Time Travel Omnibus, page 197
Endersby, at the other end, was equally doubtful; but finally agreed to take the chance. There was nothing else for them to do.
The dozen came up in a dozen separate planes, laden to the struts with hurriedly assembled stores, taken secretly from the general supply. Picked men and women, young in years but old as time in spirit. In their eyes lurked the horrors they had seen; on their faces was set an ineradicable stamp.
They went to work at once, efficiently, swiftly, under Talcott’s direction. But there was no drive, no energy to their efforts. In the time machine was their only hope. With that they could tap any age, any vast knowledge! As for the straight problem of atomic power—supposing they succeeded? Fifty to a hundred years of circumscribed living within the bowels of the earth, where they would never see the sun again, or hear the dawn wind through the trees, or watch the mountains light up with supernal glory. A century of molelike drudgery, so that perhaps their children, or their children’s children, might reconquer a blasted, useless earth. And how did they know that the invaders, once firmly established, might not also evolve new and superior weapons to batter down those they expected to invent?
They held a conference by themselves finally. Trent and Talcott were not permitted to attend. Then Endersby, as the spokesman, came to the two scientists.
“We’ve talked it over,” he said. “We don’t intend to go through with it. We’d rather die right here and now than eke out such an existence underground as you’ve outlined.”
Talcott stared incredulously at their grim, set faces. “But you can’t do that,” he cried. “The race of man will die with us.”
“Let it die then,” Endersby said grimly. “There isn’t any hope for us, anyway. Unless”—his eyes turned on Ray—“you can make that time machine of yours work.”
“O.K„ then,” Trent agreed. “I’ll make a bargain. You go ahead with the underground shelter and I’ll concentrate exclusively on the machine. If by the time the invaders come, I see that the whole thing is hopeless, I’ll tell you so, and we can all die decently together. If, however, I find a possibility of success within a short period—say five years at the outside—we’ll hole ourselves in and finish the job.”
Endersby conferred with the rebellious ones. “It’s a bargain,” he said. “But we expect you to be honest about it.”
“I’ll be honest,” Trent promised.
FROM that time on Trent took no part in the communal work. The hole deepened hourly; semi-atomic diggers bit through ice and rock; Talcott drove them remorselessly. But the diggers worked only with muscles and main strength, not with their minds.
During their short sleep periods they crowded around Trent instead, watching his progress with a desperate intentness. Every time he swore viciously and tore down what he had just built, despair clamped upon their hearts; every time he grinned as something clicked in the slowly growing mechanism, their faces lightened and similar smiles twisted their lips.
As the days went on and on it was the time machine, not the underground, that absorbed all their thoughts, all their conversation. Talcott swore at them and flogged them on; they continued their work with mechanical efficiency, but the vitalizing force was gone.
One of them spoke for the others. “I tell you flatly I wouldn’t spend even a year underground. Sure, I’ll finish it, but I won’t go down. Unless Trent’s machine comes through, of course.”
From open skepticism they had veered around to enthusiastic, abiding faith. The time machine! The time machine! Once it’s finished, everything will be all right. We won’t have to live like moles. Trent could go a thousand years ahead if necessary—ten thousand, even!
They’d show those damned invaders. A thousand, ten thousand years ahead, the human race would be far advanced; far beyond a bunch of gyrating, geometric abstractions. Trent would bring back with him weapons that would blow them back to the star from which they originally came.
But the days went on, and the weeks, and still Trent worked on desperately, doggedly, seemingly no nearer success than on the first day. The high hopes, the fanatical faith of the others, began to fade. They whispered to each other and looked askance at the thing of bars and wires and tubes.
Raymond Trent paid no attention to them. His face was hollowed out, his eyes were black froth lack of sleep. Feverishly he went on—and on, driving himself beyond all human endurance.
Then suddenly, only two days before the alien bubbles were due to spawn again, he straightened-his wearied shoulders with a tremendous whoop. Talcott, grim and haggard, had just emerged from the tremendous hole they had dug. The others were deep below, two miles down, their cavern hollowed out of granitic rock, their apparatus almost completely installed. The last desperate touches were being made in a wild race with time. Within forty-eight hours the upper surface would be overwhelmed.
“I’ve got it!” he shouted a little insanely. “I’ve got it—got it! And now, by all the gods of man, we’ll get those damned green globs! I don’t care what they’ve got, or how soon they come; once I’ve put this gadget into that set-up I’ll go forward till I find something so potent, so deadly, a hand weapon will destroy this whole damned horde!”
Talcott stared at him. “You’re sure?”
“As certain as I can be without actually going,” Trent nodded, more soberly.
“When?” the old scientist snapped.
“Tomorrow. Three hours to rearrange that hookup, a half hour or so to install this, and then about six hours of tuning, and another three hours of careful testing of parts. Twelve to twelve and a half hours.”
Talcott smiled grimly. “It better work the first time. You’ll have one day leeway.”
Trent laughed with sudden release of strain. “Half an hour will be enough. I can’t guess now what I’ll have, but I’ll go on to the farthest future, when man’s power is irresistible, and bring back his deadliest defense!”
IT WAS a simple enough affair. Upright bars ringed in a circular platform on which there was a steel, bolted chair with straps to hold the occupant. Between the bars spread a lacework of fine wires, making an intricate geometric pattern. Small but powerful magnetons radiated from a central spoke. Dynon batteries, supercharged, furnished the power. Surmounting each bar were octahedral crystals of synthetic malachine, flashing with green fires, and sensitive to the lightest magnetic whisper. A huge dial with button inserts was fastened to the arm of the chair.
Endersby, black-haired, tense, growled skeptically. “So you expect to go into the future with that contraption, Trent?”
Now that it was time to go, Ray himself began to have uneasy doubts. “I hope to,” he corrected. “If not—” He shrugged.
Ray glanced quickly at his timepiece. Precious seconds were passing. He spoke rapidly. “It’s almost noon. Tomorrow at noon the bubbles are due to spawn again. When that happens, what little is left of our world will be swept away.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll either be back before then with an effective weapon taken out of the future, or else—”
“You’ll be dead, and your machine a failure,” Endersby broke in harshly.
“Exactly,” Ray agreed. “That means you’ll have to be prepared for every eventuality. Have most of you down in your sealed-in cavern. Let Talcott and someone else remain up here until about eleven thirty tomorrow morning. If I don’t show up by then it shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes for them to lower swiftly to the hide-out, place the sealing cap into position, and explode the prepared charges that will block the tunnel from view.”
Endersby moved forward suddenly. “I’ll stay with Talcott, and good luck, Trent!”
“Thanks!” Ray opened a barred door, stepped into the cage. Through the wire mesh they could see him check his apparatus, then seat himself into the chair and strap his body in. His long, lean hand punched buttons on the dial. In the utter silence the clicks were magnified, ominous.
“I’m setting my goal first for fifty years ahead,” his voice came through, curiously muffled. “Some of you may even be alive then.” He tried to sound gay. “Don’t high-hat me out of your superior age and wisdom.”
Ray had turned on the powerful magnetic warps. The malachine crystals dazzled with intense green-blue flame. The magnetons hummed like the droning of a million bees. The time traveler waved his hand.
Then the machine blurred. It became a curious shimmering through which the rear of the station vaguely showed. The shimmering grew more rapid. Only the faintest outlines were visible, a ghostly fantasy of man and cage. Then that died, and the dozen were staring wide-eyed at emptiness. Raymond Trent and his timecraft had disappeared.
“He’s really done it,” someone said in a half-hysterical voice. “He’s gone into the future—the first man in the history of the world.”
“And the last—I’m afraid,” Talcott said tightly. He was finding difficulty in controlling his voice. He had loved the younger man.
Endersby said: “I owe him more than an apology. Let’s hope he comes back. In the meantime, we’d better follow his instructions. If the impossible happens—and he succeeds—we’ll have to be prepared. If he doesn’t return, we’ll have to be prepared just the same.”
TEN of the dozen went below. Two miles down, under rock that was the backbone of the earth, in an artificial cavern about an acre in area and fifty feet high, artificially lighted, ventilated and watered. Soil for planting, a dozen chickens for eggs and meat, concentrated foods for perhaps half a century. Small-enough quarters in which to live, a dozen human beings, with love, marriage, offspring, work, research, with but a single driving thought through the years—the discovery of a weapon to blast the mysterious invaders off the outer face of the planet, and the repossession of a scorched and practically useless world.
Pale but determined, they went to work. Last-minute things, small matters overlooked in the rush of days, but vital for continued existence in the bowels of the earth.
Overhead, two miles up, two men were holding vigil, sitting with burning eyes, waiting for the return of the daring traveler. One full day of breathless waiting, staring at emptiness until their eyes ached and bleared, hoping against hope, knowing in their innermost souls that Ray Trent would never come back, that his pioneer craft had crashed somewhere in the frightening reaches of space and time.
Yet they said nothing of this to each other, but sat rigid, almost unseeing, while the minutes and the hours ticked slowly away. Outside it was the late antarctic summer. The sun moved in a long, slow arc across the heavens, skirting the ice horizon in a vast oval, but never setting.
A blustering storm was gathering over the farther mountains, grim fore-warner that the milder weather was over. Soon it would descend in howling blasts of snow, obscuring the heavens, burying the station once more under mountainous drifts.
That would not matter any more. Within a few hours they’d have to retreat to the depths, and the space things would descend in a swarm of green-glowing bubbles to take over the last poor section of a stricken planet.
As the hours slipped away—irrevocable wraiths—the two men watched and waited, not daring even to thrust a sidelong glance at each other. They did not wish to read on another face the aching conviction that was printed on their own. Ray Trent would never come back! He was dead, smashed in some far-off reach of time and space. It was senseless waiting. Down below there was much to do; things forgotten; things to be guarded against when the things came.
Yet they sat there, rigid, silent, not looking at each other.
The outrunners of the storm moved over the grim plateau. Preliminary gusts of wind rattled the station, retreated to gather new force. The sun was a red, wavering ball of misty fire. But still the central space on which they concentrated was bare—bare of cage or human being.
At eleven the next morning urgent messages came up from below. Since Trent had not returned in twenty-three hours, it was senseless to expect him any more. Suppose the terrible bubbles came a trifle ahead of schedule. They’d be taken unawares and destroyed. It took time to seal the cavern and explode the prepared charges.
But Talcott did not stir, and Endersby growled into the little microphone: “We wait until eleven thirty.”
At eleven thirty the calls became more urgent, threatening even in their fear. They’d have to seal themselves in if Endersby and Talcott didn’t come down in a hurry. The future of all mankind depended on them. Strangely enough, in the actual face of destruction, they had reconsidered, wanted to live.
“Ten minutes more,” snapped Endersby. “We’ve got to give Trent a break.” Talcott still said nothing; he seemed carved out of rock.
The storm burst with a thundering howl. Outside, the world was a swirling mass of gray, thick flakes, torn into shreds by a wind of hurricane violence. Winter had set in—the last winter the world would see.
At eleven forty the receiver crackled with urgency. Endersby sighed, got up reluctantly. He averted his face. “Come on, Talcott, there’s no more use.”
But the scientist was staring at a little whirling ball of mist that had materialized inside the station. “Look!” he cried in a thin, cracked voice. “Look at that!”
Endersby stared. “It’s the storm outside,” he said. “The sudden drop in temperature condensed some moisture, Come on.”
But Talcott was on his feet, quivering like a pointing setter. “It’s taking form,” he shouted. “It’s Trent! He has returned!”
The whirling mist had coalesced; it was shimmering now. The walls behind it grew faint, and a definite shape emerged. The shape of a barred cage, of a chair within and a figure strapped in its depths.
Then it became solid with a curious rush: these in the center of the room, at exactly the place where it had taken off into the unknown almost twenty-four hours before.
The figure inside stirred. Fingers plucked stiffly at the straps. Raymond Trent shook himself as though he were slowly coming out of a daze, got up, and walked with stiff, measured tread to the door.
Talcott and Endersby flung themselves forward. Their hearts thumped like pile drivers, sobs of pure joy tore at their throats.
“He’s come back,” they stammered. “He found the future and he returned!”
They literally dragged the younger man through the door; they pawed his lean figure, pumped his hand with fierce vehemence. They had to make sure that he was real.
“You found the future, didn’t you?” Talcott clamored.
Ray had not spoken as yet. Now he said in a flat, toneless voice: “I found the future, Talcott. Fifty years from now.”
“Swell! Swell!” jittered Endersby. “Everything’s swell now! Where are the weapons you brought back—the advanced weapons that will wipe the space things off the face of the earth? In fifteen minutes they’re coming. Give them to—”
For the first time they both noticed the expression on Ray’s face. It was hard and rigid, like a mask from which all human feeling, all emotion had been erased.
“I have no weapons,” Ray said dully.
“But . . . but—” Talcott stammered. He grasped feverishly at a straw. “Then the principle, the theory of subatomic power, at least. Surely by that time—”
Trent’s eyes were stony pebbles. “I have no theories or principles.”
“But damn it, man,” Endersby exploded. “If they didn’t know enough fifty years from now, why didn’t you go on—a hundred, five hundred years? We know the problem is not insoluble.”
Trent looked at them squarely. They fell back aghast at the sudden flare in his eyes. Then that died. The mask fell back into place. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I went fifty, I went ten thousand years ahead. There is no future! The invaders won, of course. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Naturally, there aren’t any men in the future.”
ROMAN HOLIDAY
Henry Kuttner
Pete Manx Speeds Back Twenty Centuries in Time to Find You Can’t Build Rome in One Day!
PETE MANX was nervous. Spieling before a sideshow or working the shell game on some sucker, he’d have felt at home. But the apparatus in Dr. Mayhem’s laboratory bothered him. Power cables, massive insulators, tubes, coils—huh-uh! Ever since Pete’s brother-in-law had taken the hot squat in Joliet, Pete himself had developed a definite allergy to electricity.
He tipped his derby back on his bullet head, squinting at Mayhem.
“Now look,” he said. “I know my rights; I ain’t no guinea pig. For a hundred bucks I’ll do a lot, but—”
“Shush,” frowned the doctor. “You won’t be hurt. Just wait here, Mr. Manx, till I give the word.”
Mayhem’s agile, wizened figure disappeared behind a curtain. A spatter of applause greeted him as he appeared on an improvised rostrum in a screened-off portion of his laboratory.
Pete tiptoed to the curtain and parted it. He glimpsed a dozen young men—college kids—and a large, amorphous gentleman who wore with dignity pince-nez and a who-the-devil-are-you air.
“Nasty looking customer,” Pete told himself. “Wonder what this is all about? The doc wouldn’t give me a hundred fish for nothing.”
Mayhem commenced to talk.
“Gentlemen, I regret keeping you waiting. I invited you here to witness a little experiment. Professor Aker”—he bowed, with a faintly ironic leer, to the man with the pince-nez—“has honored me by disagreeing with a certain theory I postulated. He maintains that you and I, gentlemen, are—um—cogs.”
Pete grinned as he saw the large gentleman bristle, then rise.
“Dr. Mayhem,” rumbled Professor Aker, “I am at a loss to know why I was summoned to your laboratory. But now that I am here, I feel that it would be expedient to explain my premise.”
“Here we go again,” whispered an irreverent freshman. Professor Aker had, in the university, a definite reputation as a bore.
“Ahem,” said the professor. “It was my contention that our present-day civilization is such a complex organization, with each individual so dependent upon many other individuals for existence, that a man today receives no practical education whatsoever. He is, as I said, merely a cog. In other words, he knows only a limited phase of whatever trade or profession he follows.”
