Transcriber's note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction April 1956.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed.
THE executioner
Illustrated by Kelly FreasThe vote was three to two for death! Jacques had no choice. He was apublic servant with a duty....
BY FRANK RILEY
"... Continued fair weather and the unusual circumstances of theexecution promise a turn-away crowd of more than 100,000 spectatorsby Court time. All unreserved tent space has been sold out forseveral days. Next news at...."
Sir Jacques de Carougne, Lord High Executioner for the Seventh JudicialDistrict, spun the dial on the instrument panel of his single-seaterrocket, but the vidcasts were over for another hour. He cursed, withouttoo much vigor, and wished he had troubled to look at a vidcast orfaxpaper during his vacation. But then he shrugged his massiveshoulders.
What did it matter? After a thousand executions, everything was instinctand reflex. Some died hard; some died easy. Some fell to their knees,too paralyzed with fear to fire their own shots. Others fought daringly,even with a degree of skill, but always the end was the same: A brokenbody bleeding and twitching in the dust; the blood-happy spectatorsshrieking in the ecstacy of release from the humdrum of their pushbuttonlives; the flowers, the scented kerchiefs and the shreds of torngarments showered on him by screaming women, who always seemed to findhim more satisfactory in the arena than in his tent.
As the skyline of New Chicago shimmered into view, Jacques flipped onthe 'copter mechanism. His air speed braked, and the needle-nosed littlecraft drifted lazily down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, thenveered westward over the tinted glass rooftops of the spotless city.
Jacques stared glumly down at the city that had been so much a part ofhis life, from the long-ago years of his training and youth to theprofessional years of his most famous executions.
Farther to the west, out beyond the eternally green landscaping and theprecise, functional homes of the residential[Pg 34] suburbs, Jacques saw thecrude stone parapets of the Chauvency judicial arena, surrounded by acreafter acre of colorful tents and pavilions.
His powerful, jutting nose wrinkled with disgust, but his eyes widenedat the number of tents. There must indeed be something unusual abouttoday's execution. He hadn't worked before that big a crowd for years.The Federal Bureau of Internal Tranquility should be happy about thisone!
Jacques sighed, still struggling against the despondency that had beenwithin him since the vacation interlude with the brunette governmentworker in Curaçao had ended as unsatisfactorily as all the rest. Somedayit would be his body bleeding in the dust, smashed at last by thesoft-nosed bullets from Le Pistolet du Mort. Then the flowers and