Gordon R. Dickson

WORLD-WIDE LOCKOUT!

It was a future where law compelled four
billion people to be always on the move. But for Kil Bruner it was the best of
all possible worlds. He held Class
A
citizenship, and
his Key made every good thing in this rigidly controlled world available to
him.

But one night a strange visitation snatched
his wife Ellen away from him right before his eyes. And no one would help him
find herl

"Files" ignored his pleas, hunted
him instead,
condemned
him to move every twenty-four
hours. Somewhere in the maddening unknown, Ellen was being held captive, key
to a secret so fantastic that its seekers would destroy the earth in order to
learn it. Kil then knew that his dangerous mission was more than personal—it
was universal
dynamite !

Turn this book over for second complete novel

CAST OF CHARACTERS

KIL BRUNEI!

His Class A Key unlocked everything but the
mystery of his wife's disappearance.

ELLEN
BRUNER

The only superhuman power she wanted was to
go on loving Kil.

TOY

His search for manhood ended in blazing
glory.
MALI

He
would be absolute dictator on Earth if he would have to explode it . . . and
start again!

DEKKO

He had many faces but only one purpose.

McELROY

A Police Chief as elusive as the rebels he sought.

MANKIND ON
THE
RUN

GORDON
R. DICKSON

ACE
BOOKS
A Division of A. A.
Wyn,
Inc.
23
West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.

MANKIND
ON
THE
 
RUN

Copyright ©, 1956, by A. A.
Wyn, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

THE
CKOSSROADS OF TIME

Copyright ©, 1956, by A. A. Wyn, Inc. Printed in U.S.A.

CHAPTER
ONE

The
south-bound rocket, intercontinental, out of
Acapulco, Mexico, for
Tierra
del
Fuego
at the tip of South America, flamed skyward
east of the city, briefly ripping apart the soft tropical night with sound and
fury. Its glare dwindled and vanished, leaving only the little firefly lights
of small flyers, dropping down into the shallow bay before the Hotel Bel-monte.
On the terrace of the hotel's open-air dining area, cut from the rocky cliffs
and facing the ocean, Kil Bruner turned from the noise of the departing rocket
to see his wife, Ellen, dabbing furtively at her eyes.

"You're crying?"
he said. "What is it?"

Ellen brushed hastily at
her eyes with shaky fingers.

"Don't—I'm
not crying," she answered. "I'm just happy, that's all.
Happy on our anniversary."
She turned her head away.
Don't look at me, please, Kil. Look over on the terrace, darling. Is the diving
boy coming yet?"

Kil
scowled blackly, and slowly removed his gaze to the terrace, which extended to
the mouth of the gorge on which the hotel was built. He was not by nature a
biddable young man. His first articulate word, according to his mother, had
been
no.
"That boy would say no," she was in the habit of saying,
"if—" and there words always failed her. She had died in the same
London-Capetown rocket crash that had killed his father, but her tall,
rebellious son had continued to live according to her pronouncement with the
imagination-provoking gap at the end.

In the case of Ellen, however, it was a
little different.

So
he did look over the terrace, past the rocky gorge into the small bay where the
flyers nestled close on the water in parked ranks, like sleepy water fowl under
the moon. Beyond them, the silver-dark ocean spread wide to the horizon; and
far out, a whale blew, its plume of exhausted breath going up like a tiny,
white finger, frosty for a second in the moonlight before it disappeared.

Closer in, the terrace murmured darkly with
shadowy

forms
,
lounging and moving about. To the right, spotlighted by the pure bottled
daylight of sunbeam lamps from the top of the old hotel, the dining area's main
floor murmured brightly. Men in tunics and kilts, or trousers clipped tight at
the ankle, talked and laughed with women in slacks, shorts, or skirts of all
lengths. Here and there, the Key on someone's wrist gleamed even among the
gleaming colors of the crowd. And in the gorge below, the water, mounting the
tide, crashed and foamed high against die rocky walls. The orchestra played
dance music.

"Kil—" it was
Ellen's voice. "You can look back now."

He
turned again to her. Her face, like some small flower, seemed almost freshened
by the brief summer shower of her tears. Out of the brightness of the sunbeams
illuminating the dance-floor, back in the shadow of moonlight where they sat,
her face was beautiful, small and perfect, oval and delicate, blue eyes under
soft blonde hair.

"Don't
look like that, Kil," she said. "It's nothing. Really it isn't."
She put out a hand to touch his arm.
"Happy fifth
anniversary, sweetheart.
I love you."

"Well," he said
gruffly. "I love you."

She looked at him, sadly affectionate. Her
fingers went up to rub gently away at the frown on his forehead. "My dark
and angry man," she said.

He
made an effort to smooth his expression out. In the mirror of her eyes he saw
himself as something different
..
He was tall and lean,
angular of face, black-browed, and scowling with habitual impatience. "I'm
ugly," he had told her once, five years ago, with harshness. "But
it's a beautiful ugliness," she had answered. Seeing himself reflected now
in the magic crystal of her love, he almost believed it.

"What was it?" he
insisted.

"Nothing . . . nothing . . ." she
repeated; but her eyes seemed to glisten again for a second, in the moonlight.
"I'm just sad about leaving, that's all."

Automatically, reflexively, he glanced at the
Key on her wrist and, from it, to the Key on his own. Above the Class
A
designation on the dials, and below the code numbers, the
calchronometer of each showed twenty-seven hours remaining of the six months
permitted them in one location.

"We've hade our period
here," he said.

"I know." But her
face was still unhappy.

"Nobody
gets more than that," he said. "Why does it always bother you so
much, Ellen?"

"Because
I want a home!" she burst out suddenly. "Because I want to settle
down—oh, darling, don't ask me about it tonight. Look, Kil. Look, there's the
diving boy coming now."

His
attention forced away, Kil looked over toward the terrace, following the
direction of her pointing finger. The diving boy, or rather, his
simulacrum—the plastoid automation imitation of a diving boy who once had been,
back before Acapulco and everyplace else were more than just names on a map—was
coming down the steps. Brown and compact, in trunks, and very lifelike, it
descended to the lowest level of the terrace, climbed over the stone balustrade,
and dived from view. A second later, its head popped up through the foamy water
in the mouth of the gorge and it swam across to begin its climb up the face of
the cliff opposite.

"Ellen,"
Kil spoke to her profile, "there's been something on your mind
lately—these past few weeks. What is it?
Something about
this next job?
I don't have to take it, you know. If you don't want to
go to Geneva, just say so. They need memnonic engineers everywhere; you know
that. Just say where you'd like to go."

"Kil!"
She reached blindly for his hand without turning her head. "It's
not that. It's—nothing, really."

"Then
why won't you tell me about it? If it's nothing, you ought to be able to tell
me what it is. Why all this dodging around the question? You'd think I was an
Unstab who couldn't be trusted to hear—"

"Kill,
please!" whispered Ellen, tightly. "People are staring at us. Look
at that policeman over there."

Startled,
Kil turned his head and looked out over the little wilderness of adjoining
tables. Twelve or fifteen feet away, his glance suddenly locked with that of
a
man sitting alone at
a
small
table and gazing in their direction. The man wore no local uniform, but the
insignia of the World Police, a bloody hand grasping the naked blade of an
unsheathed sword, was on the front of his white tunic. As Kil's eyes met his,
he looked away. Kil turned back to Ellen.

"What of it?" he
demanded. "I've got a right to know."

"Wait!"
She squeezed his hand fiercely with her own. "Wait until the diving boy's
through."

Tight-jawed
and grudgingly, Kil sank back into his seat and let his gaze shift toward the
gorge. The simulacrum had reached the top of the cliff now. The music of the
orchestra stopped abruptly and a rolling of drums burst forth, shatteringly
loud on the eardrums, echoing between the narrow walls of the gorge. The small,
brown figure approached the edge of the cliff.

Kil
stole a glance at Ellen. Her eyes were
closed,
her
face tilted back a little and held still as if against some arrowing inner
pain. She seemed to hold her breath. Watching, Kil felt the sudden explosion of
instinctive alarm bells within him.

"Ellen!"
he
cried.

He started to reach out for
her. And the world stopped.

It
was no small stopping. Everything ceased: everything froze. On the top of the
cliff, the diver, bright-lit from below by the red glare of a fire of paper
that had been kindled in the gorge, checked suddenly, leaning out at an impossible
angle over emptiness. The sea became rippled glass, with a whale spout hanging
tiny,
and half-finished on the horizon. In the dining area,
people stood and sat like arrested marionettes. The drummer poised his sticks
in mid-roll and all sound stopped.

Locked
in stillness, like everything else, Kil strained to turn his head, to move in
any way, but couid not. And then, from somewhere among the shadows on the
terrace, there was movement.

At first it was something half-seen out of
the corner of Kil's paralyzed vision. And then, as it came closer, it resolved
itself into a straightly upright old man, as tall as Kil, with wide-set eyes in
a smooth face; an old man dressed simply in kilt and tunic. For a second this
alone registered with Kil, who could not understand the reason for the basic
feeling of
wrongness
with which the sight of the man struck him.
Then it hit home. A difference that set this stranger off from all the four
billions of other human beings that roamed the earth.

The old man wore no Key.

He came up to the table
where Kil and Ellen sat.

"Now,
Ellen," he said. It was a deep, tired voice, a voice weary with years.

Behind
him, Kil heard the soft whisper of her skirt as Ellen rose. She came around the
table slowly and stood looking down for a long moment into Kil's eyes.

"Ellen," repeated
the old man. "Ellen. Come now."

There
was no doubt about the tears in her eyes now. She bent swiftly and kissed Kil
on his immobile lips. Then she turned; and the old man led her away, down into
the shadowy, motionless crowd on the terrace, and out of sight.

For
a little while there was nothing. And then, like a sigh sweeping in from the
sea, life and motion came back to everything and everyone. The fire flickered
again and a wave, poised high against the cliffs of the gorge, fell back with a
crash of water. The drummer's sticks finished their rolls; the diver dropped.

He
splashed into the water and a moment later reappeared, his head breaking the
surface, small and sleekly dark in the firelight. Applause mounted. Couples
moved out on the floor, and the orchestra began to play a dance tune in
counterpoint.

And
at his table, Kil, able once more to move and speak, but facing an empty chair
and an untouched drink, sat like a stone.

Sat like a stone. . . .

CHAPTER TWO

".
.
.
on
good
authority.
News
of
the
past
six
hours
mirrors no
increase
in
general
stability,
■rather
a
slight
falling
off
of sixteen
thousandths
of
one
per
cent,
according
to
the
latest estimate
of
Files,
published
forty
minutes
ago
by
World
Tolice
Headquarters
at
Dttluth,
Lake
Superior
Region.
This
is a
variation
quite
within
normal
limits
and
the
Police
are
not unduly
concerned.

"Around
the
globe,
there
has
been
a
minor
outbreak
of colds
in
North
Berlin
and
the
area
has
been
quarantined,
although
local
health
control
groups
expect
to
have
the
matter well
in
hand
within
twelve
hours.
Present
residents
of
the area
have
been
advised
that
if
they
ivill
present
their
Keys at
any
transportation
checkpoint,
they
ivill
automatically
be reset
to
allow
them
an
extra
twelve
hours
stay
within
the area.
In
Tokyo,
a
riot
flared
briefly
in
the
Slum
Area
as
one faction
of
Unstabs
met
in
pitched
battle
ivith
another.
I^ocal authorities
quickly
restored
order,
but
they
have
requested the
World
Police
to
investigate