The Project Gutenberg EBook of Flight From Tomorrow, by Henry Beam Piper

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Title: Flight From Tomorrow

Author: Henry Beam Piper

Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #18460]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Flight From Tomorrow

_COMPLETE NOVELET_

_by H. Beam Piper_

There was no stopping General Zarvas' rebellion

(Illustration by Lawrence)

[Illustration]

_Hunted and hated in two worlds, Hradzka dreamed of a monomaniac's
glory, stranded in the past with his knowledge of the future. But
he didn't know the past quite well enough...._

1

But yesterday, a whole planet had shouted: _Hail Hradzka! Hail the
Leader!_ Today, they were screaming: _Death to Hradzka! Kill the
tyrant!_

The Palace, where Hradzka, surrounded by his sycophants and guards, had
lorded it over a solar system, was now an inferno. Those who had been
too closely identified with the dictator's rule to hope for forgiveness
were fighting to the last, seeking only a quick death in combat; one by
one, their isolated points of resistance were being wiped out. The
corridors and chambers of the huge palace were thronged with rebels,
loud with their shouts, and with the rasping hiss of heat-beams and the
crash of blasters, reeking with the stench of scorched plastic and
burned flesh, of hot metal and charred fabric. The living quarters were
overrun; the mob smashed down walls and tore up floors in search of
secret hiding-places. They found strange things--the space-ship that had
been built under one of the domes, in readiness for flight to the
still-loyal colonies on Mars or the Asteroid Belt, for instance--but
Hradzka himself they could not find.

At last, the search reached the New Tower which reared its head five
thousand feet above the palace, the highest thing in the city. They
blasted down the huge steel doors, cut the power from the
energy-screens. They landed from antigrav-cars on the upper levels. But
except for barriers of metal and concrete