Despotism -- Fiction; Dissenters -- Fiction; Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction
"Burt!" he said thickly. "He had a psychometer under his robe. They
came here, and he knew my psychogram was changed by the hafnium I'd
found, so while they talked he stole the new pattern. It's taken them
this long to get it ready for the Circuit. Now they're putting it in."
With a sudden, convulsive jerk, he went rigid once more. His muscles
stood out in great knots. He was paralyzed, with every nerve and sinew
in his body tensed to tetanic rigor. Agony filled him with an exquisite
torment. It was the Disciplinary Circuit. It was those waves broadcast,
focused upon him at full power. They would have found him anywhere upon
the planet. And their torment was unspeakable.
Dona sobbed suddenly.
"Kim!" she cried desperately. "I know you can hear me! Listen! They
must have me on the Circuit too, only what you gave me has thrown it
off. They expect to hold us paralyzed while they cut in with torches
and take us. But they mustn't! So I'm going to give you the thing
you gave me. If it changed my pattern, it will change yours again,
to something they can't guess at." She sobbed again. "Please, Kim!
Don't give it back. Go ahead and do what you planned, whatever it is.
And if you don't win out, please kill me before you give up. Please!
I don't want to be conditioned to do whatever they want in their
pleasure-palaces."
She took the tiny sliver of metal in her shaking fingers. She pushed
aside the flesh of her hand to put it in his grip. Courageously she
released it.
The agonized paralysis left Kim Rendell. But now Dona was a pitiful
figure of agony.
Kim groaned. Rage filled him. His anguish and fury was so terrible
that he would have destroyed the whole planet, had he been able. But
he could not permit her gift, which she had given at the price of such
torment, to go without reward. He must struggle on to save them both,
even though now he had no hope.
He sprang to the control-board. He stabbed at buttons almost at random,
hoping for a response. He'd tried to get the ship into some sort of
operating condition, but now there was no time. Frenziedly he attempted
to find some combination of controls which would make something,
anything happen. He slipped the second bit of hafnium into his mouth to
have both hands free. In desperation he ripped the control-board panel
loose. He saw clipped wires everywhere behind it. Seizing the dangling
ends, he struck them fiercely together. A lurid blue spark leaped. He
cried out in triumph, and the morsel of metal Dona had sacrificed to
him dropped from his lips.
His muscles contorted and agony filled him.
There was a roaring noise. The _Starshine_ bucked violently. There
were crashes and there was a feeling of intolerable weight which he
could feel, despite his agony. The ship reeled crazily. It smashed
through a wall. It battered into a roof. It spun like a mad thing and
went skyward tail-first with Kim Rendell in frozen, helpless torment,
holding two cables together with muscles utterly beyond his control.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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