A Century of Progress (27 page)

Someone was calling after him from the direction of the main passage. Had all the coffee been put away?

Yet the steward lingered at the window for a moment longer, hoping to see the beacon that was called the Lindbergh Light.

He thought that he could see strange shapes of light flicker past him through the darkening clouds.

As soon as the Vega took off from the concealed strip, the enemy was able to locate it again. As it climbed into the sunset sky it was the target of quick and intense attack. Norlund was strapped into his cabin seat, wearing a metallic headband that wirelessly connected his brain’s alpha waves with the ship’s weapons—the projectors that looked out of the cabin windows on either side. Norlund’s hands, like any human hands too slow by far to man these guns, lay clenched or folded in his lap, or gripped the seat’s armrests. As he watched the screen, his very thought was melded with computer output to establish a priority of targets and select the type of beam to be projected.

The first attacks came in quick succession, one on either side, and were beaten off. Without, as far as Norlund could tell, any substantial damage sustained on either side.

Now Holly’s voice came to him, over the newly-installed intercom: “Got it in sight ahead, at about four thousand feet.” She was talking of course about the
Graf
, and they had timed their interception effort well. She might well be still unaware of the skirmish already fought, so swift and silent and nearly invisible had that clash been.

They were still some miles east of Chicago, over the great plain of water. On his screens Norlund could watch the
Graf
descending gradually toward the distant lakefront Fairgrounds that its crew could probably not see yet. He could see that one engine of the
Graf
was for some reason idle. That would slow her down somewhat, all to the good. But the four remaining engines propelled it easily on into the mild breeze, into what looked like perfect weather conditions for a landing.

At a relative speed of about a hundred miles an hour, the Vega overtook the dirigible swiftly. Within a very few minutes after takeoff, at a range of about half a mile, as had been planned, Norlund beamed off his first broadside at the airship. It was a heterodyned mixture of rays and particles, calculated to be difficult for Brandi’s people to block.

But block it they did, successfully, somehow, though they probably had no gear mounted on the dirigible itself. The
Graf
flew on, unharmed and unaware of an attack.

Norlund ordered Holly to turn back for another pass, this one from closer range. But this one, too, was ineffective, though the projected ray was changed. Demonstrating an aptitude for fighter tactics, Holly broke off the pass into a twisting dive that carried them right beneath the
Graf
. In the light of the airship’s own running lights, and the now-visible reflected beacons of the still-distant Fair, the gray hull looked faintly shiny, the hanging seaplane dark and small. The shape passed above Norlund at a hundred miles an hour, like some elongated planet. There was the gondola where Hitler rode, and Norlund had been unable to so much as scratch its paint.

And that last pass, Norlund thought, was probably our last free one. Hitler’s angels were back on his screen now, materializing and closing fast.

“Once more, and closer!” he ordered on the intercom, not knowing if they would have the time.

Halfway up the eastern tower of the Skyride, exposed to the mild night on a half-open service platform, Geoffrey Holborn was listening to Hajo Brandi swear. Jeff could tell from the tone of voice that the man was swearing, though the language was as strange to Jeff as Hindustani. Brandi was speaking over a small communicating device he had pulled out of his pocket, apparently an unbelievably tiny two-way radio of some kind. Jeff, privileged to see this artifact of the future, stared at it in fascination.

Brandi had chosen this platform as his temporary command post. For the past several hours he and Jeff, along with a crew of men that Brandi had called up from somewhere, had been secretly searching the Fairgrounds and particularly the towers for evidence of sabotage—specifically, for ceramic devices of the kind that Jeff himself had once been induced to put in place around the Empire State Building. Every time Jeff recalled how the Red aliens had duped and forced him into that, his rage flared up anew—

But now time, even for rage, was running short. The
Graf
was coming on. By now it must be only minutes away, out in the darkness over the lake.

Nearby, elevator cables whirred. Perhaps more engineers, local security people, airship experts, all going up to the top of the tower three hundred feet above, where the actual mooring was to be accomplished. The Navy’s
Macon
had been here twice in the past month for practice moorings, and it had been proven that the new Holborn system worked.

Brandi continued to look out over the fairyland of electric light that sprawled below, while he swore monotonously and incomprehensibly into his communicator. At intervals he paused, listening to unsatisfactory answers that Holborn could not hear. Brandi until tonight had kept the communicator hidden from Jeff; that Jeff was now allowed to see it reassured him that he was finally completely trusted.

But time was passing mercilessly; the
Graf
was coming in . . .

“Hank!” Jeff called sharply now, trying to get the other man’s attention. For some days now, Brandi had been asking Jeff to go on a first-name basis and call him Hank. It was part of what seemed to be a calculated but somewhat clumsy effort on Brandi’s part to appear as just one of the fellows in American society of the Thirties. Jeff—rarely just one of the fellows himself—had mixed feelings about the effort, feeling sympathetic and at the same time in some way repelled by it.

Hank or not, Brandi now continued to pay him no attention.

Jeff was beginning to feel truly desperate. There were between fifty and a hundred men on that dirigible, and if there was real danger of sabotage the docking
must
be stopped. He looked round him almost frantically, as if some forgotten source of help might be available. From this high vantage point he could pick out the horizontal cables of the Skyride itself, running a hundred feet below him and still twenty stories or so above the paved Fairgrounds and the lagoon those cables crossed. Of course the cable cars were not running now; their activity, like that of most of the Fair, had been interrupted for tonight’s great event. A truly vast crowd of spectators had showed up to see that, and now filled most of the open space within the grounds, except for the roped-off acres around the east tower, above which the docking maneuvers would take place.

Down there, on the cleared picnic grounds, some four hundred men were waiting, most of them Navy people with experience in landing a dirigible. Jeff had serious doubts about how useful they were going to be, even in an emergency, when actual docking was going to take place six hundred feet above their heads. But there they were, organized into squads, ready to catch dropped mooring lines and do what they could.

And now a vast, oceanic murmur was rising from the extended crowd. Out over the lake, the
Graf
, approaching head-on, had become visible. There were its running lights. And there, a flash of gray, caught for a moment in the edge of the Lindbergh beacon’s revolving gleam.

Something
had
to be done now.

Jeff caught Brandi by the arm, forcing the wiry man to turn round. “Hank! If there are any sabotage-units here on the tower, we haven’t been able to find them. It’s time to call in the authorities and get them to call the landing off.”

For a moment Brandi only glared at him, not even appearing to understand what Jeff was talking about. Then, bringing his attention to Jeff with an effort, he shook his head decisively. “No! I keep telling you, Jeff, we must handle this in our own way. What evidence have we that the authorities here are going to accept?”

“They’ll listen to me, if I tell them that something is seriously wrong.”

“And afterwards, when you still can produce no proof?”

Jeff shook his head violently. He was having trouble believing this argument. He waved his arms in desperation. “My God, man, at least we’ll have saved lives!”

“Jeff.” Brandi had his bland mask fully in place now, and he was trying to be soothing. “Hitler can get off the
Graf
safely, with his seaplane and his pilot; in fact I’ve sent word to our man on the dirigible to get him to do just that.”

“Hitler?” Jeff was aghast. “Who gives a . . . what about the others? The crew, the . . .”

“There is a great deal more at stake here, Jeff, than the lives of a few individuals. It is the Lawgiver’s wish.” He nodded at Jeff solemnly. “I know you cannot understand that now. But trust me.”

“Trust you.” Jeff’s echoing voice was low. Once he had trusted those others, too, who had brought healing with them and then turned out to be assassins. “This is madness,” he said loudly. “I’m going to stop it.”

“Jeff, don’t do it!” Brandi ordered. But the local was already out of his reach, moving swiftly along the other side of a kind of metal fence or railing that divided the platform, and heading for stairs and elevator.

Brandi shot him silently in the back. Jeff crumpled to the platform.

The Lindbergh Light swept round again, showing the gray face of the
Graf
a minute closer than before, out over the plain of water. Now its engines could be heard, their waterfall-roar mingling with the renewed noise of the crowd.

Brandi glanced round. It was highly unlikely that anyone anywhere could have noticed the shooting. He pocketed his weapon and made his way around the railing, approaching the fallen man with professional caution. Looking down, he was sure that Jeff was still conscious, though he had hit his head in falling and his forehead was bleeding slightly. The eyes were open, and able to move, and Jeff was breathing.

The small secret communicator in Brandi’s pocket was signalling for his attention, and he whipped it out and spoke into it, again using the language that Jeff had not been able to understand.

“Hail the Lawgiver, Brandi here. I still cannot report success . . .” There was a pause, during which the blond man listened intently while his eyes widened. “I understand, sir, the Lawgiver’s personal wish that Hitler land here . . . yes sir, if you
wish
to explain, of course. Because . . .”

Again a pause. Then Brandi swiveled on taut muscles to the south railing of the platform. His eyes, suddenly awed, bored down into the night, where scattered pieces of the crowd stood near the seaplane landing at the edge of the South Lagoon. His voice became a whisper of exultation. “The Lawgiver himself?
Here
? Yes, we will of course give up our lives if need be to provide security, but . . . here. He is, of course, incognito . . . yes, sir.”

Hardly had he closed the communicator when it throbbed again for his attention. “Hail the Lawgiver, Brandi here . . .” Now his tone became savage, the words altering to the familiar, contemptuous form provided in his language for addressing a subordinate. “If you’ve found one unit, then remove it, fool! It will at least weaken the effect, and we won’t have to report complete failure. The House of Tomorrow?” Again his gaze swiveled, raking the ground and the structures within the broad roped-off area below. “Well, fool, if there are two men defending it, kill them!” he snarled. “I’m on my way!”

Brandi took a long stride toward the stairs and elevator. Then he turned and, almost as an afterthought, lifted the paralyzed body of Geoffrey Holborn in his strong arms and put it quickly over the safety railing at the platform’s edge. No one was at all likely to see anything that happened on this shadowed portion of the tower; all eyes were on the approaching silvery shape, now steadily visible above the lake. Skyrockets were going up, at a carefully emphasized safe distance from the landing area and the
Graf
, and boat whistles were sounding.

The still-living body struck one of the horizontal Skyride cables a hundred feet down, and went caroming off. Brandi did not delay to witness the final impact.

The House of Tomorrow was within the area that had supposedly been cleared of people for the dirigible’s arrival, but Jerry Rosen had still managed to get inside the building and find a hiding place. There was a stunned Fair policeman sleeping things off in a closet, who could expect to wake up tomorrow sometime, with stiff muscles and a headache, wondering what had happened to him.

Jerry would have been tempted to switch places with that cop right now, if he’d been made the offer. He was hiding in another closet with the door cracked, able to watch from where he hid the single doorway to the room in which he’d hidden the last ceramic pulser, back in those dear innocent days when he’d just been working for a man named Norlund . . . Now somebody was coming through the house, trying to be quiet.

Jerry tensed, a weapon in each hand. These future guns were really neat, but one of the first things he’d done on getting back to Chicago was to visit an old bootlegging friend and arrange to borrow something a little heavier and simpler. He’d come to like the feel . . .

It was two of Brandi’s people who were coming, detectors in their hands, and Jerry eased open the closet door and let them know that he was there. Lethal sizzle from his left hand, bang from his right.

And fire came back from one of Brandi’s men and struck him down.

When Fritz saw the men hurrying grim-faced toward him through the narrowness of the keel passage, he pressed himself and his dishes back against the fabric wall and girders in surprise, making as much room as possible for them to pass him. Dietrich came first, moving in long strides. Next, one of the SS adjutants, looking just as somber; and after him, the Fuhrer, eyes fixed straight ahead, now wearing a long coat over his blue linen jacket. Hitler was carrying a small dispatch case in one hand. The second SS man followed Hitler.