Part 11

The revolt. The terrible, criminal revolt that had started in the mating centers and was now sweeping the city, and would spread to other cities if it were not put down immediately.

How clever they had been, how wise in their criminal depravity! They had dared to put _that woman_ on the screen and she had spoken of motherhood and love, as if a harlot could have any understanding of such things.

But it was not too late. There was still time. Now, now, all would be avenged.

The hideous flood of memories dwindled and fell away and she looked down through the thrumming, transparent floor of the flying machine's cockpit and let less appalling memories take complete possession of her mind.

How quick she had been to act, to assume command, to bypass Security Alert and the Chief Monitor and to order an aerial counter-attack!

This was surely her greatest moment, for no one could stop her now from bombing every one of the mating centers, bombing them into smoking heaps of rubble.

And the men and women in the streets, criminals all, she would see that not one of them escaped.

Oh, she would make very sure. Armed rebels on foot could not hope to escape alive when the bombs started falling. And they would find themselves trapped in a raging inferno and the rebellion would be crushed forever and no one would ever dare rebel again.

A firm hand on her arm caused her to turn. An aerial fleet commander stood at her elbow, a look of deep concern in his eyes. He was a tall, handsome-looking man, darkly bearded. He held himself very straight and she could not help admiring the breadth of his shoulders and the attractive curliness of his hair.

"The last machine in the line of flight has dropped four bombs," he said. "And we have just--"

The gaunt woman straightened, cutting him short with an abrupt, angry gesture.

"Four bombs! What are you talking about? I heard no detonations."

"The last machine is flying very low and it has fallen behind," the commander replied, the look of concern still in his eyes. "That's why you didn't hear the bombs explode. But that is not what I am worried about."

The gaunt woman's stare sharpened. "Just what are you worried about?" she demanded.

"He has dropped the bombs far wide of the targets," the commander said. "That in itself would not be a grave cause for concern, for it would indicate merely poor marksmanship. But he appears to have--perhaps it was not deliberate, but--"

The commander paused, realizing that he was putting all this very badly. But the woman before him was no ordinary Monitor and her formidable aspect made him feel unusually nervous and ill at ease. The news he had to convey was disturbing, and he was a little afraid of alarming the Monitor unduly.

He coughed to clear his throat and tried again.

"He has not only dropped the bombs wide of the targets," he said. "He has dropped them on the _wrong_ targets."

The gaunt woman stared at him for a moment in stunned disbelief. "What are you trying to say? Have you taken leave of your senses? How could he?"

"It is hard to explain. It's as if he had deliberately managed to miss a target and direct the bombs to another target close by, so that you could only accuse him of missing one target and accidentally hitting another. But it almost seems as if more than just poor marksmanship is involved, because every bomb destroyed an important communications center, or administration building. Not a single bomb hit a mating center or any of the public squares which you gave us instructions to bomb."

The gaunt woman gripped both arms of the revolving metal chair in which she had been sitting and descended to the metal platform which ran the full length of the cockpit. She stood very still, transfixing the commander with a terrible, accusing stare.

"You fool!" she cried. "You slow-witted imbecile! Of course it was deliberate. _That man is a traitor._"

The commander had turned deathly pale. "But it doesn't make sense," he said, defensively. "If he is a traitor, why doesn't he leave the squadron and bomb strategic targets without so cleverly masking his intentions that it is difficult to charge him with treason?"

"You are a worse fool than I thought. It is to his advantage to stay with the squadron. If he were alone in the sky he would be a perfect target for our long-range aerial projectiles. We could bring him down in a matter of minutes. But if he appears to be merely a bad marksman another man who is a stupid commander will play right into his hands. There is a dangerous traitor in the squadron and you have done absolutely nothing about it. Do you know just what targets he bombed?"

"As I told you--all vital centers."

"How vital? Major centers?"

"No, it isn't quite that bad. But we are flying very close to the Council building now, and that's why I thought--"

"Never mind what you thought. Are you sure he only dropped four bombs?"

The commander hesitated, gnawing at his underlip.

"Well?"

"We can't be completely sure. The atomic diffusion bombs do not detonate and their trajectory is invisible from the air. He could have dropped one and we would not know."

"The deadliest kind of bomb!" The gaunt woman shuddered. "The heat destroys everything in its path. A white incandescence, hotter than the Sun's photosphere. It burns through flesh and bone, reducing the human body to charred ash in a matter of seconds. I would not wish such a fate on my worst enemy."

The flying machine shuddered suddenly, as if it had flown through a raging windstorm and was being buffeted from both sides. The cockpit trembled throughout its entire length and the metal chair spun about on its support so violently that if the gaunt woman had still been sitting in it she would have been hurled with violence to the floor.

The blast which followed close on the first convulsive lurch of the machine could be heard even from the air. The sound penetrated the glass-enclosed cockpit and made the gaunt woman's ears ring and the red flare which accompanied the blast was so bright that it dazzled her eyes.

Looking down, she could see the terrible core of the explosion beginning to expand, thinning a little as it spread outward and enveloping the surrounding streets and buildings in a fiery glow.

"The Council Building!" the commander groaned, his voice almost a sob. "He must have unloaded a rack of at least eight bombs."

The gaunt woman's face was a colorless mask, her lips distorted in a grimace that drew the flesh so tightly together on both sides of her mouth that it gave her features an almost mummy-like look. She remained for a moment rigid, unable to move or speak, and so abnormal was her aspect that the commander wished that he had kept silent and let realization come to her slowly.

He was even more appalled when she reached out and fastened her hands on his wrists. She tugged at him, drawing him toward her. She twisted his wrists savagely and then released him with a violent shove.

"Blast him down! Order the entire squadron to attack him with projectiles at once! They are to abandon all strategic bombing. Do you understand? If his machine does not go spiraling down in flames within the next five minutes you will pay for your stupidity with your life."

The commander nodded and withdrew, his throat so dry that he could no longer swallow and his gait so unsteady that he arrived in the gunnery compartment reeling like a drunken man.

Gradually the gaunt woman regained control of her shrieking nerves and some of the color crept back into her face. She reseated herself in the revolving chair and strained forward, waiting for the sky to light up with the bright flare of projectiles and the still brighter flare of a flame-enveloped and tailspinning flying machine.

She knew that she would not be able to see the actual destruction of the machine, for it was the last in line and, as the commander had informed her with his stupidity heavy upon him, flying very low. But she would know quickly enough, for the commander would not be slow in breaking the news when one or more of the projectiles found its mark.

She waited and as the shock and rage which she had experienced on seeing the Council building blasted to rubble began to wear off, she became more reconciled to what had happened. It was just possible that the Council--all of the Council--had been within the building, summoned into emergency session by the Chief Monitor. That was perhaps too much to hope for, but she saw no reason to let the unlikelihood of that darken her mood. At least half of the Council would be gone, for half of the Council resided in the building. It greatly reduced the number of her enemies and immeasurably enhanced her prestige.

There was the sudden, blinding flare of a projectile and she stiffened in anticipation, her eyes darting to the empty sky immediately above her and then sideways, hoping that the target-tagged machine with its traitor-pilot would increase its speed in a last-minute escape maneuver and come into view for a moment. If only she could witness the direct hit, could see it explode in the air!

Her hopes soared until she could scarcely breathe. But the traitor did not come into view. There was another bright projectile flare and the second machine in the squadron came abreast of the cockpit window, flying parallel at a distance of eighty or ninety feet.

There was something wrong with the way the second machine was flying. It had put on a sudden burst of speed, but now it was slowing down and wobbling from side to side.

It was unmistakably in trouble. Its cockpit seemed to sag, as if one of the interior struts had given way or the entire structure had been half shot away, on the side that was hidden from her.

Heavy black smoke began suddenly to spiral from the machine's middle section, coalescing into a thick black cloud in the air above it. It wobbled more violently from side to side and then, quite suddenly, it was plunging downward, twisting and turning in a zigzagging tailspin as it went spiraling toward the earth.

The gaunt woman was given no time to recover from the shock of that totally unexpected defeat. Another machine came into view in the sky above her and burst almost instantly into flame. Two more projectile flares lit up the sky, turning the bright silvery sheen of a third machine's wings to crimson as it turned completely about in the air and plummeted downward like a wounded falcon, its tail feathers in wild disarray.

The fourth defeat she did not see. News of it came to her through a speaking tube, in a voice that she recognized, a voice that brought a hot flush of anger to her cheeks.

"The squadron leader is dead. He's shot down five machines so far. There's nothing we can do. He keeps outmaneuvering us at every turn. There are eight or ten different ways a really brilliant pilot can hold his own and be more than a match for a whole squadron. He knows all of them."

The gaunt woman slammed the speaking tube down with such violence that it abraded the flesh of her knuckles, causing her to wince in pain.

She steeled herself to endure without complaint what she feared would be coming--the destruction of a sixth machine and a seventh. And after that? There were only nine machines in the squadron.

It was even worse than she had imagined it might be. Two of the four remaining machines were shot down almost simultaneously. She did not see them fall but the two bright flares that lit up the earth far below left no doubt as to what had happened.

Feeling a dull, hollow ache in her chest, she found herself wondering whether the machine in which she sat, would be next, or would tragedy overtake the only other remaining machine first?

She was not left long in doubt. A dull concussion shook the cockpit, and she was thrown violently forward. For an instant a kaleidoscope of changing colors seemed to spin and whirl about her. With the spinning came a dizziness and black nausea clawed at her throat.

She dragged herself to her feet, and clung to the long metal rail on the right side of the cockpit, staring out through a splintered surface of glass at nothing at all.

For a moment nothing and then she saw him. She saw the machine that had outfought and outmaneuvered an entire squadron and in the cockpit a pilot who wore upon his chest the bright insignia of the love-privileged.

_She saw the pilot's face._

Clearly, clearly she saw it, and he must have seen her face, for he was staring straight at her.

It was the face, the one face above all others that she hated with every breath she drew and would hate until she ceased to draw breath.

For one awful moment she looked into Teleman's eyes and saw Teleman's lips move in pity.

Then she was falling. Down and down into a swirling abyss of emptiness, falling with the broken and burning machine ... falling, falling.

EPILOGUE

"The revolt can't be stopped now," Leguria said. "We shall have our new world and we shall all be a part of it."

She drew herself up, her eyes shining, and smiled at the man and woman who had just climbed down from a smoke-blackened flying machine, a machine which only an aerial engineer who had built bridges in the deep jungle would have known how to maneuver with skill in an hour of decision.

Dusk was falling and its purple glow, deflected downward from the shining glass of the machine's cockpit, aureoled Leguria's hair in a soft radiance.

"I may have seemed to you a strong-willed and determined woman," she said. "But I am not really like that at all. It is just that circumstances change people."

She nodded and fell silent, and Teleman and Alicia were content just to be together in the peaceful quiet of the countryside, until the twilight deepened and gave birth to a wild rush of stars.

They lay down together under those stars, and let passion creep over them slowly, knowing that they had time now, and freedom to love.

THE END

* * * * *

THEY CALLED HER A SHAMELESS HARLOT....

How long can a girl suppress the love urges that are natural to a beautiful and healthy female? Alicia was denied the privileges of the women in the Mating Center, but she was lovely, and she was desperate.

She could see lust flame in the eyes of the men she met on the Travel Strip--men who tore their eyes away to go to their glass enclosed cubicles to perform their daily tasks.

Deliberately she stripped the sober raiment of the industrial worker from her luscious body, and put on the revealing, tantalizing garb of a sex-privileged woman.

Then Alicia set out to use her bewitching body to upset the "Utopian" society of 2896, to topple the cold, unfeeling leaders of that society--to prove that _sex cannot be denied_.

MATING CENTER

A CHARIOT BOOK