JOHN HOLDER'S WEAPON
By Robert Moore Williams
Holder hated his Communist captors so much
he wished them out of existence. Impossible, of
course—and yet they vanished before his eyes....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
October 1957
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Get the hell out of my sight, Nocher!" Holder shouted.
The scientist had held his temper ever since he had been taken captive. This had set up such a condition of strain within him that even in his dreams, he had seen himself destroying Reds. He had blown them up with hydrogen bombs, he had destroyed them with death rays, he had disintegrated them with weapons that no other mind had ever imagined. Most of all, he had hated the poking, prying political commissars, who had breathed down his neck in every experiment he had ever attempted, or had watched from the TV camera installed in every laboratory of the vast installation, to make certain that any discovery that was made went to the right place.
But even Holder's most fantastic dreams were nothing in comparison to what actually happened.
Nocher was a big man, standing six foot two inches tall. There was Cossack blood in him, which gave him a vast feeling of superiority for all men not of his race. This was particularly true of the captive scientists being held prisoner in this secret Ural stronghold. In spite of the fact that every one of them had a better brain than he had, the political commissar looked down upon them as being creatures of an inferior race.
As Holder shouted at the Commissar, Nocher lost his expression of superiority. His face turned a dim shade of blue, then a thin shade of white.