hundreds; some died, and almost everyone else was ill in one way or another. A tremendous investigation was held by the people who were our government then—Cleve Coldridge was our mayor, a fine man—and nothing could be determined about the source of the impurities. And then my father—he’s dead now—invented this.” She tapped the metal collar she wore around her throat.
“And what, may I ask, is that collar?”
“It’s a filter,” she said. “When the collar is worn, it counteracts the impurities in the air, through some process I don’t understand. My father died shortly after he developed it, and so he didn’t get a chance to offer it to the public. He willed the design and the process to three—friends—of his.” Her mouth clamped together bitterly, and I saw her struggling to fight back tears. Almost automatically, I put my arm around her.
“I’ll be all right,” she said. “Every time I think of those three, and what they’ve done to Dad’s invention —”
“Tell me about it later, if you want.”
“No. You might as well know the whole story. The three of them—Martin Hawkins, an Earthman, Ku Sui, a Martian, and Kolgar Novin, a Venusian—announced my father’s device to the public as if they had discovered it themselves. It was the solution to our air-impurity problem. They started turning out the collars in mass production, and within a month everyone in Callisto City was wearing one.”
“Did that stop the sickness?”
She nodded. “Immediately. The hospitals emptied out in no time at all, and there hasn’t been a case of that disease since then.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
“Hardly. The trouble didn’t start until after we were all wearing the collars.” She took my hand and guided it along her collar to the back of her neck, where I felt a tiny joint in the metal.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That joint is the weapon those three hold over us at all times. These collars, you see, can be tightened at will by remote control—and my father’s three friends operate the controls!”
I whistled. “What a hideous kind of dictatorship! You mean—anyone who makes too much of the wrong kind of noise gets his collar tightened.”
“Exactly. As soon as the whole city was wearing the protective collars—the collars that we thought were our salvation—the Three called a public meeting, and announced that they were taking over the government. Mayor Coldridge stood up to protest such a high-handed move—”
“And suddenly felt his collar tightening around his neck!” I concluded. I could picture the scene vividly.
“It was terrible,” she said. “Right in the middle of his speech, he clutched at his throat, went red in the face, and sank to his knees. They let him up after a minute or so, and explained what they had done. Then they announced that anyone who protested against what they were doing would get similar treatment. We’ve been against them ever since.”
I stood up, almost overwhelmed with anger. I had come to the right place this time! Maybe giant Jupiter was something I needed to explore someday for my own peace of mind, but this mess on Callisto required immediate attention. I didn’t see how I was going to fight it, either, but I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to leave here until the last collar had been removed from a Callistan throat.
“What about this breathing-tax?” I asked.
She nodded. “That’s the latest thing. They’ve decided the regular taxes aren’t enough for them, and so they’re bleeding us white with this new one. They installed meters in all the collars, to measure the amount of air we consume, and—” her voice was choked with hatred—“they tax us. There’s even a price of air here. Every Friday, we have to pay a certain amount.”
“And if you don’t?”
She put her hand to her throat, and made a swift squeezing motion. I shuddered. I’d never come across anything so vicious as this. When I was hunting rhuud on Mars, I thought I was against an ugly beast—but those Martian land-serpents weren’t half so cold-blooded as the Three who held Callisto in their iron grip.
I was going to break their hold. I vowed it, as I looked at the red-eyed girl staring solemnly at me.
Suddenly there was a knock on the hall door. I sprang up at once, and June looked at me with alarm.
“Hide in there,” she said, pointing to the bedroom. I dashed inside and crouched behind the bed, wondering who was at the door.
I head a male voice say, “It’s me, June. You decent?”
“Come on in,” she said, and I heard the door slide open. I peeped out and saw a tall, good-looking young man enter. Around his throat was the inevitable collar. He ran to her, put his arms around her, embraced her. I felt a sour twinge of jealousy, though I had no conceivable right to.
“Hello, Jim,” she said warmly.
The newcomer was frowning worriedly. “Have you heard about this new trouble?” he asked without preamble. “They’ve just announced it from the capitol building.”
“What is it?”
“There’s a fugitive loose in the city somewhere,” the man named Jim said rapidly. “Apparently he broke in by stowing away in a cargo shipment from Ganymede, and he escaped when Hawkins’ guards tried to put a collar on him. He’s been at large for the past half hour—and Ku Sui and Hawkins have just announced that they’re going to start tightening the collars gradually until he turns himself in!”
June gasped. “Everyone’s collar?”
“Everyone. There’s a gigantic manhunt going on now, with the whole city out trying to find this guy. If we don’t get him and turn him in, those three madmen are liable to choke us all as a punitive measure.”
As he spoke, he winced and put his hand to his throat. “They’re starting now!”
A moment later, June uttered a little cry as the remote-control torturers went to work on her collar as well. I went almost insane with rage at that.
I got off the floor and went inside.
“I’m the man they’re looking for,” I announced loudly. Jim turned, startled, and flicked a glance from me to June and back to me again.
“Where’d he come from, June?” Jim asked coldly.
“He’s the fugitive,” she said hesitantly. “He was running from the Tax Guards and practically ran into me. I brought him here.”
“Great Scot!” he shouted. “Of all the crazy stunts! Come on—let’s turn him in before they choke us all.”
He started toward me, but I held up a hand. I’m a big man, and he stopped, giving me the respect my size deserves. “Just one moment, friend. Don’t be so quick to turn people in. Suppose you tell me who you are?”
“What does that matter to you?” he snapped.
“Jim’s my brother,” June said. “Have you heard what they’re going to do unless they find you?”
I nodded grimly. “I heard you talking from inside.”
“I’m going to call the Guards,” Jim said. “We can’t let you roam around free while our lives are in danger. It’s for the good of the whole city.”
He moved toward the phone, but I tripped him and shoved him into a chair. “Hold on a second, buddy.”
He popped up almost immediately and came at me with a savage right. I heard June utter a little scream as his fist caught me off-guard and cracked into my jaw; I backed up a step or two, shaking off the grogginess, and hit him carefully just below the heart. He folded up and dropped back into the chair.
“Sorry, June,” I said apologetically. “But I have to have this thing done my way.”
Jim opened one eye, than another, and sat there without making any further disturbance. “June, get your video on. Find out if what your brother says is true.”
“Can’t you believe me?” he asked.
“No,” I told him bluntly. I wasn’t taking any chances.
June was fumbling with the dials of her video, and a moment later a newscaster’s face came on the screen. I listened stonily as he proceeded to give my description, or a rough approximation thereof, and repeated “President” Hawkins’ bone-chilling threat that the collars would be gradually tightened unless I was turned in.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve heard enough. Shut that thing off.” I whirled and faced them. Both June and her brother were pale-faced and frightened; they wore the same beaten, cowed look I’d noticed on the truckdrivers. This was a
