Chapter 1
The cell was like a tomb, its walls dead white. They curved upward without an opening to a bubble of glass in the center of the ceiling. Beyond the bubble there was no light—only the changing dark blue of the night sky. The walls were bare except for a portrait of a bearded man named Malthus and two slots which read MARCH 10, 2240, and 11:25 P.M. Even the cell door was only a penciled outline on the smooth walls.
The cell’s furnishings were a large stone slab table on a pedestal and an upright metal chair. A man sat in the chair, his arms bound behind his back, wrists locked together with transparent tape. The same thin tape strapped his ankles to the legs of the chair.
He sat patiently, unmoving, his eyes on the smooth wall section that slid up to make a doorway. While he watched, the door slithered open. Two men in crisp white uniforms stepped through. One uniform had three gold stripes on the left sleeve, the other had two. Above the breast pocket of each was sewn a triangular red emblem with three gold letters: PCC. And in small script beneath, Population Control Corps.
The uniformed men grinned at the man in the chair.
“You ask him this time, Corporal,” the man with three stripes said.
The corporal’s grin broadened. “Tell us about yourself,” he said.
The man in the chair looked at them eagerly. “I’m Petr Clayborne,” he said.
The uniformed men looked at each other, and laughter tugged at their lips.
“I’m Petr Clayborne,” the bound man said, smiling. “I’m Petr Clayborne.”
The two men doubled up with laughter that echoed in the bare room. They laughed until the corporal had to turn away and lean against the wall, and the other man began to choke. The eager smile never left the bound man’s face.
Gradually the laughter sputtered and died. The corporal’s pink young face sobered first.
“You wouldn’t think it, the way he is now, but he must be important to bring Captain Hartog here personally,” the corporal said.
“Important!” The older man spat at the man in the chair. “An enemy of the state! I’d like to see how Hartog goes to work on him.”
There was a rushing sound outside, a glow of light flashing past the glass bubble overhead, and the two uniformed men moved alertly toward the cell door. Petr Clayborne watched them go with a wide-eyed, childlike interest.
He waited eagerly until he heard their steps returning. But the first man who stepped into the cell was strange to him—a big man, deeply tanned, with a face as square and hard as the stone slab table. He also wore the white uniform with the red emblem. He strode toward Petr, his steps deliberate, heels clicking on the floor. The other two men hovered behind him.
“Good evening, Petr,” the big man said.
The man in the chair looked at him blankly. The big man smiled—a scar across the hard block of his face. His arm whipped down, and the back of his hand lashed across Petr’s face. The cutting edge of a red stone ring left a trail of red behind it. Petr tasted the blood, and his ears rang. Involuntary tears filled his eyes.
“He doesn’t remember a thing, Captain,” the man with three stripes said, grinning. “He’s like a kid.”
The big man grunted. “I want information from you, Petr. You understand that, don’t you? You know what I’m saying?”
Petr shook his head. He blinked at the tears and looked through them with eyes that were hurt and bewildered.
“You will understand, Petr. You think you’re very clever, you and your Underground. But we’re going to reopen that memory of yours, Petr. You’ll tell us everything.”
He turned abruptly. “Is Major Porter here yet, Sergeant?”
“He’s outside now, sir,” the man with three stripes said. “His equipment is all unloaded.”
“Get him in here,” Captain Hartog snapped. “And keep the other two prisoners standing by.”
“Yes, sir.”
The sergeant left hurriedly, and the youthful corporal stood by the open door at sharp attention. Hartog ignored him and turned back to Petr. There was something in his gaze Petr could not understand. He returned the stare with an anxious curiosity.
“It’s taken a long time to catch up with you, Petr,” Hartog said softly. “But this is the end of the line. You’ve lost more than your memory. We’re going to teach you to betray.”
The corporal coughed. A stranger stood beside him, tall and thin, with a hungry face. He was clad in plain gray.
“Hail Malthus,” he said pleasantly, flipping one hand in the air in a perfunctory way. “Captain Hartog?” He held out his hand.
Hartog ignored it but he returned the salute. “Hail Malthus,” he said. “We’ve no time to waste, Major. Is all your equipment ready?”
The major smiled thinly. “All of it,” he said. “The patient has already been given preliminary injections to arrest the effects of the memory obliterator.” He looked at Petr with academic interest. “He’s remarkably docile.”
The hard line of the PCC captain’s mouth curled. “Docile! Don’t let his looks fool you, Major. I’ve been after him fot months, and even now that we’ve caught him he’s done more harm to our plans, to the whole Leader government, than his father ever did.”
“His father was executed, I understand,” Major Porter said, studying Petr through narrowed eyes. “Interesting. The father-son criminal pattern is unusual today.”
Petr listened to them as they talked. Childlike, his mind groped at the word “father.” The word brought a picture—dim at first, then slowly crystallizing. It was a picture in a dark room. The man, tall and terrifying, bent down to touch his head. He lay obediently still but he was frightened. The tall man turned away sadly.
Petr jerked his mind away from the memory, back to the cell and the big man staring down at him. Vaguely he recognized the captain’s animosity and he was troubled by it. He could not understand what he had done wrong when he felt only a desire to please.
The major turned as the two noncoms shuffled into the room, grunting under the weight of a tall metal box, whose face was divided by an oblong screen. A tangle of wires twisted up from the back of the box to the screen, and out of the top, like antennae, grew two long tubes with suction cups at the ends.
The box was set at the head of the stone slab. The major bent over it, fingering a row of dials just below the screen.
“How does this work?” Hartog said impatiently.
“Shock,” the major said. “It’s nothing new, of course, but this is sustained and rather stringent. Dangerous. We have to keep close watch over the patient.”
Hartog grunted. “Just keep him alive until we learn what we want to. I don’t care what effects it has if it does the job.”
“It’s the only thing we’ve had success with at all,” the major said as if talking to himself. “Drugs alone won’t do the job. They’ll arrest the fluid the Underground uses, keep its effects from spreading. And we can break down resistance in the patient with drugs, cause him to feel that he wants to help us. But that isn’t enough.”
Hartog looked at the sergeant behind him. “Drugs were given immediately?”
“Yes, sir. We knew he’d swallowed that memory obliterator as soon as we got him in here. He was given the prescribed counter injections at once.”
“They’d already taken effect when I arrived,” Major Porter said. “But by then great gaps had been opened in the prisoner’s mind. At least forty years of his life have been ripped away.”
“He remembers nothing?”
“Only fragments. Nothing beyond the first ten years or so of his life.”
Hartog frowned. “How is it possible to bring his memory back?”
The major’s lips curved in a thin, indulgent smile. “Let me put it this way. The destructive fluid affects certain areas of the brain. It’s like freezing cubes of ice. We’ve stopped the freezing before it was complete, by catching it so promptly. Our drugs will prevent any further freezing—even thaw out the cells a little.”
“And the shocks are supposed to do more thawing?”
“That’s roughly it.” The major looked at Petr. “I’ll admit in other cases our success has been only partial. But we’ve never had our drugs applied so quickly before. That gives us a good chance.”
“Is there anything else wrong with him?” Hartog asked thoughtfully.
“Only the burns.”
Hartog bent down to peer at the lower half of Petr’s face.
“They’re mostly in his mouth,” Major Porter said. “The gums, tongue, and the inner lips.”
Porter stepped over and opened Petr’s jaws. The two men stared silently.
“You said the treatment was dangerous,” Hartog said. “I presume the danger increases if the treatment is prolonged?”
Porter’s eyebrows raised slightly. “There is a drastic increase, yes.”
Abruptly Hartog stood erect. “We’re wasting time,” he snapped. “If we don’t get on with this, the whole group will escape.”
“Of course,” Major Porter said. “Have him put on the table.”
The two young PCC corpsmen stepped forward quickly at Hartog’s command. One had started to cut the tape around Petr’s wrists when the big captain stepped in.
“Don’t bother with that,” he snapped.
With one quick jerk he ripped the tape away. The breath hissed through Petr’s teeth, and tears stung his eyes. Hartog laughed and reached down to tear away the tape around Petr’s feet, while the two guards held his arms. This time, anxious that the big man should not know the pain he felt, Petr was ready. His face was expressionless even as the tearing tape seared his ankles.
They dragged him across to the slab table and stretched him on his back. Major Porter held up his hand.
“Use this,” he said.
He gave the sergeant a cylinder. When it was compressed, Petr felt a cold spray over his body. It moved up from his feet to his neck, weightless as mist, but when the sergeant had finished Petr found that he was enveloped in an almost invisible jacket as tight and unyielding as the casing of a sausage.
“Something else new?” Hartog asked with a frown.
“Yes,” the major said. “It’s remarkably efficient. It will be in general issue shortly.”
“He can’t tear it?”
Major Porter shook his head. The indulgent smile touched his lips. “You couldn’t tear it off him, Captain. We have a disintegrator spray, of course.” He took a small green vial from his pocket and held it up. “It’s the only way of getting that jacket off him.”
A cushion was placed under Petr’s head, and he found himself looking up into the major’s face, a bizarre face upside down, with its thin mouth and luminous eyes. The two suction cups were placed against Petr’s temples, and he felt a faint shock, a tingling sensation running through his body. After a moment it seemed to lessen, or he became accustomed to it, was hardly aware of it.
“Everything’s ready now,” the major said gently. “You may start the questioning, Captain.”
“You haven’t done anything to him yet,” Hartog said sharply.
“We need to prompt the memory a little,” the major said with patience. “Where do you want him to start? What do you know that might start a train of thought? You don’t want memories of his childhood, I presume?”
“We know all about his childhood,” Hartog said. “He was raised by the state after his father was executed. Up until eight or nine months ago he had no record. He was irresponsible, weak—definitely not a Leader type.” The captain paused. “I’ve always opposed this idea that the state should raise weaklings.”
“What was his crime, Captain?”
“He defied Malthusian ethics, Major. Violated the Population Code.”
“The … the first law?”
“Exactly,” Hartog said with distaste.
“I see,” Major Porter said. “But what is the information you want from him?”
“We know the Underground is building a spaceship, Major. A foolish, hopeless attempt—but it will make a good propaganda story when we smash it.”
“Clayborne was involved in this attempt?”
“He was selected to go on the flight. We had a loyal agent planted in the group he was fleeing with. He murdered that agent.”
The major looked at Petr thoughtfully. “That happened here, out on the street. And when he was caught he destroyed his memory so he couldn’t tell you about the spaceship.”
“He’ll tell us,” Hartog said coldly. He leaned over Petr. “Where are your friends going, Petr? Where is the spaceship being built?”
Petr looked at him anxiously. He struggled to remember, but his mind was like a giant catalogue of names and dates and facts, each of which eluded him. He would almost trap one, but at the last moment it would skip away.
“You left the hotel,” Hartog said. “Where did you go from there, Petr? Who went with you?”
“That’s the idea,” the major said softly. “A name. Give him a name to remember.”
A series of zigzag lines of light flickered across the screen just above Petr’s head.
“Alda,” Hartog said suddenly. “Where’s Alda, Petr?”
A white line jumped on the screen, and the major’s hand moved quickly. Petr’s head exploded. A great ball of fire soared through his brain and burst like a shell. A long way off someone screamed.
Then he remembered.
2
He moved through darkness stealthily, careful not to jar the cumbersome box he carried. Once he stumbled and fell to his knees, frantically juggling the box to keep it level, taking the jolt in his own legs and body. There was a faint sound from within the box.
Ahead of him the woman moved, her head erect. Only an occasional swaying or uncertainty in her step betrayed her exhaustion. She stayed close to him. They were only an arm’s reach behind the wiry man who led them. No one spoke. Each saved his labored breath.
They came over the crest of the hill, and the harbor opened out below them. To the left the resort town, still and lifeless in the night, a huddle of small dark domes, with a sprinkle of lights along the main street and around the central landing strip insisting that life still went on here even in midwinter.
Near the center of town one of the domes glowed faintly. There was no window, no gash of light, but a soft shedding of light through the luminous walls. As they watched, a figure emerged from the base of the sphere and stood briefly. He moved to his left along the street toward the docks below them at one end of the town.
“The patrolman,” Duclos said. “He has a habit of stopping in the station for warm coffee. Dangerous for him and good for us.”
“Which is our submarine?” Alda asked.
“Second from the end,” Duclos said.
It was only a long, slim shape on the water, one of a row nestled against the frame of the pier like sleepers in a barracks. There was no light or movement on the pier or among the black cylinders resting on the water.
“Is the crew aboard?” Petr asked.
Duclos smiled, his white teeth gleaming in the darkness. “You won’t see them, but they’re aboard, waiting for us.”
They started down the slope. The patrolman couldn’t be seen now, but Duclos moved ahead steadily, as if it were broad daylight and there was no danger. They came out of the woods at the foot of the slope behind a row of identical domes—lightweight structures of the kind used in summer resorts, easily erected and as easily dismantled and moved away. There was an air of impermanence about them, like a new housing project.
“All empty,” Duclos whispered.
He moved off again, and they followed. They kept to the curving shadow of the last dome in the row and crept toward the main street. Duclos beckoned, and they froze in the shadows. Alda leaned against Petr, and he murmured meaningless encouragement in her ear. Duclos hissed, and they were silent.
The PCC patrolman passed in full view of them less than twenty paces away. They watched him make a casual check of the pier. He didn’t bother to go out to the end.
His steps quickened as he turned back. He passed them again, heading for the warmth and the habitual coffee in the glowing dome of the Corps station. After a moment Duclos nodded.
“I’ll go first,” he said.
He flitted across the brightness of the street like a darting moth, to disappear in the darkness beyond. Petr moved forward until he could study the length of the street.
“Now,” he said.
They ran together. In the center of the street Petr felt as if he were in the full glare of a searchlight but he didn’t look toward the station. Then they were across the street and skidding down the incline toward the pier, the precious box held precariously level in Petr’s arms. Duclos stepped up to meet them.
The pier had a railing which offered partial concealment. They moved over the wood surface silently, crouching behind the railing. Near the end of the pier they found steps leading down to a black, stubby submarine. They clambered along the catwalk at its side. Only when Petr was on top of the sub’s tower did he see the door standing open. One by one they stepped through, descending a twisting metal staircase, whose steps had been cushioned with rubber against sound.
The interior of the sub was dark. But above there was a gentle clank of the tower door closing. Instantly a soft glow of light grew in panels at the sides of the ship.
Duclos looked at them. “There’s a private cabin for Alda,” he said. His hand touched the box Petr held. “And the ship’s doctor will take care of this one.”
He looked at his watch. “You have three minutes,” he said.
They followed a crewman along a narrow corridor. He opened a door and beckoned them into a tiny cubicle that managed to squeeze two bunks into an impossible space. Petr pulled the door shut and took Alda in his arms.
“I don’t want you to go, Petr,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said, his lips brushing the dampness of her cheek. “I don’t want to leave you now, when we’re so close to everything we’ve wanted. But there’s no choice.”
“Someone else could go,” she said.
He shook his head gently, and her face moved with his. “I’m the only one who could get out of the sub without letting the traitor get suspicious. One of the crew will be here with you, dressed in my clothes. Whoever is betraying us has got to believe everyone else is on board. Otherwise he won’t make a move.”
“It’s so dangerous,” Alda said. “If something should happen—”
“It’ll happen,” Petr said grimly. “But not to me.”
“How can you be so sure? Darling, there must be another way!”
“Look,” Petr said gently. “I’ll be concealed. He won’t be expecting anyone out there, so everything will be in my favor. And I’m armed. There’s nothing to worry about. And it’s our only chance of making the traitor reveal himself. We can’t risk letting him go with us from here—not to the rocket ship itself.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “I know.”
She clung to him, and when they kissed it was as if she were trying to compress all the love that had grown in fear during the months of flight into one desperate moment, as if the love which had brought them into danger might free him from it.
Someone knocked imperatively at the door. Duclos, with a young seaman.
“You’ve just time to change,” he said. He studied Petr’s face. “You understand what you’re to do?”
Petr nodded.
“If anything goes wrong,” Duclos said, “send up a warning flare. The sub will move out at once to Point 2. We’ll surface there at exactly 5 A.M. tomorrow morning. No later.”
Petr nodded again. He knew that if the sub had to put out without him, the chances of his keeping the rendezvous at Point 2 were so remote that there was no need to think about them.
“This fellow is about your size,” Duclos said, turning to the seaman. “He’ll take your place with Alda.”
She looked up at Petr. “No one can ever do that,” she said.
3
Later, crouched in the darkness on the slope looking down at the sleeping town and the black line of the pier, he remembered the look in her gray eyes, blurred with tears. Automatically his tongue traced the outline of the false-capped tooth that was the unseen trademark of the Underground member, holding the memory obliterator. He remembered the fear in Alda’s eyes and assured himself that the time was past when he might be called on to release the false tooth from its pivot.
The last members of the fleeing group had crept along the pier to board the sub. Though he had seen no sign of movement, Petr knew the alternating watches had started long before. It was part of his plan. The traitor had to be given a chance to get out of the ship alone. Each member of the group would have his solitary guard duty, knowing the others were all below in the sub, knowing the PCC station lay just a short distance away. It would be a simple matter to slip along the pier, to stop the patrolman, and to relay his information—or even to race along the street to the station itself. If the momentary absence from his watch were detected, it could easily be explained. He had seen a suspicious movement ashore and had gone to investigate.
Very simple. Very easy. Petr had been sure the traitor would take the chance. But now there was scarcely an hour left before dawn, and he had not made his move. Most of the watches would already be finished.
While Petr watched the PCC patrolman appeared again, making his routine check of the pier. He slapped his arms against his sides, trying to bring warmth. Petr crouched stiffly, conscious of the cold biting his taut cheeks, nipping at his toes. He didn’t move.
The patrolman turned again. His steps once more quickened as he headed for the patrol station, completely unaware of the activity which had been going on during his frequent coffee breaks. His must seem a boring, uneventful job, Petr thought with a tight smile. He probably hoped for a transfer soon to the city, where there was a chance for action. Patrolling a Submarine Club for Leaders Only, in the depth of winter when the whole resort waited for spring, must seem an absurdity.
The spot offered perfect concealment for the Underground’s own submarine, innocently berthed with the pleasure subs of Our Leaders at an inactive pier. And from here, Duclos had hinted, it was but a short cruise to The Cave, where the earth itself offered concealment for the great ship which waited to take them from the earth.
When the patrolman had disappeared, Petr carefully moved his legs and flexed his fingers. His foot scraped the brittle earth and he was still again. No point in taking chances. He would soon have to board the sub, and there would be plenty of time to get warm.
He heard a faint sound, like an echo of his foot scraping the ground. For a moment he couldn’t place the sound. He listened, his whole body tense and straining. The sound was not repeated. He stared at the dark line of the pier until his eyes began to water and he blinked rapidly against the cold air.
Then a shadow moved at the end of the pier, and Petr’s hand closed around the hand of his paralyzer. He cocked it carefully and crept down toward the street. The traitor would have to pass right in front of him.
He crouched behind a clump of bushes only a few steps from the street. He had lost the moving shadow for the moment but he waited confidently. His heart hammered loudly in his chest, and his breath made vapor in the air. He tried to breathe slowly, letting the warm breath seep out so it gave no sign. He held the paralyzer out from his body, pointing toward the street. His hand, stiff with cold, trembled.
He had a fleeting instant of warning, long enough to wonder how the traitor had known he was there in the darkness. His eye caught the movement to his right, and he threw himself toward the ground. But his body betrayed him. It seemed to move slowly, as if his muscles were so numbed with cold they could only move with a great effort. The force of the paralyzer, a blast without sound, caught his shoulder and threw him back, slamming him against the hard earth with stunning force. He lay breathless, his head swimming and a delicious darkness oozing toward him.
Footsteps raced lightly by him up the street.
4
He fought off the darkness that seemed so inviting. One whole side of his body was stiff with more than cold, and his right arm wouldn’t obey the commands of his mind. It would have been pleasant to lie back and rest, to let the whirling in his brain subside. Nothing had ever been so desirable—but he pushed himself painfully erect.
With his left hand he groped for the paralyzer he had dropped somewhere on the ground. He acted without seeing and he felt an agony of relief when his fingers closed over the cold muzzle of the weapon. He plunged heedless through the bushes into the street.
It had seemed minutes since the figure raced by him, but he saw it as soon as his feet struck the hard surface of the street. Saw the legs driving, heard the rapid slap of steps, saw the head turning over the shoulder to look back. Petr raised his paralyzer and fired.
The running figure dove to the ground and scuttled toward the cover of a store front. Petr fired again, knowing that he could not aim accurately with his left hand at this distance. It was enough to stop the traitor, to keep him from reaching the PCC station which glowed dimly up the street.
The betrayer would know now there was no chance of returning to the submarine undetected. Whatever happened now, he was exposed. His only course was to reach the station and to sound the warning that would mean the end of flight for all of them.
Petr crept forward. The whishing blast from a paralyzer slammed futilely against a hedge behind him. He saw the unknown figure dart out from the store front where he had crouched and race along to the next entryway. Petr lurched across the street and fell against the wall of a building. An unseen force kicked up a shower of gravel behind his feet. The enemy was shooting late.
Petr leaned the dead weight of his right shoulder against the building and sighted along the street, his left arm held out stiffly. The shadow moved out, and he fired. He saw the spray of dust and gravel, and the figure fell back out of sight. Petr hurried forward. He had to get closer. He fired again as he ran, blindly, at the empty street.
His feet seemed clumsy, his right leg a leaden weight. His breath came in labored gasps, and his heart beat painfully in his chest. Then his right foot twisted under him. He lurched, stumbled, and fell.
Through sudden tears he saw the shadowy figure move again, racing away from him, a pin point of movement almost on top of the PCC station. He propped his elbow on the paving, waited until his hand would stop trembling, and then, terrified that he was already too late, pulled the release twice in rapid succession, the last two shots in his paralyzer.
He heard a shout, and through the film that would not leave his eyes he saw the running figure jerk upward like a puppet on a string, arms and legs locked crazily in an attitude of motion even as the figure hung suspended. Then it fell.
A stream of light slashed across the street in front of the PCC station. White-clad figures appeared. Petr watched them come. He knew he could no longer run but he could warn those on the submarine. His fingers found a small flare in the pocket of his jacket. The white figures were running toward him now, calling out to each other, while one stayed behind to bend over the crumpled shadow lying on the street.
Petr smiled. At least he had done part of the job right. The smile twisted ironically. He might never know who was the traitor he had killed.
His stiffened fingers fumbled helplessly with the catch on the flare. He brought it to his mouth and bit savagely, feeling the metal edge gash his lip. At last the catch opened, and he threw the flare away from him.
The whole street blazed with a dazzling ball of fire. Streamers of many-colored light shot high into the air and fell slowly in a hot shower of sparks. For a moment the street was alive with the reality of a nightmare, in which the white uniforms of the PCC patrolmen closed in on him through a golden haze.
He thought of the waiting group on the submarine. The idea flashed through his mind that the signal might not be seen, that all would be lost no matter what happened to him.
He felt the hands grabbing his arms roughly, rolling him over. A harsh voice barked at him unintelligibly. His tongue probed at the smooth surface of his hollow tooth. For a moment it lingered, poised, while Alda’s gray eyes seemed to implore him from the hard, grim face looking down.
He smiled at her encouragingly—and his tongue jabbed hard at the tooth. A trickle of liquid burned his gums. He swallowed. The big hands were pulling at his arms, hauling him to his feet. The liquid seared his throat, and his brain spun crazily.
A flare went off in his head. The sparks fell slowly, and when the last one flickered and went out there was only darkness.