The Victor
By Bryce Walton
Illustrated by Kelly Freas
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of ScienceFiction March 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Charles Marquis had a fraction of a minute in which to die. He droppedthrough the tubular beams of alloydem steel and hung there, fivethousand feet above the tiers and walkways below. At either end of thewalkway crossing between the two power-hung buildings, he saw theplainclothes security officers running in toward him.
He grinned and started to release his grip. He would think about them onthe way down. His fingers wouldn't work. He kicked and strained and toreat himself with his own weight, but his hands weren't his own any more.He might have anticipated that. Some paralysis beam freezing his handsinto the metal.
He sagged to limpness. His chin dropped. For an instant, then, the firein his heart almost went out, but not quite. It survived that oneterrible moment of defeat, then burned higher. And perhaps something inthat desperate resistance was the factor that kept it burning where itwas thought no flame could burn. He felt the rigidity of paralysisleaving his arms as he was lifted, helped along the walkway to asecurity car.
The car looked like any other car. The officers appeared like all theother people in the clockwork culture of the mechanized New System.Marquis sought the protection of personal darkness behind closed eyelidsas the monorail car moved faster and faster through the high clean air.Well—he'd worked with the Underground against the System for a longtime. He had known that eventually he would be caught. There were rumorsof what happened to men then, and even the vaguest, unsubstantiatedrumors were enough to indicate that death was preferable. That was theUnderground's philosophy—better to die standing up as a man with somedegree of personal integrity and freedom than to go on living as aconditioned slave of the state.
He'd missed—but he wasn't through yet though. In a hollow tooth was acapsule containing a very high-potency poison. A little of that would dothe trick too. But he would have to wait for the right time....
The Manager was thin, his face angular, and he matched up with the harshsteel angles of the desk and the big room somewhere in the SecurityBuilding. His face had a kind of emotion—cold, detached, cynicallysuperior.
"We don't get many of your kind," he said. "Political prisoners arebecoming more scarce all the time. As your number indicates. From nowon, you'll be No. 5274."
He looked at some papers, then up at Marquis. "You evidently found out agreat deal. However, none of it will do you or what remains of yourUnderground fools any good." The Manager studied Marquis with detachedcuriosity. "You learned things concerning the Managerials that have sofar remained secret."
It was partly a question. Marquis' lean and darkly inscrutable facesmiled slightly. "You're good at understatement. Yes—I found out whatwe've suspected for some time. That the Managerial class has found someway to stay young. Either a remarkable longevity, or immortality. Of allthe social evils that's the worst of all. To deny the people knowledgeof such a secret."
The Manager nodded. "Then you did find that out? The Underground knows?Well, it will do no good."
"It will, eventua