ground cars. Then he was past and checking with West City control for landing instructions. He was stopped leaving the port. He showed his identification and was treated with awed respect. One of the junior officers in charge of the roadblock was a former cadet and greeted the colonel with a snappy salute and a smile. It was impossible to remember all the cadets from years past, but the colonel smiled and said, «Good show.» «We'll get the bastards,» the cadet said. «Sir.» He flushed with confusion, having let slip the profanity without conscious thought. «I'm sure you will,» Baxley said. «The search is being conducted in a closing circle,» the former cadet said, eager to make a good impression. «There are five hundred thousand troops plus the city police. We're covering the city building by building.» Baxley frowned. He had given no orders for the search to begin. As he was driven past the block, he contacted Washington. Brother President Murrel was unavailable. He spoke with an aide. «Who ordered the operation to begin?» he asked. «The President himself,» he was told. Baxley closed contact without comment. He leaned back, frowning. Around him there was chaos. A group of sorry looking Tireds was being forced at gunpoint from a dilapidated building. As he passed, he saw a policeman strike a Tired female. She went down to her hands and knees. Blood sprang from her nose. The ground car eased through a mass of military vehicles. People were being loaded aboard vans, their faces contorted in panic. Baxley resisted an impulse to stop and order the troops to cease the senseless brutality. He realized, however, that such a move would be a relatively empty gesture. When he left, the troops would fall back on the only method they knew, the art of violent repression. Where had it all gone wrong?» The suspect was in central police headquarters. He showed his papers and the vehicle was admitted to the parking area An elevator took him to a top floor. The woman was in a small room, surrounded by Brothers and police officials. A doctor was present. The Brother Mayor of West City was a corpulent man with a sweating, bald head. He greeted Baxley with respect and, formalities over, pointed toward the seated woman. «She hasn't talked, but she will.» The woman's face was contorted into a mask of fear and pain. Her hands were tied behind her. The chief of West City police was questioning
her. As Baxley watched, he inserted an electrode into her left nostril, threw a line switch on the power cord, and Baxley heard a small, sickening sizzle of burning flesh. The woman jerked, screamed. «That's enough,» Baxley said, stepping forward. He jerked the electrode
from the hand of the startled police official and threw it violently into a far corner of the room. «You don't understand, colonel,» the Brother Mayor said. «In order to get these people to talk—» «How long do you think she could take this?» Baxley asked angrily. He whirled to the doctor, who was standing a short distance away, his eyes downcast. «Have you used truth drugs?» «They were not effective,» the doctor said. «Some of them are immune —» «Bull,» Baxley said. «Now listen, you quack, you're not talking to some ignorant Lay. Don't give me your fairy tales. You don't develop an immunity to truth drugs. Not in a million years.» «Not exactly an immunity,» the doctor said, strangely unruffled. «A protection. They've come up with some sort of long-range protection, a drug, something, which keeps the truth drugs from working.» Baxley made an impatient gesture. «What have you used?» The doctor named three drugs. Baxley knew them. They had never failed to produce results in the past. He'd often advocated their widespread use in questioning prisoners. The excuse was their expense.
«All right,» Baxley said. «I'll talk to her.» He moved behind the woman, cut her bonds with his pocket knife She looked up at him fearfully, tears streaming down her cheeks. «It's not all right,» he said. «I won't tell you that. You are in serious trouble. Do you know that.?» She nodded. «There is a threat to the Republic. We are going to see that the threat comes to nothing. Nothing you can do will stop that. We will crush the rebels. We will do it with any means necessary Nothing you can do will help your friends. On the contrary, your silence will make it worse for them and for everyone. Do you understand?» She was silent. «I am going to give you a chance to save yourself. Tell us all you know about the man who healed you. Tell us about your friends. Tell the truth and there will be no more torture. You will be held in confinement and then you will be treated.» «Shakeshock to idiocy?» she asked, making a face. «No thanks.» «You see, colonel,» the Brother Mayor said, «it's no use trying to reason
with these people.» He motioned to the chief of police. «Now if you'll let us continue—» Baxley was looking at the woman. Her eyes seemed strange. Baxley turned to the doctor. «What have you given this woman other than the truth drugs?» «Nothing,» doctor said. «Brother Mayor,» Baxley said, «I want to be alone with the suspect and the doctor.» «But, colonel—» The Mayor protested with waving hands. «Please,» Baxley said, but the way he said it it wasn't a request. The Brothers and the police filed out sullenly. Alone with the woman and the doctor, Baxley stepped behind the woman, opened his knife, pressed the point of it against the woman's neck. She did not move. He pressed harder until the sharp point broke the skin and a tiny bead of blood sprang up.
She made no outcry, no move. Baxley stood in front of her, lifted an eyelid. The pupil of her eye was large. He pinched her arm suddenly and forcefully. Her yelp came a second too late. Baxley's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He started to turn, to face the doctor. Before he completed the move he felt a sharp pain in his right buttock. He struck out. A hypoderrhic needle clattered away, bouncing on the hard floor. He opened his mouth to yell in surprise. Only a strangled sound came forth. He felt his knees going, weakening. He folded, fell slowly, settled to the floor without a sound. The doctor put his finger to his lips, motioning the woman to silence.
He knelt over the fallen Baxley, felt his pulse. «I had to do it,» he said to the woman. «He recognized the symptoms of the drug I gave you.» «What will you do now'?» the woman asked with a surprising calmness. «I'll have to leave you,» the doctor said. «I'm sorry, but I think this might be a great opportunity. The drug will not wear off for some six
hours yet. They're under strict orders not to let you die, so you'll be safe from that, at least. And when you begin to feel pain, then talk.» «No,» she said. «I'll never—» «My dear, you'll talk. When you can feel the things those bastards are
doing to you, you'll talk. You'll beg for the chance to talk. Do it. We'll have six hours. That should be enough.» «Are you sure—» «We have no other choice. I can get Baxley out of the building. I couldn't get you out under any circumstances.» «The revolution?» Irene Caster asked hopefully. «We'll try to come for you as soon as possible.» «I don't care. Don't think about me.» «But we must think of you. The world has gone too long without thinking of you, the individual.» «I don't mind dying,» she sighed. «I really don't.» She said the last with a sort of amazement, for she actually meant it. «If it means that we are successful.» «We will be,» the doctor said. «And perhaps you won't have to die.» He rose quickly, took three quick steps to the door. There was a well-acted panic in his voice as he called out, «Brother Mayor, quickly'» They rushed into the room. The Brother Mayor halted in midstride when he saw Baxley lying on the floor. The doctor fell to his knees beside Baxley. «His heart—» «Great God,» the mayor said. «No there. Not in my city.» The doctor leaped to a communicator. «Stretcher,» he roared. «Get me a stretcher and have an ambulance standing by.» «You're—you're going to move him?» the mayor asked. «He needs care and quickly,» the doctor said. «But can't you treat him here? If the word gets out that the founder of the Republic—» «The word need not get out,» the doctor said. «If you'll help me.» «Anything,» the frightened mayor said. «We will remove him quietly and take him to a private hospital. His face will be covered by an oxygen mask. His uniform by a sheet. No one need know. No one outside this room.» «Is he—is he going to die?» the mayor asked. «I don't know,» the doctor said. «My first guess is that he's had a massive myocardial infarction.» «My God,» the mayor breathed, awed by the sound of the medical words. The stretcher team came running in. The doctor directed the loading of the colonel's unconscious body, covering the neat, white uniform with a sheet. An oxygen mask was clamped over the colonel's face. The stretcher team moved quickly, impressed by the doctor's urgency. An ambulance was backed to the entrance of the service elevator. The stretcher was loaded aboard. The doctor got into the back with the colonel and snapped directions to the driver. The stretcher was loaded aboard an atmoflyer at the nearest port. An emergency flight-plan was filed. Twenty miles outside the eastern limit of West City the flyer disappeared from the radar screens and all the frantic efforts to contact it were in vain. Back in the grim, unimaginative building which housed West City police, Irene Caster screamed as her mouth was forced open and the searching, shocking electrode was forced under her tongue. She felt no pain, only a vague vibration as the shock spread. Her heart pounded and she was very frightened. An hour later. Dr. Zachary Wundt looked on as assistants gave Colonel Ed Baxley the antidote for the drug which had made him unconscious. «He saw quickly that I'd given Caster a painkiller.» The doctor who had delivered the founder of the Second Republic into the hands of the underground stood beside Wundt. «You understand that I was not concerned about my own safety.» «Of course,» Wundt said. «The woman will talk. The painkiller will wear off in'—he looked at his watch—'approximately five hours.» «At least your actions have given us that much time,» Wundt said. «We're ready. I have given orders to move.» «Have you had any word from your young healing genius'?» Wundt frowned. «None.» he said. Baxley moved, tried to sit up. His eyes fluttered open, widened. «You drugged me,» he shouted, looking at the offending doctor who had put a needle into him. «Relax, colonel,» Wundt said. «You will not be harmed.» «Harmed?» Baxley sat up, shaking his head. His vision cleared. «Then it's started.» «It has started,» Wundt said. «Isn't that strange?»
