And Then the Town Took Off, Richard Wilson [story reading txt] 📗

said at last.

"I should say not," Don agreed. "Millions of years."

She looked at him sharply. "I wasn't talking about the age of the Earth. I mean this room—this lookout post—whatever it is."

He grinned at her. "I agree with you there, too. I'm really a very agreeable fellow, Miss Jervis. Obviously, whoever built it knew well in advance that Superior was going to take off. They also knew how much of it was going up and exactly where this would have to be built so it would be at the edge."

"Under the edge, you mean, with a downward view."

"That's right. From a distance I'd say Superior looked as if someone had cut the end off an orange. The flat part—where the cut was made—is the surface and we're looking out from a piece of the convex skin."

"You put things so simply, Mr. Cort, that even a child could understand," she said acidly.

"Thank you," he said complacently. He had remembered that whoever was listening in for Military Intelligence through the tiny radio under his shirt could have only a vague idea of what was going on. Any little word pictures he could supply, therefore, would help them understand. He had to risk the fact that his companion might think him a bit of an idiot.

Of course with this Geneva Jervis it was easy to lay himself open to the scathing comment and the barbed retort. He imagined she was extremely useful in her role as Girl Friday to Senator Bobby Thebold.

"I don't think this is the work of those boobies at the booby hatch," she was saying.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The Cavalier Institution of Applied Foolishness, whatever they call it. They just wouldn't be capable of an undertaking of this scope."

"Oh, I agree. That's why I let you drag me away from the meeting. It was a lot of pseudo-scientific malarkey. Old Doc Rubach, D.V.M., was going on about the ultimote being connected to the thighbone, way up in the middle of the air. Tell me, who do you think is behind it all?"

She was walking around the big-sided room as if taking mental inventory. There wasn't much to catalogue—six straight chairs, heavy and modern-looking, with a large wooden table, a framed piece of dark glass that might be a television set, and a gray steel box about the size and shape of a three-drawer filing cabinet. This last was near the big window-wall and had three black buttons on its otherwise smooth top. Don itched to push the buttons to see what would happen. Jen Jervis seemed to have the same urge. She drummed on the box with her long fingernails.

"I?" she said. "Behind it all?"

"Yes. What's your theory? Is this something for the Un-Earthly Activities Committee to investigate?"

"Don't be impertinent. If the Senator thinks it's his duty to look into it, he will. He undoubtedly is already. In the meantime, I can do no less than gather whatever information I can while I'm on the scene."

"Very patriotic. What do you conclude from your information-gathering so far?"

"Obviously there's some kind of conspiracy—" she began, then stopped as if she suspected a trap.

"—afoot," Don said with a grin. "As I see it, all you do is have Bobby the Bold subpoena everybody up here—every last man-jack of 'em—to testify before his committee. They wouldn't dare refuse."

"I don't find you a bit amusing, Mr. Cort, though I have no doubt this sophomoric humor makes a big hit with your teen-age blonde. We'd better get back. I can see it was a mistake to expect any co-operation from you."

"As you like, Madame Investigator." Don gave her a mock bow, then turned for a last look down at the vast segment of Earth below.

Geneva Jervis screamed.

He whirled to see her standing, big-eyed and open-mouthed, in front of the framed dark glass he had taken for a television screen. Her face was contorted in horror, and as Don's gaze flicked to the screen he had the barest glimpse of a pair of eyes fading with a dissolving image. Then the screen was blank and Don wasn't sure whether there had been a face to go with the eyes—an inhuman, un-earthly face—or whether his imagination had supplied it.

The girl slumped to the floor in a faint.

COLUMBUS, OHIO, Nov. 1 (AP)—Sen. Robert (Bobby) Thebold landed here today after leading his Private Pilots (PP) squadron of P-38's on a reconnaissance flight which resulted in the loss of one of the six World War II fighters in a crash landing on the mysteriously airborne town of Superior, Ohio. The pilot of the crashed plane parachuted safely to Earth.

Sen. Thebold told reporters grimly:

"There is no doubt in my mind that mysterious forces are at work when a town of 3,000 population can rise in a body off the face of the Earth. My reconnaissance has shown conclusively that the town is intact and its inhabitants alive. On one of my passes I saw my secretary, Miss Geneva Jervis."

Sen. Thebold said he was confident Miss Jervis would contact him the moment she had anything to report, indicating she would make an on-the-spot investigation.

The Senator said in reply to a question that he was "amazed" at official Washington's "complete inaction" in the matter, and declared he would demand a probe by the Senate Investigations Subcommittee, of which he is a member. He indicated witnesses might include officials of the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and "possibly others."

LADENBURG, Ohio, Nov. 1 (UPI)—Little Ladenburg, former neighbor of "The City in the Sky," complained today of a rain of empty beer cans and other rubbish, apparently being tossed over the edge by residents of airborne Superior.

"They're not so high and mighty," one sanitation official here said, "that they can make Ladenburg their garbage dump."

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (Reuters)—American officials today were at a loss to explain the strange behaviour of Superior, Ohio, "the town that took off."

Authoritative sources assured Reuters that no military or scientific experiments were in progress which could account for the phenomenon of a town being lifted intact thousands of feet into the air.

Rumors circulating to the effect that a "Communist plot" was at work were greeted with extreme scepticism in official quarters.

Bulletin

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 1 (UPI)—The airborne town of Superior began to drift east across Ohio late today.

VI

The unconscious Geneva Jervis, lying crumpled up in the oversized fur coat, was the immediate problem. Don Cort straightened her out so she lay on her back, took off her shoes and propped her ankles on the lower rung of a chair. He found she was wearing a belt and loosened it. It was obvious that she was also wearing a girdle but there wasn't anything he wanted to do about that. He was rubbing one of her wrists when her eyes fluttered open.

She smiled self-consciously. "I guess I was a sissy."

"Not at all. I saw it, too. A pair of eyes."

"And a face! A horrible, horrible face."

"I wasn't sure about the face. Can you describe it?"

She darted a tentative look at the screen but it was comfortingly blank. "It wasn't human. And it was staring right into me. It was awful!"

"Did it have a nose, ears, mouth?"

"I—I can't be sure. Let's get out of here. I'm all right now. Thanks for being so good to me—Don."

"Don't mention it—Jen. Here, put your shoes on."

When he had closed the big wooden door behind them, Don padlocked it again. He preferred to leave things as they'd found them, even though their visit to the observation room was no longer a secret.

He was relieved when they had scrambled up the steps under the grandstand. There had been no sense of anyone or anything following them or spying on them during their long walk through the tunnel.

They were silent with their separate thoughts as they crossed the frosty ground and Jen held Don's arm, more for companionship than support. At the campus the girl excused herself, saying she still felt shaky and wanted to rest in her room. Don went back to the dining room.

The meeting was over but Alis Garet was there, having a cup of tea and reading a book.

"Well, sir," she said, giving him an intent look, "how was the rendezvous?"

"Fair to middling." He was relieved to see that she wasn't angry. "Did anybody say anything while I was gone?"

"Not a coherent word. You don't deserve it but I made notes for you. Running off with that redhead when you have a perfectly adequate blonde. Did you kiss her?"

"Of course not. It was strictly business. Let me see the notes, you angel."

"Notes, then." She handed over a wad of paper.

"Rubach," he read, "Magnology stuff stuff stuff etc. etc. Nothing.

"Q. (Conductor Jas Brown) Wht abt Mayor's proclamation Superior seceded frm Earth?

"A. (Civek) Repeated stuff abt discrimination agnst Spr & Cavlr & bubl gum prices.

"Q. Wht u xpct gain?

"A. Stuff abt end discrimination.

"Q. Sovereignty?

"A. How's that?

"Q. R u trying set up Spr as separate city-state w/govt independent of U S or Earth? ('That Conductor Brown is sharper than I gave him credit for,' Alis elaborated.)

"A. Hem & haw. Well now.

"Q. Well, r u?

"A. (Father, rescuing Civek) Q of sovereignty must remain temporarily up in the air. Laughter (Father's). When & if Spr returns wil acpt state-fed laws as b4 but meantime circs warrant adapt to prevailing conditions.

"Rest of mtg was abt sleeping arngmnts, meals, recreation privileges, clothing etc."

Don folded the notes and put them in his pocket. "Thanks. I see I didn't miss much. The only thing it seems to add is that Mayor Civek is a figurehead, and that if the Cavalier people know anything they're not talking, except in gobbledygook."

"Check," Alis said. "Now let's go take a look at Pittsburgh."

"Pittsburgh?"

"That's where we are now. One of the students who lives there peeped over the edge a while ago. I was waiting for you to come back before I went to have a look."

"Pittsburgh?" Don repeated. "You mean Superior's drifting across the United States?"

"Either that or it's being pushed. Let's go see."

There hadn't been much to see and it had been too cold to watch for long. The lights of Pittsburgh were beginning to go on in the dusk and the city looked pretty and far away. A Pennsylvania Air National Guard plane came up to investigate, but from a respectful distance. Then it flew off.

Don left Alis, shivering, at her door and decided he wanted a drink. He remembered having seen a sign, Club Lyric, down the street from the Sentry office and he headed for it.

"Sergeant Cort," said a muffled voice under his collar.

Don jumped. He'd forgotten for the moment that he was a walking radio station. "Yes?" he said.

"Reception has been excellent," the voice said. It was no longer that of Captain Simmons. "You needn't recapitulate. We've heard all your conversations and feel we know as much as you do. You'll have to admit it isn't much."

"I'm afraid not. What do you want me to do now? Should I go back and investigate that underground room again? That seems to be the best lead so far."

"No. You're just a bank messenger whose biggest concern was to safeguard the contents of the brief case. Now that the contents are presumably in the bank vault your official worries are over, and though you're curious to know why Superior's acting the way it is, you're willing to let somebody else do something about it."

"But they saw me in the room. Those eyes, whatever they are. I had the feeling—well, that they weren't human."

"Nonsense!" the voice from the Pentagon said. "An ordinary closed-circuit television hookup. Don't let your imagination run away with you, and above all don't play spy. If they're suspicious of anyone it will be of Geneva Jervis because of her connection with Senator Thebold. Where are you going now?"

"Well, sir, I thought—that is, if there's no objection—I thought I'd go have a drink. See what the townspeople are saying."

"Good idea. Do that."

"What are they saying in Washington? Does anybody put any stock in this magnology stuff of Professor Garet's?"

"Facts are being collated. There's been no evaluation yet. You'll hear from us again when there's something to tell you. For now, Cort, carry on. You're doing a splendid job."

The streets were cold, dark, and deserted. The few street lights were feeble and the lights in houses and other buildings seemed dimmer than normal. A biting wind had sprung up and Don was glad when he saw the neon words Club Lyric ahead.

The bartender greeted him cheerfully. "It ain't a fit night. What'll it be?"

Don decided on a straight shot, to start. "What's going on?" he asked. "Where's the old town going?"

The bartender shrugged. "Let Civek worry about that. It's what we pay him