Islands in the Sky

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  Fantastic Story Magazine

  September 1953

  Vol. 6, No. 2

  Custom eBook created by

  Jerry eBooks

  June 2016

  IT WAS evening. The toiling gray-clad convicts in the Pit knew, because the guard yelled:

  “Down tools! Get to quarters. Chow coming!”

  They lined up at attention like old soldiers. All of them were lifers, pallid but beefy from wrestling machines in this atom-smashing plant. Behind them, under stuffy, yellow lights, hummed and droned the great procession of engines. Before them marched the men of the night shift. The air was heavy. It was bound to be, fifteen miles underground, on the lowest level of the New York City Prison.

  The day shift marched into a dark corridor, which was lighted immediately by the glow from their hands and faces. A few years in the atom-smashery gave a ghastly but harmless radiance.

  Beyond was the mess hall, where stew and coffee waited, rank with the vitamin concentrates necessary to men who lived and worked fifteen miles from sunlight. Beyond the mess hall stood the rows of cells, each five by seven, with canvas hammocks, barred doors, the odor of insecticide. But at the door to the hall stood a big guard with sergeant’s stripes.

  “I want Convict Peyton!” he announced. “Number 688-549J!”

  The column halted. The lesser guard singled out a man.

  “Fall out, Peyton. Rest of you, forward march!”

  They filed into the mess hall, leaving the sergeant and one convict alone in the corridor.

  Pierce Peyton, alias Blackie, Convict No. 688-549J, was medium-sized and hard-boiled. He wore a dark, bushy beard, covering much of his prison-bleached face. His eyes were bitter and three-cornered, the eyes of a fighter. In his pessimistic soul he looked only for blame and penalization.

  “Warden wants to see you up yonder,” the sergeant announced.

  He led the way along the corridor to a steel panel marked “Decompression Chamber.” They went into a metal cubicle. The sergeant turned a dial that made the air hiss out slowly.

  “We’ll slack pressure for thirty minutes,” he said. “Want to take a shower over there in the corner?”

  Peyton looked at the shower stall and his eyes glowed. Whatever would happen to him, he would have the luxury of cleanliness. Wisely he refrained from questioning his guide. Throwing off his slouchy gray uniform, he lathered, rinsed and toweled. Stripped, he looked as white as a fish’s belly, but tending the levers of the atom-smasher had made him brawny, especially his deltoids and triceps.

  THEY left the chamber, went up for some moments in an elevator, then to a higher decompression chamber, a third and a fourth. Here was a chair and a trusty in a white coat.

  “Shave Peyton,” ordered the sergeant.

  The trusty obeyed, also trimming the shaggy black hair with its salting of gray. Still suspicious, Peyton tried not to show how he enjoyed being shaved. His face proved to have a heavy jaw and a tight, scornful mouth. A chin-dimple did a little, not much, to relieve the set savagery of his expression. He hadn’t gotten young at atom-smashing since he began—how long ago—twenty years? It seemed a million.

  Up through more decompression chambers, to the fifth, sixth and seventh levels. It took time for a man, used to the Pit’s compressed atmosphere, to get ready for pressure at sea-level.

  At the ninth chamber, another trusty waited with stacks of shirts and socks and several cheap suits. Peyton, neither small nor large, proved easy to fit. He put his feet into rough tan brogans. The sergeant handed him a necktie, which Peyton recognized.

  “I wore that the day they slung me in,” he said. “Where’s the rest of my property?”

  “Styles have changed,” the sergeant reminded. “This is Nineteen-hundred and Eighty. You’ve been in for twenty years.”

  So it had been only twenty years! Peyton faced a mirror to knot the necktie. He studied the square, white face, unrecognizable as the boy he had been . . .

  “Don’t stand there admiring yourself,” snapped the sergeant. “The Old Man’s waiting at dawn. We’ve killed most of the night in these decomps.”

  They entered more elevators and decompression chambers, finally reached the warden’s office. It was a businesslike room, in which sat a plump blond man behind a heavy desk. He looked up from a big printed paper with a red seal.

  “Pierce Peyton,” he greeted the convict, “alias Blackie Peyton, about our third or fourth most incorrigible inmate.”

  Peyton kept silent. Most of the guards called him the worst convict, bar none.

  “You came here as a boy of sixteen, sentenced for murder,” continued the warden.

  Still Peyton made no reply. What good would it do to point out that he had neither touched the gun, nor pulled the trigger? As a foolish orphan kid, falling in with two criminals he thought dashing and indomitable, he had been present at an attempt to rob the payroll of a big factory at home in Rochester. A messenger resisted and was shot. His companions had escaped. Peyton, glued to the spot with terror, was seized by police.

  Furious because he bore the blame and punishment for his accomplices, he had rebelled against prison routine, forfeited all privileges.

  “You were sent to the lowest level of this prison to help run the atom-smashing machinery that supplies the power essential to civilization. Only at that great depth can the machinery have the proper atmospheric pressure to operate. Law provides that rebellious and dangerous convicts shall serve at the machines. You have smashed atoms almost continuously from Nineteen-hundred and Sixty to Nineteen-hundred and Eighty.”

  “I know all about it, Warden. You didn’t dredge me up out of the Pit just to hear my record.”

  A harsh smile appeared on the warden’s face.

  “I want to do you a favor.” He consulted his paper. “It seems that three weeks ago, a rookie guard got caught in a roller machine down in the Pit. It got him by the skirt of his tunic and he couldn’t reach back and tear loose. He was about to be dragged in and crushed, but you saw and ran to help. You forced the roller jaws apart with your bare hands, a considerable feat of strength—”

  PEYTON sneered. So the guard had told, after all! Peyton had acted on impulse in saving that life, but the other incorrigibles in the Pit would have beaten him half to death for helping a hated guard. He had asked the fellow to keep quiet. Apparently the story was out, though. What would happen to him when he got back to the Pit?

  “I didn’t think,” he snarled.

  “The whole prison system is grateful to you, Peyton,” said the warden.

  He handed over the paper. It was a formal order, signed by the Secretary of the State Board of Pardons, for the unconditional release of Pierce Peyton, No. 688-549J, from confinement. Peyton read it through, sat down heavily in an armchair.

  “You’re free, Peyton,” the warden told him. “Going out in the world again.”

  Out in the world! What was it like, after twenty years? Peyton furrowed his pale brow.

  “Things must have changed,” he muttered.

  “They are, Peyton. Greatly changed in every way.” The warden held out his hand. “Take these dark spectacles. You’ll need them. Take this, too.”

  He peeled five bills from a roll of money and wadded them into Peyton’s vest pocket. Peyton looked up, still stunned.

  “What’ll I do out there, Warden? I was just a kid when I came in. No folks. No money. The only job I know is smashing atoms.”

  “We’ve taken care of that, too,” soothed the
warden, handing him a card. “Take the pneumatic subway just outside the gates. In New York City present yourself at the offices of the Board of Pardons. They have a job for you. Good luck.”

  He offered his hand. Peyton, brain whirling, did not notice. He walked blindly through the outer door.

  In the closed front yard, a sentry looked at his release order and opened the outer gate. Peyton almost ran out. The Sun was coming up.

  “The Sun!” he cried.

  He turned his white face to it. The light filled his eyes and he made an agonized grimace. It was as though acid had been thrown in his face. Hurriedly he donned the dark glasses.

  A deep, penetrating voice spoke which seemed to come from nearby.

  “New York subway here. New York subway here.”

  Peyton peered about. He saw the source of the voice—an amplifier above a kiosk. He entered.

  BLACKIE PEYTON walked into the office of the Pardon Board, just off one of the covered travelways that had been a street in the days when New York consisted of many tall buildings, instead of a single vast one. A trim girl with bleached hair took his card and departed to a rear office. Peyton watched her with interest for he had not seen girls in twenty years. He tried to keep that interest mild. After all, he still had a lot to do before he would be well enough established to pay attention to girls. That must wait.

  She returned with a dapper young man with a small, mustache.

  “Ah, Peyton!” chirped the man, giving the visitor a limp hand. “We were told to expect you. Everything is arranged. My name is Harrett, assignment supervisor. Sit down.” They took seats on opposite sides of a dark-painted table. “I understand you’ve worked with machinery.”

  Peyton removed his dark glasses, blinked in the subdued light.

  “Yes, in the atom-smashery,” he replied.

  “The atom-sm—oh, dear, dear!” The news seemed to distress Harrett. He fiddled with his mustache. “That is awkward.”

  “Awkward?” repeated Peyton, mystified. “Why? I was a good hand.”

  Apparently this statement made it more awkward still.

  “You see, Peyton, the atomic power you have worked with is a—eh—a Government monopoly. Knowledge of its production is withheld by law from the public. Do you—uh—understand the production?”

  “In a general way. I worked the machines, sometimes helped treat the minerals they mined in the Pit, or made the little containers out of inerton.”

  “Say no more, Peyton,” Harrett actually begged. “You have been too long in—eh—confinement. You do not know, I am afraid, what things it is dangerous to discuss. Now about work for you, I have decided to send you to the mines just north of—”

  “Mines? Look, Mr. Harrett, if it’s all the same to you, I’ve lived underground long enough. I’d like to be outside.”

  “Please,” Harrett said. “It is my place to assign you where I think you would fit in best.”

  “Haven’t I anything to say about it?”

  “You are being unreasonable, Peyton. This board wants to give you a chance at rehabilitation—”

  “Who asked you to be my stepfather?” Peyton pushed back his chair. “I can take care of myself. Rehabilitate somebody else!”

  “No!” Harrett rose flutteringly. “You cannot go out like that.”

  “Can’t I?”

  “You are an ex-convict, without means of support,” chattered Harrett. “If you are set free in this community, you will undoubtedly go back to criminal ways. Stop, Peyton! Don’t leave this place!”

  As Harrett’s voice rose, a side door opened and in stepped a plump, coarse-looking man in a neat blue uniform.

  “Arrest this man!” Harrett commanded.

  Peyton kicked the table out of his way, raced up to the uniformed man, hit him six times in the face and body within the space of four seconds. At the fifth wallop, the heavy body began to wilt. At the sixth, it collapsed awkwardly. The bleached girl had also come back into the room behind the railing. She screamed tremulously. Harrett sprang at a desk that was studded all over with push-buttons, but Peyton got there first.

  “Sit down, cutie,” he ordered Harrett. “That’s right. Now, if you move before I’m out of here, I’ll stretch you on the floor beside that tub of lard you sicked on me.”

  Harrett seemed frozen to his chair. As swiftly as he had moved when attacking, Peyton rushed to the outer door, through it and into the maze of ceilings, arcades, cubicles and tunnels that made up New York City of 1980.

  As he fled, he breathed fiercely, his mind in a turmoil. Hadn’t he been set free by the warden? What was this trick they’d tried to play on him, practically sentencing him to another kind of hard labor? What had happened to the world he had known twenty years before.

  II

  THE subway had dropped Peyton at the door of the big building which housed the Pardon Board’s office. Eagerly he had hurried to ask for the promised job. Now, panting with fierce anger, his knuckles still tingling with the impact of the blows he had struck, he emerged and took his first look at the public street.

  It was really a passage. Yards wide, apparently miles long, it was sleekly walled and solidly roofed. Glaringly lighted by immense frosted globes. On either side ran a wide walk, thronged with people. In the center were four lanes of traffic. The automobiles were smaller than the models Peyton remembered and tended toward an olive shape. They were painted brightly. Most of them were delivery vehicles. None gave off any odor or made a noise louder than a hum. “I’d like to have one of those,” thought Peyton.

  He started. The air was filled with a shouted command.

  “Chew Cardomint! Chew This was the advertising of the Nineteen-hundred and Eighties. There were no large printed signs, neon or bulb-studded, such as he had known. The appeal was to the ear. He walked a block, crossed the street on an overpass. Another advertizing voice dinned: “You need Wake-ups!”

  But under this, like an obbligato, the nearer shops had their own amplified messages: “Drink Limex—perk up! It’s better at Brummagem’s! Hurry-Rub for the hair!”

  “What now?” Peyton was wondering. This squabble at the Pardon Board had thrown him out of his one chance at employment. He must think about getting to Rochester, where he had lived. He might find some friend of his dead father who would help him. First of all, however, he needed food. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday. He stopped before a modest window in which a white-capped man fried pancakes.

  “Eat cheap!” bade a speaker horn above the door. “Eat cheap!”

  Peyton went in. At a counter of gleaming black sat four men on stools, eating.

  Peyton saw no menu card, but another loudspeaker was babbling:

  “Pancakes, eggs, ham, bacon, oatmeal—”

  “Give me some of those griddle cakes,” Peyton told the counter man. “Ham and eggs. Coffee.”

  “No coffee,” the man told him, plainly surprised at having to give this information. “You want Cafeno? Dixie Blen? Brazillo?”

  “Whichever tastes the most like coffee.”

  The food arrived promptly, plates riding on conveyor belts behind the counter. Peyton ate and drank with relish, making only a slight grimace at the coffee substitute. The menu babble died abruptly and a crisp, cultured voice announced:

  “Attention, New York, this is the Flying Island!”

  Peyton looked up. A rectangle had lighted up behind the counter—television, better than he had known in 1960. It reflected in bright colors the image of a man in khaki uniform and visored cap, wearing monocle and a superior smile.

  “Attention!” the image said again. “Message from Marshal Torridge. Important!”

  The face changed. The new figure was half-length, an elegant person in blue and gold uniform, with the delicate features and lofty air of royalty.

  “Citizens of New York,” came a slow, deep voice. “I, as Marshal of the Airmen, here and now appoint a new administrator for you. General D.D. Argyle will immediately assume command of all bureaus
and departments . . .”

  “What’s all this about?” Peyton asked his nearest neighbor, who stared in utter astonishment at such ignorance.

  “And now,” the figure called Marshal Torridge was saying, “we shall demonstrate the might of the Airmen!”

  SUDDENLY the screen filled with gleaming, speeding aircraft, lean and deadly as torpedoes. They were maneuvering against a brilliant noonday sky, which gave them a blinding silvery sheen. The view faded into a glimpse of uniformed men, drawn up like a line of soldiers, handling rifle-like weapons. Then there was a blare of music and finally Marshal Torridge returned.

  “That is all,” he said. “Do your duty as citizens of New York.”

  The screen darkened. Peyton, who had understood little or nothing, drew out money to pay for his breakfast. He stared at the bills the warden had given him. Each was for a thousand dollars.

  “Five grand!” he whispered. He faltered to the counter man: “The smallest I’ve got is a—a thousand dollar bill—”

  “Okay,” grunted the counterman, unimpressed. He handed back a smaller green bill marked “Five Hundred,” and a disk of metal stamped “$100.” Peyton studied them in mystification, then in suspicion.

  “Is this all I get?” he demanded.

  The counterman pointed to the empty dishes.

  “Cakes, hundred-fifty. Eggs and ham, two hundred. Cafeno, fifty. Four hundred from one thousand leaves six hundred.” He glared. “What do you expect for four hundred smackos—the Ritz?”

  “Look, I’m just a stranger,” Peyton said. “I’m not up on this. Is money so cheap?”

  Other customers volunteered information; four hundred dollars for a hearty breakfast was most reasonable, they said. Peyton shrugged, thrust his money carelessly into a trousers pocket. Feeling no more awe for his thousand-dollar bills, he went outside.

  A big rectangle of parklike lawn was open between lofty walls and roof-levels to the cloudless sky. Trees and shrubs grew in thickets throughout. Peyton found a bench near a central pool and sat down. His eyes behind dark spectacles were puzzled.