Read Ebook: The Argosy Vol. 51 No. 5 May 1891 by Various Wood Charles W Charles William Editor

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Ebook has 708 lines and 45404 words, and 15 pages

BREATHES THERE A MAN

BY CHARLES E. FRITCH

ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH

Someone in the place where Dunlop worked was an agent of the World Bureau Investigation. But how could they suspect him at a time like this? His tracks were covered and tangled until even Julie had no knowledge of them. Then the robot came....

Arthur Dunlop busied himself over the blueprints as though he had a deep and sincere interest in them, unmindful of the scurry of sounds in the office. The incessant clicking of electronic typewriters, muffled though they were, combined to form a hum of angry bees. Papers shuffled that were important somehow to the welfare of the State, and men and women sat and looked at them, checking and rechecking, checking and rechecking, for it was important that nothing should go wrong, any place, in even the slightest aspect.

The small square of paper had been dropped on his desk unobtrusively, and for a brief moment he had stared at it in surprise. Then he covered it with a casual hand and glanced up in apparent thoughtfulness. A blonde girl was making her way down the space between rows of metalloid desks, a bundle of vital-appearing documents in her hands. Arthur studied the swaying body, as though that were the only thought on his mind, but the paper burned curiously at his palm.

Drawing 2b, one-tenth of the plan for a respirator, newly-designed and improved, streamlined for the year 2108, Arthur could just imagine the advertising they'd do on this model. But the other thought crowded it aside: the underground knew there was a WBI man in the office.

And just why would there be a WBI man here? Routine? Possibly. Yet more likely, somebody smelled a rat. This was no time for plans to go awry.

He looked up, glancing with apparent disinterest at the faces near him hovering over their respective desks. They, too, were busy with blueprints. Part 3d of a new atomic engine. Part 14c of a three-dimensional television set designed to bring in bigger and better commercials. Et cetera. Et cetera. For security reasons, no two worked at the same project.

Arthur shrugged mentally and returned to his work. He stared at the design of coils and condensers and wires and felt a little sick, which was strange for he should have become used to it by now. This design, together with nine others, would form the complete pattern for printing a mechanism on a thin disc which would be inserted in the watch-like affair known as a respirator. It was somehow ironic, he thought that he should be working on it.

His intercom buzzed and he reached to flick on the switch. A business-like voice said: "Dunlop, this is Samson, can you come in for a minute?"

"Of course," Arthur said calmly, but he wondered what his superior wanted. First, the note about a WBI man; now this.

The big door marked "Charles L. Samson, Mgr., Dept. 40" confronted him. As he neared it, electric eyes probed him, timed his approach, opened the door automatically.

Charles L. Samson, Mgr., Dept. 40, graying and cleanly mustached, was intently studying a sheet of paper on which were typewritten several paragraphs. Arthur drew to a halt before the man's desk, unconsciously fidgeting mentally and wondering if the item of interest on that paper concerned him.

The manager carefully put the paper down and raised his eyes. "Everything okay, Dunlop?"

"Simply great," he answered automatically.

The older man leaned back in his chair. "Dunlop," he said, "you've been here for some time now, I believe."

"Five years this month," Arthur supplied, trying to put pride in his voice.

"Precisely," Samson agreed. "And because you have been a loyal and dependable worker," he smiled blandly, "you'll find a little something extra in your pay envelope from now on."

Arthur breathed a sudden sigh of relief. So that was it, the automatic pay increase. It meant no financial gain, of course, since he would also automatically be put in a higher tax bracket which would just offset the increase. Pay raises were for "morale" purposes only.

"Thank you, sir," Arthur said, hoping he sounded as though he meant it.

"Quite all right," Samson said, turning once more to his papers.

"Yes, sir." Arthur strode, relieved, from the office.

The rest of the workday passed uneventfully and it was time to leave. The soft hum of preparations testified to that. Plans were folded, locked securely into desks, and workers filed past probing mechanical eyes that scanned them for anything hidden. Doors whirred open electrically, and humanity poured through them into tubecars which hissed with sickening speed to the helibus terminal.

Arthur flowed into a helibus with the others, and his heart gave a sudden jump as he saw a familiar blonde form ahead of him. Julie! He wormed his way forward and sank onto the air-cushion beside her. She did not look at him. The helibus lurched skyward.

She was staring out the window, at the blue sky and the cloudfaces and the sun beginning to dip low at the horizon. The building they had left glowed with the million setting suns reflected from its great bank of windows. After awhile, her fingers moved restlessly. Arthur Dunlop watched them idly. The movements were swift, seemingly random but actually precise and predetermined.

They said: "I couldn't hesitate at your desk; I had to take a chance with the note."

Arthur glanced complacently about him, stifling a yawn. His fingers rippled: "Who is the WBI agent?"

"Underground doesn't know--yet," she told him silently. "Meet me tonight."

"Will I see the leader?" he asked.

"Meet me tonight," was all she would reply.

He nodded, as though to himself, and stared at the signs adorning the inside of the bus. Names made familiar by television leaped at him. There was Ronson, Franklin, Stallman, Eliot, names of all kinds to give the impression of existence to a long-dead free enterprise; all were government owned, competing to enhance the illusion.

Who was the leader, he wondered, and why the secrecy? Some government bigwig probably, who kept his secret from all but a few. Well, time would tell.

He glanced out the window at the countryside rushing below. Trees. Green fields. The beginnings of the city of small square dwellings. A man got up, went to the rear of the helibus. After awhile, Arthur rose, went down the aisle to the exit platform. He paused for a minute, and then he stepped into space.

The air whirled about him; twin rotors, appearing from his clothing, churned and scraped the air, lowering him gently through the five hundred feet to the ground. Overhead, the helibus continued its prescribed journey, discharging passengers who resembled fluttering insects. He came to rest gently atop his roof, and the rotors ceased and folded invisibly beneath his coat.

The moon had risen well into the twilight sky, that moon which only a few hundred years before had furnished lovers with inspiration. Now, looking at it, one thought inevitably of the Lunar Prison Colony that occupied its entire surface, of the persons who had been sentenced to spend years on its ugly barren wasteland. Inspiration came possibly, but it was of a different nature.

He descended into the house, into the single room that was bedroom, living room, parlor. Helen, brunette and beautiful, attired in the semi-transparent slacks that were the decreed style, rose from the couch and gave him a wifely peck on the cheek.

"Everything okay?" she asked, not appearing particularly interested. The standard question.

"Simply great," he said.

He settled into a hard plastic chair, uncomfortable but designed to improve posture.

The television set was blaring: "Nothing could be greater than to have a respirator made by Fra-a-a-a-nklin!" On the 40-inch screen a happy couple, Franklin respirators on their happy wrists, were bouncing happily across a miniature solar system, using planets for stepping stones.

I must be an atavist, he thought. How can people actually put up with this stuff. He could not subdue the grimace that rose automatically, but he managed to turn it into a grin as he saw Helen looking at him curiously.

"Something funny?"

"Nothing in particular." He couldn't very well tell her he thought a government-sponsored commercial was amusing. That was the equivalent of treason, for which the Lunar Prison Colony had been constructed.

Not that Helen wasn't understanding. Their marriage had been lacking in many things, true, but she was inclined to be fair and broadminded on most issues which were not controlled. But when it came to things like the State and its directives, most people got emotionally patriotic. It was something like trying to discuss religion a century earlier, except that in the present case arguments could be easily won by sending the "treasonous" person to the prison satellite. The law made plain what was right and what was not.

"I was just thinking," he said, hoping to explain the grimace, "about a fellow at the office. He suggested that we should get a rebate on the airtax, because we don't utilize all the air we breathe in."

"You reported him, of course."

"Worse than that. We told him if he didn't like it he could stop breathing. Crime doesn't pay anymore."

"I should hope not," she said, and she seemed perfectly serious.

There was no point in arguing with Helen, so he didn't. She apparently had little interest in politics other than a layman's desire to see justice prevail, and if the government wanted to tax the air they breathed, why--let them; they were taxing everything else.

That's why he found himself drawn irresistibly to Julie; she wasn't a slave to convention. That's why he liked to meet her in the darkness of the outside, when the curfew forbade anyone venturing into the night--at least, that was one reason. She was part of the forbidden fruit he secretly desired and vowed would have.

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