WOLFBANE
By FREDERIK POHL and C. M. KORNBLUTH
Illustrated by WOOD
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction October and November 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Appallingly, the Earth and the Moon had been
kidnapped from the Solar System—but who were
the kidnappers and what ransom did they want?
I
Roget Germyn, banker, of Wheeling, West Virginia, a Citizen, wokegently from a Citizen's dreamless sleep. It was the third-hour-risingtime, the time proper to a day of exceptional opportunity to appreciate.
Citizen Germyn dressed himself in the clothes proper for theappreciation of great works—such as viewing the Empire State ruinsagainst storm clouds from a small boat, or walking in silent singlefile across the remaining course of the Golden Gate Bridge. Or astoday—one hoped—witnessing the Re-creation of the Sun.
Germyn with difficulty retained a Citizen's necessary calm. One wastempted to meditate on improper things: Would the Sun be re-created?What if it were not?
He put his mind to his dress. First of all, he put on an old andstoried bracelet, a veritable identity bracelet of heavy silver linksand a plate which was inscribed:
PFC JOE HARTMANN
Korea
1953
His fellow jewelry-appreciators would have envied him that bracelet—ifthey had been capable of such an emotion as envy. No other ID braceletas much as two hundred and fifty years old was known to exist inWheeling.
His finest shirt and pair of light pants went next to his skin,and over them he wore a loose parka whose seams had been carefullyweakened. When the Sun was re-created, every five years or so, it wasthe custom to remove the parka gravely and rend it with the prescribedgraceful gestures ... but not so drastically that it could not bestitched together again. Hence the weakened seams.
This was, he counted, the forty-first day on which he and all ofWheeling had do-nned the appropriate Sun Re-creation clothing. It wasthe forty-first day on which the Sun—no longer white, no longerblazing yellow, no longer even bright red—had risen and displayed acolor that was darker maroon and always darker.
It had, thought Citizen Germyn, never grown so dark and so cold in allof his life. Perhaps it was an occasion for special viewing. For surelyit would never come again, this opportunity to see the old Sun so nearto death....
One hoped.
Gravely, Citizen Germyn completed his dressing, thinking only ofthe act of dressing itself. It was by no means his specialty, buthe considered, when it was done, that he had done it well, in thetraditional flowing gestures, with no flailing, at all times balancedlightly on the ball of the foot. It was all the more perfectlyconsummated because no one saw it but himself.
He woke his wife gently, by placing the palm of his hand on herforehead as she lay neatly, in the prescribed fashion, on the Woman'sThird of the bed.
The warmth of his hand gradually penetrated the layers of sleep. Hereyes demurely opened.
"Citizeness Germyn," he greeted her, making the assurance-of-identitysign with his left hand.
"Citizen Germyn," she said, with the assurance-of-identit