Allen Kim Lang

“ Some of us have been called to the Leader's actual presence." He glowed pride, giving his secret away. "There is no place in the Leader's new society for weaklings. They are better where this one is, underground, dead." ”

“ The hatch to the front compartment swung open for the first time. One man came out. He turned at once to make sure that the air-tight door behind him had locked. Satisfied that it had, he turned again to look down the cabin at us. His face showed that insolence we'd learned to know as the uniform of the "Bupo", the State Secret Police.
The man from Bupo walked down the aisle between the passengers toward the rear of the car. He swept his eyes right and left like a suspecting-machine, catching every detail of us on his memory. ”

“ Noah couldn't watch men killed for their ideas, defending his silence with the argument that he was a doctor, set somewhere above grubby politics." Dr. Raimazan's voice was loud enough that anyone in the car who wished could have heard him.
"Your son died for talking plain," I whispered to the doctor.
We sat in silence. The Capital of the Leader of our hemisphere was only an hour away. After a moment the Surgeon-General sat straight. He brushed his uniform with his left hand, and smoothed the sling under his right arm. Then he crossed the aisle to the seat where Anna sat. ”

“ People leaned toward the walls as he approached, like children shrinking back from a big animal, and relaxed as he went by. He was out of sight in the galley at the rear for a moment, then was back, carrying a pitcher of water in one hand and the key to the front compartment in the other. ”

“ That's why our leader will take us to war, to get back the freedom of our own blue skies." Don Raffe finished, a little breathless.
"I wonder who the poor man was," Mrs. Swaime said, ignoring him.
Miss Barrie shook her head, wondering the same thing. Without saying anything, she went back to the galley to call a surface station on the capsule's radio-telephone. While she was back there, Miss Barrie took a lamp and peered through the glass window in the rear hatch. She saw what becomes of a man caught between a pistoning capsule and its tube. ”

“ Safety devices prevent the capsule from moving so long as there's a foreign body in the Tube." I stopped, suddenly aware of my clumsy, accidental pun.
"All right," Dr. Raimazan said. "We'll have to move the corpse into the capsule, and take it to Bahia with us."
"It will be the worst sort of job," I said.
"If the repair crew takes more than a day, we're in for trouble anyway." He was right. This was February, our hottest month. "You have a strong stomach?" he asked.
"No." I hurried forward to tell Miss Barrie of our decision. ”

“ Talking about ugly things just helps them to happen. Rafiel, my boy, is in the Continental Guard. He says we'll have no war. He says that the Confederacy is too afraid of our airpower to risk a war. Rafiel is a flier. ”

“ It opened a reluctant inch to show the eye of the Bupo cop. He growled some answer to the stewardess' question, then slammed and relocked his door. Miss Barrie hurried back to me. "A man was pulled out of that compartment," she said. "He unlocked the entry hatch and was blown out into the Tube by cabin pressure."
"Like a beetle blasted off a bush by a garden hose," Don Raffe murmured.
"I expect my baggage is strung out from here to Havana," Anna pouted. "Doesn't the State have regulations to keep prisoners from killing themselves on public property?"
"Suicide?" Mrs. ”