And Then the Town Took Off

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  _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

  Copyright (C), 1960, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved

  _For_ FELICITAS K. WILSON

  THE SIOUX SPACEMAN Copyright (C), 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.

  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!

  I

  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 hadbeen highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spentover a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. Ifhe'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit whereSuperior 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 washis first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, thensped off to a telephone.

  The state police converged on the former site of Superior from severaldirections. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, theyconfirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call tothe National Guard.

  The guard surrounded the area with troops--more than a thousand wereneeded--to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew overit reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten intothe Ohio countryside.

  The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trainswas missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but notstop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of thedisappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discoveryshortly after midnight.

  Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight wasthe witching hour.

  Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civildefense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shookit 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 butwhen 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 nopeople, no houses--no sign of anything except the pit itself.

  The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planeshad been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the AtomicEnergy Commission denied that they had been conducting secretexperiments.

  Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blownup. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggestmade bubble gum.

  * * * * *

  A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucerand hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The objectloomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changedcourse to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that hisco-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at theterrific 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 ofOhio, 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 firstday. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as sayingplaintively:

  "_Cold_ up here!"

  Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the BuckeyeCannonball 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 itwasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmenhurried along the tracks.

  The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whomDon had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why didwe stop?"

  "Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a stationstop at Superior on this run."

  The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered theclub car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hairalong the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had theopportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full anduntouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth whichindicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarletlipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature hadgiven her.

  Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which hadbeen about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observethat it was more than adequate.

  If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it hadbeen a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man inhis mid-twenties--about her age--lean, tall and straight-shouldered,with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsomenor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek betweenhis teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.

  But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case hecarried, 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 misshis plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'dget rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was onereason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.

  "Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again andwent down to the tracks.

  Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followedthe conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as itsat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotiveand 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 wascovered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were redlanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and evenan old red shirt.

  Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talkingto an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoatand 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 plowright 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. Humorthe old man. Then let's go."

  The bearded man--he called himself Professor Garet--went off with thefireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile alongthe gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge?I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into thedarkness.

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

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

  True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low onthe horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.

  Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while theprofessor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been therebefore. 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 causedby an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.

  Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked overthe edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to siton the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but thesituation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a bigsection of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.

  Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on hisface, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.

  "You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. Ibelieve you would have had a two-mile fall."

  * * * * *

  "Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving theold Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable atCavalier."

  Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from theclub car, asked, "Cavalier?"

  "The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did yousay 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 noddedand grinned.

  "There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don'texactly 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 theworld, hasn't it?"

  "Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman sayis true. I haven't seen the edge myself."

  "You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayorsaid, "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 waswatching the late show--or trying to. My house is down in a hollow andreception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, allof a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Thenthe phone rang and it was Professor Garet."

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

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

  "Professor of what?"

  "Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, ProfessorGaret telephoned and said, 'Hector'--that's my name, HectorCivek--'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, ofcourse. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."

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

  "He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to conveywas 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, aboutmagnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, sothe mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his townhad flown the coop."

  "What's the population of Superior?"

  "Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousandand forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with usfor 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--toEarth." 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 aboutanywhere."

  "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 therearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's ProfessorGaret. I've got to see him--excuse me."

  The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, whowas frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek wasperhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?"

  "I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattieanother 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 havethought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State."

  He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortablyclose. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the RiggsNational 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 thatS.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 gettinglate."

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

  "Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they putyou, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out ofthis cuff."

  He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-hairedwoman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make youcomfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simplybeside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since thecosmolineator blew up."

  They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, goingaround a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a whitelaboratory smock.