Time Travel Omnibus, page 131
Brown stepped on the lever, and the car darted back on the path it had come. As we sped back to Ultima the time master outlined his plan to me. Making sure the corselets were carefully concealed under our robes, he battered the inside of the car with the butt of his weapon, chipped the crystal, dented the outside; then he held out his robe and put a few holes through it where they would be immediately noticed. I followed suit, wondering at the audicity which had carried him alive from Atlantis, and which was now to lead him into conflict with men even million years ahead of him in the scale pi evolution! It was like a man of the old stone age fighting a modern soldier; but then Brown was so far ahead of his own generation that he could not really be said to belong to any age.
As we dashed into the illuminated circle we had left a few hours before, Brown stood up, his hair disheveled, his aspect wild, and shouted again and again in the tongue of the last race. If ever I beheld astonishment on those impassive faces, this was the moment. “We are being attacked!” he oratorized, in his most effective manner. At least that is what he told me he said; I, for one, could not understand him.
“They killed our friends before our very eyes!” he continued. “They are bent on destroying you and keeping the planet for themselves! No longer do they need you! You are doomed! Even at this moment your lives are approaching their ends!”
With resignation on their faces, but without haste, and without apparent fear, the Ultimates made a concerted move for a building which stood apart. “That’s what I wanted to know,” whispered Brown. “That’s where they keep their arms. I rather thought they would rush for them!”
With the basest ingratitude, the ancient warriors forgot us entirely—at least, they forgot to supply us with weapons. Perhaps they considered us incapable of using them. Strangely glittering side-arms dangled at the sides of venerable scientists; every man carried on his shoulder enough power to decimate an army. In an incredibly short space of time, the entire city had been surrounded with protective photoelectric devices arranged to explode mines of terrific power outside its gates. Detachments went below, down into the earth itself, to watch over the precious machinery that gave the underground world its breath of life. Others went up into the observatory, to defend to the last the noblest pursuit of mankind. But on every face was a look of utter resignation, as though this were the end, indeed; but on every face, also, I noted the stony determination to preserve the highest achievements and aspirations of the human race to the very last.
IN the general bustle and excitement Brown and I were unnoticed. We had failed in our destined function, and these men had no further use for us.
“I think I know where we left the time machine,” said Brown. “If we can get there unobserved, it will be easier than I expected. After all, why should they want us to remain here?”
We moved in the direction indicated. Our way lay directly past the great elevators which connected the ground with the observatory. Unnoticed, we paused at our car to pick up the helmets we had found. As we repassed the elevators, one of the lightning-fast cars descended, and the chief of the council chamber stepped forth. He looked at us curiously. Suddenly he stepped forward and caught my hand in his, and looked deep into my eyes. I tried to struggle away from him, but it was too late. In that moment he had read what was in my mind; he saw, clear as day, the deceit and the trickery. With a dramatic movement he tore open my robe, and as the enemy pistol met his gaze, he raised his voice in command to his subordinates.
He started to speak; then he suddenly sank to the ground, a burning hole in his forehead. “Run for it,” said Brown, holding his pistol. “He’s told them we are enemies within their gates, in league with the enemies without; and the discovery of that enemy pistol spilled the beans. Put on your helmet, and follow me.”
As we adjusted the protective metal and backed away, he said: “I could shoot up in an elevator and smash the dome of the observatory, and let in the cold to kill them all; but it’ll probably kill us before we find the time machine, and I don’t dare take the chance.”
Something struck me in the chest—something that exploded and emitted poisonous fumes. “Lucky we have these armor plates!” said Brown, turning his ray gun on our pursuers.
Instead of falling, they continued to advance, slowly, methodically, knowing that we were trapped, and enjoying the cat-and-mouse situation. Their own protective corselets and helmets were more than sufficient to ward off the rays.
“Aim for their legs!” ordered Brown, firing over his shoulder as he turned and ran at full speed in the direction of a rosy glow.
I turned once to fire as he had ordered. The leader of the party wavered and fell on his face, struggling to rise; and then I, too, ran in the direction of the glow.
Explosive bullets scorched us through the projectors; a score of times my helmet withstood the impact of a projectile. At intervals Brown and I stopped for a fraction of a second to fire another round; but whenever we did, our erstwhile friends threw themselves flat on the ground, and presented nothing vulnerable. It became a game of tag, more grim than anything I had ever imagined.
Suddenly Brown screamed. A bullet better aimed than the rest, had glanced off his unprotected left arm, and the explosion, while it did not tear off the unfortunate member, disabled it at once. Still we ran, toward the strengthening glow, and Brown staggered and would have fallen had I not caught him. We held our arms before our bodies now, firing only at intervals. A bullet struck an inch behind my heel, and the flame burned like the fixes of hell. Limping as I was, I had to support the almost unconscious Brown, more seriously wounded than I was.
Suddenly I realized why none of our shots took effect. The pistols had been discharged; the limited amount of energy was gone!
In a fit of fury I turned, ignored all danger, and hurled the weapon full at the oncoming Ultimates. The heavy pistol, flung with the desperation of insanity, thudded with a satisfying crunch against the kneecap of a leader; and if I am any sort of physician, it was a smashed knee that brought him crashing to the ground. And then, as we hurried forward, Brown and I received a crushing blow from before us, something that sent us reeling back!
“Quick!” he gasped. “We must have run into the time machine!” I pressed forward cautiously, found the door of the invisible mechanism, and shoved him through it, just as a bullet whistled over his head, struck the delicate controls, and demolished them with a blinding flash!
“Curse you!” I shouted, following Brown into the machine and shutting the door. My friend lay on the floor, a bloody sight, heaving convulsively. “Brown,” I said, “can you still work the disintegrator?” Something like a smile appeared on his face. I lifted off his helmet and replaced it with the helmet of the deadly atomic weapon. Then I seized one of my substantial automatics, opened the door, and fired. The heavy slug ploughed through the armor as through silk; it was a pleasure to see the honest lead crumple up a soldier who was aiming at the invisible time machine something I had not noticed before—a field piece which would have blown us, and the great crystal globe, to atoms!
Hitting the Mark!
MY automatic spurted flame and death among the last men of the world. Behind the eye-pieces of their helmets I could imagine their deep eyes wide with amazement at the efficiency of a forgotten weapon. As I reached for the other loaded gun, I heard a terrific roar, and the ground shook beneath us. Brown, laughing weakly, lay prone on the floor. And where a host of enemies had stood, was nothing but a gaping hole in the earth, and the reek of burning flesh; and, here and there, a fragment of a body, a piece of armor plate, a shred of clothing, a length of rifle!
“Better than I thought,” gasped Brown with a chuckle, as he lapsed into unconsciousness. “I could have—blown the whole—damn—nation—to hell!”
I slammed the door shut and pulled the unconscious Brown into a corner. For a few moments, at least, we were safe from further attack. I darted for the locker that contained the last set of controls. I knocked off the damaged mechanisms, cleaned the horizontal plates, set the new controls on them, and turned the lever. Nothing happened. Were we to be stranded forever here in time?
Looking round wildly, I glanced at Brown. He was too far gone to be revived in a moment. To my practised eye, his condition seemed to be serious. Then my mind flashed back to the time he had rebuked me. Had I seen a key? Was it not true that he had distrusted me to the extent of taking the key from the controls?
I felt around his neck. There was a chain; on the chain was a peculiar key. I jammed it into the lock on the control hoard, moved the lever, and listened. There was a faint vibration. The lights above me shed a flood of strengthening radiance. And then, looking down, I discovered I was naked! And Brown, lying on the floor, his left arm bleeding and swelling, the flesh charred and horrible to see, was as unclad as a satyr in the far-away, pagan days of classic myth.
As in ancient Atlantis, whatever we took with us disappeared as soon as we were in another time dimension. In that case we took with us things long since turned to dust, which vanished; and here we wore garments which had as yet no real existence! But I was more concerned with Brown; and after setting the control for our own century, I shut off the camera obscura, which had been left in operation—so as not to be distracted—and gave all my attention to the unconscious wizard.
Brown’s arm was fractured at the elbow. I washed the wound with antiseptic solution from my medical kit, taped the broken skin, and improvised a splint for the burned and shattered bone. As far as I judged, the work consumed the better part of an hour.
Brown was still unconscious, probably from the terrific shock of an explosive bullet; and I deemed it wisest to leave him in merciful oblivion. I prepared a hypodermic to deaden his pain when he came to himself. In order to keep up his strength I forced between his lips a little hot concentrated soup we had brought in vacuum bottles.
Then I cleaned myself up as well as I could, patched up my scorched heel, swallowed a few cups of the strengthening liquid, and rummaged in the inexhaustible locker for decent apparel. No matter where we came, we could never emerge in our embarrassing state, and Brown might die for lack of prompt hospital attention.
In the locker I found three pairs of ancient trousers, such as men love to go fishing in. Brown had his human side, after all. I slipped into one of the garments myself, pulled the other up over Brown’s limbs, and felt once more like a human being. The locker yielded one flannel shirt, which I appropriated for myself. I judged it better for Brown to leave his injured arm free.
Then, and then only, did I flash on the camera obscura. But what I saw convinced me that we had still a long way to go, hundreds of thousands of years: and I inspected the controls, put my faith in Brown’s machine, and stretched myself out on the floor for a little rest.
Presently I began to grow drowsy. The machine vibrated onward, through century after century, hurtling invisible through the fourth dimension to an age long past. Under the glowing roof lights I felt invigorated and refreshed, and basked in them as I would in a flood of sunshine. The sun! How long was it since I had seen the sun—the one I knew and loved, not the sickly, dying dwarf star of the Ultimates?
AND then the vibration died down and stopped. The machine, I sensed, gently came to rest. As in the time when I visited the dungeons of the French Revolution, I stood in another room; I stood invisible, but I grasped the controls, so as not to lose myself.
The room in which I stood, and in which lay the unconscious Brown, was vaguely familiar. It had the musty look peculiar to parliamentary chambers, and by the fixtures I knew that I had seen it before in pictures. I had even visited its modern counterpart. Rows of chairs were placed facing a dais, row on row, one above the other, as in a theatre. To one side sat a man with a gavel, dressed in the long frock coat, the stiff-bosomed shirt, the open collar and the soft black silk necktie of another generation. And in the center of the room stood another man, dressed like the chairman; a tall, heavy-set, severe-looking individual, with a brow like the dome of Saint Peter’s, and the jaw of a mastiff. The man was speaking in a rich, sonorous, voice, slowly, distinctly. The audience paid him the tribute of hushed attention.
“In this respect, sir,” he was saying, with a note of satire in his mellow, resonant, voice, “I have a great advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing here, sir”—and he placed his hand over his heart—“which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness of having been in the wrong—”
And so it went on, this stately, courteous debate of a bygone day. There was something familiar about the speaker’s face and words. I recognized the old senate chamber, pictures of which I had studied; and then it all came to me in a flash.
“My God!” I exclaimed. “It’s Webster beginning his reply to Hayne!” I knew the opening words, which I had studied years before, in which the great orator laid special emphasis upon Hayne’s use of the word “here”—with its accompanying gesture of indicating the heart.
I was standing listening to the beginning of the greatest extemporaneous speech ever made in the United States. And then suddenly I remember something else. “Webber spoke steadily for twenty-four hours!”
I said to myself. “I must get out of here before Brown regains consciousness and kills me with contempt!”
Slowly my historical knowledge came back to me. The reply to Hayne was delivered at the end of January, 1830. I had overshot my mark by exactly one century! “Not so bad for an amateur, in a space of seven million years,” I said aloud, as I turned the control and the senate chamber and the majestic speaker faded from view.
To come to my own century, my own year, was the work of a fraction of a moment. As the familiar cavern formed itself around the crystal globe, as the lights stopped glowing, and the vibration ceased, I breathed a prayer of gratitude to the destiny which had brought me safely back to my own world and my own time.
I held a vial of smelling salts under Brown’s nose. He moved his head feebly in an effort to avoid the pungent odor, and opened his eyes. “All out,” I quoted, taking unfair advantage of a wounded man, “this is as far as we go.”
I dragged him from the machine and out into the cavern. He looked around, noted the familiar surroundings, and thanked me with a look. “Well,” I said, “can I operate that machine, or not? Where would you be without me? Do you realize you’ve been unconscious since we left—that is, for seven million years?”
In spite of his pain, Brown smiled faintly. “You’re all right,” he whispered. And that was the greatest compliment I ever received from the master of time.
Many a time I was tempted to tell him I had seen and heard Daniel Webster, a man whom he had never seen and never heard. But that would have made me subject again to his satirical remarks on my abilities. And after all, how do I know he has never seen and heard Webster? With a man like Brown one can never be sure of anything—unless it be the certainty of adventure such as the world has never known.
THE END
[1] December 1929 issue Science Wonder Stories
[2] Method of breeding children apart from the body of the mother.
OPENING THE DOOR
Arthur Machen
The newspaper reporter, from the nature of the case, has generally to deal with the commonplaces of life. He does his best to find something singular and arresting in the spectacle of the day’s doings; but, in spite of himself, he is generally forced to confess that whatever there may be beneath the surface, the surface itself is dull enough.
I must allow, however, that during my ten years or so in Fleet Street, I came across some tracks that were not devoid of oddity. There was that business of Campo Tosto, for example. That never got into the papers. Campo Tosto, I must explain, was a Belgian, settled for many years in England, who had left all his property to the man who looked after him.
My news editor was struck by something odd in the brief story that appeared in the morning paper, and sent me down to make inquiries. I left the train at Reigate; and there I found that Mr. Campo Tosto had lived at a place called Burnt Green—which is a translation of his name into English—and that he shot at trespassers with a bow and arrows. I was driven to his house, and saw through a glass door some of the property which he had bequeathed to his servant: fifteenth-century triptychs, dim and rich and golden; carved statues of the saints; great spiked altar candlesticks; storied censers in tarnished silver; and much more of old church treasure. The legatee, whose name was Turk, would not let me enter; but, as a treat, he took my newspaper from my pocket and read it upside down with great accuracy and facility. I wrote this very queer story, but Fleet Street would not suffer it. I believe it struck them as too strange a thing for their sober columns.
And then there was the affair of the J.H.V.S. Syndicate, which dealt with a Cabalistic cipher, and the phenomenon, called in the Old Testament, “the Glory of the Lord,” and the discovery of certain objects buried under the site of the Temple at Jerusalem; that story was left half told, and I never heard the ending of it. And I never understood the affair of the hoard of coins that a storm disclosed on the Suffolk coast near Aldeburgh. From the talk of the longshoremen, who were on the lookout amongst the dunes, it appeared that a great wave came in and washed away a slice of the sand cliff just beneath them. They saw glittering objects as the sea washed back, and retrieved what they could. I viewed the treasure—it was a collection of coins; the earliest of the twelfth century, the latest, pennies, three or four of them, of Edward VII, and a bronze medal of Charles Spurgeon. There are, of course, explanations of the puzzle; but there are difficulties in the way of accepting any one of them. It is very clear, for example, that the hoard was not gathered by a collector of coins; neither the twentieth-century pennies nor the medal of the great Baptist preacher would appeal to a numismatologist.
