The Sleeper Is a Rebel
By BRYCE WALTON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories February 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
Surrender
With bitter resignation Deker faced the two immaculately clothed PsychStaffmen. His figure was gaunt, wild, that of a savage anachronism. Hisdirt-caked face cracked in a wry smile.
The staffmen's faces showed fear.
"I'm surrendering," Deker said. "I thought I could live alone, but Icouldn't. My abnormality isn't that kind."
Their fears of violence placated, the two Psychos led him to the smallwaiting gyro. He sat between them and watched the wild expanse offorest diminish beneath them as they headed for City Three. It had beena dangerous freedom in the sea of unsullied North American forest,living precariously from what he could squeeze from a well-stocked butselfish Nature. He had almost starved for a while, until he had learnedthe rudiments of survival.
And then—the brooding loneliness.
Man cannot live alone. He is a social animal. But Deker was alsoan off-sized cog, a misfit that would never find a place in theperfectionistic mechanism of the Hundred Cities Utopian Federation.
"You will volunteer for the Experimental Labs of course," the man onhis right said. "Scientist Brenn needs volunteers. I can't understandwhy you haven't accepted Nirvana before this, Deker! Ordinarily, anAbnormal is more than willing to accept it. It's for the good of theFederation, you know!"
"I know," said Deker acrimoniously.
The Federation was the only thing that mattered. A lone, maladjustedpariah labeled Deker didn't matter. From the time the individualsof the Federation were artificially semenated, placed in a row ofgeneration jars in the Embryo wards, they were conditioned to taketheir predestined place in the social machinery.
But if an abnormality, a misfit, appeared he was tolerated, thoughsocially ostracized, psychologically forced to volunteer to be doneaway with, legally. "Nirvana"—a kind, soft word for extermination.
They didn't kill you, for such a thing would be unthinkable in theperfect order. One slept, was put to permanent gelid sleep in Brenn'sencystment capsule. Deker had tried to escape. But there was no escapefor an abnormal. Nothing but Nirvana....
Deker stood, looking across a gleaming desk at the head of the PsychCouncil for City Three. From having been here for consultation manytimes before, Deker knew this man's name as Jak. He was eighty yearsold, though his voice and face were still young, virile, enthusiastic.The Conditioners did well.
"You surrendered voluntarily," Jak said, his eyes unwaveringly onDeker's. "It's fortunate that your ill-advised attempt to escape endedso amicably."
Deker's thin lips curled. "I wonder if you've considered the fact thatyour 'perfect' system is responsible for me, an imperfection?"
"Of course. But this is only Twenty-one-sixty A.D. At this earlystage we must expect incidental imperfections. The Federation is onlytwo centuries old. It's the glorious whole of our Hundred Cities onemust consider. A little too much thyroxine injection, or a slightirregularity in the saltine schedule, and you resulted. A martyr tothe ultimate planned perfection of the Hundred Cities! If only you hadreacted properly to the C