Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 Part 22

The old man's eyes wavered. He trembled violently.

"Why did you lie?" demanded Karl. "Am I not your nephew? Am I not really cursed as you've maintained? Tell me--tell me!"

He had the old man by the shoulders, shaking him cruelly.

"Karl--Karl," begged the helpless ancient, "it was for your good. I swear it. You were born to the purple. That's what that mark means--not that you're degraded to the gray, as I said. But there's a reason. Let me explain."

"Bah! A reason! You've kept me in this misery and squalor for a reason!

Who's my father?"

He flung Rudolph to the floor, where the old man crouched in apprehensive misery.

"Please Karl--don't! I can explain. Just give me time. It's a long story."

"Time! Time! For twenty-odd years you've lied to me; cheated me. My birthright--where is it?"

He menaced his supposed uncle; was about to strike him. Then suddenly he was ashamed. He turned on his heel.

"I'm leaving," he said shortly.

"Karl--my boy," begged Rudolph Kra.s.sin, struggling to his feet. "You can't! That lad in there--he--"

But Karl was too angry to reason.

"To h.e.l.l with him!" he raged, "and to h.e.l.l with you! I'm through!"

He stamped from the room and out into the eery shadows of the Way. Karl was done with his old life. He'd go to the upper levels and claim his rights. Some day, too, he'd punish the man who'd stolen them away. G.o.d!

Born to the purple! To think he'd missed it all! Probably was kidnaped by the old rascal he'd been calling uncle. But he'd find out. Rudolph didn't have to explain. Fingerprint records would clear his name; establish his rightful station in life. He dived into a pa.s.sage that would lead him to one of the express lifts. He'd soon be overhead.

A sergeant of the red police looked up startled from his desk as a tall youth in the gray denim of forty levels below appeared before him.

"Well?" he growled. The stalwart young worker had stared belligerently and insolently, he thought.

"I want to check my fingerprint record, Sergeant."

"Hm. Pretty c.o.c.ky, aren't you? The records for such as you are down below, where you belong."

"Not mine, I think."

"So? And who the devil are you?"

"That's what I'm here to find out. I've got a triangle branded on my right hip."

"A what?"

"Triangle. Here--look!"

The amazing youngster had raised his jacket and was pulling at his shirt. The sergeant stared at what was revealed, his eyes bulging as he looked.

"Lord!" he gasped, "a Van Dorn--in the gray!"

Quickly he turned to the radiovision and made rapid connection with several persons in turn--important ones, by the appearance of the features of each in the brilliant disc of the instrument.

Karl was confused by the sudden turn of things. The sergeant talked so rapidly he could not catch the sense of his words. And that name, Van Dorn, eluded him. He knew he had heard it before, in the little shop down there in Astor Way. But he could not place it. He wished fervently that he had paid more attention to the desires of old Rudolph; had studied more and read the books the old man had begged him to read. His new surroundings confused him, too, and he knew that he was the center of some great new excitement.

Then they were in the room; two individuals, one in the red uniform of a captain of police, the other a pompous, whiskered man in purple. Others followed and it seemed to Karl that the room was filled with them, strangers all, and they stared at him and chattered incessantly. He experienced an overwhelming impulse to run, but mastered it and faced them boldly.

A square of plate gla.s.s was placed under his outstretched fingers. It was smeared with something sticky and he watched the whiskered man as he held it up to the light and studied the impressions. Then there was more confusion. Everyone talked at once and the pompous one in purple made use of the radiovision, holding the square of gla.s.s near its disc for observation by the person he had called. The identification number was repeated aloud, a string of figures and letters that were a meaningless jumble to Karl. The room became quiet while the police captain thumbed the pages of a huge book he had taken from among many similar ones that filled a rack behind the desk.

Karl's blood froze in his veins at the rumbling swish of a car speeding through the pneumatic tube beneath their feet. His nerves were on edge.

Then the captain of police looked up from the book and there was a peculiar glint in his eyes as he spoke.

"Peter Van Dorn. Missing since 2085. Wanted by Continental Government.

Ha!"

The words came to Karl's ears through a growing sensation of unreality.

It seemed that the speaker was miles away and that his voice and features were those of a radiovision likeness. Wanted by the great power across the Atlantic! It was unthinkable. Why, he had been but an infant in 2085! What possible crime could he have committed? But the red police captain was speaking again, this time in a chill voice. And the room of the police, thick with the smoke of a dozen cigars, became suddenly stifling.

"Where have you been these twenty-three years, Peter Van Dorn?" asked the captain. "Who have you lived with, I mean?"

Something warned him to protect old Rudolph. And somehow he wished he had not treated the old fellow as he did when he left. His self-possession returned. A wave of hot resentment swept over him.

"That's my affair," he said defiantly.

The captain shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well," he said, "you needn't answer--now. We'll find out when it's necessary. In the meanwhile we'll have to turn you over to the Continental Amba.s.sador."

Two of the red police advanced toward him and the rest drew back.

"You mean I'm under arrest?" asked Karl incredulously.

"Certainly. Of course you're not to be harmed."

One of the guards had him by the arm and he saw the glint of handcuffs.

They couldn't do this! If it had been for rioting in the Square it would be different. But this! It meant he was a prisoner of a foreign government, for what reason he could not guess. He lost his head completely.

The captain cried out in amazement as one of his huskiest guards went sprawling under a well-planted punch. This youngster must be as crazy as was his father before him. But he was a whirlwind. Before he could be stopped he had tackled the other guard and with a mighty heave flung him halfway across the room where he fell with a thud that left him dazed and gasping. The pompous little man in the purple crawled under the desk as the sergeant leveled a slender tube at the young giant in gray.

Karl ducked instinctively at sight of the weapon, but the spiteful crackle of its mechanism was too quick for him. A faintly luminous ray struck him full in the breast and stopped him in his tracks. A thrill of intense cold chased up his spine and a thunderbolt crashed in his brain.

The captain caught his stiffened body as he fell.

Karl--refusing to think of himself as Peter Van Dorn--came to his senses as from a troubled sleep. His head ached miserably and he turned it slowly to view his surroundings. Then, in a flash, he remembered. The paralyzing ray of the red police! They never used it in the lower levels; but overhead--why, the swine! He sat suddenly erect and glared into a pair of green eyes that regarded him curiously.