Front matter

Illustrated by FINLAY

One day, James Comstock's father took James aside and started to tell him the facts of life. Which was not so unusual—except that James was 35.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories May and June 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

AT THE END....

The three who had endured so much sat and waited. Their reward was in sight. When you have fought for so long against forces strong beyond imagining, when you have struggled in despair, lived without hope, success when it finally comes, is almost anti-climactic. Despite the traps, the violence, the hurts, the fear, they were now where they had wanted to be.

They sat quietly, their hands folded, and if any feeling of triumph was in them, it was so muted as not to be observable. At that precise moment, when they sat in the ante-room, waiting for their reward, waiting to become part of the Board of Fathers, working directly under The Grandfather, the only common emotion they shared was that they had fought the good fight. Fought as hard as it is in a person to fight for what they consider right....

The door opened and The Grandfather was in the room. His visage was marked by a high hooked nose, broad high forehead, and deep set harsh blue eyes, focussed on the middle distance. His strong old hands were crossed on his stomach just below his patriarchal beard.

It was hard to believe.

Hard to believe that they, or anyone below the rank of Father would ever actually behold Him in the flesh.

When he spoke his voice was all the things they had known it would be. Deep as an organ bass, calm, full of authority, stern yet with a leavening of those other things that make up the whole man, his voice was almost gentle as he said, "Follow me, please."

They rose and feeling like children, followed his tall spare back out of the ante-room, into that other room where the Board waited for them.

There was no fear in them now as there would have been a year ago. For they were not coming before the Board for judgment, but to be rewarded.

The Grandfather said, "These three are the ones...."

There was silence.

"They have come to join us," The Grandfather said.

The silence expanded.

"Gentlemen, Fathers all, these are the three new Fathers." The Grandfather's voice faded away and there was no other sound. None of the ten men who made up the Board of Fathers said a word.

But the three who had fought their way up to this eminence stood in silence and looking about them, examined the ten men with whom they would now share the control of their whole world.

This was the moment of their triumph.

CHAPTER 1

When the first space ship landed on that pleasant world (the only pleasant planet of which Alpha Centauri could boast) the crew was so happy to get rid of the passengers that they took off the moment they could. Not even the interminable boredom of the return trip was enough to make them want to stay in anything like proximity with the thirty men and thirty women who had been sentenced to be marooned as far from earth as was humanly possibly.

There had been maximum security prisons in the past. But this was the ultimate maximum. When the ship took off, the prisoners were isolated as no human beings ever had been in the recorded history of men.

It was part of a plan of course. Earth did want the planet inhabited just as earlier powers had wanted Mars colonized. But when no volunteers appeared despite the cleverest high pressure advertising campaigns, the alternative became clear. If no one wanted to go to the new planet, to New Australia, then someone would have to be forced to go there.

It was just too bad for the exiles, but they could not protest too loudly, since they had long since forfeited any claim on anyone's sympathy. A little back eddy of intransigent inner-directed people, fanatics in a world of other-directed humans, positive that they, and they alone, knew what was good and what was evil; the world heaved a communal sigh of relief when they were taken away. Attempting, as these sixty had, to turn back the clock, to bring back into being the dark days of the twenty-second century, was such a horrid crime as to merit even so harsh a sentence as they received.

The first hundred and fifty years on New Australia were, in a way, difficult. But not too difficult. To these inner-directed people fighting for existence on a new planet was precisely the kind of crusade which to them was worth living.

Five hundred years after they established themselves, their last scientist managed to set up a system of protective devices which prevented any communication with Mother Earth at all. No earth ship landed or took off, and no other means of communication had yet been devised that would work in interstellar space.

A thousand years later even the memory of earth had faded and grown dim. There were mentions of it of course in old books, but they were not the kind of books that these people read.

Their sun rose and set, their erratic moon rose when it seemed to feel like it, and sank seemingly just as randomly, their days were full and to them worth living.

All sixty of the first settlers had married. Sixty humans, thirty family names. They were, to these people, good names, and therefore there had never been felt any need for new patronymics.

The planet's sprawling surface now contained millions of people but all of them shared thirty last names. It was nothing for anyone to question since to them this had always been the case. Science as such was an unknown word. It was one of the things that the original sixty settlers had fought against. When they made their brave new world, science was one of the earth things that was jettisoned. This, of course, led to some strange circumstances....

James Comstock 101 had reached maturity. At thirty-five he felt that the time had come for him to leave the home nest and go out on his own. His mother, as was to be expected, fought against his plans. But dad came through, as good old dad would.

Dad had said, "Now mother, admittedly Jimmy is still a little boy, but even little boys have a right to strike out for themselves."

"But Father," mother only called him that when something serious was under discussion, for after all, "Father" was a term of ... Jimmy didn't know quite what to think of it as ... power? Awe? It was, in any event, a word that one did not bandy about.

"But Father," mother had become embarrassed, and surely that was a blush on her cheeks, "did you ... have you ever ... that is ... what about ... oh, you know."

Father had looked very serious. He had said, his voice deep in his chest, "You're right, of course. Come, son."

Then had come that conversation which had stunned Jimmy, opened up vistas unheard of, unthought of, really. So that was where babies came from.... If anyone but his Father had told him about it he'd have struck them, perhaps killed them. To think that his mother had suffered through such an abysmal, horrible experience ... and the results of that experience.... Tremors swept through him in retrospect.

But that had been five years previously and Jimmy had become a man then under his father's aegis. That first time had been cataclysmically awful. The whole atmosphere of that place had been so foreign to him that it was only because he knew that his father was waiting downstairs in the parlor, waiting for a good report from the fallen woman that enabled Jimmy to go through with it at all. Not that the woman had waxed very enthusiastic, but then, a creature like that....

His monthly visits to the brothel were now part of his being and although he still did not relish going, he forced himself to, for after all it was part of the duty of a man. He did so wish, however, that it was not necessary. Life would be so much simpler if he could just skip the whole unsavory thing.

Sighing, he pressed the button on the door. Inside the curtained window the brash lights of the place, red as sin, shone on his weakly handsome face. The tinkle of the piano droned on.

Swinging the door wide, the fat madame said jovially, "Jimmy my boy. Come on in and let joy be unrefined."

Shuddering delicately and wishing that the madame would not be quite so robust, Jimmy inched his way into the parlor. The red plush chairs and the dingy lights were just as they always were. At the piano the little man looked up, said, "Hi-ya, Jimmy, how's every little thing?"

"Pretty good, professor, pretty good." The whole conversation was as stereotyped as the act which would follow it. Sometimes Jimmy wished that just once the madame would sneer at him, or the professor be grouchy, but they never were.

Lydia came down the stairs, her wrapper as dirty and unkempt as it always was. He wondered if she had a succession of these wrappers all equally dilapidated, or if she owned just one which she managed to keep looking the same way all the time.

Jimmy wished too, that Lydia were a little older. It seemed somehow a little indecent for her to be only forty. A child like that should not be forced to make a living the way she had to, but then they were all about her age. Jimmy had shopped around, tried to find an older woman but had been forced back into Lydia's arms. After all, she had been the one Father selected for him and good old dad knew best.

She said, "Come on upstairs honey lamb."

He followed her dolefully, averting his eyes from her full breasts which were altogether too prominent through the tight cloth of the wrapper.

Her room looked as if it had not been cleaned since the previous month. Stuck to the mirror was the picture of The Grandfather that always embarrassed him. The stern old eyes should not be forced to look down on the scenes in this room. Jimmy had tried to turn the picture to the wall one time, but Lydia had become hysterical and he had given up. As a matter of fact it was only after a long argument and an increase in fee that Jimmy had been able to force her to turn out the light in the room when they did—what they did.

The old brass bed jingled just as embarrassingly as ever when he sat down on the edge of it to remove his shoes. It was only by keeping his eyes on his stockinged feet that he was able to avoid looking at Lydia who had dropped her wrapper to the floor and was now shamelessly considering herself in front of the mirror that lined the whole wall.

That had been the main reason he had insisted on the light being extinguished. The combination of the wall of mirror, the ceiling mirror and the searching eyes of The Grandfather were just more than he could bear.

There was no use, he knew, in asking Lydia not to look at her n..e body. She had told him many times that she enjoyed doing it; there was no law against it and what was he going to do about it?

Of course there was a law against women admiring themselves in any way, let alone n..e and in front of a mirror, but the law, of course, did not apply to p.........s.

Whistling gaily, Lydia dropped onto the bed next to him and wound her arms about him. Almost dying with embarrassment he mumbled, "Lydia, the light ... you promised."

Grumbling, she switched off the light. Then it began, again.

But this time, right in the middle, a lancing pain unlike anything he had ever experienced shot through his heart. The hurt was so great that he cried out in agony.

Lydia, unknowing, said cheerfully. "Attaboy. That's what I like to hear."

It was only after he gasped, "Don't ... stop ... my heart ... I think I'm going to die ..." that she finally stopped and turned on the light. His face was whiter, much whiter than the grey pillow case under his head. His lips were purple. He still felt what he could only visualize as iron fingers pressing into his heart.

Racing out of bed the girl ran towards the door. She gasped. "I'll call the madame, get a doctor...."

Crouched on the bed in agony, his hand pressing deep into the center of the pain, he was still able to retain the presence of mind to call weakly, "Put on your wrapper, Lydia, you can't go out that way."

Then the pain became so great that he passed out.

When he opened his eyes he was in bed but it was another bed, with crisp white linen on it. The pain, he was grateful to find, had eased up.

The adult woman in the nurse's uniform, who must have been a pleasant sixty-five, bent over him and whispered, "There, there, you'll feel much better now."

"The doctor?" he whispered.

"Coming." Her sweet face was wreathed in an angelic smile. Her buxom body was omnipresent. Wondering what kind of perverted monster he was, he found that he was fantasying her in Lydia's bed. If only fallen women were mature, like this one, so many of his problems would be easier of solution. He guessed he just did not like young chits and that was all there was to it.

Luckily the doctor entered the room before the fantasy could go too far. Feeling mentally defiled, he greeted the doctor anxiously, glad of the interruption. "Doctor, do you know what's wrong with me?"

"Yes son," the white-haired elderly man was slow of speech, he considered each syllable before he allowed it to leave his thin lips. His sunken cheeks and hollow eyes were so typical of the whole medical profession that Jimmy found himself wondering, as he had before, what there was about doctoring that made men look like this.

"What do I have, doctor?" Jimmy's voice was tremulous.

"I've got bad news for you, son." It must have taken three minutes for the single sentence to be articulated by the doctor.

Sweating, Jimmy wondered what he had ever done, what commandment he could have unconsciously broken that was now punishing him for his sin.

"What is the cure, doctor?"

"First," the doctor said, "we must consider the disease."

Jimmy wasn't the least bit interested in what disease he had, there were cures for all known diseases. But he waited with bated breath to be told what terrible, what terrifying thing he would have to do in order to be cured.

"You have," the doctor said even more slowly, "angina pectoris."

Scrambling through his memory, Jimmy tried to remember what heart patients had to do. All he could think of at the moment was the treatment for arterio-sclerosis. It was so awful that he found himself saying a little prayer of thankfulness to The Grandfather, that he did not have to indulge in that cure. Adultery was the only known cure for hardening of the arteries and the prospect of what he would have had to go through made Jimmy almost glad that he had angina. Imagine, he kept thinking, "I'd have had to get married and then be untrue to my wife...."

His gratitude faded a little when the doctor's droning voice went on, "As you may or may not know, son, the only cure for what you've got is drunkenness. We'll have to make you into an alcoholic, boy. I'm sorry."

The world reeled.

Jimmy had seen drunks, who hadn't, but the thought of having to share their disgraceful conduct was more than he could bear. He gasped, "I won't do it. I'd rather die."

"Ummm ..." the doctor said, "a lot of them say that ... but remember, boy, suicide is what you're talking about!"

Suicide, Jimmy thought sickly, the sin against The Grandfather!

Horrible as the cure for his disease was, he'd have to go through with it. But what would mother think when he came reeling home, singing songs, consorting with ... he retched. No more seeing Lydia once a month, he'd have to consort with fallen women all the time....

Thank Grandfather, he thought dully, that dad is dead. It was the only thing for which he could feel grateful at the moment.

"Cheer up," the grey-faced doctor said and his voice was if anything more doleful than before, "be grateful you don't have cancer."

That was another thing for which to be grateful. The cure for cancer was the only thing he had ever heard of that was more horrible than that awful cure for arterio-sclerosis.

"Of course," the doctor said, "before we release you, we'll test you for all the known diseases."

Grandfather above, he thought despairingly, suppose something else is wrong with me!

CHAPTER 2

His heart condition was all the doctor found. Jimmy thought the medical man was a little grudging in the admission that nothing else was discernibly wrong, but gratitude that he was not worse off made him feel a little better.

Leaving the hospital with the lovely, elderly nurse holding him by one arm, and the doctor on the other side of him, Jimmy looked around him, at the street, at the people, at the mauve trees with their lovely puce foliage. It was night and the pale green moon moving in its eccentric path cast just the faintest tone over the whole scene. Admirably dressed women, their beautiful shapeless clothes hanging loosely so that nothing of their bodily contours could be seen, walked sedately along the black plastic street, their dresses barely avoiding dragging on the eternal surface with which the last scientists, so many years ago, had covered the roads and the streets.

Perpetua, it was called, and seemingly it was correctly named. Striving madly to forget that which awaited him, Jimmy thought wildly about the street covering, about, in short, everything but the saloon that he was being escorted to ... would the doctor and the nurse take him through the swinging doors? Or would he have to make that brave first step all by himself?

The doctor cleared his throat. "We're almost there, son. Be brave."

Be brave! A fine thing to say. It was easy for the doctor to make speeches, but he, Jimmy Comstock 101, was the one who was going to have to enter the foul place!

And then, despite the slowness of his steps, they were finally there. He realized, looking at the saloon, that he had never really looked at one of these dens of iniquity before. He had always, in the past, gone by them with averted eyes.

He reeled, and the lovely nurse, her exquisitely wrinkled face showing her concern, grabbed at him just in time to prevent him from falling to his face.

"There, there, Jimmy boy," her cracked voice was so ... soothing and at the same time so exciting ... he found himself beginning to fantasy about her again, and it was only this that gave him the bravado necessary to step through the swinging door.

A gust of beery air hit him in the voice. His throat closed up in revulsion at the disgusting odor. Behind him he could hear the nurse say, "Grandfather be with you now!"

And then she and the doctor were gone, and he was alone. Alone in the moiling turmoil, the frightful, frightening atmosphere of that which he must become. To the right, the left, everywhere he looked there were fellow heart disease patients. All of them were treating their disease. Some seriously, some seeming even to enjoy it, which Jimmy found impossible of comprehension. One of the ones who seemed to be enjoying the treatment of his disease staggered up to him with a fog of alcohol preceding him.

"Hi chum!" The drunk was small and young and seemingly very happy.

Jimmy gulped. "Hello, there, how are you? I'm James Comstock 101. Who are you?"

"Danny Grundy 112. C'mon kiddo, wancha to meet an old buddy of mine."

The drunk had him by the arm and there was no escape. Grundy pulled him through the welter of men and women who lined the bar and gulped or sipped their poisonous yet beneficial potions.

Behind the bar a tremendously fat man, a white apron pulled tight around the huge circumference of what Jimmy thought of as his tummy, said, "What'll it be? What's your pleasure?"

Jimmy turned to his new found friend and asked, "How can I get drunk the fastest, easiest way?"

"Leave it to me, old buddy, old sock," Grundy said.

"Maxwell, mix up three of your super-double extra strong corpse revivers, will you like a pal?"

"Surest thing you know," Max busied himself with bottles containing oddly colored liquors.

Rather than look at the terrible thing he was going to have to drink, Jimmy asked, "Where is the man you wanted me to meet?"

A howl of laughter from a nearby group drowned out his words, forcing him to repeat himself. Grundy looked at the group and said, "There he is. I'll bring him over."

The man he dragged to meet Comstock was equally young, no more than thirty-eight, with an unformed face, and the barest amount of white hair at the temples. He had some pictures in his hand and as he was introduced to Jimmy he held out the photos.

Grundy said, "Tony Bowdler 131, wancha to meet my oldest friend, Jimmy—what was your name, old sock?"

Jimmy identified himself and as he turned his eyes to look at the pictures, Bowdler mumbled, "Do' wancha to think I'm unner the affluence of inkohol, but lemme know how you like them feelthy pictures."

The man's voice was blurred and Jimmy could not quite comprehend what he was saying. That was the only reason he looked at the top picture. All the blood drained out of his head. There, on the picture, brazenly posed for anyone to see, were a man and a woman. Good looking people too. The woman was real s..y. Almost seventy, with exciting white hair, and a deeply wrinkled face, she was even more desirable than the nurse.

How then had she ever allowed a despicable picture like this one to be taken? It was beyond Jimmy, completely beyond him. Frozen in the glossy eternity of the picture, her loose dress lifted so that her ankle showed, she was allowing the man in the picture to k..s her hand.

The picture blurred in front of Jimmy's dazed eyes. This was a kind of perversion beyond his reckoning. How could people allow such a thing?

Grundy said, "You think that's hot, boy, lay a glim on some of the others! Here, look at these," he spread them out one at a time and giggled inanely, "This last picture is a real killer! Take a peek!"

Comstock shook his head no, but his new found friend paid no attention to him. Pointing to the foul pictures lined up on the bar he picked up the last one and held it right under Jimmy's nose. Just before he forced his eyes closed, the picture was engraved on his sickened brain.

The people were the same as the ones in the other picture, but, oh the depth of depravity, oh poor lost souls, the man was actually k...ing the woman full on the m...h!

The bartender said, "Hey, what's wrong with the Johnny-come-lately? Looks like he's going to faint. Better get some medicine in him fast!"

Bowdler grabbed Jimmy's one arm, Grundy the other, while the stout bartender poured the drink down Comstock's slack mouth. Gagging, half spitting, he still swallowed enough so that he could feel what he thought was liquid fire going down his aching throat.

"How's that feel, ol' pal?" Bowdler asked anxiously.

"Awful," Jimmy said, but he sipped more of it anyhow. This was his curse, this was his cure, he had to take it, so he took it.

The bartender went back to his other customers, and the trio raised their glasses. Jimmy's new found friends were teaching him how to make a toast.

"Here's to heart trouble," Grundy said, "thank Grandfather I didn't get cancer!"

"Tha's the boy. Drink her down.... Bottoms up...." Bowdler put his hand over his mouth. "Mus' 'pologize," he said, "reelize don't know you well enough to talk that way. Ve'y sorry, ole man."

Comstock gagged again, but this time not from the drink, but as a conditioned reflex. At that moment he could again taste the soap his mother had used to wash out his mouth that time when he was but a lad of twenty-nine, and he had slipped and said something about the b....m of a well. The drink helped to wash out the long enduring soap taste.

"Yeah," Grundy was saying. "I don't care how drunk a man gets, a gentleman never uses dirty words."

"You're righ' ole pal, ole pal. I'm sorry...." Bowdler hung his head in shame. As though to change the subject he picked up his pornographic pictures and looked through them lovingly. At last, pausing over one that Thompson could see showed a man and woman in the last stages of reckless abandon, (they were holding hands) Bowdler said, "Y'know if I din' like gettin' drunk so much I'd be sorry I din't have tuberculosis so I could pose for feelthy pix like these."

"Y'know," Grundy had his arm wrapped lovingly around Jimmy's neck by now and they were on their second set of corpse revivers, "y' know I've known fallen women who told me they were kina glad they had diabetes. Don't seem possible, does it?"

"No." Jimmy's face was set sternly. "I cannot imagine snuch a ting. I mean I cannot magine uch a sting...." He rubbed his mouth. It felt a little strange.

Bowdler ordered another round. Nearby a particularly abandoned looking woman who must have been in the last stages of coronary thrombosis if the amount of liquor she had imbibed was any indication, waved to Jimmy.

He turned his head away quickly, hoping no one else had seen what the woman did. He was instantly sorry he had done so for suddenly the room swirled.

When it stopped, he turned to Grundy and said, "Shay, how offen doesa room do that?"

"Do what?" Grundy asked, his mouth slack.

"How offen do they make it go roun' and roun' like that?"

Evidently he had said something highly amusing for his new friends went off in gales of laughter. They had to whack each other on the back before they could make their giggles subside.

Grundy said, finally, "If you think this room is movin' wait'll you see your bedroom move tomorrow morning!" Then he and Bowdler went off into helpless laughter again.

Comstock tried to explain that there was no special mechanism in his room which would allow it to spin in any fashion at all, but the combination of the peculiar trouble he was having in articulating and the roars of laughter from Bowdler and Grundy made him finally desist. Perhaps this was some joke that he would have explained at some future time.

The fourth drink, Comstock found must have had some different ingredients in it although he had watched the bartender carefully and seemingly the same constituents went into the making of it, but, on sipping it, he found that the taste was different. He no longer felt as if he was going to die in agony when he swallowed. Instead, a rather pleasant kind of warmth went all through him.

He gazed at his new friends. New? How dare he consider them that? These were his pals. Why ... he'd cut off his right arm for either of them.

He felt a desire to explain this sudden feeling of camaraderie, but that odd thing affected his speech again and the words did not come out quite as he had expected they would. He wondered if a stutter or a stammer was part of angina pectoris, but that did not seem likely somehow.

The sixth drink he never had any remembrance of downing. As a matter of fact, the following morning when he woke up he had all he could do to figure out how, when and who had installed the merry-go-round mechanism in his room. Apparently the saloon was not the only place so equipped. Lying in bed, looking about him he at first wondered if he were in some strange place, but second thought reassured him. He was home, in his own bed. The colored portrait of Grandfather looked down at him ... he hoped that the picture did not reflect any disapproval on Grandfather's part. He mumbled, "I can't help it ... I'm sick ... the doctor made me...."

Then he held onto the sides of the bed for dear life and prayed that whoever was making the room turn around would stop sooner or later, preferably sooner.

On one of the circling trips the room seemed to slow down a tiny bit and he was able to crawl out of bed onto the floor. The floor was bigger and he lost the fear he had had in bed that he was going to fall out. At least there was no place to fall now.

When his mother entered the room he was curled up peacefully on the rug, sound asleep.

She woke him gently and gave him a glass of milk.

Jimmy eyed his mother in horror. How could he ever have loved a woman who could do such a terrible thing? The milk seemed to be fastened directly to his stomach. Racing from the room he found that there are more than a few problems connected with being a drunk.

When he came back and fell into his bed, his mother moved around the room, opening the curtains letting in the sunlight, as she had every day of his life.

He said, "Mother, will you please take those hobnails out of your shoes? And whatever you're doing to those curtains, stop it. The racket's enough to rouse the dead."

"They wouldn't let me come to the hospital, dear," she said.

"Was it very bad for my little boy?"

"Very bad. Did you get the report on me?"

She nodded. "But do I really have to give you that poison they recommended for your mornings?"

"What poison?" If she'd only stop yelling.

"Coffee!"

At that moment he knew he would have sold his soul for a cup of coffee. Aloud he said, "Bring it ... fast! And get that sickening glass of milk out of here. It's leering at me."

Shaking her head, she left.

If the inside sweats would only stop a moment, he thought, he'd be able to take time out to feel sorry for her. After all she hadn't raised her son to be a drunkard ... it must be very difficult for her. But a question rose large in his mind. How had those bats gotten into his insides? Looking down at it, feeling what the bats were doing to the wall of his stomach, he called it a belly for the first time in his life.

"My belly," he said to himself, "hurts." And he didn't even feel the soap sensation in his mouth. But then the taste that was already there was so much like the inside of a parrot's cage that perhaps the psychic soap was just lost in the other, more horrible, taste.

Curiously he found that the steaming, jet black coffee made him feel better. How had he known it would? Perhaps Grundy ... or Bowdler had told him about it....

His mother watched him drink the dread potion silently. Then she said, "My poor, poor boy. When do you have to do this terrible thing again?"

He lifted his head and found that he could endure the sunlight. In some lost cavern in the back of his head he heard Bowdler's drunken voice saying, "And if you think you're gonna die, buddy boy, remember, a hair of the dog will fix you up."

The idea of eating a dog's hair almost made him run for the bathroom again, but he conquered the feeling.

Then he considered his mother's question. When must he get drunk again? Why ... right now. This minute. Besides, he wanted to find out more about these puzzles that baffled him, from his buddies. He smiled remembering the good feeling of fellowship that had been his when he had sung some old song with Bowdler and Grundy.

How did the words go?

His startled mother raised her eyebrows when her poor sick boy lurched to the side of his bed and began to hum, "For he's a jolly good fellow...."

Yep.

Back to the saloon.

That's where he belonged.

Rising slowly from some subterranean depth was the dawning realization that he was beginning to enjoy his ailment....

Good old Grundy.... Good old Bowdler ... they were indeed the salt of the planet.

CHAPTER 3

"'The portions of a woman's anatomy,'" Grundy was singing when Jimmy entered the bar, "'that appeal to man's depravity, are fashioned with considerable care....'" He broke off his song when he saw Comstock. "Buddy boy!"

Bowdler rushed over and threw his arms around Jimmy, "How's the old kid?"

"Fine, just fine. How about a drink?" Comstock found himself asking, just as though he'd been a bar-room habitue all his life.

The corpse revivers served their functions admirably, Jimmy found. In fact in just short of an hour, he was high on a cloud, feeling no pain.

That was when Grundy, whom Jimmy had thought was quite drunk, had drawn Bowdler and Comstock to a quiet table in the back of the saloon. Carrying their drinks they joined him. Jimmy was puzzled, for suddenly Grundy had become very serious. Bowdler seemed to know what was in the wind.

When they were seated comfortably and Jimmy was sipping happily at his drink, Grundy looked around conspiratorially before he whispered, "Jimmy, how old is The Grandfather?"

The question was a double shocker. First because Jimmy was positive that this was the first time that holy name had ever been mentioned in such unhallowed precincts, and second because the veriest infant knew the answer. He said, "The Grandfather was, is and always will be."

Grundy grinned. "How do you know that to be true?"

Comstock's world stopped spinning. His breath froze in his lungs. Then he felt a heart attack coming on. He fell face forward onto the floor.

Bowdler said, "Now see what you've done! You should have led up to it more gradually."

"Let's see if we can revive him." Grundy's normally jolly face was set and strained.

When Comstock opened his eyes and felt consciousness return he found that his friends had him propped up in his chair and were pouring liquor down his throat. Gasping, he spluttered, "All right, all right. I'm okay now."

There was a pause, then Comstock asked, "What happened to me?"

The two other men avoided his eyes. Bowdler said at long last, "I guess you're not quite drunk enough."

He ordered another round of drinks and as they waited for the elderly waitress to bring them to the table Jimmy found himself remembering what had happened.

The only thing that prevented his passing out again was that the s..y waitress returned with their corpse revivers. He took a big slug, considered her bent back as she walked away and said, "I ... seem to remember your asking me something about...."

"I did." Grundy's face was set with determination. "Now hold onto yourself, laddy boy. How do you know that The Grandfather has always been and always will be?"

The traumatic shock was strong again but he had drunk some more and so was able to hold on while all the blood drained out of his head. He finally managed to say weakly, "Because everyone knows that to be true." Life without Grandfather was inconceivable. Who would look after them? Protect them? To whom could a man turn if not to The Grandfather?

Grundy and Bowdler exchanged meaningful glances. "If He always was, how come there's no record of His having made the trip from Earth?"

A trifle drunkenly, Comstock considered the question. Earth? Oh, yes that was the fable, the children's tale that his people had emigrated from some other planet. He had dismissed the whole thing as the usual kind of Father Goose story that kiddies were told. Aloud he asked, "You mean you two think there really is another inhabited planet?"

"Think?" Both men spoke simultaneously, but it was Grundy who continued. "We know it. Look, Jimmy, we're risking a great deal, and before we go on, we'll have to swear you to secrecy. Whether you join us in what we have in mind, or not, you must swear on your father's memory that you will be silent as the grave...."

They waited, poised on the edge of their chairs with nervousness.

When he deliberated so long that their nerves were jangling, Bowdler said, "Look, Jimmy, do you want to have to live and die as a drunk, just because it's the only known cure for your disease?"

Things were popping too fast for Comstock to be able to grapple with them intelligently. He mumbled, "Nothin' wrong with being a drunk. I like it fine."

Grundy sprang to the attack. "That's too bad, old man, because it means the cure won't work. You should know that, the doc should have told you! The vice must be distasteful or the cure doesn't work!"

Looking back on the Comstock of yesterday, Jimmy could see why the doctor had not felt it necessary to make this point. It certainly had been unpredictable that he'd enjoy drinking. But it was his new friends who had made it fun.... Had they done it deliberately? Too much to grapple with ... he'd better wait and see what they had in mind. He said, "I swear to keep silent."

Bowdler said, "Go ahead, Grundy, it's your story." Parenthetically, he explained to Jimmy, "You know, or I guess maybe you don't, that before Bowdler here, got sick, he was Head Genealogist."

"No kidding!" Comstock was amazed. Head Genealogist! Whew ... that was a post that almost ranked with being a Father! Bowdler was ... or had been, a big man!

"As part of my job," Bowdler said, "I went back to the beginning. I checked the passenger list on the Bon Aventure, the space ship that brought the original Thirty to this planet from Earth."

Gulping down his drink, hurriedly Comstock ordered another round. To mention the Thirty ... it was almost as blasphemous as talking about The Grandfather! These two were dangerous men. He'd listen to what they said, but then he must, literally must, report them to the authorities! He was sorry for them for he liked them, but blasphemy like this had to be punished.

Bowdler went on, "That was the first time the thought occurred to me to wonder about ole Grandpop!"

Grandpop! Blasphemy piled on blasphemy. Comstock could feel his ears burning.

"And you know something," Bowdler lowered his voice to the veriest whisper of communicable sound, "There was no record of His having made the trip! None at all!"

The silence dragged itself out. Comstock was in a condition bordering on insanity. Although he managed to keep his face still. The temerity of these two ... apostates!

"As a matter of cold brutal fact," Bowdler said broodingly, "there is no record of The Grandfather at all until about five hundred years ago! I checked, I read books that no one, absolutely no one has even looked at for centuries ... and by Grandpop himself, there's not even a mention of Him, till about a hundred years after they killed off the last scientists."

No one had ever before discussed these things openly, or covertly, with Comstock. A new emotion was beginning to make itself felt. He was becoming interested. The last scientists ... he remembered all about them from school. The monsters! It was a good thing they had been wiped out. But even so it was exciting hearing it talked about. He leaned forward on the table and sipped his drink more slowly. There was plenty of time to report Bowdler and Grundy. After all, the authorities would want as much information as he could get.

Grundy spoke for the first time in a long time. He said, "That's where I come in. I used to be custodian of the hall of records."

Jimmy felt a little better. After all, a janitor! His job before he'd become ill had been better than that. He had been a law clerk at the Bureau of Commandments ... it didn't compare with the office that Bowdler had held, and yet it was certainly a lot better than.... But Grundy was speaking. He said, "Bowdler got his heart attack when he began to wonder about where The Grandfather had come from. I got mine when I was ordered by the Board of Fathers...." "Oops," Comstock thought, a janitor working for the Fathers was nothing to be sneezed at, he'd better wait and see what was coming.

Grundy went on, "The only reason I even looked at the record I was supposed to burn was because I had glanced at it and had seen a G. I wondered if it had something to do with my family...." He put his hands to his forehead. "If only I hadn't ... I'd still be happily at work ... with no heart trouble ... and with no need to drink this stuff...." He gulped down some of his drink.

"Buck up, old man," Bowdler said. "What's done is done."

"You're right. I must be a man." He shook his head dolefully. "It wasn't about my family at all. It was about the Gantrys ... and you know how powerful that blood line is. I don't have to tell you! Ever since Elmer the First, they've been on top of the heap!"

Comstock nodded. As if any sane person would even question the qualifications of the Gantrys to be leaders! These two men were even more dangerous than he had suspected. It was up to him to keep his mouth shut and his ears open, by The Grandfather it was!

The furrows in Grundy's forehead were deeper now. His elbows on the table, his head in his hands, he looked off into the middle distance. He said, and he was almost speaking to himself, his voice was so low, "It was only when I examined the records that I began to wonder if it was truly ordained that the Gantrys were the leaders and would be the leaders, under The Grandfather's eagle eye. Funny," he mused, "all it takes is the tiniest notion to question these eternal verities, and then without your even being aware of it, the questions begin to demand answers...."

Bowdler broke in. "That was the mood Grundy was in when he and I met here in the saloon. Two men, both possessed of a tiny bit of knowledge not shared by anyone else on New Australia, and by chance we met here...."

Jimmy drained his glass and the action of tilting his head back brought the level of his eyes higher than it had been. That was the only reason he saw the face that was framed in a little window at the back of the bar-room.

His breath shot out of his lungs as though he had been hit by the hind legs of an astrobat. He gulped, "Grundy! Bowdler!"

Their heads swivelled and they too saw what had frightened him.

"One of the Father's Right Arms!" Bowdler said. Then, with a visible attempt to keep his voice down and his face from showing the fear that gripped all three of them, he said, "This is what we had to be prepared for; are you with us, Comstock?"

Now was the moment for decision. If, Jimmy thought, he were to act bravely, throw himself on the two apostates and wait for the R.A. to get to them, he could then explain what horrors the two evil men had been discussing. But, and the canker of indecision gnawed at him, but, what after all had he really learned? Only that these two men were questioning the eternal verities. There was more to it, much more, of that he was convinced.

There was perhaps an inch of liquor left in Jimmy's glass. Draining it, he made the decision which he was instantly to regret. He said, "I'm with you two. What shall we do?" Better, he had decided, to go along with Grundy and Bowdler and pretend to be part of their horrid scheme, that was the only way that later on he could report fully to the Fathers.

Grundy and Bowdler smiled at each other. Grundy said, "He's with us! Let's go!"

All this time the R.A. had been watching them, his little eyes preternaturally alert, his gaunt hand steadily holding the gun that pointed straight at them, his attention completely focussed on the trio.

Bowdler leaned forward on the table till his head was close to Jimmy's. He whispered, "When I say three, duck to the floor. Stay there till I grab you."

All around the three men the life of the saloon went on blithely. The other heart disease patients were drinking; some solemnly, some gaily, the aged waitresses were busy with their Hebe-like duties, the bartenders were mixing drinks, but to Jimmy, the whole of life ... and perhaps death were contingent upon the next three seconds.

"One." Bowdler's voice whispered.

Jimmy could see Grundy bunching his heavy muscles for some kind of action.

"Two."

Watching the R.A. out of the corner of his eyes, Jimmy wondered if it was just his imagination or if he had really seen the R.A.'s trigger finger tighten on the stungun's trigger.

"Three!"

CHAPTER 4

Later, looking back on the scene that followed, Jimmy was never quite sure just what had happened in just what order. For the first thing that erupted was the table. Grundy had suddenly tilted back in his chair throwing his heavy body over backwards. His legs, under the table, served to catapult the heavy object straight up towards the little spy window where the R.A. waited.

Bowdler had thrown his own empty glass straight at the eternally lit little bulb that had supplied the only illumination.

Darkness, then the crash of the table, then Comstock had obeyed orders and thrown himself flat on the floor. Next to him he had heard Bowdler land heavily.

The second crash as the table fell to the floor was the signal for Bowdler to grab Comstock by the arm and whisper, "Crawl after me."

Darkness and silence.

None of the other heart patients in the saloon had uttered a sound. That was not surprising of course, as anything unusual that ever happened was always the result of the action of the R.A.'s and it ill behooved anyone to interfere with them....

The only sign of light was the little flicker that came from the R.A.'s halo.

The sight of it was enough to make Comstock's blood run cold. Hopelessly he wished for a heart attack that would make him hors de combat, but for once that organ seemed impregnable.

Then, crawling on his hands and knees, crawling after the unseen bulk of Bowdler, with fear in him like a live thing, Comstock died a thousand deaths. In the darkness a bulky body had bumped into him, and for a moment his heart had seemed to stop completely but then he realized it was only Grundy. The man had whispered, "Not far now."

Most frightening of all had been the moment when his head had touched the solid wall of the back room of the saloon. That had not been frightening in itself, but what had happened next was the worst of all, for suddenly the solid wall was no longer solid.

Frozen immobile, he had waited till Grundy had said, "Go on ... hurry up."

Behind him Bowdler had pushed him, hard.

There was no choice. He went through the no longer solid wall.

Then there was another terrible period of darkness and silence and crawling along on all fours.

Bowdler finally spoke and he no longer whispered. He said, and his voice was harsh and loud, "It's all right now. We can stand up."

Then a light had flooded them.

And so here he was, Comstock thought dully, his brain feeling about as perceptive as a plate of liver as he stood in the small room that had no right to be where it was. Not that he knew where that was, but he knew that The Grandfather would certainly not approve of a hideout, and there could be no doubt that he was in such a place.

Grundy and Bowdler looked at him and enjoyed his manifest surprise.

Jimmy asked, "What, where, how, I mean...."

"We're not exactly fools, you know, Comstock old boy," Grundy said. "We knew that the R.A.'s had us under observation. We knew, too, that it was only a question of time before they came after us."

"But the saloon wall, how did we go through that?"

"Trap door, old sock, just a trap door." Bowdler grinned.

"And the tunnel we went through?" Comstock asked and then, looking around at the sybaritic furnishings of the little room, he asked, "This room, what is it?" Never in his life had he seen a room with such over-stuffed chairs, such soft warm colors, such a concern for creature comforts.

"Evidently," Bowdler said with an evil smirk, "Elmer Gantry 104 does not really believe in the Spartan virtues that he preaches so loudly."

"You mean this belongs to a Gantry?" Earlier, the very idea of being in a room that belonged to a Gantry would have made Comstock swoon, but his experiences were evidently toughening him, for aside from a certain feeling of breathlessness, and the knowledge that all the blood had left his face, and a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, the blasphemous information did not affect Comstock at all.

Bowdler was standing with his back to Comstock, his hands linked behind his back, as he teetered back and forth from heels to toes and looked at some three dimensional pictures that hung on Gantry's walls.

Only the fact that the n..e women in the round, true-color pictures were young, between twenty and thirty years old, kept Comstock from a heart attack. If they had been older, the obscenity of their n....y would surely have made him pass out. He could not help wondering how Bowdler could seem to enjoy looking at the young women. It was incredibly revolting to Comstock's sense of the rightness of things.

"Sit down," Grundy said, "let's have a council of war."

Sitting on the very edge of the too-soft chair, keeping his back rigid, Comstock kept his attention glued on Grundy and Bowdler. Now perhaps, he would pick up some information of real value to the Fathers.

He noticed with some dismay that the other two men slouched back in their chairs and seemed to be enjoying the ease of their surroundings.

He asked uneasily, "Is there no chance that the R.A. will follow us here? Don't they know about this retreat?"

"Would any R.A. dare to contaminate a Gantry's home with his presence? Relax, Jimmy." Bowdler sprawled out, his large t...h hanging over one arm of the over-stuffed chair. "The only chance we're taking is that Gantry may come here. I checked and found that he is conferring with the Fathers today."

How easily these two men spoke the terrible words. It made Comstock sit ever straighter on the very edge of the chair he occupied.

The cool air of the room which seemed to have been washed and cleansed before entering the sacrosanct area was pleasant on Jimmy's heated face even while he wondered how a windowless room could be so aired.

"I gather," Bowdler said as he smiled at Jimmy's obvious consternation, "that you have never been in a home of one of the Thirty before?"

Dully, Jimmy shook his head no.

"You'll find, laddy boy, that this is a strange world we live in with many paradoxes that to Grundy and me, demand an explanation. It wasn't too long ago that we were like you and found only elderly ladies attractive. But you know, as soon as we found out that the Thirty like their women young, we too began to find something vastly exciting in youth."

So alarmed that he dare not continue to look at Bowdler, Jimmy looked around the room trying to find something to change the subject, some object on which to focus. On a book shelf nearby he saw one of his childhood favorites, and grabbed it with a feeling of relief.

It was a copy of Father Goose. He ran his eye over the first poem and drew from the verse of Jack and Jill the knowledge that the world had not gone insane. There, it was just as he remembered it,

He riffled through the pages as Bowdler went on talking. On page ten was another favorite,

But the assurance of the known faded away as Bowdler's voice went rumbling on and on. "It occurred to both of us that perhaps there was some reason why we are brought up to esteem aged women so much. After all, if old ladies are as exciting as we are taught that they are, how come the Gantrys and others of the Thirty only have young concubines? This was one of the questions we asked ourselves, and we think we have the answer...."

Grundy broke in, "Have you ever wondered, Comstock, why it is that the only women who have children are the ones who are called up before the Fathers?"

This was even worse than the time Comstock's father had told him the "facts of life." Much worse, for what Grundy was intimating was at variance with what his father had taught him. It was worse.

"Maybe," Grundy said broodingly, "just maybe there is a damn good reason why the Fathers are called the Fathers!"

There are moments in life so terrifying that the very ground seems to shift beneath one's feet. That was the sensation that Comstock was experiencing. All was alien. He clung to the tattered copy of Father Goose as the only tangible thread that held his reeling sanity together. Averting his eyes from Grundy's and Bowdler's faces he hurriedly read,

Even the familiar rhyme failed in its lulling purpose. He could no longer hide behind its chant-like curtain. Bowdler's voice went on, striking ever more harshly at the roots of Comstock's being.

"What a mockery all of our lives would be if what Grundy and I think is true. Suppose everything we have been taught is a lie. What then little man? What then?"

From some unknown and previously untapped reservoir of strength Comstock managed to dredge up the ability to say, "That's ridiculous. There would be no reason under the two suns for that to be true. The truth is mighty and will prevail."

"Just a little less of the copy-book maxims if you don't mind, old man," Bowdler said. "Hear us out."

"Just suppose," Grundy bent his stocky middle body over so that he was closer to Comstock. "Just suppose for the sake of argument, that we are right. That our whole way of life is false. Look what that could mean."

Bowdler broke in, excitement making his voice harsh and rasping. "Suppose there is no real merit in old age. Suppose that the one-hundred-and-fifty year olds whose intelligence we worship as a matter of course, are really just senile old people! Then what?"

Grundy's face set. His mouth set in thin lines of derision. "I know for a fact, that the Elders are just that. Elder. There's no magic in old age no matter what they taught us in school or what they keep yelling and yammering at us all the time. Old people are just old...."

Was there no end to the men's blasphemies? Comstock shook his aching head wearily. First they had attacked the peak of all things, The Grandfather. Next they had profaned the Fathers, and now the Elders. What sacred functionaries were left to attack? None, he realized with some relief. For the pyramid of his government was erected on the broad base of the Elders, who were guided and advised by the Fathers, who were in turn guided and led by that font of all knowledge, The Grandfather.

Taking a deep breath and setting his heavy jaw, Bowdler said, "If The Grandfather is a fake as I am beginning to believe, and the Fathers a pack of self-seeking sybarites who stay in power just because they are the most direct descendants from the original Thirty, and if the Elders are doddering fossils whose intellectual powers are supposed to befuddle us and keep us in place, than I say with Grundy, the time has come to overthrow this foul regime."

So there had been a final blasphemy left!

This one was so gigantic, the meaning Bowdler's words conveyed, so treasonable, that Comstock found himself waiting for the end. Just so far could men go and no further. These two must be wiped out, destroyed along with their poisonous statements!

The idea!

Overthrow The Grandfather!

The very lightnings would, must come down and blast the two impious villains where they stood.

Comstock waited.

The lightnings, if they were coming, seemed long delayed.

But surely The Grandfather who was everywhere and knew all things must have overheard these infidels.

Why then did He not strike them down, limb and body?

It was only then, that in the very back of Comstock's mind a nervous little finger of doubt began to twist and turn, and finally asked a question.

"Suppose," the little finger scratched on the blackboard of his cortex, "suppose they're right ... suppose The Grandfather is not all powerful and all knowing?"

Then he waited for the lightnings to strike him too.

And all the while he wrestled with himself his two friends sat in strained silence, waiting ... waiting....

No lightning.

Some of the tension began to drain out of Comstock, and as it did, Grundy and Bowdler exchanged knowing looks. Bowdler said at last. "Welcome."

"Welcome, Jimmy." Grundy smiled, "now you are one of us."

One of them.

He had exchanged the peace and security of resting in Grandfather's arms, of putting his weary head against Grandpop's long beard ... Grandpop? How fast he was sliding.... He had exchanged the surety of his life, for what?

For the friendship of two drinking companions. Somehow the swap did not seem to his advantage.

Bowdler seemed almost to be able to read his mind, for he said, "Buck up, Jimmy. You're going to find it's good to be a whole man. There are rewards!"

But all Comstock could remember was the ease and safety of that which he was surrendering. It came hard. Very hard.

"Growing up is always difficult," Bowdler said, his voice soft and full of understanding. "But I promise you there are rewards."

What rewards?

Before Comstock could put his question into words, there was a crashing sound at the door, the real door, not the hidden one by which they had entered the sacred precincts of the Gantry's room.

The primapara of the door trembled beneath the assault that was being launched on it.

Through the heavy wood they could hear the voice of authority. "Open up in the name of the R.A."

All a tremble, Comstock searched his friends' faces for reassurance.

He found none.

Bowdler said, "I don't understand it."

"No point in going back the way we came, the R.A. will have found that by now," Grundy said and his forehead was washboarded with worry.

CHAPTER 5

If only the R.A. had arrived a little earlier was all that Comstock was able to think. Five minutes earlier and his convictions would have been safe. He'd have been able to throw himself into the R.A.'s protection and tell all. That way would have meant safety and perhaps a reward.

But now?

Bowdler's bulky body moved toward the door. He yelled, "All right, keep your halo cool, I'm coming."

How, Comstock wondered, could anyone be so brave? No fear showed on Bowdler's granite-like face. None at all. His hand on the door knob, he paused and called back over his shoulder, "Grundy, come here, stand at this side of the door, you, Comstock, stand on the other side. I'll stall him, and if my plan works, you two beat it! Fast! Grundy, you know where to take Comstock!"

"Sure, to Helen's," Grundy said and took up a position at the side of the door. Comstock, knees wobbling, hands sweating, stomach writhing, took up the position indicated for him.

Then Bowdler opened the door. He bowed derisively and said, his tones steady, the words ironical. "Won't you come in and make yourself comfortable?"

It was the same R.A. whose small features and lean hand had menaced them in the saloon.

His halo was bright with anger. His hand had the stun-gun at the ready. The words that came from his mouth were bright with menace. He said, "I want you three to know that my gun is set to kill!"

Now sweaty-footed fear was walking down Comstock's back. Never had he heard of an R.A. using the death control on his gun. Ordinarily just the threat of nervous stunning was enough to make the most irate submissive.

Long legs spread wide apart, hands on his hips, Bowdler said, "By what right do you enter the sanctum of a Gantry?"

"By the right invested in me by the Fathers and by my warrant from The Grandfather!" The R.A.'s reedy voice was cold.

Throwing his big head back, Bowdler laughed in the man's face. He said, "Well, now, that sounds real important. But does it mean anything?"

Spread in a straight line, as the three men were, the R.A. could only menace one of them at a time. His gun went back and forth in a slow arc.

He said, "Put your hands behind your backs and come quietly."

"Throw ourselves into the broad lap of The Grandfather, eh?" Bowdler asked and he seemed to be enjoying himself tremendously.

"Of course. He understands and He will judge your case according to its merits!"

"And having understood our case, and having judged it in advance, He will have us 'removed' for the good of society?" Bowdler asked, but it was more of a statement than a question.

"That remains to be seen," the R.A. said.

"Humph," Bowdler grinned, "if we play it your way, our remains will be all that will be seen. No, thank you. I don't think I like that method at all!"

With no warning and with no change of expression, Bowdler waited till the R.A.'s gun was pointed at Grundy at one end of its slow arc, then threw himself in a berserk charge straight at the R.A.

The R.A. hurriedly swung his gun back and pulled the trigger. He missed, and by that time Bowdler's long arms were around his knees and he was being dragged down to the soft carpet on the floor.

At the precise moment that the R.A. began to fall, Grundy gestured for Comstock to follow him and ran through the door. It took a second or so for Comstock's frozen muscles to obey his frightened brain, but then as the R.A. brought the gun up level with Bowdler's forehead and pulled the trigger, he ran.

The last sight he saw, as he chanced a look over his shoulder, was the sight of all intelligence draining out of Bowdler's face. The charge had hit him.

Slamming the door on the scene, Comstock ran, and as he ran he screamed to Grundy, "The R.A. killed him! He killed Bowdler."

Ten feet away the news made Grundy pause and almost stumble, but Comstock saw him recover and then run on. He yelled back to Comstock. "Tough. He was a good guy. But we gotta keep goin' or we'll be killed too."

The endless corridor through which they were running was dank and it was dark. There was no curve, no up or down. It was simply a black hole through which they ran and ran, and kept on running. When Comstock thought that he would never be able to breathe again, that his muscles could no longer bear his weight, that he must slump in a helpless heap and wait for death, he heard Grundy snap, "Ten feet more."

The words shot a new charge of adrenalin into Comstock. With a last surge of strength he darted after his friend's back. As a matter of fact he lunged full tilt into it because the darkness was so complete he could not see his hand before his face.

Grundy grunted, "Hold everything. I have to find the latch."

Another moment that seemed to stretch out far beyond the end of eternity and then, just as Comstock's strained ears heard footsteps running behind him in the dark. Grundy said, "There it is." And a door opened. Beyond was further darkness, but it was not as complete as the stygian blackness they were leaving. Falling through the doorway, Comstock fell to his face as Grundy slammed the door behind them.

"That'll hold the R.A. for a minute and that's all we need."

Lifting his head, forcing his trunk upwards from the ground, Comstock saw that they had come out on a street ... he looked at it while his breath raced in and out of his tortured lungs ... the street was familiar. It was the one that housed the b.....l to which he repaired once a month.

At the curb waiting, was an R.A.'s carriage. The team of astrobats waited patiently in harness, their too-pointed faces and four ears heavy with menace towards anyone who dared to approach them.

Staggering to his feet, Comstock felt Grundy's arm go around his shoulders. Grundy half carried, half pushed him into the carriage.

"But ... we can't go in this!" Comstock gasped. "You know the penalty for even going near an R.A.'s carriage!"

A final push shoved Comstock onto the seat. Grabbing the wicked metal electro-whip, Grundy forced the recalcitrant astrobats into what those crotchety animals considered a gallop.

"The first person who sees us will call for help! We're not even dressed like R.A.'s!" Comstock said.

Grundy was kind. He said patiently, "Our halos will protect us."

Looking at Grundy's head, Comstock half expected to see the silvery sheen of the mark of an R.A. But there was no sign of one.

"Are you insane? We have no halos. Only the R.A. has them."

Whipping the team expertly, Grundy said, and his words were a sigh, "You have much to learn, Comstock. There are no halos except in the eye of the beholder."

"What does that mean?"

The carriage was racing by the b.....l now and Comstock was amazed to see the madame, who was standing in the doorway, make the sign of reverence and obeisance as they raced by.

"The halos don't exist. They're just post-hypnotic suggestion implanted in our minds when we're kids. We're conditioned to see the halos when we see an R.A. We're in an R.A.'s carriage now and so anyone seeing us will see our halos. It's as simple as that. But then, you don't know what hypnotism is, do you?"

"No." Comstock said this humbly and at the moment he felt that he knew nothing at all. He turned and looked backwards.

Down the street behind them, the R.A., his halo shining brightly, like a good deed in an evil world, was pointing his gun at them. Comstock said, "The R.A. found the door. He's going to shoot us!"

Wordlessly, Grundy flicked the whip over the beasts' backs. The carriage swerved and carried them around the corner. Comstock could not tell if the R.A. had fired and missed, or had held his fire, for of course a stun-gun is silent as the grave, and only affects the human nervous system.

Careening along the quiet streets Comstock found time to feel deep and real sorrow for Bowdler. It still did not seem possible that anyone could have been as brave as all that. Aloud he said, "Bowdler sacrificed himself for us, didn't he?"

Grundy nodded, his eyes alert, scanning the road ahead, for what? Comstock wondered.

"When you are daring what we are, you must be prepared for instant sacrifice," Grundy said.

"Hadn't we better give up?" Comstock asked. "Two of us against the entire world seems ridiculous. What chances have we?"

"None if you feel that way. But if you feel as Bowdler did and as I do, that it is worth anything to be a man, then it is worth while. Any chance is worth taking."

Grundy's tone changed. He said, "When I turn the next corner I'll slow the team down. When I do, jump out."

Jump out? What new madness was this? But before he had a chance to argue, Grundy had pulled hard on the bits and snapped, "Now!"

Rolling free of the carriage on his side, Comstock saw even as he fell to the ground, that Grundy had thrown himself out of the other side of the carriage.

The team raced on, dragging the empty carriage banging and clattering at their multiple heels.

Shaken, bruised, sore from head to foot, Comstock said as Grundy pulled himself to his feet. "Why did you do that?"

"Let the R.A.'s keep their radio tail on the carriage. A lot of good it'll do them!"

Grundy again helped him to his feet, and then said, "Follow me."

Comstock's mind was a whirl again. What was a radio?

The street was even quieter than most in Comstock's city. Small houses, a decent distance apart, lined the lawns where the purplish grass sparkled in the light of the twin moons.

The house that Grundy stopped in front of was identical with all the others. He took a key from his pocket and opened the door. Then he called out, "Helen!"

Comstock had come a long way at that moment when he had waited futilely for The Grandfather's wrath to strike him dead, but he had not come to the point where he could watch the indecency of the scene that followed. Averting his eyes as the young girl entered the room, he wished desperately that he might be struck deaf so as not to have to hear what followed their entry.

In the first place she was obscenely young, not more than twenty-five. In the second place her ugly young skin was completely without wrinkles. In the third place she threw her round young arms around Grundy's neck, and in the fourth place she k....d him hard and long on the l..s and in the fifth place she crooned to him l..e words that no one should ever be forced to hear.

"Darling, darling, darling," she said over and over again. "I've missed you so terribly, I've been so worried ... but it's over and you're near me again."

"Dearest," Comstock could not help hearing Grundy say and his opinion of the man descended sharply, "My loveliest sweetheart."

Then their l.ps met again in a sustained and prolonged bit of pornographic action that left Comstock weak. Worse perhaps than the way they were pushing their l..s against each other was the way they had glued their bodies together.

He coughed trying to bring them back to their senses.

Grundy broke away from the girl. "Thank The Grandfather," Comstock thought, and then bit his lip as he realized that he no longer had the right to call on that name....

The girl said, "But where's Bowdler? Darling, what's happened ... he hasn't been ... he isn't hurt?"

"Worse, dear." And the man touched her hair. The sight made little horripilations go up and down the hair on the back of Comstock's head.

"He's not dead?"

"Yes, my darling, but he died bravely trying to save us."

She bent her head reverently and Comstock was pleased to see that even so brazen a hussy was still not lost to all the common decencies.

Grundy cleared his throat and made an obvious effort to change the subject. He said, "I'm sorry, I've forgotten to have you meet our new friend." Grundy introduced them.

Horror piled on horror. Comstock's face whitened as the young girl walked to him, took his hand, shook it, and then impulsively k....d him on the cheek.

Thank Grandfather she stopped after an interminable moment and turned back to Grundy. She asked, her voice low and shaken, "But dearest, oh my dearest, what are we to do now? Bowdler was so strong, so sure of himself; he knew so much more than we do of what is really happening in this sick world of ours ... what are we to do?"

There, it was happening again. Comstock averted his shocked eyes as Grundy put his hand on the girl's w...t and said, "You are to do nothing, my love. You'll stay here in safety. You know that Bowdler and I decided that this is a man's job, and it must stay that way. I'll take no chance of risking your lovely skin...."

Then he turned to Comstock and said decisively. "There's no use waiting any longer, taking chances, risking death the longer we wait. We'll eat, rest a bit, and then, we'll risk all!"

"You mean...." The girl let her voice fade away.

"Tonight, in half an hour," Grundy said, his face set and stern, "Comstock and I will go before the Board of Fathers and challenge The Grandfather!"

Some of his resolution faded and he said more quietly, "But how I wish Bowdler were with us. We three might have stood a better chance. But he had set the time as tonight, and I'll not be false to his trust."

Half an hour, Comstock thought dully. It wasn't long to live ... not long enough at all....

CHAPTER 6

In one way the half hour just vanished. In another, it lasted longer than all the rest of Comstock's life put together. While he stood in the doorway, his back to Grundy and the impassioned l..e scene that Helen and Grundy were enacting as what might be their last farewell, he wondered how thirty minutes which had seemed to go on so long, seemed to fly past so quickly.

He could hear Grundy almost moan, "'Helen thy beauty is to me as ...'", and then harsh and strident, drowning out all other sound, seeming like the sound that was the ultimate that human ears could ever bear to hear there came an enormously amplified voice.

Comstock had never heard The Grandfather speak, and yet, now hunching himself into a pre-natal ball, his hands pressed tight against his ears, he knew that no other voice could have held that command, that awe-inspiring tone, that this voice held which now threatened to deafen him permanently.

The words that smote at Comstock were, "I am displeased."

Grundy ran to Comstock, gripped him by the shoulders, pulled Comstock's hands away from his ears and roared, "Follow me! They've got a speaker hidden someplace near here. I never knew they'd found Helen."

The girl's face was washed clean of every emotion but that of anger. She stood at Grundy's side, her hands on her hips and the words she spat out, hurt Comstock's ears even more than the larger than life roar of The Grandfather.

She said, "What a cheap trick!"

"Darling, I can't leave you here now. You must come with us!" Grundy's face was tortured.

"I know," she assented and waited for his orders.

Somehow Comstock forced himself to his feet. He would not, could not, allow himself to be shamed by this girl child. It was unmanly.

The voice of The Grandfather said, "My grandchildren are being naughty. I do not like this conduct. I am afraid, very afraid that you three need punishment."

The tones mumbled a long time after the words were no longer separable. It was like the aftermath of thunder. Comstock moaned in horrified torment.

All his fears were back. The Grandfather was omnipotent just as he had always been taught. And yet, and yet ... that little canker of doubt in the back of his head kept muttering, if that were so, how could the girl have called it all a cheap trick? Were there even more things, that he, Comstock, did not understand?

As far as his fevered eye could see there was no sign of humanity. Comstock knew that behind the drawn blinds of the houses on the street people like him were huddled in fear, hoping desperately that the voice did not refer to them.

Grundy said, "If they've got a speaker planted near here, that means we're under surveillance."

"Of course," Helen agreed, "that's obvious. What do we do about it?"

"I wish I'd never gotten you involved in this, dear," Grundy said.

"I'm glad. For if you hadn't, we'd never have had what little we have had out of life. I think it's been worth it, and more."

The smile on Grundy's face was so radiant, the renewed courage he clearly had received from what she said, made Comstock think that perhaps Bowdler had been right, perhaps there were indeed rewards for being a whole man.

Grundy blew a kiss to Helen, and then a smile that oddly enough reminded Comstock of Bowdler crossed his face. He walked from the entrance of the house out into the center of the street. Then, feet separated, again so like Bowdler, his hands on his hips, he threw his head back and looking at the sky he roared out a challenge.

"Come and get us! Don't treat us like sorry grandchildren, come and get us. I dare you!"

Across the street Comstock saw a curtain being pulled slightly to one side. Then a frightened eye stared out. The Grandfather or his representatives would have to answer Grundy's challenge, he realized with a little thrill of pride.

The powers-that-be dared not allow the people to see a man defy The Grandfather.

It was, Comstock thought, rather a wonderful thing to be a rebel.

But the feeling passed quickly when, with a speed that defied his understanding, a kind of vehicle he had never before seen appeared roaring out of the distance. It had four wheels, and a carriage-like body, but no team of astrobats drew it. Instead it seemed to be propelled by magic. It was rather a noisy magic for a series of explosions seemed to come from the front of it constantly.

Above the low roar of the carriage's explosions rose the voice of The Grandfather. "I have dispatched a chariot for you. Beware my wrath and come quietly."

Helen looked jubilant. She said, "We're forcing their hand. This is the first time in centuries they've found it necessary to use a car!"

"If we only had more strength," Grundy said, "I'd almost be optimistic. We sure have them worried."

Then the object Helen had called a "car" drew up in front of them and a door opened. Four of the leanest, hardest R.A.'s that Comstock had ever seen pointed stun-guns at the three of them. The man who sat behind a wheel said, "Get 'em in quick. No sense in having too many of these slobs see this car."

Comstock flashed a look of inquiry at Grundy.

"Sure let's join them. It's easier to be driven there, than to have to walk as I'd figured!"

The vehicle was obviously not designed to hold seven people and since the four R.A.'s drew away from Helen with the same kind of sick disquietude that Comstock had felt, the small remaining space left for Grundy, the girl and Comstock made them all wedge in rather tightly.

Helen's flesh was soft and warm, Comstock realized with a shock, and the clean, sweet smell of her in his flaring nostrils was a warning that Bowdler and Grundy might well be right. There was something about young women ... something unlike the emotion he had felt on his monthly visits to his elderly lady friends in the b.....l.

The "car" raced through the deserted streets with a speed that would have scared Comstock out of a year's growth if he had not had so many other larger worries tearing at him.

Most baffling to him was the fact that despite the fact that they were going before a tribunal which would sentence them to death, Grundy was able to lean closer to Helen and whisper to her a poem that Comstock had never heard before and the words of which failed to make any sense.

He was saying, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?"

And then he k....d her.

In the Grandfather's "car" with four R.A.'s right there, Grundy was k.....g Helen!

It was flabbergasting to Comstock and in a strange way that he could not quite understand he felt a little pang of jealousy. He found he would have liked to have had a Helen next to him.... Someone young and brave ... and soft ... and warm ... who smelled like the girl now pressed so close against him.

Something of what he was thinking must have communicated itself to the girl for she turned from her beloved and said, "Poor Comstock. It's not as though you were all alone. We're with you!"

Then her full-soft lips were pressed on his forehead.

The blood pounding into his head made his face flare crimson.

Sounds of disgust from the four R.A.'s made him angry instead of upset as they might have.

What did they, poor fools, know of the feelings of a rebel? Of a ... hero?

The kiss buoyed him up all the way to the House of the Fathers. But then, when the ominous, tall, round building rose up in front of them, and he could see the two circular perispheres at the base of the trylon-like structure, fear returned.

In one of the completely round low buildings was the House of the Fathers. The other, on the right hand side, was the meeting place of the Elders. And high above in the very tip of the tall round building was The Grandfather's Retreat.

It was awe-inspiring because never before had he been closer to it than a mile and that only on those days sacred to the memory of The Grandfather.

The car jolted to a halt right in front of the trylon.

The R.A.'s hustled the three of them out of the vehicle. Where were they to be taken? Comstock watched wide-eyed. Their guards took them past the door on the right. So they were not to be taken before the Elders!

There was no sign that they were going to be forced over to the left. That meant they were not to go before the Fathers.

Instead they were marched through the center door.

Breathing became almost impossible for Comstock. They were being taken into The Grandfather's Retreat.

Never before had he heard of such a thing happening. But then, of course, never before had anyone challenged The Grandfather. At least not to Comstock's knowledge.

Inside the doorway there were broad windows. Through one of them Comstock could see into the room where all the Elders were met in solemn conclave. Their aged incredibly wise faces were heavy with responsibility. All of the seamed faces were turned so that the Elders could see the three who had defied authority.

The force of all the red-rimmed eyes staring at Comstock was enough to turn his knees to jelly. Instantly Grundy was at his side, words of encouragement on his lips.

He said, "Forget the old codgers. They're so senile they don't even know what's happening."

In some way Grundy's blasphemy was like a jolt of fresh air, or a couple of corpse revivers. With the thought of liquor, Comstock suddenly realized that he should be sick. His heart should be bothering him. It had been ages and ages since he had had a drink. And yet, despite all the alarums and excursions, his heart had not bothered him. That was odd....

But all thought, and almost all consciousness ebbed away when that voice came thundering down.

It said, "Take them before The Fathers before you bring them to me!"

The R.A.'s paused in their tracks and then changed the direction in which they had been going.

Ahead was the biggest door that Comstock had ever seen. Discreetly lettered on it was a sign. It read, "The Fathers."

The leader of the R.A.'s opened the door and then Helen, Grundy and he were pushed through the door into an ante-room. It was small and on the far side of it was an even bigger door than the one by which they had entered.

All around the walls of the little room were chairs.

Comstock realized with horror that the door was all that separated them from the united might of the Fathers. They must be meeting in solemn conclave, deciding what should be done with the three guilty ones.

And then the R.A.'s left, their halos shining more brightly than Comstock had ever seen any R.A.'s halo shine.

The three were alone.

The Fathers in the next room, and above all brooding in titantic majesty was The Grandfather ... waiting....

Helen sat down, crossed her legs, with a flourish that revealed not only her slim a....s but, Comstock gulped as he watched in awed fascination, he could see her c....s! They were round and full.

Throwing himself into a chair next to her, Grundy said, "It's their next move, blast them! I hope they hurry it up!"

Unable to do anything but pace back and forth, sneaking an occasional look at Helen's l..s, Comstock brooded about what had happened to him.

Nightmarish in essence, he yet wondered whether it hadn't been worth it. He was no braver than ever, but there were new emotions, new sensations raging through him. After all, he was a man. And as a man, he was, when all was said and done, capable of being a father. For that matter right at that moment, and looking almost boldly at Helen's c....s, he felt that he would kind of like to be a real Father! Not with Helen, after all she was Grundy's, but with some other girl like her....

He had not ever felt that way about any of the elderly ladies he had seen, and certainly never with the woman he visited once a month.

Turning he faced the door behind which the Fathers were sitting and considering his case. The arrogance of them! To think that if his friend's hypothesis was correct, these men had their pick of all the young girls on the planet with whom to.... Even then, he could not think the word, but the anger was real.

He still could not watch when Grundy k....d Helen and touched her, but he found that it was for a different reason.

Then Helen gasped and Grundy swore, and Comstock turned to look in the direction of their gaze.

The door of the Fathers' room had opened.

And through it walked Bowdler. Big as life!

CHAPTER 7

Bowdler's smile was as warm as ever, and his face was just as alive as it had been before Comstock saw it glaze in death. He said, "Take it easy, kids. I'm alive. Really I am."

Then all three, Grundy, Helen and Comstock spoke at once, their words garbled, their tones excited. Bowdler held up one meaty hand and said, "Hold everything. The R.A. lied when he said that his stun-gun was set to kill. That's all there is to it. I came to shortly after you both got away."

Grundy and Helen were at Bowdler's side, Grundy pump-handling his friend's hand, Helen hugging him with relief. But Comstock stood off to one side and considered this miraculous return from death. Why, he wondered almost coldly, had the R.A. lied? What function would it serve? Had it served?

Bowdler must have felt Comstock's thoughts for he turned and said, "There was a reason, Comstock. Truly there was, and a good one."

The seriousness in Bowdler's tone made Helen and Grundy draw back a little. Then they retreated in sudden panic at his next words, for Bowdler said, "You see, my friends, I ordered the R.A. to lie to you."

Perhaps because Grundy had been a friend of Bowdler's longer or perhaps because Comstock had been pushed as far as a man can be pushed, for whatever reason, or combination of reasons, Comstock suddenly found himself for the first time in all his wild adventure taking the initiative. He snapped, "No one can give an R.A. an order but a Father!"

Bowdler smiled, "That's right, Comstock. Good work, boy. You have come a long way."

It was Grundy who gasped, "Then you are a Father?"

Nodding, Bowdler said, "Yes."

Before they could question Bowdler any further, he suddenly put his finger to his lips in the immemorial gesture for silence. Then he pointed at the closed door behind which the Board of Fathers were sitting in solemn conclave. Bowdler whispered, "We've only got a split second before you are called up before them."

"What can we say, what can we do?" Grundy pleaded.

"I thought," Bowdler said, his brow furrowed with worry, "that I'd be in a position to fight for you all by this time. But my plan didn't work out. They're furious at your effrontery. I'm afraid if you go before them now they'll sentence you to death."

Comstock looked around him wildly. Life had become much more sweet to him in the last few days and he didn't intend to give it up without a battle.

Bowdler said, "If I could only spirit you all away to safety...."

That was when the door opened. A uniformed emissary of the Fathers, his regalia frightening in its black severity, came through the doorway. He was to the left of Comstock.

He barked, "Follow me." Then, sure in the arrogance of power, he turned his back on Comstock and the others and began to walk back towards the door. It was obvious that the thought that they might not follow him had not even crossed his mind.

Grundy made a signalling motion to Comstock, a chopping gesture with the side of his hand that puzzled Comstock mightily. Seeing that Comstock was baffled, Grundy brought the edge of his hand down in the same chopping motion on Helen's neck. Then he pointed at the black garbed man who was leading the way into ... death....

Once the idea penetrated Comstock's considerably bemuddled mind he sprang into action as though he had been trained in violence all his life. Leaping closer to the emissary he whacked the edge of his hand down on the nape of the man's neck.

As he did so, Grundy and Bowdler ran to join him. They caught the man before he hit the ground. Comstock stood stock still, and looked at his hand in some wonder. The idea! His hand had struck down a member of the inner circle of the Fathers' Right Arms! Incredible!

As though the whole thing had long ago been rehearsed in its entirety, Helen pushed the door closed, hiding completely what had just happened.

All the while that Comstock stood and gloried in his own daring, the others were busy ripping the uniform from the unconscious man's body.

Bowdler was grunting from the effort, his big beefy face almost vermillion with strain. He had yanked off the guard's trousers and was now holding them up in front of Grundy, as if estimating how they would fit.

"Nope." He grunted, and then threw the pants to Comstock. "They'd never fit Grundy. You'll have to wear the uniform."

Still bemused, for otherwise the very thought of doing what he was, would have made him faint, Comstock stripped off his own trousers, in front of Helen! and put on the guard's. While he was busy dressing, Bowdler said, "The only thing I can see to do, is for you to try to escape from here, with Comstock masquerading as an R.A. Meanwhile, I'll join the Fathers and see if I can distract them long enough to let you three get away."

"But where will we go?" Helen asked, "They've found out about me, and my house."

"I know, I know," Bowdler grunted impatiently. "Let me think."

By that time Grundy had helped Comstock into the form fitting black jacket. The final touch was the menacing slouch hat that went with the uniform.

Comstock drew himself up proudly. This was living! Of course, he thought, and the idea made him deflate his chest rapidly; if they were caught now, their deaths would be even more unpleasant.... But he patted the evil little stun-gun at his hip, and tried to feel very, very brave.

The man on the floor, looking highly undignified in his long underwear, and not at all menacing, stirred uneasily, and moaned. Bowdler bent down and rapped him on the point of his chin, and the man relaxed into deep unconsciousness again.

Not willing to be put off any longer, Comstock asked, "Bowdler, since you're a Father, why are you doing what you're doing?"

"No time for that, boy, no time at all."

Grundy added his curiosity, "But we must know, Bowdler, we can't keep up this insane hare and hounds chase unless we know what's going on!"

Bowdler pushed Grundy and Helen towards Comstock and snapped, "Later, later. For now, all I can say is that I am fed up with the unfairness of the way our world is being run. I went out into your world to try and find rebels to use as the nucleus for a revolution. But there's no time now for any further explanations. Listen to me carefully. The guards at the front entrance would recognize you, Comstock, even in that uniform, so you must escape by the back exit. To get to it, turn right when you leave here, go to the end of the long hall, and then turn left, follow that passage to its end and then turn right. That'll lead you to the garage. Commandeer a car and go to 14 Anthony Comstock Road. I'll join you as soon as I safely can."