The Project Gutenberg EBook of Freedom, by Dallas McCord Reynolds

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Title: Freedom

Author: Dallas McCord Reynolds

Illustrator: Schoenherr

Release Date: October 26, 2009 [EBook #30338]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction February 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.

FREEDOM

by MACK REYNOLDS

Illustrated by Schoenherr

_Freedom is a very dangerous thing indeed. It is so
catching--like a plague--even the doctors get it._

* * * * *

Colonel Ilya Simonov tooled his Zil aircushion convertible along the edge
of Red Square, turned right immediately beyond St. Basil's Cathedral,
crossed the Moscow River by the Moskvocetski Bridge and debouched into the
heavy, and largely automated traffic of Pyarnikskaya. At Dobryninskaya
Square he turned west to Gorki Park which he paralleled on Kaluga until he
reached the old baroque palace which housed the Ministry.

There were no flags, no signs, nothing to indicate the present nature of
the aged Czarist building.

He left the car at the curb, slamming its door behind him and walking
briskly to the entrance. Hard, handsome in the Slavic tradition,
dedicated, Ilya Simonov was young for his rank. A plainclothes man, idling
a hundred feet down the street, eyed him briefly then turned his attention
elsewhere. The two guards at the gate snapped to attention, their eyes
straight ahead. Colonel Simonov was in mufti and didn't answer the salute.

The inside of the old building was well known to him. He went along marble
halls which contained antique statuary and other relics of the past which,
for unknown reason, no one had ever bothered to remove. At the heavy door
which entered upon the office of his destina