Backlash by Jack Williamson

Author:Jack Williamson [Williamson, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi Short Story
Publisher: Astounding Science Fiction
Published: 1941-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

Captain Dent leaned protestingly over the control post.

“Why, doctor?” His voice was low and urgent. “Why not leave things alone. I tell you, Levin isn’t the monster you think. You see, I knew him.”

Stanislav’s face went dark with suspicion.

“I was military attache at the Eurasian embassy,” Dent explained, “when Levin was just an ex-lieutenant in aviation. He was experimenting with rockets—my specialty— when he wasn’t expounding his half-baked New State ideology in some beer joint. He wasn’t a bad sort. Except, like yourself, he was bitter about things that had happened in the past.”

Stanislav trembled angrily, rasping:

“You talk like an Eurasian spy.” He turned to Challis and the girl. “Listen to my plan. I have already proved that I can look back into the past, even with the experimental thousand-kilowatt field coil. As soon as the new unit is finished and installed—”

Dent’s anxious voice interrupted:

“Challis, you’re director of the Pantechnicon. You own it, really. Are you going to allow such a thing?” His lean brown face looked tense and desperate. “You planned this for a repository of culture. Don’t you realize that violence is fatal to culture?”

“No more fatal than passive surrender,” Challis said. “The Pantechnicon is a democracy. I have kept no authority for myself. If the thing came to a vote, Stanislav might win—if he could really stop Levin. None of us here are friends of the New State.”

“If you are all insane—”

Dent choked off his angry voice and stamped out of the room. Fifteen minutes later Challis heard the scream of rocket jets. Blue flame was swallowed in the gray cloud ceiling. At the hangar, Challis found the sentry nursing a scalp wound.

“It was Dent,” the sentry gasped. “He gave me this before he hit me.”

The crumpled note was addressed to Challis:

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