REVOLT IN 2100 By ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

But I knew with sick horror when I saw those masks that I was already a dead man, that my time had come and here at last was the nightmare that 1 could not wake up from.

But I was not dead yet. From somewhere I got the courage to pretend anger. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Come along,’ the faceless voice repeated.

‘Show me your order. You can’t just drag an officer out of his bed any time you feel -‘

The leader gestured with his pistol; two of them grabbed my arms and hustled me toward the door, while the fourth fell in behind. But I am fairly strong; I made it hard for them while protesting, ‘You’ve got to let me get dressed at least. You’ve no right to haul me away half naked, no matter what the emergency is. I’ve a right to appear in the uniform of my rank.

Surprisingly the appeal worked. The leader stopped. ‘Okay. But snap into it!’

I stalled as much as I dared while going through the motions of hurrying-jamming a zipper on my boot, fumbling clumsily with all my dressing. How could I leave some sort of a message for Zeb? Any sort of a sign that would show the brethren what had happened to me?

At last I got a notion, not a good one but the best I could manage. I dragged clothing out of my wardrobe, some that I would need, some that I did not, and with the bunch a sweater. In the course of picking out what I must wear I managed to arrange the sleeves of the sweater in the position taken by a lodge brother in giving the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress. Then 1 picked up loose clothing and started to put some of it back in the wardrobe; the leader immediately shoved his blaster in my ribs and said, ‘Never mind that. You’re dressed.’

I gave in, dropping the meaningless clothing on the floor. The sweater remained spread out as a symbol to him who could read it. As they led me away I prayed that our room servant would not arrive and ‘tidy’ it out of meaning before Zeb spotted it.

They blindfolded me as soon as we reached the inner Palace. We went down six flights, four below ground level as I figured it, and reached a compartment filled with the breathless silence of a vault. The hoodwink was stripped from my eyes. I blinked.

‘Sit down, my boy, sit down and make yourself comfortable.’ I found myself looking into the face of the Grand Inquisitor himself, saw his warm friendly smile and his collie-dog eyes.

His gentle voice continued, ‘I’m sorry to get you so rudely out of a warm bed, but there is certain information needed by our Holy Church. Tell me, my son, do you fear the Lord? Oh, of course you do; your piety is well known. So you won’t mind helping me with this little matter even though it makes you late for breakfast. It’s to the greater glory of God.’ He turned to his masked and black-robed assistant questioner, hovering behind him. ‘Make him ready-and pray be gentle.’

I was handled quickly and roughly, but not painfully. They touched me as if they regarded me as so much lifeless matter to be manipulated as impersonally as machinery. They stripped me to the waist and fastened things to me, a rubber bandage tight around my right arm, electrodes in my fists which they taped closed, another pair of electrodes to my wrists, a third pair at my temples, a tiny mirror to the pulse in my throat. At a control board on the left wall one of them made some adjustments, then threw a switch and on the opposite wall a shadow show of my inner workings sprang into being.

A little light danced to my heart beat, a wiggly line on an iconoscope display showed my blood pressure’s rise and fall, another like it moved with my breathing, and there were several others that I did not understand. I turned my head away and concentrated on remembering the natural logarithms from one to ten.