Time Travel Omnibus, page 269
“Kay!” I couldn’t see her white face any more through the tears that blinded me. “Kay, I came as fast as I could—”
But I had come too late! The ghastly knowledge echoed in my agonized mind as though fiends were shrieking it tauntingly in my ears.
The danger that Doctor Madison’s telegram had mentioned had struck, and Kay and Ullman both were dead. And all my dreams were dead, too. “Nick! Nick Clark!”
A shrill voice was shouting my name in almost frenzied accents. I turned tear-blurred eyes toward the man who had entered the laboratory.
For a moment, I did not recognize him as Doctor Madison. He had changed that much. The keen-eyed, brusque-mannered silver haired physicist I had known had become a dishevelled, unshaven and wild-eyed old man. His haggard face had aged years, and the hand with which he feverishly grasped my arm was trembling.
“My God, Nick, I’m glad you’re here!” he babbled. “I’ve been going nearly crazy waiting for you. I must have fallen asleep, just now—”
I hardly heard him for my eyes were still fastened on Kay’s still face.
“When did she die?” I asked heavily. “Die?” Doctor Madison’s bloodshot eyes stared at me. “Nick, what’s the matter with you? Kay isn’t dead. Neither is Ullman.”
It was as though his words sent a bursting rush of blood to hammer through my brain. I spun toward him, wild with relief.
“She isn’t dead? Then what is she doing in that coffin? Why does she look as though she were dead?”
Madison chose his words before answering. “Nick, try to understand this. Kay isn’t dead. But she’s gone out of her body. Like Ullman.”
I stared at him wildly. “Gone out of her body? Are you talking mysticism, or what?”
“Not mysticism, but science,” he corrected earnestly. “Kay’s body lies in that casket. But her mind, the real Kay, no longer inhabits it.”
He explained feverishly, gesturing tremblingly to emphasize some of his points.
“Nick, I know it sounds insane. But if you were a scientist instead of a flier, you’d know it’s not impossible. The human mind, with its web of memories and associations that make up what we call personality, is merely a network of electric currents flowing through the neurones of the brain. Physicists and psychologists have recently been devoting more and more study to this web of electricity that makes up a human mind.
“That’s been my own work for many months. I long ago went far beyond the encephalographical work of the Harvard group. You see, I believed that it should be possible to lift that immaterial electric web of the mind out of a human brain and superimpose it upon a new brain! You can comprehend the vast medical significance such achievement would have.”
Doctor Madison’s hands were shaking as he continued. “Nick, I succeeded in the first step of my experiment. I did the thing with Burke Ullman, and then with Kay. I lifted their minds out of their bodies.”
“But where are they then?” I cried. “Where is Kay?”
Madison was pale as death. “Nick, she is four hundred years in the past.”
Chapter II
Into the Past
STUNNED by the incredible assertion, I looked numbly from Doctor Madison to Kay’s lifeless, lovely face.
“In the past?” I repeated stiffly. “What in God’s name do you mean?”
“Just what I said, Nick. I lifted the minds of Burke Ullman and Kay from their bodies. And I hurled the immaterial electric webs of their two minds into past time.”
It occurred to me that Doctor Madison’s brain had cracked from the strain of work. He must have read that thought on my face.
“No, Nick, I’m not crazy! What I did is not impossible, has never been impossible. Surely you must have read something of the new physical theories that define time as a fourth dimension similar to length and breadth and thickness. Why can’t we travel along that time-dimension into the past ages of earth?”
“It just isn’t possible!” I burst out. “I’m no scientist but I’ve read enough to know that the greatest authorities agree that no power could force matter back along the time-dimension.”
“And they are right,” Doctor Madison nodded haggardly. “No matter can be thrust back along that dimension. But the electric network of a human mind is not matter! It is immaterial force, and it can be projected back into time by a suitably powerful force.”
“My God!” The awful implications of his statement had opened an appalling vision to me. “You mean that Kay’s mind is at this moment wandering bodiless in a past age?”
“Nick, let me explain,” begged the physicist. “I didn’t want to send Kay back. She insisted on going—to look for Burke Ullman.”
He poured forth his story feverishly. “It began with my encephalographic experiments at the university. They led me to believe that the electric synaptic pattern of a human brain could be lifted from its physical framework and embodied in a pattern of non-material photons. In other words, that a human mind could be made to live independently of its body.
“Those experiments succeeded. Burke Ullman volunteered for the final test, and I was able to divorce Ullman’s mind from his body. And we found that Ullman’s mind, existing as an electric photon-pat tern, could actually impress itself upon another man’s brain, and control that man’s body. For the photon-pattern amplified the electric power of his mind to such degree that it easily dominated the other’s brain and body.”
A shudder ran through me. “You mean that his mind could leave his own body, in your experiment, and possess another man’s body?”
“That is what it amounted to, Nick. Perhaps I should have halted the experiment there. But a new possibility had occurred to me. Why couldn’t I use this new power to achieve successful time-travel? Matter could not be projected into the past. But an isolated, immaterial mind could. In fact, every time that you remember anything, you are momentarily projecting your mind into the past!
“I discussed the possibility with Ullman. He was at once in favor of it, and offered himself as a subject for the dangerous experiment. He believed that we could make use of this method of mental time-travel to win for ourselves a fortune worth millions of dollars.”
“That sounds like Burke Ullman,” I muttered. “That sardonic devil would risk anything for money and power.”
“No, Nick, you’re wrong,” Doctor Madison denied earnestly. “I know you never liked Ullman, but his motives in this case were above reproach. He pointed out to me that if we could win wealth through my discovery, we could set up a splendid scientific foundation which would be devoted entirely to developing my new discoveries for the good of the world.”
“How did Ullman expect to win this fortune?” I exclaimed. “You could send his mind into the past—but a mind couldn’t bring back anything material.”
“I know, but a mind could bring back knowledge,” Doctor Madison pointed out. “It could bring back knowledge of a secret worth millions.”
He asked me abruptly, “Nick, have you ever heard of Montezuma’s treasure?”
I STARED. “Montezuma, the last emperor of the Aztecs?[*] I vaguely remember reading something once about a great lost treasure—”
“A great treasure, indeed!” the haggard physicist exclaimed. “Nick, the royal treasure of gold, emeralds and other precious stones was fabulous in value. But what became of that treasure after the conquest? We know the Spaniards never got it, though they even tortured members of Montezuma’s household in vain attempt to learn where it was hidden. Nor have any of the many treasure-seekers who have sought its hiding-place in the centuries since then, ever found it. It’s the greatest lost treasure in the world.
“Ullman believed that we could find it. He believed that if I hurled his mind back four centuries to the days of the Aztec empire’s glory, he could learn where the royal treasure had been kept hidden. He—or his photon-embodied mind—could then come back with that knowledge and we would know where to find the legended hoard.”
“So that was it,” I muttered, appalled by the audacity of the scheme. “That’s why you came down here to Mexico City and set up this laboratory.”
He nodded haggardly. “Yes, Nick. It was a mad thing to do, but Ullman painted such wonderful pictures of the great scientific work that treasure would finance, that I agreed to the plan. We established my laboratory in this place, and I prepared to project Ullman’s mind into the past.
“We had chosen this hilltop for a special reason. It was a sacred place to the Aztecs, and each year their rulers came here and spent thirteen days in religious rites. We knew that the royal household had been at this spot, for that purpose, in the year 1519 just before the conquest. So I was to send Ullman’s mind back to that exact time, and he’d ‘possess’ the body of one of the Aztec rulers and learn the treasure secret.”
Doctor Madison’s face was gray and quivering. “I did it, Nick. I built this projector to stab a strong electromagnetic tractor-beam back along the time-dimension. I combined with the Beam the encephalographic force to lift Ullman’s mind from his body as a pattern of electrified photons. Then I used it, hurling Ullman’s photon-bodied mind four centuries into the past. A little later, I reversed the action of the Beam so that when he was ready to return, he could merely enter it and be drawn back here.
“But he didn’t return! I waited days, and he did not come back. Something had happened to him back there in the days of Aztec empire. Somehow, his mind was trapped back there. Until then, I had not informed Kay of what we two had planned. But now my agitation and alarm were so great that Kay insisted on me telling her what had happened.
“I told her. I explained that Ullman’s mind would be forever cut off from his sleeping body here by four centuries of time, unless he could return. And when Kay heard that, she declared that someone must go back and help Ullman escape the dreadful trap. She said that I must send her mind back, to find and help him.”
“AND you did that?” I cried. Anger flared up hot in me and I grasped the aging scientist furiously. “You tore Kay’s mind from her body and flung it back into that dreadful danger?”
“Nick, I didn’t want to do it!” he gasped. “I begged Kay to give up the idea. But you know her fine sense of honor. She said that Ullman had been sacrificed for my experiment, and that it was our duty to risk anything to help him.”
“That would be like Kay, yes,” I groaned. “But still you shouldn’t have dreamed of doing such a thing to her.”
“I wish to God I hadn’t!” The cry ripped from Doctor Madison’s tortured soul. “But I too felt my responsibility to Ullman. I’d have gone myself but it was impossible, for only I could operate the apparatus. So—I sent Kay. I sent her mind back there to the same time, warning her to return quickly whether or not she was able to help Ullman.
“That was a week ago, Nick. And she has not returned either. I’ve kept the Beam going every minute, reaching back through time to draw their minds back here the instant they entered it. They had only to enter the Beam back there, to return. But they have not returned.
“I’ve gone nearly crazy, waiting. Finally, I could stand it no longer and wired you to come. I need your help for what I’m going to do.”
Stunned, I looked wildly at the sleeping form of the girl I loved, lying motionless in the glass casket atop the projector.
“Kay’s mind—Kay herself—back there in the days of the Aztec empire!” I muttered hoarsely. “Kay, living in another body back there—”
The awfulness of it rushed over me, I was separated from her by a barrier of four hundred years that no matter could cross. She was somehow trapped like Burke Ullman back in that sinister, fantastic empire.
Her father was speaking feverishly on. “Nick, I’m going back after her. My mind—back across time to look for her and Burke. That’s why I sent for you. I’m going to try to teach you to operate this apparatus—”
I did not let him finish. My decision was already made, with the speed with which the mind functions in moments of great stress.
“No, you’re not going, doctor,” I said unsteadily. “I’m going. I’ve got to be the one who goes.”
I claim no credit for heroism in that decision. Terrible as might be the risks I challenged, they daunted me far less than the risk of losing Kay forever.
Doctor Madison tried hard to dissuade me. His conscience was heavy with guilt for Ullman and Kay, and he did not want to risk adding me to the list of his experiment’s victims.
“For God’s sake let’s not stand here arguing!” I cried finally. “Get your machine ready, and tell me what to do.”
The violence of my emotion crushed his resistance. He was no longer the strong-willed scientist I had known, but a haggard, shaking wreck. He tottered about, hastily preparing for the desperate attempt.
My thoughts may be imagined. I, Nick Clark, was an ordinarily healthy and normal young man, with little interest in science or history or anything else except Kay and my job of flying. I shrank as any normal man would from the thought of having my bodiless mind flung back into a barbaric age of the past.
But the more I felt the horror of it, the greater was my agony at realizing that Kay was experiencing that horror now. My desperation made me glad when Doctor Madison had finished his preparations.
HE HAD turned off the Beam, and upon the massive quartz lens of its projector had placed a third glass casket like those of Kay and Ullman. Hoarsely, he gave me my final instructions.
“Nick, I’ve set the Beam to hurl you back to a time a few days later than that to which Burke and Kay were projected. They may both have found themselves in some kind of trap. I want to avoid that for you.
“When the Beam hurls you back, you’ll find yourself in that past time as an unbodied mind without ability to hear, speak or see. But you’ll be able to move. Your will can reverse the polarity of your electrified photons, and thus enable you to breast earth’s magnetic currents.”
“But what can I do back there if I can’t see or hear?” I cried to him.
“Nick, you must possess the body of some Aztec back there and use it as a tool, as Ullman and Kay planned to do. You can do it, for your electrified photon-pattern will be strong enough to dominate an ordinary brain and body. But only the Beam can then disengage your mind from that body!
He added earnestly, “Soon after I’ve sent you back, I’ll reverse the Beam. When you have found Kay and Burke and are ready to return, you need only step into the Beam back there and your minds will be torn from whatever bodies you’ve possessed, and will be drawn back here to your own.”
With my heart pounding, I climbed upon the huge projector and lay down in the third glass casket.
Doctor Madison attached wires to tiny electrodes he had clamped on nerves in my neck. He closed the lid of the casket and stepped down.
Drowning the loud thudding of my pulse came the throbbing of powerful generators. I waited, hardly able to breathe in my tension.
Then light and force exploded with a terrific impact. I did not feel that impact physically. It was a psychic shock that tore at my brain, invading the innermost secrets of my being.
I felt myself hurtling through infinite abysses of roaring darkness, as the Beam flung my mind back into the past.
Chapter III
The Conquistadors
IT IS hard for me to depict my sensations during that nightmare rush through time. I had no longer a physical body to convey sensation to me. I was an isolated mind, a mere web of electricity impressed upon a pattern of immaterial photons.
My only feelings were of intense darkness and of a howling roar from the dimensional abysses through which I was being hurled. But I did not hear that roar by auditory means. It came to me, rather, as a sensation of electrical force.
I could still think and remember. The tenuous electric network of intelligence and memory functioned as clearly in its new photon-pattern as it had done in my solid body. I knew that I was Nick Clark, or Nick Clark’s mind, and that I was rushing at crazy speed along a hitherto untravelled dimension of infinity.
Finally, the sense of dizzy speed began to diminish. The roar of maelstrom forces through which I raced seemed to beat less powerfully upon me. Into my wild thoughts came realization that the Beam had finished hurling me back into time, and had been turned off.
I found myself floating quiescent in darkness. That is how it seemed to me. I could neither see nor hear. But I could feel currents of earth’s magnetic force upon which I floated, and which bore my photon-pattern upon their breast as waves bear a swimmer.
I was in utter silence, darkness and isolation. I could not see or hear for. I had no physical senses of sight or hearing. I was an immaterial mind, flung back more than four centuries to this year 1519 in which I must somehow find Kay and Burke Ullman.
“You must possess the body of some Aztec back there and use it as a tool,” Doctor Madison had told me. “Only so can you find them.”
Yes, that was what I must do. But how was I to locate a living man in the rayless dark in which I now existed?
As I poised, puzzled by the difficulty, I became aware of distant electric pulsations impinging feebly on my mind as the currents carried me along. It did not take me long to realize that they were electric vibrations of thought from some living man’s brain.
I must find that man, and use his body! The magnetic currents were bearing me away from him. But Doctor Madison had said that I could travel with or against the magnetic currents by using my will to reverse the polarity of my electric-charged photon-pattern.
I tried that now. And it worked. There was no reason why it should not. Human will, like human thought, is essentially a flow of electric current through the neurones. The slight current was enough to affect the polarity of charge in the photons that now embodied my mind.
