Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold_And Then the Town Took Off

_And Then the Town Took Off_

by RICHARD WILSON

ACE BOOKS, INC.

23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.

AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF

_For_ FELICITAS K. WILSON

THE SIOUX SPACEMAN

Printed in U.S.A.

* * * * *

THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP

The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In

what was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it

simply picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above

Earth!

Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth.

But Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to

suspect that nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens.

Calmly they accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of

their local townspeople, a crackpot professor.

But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be

obvious that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So

then it was up to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or

spend the rest of his days on the smallest--and the

nuttiest--planet in the galaxy!

The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.

A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had

been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent

over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If

he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where

Superior had been.

Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,

but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was

his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then

sped off to a telephone.

The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several

directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they

confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to

the National Guard.

The guard surrounded the area with troops--more than a thousand were

needed--to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over

it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into

the Ohio countryside.

The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains

was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not

stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the

disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery

shortly after midnight.

Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was

the witching hour.

Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil

defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook

it and rapped on it, it refused to click.

A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,

having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but

when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,

relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no

people, no houses--no sign of anything except the pit itself.

The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes

had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic

Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret

experiments.

Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown

up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest

made bubble gum.

* * * * *

A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November

1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer

and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object

loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed

course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his

co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the

terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.

Then he saw the church steeple on it.

A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of

Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:

It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.

One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first

day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying

plaintively:

"_Cold_ up here!"

Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye

Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,

hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it

wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen

hurried along the tracks.

The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom

Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did

we stop?"

"Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station

stop at Superior on this run."

The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the

club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair

along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the

opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and

untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which

indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.

The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet

lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had

given her.

Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had

been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe

that it was more than adequate.

If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had

been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in

his mid-twenties--about her age--lean, tall and straight-shouldered,

with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome

nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between

his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.

But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he

carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.

"Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss

his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd

get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one

reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.

"Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and

went down to the tracks.

Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed

the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it

sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive

and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.

Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was

covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red

lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even

an old red shirt.

Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking

to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat

and riding boots.

"You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying.

"If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow

right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?"

"Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead.

Look."

The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor

the old man. Then let's go."

The bearded man--he called himself Professor Garet--went off with the

fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along

the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?

I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the

darkness.

"It's another half mile or so," the professor said.

"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night."

The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have."

They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet

swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.

"Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of

the world."

True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on

the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.

Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the

professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there

before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.

Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,

not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused

by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.

Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over

the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit

on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the

situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big

section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.

Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his

face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.

"You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I

believe you would have had a two-mile fall."

* * * * *

"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the

old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at

Cavalier."

Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the

club car, asked, "Cavalier?"

"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you

say your name was, miss?"

"Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally."

"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose."

The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded

and grinned.

"There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't

exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier."

"Are you connected with the college?" Don asked.

"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the

world, hasn't it?"

"Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say

is true. I haven't seen the edge myself."

"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor

said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime."

"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.

"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was

watching the late show--or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and

reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all

of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then

the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."

"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis

asked.

"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of

Applied Sciences."

"Professor of what?"

"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor

Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'--that's my name, Hector

Civek--'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of

course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."

"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory

about it?"

"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey

was that this--this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."

"What's that?" Don asked.

"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.

Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about

magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so

the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town

had flown the coop."

"What's the population of Superior?"

"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand

and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us

for a while."

"What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked.

"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?"

"Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to--to

Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way.

"Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either."

"Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about

anywhere."

"No helicopters here, either."

"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning."

"Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the

rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.

You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor

Garet. I've got to see him--excuse me."

The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who

was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was

perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"

"I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie

another night, then taken a plane to Washington."

"Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I _was_

going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,

Miss Jervis?"

"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?"

"Not everybody. Me, for instance."

"No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have

thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."

He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably

close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs

National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?"

"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."

Don laughed again. "He sure is."

"_Mister_ Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that

S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary."

"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting

late."

"_Places_ to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry.

"Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put

you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of

this cuff."

He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired

woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you

comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply

beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the

cosmolineator blew up."

They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going

around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white

laboratory smock.

Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to

pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever

was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to

himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had

had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and

did what little dressing was necessary.

It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,

and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A

bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat

building, and other people going in random directions. The first were

students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty

members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.

Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of

Superior were up in the air.

He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The

others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped

outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out

visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take

a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.

The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he

got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he

knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and

gestured to the empty place opposite her.

"You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?"

"Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?"

"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm

Alis--that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e--Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did

you escape from jail?"

"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.

Professor Garet's daughter?"

"The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been

two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,

I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory."

"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and

fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.

"Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order

them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and

the latter-day alchemist."

"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out

of here by then."

"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get

down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?"

"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up

here."

"You were levitated, like everybody else."

"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a

whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose."

"Scarcely _fell_, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be

a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers."

"I didn't know there were any."

"Actually there's only one, the _Superior Sentry_, a weekly. This is an

extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened

her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.

Don blinked at the headline:

TOWN GETS HIGH

"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,"

Alis said.

Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an

apparently grave situation.

_Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are

advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by

Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line._

_A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in

the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of

gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if

the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on

investigating...._

Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate."

Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across

to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't

get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,

bottom."

Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his

thanks, and read:

MAYOR CLAIMS SECESSION FROM EARTH

_Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and

dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said

today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as

his explanation._

_The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against

by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been

held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)

colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired

against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices._

_The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by

Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not

understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously

handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to

set._

Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark."

"He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up

to Father."

"Does your father claim that _he_ levitated Superior off the face of the

Earth?"

"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a

skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a

science teacher in high school--not in Superior, incidentally--who gave

me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,

being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually

ever since."

"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?"

She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,

emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described

the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth

of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be

kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more

densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.

"You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen."

Don grinned. "Going on?"

"Three months past. How old are _you_, Mr. Cort?"

"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it."

"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go

with you to the end of the world."

"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from

the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this

morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been

solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.

"I'll admit to the _double entendre_," Alis said. "What I meant--for

now--was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to

the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."

"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"

"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a

demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.

On to the brink!"

* * * * *

They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The

train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned

except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.

"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down

there?"

"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What

are you going to do?"

"What _can_ I do?" the conductor asked.

"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's

going to steal your old train."

The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.

"You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train

stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while."

"South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there."

"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that

Superior's water supply?"

Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.

Let's go look at the creek."

They found it coursing along between the banks.

"Looks just about the same," she said.

"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge."

The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.

Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with

the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South

Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,

with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.

"Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out."

"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people."

"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look."

"Don't! You'll fall off!"

"I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed

him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for

a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a

topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.

"Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.

"I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on

his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there."

Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he

could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of

his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,

panting, head pressed to the ground.

"How do you feel?" Alis asked.

"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look."

Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his

ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she

said.

"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn."

"What?"

"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?"

"I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and

tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going

over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved

and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said.

Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.

He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the

end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water _isn't_ going off the

edge!"

"It isn't? Then where is it going?"

"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical

tunnel, just short of the edge."

"Why? How?"

"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming

back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself

off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next."

"The other end of the creek?"

"Exactly."

South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed

in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to

go, past South Creek Bridge--which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis

said--past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball

out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.

But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of

the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis

said.

The fence, which had a sign on it, WARNING--ELECTRIFIED, was

semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it

so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under

the tarp and fence.

"Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said.

"As if it's being pumped."

Smaller print on the sign said: _Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of

two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is

sufficient to kill._ It was signed: _Vincent Grande, Chief of Police,

Hector Civek, Mayor_.

"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don

asked.

"North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed

to swim."

"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?"

"I don't know."

"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder

what would happen?"

"I know one thing--I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you

found out."

She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth

below and to the west.

"It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way

over there?"

He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I

mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here

as it used to down there?"

"We could tell by the sun, silly."

"Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not

high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great

Lakes--or Lake Erie, anyway."

They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a

cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL

on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see

faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or

two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was

gone.

"Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know

that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not

answers, then transportation."

"Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you

like it here?"

"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if

I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into

clean clothes, you're not going to like me."

"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still

holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me,"

she said, "before you deteriorate."

They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case

at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him.

III

Much of the rest of the world was inclined to regard the elevation of

Superior, Ohio, as a Fortean phenomenon in the same category as flying

saucers and sea monsters.

The press had a field day. Most of the headlines were whimsical:

TOWN TAKES OFF

SUPERIOR LIVES UP TO NAME

A RISING COMMUNITY

The city council of Superior, Wisconsin, passed a resolution urging its

Ohio namesake to come back down. The Superiors in Nebraska, Wyoming,

Arizona and West Virginia, glad to have the publicity, added their

voices to the plea.

The Pennsylvania Railroad filed a suit demanding that the state of Ohio

return forthwith one train and five miles of right-of-way.

The price of bubble gum went up from one cent to three for a nickel.

In Parliament a Labour member rose to ask the Home Secretary for

assurances that all British cities were firmly fastened down.

An Ohio waterworks put in a bid for the sixteen square miles of hole

that Superior had left behind, explaining that it would make a fine

reservoir.

A company that leased out big advertising signs in Times Square offered

Superior a quarter of a million dollars for exclusive rights to

advertising space on its bottom, or Earthward, side. It sent the offer

by air mail, leaving delivery up to the post office.

In Washington, Senator Bobby Thebold ascertained that his red-haired

secretary, Jen Jervis, had been aboard the train levitated with Superior

and registered a series of complaints by telephone, starting with the

Interstate Commerce Commission and the railroad brotherhoods. He asked

the FBI to investigate the possibility of kidnaping and muttered about

the likelihood of it all being a Communist plot.

A little-known congressman from Ohio started a rumor that raising of

Superior was an experiment connected with the United States earth

satellite program. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

issued a quick denial.

* * * * *

Two men talked earnestly in an efficient-looking room at the end of one

of the more intricate mazes in the Pentagon Building. Neither wore a

uniform but the younger man called the other sir, or chief, or general.

"We've established definitely that Sergeant Cort was on that train, have

we?" the general asked.

"Yes, sir. No doubt about it."

"And he has the item with him?"

"He must have. The only keys are here and at the other end. He couldn't

open the handcuff or the brief case."

"The only _known_ keys, that is."

"Oh? How's that, General?"

"The sergeant can open the brief case and use the item if we tell him

how."

"You think it's time to use it? I thought we were saving it."

"That was before Superior defected. Now we can use it to more advantage

than any theoretical use it might be put to in the foreseeable future."

"We could evacuate Cort. Take him off in a helicopter or drop him a

parachute and let him jump."

"No. Having him there is a piece of luck. No one knows who he is. We'll

assign him there for the duration and have him report regularly. Let's

go to the message center."

* * * * *

Senator Bobby Thebold was an imposing six feet two, a muscular 195, a

youthful-looking 43. He wore his steel-gray hair cut short and his skin

was tan the year round. He was a bachelor. He had been a fighter pilot

in World War II and his conversation was peppered with Air Force slang,

much of it out of date. Thebold was good newspaper copy and one segment

of the press, admiring his fighting ways, had dubbed him Bobby the Bold.

The Senator did not mind a bit.

At the moment Senator Thebold was pacing the carpet in the ample working

space he'd fought to acquire in the Senate Office Building. He was

momentarily at a loss. His inquiries about Jen Jervis had elicited no

satisfaction from the ICC, the FBI, or the CIA. He was in an

alphabetical train of thought and went on to consider the CAA, the CAB

and the CAP. He snapped his fingers at CAP. He had it.

The Civil Air Patrol itself he considered a la-de-da outfit of gentleman

flyers, skittering around in light planes, admittedly doing some good,

but by and large nothing to excite a former P-38 pilot who'd won a

chestful of ribbons for action in the Southwest Pacific.

Ah, but the PP. There was an organization! Bobby Thebold had been one of

the founders of the Private Pilots, a hard-flying outfit that zoomed

into the wild blue yonder on week ends and holidays, engines aroar,

propellers aglint, white silk scarves aflap. PP's members were wealthy

industrialists, stunt flyers, sportsmen--the elite of the air.

PP was a paramilitary organization with the rank of its officers

patterned after the Royal Air Force. Thus Bobby Thebold, by virtue of

his war record, his charter membership and his national eminence, was

Wing Commander Thebold, DFC.

Wing Commander Thebold swung into action. He barked into the intercom:

"Miss Riley! Get the airport. Have them rev up _Charger_. Tell them I'll

be there for oh-nine-fifty-eight take-off. Ten-hundred will do. And get

my car."

_Charger_ was Bobby the Bold's war surplus P-38 Lightning, a sleek,

twin-boomed two engine fighter plane restored to its gleaming, paintless

aluminum. Actually it was an unarmed photo-reconnaissance version of the

famous war horse of the Pacific, a fact the wing commander preferred to

ignore. In compensation, he belted on a .45 whenever he climbed into the

cockpit.

Thebold got onto Operations in PP's midwestern headquarters in Chicago.

He barked, long distance:

"Jack Perley? Group Captain Perley, that is? Bobby, that's right. Wing

Commander Thebold now. We've got a mission, Jack. Scramble Blue

Squadron. What? Of course you can; this is an emergency. We'll

rendezvous north of Columbus--I'll give you the exact grid in half an

hour, when I'm airborne. Can do? Good-o! ETA? Eleven-twenty EST. Well,

maybe that is optimistic, but I hate to see the day slipping by. Make it

eleven-forty-five. What? Objective? Objective Superior! Got it?

Okay--roger!"

Wing Commander Bobby Thebold took his Lindbergh-style helmet and goggles

from a desk drawer, caressing the limp leather fondly, and put them in a

dispatch case. He gave a soft salute to the door behind which Jen Jervis

customarily worked, more as his second-in-command than his secretary,

and said half aloud:

"Okay, Jen, we're coming to get you."

He didn't know quite how, but Bobby the Bold and Charger would soon be

on their way.

* * * * *

Don Cort regretfully detached himself from Alis Garet.

"What was that?" he said.

"That was me--Alis the love-starved. You could be a bit more gallant.

Even 'How was that?,' though corny, would have been preferable.

"No--I mean I thought I heard a voice. Didn't you hear anything?"

"To be perfectly frank--and I say it with some pique--I was totally

absorbed. Obviously you weren't."

"It was very nice." The countryside, from the edge to the golf course,

was deserted.

"Well, thanks. Thanks a bunch. Such enthusiasm is more than I can bear.

I have to go now. There's an eleven o'clock class in magnetic flux that

I'm simply dying to audit."

She gave her shoulder-length blonde hair a toss and started back. Don

hesitated, looked suspiciously at the brief case dangling from his

wrist, shook his head, then followed her. The voice, wherever it came

from, had not spoken again.

"Don't be angry, Alis." He fell into step on her left and took her arm

with his free hand. "It's just that everything is so crazy and nobody

seems to be taking it seriously. A town doesn't just get up and take

off, and yet nobody up here seems terribly concerned."

Alis squeezed the hand that held her arm, mollified. "You've got

lipstick on your whiskers."

"Good. I'll never shave again."

"Ah," she laughed, "gallantry at last. I'll tell you what let's do.

We'll go see Ed Clark, the editor of the Sentry. Maybe he'll give you

some intelligent conversation."

The newspaper office was in a ramshackle one-story building on Lyric

Avenue, a block off Broadway, Superior's main street. It was in an

ordinary store front whose windows displayed various ancient stand-up

cardboard posters calling attention to a church supper, a state fair, an

auto race, and a movie starring H. B. Warner. A dust-covered banner

urged the election as president of Alfred E. Smith.

There was no one in the front of the shop. Alis led Don to the rear

where a tall skinny man with straggly gray hair was setting type.

"Good morning, Mr. Clark," she said. "What's that you're setting--an

anti-Hoover handbill?"

"Hello, Al. How are you this fine altitudinous day?"

"Super. Or should it be supra? I want you to meet Don Cort. Don, Mr.

Clark."

The men shook hands and Clark looked curiously at Don's handcuff.

"It's my theory he's an embezzler," Alis said, "and he's made this his

getaway town."

"As a matter of fact," Don said, "the Riggs National Bank will be

worried if I don't get in touch with them soon. I guess you'd know, Mr.

Clark--is there any communication at all out of town?" By

prearrangement, a message from Don to Riggs would be forwarded to

Military Intelligence.

"I don't know of any, except for the Civek method--a bottle tossed over

the edge. The telegraph and telephone lines are cut, of course. There is

a radio station in town, WCAV, operated from the campus, but it's been

silent ever since the great severance. At least nothing local has come

over my old Atwater Kent."

"Isn't anybody _doing_ anything?" Don asked.

"Sure," Clark said. "I'm getting out my paper--there was even an extra

this morning--and doing job printing. The job is for a jeweler in

Ladenburg. I don't know how I'll deliver it, but no one's told me to

stop so I'm doing it. I guess everybody's carrying on pretty much as

before."

"That's what I mean. Business as usual. But how about the people who do

business out of town? What's Western Union doing, for instance? And the

trucking companies? And the factories? You have two factories, I

understand, and pretty soon there's going to be a mighty big surplus of

kitchen sinks and chewing gum."

"You two go on settling our fate," Alis said. "I'd better get back to

school. Look me up later, Don." She waved and went out.

"Fine girl, that Alis," Clark said. "Got her old man's gumption without

his nutty streak. To answer your question, the Western Union man here is

catching up on his bookkeeping and accepting outgoing messages

contingent on restoration of service. The sink factory made a shipment

two days ago and won't have another ready till next week, so they're

carrying on. They have enough raw material for a month. I was planning

to visit the bubble gum people this afternoon to see how they're doing.

Maybe you'd like to come."

"Yes, I would. I still chew it once in a while, on the sly."

Clark grinned. "I won't tell. Would you like to tidy up, Don? There's a

washroom out back, with a razor and some mysterious running water. Now

_there's_ a phenomenon I'd like to get to the bottom of."

"Thanks. I'll shave with it now and worry about its source later. Do you

think Professor Garet and his magnology cult has anything to do with

it?"

"He'd like to think so, I'm sure." Clark shrugged. "We've been airborne

less than twelve hours. I guess the answers will come in time. You go

clean up and I'll get back to my job."

Don felt better when he had shaved. It had been awkward because he

hadn't been able to take off his coat or shirt, but he'd managed. He was

drying his face when the voice came again. This time there was no doubt

it came from the brief case chained to his handcuff.

"Are you alone now?" it asked.

Startled, Don said, "Yes."

"Good. Speak closer to the brief case so we won't be overheard. This is

Captain Simmons, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

"Take out your ID card. Separate the two pieces of plastic. There's a

flat plastic key next to the card. Open the brief case lock with it."

The voice was silent until Don, with the help of a razor blade, had done

as he was directed. "All right, sir; that's done."

"Open the brief case, take out the package, open the package and put the

wrappings back in the brief case."

Again the voice stopped. Don unwrapped something that looked like a flat

cigarette case with two appendages, one a disk of perforated hard rubber

the size of a half dollar, and the other a three-quarter-inch-wide

ribbon of opaque plastic. "I've got it, sir."

"Good. What you see is a highly advanced radio transmitter and receiver.

You can imagine its value in the field. It's a pilot model you were

bringing back from the contractor for tests here. But this seems as

useful a way to test it as any other."

"It's range is fantastic, Captain--if you're in Washington."

"I am. Now. The key also unlocks the handcuff. Unlock it. Strip to the

waist. Bend the plastic strip to fit over your shoulder--either one, as

you choose. Arrange the perforated disk so it's at the base of your

neck, under your shirt collar. The thing that looks like a cigarette

case is the power pack."

Don followed the instructions, rubbing his wrist in relief as the

handcuff came off. The radio had been well designed and its components

went into place as if they had been built to his measure. They tickled a

little on his bare skin, that was all. The power pack was surprisingly

light.

"That's done, sir," Don said.

The answer came softly. "So I hear. You almost blasted my ear off. From

now on, when you speak to me, or whoever's at this end, a barely audible

murmur will be sufficient. Try it."

"Yes, Captain," Don whispered. "I'm trying it now."

"Don't whisper. I can hear you all right, but so could people you

wouldn't want overhearing at your end. A whisper carries farther than

you think. Talk low."

Don practiced while he put his shirt, tie and coat back on.

"Good," Captain Simmons said. "Practice talking without moving your

lips, for occasions when you might have to transmit to us in someone's

view. Now put your handcuff back on and lock it."

"Oh, damn," Don said under his breath.

"I heard that."

"Sorry, sir, but it is a nuisance."

"I know, but you have to get rid of it logically. When you get a chance

go to the local bank. It's the Superior State Bank on McEntee Street.

Show them your credentials from Riggs National and ask them to keep your

brief case in their vault. Get a receipt. Then, at your first

opportunity, burn the plastic key and your ID card."

"Yes, sir."

"Keep up your masquerade as a bank messenger and try to find out, as if

you were an ordinary curiosity-seeker, all you can about Cavalier

Institute. You've made a good start with the Garet girl. Get to know her

father, the professor."

"Yes, sir." Don realized with embarrassment that his little romantic

interlude with Alis must have been eavesdropped on. "Are there any

particular times I'm to report?"

"You will be reporting constantly. That's the beauty of this radio."

"You mean I can't turn it off? I won't have any privacy? There'll always

be somebody listening?"

"Exactly. But you mustn't be inhibited. Your private life is still your

own and no one will criticize. Your unofficial actions will simply be

ignored."

"Oh, great!"

"You must rely on our discretion, Sergeant. I'm sure you'll get used to

it. Enough of this for now. We mustn't excite Clark's suspicions. Go

back to him now and carry on. You'll receive further instructions as

they are necessary. And remember--don't be inhibited."

"No, sir," Don said ruefully. He went back to the printshop, feeling

like a goldfish bowl.

Ed Clark took Don to the Superior State Bank and introduced him to the

president, who was delighted to do business with a representative of

Riggs National of Washington, D. C. Don told him nothing about the

contents of the brief case, but the banker seemed to be under the

impression they were securities or maybe even a million dollars cash,

and Don said nothing to spoil his pleasure.

Outside again, with the receipt in his wallet, Don stood with Clark on

the corner of McEntee Street and Broadway.

"This is the heart of town, you might say," the newspaper editor said.

"The bubble gum factory is over that way, on the railroad spur. Maybe

you can smell it. Smells real nice, I think."

Don rubbed the wrist that had been manacled for so long. He was sniffing

politely when there was a roar of engines and a squadron of fighter

planes buzzed Broadway.

They screamed over at little more than roof level, then were gone. They

were overhead so briefly that Don noticed only that they were P-38's, at

least four of them.

"Things are beginning to happen," Don said. "The Air Force is having a

look-see."

Clark shook his head. "That wasn't the Air Force. Those were the PP

boys. They're the only ones who fly those Lightnings these days."

"PP?"

"Private Pilots. Bobby the Bold's airborne vigilantes. Wonder what

they're up to?"

"Oh. Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B."

"If you want to put it that way, yes."

"It's a private joke. But I think I know what they're up to--or why. The

Senator's secretary is marooned up here, like me. She was on the train,

too."

"You don't say! I got scooped on that one. Which one is she?"

"The redhead. Geneva Jervis. I haven't seen her since last night, come

to think of it."

The P-38's screamed over again, this time from west to east. Don counted

six planes now and made out the PP markings. People had come out of

stores and business buildings and were looking out of upstairs windows

at the sky. They were rewarded by a third thundering flypast of the

fighter planes. They were higher this time, spread out laterally as if

to search maximum terrain.

"Big deal," Clark said. "This show would bring anyone outdoors, but even

if they see her what do you suppose they can do about it? There's no

place in town flat enough for a Piper Cub to land, let alone a fighter

plane."

"How about the golf course?"

"Raleigh? Worst set of links in the whole United States. A helicopter

could put down there, but that's about all. What's old Bobby so worked

up about, I wonder? Unless there's something to that gossip about this

Jervis girl being his mistress and he's showing off for her."

"He'd show off for anybody, they tell me," Don said. Then he remembered

that Military Intelligence was listening in. If any pro-Thebold people

were among his eavesdroppers, he hoped they respected his private right

to be anti-Thebold.

At that moment he and Clark were thrown against the side of the bank

building. They clung to each other and Don noticed that the sun had

moved a few degrees in the sky.

"Oh-oh," Clark grunted. "Superior's taking evasive action. Thinks it's

being attacked." As they regained their footing he asked, "Do you feel

heavy in the legs?"

"Yes. As if I were going up in an express elevator."

"Exactly. Somebody's getting us up beyond the reach of these pesky

planes, I'd guess."

The P-38's were overhead again, but now they seemed to be diving on the

town. More likely, if Clark's theory was right, it was an illusion--the

planes were flying level but the town was rising fast.

"They'd better climb," Don said, "or they'll crash!"

There was the sound of a crash almost immediately, from the south end of

town. Don and Clark ran toward it, fighting the heaviness in their legs.

A dozen others were ahead of them, running sluggishly across South Creek

Bridge. Beyond, just short of the edge, was the wreckage of a fighter

plane and, behind it, the torn-up ground of a crash landing. There was

no fire.

The pilot struggled out of the cockpit. He dropped to the ground, felt

himself to see if any bones were broken, then saw the crowd running

toward him.

The pilot hesitated, then ran toward the edge. Shouts came from the

crowd. With a last glance over his shoulder, the pilot leaped and went

over the edge.

The crowd, Don and Clark among them, approached more cautiously. They

made out a falling dot and, a second later, saw a parachute blossom

open. The other planes appeared and flew a wide protective circle around

the chutist.

"Do you think that's Bobby Thebold?" Don asked.

"Probably not. That was the last plane in the formation. Thebold would

be the leader."

They went back past the crashed plane, surrounded by a growing crowd

from town, and recrossed the bridge.

"Look at the water," the editor said. "Ice is forming."

"And we're still rising," Don said, "if my legs are any judge. Do you

think there's a connection?"