The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Executioner, by Frank Riley

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Title: The Executioner

Author: Frank Riley

Release Date: April 22, 2010 [EBook #32087]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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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. copyright
on this publication was renewed.

THE executioner

[Illustration: _Illustrated by Kelly Freas_]

_The vote was three to two for death! Jacques had no choice. He was a
public servant with a duty...._

BY FRANK RILEY

"... Continued fair weather and the unusual circumstances of the
execution promise a turn-away crowd of more than 100,000 spectators
by Court time. All unreserved tent space has been sold out for
several days. Next news at...."

[Illustration]

Sir Jacques de Carougne, Lord High Executioner for the Seventh Judicial
District, spun the dial on the instrument panel of his single-seater
rocket, but the vidcasts were over for another hour. He cursed, without
too much vigor, and wished he had troubled to look at a vidcast or
faxpaper during his vacation. But then he shrugged his massive
shoulders.

What did it matter? After a thousand executions, everything was instinct
and 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 broken
body bleeding and twitching in the dust; the blood-happy spectators
shrieking in the ecstacy of release from the humdrum of their pushbutton
lives; the flowers, the scented kerchiefs and the shreds of torn
garments showered on him by screaming women, who always seemed to find
him more satisfactory in the arena than in his tent.

As the skyline of New Chicago shimmered into view, Jacques flipped on
the 'copter mechanism. His air speed braked, and the needle-nosed little
craft drifted lazily down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan,