by Earl
It was time for super-action. With a savage grunt, Williams lowered his head, and unmindful of a stunning rabbit punch from his antagonist, grasped him about the thighs in a bear hug and heaved mightily. With a half-whirl of his body, he flung the helpless guard away from him in the direction of the attendant just as the latter fired. The policeman sagged paralyzed, taking the full charge, and before the pistol spoke again, Williams had bounded over him and bowled over the attendant with a terrific blow to the chest.
l He whirled to see M’bopo arising from where he had just squeezed the breath out of his adversary with scissored legs and strong fingers.
“Ulak g’nol?” he grinned. “Any more?”
Terry, sitting at the controls in apprehension, unable to hear a sound above the engine noise, heaved a sigh of relief as the somewhat battered faces of his two companions appeared at the cabin door.
“Let’s go,” shouted Williams, “before some more police ships come up.”
Terry pulled the ship gently along till the edge of the dock appeared and then opened the throttle. In another minute they were off the water and rising rapidly. Williams looked back and down at the dwindling dock and then at the huge tide-station on whose flat roof were numerous dots—the rest of the Unidum fleet. He laughed suddenly with animal joy.
“We’ve given them something to think about,” he said above the engine noise which had become a steady drone. He laughed again and the other two joined him; it was the reaction to the excitement of the past hour.
“Now to be serious,” said Williams finally when their laughter had died. “Can you find your way to Iceland?”
“I’ll have to guess at it,” admitted Terry. “But we’ll find it. There’s plenty of fuel—enough to go to Europe. I’m not worrying about ourselves; we’re safe now. But I wish I could be sure Hackworth got away safely.”
“Beyond a doubt,” said Williams confidently. “With no excess weight in the ship, he must have been able to make a speedy get-away.”
He shook his fist in the direction of New York in a sudden reversal of thought. “Brain-controls, eh? Make us victims of the most inhuman thing ever seen on the face of earth! Not while I—”
He broke off and turned his head. In the corner of his eyes he had seen the former occupant of the plane stir. He now saw the fellow rubbing a tender jaw and sit up.
Williams watched him curiously, wondering what he would say. He seemed about middle-age, sturdy of body, and possessed of a pair of remarkably penetrating dark eyes. Those eyes now gleamed at Williams with dazed perplexity.
“I seem to have acquired a voluntary pilot,” said the man in a slow, drawling voice.
“Yes, and two voluntary passengers,” returned Williams grimly. “For your benefit, we are heading for Iceland. We mean you no harm. At our destination, we will give you back this ship.”
“You are fleeing from the law?” queried the other, raising himself to one of the side seats.
“Which is no business of yours.”
“And you were sentenced to death and the Brain-control?” asked the man calmly.
Williams started. “You heard us—Well, as long as you know, what difference does it make?”
“Perhaps a lot,” was the enigmatic reply. “After you get to Iceland, what then?”
“Don’t tell him,” warned Terry suddenly. “He might cause trouble with that information.”
Williams scowled. “Whoever you are, you’ve got too much unhealthy curiosity. Just sit down and keep still.” With that, he turned away and looked to the east. The first flushes of dawn had changed the ocean to a sea of blood. To one side was the indistinct silhouette of an ocean liner, seemingly mired in the vast bosom of the sea.
Williams suddenly whirled. “Hold on there! What are you up to?”
The man, having arisen and taken a step toward the rear, halted and turned with surprise. “Why, you need some clothes, don’t you?”
“We do,” retorted Williams. “But I think—”
“Watch him!” came from Terry. “He might have a gun back there in the supply room.”
“Just a minute,” said the man as Williams advanced threateningly. “We’ve got some things to talk over, I think. I’ve been trying to think just what to do for the past few minutes, but now I’ve decided. I may be taking a chance with you three, but briefly, would you join an organization that will allow you to strike back at the Unidum?”
Williams stared a moment, speechless. “What organization, and just who are you?”
“John Agarth is. my name,” began the man, leaning toward Terry so that he could hear and motioning for Williams to come nearer. “About a year ago, a group of men met in a small city of Europe and pledged themselves to a certain cause: to end the menace of the Brain-control!”
“Go on,” said Williams breathlessly. “You can trust us—”
“I do trust you,” continued Agarth. “I seem to sense in you three a certain daring spirit which is what we want in our members. To go on: The Brain-control, aside from its hideousness, is a distinct menace to humanity. Whether or not the Unidum realizes that, it must be wiped out. To that purpose is our organization pledged. Our membership, although large already, can still use men of spirit and daring. What is your answer?”
“For my part,” said Williams quickly, “count me in; and that includes my man here, M’bopo. You Terry—”
Terry was silent in thought for a moment. “As an outlaw in the eyes of the Unidum, it would be unreasonable to refuse. But I reserve the right to pursue my own affairs if occasion arises.”
“Quite all right,” assured Agarth. “Now here’s what I have to offer in return for your co-operation: immunity from the law in secret hiding places, and the opportunity of working toward your own salvation. If our plans go through, the Unidum decree, which now demands your life, will be null and void. Then there will be the spice of adventure—”
“Which is most acceptable,” said Williams.
“And for assurance that I am not deceiving you,” continued Agarth, “look at this.”
He pulled a folded paper from inside his coat. It was a printed Unidum criminal notice that John Agarth, as described, was an outlaw at large.
“You see,” he explained at their surprise, “I once was sentenced to die, as you were, and to have the ‘honor’ of submitting my brain to a Brain-control. In the early days of our organization we were over-zealous and made an abortive attempt to smash Brain-controls. Several of our members—” his voice rang bitter—“were executed; the rest of us were rescued in a bloody jailbreak. From then on we planned more secretly and cunningly. We call ourselves the Brothers of Humanity. I will explain more in detail some other time. At present, I think you men had better indulge in sleep! I can see you are weary. I’ll take the controls.”
As he replaced Terry in the pilot seat, he rubbed his sore jaw ruefully. “I can say one thing, Williams; you gave me the surprise of my life back there at the floating dock. I was waiting for a secret word-of-mouth message from New York. Little did I expect a naked man to suddenly jump at me and knock me out.”
“Of course, under the circumstances, you understand—”
“Perfectly,” assured Agarth. “And as for the message, it will get to me eventually with a little immaterial delay. I was really there more in the spirit of adventure, hanging right under the Unidum’s nose so to speak, than because of necessity.”
They felt the ship swerve. “Instead of Iceland, we’re going to our headquarters in Paris,” explained Agarth. “It is secret and perfectly safe.”
Terry was already fast asleep on the floor. Williams, before he too succumbed, found a moment to revel inwardly in the thought of a pleasing future. What kind fate had saved him from the Unidum and brought him within reach of the opportunity to strike back? How would it all turn out? What to do about Lila? Unanswerable questions they were, that put him to sleep. Beside him lay faithful M’bopo, more worn and battered than any of them, content that Orno
Akku was still alive and free.
CHAPTER XI
Through the Stratosphere
l “I have both good and bad news for you,” said John Agarth, coming upon Williams and Terry conversing together in a room of the secret headquarters of the Brothers of Humanity in Paris.
“From Hackworth?” queried Terry eagerly.
Agarth nodded and handed him a sheet of paper. “I got in touch with him through our secret communication channels. The message was in code hut I have had it decoded for you to read.”
Terry read it aloud to Williams. The gist of the missive was that Hackworth had made a clean escape from the police at the tide-station, that Lila was still peacefully asleep to the exasperation of her doctors, and that Andrew Grant had admitted his absolute inability to get Lila’s release from the Eugenics Law. At the end of the message, Hackworth wanted to know—already knowing that they were safe from capture—what Williams and Terry planned to do next.
“I don’t think there’s any do but about what we plan to do,” said Williams. “Hunted outlaws as we are, we will work toward the goal of the Brothers of Humanity. As long as Lila is safe from her pre-ordered fate, you, Terry, can feel free to help in the great cause. Let’s see now. . . . Lila has been in a coma for ten days. For ten days the Unidum’s best medical men have puzzled over her case and failed to awaken her. That is indication enough, I think, that the drug is beyond their knowledge and remedy.”
“And only I,” half whispered Terry, “only I can awaken her!” He looked up at Agarth with shining eyes. “I hereby pledge myself as ja member of the Brothers of Humanity.”
“Good,” said Agarth. “You will be duly installed in our records. And I have a little surprise; instead of merely becoming one of our many members without authority, each of you will be invested with the authority of what we call ‘Marshal.’ As I’ve mentioned before, the Brothers of Humanity has an orderly, semi-military foundation. At the head are the two Generals; next in authority are five Majors, of which I am one; then come the Marshals, at present ten in number; then come Captains, Lieutenants, and finally the Brothers.”
“But why should Terry and myself get such a distinction as marshalship?” asked Williams perplexed. “We’ve just joined the Brothers of Humanity, and so far haven’t done a thing. In fact, up till now we’ve been just a lot of worry and expense to you, Agarth.”
“But you have done something,” contradicted Agarth smiling. He turned serious suddenly. “Let me explain. You have been instrumental, whether wittingly or not, in gaining two important members to our organization. I refer to Andrew Grant and Joe Manners!”
Williams and Terry gasped aloud. “They are now Brothers?”
“Yes, through you. You see, for some time, our agents, who are constantly trying to enlist influential men in our Brotherhood, had been surreptitiously approaching both those men. Yet not tilt yesterday did either of them actually yield; Grant because Terry’s poignant plight had touched his heart; Manners because he suddenly saw how cruel the Unidum was in sentencing you two to death and worse. Both Grant and Manners are important additions to our Brotherhood, especially the latter who controls the life-current that pours into New York.”
“Manners is in no trouble because of us, is he?” asked Williams.
“No, I have already ascertained that; although there was suspicion and pressure against him at first, the Unidum finally took his word for it that he had nothing to do with the escape of three ‘vicious criminals,’ namely yourselves.”
Agarth turned to the door. “Excuse me. I must attend to some important business. I’ll be back to have dinner with you.”
When Agarth had left, Williams turned to Terry. “I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am that events led to this, Terry. From the moment I heard that my sister’s. . . . brain. . . . was in a Brain-control, I felt I could never know a moment of peace till I had done what I could to end the purgatory in which she must live. And those hundreds of other brains!—it’s ghastly! Some kind fate has preserved me and made it possible to help end the enslavement of the brains! To that I now dedicate my every effort, and if need be, my life!”
“And I too,” said Terry. “I find it hard to understand now how I, not ten days ago, resigned myself so abjectly to the course of things. For years the thought of the Brain-control in Branch E where I worked had bothered me. Then when the great blow fell and Lila was tom away from me by the Eugenics Law, I seemed to break like a dried reed. Only when you, Williams, there at the hyp-marine dock, unfolded a plan to-save Lila, did I awaken from that mental lethargy. Now I see how mouse-couraged I was. And now I am determined, as are all the Brothers—and as every soul in Unitaria should be—to do my part in this crusade to end wrong!”
It was three days after the episode in the tide-station that these conversations took place. While Terry and Williams and the faithful M’bopo had slept, weary and bruised, Agarth had flown across the Atlantic toward Europe. Landing in a hidden bay on the shores of southern France (which was a state of Unitaria roughly corresponding to the France of pre-Unidum times), they had been driven to Paris by agents of the Brotherhood in an automobile, speeding along the superhighways at two hundred miles an hour.
The new Paris with its spanned towers and spires and comfortable residences had shifted a few miles northward, leaving the old squalid and dirty city deserted and falling to ruin. This old section had been completely surrounded by a ring of underground strongholds forty years before when a Hitlerized Germany had threatened to once again “march on Paris.” They were camouflaged from above, entered by means of narrow tunnels whose mouths were concealed by bushy trees and hedges. In one of these, the Brotherhood had set up a headquarters, unmolested and unsuspected by the Unidum. The underground chambers were roomy and well-ventilated and afforded an ideal habitation for such utter secrecy as the Brotherhood needed.
From this headquarters, Agarth and his agents had for months been gradually spreading the invisible web of the Brotherhood over all of European Unitaria, working hand in hand with four other centralized units in the continent. The superior headquarters of the Brotherhood, where the two Generals of the organization guided the whole movement, was located near San Francisco on the western coast of America. The Brotherhood had its main strength concentrated in that part of America west of the Rockies, where it was rumored the people had always been bitterly opposed to the usurpation of rights that the Unidum had practiced of late years.
The primary purpose of the organization of the Brothers of Humanity was to end the enslavement of the brains. To this purpose had Agarth and the many disciples of their cause devoted themselves. After the first sporadic attempt to smash all Brain-controls, which ended so disastrously, Agarth and those who had escaped had conceived a new and far cleverer plan. To achieve it they needed a large membership of staunch adherents. Then, on a certain date, at a certain hour, members of the Brotherhood were to enter every one of the two thousand Brain-control chambers in Unitaria, and simultaneously ruin them by opening the nutrition boxes and injecting a virulent poison into the fluid pumped to the brains.
This in itself was merely a gesture, announcing that the Brotherhood had declared its existence to the Unidum. Then, with every Brain-control inert and useless, the Brotherhood was to arise and defy the Unidum to ever try again to set up Brain-controls. The leaders of the Brotherhood were confident that public opinion would sway their way. Accordingly, the Unidum, suddenly confronted with such purposeful antagonism, and realizing that counteraction would precipitate a bloody revolution, would be forced to accede to the demands of the Brotherhood.
When Agarth joined Williams and Terry at dinner that evening, the conversation hinged around the great day when the Brotherhood would drop its mask of secrecy and face the Unidum.
“Just how,” asked Williams, “will the poisoning of the brains be done?”
“Well, that was one of our greatest problems,” answered Agarth. “It has to be done efficiently and without a
hitch. Only by demonstrating to all Unitaria, the masses as well as the Unidum, that the Brotherhood is a powerful organization, can we hope to win out. The burning news that will fling to all Unitaria—‘ALL BRAIN-CONTROLS RENDERED USELESS; ORGANIZED GROUP DEFIES UNIDUM TO RENEW THEM’—will cause the majority of citizens to flock to our banner. But if we render useless only half or less of the Brain-controls, the Unidum will laugh at us and destroy us, knowing the masses will have no confidence in us. In plain words, that first open move of ours must be complete and efficient.
“Sadly enough, this can only be accomplished at the sacrifice of many lives. Every man who goes to poison a brain on that great day will go a willing martyr! You see, the only practicable way to destroy the brain in a Brain-control is by poisoning. And to do that one has to open the nutrition box. And the opening of that rings an alarm. So the poisoner will be captured in each case. The Unidum will execute them summarily without trial!”
“Is there no way to open the nutrition boxes without ringing the alarm?”
l Agarth shook his head. “The metal of the boxes is an alloy impervious to all chemicals, to heat-torches, and to mechanical violence. Hence the only way to get at the pump inside is via the lock and door. Since the lock is too intricate to pick, it must be forced. For that purpose, each of our men on that day will have a small tool with spreading prongs which will be given a terrific leverage by means of a draw-screw. This, inserted in the key-hole will force the tumblers of the lock and allow the door to be opened. But the insertion of anything in the key-hole that conducts electricity immediately rings the alarm. However, each man will have time enough to inject the poison before the guards come, but not time enough to escape!