Page:Stirring Science Stories, February 1941.djvu/61

 of Marinet whose descendants still reigned.

In 1862 a rebellion had broken out in the Southern Appalachian States concerning the British attitude toward slavery. This revolt had been subdued after a year of bitter warfare, under the direction of a General Garraud and a Dominion Premier named Linke.

In 1895, a man in Britton had invented a successful flying machine powered by a ponderous steam engine, A few such craft made small flights of commercial value until in 1902 an inventor in Delaware had built a craft powered by a gasoline engine.

In 1913 a great international conflict had arisen in Europe, centering about the conflicting economic interests of France and Prussia. Britton aided the Prussians against the French and Bavarians, Eventually all of Europe had been dragged in, but the war ended in a stalemate. In America the war was fought between the Louisiana-Mexico and California-Mormon-Federated Appalachian combines.

ONGREVE could not get his mind straight. At times he had begun to think that perhaps he was, as the Consul suggested, a Mormon citizen, duped and hypnotized by a spy. But, at other times, he could think only of the United States.

Brigham had not yet successfully established his identity as a Mormon citizen, Congreve reflected. But then Brigham conjectured that Congreve might not be his name after all. Thar the astronaut could not see. Then came the day when Brigham announced that Mitchell had been tried by court-martial and found guilty. He would be shot, on the morrow, as a spy.

Congreve was shocked beyond measure. They could not do this to his friend and companion of the stars.

"Isn't there something you can do to stop them?" he asked Brigham anxiously.

"Nothing," was the reply. "He was a spy and as such shall be executed. You were lucky in that the British are friendly to our Republic; otherwise they'd have tried you as his accomplice even if you were deluded."

Congreve said nothing. He knew it was up to him to take action, but what action he knew not. Putting on his hat, he strode into the streets to walk and think it over.

He walked along rapidly, hands in his pocket, head down, his mind a mass of confused thoughts, his heart heavy. Mitchell had but one day more to live. Something must be done to prevent this murder, yet what? This world was al! wrong; there was a United States; Mitchell was as innocent and confused as he.

Yet was he? Congreve knew that, to a madman, his delusions seem real while the conceptions of those around appear hideously distorted, wrong, and insane. Had this world changed since their stay on Mercury? Or had he, Congreve, been temporarily unbalanced? If things were totally different, perhaps he might be right (though what the answer to the mystery in such a case might be baffled him). But—that damning similarity, that sameness which suggested that a few slight distortions had been effected in his concepts. Minute alterations which, expanded, resulted in vast differences like the appalling difference the end-result of a mathematical problem can show if a single decimal point is shifted somewhere in the