The Iron Dream Read Online Free

of a P-meter to the skin of Feric's right palm with a gummy vegetable adhesive. The P-meter consisted of a device for detecting the minute changes in bioelectricity generated by psychic responses, and a pen-and-drum apparatus for recording the resultant psychic profile. Its adherents claimed that, properly used, it was efficacious in the detection of Doms.
    But it was impossible to be certain that the Doms had no conscious control over their psychic discharges and, there-23
    fore, could not feign a genotypically human profile by carefully calculated acts of will.
    "I'm going to make a series of statements and record your psychic responses," Heimat informed Feric diffidently. "You need not react verbally; the instrument is designed to measure your inward reaction."
    He then reeled off a set of stock statements quickly, mechanically, and without apparent emotion. "The human race is doomed to certain extinction. The human genotype is the best true breed of sapient animal yet evolved. No genetic material could have passed through the Time of Fire entirely uncontaminated. The highest instinct of any sapient species must be to perpetuate its kind at the expense of all other sapient species. Love is a cultural sublimation of sexual lust. I would sacrifice my own life for a comrade or lover." And so forth; a list of stimuli designed to elicit different patterns of psychic response from true men than from mutants and mongrels, especially Doms. Feric was quite dubious of the test's total validity, for a Dominator who could anticipate the order of statements by inside information or other means might very well be able to tailor his responses appropriately by filling his mind with thoughts calculated to produce the
    "human" galvanic response proper to the various statements. Still, when combined with a battery of more rigorous tests, it had considerable use; all but the most domi-nantly human mongrels, and perhaps the Doms, would be weeded out.
    Upon- completion of the statements, Heimat glanced perfunctorily at the pattern enscribed by the pen on the drum and announced: "P-meter profile—positive."
    The Dominator scribe handed the analyst the form.
    This the fellow signed, proclaiming: "Trueman Jaggar, I hereby certify you a pure example of the uncontaminated human genotype and verify your right to citizenship in the High Republic of Heldon."
    Feric was aghast. "That's all?" he demanded. "Three superficial tests and you grant me a certificate of genetic purity? This is an outrage! A quarter of the rabble of Zind could weasel past this farce!"
    As he uttered these words, Feric felt a certain pressure against the ramparts of his mind, a lightning thrust of psychic energy aimed at the core of his will. For an instant, the vain 'and foolish nature of the fuss he was raising seemed glaringly apparent: a reasonable man did 24
    not rave like this in public; to continue in this way would vex any number of pleasant and harmless beings. Much the best course would be to melt into the ebb and flow of cosmic destiny and eschew the fruitlessness of resistance to the will of one's betters.
    But even as the psyche of the Dominator reached out to sap his will, Feric, out of long experience, recognized the will-less pleasant drifting feeling for what it was: a Dom attempting to draw him into his net. Feric determinedly stoked the fires of his formidable will with the torch of righteous hate for these soulless creatures who would displace the supremacy of true men with their own obscene reign, whose highest emotion was the desire to exterminate their genetic superiors, who sought to turn the earth into their own squalid pigpen. Although the scribe showed no outward sign of either his attempt at domination or of its successful repulsion, Feric felt the horrid will-less moment dissolve in the fires of his fierce hate.
    "Surely I, as a genetic analyst, am more capable of judging genetic purity than you are as a layman," Heimat had been saying while the