The Devolutionist and the Emancipatrix by Homer Eon Flint (recommended reading txt) 📕

were finishing the usual work of preparing the ship for its next cruise. But Reblong could not know that Fort had carefully made sure of this fact beforehand.

The engineer took the athlete from one end of the cruiser to the other, showing him how the pilot was able to control its motions with the utmost delicacy, thanks to automatic mechanism in the engine-room, electrically connected with the bridge.

"Suppose I was the pilot now," commented Fort, standing on the bridge and looking up at the stars. "All I need to do is to set these dials"—indicating the pilot's instruments—"to 'ascend,' and the engine-room would do the rest automatically. Is that it?"

Reblong said this was practically true, and led the way back to the engine-room. The place was full of a gurgling sound, now, due to the fuel being run into the tanks. Reblong glanced at the indicating tube. "We've already got enough," he estimated, "to take the ship a thousand miles."

And next instant Fort had leaped upon him. Reblong staggered back in his surprise, stumbled against a chair, and sat down heavily, helpless as a child in the athlete's iron grip.

"Sorry, old man," remarked Fort, meanwhile pushing him, chair and all, toward the instrument-table. "But it's simply got to be done." Like a flash he let go the engineer and snatched a strap from the table—where he had of course previously placed it—and again threw himself upon his man before Reblong recovered from his surprise. In a second he was strapped tight in his chair; and not until then did he think to use his feet. Another strap put an end to his kicking.

"Surprised you, didn't I?" The athlete was enjoying himself hugely.
"Now—I must remind you that I'm taking a big chance in doing this.
If you make a noise, I shall treat you as any desperate man would
treat you!" There was a look in his eyes which clinched the matter.

Immediately he disappeared in the direction of the nearest cleaners. Reblong heard sounds of struggling from time to time; and evidently he implicitly believed that Fort would take vengeance upon him if he called for help; for he kept perfectly quiet. After perhaps twenty minutes the athlete returned, breathing heavily, but happy.

"The last one almost spilled my beans," said he—to use the expression Smith employed. "He happened to see me shutting another one into a closet, and jumped me from behind. I had to lay him out." Reblong must have looked alarmed. "Oh, no harm done. They'll all live to tell about it for the next twenty years."

Next he made certain adjustments in the engine-room mechanism. Then he went to the telephone, and located the man in charge of the depot. "Hello—Mr. Fort speaking; Reblong isn't able to come to the phone." He winked at the man in the chair. "There's something wrong with the fuel indicator. Shut off the supply for a while, will you?"

The gurgling soon stopped. Reblong watched in continued silence as
Fort disappeared again, this time taking the elevator to the bridge.
He was back again in a couple of minutes.

"Now, old man," addressing the engineer, "you can guess what I'm up to. I'm going to navigate this cruiser alone!"

"I've set everything for the ascent. You see what I've done; if I've made any mistakes, it means good-by for the Cobulus, for me, and—for you!

"I leave it to your good sense to tell me if there's anything I've overlooked." And he laid his hands on the starting-levers.

Reblong said nothing so far, such was his chagrin and wonder. But now he evidently considered seriously what Fort had said.

"I see you mean it, Mr. Fort. And—you ought to know that once you've cleared the landing-dock, you'll have a hard time to keep her level unless you're up on the bridge. That is, while you're shifting the wing-angle. But you ought to be down here to do that; and, meanwhile, she might nose down and slam into something, and—" Reblong shuddered.

"I see." The athlete pondered for a moment. Then he lifted the engineer bodily, chair and all, and moved him over nearer the instrument. Next he loosened one of Reblong's hands, just enough to permit him to reach certain of the levers. He also did some more tying of knots and shifting of buckles, roped the chair to a stanchion, and made sure that Reblong could not undo himself.

"It's up to you," said Fort with the new light in his eyes. "You run this thing as it ought to be run, and you're safe. Trick me in any way, and I'll get you!"

Reblong took a single look at those eyes. "I understand," said he, in a low voice; and without further ado the athlete went to the elevator.

In less than a minute the order came to "cast off." The engineer did not hesitate, but threw the levers and turned the wheels which Fort had expected to operate himself. Another second and the great craft was rising from its seat.

Shouts, muffled and faint because of the ship's double windows, sounded from outside. Reblong saw the sheds sinking rapidly below him. In thirty seconds the vessel was free of the dock.

"First gear ahead," came the signal; and again Reblong obeyed. Practically he had no choice. Another man, of nobler training, might have preferred to be loyal at all costs. But Reblong, the representative Capellan workman, saw the lights of the sheds shift slowly to the rear, then go out of sight as the speed increased. He saw one or two fliers preparing to pursue, but he knew that the cruiser would easily outstrip the best of them.

The Cobulus had got clear away!

It was an hour later that the four, this time through the doctor and young Ernol, learned the sequel to Fort's daring feat. The boy was alone in his cell, awake in the darkness, when one of the guards marched up to his door and unlocked it.

"Come out," he ordered; and Ernol preceded him down the corridor, up a flight of stairs, through another corridor and thence into the exercise grounds. On the other side of this was a small building, with no opening save one door, now bright with light. Inside, Ernol found the other men who had been arrested with him, closely watched by a dozen of the prison guards. His father was not there; apparently they were waiting for him to be brought.

"It worked all right," whispered the man at Ernol's right, as the boy was lined up. Ernol only nodded slightly, keeping his eyes fixed upon the door. A moment later, the elder Ernol arrived, accompanied by a man whom the doctor instantly recognized.

It was Eklan Norbith, the man whose infernally ingenious use of the clock's pendulum had wrung the truth about the secret photographs from the boy's father. He looked even more cruel and repellant now, than he had that night on the couch. Apparently quite recovered, he made a truly forbidding figure.

He had evidently been sent for by the warden; for, with a slow, malignant stare at the row of prisoners, he stated the case in his heavy, ominous tones:

"You are all supposed to know the rules. One of you has been smuggling drugs into the prison; we have found specimens in each cell. It only remains to learn which of you is the guilty party; and that, I propose to uncover within one minute!"

He paused, and glared around again. The stillness was unbroken for a moment; then one prisoner coughed nervously. This started half the rest to doing the same; and under cover of the noise, Ernol whispered to the man on his right:

"No sight of him yet! I'm afraid you showed the drug too soon."

"I waited until I heard the clock strike," protested the other; and then both stood on their guard as the commission's deputy went on with his arraignment:

"It is my duty to inform you, although you probably already know it, that this building is made of iron. Floor, walls, and ceiling are the same." The doctor saw that the prisoners' feet were all bare. "And the whole place is heavily wired with high-power electricity!

"The guards and I will now leave you to yourselves." His teeth showed in an evil smile. "We will give you a few kilowatts as a starter, and shut it off after ten seconds. If you are not ready by that time to tell me which of you is guilty, I will then let you have the current twice as strong!"

The prisoners looked at each other anxiously. Ernol threw back his head defiantly.

"Don't weaken!" he exclaimed. "The juice can't hurt you!"

Immediately the guards backed out, keeping their weapons trained on the crowd. Norbith was the last to go. He left the door open; and from where the boy stood he could plainly watch the man as he worked the switches, just outside.

Instantly the place was in an uproar. Of course, the doctor felt nothing of the prickling, nerve-shaking pain that gripped every one of those barefoot men. They leaped and darted here and there, bluish sparks flashing wherever they touched the iron; or they fell after a step or two and writhed on the floor, shrieking and cursing with the exquisite torture of that awful current. Ernol alone kept from shouting; he stood and took it, trembling like a leaf.

But it lasted only a moment or two. The uproar ceased. Norbith stepped back into the room.

"Well?" The slow smile again. "Want to tell now?"

For answer the boy clapped his hand to his mouth and blew a shrill whistle. Norbith stared in astonishment. Then, all of a sudden, a tremendous thing happened.

A veritable hurricane swooped down upon the place. There was a vast rush of wind, accompanied by a thunderous noise, like breakers. Then two huge masses of metal clanged against the sides of the building; there was a grinding crash, and the whole structure rocked and swayed as though in the grasp of some supernatural monster. Next second the lights went out; the wires had snapped.

"All aboard; look out, below!" sang out a voice. It was Fort, calling from far overhead.

And then, slowly at first but with quickening speed, the iron building rose into the air; arose, and floated away like a toy balloon. It was fast in the grip of the Cobulus's grappling-irons!

Norbith was the only officer left in the room. He regained his senses with lightning speed. Out came his electric torch; he trained it on the prisoners.

"By God!" he cursed. "You'll not get away, you—" And he fumbled with the weapon in his belt.

It was one of the boxlike machine guns. Young Ernol hesitated only an instant. Then he dashed forward.

The box spat fire. The boy threw his weight against the deputy, so that the man lost his balance and toppled out the door into the arms of the guards below.

And the doctor brought his own mind back to his body not one second before the lad, burnt through and through by the flame of the man's weapon, fell back into the room—dead.

XV POWART STRIKES

From then on until the end the doctor was out of it. Try as he might, he could find no other mind with which to connect, no other view-point like his own. He had to content himself with what the others learned.

Their knowledge of the rescue stopped short soon after the Cobulus, with its living freight, quitted the prison grounds. Reblong, as Smith watched, continued to operate the engines during about two hundred miles of flight; then Fort, having shown one of his new comrades how to steer, came down to the instruments, leading the force of cleaners whom he had kidnaped.

"Thanks very much," to Reblong, in the voice of a man who was having the time of his life. "I dare say you feel a little sour about this; but later on you can have the satisfaction of having helped, even though against your will."

"What are you going to do now?" Reblong wanted to know as the athlete released him from his chair. The other Capellans were content to stare and listen.

The strange glint came back into Fort's eyes. "It's up to you, folks!" And he explained the situation, making it clear that they, the cruiser's workmen, would not dare return and tell the truth, for fear of punishment for disloyalty. In the end the Cobulus was halted, and Reblong and the rest were set down in an unsettled mountain country, with enough supplies to last a year.

Thus the engineer became a fugitive. Smith learned nothing