Sneak Preview

by Robert Bloch

  In the great circular expanse before and beneath, a few dozen figures were visible under the red-tinted lighting pattern. They were drugged, of course; no one patronized a Sadie without a freaker-boost. And those who remained here now had obviously tripped out to a point where the warnings and alarms in the streets had been either unheard or unheeded.

  Sigmond surveyed the scene with a Psycho’s clinical eye.

  Here in the Sadie, the patrons were still intent on enjoying a healthful, therapeutic release from pent-up aggression. Some were hacking out their hostility on a row of remarkably lifelike dummies lining the walls. Others had discarded their garments and were coupling avidly in the small, padded cubicles lining the main hall, the females usually secured by chains.

  A small cluster of adolescents had mounted the central gallows to hang a rubbery yet realistic blonde whose neck stretched, grotesquely elongated, in its hempen necklace.

  Down at the far end of the arena was the enclosed area of the torture-chambers. Here the dummies were bound to wheels, suspended over artificial but ominously-glowing beds of coal, contorted in cages and replicas of the Iron Virgin of Nuremburg, pilloried, bastadinoed, stripped and tied to tables for evisceration. Frantic screams emanated from the speaker-system; apparently some patrons were playing with the racks or the strappado. There were no attendants present to peddle whips or knives, but the customers seem to have found the supply-cabinets and helped themselves.

  Satisfied that there would be no disturbance from those below, Sigmond turned away from the observation window and moved across the room to inspect the comboard.

  “It’s a two-way,” he announced. “Hix, can you send?”

  Hix nodded. “Yes, I can operate it.” He seated himself before the instrument panel as Sigmond and Archer peered over his shoulder. Dean came up to join the others.

  “Good enough,” he said. “You can beam into Microcity and announce surrender.”

  “Surrender?”

  They stared at him, puzzled. Hix scowled up. “Who’s talking about surrender? We’ll beam out for help to other Domes. They can’t all have gone under. I’ll order in a fleet of jets. Let those fools asphyxiate the city if they like. Brass will come in with masks and oxygen reserve-tanks. We’ll blow Microcity, blast the port.”

  Dean glanced over at Archer. The little man nodded, and it was obvious that he was regaining confidence once more. “We’ll give the rebels one chance to capitulate. Tell them we have a hostage here.” He gestured towards the unconscious Graham. “Either they give up or he dies.”

  “But they won’t listen—” Dean began.

  “Exactly.” Archer smiled. “I don’t expect them to. It’s only a gesture.” He gestured towards Graham again. “He’s going to die, either way, and so are they. All of them. And a good thing too. Teach them a lesson.”

  “That’s right.” Sigmond pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Of course you know what will happen when we restore control again. We can’t expect to go back to a benevolent paternalism in the near future. We’ll have to do a complete psychological about-face, institute rigid restraint.”

  “In other words, it will be worse than before,” Dean mused.

  “Not worse,” Sigmond said. “Stop thinking in terms of stupid value judgements. The first duty of a power structure is survival. We’re going to tighten up security to make sure we do survive, now and forever. Agreed?”

  Archer and Hix nodded quickly.

  “No more reassurances,” Sigmond said. “No more promises for the future. We’ll operate on the fear-syndrome—”

  “Then that’s settled,” Dean murmured. “There is to be no thought of surrender?”

  “Of course not!” Archer snapped.

  “Very well,” said Dean. And stepped back, pulling out the stunner he’d taken from Graham.

  He waved it before their faces like a wand.

  They froze.

  They fell.

  That part was easy.

  The rest wasn’t quite so easy. Dean was a small man, and the task of dragging the bodies down into the arena, one by one, took most of his strength.

  But he managed.

  In the end, panting and perspiring, he propped the trio up against the wall, near the cluster of dummy figures standing in a row, wearing their classic costumes of inferiority.

  Here was the plasticene-faced priest, symbol of the bygone days of religious repression. Here was the ugly, pot-bellied image of an old-fashioned straight—banker, broker, landlord or industrialist. Here was the obvious political orator with the word Democrat scrawled across his slashed shirt-front and one empty eye-socket gaping as the result of a recent, enthusiastic attack.

  Dean noted that a knife-rack stood close by at the end of the hall. He moved the unconscious forms into place, propping them so that their paralysis supported their backs against the wall. They stood stiffly, limbs rigid, eyes open in a glazed and glassy stare.

  Dean wondered if they could still see and hear.

  He could see and hear. And he could move. He retreated to the stairs, unnoticed by the scattered patrons of the Sadie, and sought the safety of the glass-walled room on the balcony.

  Graham was still stretched on the contour-couch and Dean went over to him, stunner in hand. For a moment he studied Graham’s face.

  Then, taking a deep breath, he reached down and shook Graham roughly by the shoulder.

  “Wake up!” he said.

  Slowly Graham’s eyes blinked open, filtered into focus. His lips parted.

  “Wh—where am I?”

  “In a room with a two-way comboard,” Dean told him. “Can you use it?”

  Graham frowned up, intent on the stunner in Dean’s hand. “Yes,” he said.

  “Then do so.”

  Dean emphasized the command with a gesture from the hand holding the stunner. “Get over there and beam into Microcity. I’ll tell you what to send.”

  And he did.

  As Graham busied himself at the comboard, Dean went to the window and gazed down at the floor.

  At the far end of the Sadie, a small cluster of patrons were assembling. They examined the figures of Archer, Hix and Sigmond with curiousity, commenting to one another.

  “Look, it’s Brass!”

  “And a Psycho, too. Something new.”

  “Vo doop, skidaloop.” This from the drooling mouth of a fat, middle-aged woman who had exceeded her Libidos-age. “Let’s begin—tear some skin—”

  A gaunt man with deepset, brooding eyes came up, carrying a handful of knives, long and short, some with serrated blades. He parcelled them out, keeping a double-edged one for himself.

  “I hate Brass,” he muttered. “Big Brass!”

  He shoved the tip of his weapon into the neck of the khaki tunic. “Cut his buttons off, see?” he mumbled. “Cut off—all—his—buttons. Just—like—this.” He grinned. “And that’s not all—”

  The knife descended.

  “Cri!” yelled a swarthy adolescent. “Somethun’ new. Like blood!”

  “Oooooeeee!” This from the fat woman. “Lemme. Le’ me!” She waved her knife, slashing at Sigmond. The Psycho’s robe wasn’t white any more.

  Dean turned away, suddenly sickened, but not before he saw the broad blade slice across the spurting jugular of Archer.

  At the comboard, Graham was beaming. “Yes,” he said. “It’s official. His MGMinence has unconditionally surrendered.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “It’s never quite that simple,” Doc said. “You understand that, don’t you, Graham?”

  They stood in the control-center at Microcity, all of them, with Dean in the background. Someone had relieved him of the stunner, but he wasn’t bound.

  “Of course we won. We’re in control, thanks largely to you and to Dean here. The oxygenerators are functioning again and on the face of it we could claim complete victory.”

  Clare smiled at Doc, then moved closer to Graham. “The Domes are reporting in from all over. We’ve b
een feeding them Realies on what happened here.”

  “But we paid a price for it,” Doc continued. “Thousands dead of suffocation. A third of Nework blasted. Casualties galore, all over. And that’s just the beginning. The real job is still ahead of us.”

  “Provisional government?” Graham said.

  Doc nodded. “And then, a complete reorientation program. Reeducation, reconditioning—it will take years. You can’t expect an ordinary citizen, used to beheading dummies in the Sadies and watching men kill one another in the Playdiums, to change instantly just because we confer a nebulous ‘freedom’ on him.”

  Dean glanced at him. “For that reason you can’t disband the existing governmental fabric yet. You’ll have to keep Psychos and Technos and Brass as organizational units, even though you use new personnel to implement new directives. And in the end, it will all come down to an educational process.”

  “We’re not prepared for a tenth of what we must confront and cope with,” Doc agreed. “We’ll have to do the best we can, one step at a time.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Graham said. “Suppose our first step is in the wrong direction?”

  “It could be. Men aren’t perfect. Maybe the whole concept of freedom is a dream. But we have a right to dream. A right to try and make those dreams come true in a new society.

  “The old-fashioned family unit, the old-fashioned systems of ethics, preserve such dreams. And the struggle, the striving and competition they create, are in themselves a part of the process of evolution. You can’t deny the race the right to progress, however arrived at—it’s a biological necessity for survival. Social ‘balance’ is really stasis. So we can anticipate mistakes, yes, and misery too, for many of us. But the future cannot be denied.”

  Clare looked at Graham and smiled.

  And far overhead . . .

  CHAPTER 17

  Far overhead, the swallow hovered. It swooped down, then instinctively deflected its flight, but only momentarily. An instant later it sped forward again, dropping downward. There was no longer anything to deflect its course.

  Those tiny figures below were only men.

  And they were dismantling the Dome . . .