The Iron Dream Read Online Free PDF

collection of mutants came to a shambling halt and regarded Feric with a mixture of fear, befuddlement, and awe, which nevertheless seemed to him to have a hint of surliness.

    "Your pleasure, Troeman?" the Parrotface croaked hoarsely in a vile voice which, however, seemed basically free of guile or malice.
    "What are you folk doing on the bridge to Heldon?"
    The quasi-men stared at him in what seemed to be genuine incomprehension. "We are traveling to the town of Ulmgam, Trueman," the female Blueskin finally ven-tured.
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    Were these creatures totally incapable of comprehending the impossibility of the situation? "How were you allowed on this bridge?" Feric demanded. "Surely creatures such as yourselves will not presume to tell me that you are Helder citizens!"
    "We travel on the customary day passes, Trueman," the Parrotface said.
    "Day passes?" Feric muttered. Lord, were they actually issuing passes of entry to mutants? What treason to true humanity was this? "Let me see one of these passes," he commanded.
    The Egghead reached into a greasy oilskin pouch which hung on a ragged thong about its neck and handed over a small red card. The card was made of cheap paperboard rather than plastic; nevertheless, it bore the Great Seal of Heldon and an engraved border of tiny locked swastikas, the traditional motif of the Ministry of Genetic Purity. In simple block lettering of a rather inelegant design, the card proclaimed: "Day pass good for ten hours sojourn in Ulmgarn only on the date of May 14, 1142 A.F. Trans-gression of these terms punishable by death."
    Thoroughly disgusted, Feric handed the card back. "Is this common practice?" he asked. "Are non-citizens commonly admitted across the river for limited stays?"
    "Provided there is a job to be done that true men, such as yourself, deem beneath their proper station," one of the dwarfs said.
    So that was it! Feric had heard that Universalism was gaining popularity among the masses of Heldon, but he had scarcely imagined that the insidious doctrine promul-gated by the Doms had sufficient influence to actually weaken the stringency of the genetic purity laws. The Universalists demanded the breeding of mindless slave creatures to perform menial tasks, the sort of perversion of protoplasm that the Dominators practiced in Zind.
    They were not yet powerful enough to achieve this unspeakable end, but apparently they had stirred up the slothful masses to the point where the craven government was actually permitting mutants to work in Heldon as a sop to this tendency.
    "Revolting!" Feric muttered, and with a dozen long strides, he put the wretched quasi-humans behind him.
    What he had seen thus far had deeply disturbed him. He had not yet entered Heldon proper, and already he had observed a customs fortress under the sway of a Domina-31
    tor and a shocking relaxation of the genetic purity laws that could only be traced to the influence of Universalists.
    Was the High Republic rotten to the core or merely contaminated around the edges? At any rate, his duty as a true man was clear: to exert his powers to the utmost to restore the rigor of the genetic purity laws, to work for their stringent, indeed fanatic enforcement, and to make full use of whatever opportunity destiny granted him to further this sacred cause.
    With new determination and a growing sense of mission, Feric quickened his pace and fairly loped along the walkway toward the town of Ulmgarn and the great reaches of Heldon stretching majestically beyond.
    The Ulm bridge debouched directly onto the main street of the town of Ulmgarn: an enameled sign atop a slim cast-iron pillar informed Feric that this substantial boulevard was known as Bridge Way. Before him was a spectacle that warmed his soul, burning away both the off-river breeze and the deeper chill of his encounters in the customs fortress and on the bridge. For the first time in his life, he beheld a town built by true men on uncontaminated soil and inhabitated by