Read Ebook: Headhunters of Nuamerica by Coblentz Stanton A Stanton Arthur Kyle David A Illustrator

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Ebook has 115 lines and 8401 words, and 3 pages

Downey gasped. Could it be that every one in the twenty-third century was mad?

"Well, are you going to speak or not?" piped the Councillor, leaning down from his throne until Downey thought he was about to fall off. "I'm giving you your chance to prove where you come from!"

As simply as he could, Downey attempted to state the facts of his origin; although he felt convinced that there would be little gain in arguing with a lunatic. And, as he foresaw, his words evoked only merriment. "Truly, stranger," said the chief tormentor, after he, the courtiers and the guards had all rocked back and forth with laughter, "you have little imagination, if you cannot think of a better story! So you were born in the year 1915! That is, 1915 by the old reckoning! Why, that would make you older than I! And I'm the most elderly man in this district, even though I won't celebrate my two hundred and seventy-fifth birthday till next year!"

Downey stared, and said nothing, more convinced than ever of the Councillor's madness.

"Of course, if it were not for you young man," the leader went on, meditatively, "I would have been in my grave two centuries ago. It is you who supply us with the robust young bodies to keep our old heads alive. I well remember how, just two hundred and nine years ago, I was pronounced at the point of death from heart disease--and the transfusion to a young body was performed barely in the nick of time. Since then, I've had the operation repeated once every thirty years--which accounts for my present good health."

From amid these rambling phrases, Downey had begun to catch a gleam of horrible meaning. Was the old man really mad after all? Or had he and his followers been kept alive through some dread process of grafting new bodies on to old heads?

Even as these questions flashed across the young man's mind, he heard the renewed rasping of the Councillor's voice, "I give you one final chance, sir! If you can't explain who you are and where you're from, you will be honored, according to the law of Nuamerica, by giving your head--"

He was interrupted by a half muffled cry. Judith, with one hand to her mouth, had vainly tried to keep back her horror.

The scowl on the Councillor's mummy face gave way to a faint smile as he turned to the girl, and said, "Have no fear, lady. You will not share in the honor. Don't you know that the Official Head Commission only last year exempted women from the Draft?"

And then, blandly turning to the guards, the Councillor ordered, "Take the prisoners to the body-testing rooms. I believe we are up on our schedule, are we not?"

"Yes, Your Highness," returned the leader of the guards, bowing until his bare knees touched the floor, "there is no reason why your desires should not be executed within three days."

"Splendid!" approved the Councillor; while Downey, his arms still bound by the cramping wires, felt himself being drawn away in the midst of his grinning, kilted captors.

Stripped to the waist, Downey stood in a gray steel room that somewhat resembled the turret of a battleship. Gun-shaped implements bristled from the grim painted walls; a veritable arsenal of knives glistened behind him; while in the foreground was a series of tall machines equipped with an intricacy of dials and tubes, to one of which Downey's left arm had been strapped.

Just behind Downey stood a queer looking individual; robed in black, although with bare knees, according to the local custom; and with a black mask, and two tubes like doubly long opera glasses attached to his eyes. Eagerly he was bending over the dials, and reciting, half as though to himself, "339. 339.1. 340.1. 340.3." Then, with sudden enthusiasm, he snapped off the mask and glasses, revealing a wizened ancient face, and exclaimed,

"Young man, I congratulate you! You have passed!"

"Passed what, Doctor?" demanded Downey, as the examiner freed his arms from the straps.

"Passed the body test! You have come through with high honors! I never saw a more perfect physique! No flaw--no disease! Your score is more than three hundred and forty--and two hundred and thirty, as you may know, is considered a good average. I shall recommend you for immediate decapitation! My congratulations again, young man!"

Downey glared at the blacked robed one. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "It seems to me nearly every one here has lost his head, but that's no reason I want to lose mine!"

"Ah, but it's considered a glorious thing, young man! To be decapitated for your country's sake! Not every one can rise to such heights! Your name will be enshrined in the Tablet of Heroes!"

"I can get along without that," stated Downey, drily. "All I'm asking to know is what this nonsense is all about."

"Nonsense? You won't think it's nonsense, young man, when you put your neck under the knife!"

Noting the look of bewilderment and horror on Downey's face, the Doctor continued in a different vein:

"Well, maybe I'd better explain. I'm coming to see you're sincere in claiming ignorance. Not that I can accept that silly story about the twentieth century. But judging from your looks, your queer accent and out-of-date manners, you are undoubtedly from some foreign country, where maybe the people are uncivilized and don't know anything about decapitation."

The black-robed one seated himself on a little revolving stool, crossed his legs, and slowly went on:

"The original invention was made about three hundred years ago, by a physician named John Knight, who lived in an ancient city called New York. Was it necessary, Knight asked, for our best and most brilliant minds to be taken from us at the early age of seventy or eighty owing to some bodily defect? If fed by a vigorous blood-stream, the brain would continue to function indefinitely--perhaps for centuries. But a vigorous blood-stream, after senility had set in, could come only from another body. Therefore, Dr. Knight concluded, if an old man's head were grafted on to the body of a youth, the old man might continue to live, with new limbs and organs, but with mental faculties unimpaired. Think what a boon it would be for the race, if we could keep our great geniuses alive for hundreds of years!"

"But how was it possible, Doctor," broke in Downey, "to attach one man's body to another man's head?"

"It wasn't possible until after long experimentation. But the same principle had already been applied in the grafting of limbs. There was a gas, Etherene by name, which would produce suspended animation for a few hours, even stopping the heartbeat and the circulation of the blood. Any part of a man's body might be cut off while he was in this condition; and if ligament was fitted to ligament, bone to bone, and blood-vessel to blood-vessel, the removed portion might be attached in its proper place to the body of another Etherene patient. Of course, this required skilled surgery. But it was found that, by making proper measurements in advance, it was possible to graft arms, legs, ears, eyes and even whole bodies on to new possessors."

"That doesn't explain," remarked Downey, grimly, "where the new bodies would come from."

"No, it doesn't." The speaker arose, pointed to a crimson wall-chart marked, "Selective Decapitation Draft," and then went on to state, "There has been a great deal of trouble on that score. In fact, the Anti-Draft Revolution of the Twenties was fought on these grounds alone. First, as to whose lives would be preserved by the new invention. Of course, our rulers voted themselves that privilege. Also, the friends and relations of the rulers. Then all persons whose income tax was high enough were automatically entitled to remain alive. Furthermore, those who got in by what is vulgarly called graft--unfortunately, there have been some scandals on that account. And, finally, if there were bodies enough to go around, a place was to be made for the geniuses, such as great scientists, philosophers, poets, etc.

"I regret greatly to say, however," the Doctor concluded, with a sigh, "that we have never yet gotten that far down on the list."

"That still doesn't tell me," Downey insisted, "where you get the young bodies to attach to the old heads."

"Well, that has always been a problem," admitted the Doctor. "At first we used the bodies of criminals condemned to capital punishment. But the age was a humane one, and abolished capital punishment. Then we called for volunteers. But people showed a decided lack of patriotism. So finally we adopted the draft. All young men between twenty-one and thirty-one must be permanently registered. If they are selected in the great annual lottery and are found to be without taint or disease, they will have the blessed fate of giving their bodies to rejuvenate their country's aged leaders."

"But are the drafted men the only ones taken?" inquired Downey, anxiously.

"No, we are broad-minded. We offer the same distinguished lot to criminals--and to aliens without a passport. That is how you gained your chance, young man. As it happens, we are now far down the list. Your turn will come in just three days."

With a groan, Downey stared at the gray, knife-lined walls that hedged him about like a fortress prison. For the first time in his life he regretted--and bitterly regretted--the care he had always taken to keep in prime physical condition. He chewed his lips in mortification to think that he had come to the twenty-third century only in order to nourish some tottering dodo with his life blood. But for one reason above all others he was stabbed with grief: a vision had burst over him of Judith's eager face and burning bright blue eyes; and with a rush of vehement emotion it came to him that he could not, must not die! How would she fare, alone and friendless in this strange century? To escape from the bleak steel walls appeared impossible; yet for her sake, more than for his own, he must find a way to avert the threatened doom.

Two days had gone by. Up and down the length of a long curtained room Downey slowly paced, with drooping head and drawn white face. Sumptuously upholstered chairs and carven tables were ranged about him, as if to lend luxury to his final hours. But it was not these that he observed; his eyes were drawn constantly to the door, which was crossed with steel bars, beyond which two kilted figures stood beside an ugly black apparatus resembling a machine-gun.

Bitterly he reviewed in his mind his fruitless efforts to free himself. The windows were locked and grated; the single door was guarded, and he was under constant surveillance. Every effort had been made to render his last days comfortable--but what comfort could he take when he was held like a doomed ox in the stall, awaiting the slaughter? He had hardly slept and barely taken food; and the final irony, he thought, occurred when he was handed a steel plaque which read, "The Purple Badge of Heroism. Died for his country this Thirty-Third day of May, in the year 314 of the New Era."

"Well, guess I'm as good as dead already," he reflected as he stared at these words.

He had flung the iron plaque to the furthest corner of the room, and had sunken into a chair with his head buried in his hands, when a rattling at the door caused him to start up abruptly.

"A visitor to see the prisoner!" he heard one of the guards droning, automatically. And the other responded, as automatically, "Let her in! Let her in!"

Leaping up, he observed Judith peering dismally through the bars.

"Mort!" she cried, in tones of mingled joy and sadness; while as he sprang forward to meet her he observed that two kilted women and a guard accompanied her. He also noted--and was a little hurt at the incongruity of the fact--that she had taken pains with her make-up: she was carrying her handbag, and the rouge on her lips was particularly thick, and the powder was smeared on her cheeks in great white patches.

"Mort, I--I've done everything," she exclaimed, as she flung out both hands to him. "But it was--it was no use. They wouldn't even let me see you till this minute. I--I've come to say good-bye, Mort."

He noticed that her big blue eyes were brimmed with tears. And in the tumult of that moment his own eyes were moist. With a swift impulse, he drew her to him, bending down and pressing his lips against hers. But, even as he did so, a powerful restraint seized him against his will. Caught by a sudden spasm, he turned aside, inwardly cursing--and sneezed.

Then again he sneezed, and again, and again, with fierce explosiveness; and the tears rolled from his eyes, which began to grow red and inflamed. Seven times in all he sneezed; then, with a growl, he muttered, "Damnation! There goes my hay-fever again!"

"Your what?" the guard inquired, not quite catching the words. "What kind of fever did you say?"

"Hay-fever," Judith answered. "It's a pestilence that used to rage in the twentieth century."

"Never heard of it," said the guard; at which the girl, drawing a mirror and powder-puff from her bag, began to smear her face anew; while Downey once more sneezed violently.

"Sounds mighty dangerous!" concluded the guard; and opening a little black tube on the wall, he called into it, "Send Doctor ZX down here at once! The prisoner has a fit!"

Downey was just completing his third sneezing spell a minute or two later when the black-robed Doctor arrived. With a dismayed gasp, he stared at Downey; then opened a little case and took out a mass of batteries and wires, which he attached to the prisoner's wrists and ankles, while he damped two tubes to his ears and listened.

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