, raise the hairline, remold the face a bit\u2014all superficial work. The important thing is that, according to his registration, this man\u2019s skeletal structure, and especially the skull, is the counterpart of the\u2014the other\u2019s. Of course, Randall\u2019s nose seems to have taken a turn for the worse, but we can fix that easily enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torvald shrugged. \u201cI think we could have done better,\u201d he maintained.<\/p>\n
Randall tried to ease himself out of the orderlies\u2019 grips, but they weren\u2019t to be taken by surprise. And they being big and husky, Randall was sure that a struggle would be useless. He faced the two older men.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s this all about?\u201d he demanded.<\/p>\n
Neither of them deigned to answer, but Dr. Brophy gestured to the orderlies to take him away. As though by prearrangement, they hustled him out of the room and to a gleaming operating theater. They lifted him helplessly into the air, then strapped him to the operating table. After checking carefully, they left without a word.<\/p>\n
RANDALL lay motionless on the table, unable to move even his head. A padded metal clamp clutched the sides of his cranium securely. He could only stare up at the bunched lights above him and wonder what would come next. Though it was probably only minutes, it seemed hours before Brophy and Torvald came. Brophy was still arguing with his companion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will <\/i>work, I tell you,\u201d Brophy insisted. \u201cI have done it before, and this time by using my Gen-Rays to facilitate healing, it will be simple. You are new here. That is your trouble. You can\u2019t realize that we mean it when we say we are centuries ahead of the outside world. Have you got that negative?\u201d<\/p>\n
Torvald gave him a flat folder. Stem took out a negative and fastened it in a bracket so that it covered completely the mouth of a radiation machine. Satisfied, he turned to Torvald.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou seem to think that the transference, itself, is the most wonderful and unbelievable part. That is merely a very refined technique. We have been doing that for a century. The Air Chief himself first taught us that. But my Gen-Ray! That is mine! <\/i>It takes surgery away from the sciences and makes it an art. The negative allows the rays to strike the living flesh in varying strengths, and under the rays the flesh molds itself<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torvald looked doubtful. \u201cPossibly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brophy snorted. \u201cSmall minds from the outer world,\u201d he commented. \u201cOnly we here in Yss have the bravery and science to really delve into the unknown. Well, first we\u2019ll have to break this<\/p>\n
ellow\u2019s nose and set it right. You administer the anaesthetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSay, for God\u2019s sake! Tell me what you\u2019re going to do!\u201d Randall pleaded, rolling his eyes to look at them in turn.<\/p>\n
Brophy smiled shrewdly. \u201cYou are a fretful person,\u201d he commented dryly. \u201cMillions of people would like to be in your position and know that their body was destined to rule the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy body? What about my brain?\u201d Something in the doctor\u2019s words sent a chill through Randall.<\/p>\n
Dr. Brophy shrugged slightly. \u201cIt shall be replaced with a much better one,\u201d he comforted.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what about me<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n
Brophy shrugged again. \u201cYour brain will have to be destroyed. The Air Chief cannot have a former tenant of the body he is using walking around alive. It wouldn\u2019t be proper, and besides, there won\u2019t be any body for you if it were. The one the Air Chief has at present is just about worn out. He wears them ragged in ten years. Then we have to find another for him and attend to the brain transference. The anaesthetic, Torvald.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you mean,\u201d asked Randall quickly, \u201cthat it has been done before?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly. The Air Chief himself is the one who taught us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the man who conquered the earth is the one who rules it now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Brophy agreed, fussing with the radiation machine. \u201cTorvald!\u201d he snapped annoyedly. \u201cThe anaesthetic! I can\u2019t work while he is chattering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Randall struggled to loose his head from the clamp, to keep his face out of the mask. He felt as though he had been caught in the cogs of a great machine and that it was dragging him irresistibly to destruction. It was nightmarish! He was powerless to escape. The mask descended over his mouth and nose and the anaesthetic blanked out his consciousness like a candle flame in the wind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RANE RANDALL slouched in one of Limpy\u2019s chairs completely engrossed with thought. He didn\u2019t see the Air Cop eyeing him from the doorway; nor did he see Limpy nudge the barman and say: \u201cThey\u2019re after him again. Take him a highball and ask if he knows Moses.\u201d The barman looked at Randall, then at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pulp-classics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}