Astounding Stories, April, 1931

Astounding Stories, April, 1931 Page 3

by Various

  The Exile of Time

  BEGINNING A FOUR-PART NOVEL

  _By Ray Cummings_

  CHAPTER I

  _Mysterious Girl_

  _Presently there was not one Robot, but three!_]

  [Sidenote: From somewhere out of Time come a swarm of Robots whoinflict on New York the awful vengeance of the diabolical crippleTugh.]

  The extraordinary incidents began about 1 A.M. in the night of June8-9, 1935. I was walking through Patton Place, in New York City, withmy friend Larry Gregory. My name is George Rankin. My business--andLarry's--are details quite unimportant to this narrative. We had beenfriends in college. Both of us were working in New York; and with allour relatives in the middle west we were sharing an apartment on thisPatton Place--a short crooked, little-known street of not particularlyimpressive residential buildings lying near the section known asGreenwich Village, where towering office buildings of the businessdistricts encroach close upon it.

  This night at 1 A. M. it was deserted. A taxi stood at a corner; itschauffeur had left it there, and evidently gone to a nearby lunchroom. The street lights were, as always, inadequate. The night wassultry and dark, with a leaden sky and a breathless humidity thatpresaged a thunder storm. The houses were mostly unlighted at thishour. There was an occasional apartment house among them, but mostlythey were low, ramshackle affairs of brick and stone.

  We were still three blocks from our apartment when without warning theincidents began which were to plunge us and all the city intodisaster. We were upon the threshold of a mystery weird and strange,but we did not know it. Mysterious portals were swinging to engulfus. And all unknowing, we walked into them.

  Larry was saying, "Wish we would get a storm to clear this air--_whatthe devil?_ George, did you hear that?"

  * * * * *

  We stood listening. There had sounded a choking, muffled scream. Wewere midway in the block. There was not a pedestrian in sight, nor anyvehicle save the abandoned taxi at the corner.

  "A woman," he said. "Did it come from this house?"

  We were standing before a three-story brick residence. All its windowswere dark. There was a front stoop of several steps, and a basemententryway. The windows were all closed, and the place had the look ofbeing unoccupied.

  "Not in there, Larry," I answered. "It's closed for the summer--" ButI got no further; we heard it again. And this time it sounded, notlike a scream, but like a woman's voice calling to attract ourattention.

  "George! Look there!" Larry cried.

  The glow from a street light illumined the basement entryway, andbehind one of the dark windows a girl's face was pressed against thepane.

  Larry stood gripping me, then drew me forward and down the steps ofthe entryway. There was a girl in the front basement room. Darknesswas behind her, but we could see her white frightened face close tothe glass. She tapped on the pane, and in the silence we heard hermuffled voice:

  "Let me out! Oh, let me get out!"

  The basement door had a locked iron gate. I rattled it. "No way ofgetting in," I said, then stopped short with surprise. "What thedevil--"

  I joined Larry by the window. The girl was only a few inches from us.She had a pale, frightened face; wide, terrified eyes. Even with thatfirst glimpse, I was transfixed by her beauty. And startled; there wassomething weird about her. A low-necked, white satin dress disclosedher snowy shoulders; her head was surmounted by a pile of snow-whitehair, with dangling white curls framing her pale ethereal beauty. Shecalled again.

  "What's the matter with you?" Larry demanded. "Are you alone in there?What is it?"

  * * * * *

  She backed from the window; we could see her only as a white blob inthe darkness of the basement room.

  I called, "Can you hear us? What is it?"

  Then she screamed again. A low scream; but there was infinite terrorin it. And again she was at the window.

  "You will not hurt me? Let me--oh please let me come out!" Her fistspounded the casement.

  What I would have done I don't know. I recall wondering if thepoliceman would be at our corner down the block; he very seldom wasthere. I heard Larry saying:

  "What the hell!--I'll get her out. George, get me that brick.... Now,get back, girl--I'm going to smash the window."

  But the girl kept her face pressed against the pane. I had never seensuch terrified eyes. Terrified at something behind her in the house;and equally frightened at us.

  I call to her: "Come to the door. Can't you come to the door and openit?" I pointed to the basement gate. "Open it! Can you hear me?"

  "Yes--I can hear you, and you speak my language. But you--you will nothurt me? Where am I? This--this was my house a moment ago. I wasliving here."

  Demented! It flashed to me. An insane girl, locked in this emptyhouse. I gripped Larry; said to him: "Take it easy; there's somethingqueer about this. We can't smash windows. Let's--"

  "You open the door," he called to the girl.

  "I cannot."

  "Why? Is it locked on the inside?"

  "I don't know. Because--oh, hurry! If he--if it comes again--!"

  * * * * *

  We could see her turn to look behind her.

  Larry demanded, "Are you alone in there?"

  "Yes--now. But, oh! a moment ago he was here!"

  "Then come to the door."

  "I cannot. I don't know where it is. This is so strange and dark aplace. And yet it was my home, just a little time ago."

  Demented! And it seemed to me that her accent was very queer. Aforeigner, perhaps.

  She went suddenly into frantic fear. Her fists beat the window glassalmost hard enough to shatter it.

  "We'd better get her out," I agreed. "Smash it, Larry."

  "Yes." He waved at the girl. "Get back. I'll break the glass. Get awayso you won't get hurt."

  The girl receded into the dimness.

  "Watch your hand," I cautioned. Larry took off his coat and wrappedhis hand and the brick in it. I gazed behind us. The street was stillempty. The slight commotion we had made had attracted no attention.

  The girl cried out again as Larry smashed the pane. "Easy," I calledto her. "Take it easy. We won't hurt you."

  The splintering glass fell inward, and Larry pounded around thecasement until it was all clear. The rectangular opening was fairlylarge. We could see a dim basement room of dilapidated furniture: adoor opening into a back room; the girl; nearby, a white shapewatching us.

  There seemed no one else. "Come on," I said. "You can get out here."

  But she backed away. I was half in the window so I swung my legs overthe sill. Larry came after me, and together we advanced on the girl,who shrank before us.

  Then suddenly she ran to meet us, and I had the sudden feeling thatshe was not insane. Her fear of us was overshadowed by her terror atsomething else in this dark, deserted house. The terror communicateditself to Larry and me. Something eery, here.

  "Come on," Larry muttered. "Let's get her out of here."

  * * * * *

  I had indeed no desire to investigate anything further. The girl letus help her through the window. I stood in the entryway holding herarms. Her dress was of billowing white satin with a single red rose atthe breast; her snowy arms and shoulders were bare; white hair waspiled high on her small head. Her face, still terrified, showed partedred lips; a little round black beauty patch adorned one of herpowdered cheeks. The thought flashed to me that this was a girl in afancy dress costume. This was a white wig she was wearing!

  I stood with the girl in the entryway, at a loss what to do. I heldher soft warm arms; the perfume of her enveloped me.

  "What do you want us to do with you?" I demanded softly. McGuire, thepoliceman on the block, might at any moment pass. "We might getarrested! What's the matter with you? Can't you explain? Are youhurt?"

  She was staring as though I were a ghost, or some str
ange animal. "Oh,take me away from this place! I will talk--though I do not know whatto say--"

  Demented or sane, I had no desire to have her fall into the clutchesof the police. Nor could we very well take her to our apartment. Butthere was my friend Dr. Alten, alienist, who lived within a mile ofhere.

  "We'll take her to Alten's," I said to Larry, "and find out what thismeans. She isn't crazy."

  A sudden wild emotion swept me, then. Whatever this mystery, more thananything in the world I did not want the girl to be insane!

  Larry said, "There was a taxi down the street."

  * * * * *

  It came, now, slowly along the deserted block. The chauffeur hadperhaps heard us, and was cruising past to see if we were possiblefares. He halted at the curb. The girl had quieted; but when she sawthe taxi her face registered wildest terror, and she shrank againstme.

  "No! No! Don't let it kill me!"

  Larry and I were pulling her forward. "What the devil's the matterwith you?" Larry demanded again.

  She was suddenly wildly fighting with us. "No! That--that mechanism--"

  "Get her in it!" Larry panted. "We'll have the neighborhood on us!"

  It seemed the only thing to do. We flung her, scrambling and fighting,into the taxi. To the half-frightened, reluctant driver, Larry saidvigorously:

  "It's all right; we're just taking her to a doctor. Hurry and get usaway from here. There's good money in it for you!"

  The promise--and the reassurance of the physician's address--convincedthe chauffeur. We whirled off toward Washington Square.

  Within the swaying taxi I sat holding the trembling girl. She wassobbing now, but quieting.

  "There," I murmured. "We won't hurt you; we're just taking you to adoctor. You can explain to him. He's very intelligent."

  "Yes," she said softly. "Yes. Thank you. I'm all right now."

  She relaxed against me. So beautiful, so dainty a creature.

  Larry leaned toward us. "You're better now?"

  "Yes."

  "That's fine. You'll be all right. Don't think about it."

  * * * * *

  He was convinced she was insane. I breathed again the vague hope thatit might not be so. She was huddled against me. Her face, upturned tomine, had color in it now; red lips; a faint rose tint in the palecheeks.

  She murmured, "Is this New York?"

  My heart sank. "Yes," I answered. "Of course it is."

  "But when?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, what year?"

  "Why, 1935!"

  She caught her breath. "And your name is--"

  "George Rankin."

  "And I,"--her laugh had a queer break in it--"I am Mistress MaryAtwood. But just a few minutes ago--oh, am I dreaming? Surely I'm notinsane!"

  Larry again leaned over us. "What are you talking about?"

  "You're friendly, you two. Like men; strange, so very strange-lookingyoung men. This--this carriage without any horses--I know now it won'thurt me."

  She sat up. "Take me to your doctor. And then to the general of yourarmy. I must see him, and warn him. Warn you all." She was turninghalf hysterical again. She laughed wildly. "Your general--he won't beGeneral Washington, of course. But I must warn him."

  She gripped me. "You think I am demented. But I am not. I am MaryAtwood, daughter of Major Charles Atwood, of General Washington'sstaff. That was my home, where you broke the window. But it did notlook like that a few moments ago. You tell me this is the year 1935,but just a few moments ago I was living in the year 1777!"

  CHAPTER II

  _From Out of the Past_

  "Sane?" said Dr. Alten. "Of course she's sane." He stood gazing downat Mary Atwood. He was a tall, slim fellow, this famous youngalienist, with dark hair turning slightly grey at the temples and aneat black mustache that made him look older than he was. Dr. Alten atthis time, in spite of his eminence, had not yet turned forty.

  "She's sane," he reiterated. "Though from what you tell me, it's awonder that she is." He smiled gently at the girl. "If you don't mind,my dear, tell us just what happened to you, as calmly as you can."

  She sat by an electrolier in Dr. Alten's living room. The yellow lightgleamed on her white satin dress, on her white shoulders, herbeautiful face with its little round black beauty patch, and the curlsof the white wig dangling to her neck. From beneath the billowing,flounced skirt the two satin points of her slippers showed.

  A beauty of the year 1777! This thing so strange! I gazed at her withquickened pulse. It seemed that I was dreaming; that as I sat beforeher in my tweed business suit with its tubular trousers I was theanachronism! This should have been candle-light illumining us; Ishould have been a powdered and bewigged gallant, in gorgeous satinand frilled shirt to match her dress. How strange, how futuristic wethree men of 1935 must have looked to her! And this city through whichwe had whirled her in the throbbing taxi--no wonder she wasoverwrought.

  Alten fumbled in the pockets of his dressing gown for cigarettes. "Goahead, Miss Mary. You are among friends. I promise we will try andunderstand."

  * * * * *

  She smiled. "Yes. I--I believe you." Her voice was low. She satstaring at the floor, choosing her words carefully; and though shestumbled a little, her story was coherent. Upon the wings of her wordsmy fancy conjured that other Time-world, more than a hundred and fiftyyears ago.

  "I was at home to-night," she began. "To-night after dinner. I have norelatives except my father. He is General Washington's aide. Welive--our home is north of the city. I was alone, except for theservants.

  "Father sent word to-night that he was coming to see me. Themessenger got through the British lines. But the redcoats areeverywhere. They were quartered in our house. For months I have beenlittle more than a servant to a dozen of My Lord's Howe's officers.They are gentlemen, though: I have no complaint. Then they left, andfather, knowing it, wanted to come to see me.

  "He should not have tried it. Our house is watched. He promised me hewould not wear the British red." She shuddered. "Anything but that--tohave him executed as a spy. He would not risk that, but wear merely along black cloak.

  "He was to come about ten o'clock. But at midnight there was no signof him. The servants were asleep. I sat alone, and every poundinghoof-beat on the road matched my heart.

  "Then I went into the garden. There was a dim moon in and out of theclouds. It was hot, like to-night. I mean, why it _was_ to-night. It'sso strange--"

  * * * * *

  In the silence of Alten's living room we could hear the hurriedticking of his little mantle clock, and from the street outside camethe roar of a passing elevated train and the honk of a taxi. This wasNew York of 1935. But to me the crowding ghosts of the past were here.In fancy I saw the white pillars of the moonlit Atwood home. A gardenwith a dirt road beside it. Red-coated British soldiers passing....And to the south the little city of New York extending northward fromcrooked Maiden Lane and the Bowling Green....

  "Go on, Mistress Mary."

  "I sat on a bench in the garden. And suddenly before me there was awhite ghost. A shape. A wraith of something which a moment before hadnot been there. I sat too frightened to move. I could not call out. Itried to, but the sound would not come.

  "The shape was like a mist, a little ball of cloud in the center ofthe garden lawn. Then in a second or two it was solid--a thing like ashining cage, with crisscrossing white bars. It was like a room; ametal cage like a room. I thought that the thing was a phantom or thatI was asleep and dreaming. But it was real."

  Alten interrupted. "How big was it?"

  "As large as this room; perhaps larger. But it was square, and abouttwice as high as a man."

  A cage, then, some twenty feet square and twelve feet high.

  She went on: "The cage door opened. I think I was standing, then, andI tried to run but could not. The--the _thing_ came from the door
ofthe cage and walked toward me. It was about ten feet tall. Itlooked--oh, it looked like a man!"

  * * * * *

  She buried her face in her hands. Again the room was silent. Larry wasseated, staring at her; all of us were breathless.

  "Like a man?" Alten prompted gently.

  "Yes; like a man." She raised her white face. This girl out of thepast! Admiration for her swept me anew--she was bravely trying tosmile.

  "Like a man. A thing with legs, a body, a great round head and swayingarms. A jointed man of metal! You surely must know all about them."

  "A Robot!" Larry muttered.

  "You have them here, I suppose. Like that rumbling carriage withouthorses, this jointed iron man came walking toward me. And it spoke! Amost horrible hollow voice--but it seemed almost human. And what itsaid I do not know, for I fainted. I remember falling as it camewalking toward me, with stiff-jointed legs.

  "When I came to my senses I was in the cage. Everything was humming andglowing. There was a glow outside the bars like a moonlit mist. The ironmonster was sitting at a table, with peculiar things--mechanical things--"

  "The controls of the cage-mechanisms," said Alten. "How long were youin the cage?"

  "I don't know. Time seemed to stop. Everything was silent except thehumming noises. They were everywhere. I guess I was only halfconscious. The monster sat motionless. In front of him were big roundclock faces with whirling hands. Oh, I suppose you don't find thisstrange; but to me--!"

  * * * * *

  "Could you see anything outside the cage?" Alten persisted. "No. Justa fog. But it was crawling and shifting. Yes!--I remember now--I couldnot see anything out there, but I had the thought, the feeling, thatthere were tremendous things to see! The monster spoke again and toldme to be careful; that we were going to stop. Its iron hands pulled atlevers. Then the humming grew fainter; died away; and I felt a shock.

  "I thought I had fainted again. I could just remember being pulledthrough the cage door. The monster left me on the ground. It said,'Lie there, for I will return very soon.'

  "The cage vanished. I saw a great cliff of stone near me; it hadyellow-lighted openings, high up in the air. And big stone fenceshemmed me in. Then I realized I was in an open space between a lot ofstone houses. One towered like a cliff, or the side of a pyramid--"

  "The back yard of that house on Patton Place!" Larry exclaimed. Helooked at me. "Has it any back yard, George?"

  "How should I know?" I retorted. "Probably has."

  "Go on," Alten was prompting.

  "That is nearly all. I found a doorway leading to a dark room. Icrawled through it toward a glow of light. I passed through anotherroom. I thought I was in a nightmare, and that this was my home. Iremembered that the cage had not moved. It had hardly lurched. Justtrembled; vibrated.

  "But this was not my home. The rooms were small and dark. Then Ipeered through a window on a strange stone street. And saw thesestrange-looking young men. And that is all--all I can tell you."

  She had evidently held herself calm by a desperate effort. She brokedown now, sobbing without restraint.

  CHAPTER III

  _Tugh, the Cripple_

  The portals of this mystery had swung wide to receive us. The tumblingevents which menaced all our world of 1935 were upon us now. Amaelstrom. A torrent in the midst of which we were caught up like tinybits of cork and whirled away.

  But we thought we understood the mystery. We believed we were actingfor the best. What we did was no doubt ill-considered; but the humanmind is so far from omniscient! And this thing was so strange!

  Alten said, "You have a right to be overwrought, Mistress Mary Atwood.But this thing is as strange to us as it is to you. I called that ironmonster a Robot. But it does not belong to our age: if it does I havenever seen one such as you describe. And traveling through Time--"

  He smiled down at her. "That is not a commonplace everyday occurrenceto us, I assure you. The difference is that in this world of ours wecan understand--or at least explain--these things as being scientific.And so they have not the terror of the supernatural."

  Mary was calmer now. She returned his smile. "I realize that; or atleast I am trying to realize it."

  What a level-headed girl was this! I touched her arm. "You are verywonderful--"

  Alten brushed me away. "Let's try and reduce it to rationality. Thecage was--is, I should say, since of course it still exists--that cageis a Time-traveling vehicle. It is traveling back and forth throughTime, operated by a Robot. Call it that. A pseudo-human monsterfashioned of metal in the guise of a man."

  Even Alten had to force himself to speak calmly, as he gazed from oneto the other of us. "It came, no doubt from some future age, wherehalf-human mechanisms are common, and Time-traveling is known. Thatcage probably does not travel in Space, but only in Time. In thefuture--somewhere--the Space of that house on Patton Place may be thelaboratory of a famous scientist. And in the past--in the year1777--that same Space was the garden of Mistress Atwood's home. Somuch is obvious. But why--"

  "Why," Larry burst out, "did that iron monster stop in 1777 and abductthis girl?"

  "And why," I intercepted, "did it stop here in 1935?" I gazed at Mary."And it told you it would return?"

  "Yes."

  * * * * *

  Alten was pondering. "There must be some connection, of course....Mistress Mary, had you never seen this cage before?"

  "No."

  "Nor anything like it? Was anything like that known to your Time?"

  "No. Oh, I cannot truly say that. Some people believe in phantoms,omens and witchcraft. There was in Salem, in the Massachusetts Colony,not so many years ago--"

  "I don't mean that. I mean Time-traveling."

  "There were soothsayers and fortune-tellers, and necromancers withcrystals to gaze into the future."

  "We still have them," Alten smiled. "You see, we don't know much morethan you do about this thing."

  I said, "Did you have any enemy? Anyone who wished you harm?"

  She thought a moment. "No--yes, there was one." She shuddered at thememory. "A man--a cripple--a horribly repulsive man of about one scoreand ten years. He lives down near the Battery." She paused.

  "Tell us about him," Larry urged.

  She nodded. "But what could he have to do with this? He is horriblydeformed. Thin, bent legs, a body like a cask and a bulging foreheadwith goggling eyes. My Lord Howe's officers say he is very intelligentand very learned. Loyal to the King, too. There was a munitions plotin the Bermudas, and this cripple and Lord Howe were concerned in it.But Father likes the fellow and says that in reality he wishes ourcause well. He is rich.

  "But you don't want to hear all this. He--he made love to me, and Irepulsed him. There was a scene with Father, and Father had ourlackeys throw him out. That was a year ago. He cursed horribly. Hevowed then that some day he--he would have me; and get revenge onFather. But he has kept away. I have not seen him for a twelvemonth."

  * * * * *

  We were silent. I chanced to glance at Alten, and a strange look wason his face.

  He said abruptly, "What is this cripple's name, Mistress Mary?"

  "Tugh. He is known to all the city as Tugh. Just that. I never heardany Christian name."

  Alten rose sharply to his feet. "A cripple named Tugh?"

  "Yes," she affirmed wonderingly. "Does it mean anything to you?"

  Alten swung on me. "What is the number of that house on Patton Place?Did you happen to notice?"

  I had, and wondering I told him.

  "Just a minute," he said. "I want to use the phone."

  He came back to us in a moment: his face was very solemn. "That houseon Patton Place is owned by a man named Tugh! I just called a reporterfriend; he remembers a certain case: he confirmed what I thought.Mistress Mary, did this Tugh in your Time ever consult doctors, tryingto have his crippled body made whole?"
/>
  "Why, of course he did. I have heard that many times. But hiscrippled, deformed body cannot be cured."

  Alten checked Larry and me when we would have broken in withastonished questions. He said:

  "Don't ask me what it means; I don't know. But I think that thiscripple--this Tugh--has lived both in 1777 and 1935, and is travelingbetween them in this Time-traveling cage. And perhaps he is the humanmaster of that Robot."

  Alten made a vehement gesture. "But we'd better not theorize; it's toofantastic. Here is the story of Tugh in our Time. He came to me somethree years ago; in 1932, I think. He offered any price if I couldcure his crippled body. All the New York medical fraternity knew him.He seemed sane, but obsessed with the idea that he must have a bodylike other men. Like Faust, who, as an old man, paid the price of hissoul to become youthful, he wanted to have the beautiful body of ayoung man."

  Alten was speaking vehemently. My thoughts ran ahead of his words; Icould imagine with grewsome fancy so many things. A cripple, travelingto different ages seeking to be cured. Desiring a different body....

  * * * * *

  Alten was saying, "This fellow Tugh lived alone in that house onPatton Place. He was all you say of him, Mistress Mary. Hideouslyrepulsive. A sinister personality. About thirty years old.

  "And, in 1932, he got mixed up with a girl who had a somewhat dubiousreputation herself. A dancer, a frequenter of night-clubs, as theyused to be called. Her name was Doris Johns--something like that. Sheevidently thought she could get money out of Tugh. Whatever it was,there was a big uproar. The girl had him arrested, saying that he hadassaulted her. The police had quite a time with the cripple."

  Larry and I remembered a few of the details of it now, though neitherof us had been in New York at the time.

  Alten went on: "Tugh fought with the police. Went berserk. I imaginethey handled him pretty roughly. In the Magistrate's Court he madeanother scene, and fought with the court attendants. With ungovernablerage he screamed vituperatives, and was carried kicking, biting andsnarling from the court-room. He threatened some wild weird revengeupon all the city officials--even upon the city itself."

  "Nice sort of chap," Larry commented.

  But Alten did not smile. "The Magistrate could only hold him forcontempt of Court. The girl had absolutely no evidence to support heraccusation of assault. Tugh was finally dismissed. A week later hemurdered the girl.

  "The details are unimportant; but he did it. The police had himtrapped in his house; had the house surrounded--this same one onPatton Place--but when they burst in to take him, he had inexplicablyvanished. He was never heard from again."

  Alten continued to regard us with grim, solemn face. "Never heardfrom--until to-night. And now we hear of him. How he vanished, withthe police guarding every exit to that house--well, it's obvious,isn't it? He went into another Time-world. Back to 1777, doubtless."

  Mary Atwood gave a little cry. "I had forgotten that I must warn you.Tugh told me once, before Father and I quarreled with him, that he hada mysterious power. He was a most wonderful man, he said. And therewas a world in the future--he mentioned 1934 or 1935--which he hated.A great city whose people had wronged him; and he was going to bringdeath to them. Death to them all! I did not heed him. I thought he wasdemented, raving...."

  * * * * *

  Alten's little clock ticked with tumultuous heartbeat through anothersilence. The great city around us, even though this was two o'clockin the morning, throbbed with a myriad of blended sounds.

  A warning! Was the girl from out of the past giving us a warning ofcoming disaster to this great city?

  Alten was pacing the floor. "What are we to do--tell the authorities?Take Mistress Mary Atwood to Police Headquarters and inform them thatshe has come from the year 1777? And that, if we are not careful,there will be an attack upon New York?"

  "No!" I burst out. I could fancy how we would be received at PoliceHeadquarters if we did that! And our pictures in to-morrow'snewspapers. Mary's picture, with a jibing headline ridiculing us.

  "No," echoed Alten. "I have no intention of doing it. I'm not sofoolish as that." He stopped before Mary. "What do you want to do?You're obviously an exceptionally intelligent, level-headed girl.Heaven knows you need to be."

  "I--I want to get back home," she stammered.

  A pang shot through me as she said it. A hundred and fifty years toseparate us. A vast gulf. An impassible barrier.

  "That mechanism said it would return!"

  "Exactly," agreed Alten. An excitement was upon us all. "Exactly whatI mean! Shall we chance it? Try it? There's nothing else I can thinkof to do. I have a revolver and two hunting rifles."

  "Just what do you mean?" I demanded.

  "I mean, we'll take my car and go to Tugh's house on Patton Place.Right now! And if that mechanical monster returns, we'll seize it!"

  Alten, the usually calm, precise man of science, was tensely vehement."Seize it! Why not? Three of us, armed, ought to be able to overcome aRobot! Then we'll seize the Time-traveling cage. Perhaps we canoperate it. If not, with it in our possession we'll at least havesomething to show the authorities; there'll be no ridicule then!"

  Our inescapable destiny was making us plunge so rashly into thismystery! With the excitement and the strange fantasy of it upon us, wethought we were acting for the best.

  Within a quarter of an hour, armed and with a long overcoat and ascarf to hide Mary Atwood's beauty, we took Alten's car and drove toPatton Place.

  CHAPTER IV

  _The Fight With the Robot_

  Patrolman McGuire quite evidently had not passed through Patton Placesince we left it; or at least he had not noticed the broken window.The house appeared as before, dark, silent, deserted, and the brokenbasement window yawned with its wide black opening.

  "I'll leave the car around on the other street," Alten said as slowlywe passed the house. "Quick--no one's in sight; you three get outhere."

  We crouched in the dim entryway and in a moment he joined us.

  I clung to Mary Atwood's arm. "You're not afraid?" I asked.

  "No. Yes; of course I am afraid. But I want to do what we planned. Iwant to go back to my own world, to my Father."

  "Inside!" Alten whispered. "I'll go first. You two follow with her."

  I can say now that we should not have taken her into that house. It isso easy to look back upon what one might have done!

  We climbed through the window, into the dark front basement room.There was only silence, and our faintly padding footsteps on thecarpeted floor. The furniture was shrouded with cotton covers standinglike ghosts in the gloom. I clutched the loaded rifle which Alten hadgiven me. Larry was similarly armed; and Alten carried a revolver.

  "Which way, Mary?" I whispered. "You're sure it was outdoors?"

  "Yes. This way, I think."

  We passed through the connecting door. The back room seemed to be adismantled kitchen.

  "You stay with her here, a moment," Alten whispered to me. "Come on,Larry. Let's make sure no one--nothing--is down here."

  I stood silent with Mary, while they prowled about the lower floor.

  "It may have come and gone," I whispered.

  "Yes." She was trembling against me.

  * * * * *

  It seemed to me an eternity while we stood there listening to thefaint footfalls of Larry and Alten. Once they must have stood quiet;then the silence leaped and crowded us. It is horrible to listen to apregnant silence which every moment might be split by some weirdunearthly sound.

  Larry and Alten returned. "Seems to be all clear," Alten whispered."Let's go into the back yard."

  The little yard was dim. The big apartment house against its rear wallloomed with a blank brick face, save that there were windows someeight stories up. Only a few windows overlooked this dim area with itshigh enclosing walls. The space was some forty feet square, and therewas a faded grass plot in the center.<
br />
  We crouched near the kitchen door, with Mary behind us in the room.She said she could recall the cage having stood near the center of theyard, with its door facing this way....

  Nearly an hour passed. It seemed that the dawn must be near, but itwas only around four o'clock. The same storm clouds hung overhead--athreatening storm which would not break. The heat was oppressing.

  "It's come and gone," Larry whispered; "or it isn't coming. I guessthat this--"

  And then it came! We were just outside the doorway, crouching againstthe shadowed wall of the house. I had Mary close behind me, my rifleready.

  "There!" whispered Alten.

  We all saw it--a faint luminous mist out near the center of theyard--a crawling, shifting ball of fog.

  Alten and Larry, one on each side of me, shifted sidewise, away fromme. Mary stood and cast off her dark overcoat. We men were in darkclothes, but she stood in gleaming white against the dark rectangle ofdoorway. It was as we had arranged. A moment only, she stood there;then she moved back, further behind me in the black kitchen.

  And in that moment the cage had materialized. We were hoping itsoccupant had seen the girl, and not us. A breathless moment passedwhile we stared for the first time at this strange thing from theUnknown.... A formless, glowing mist, it quickly gathered itself intosolidity. It seemed to shrink. It took form. From a wraith of a cage,in a second it was solid. And so silently, so swiftly, came this thingout of Time into what we call the Present! The dim yard a second agohad been empty.

  * * * * *

  The cage stood there, a thing of gleaming silver bars. It seemed toenclose a single room. From within its dim interior came a faint glow,which outlined something standing at the bars, peering out.

  The doorway was facing us. There had been utter silence; but suddenly,as though to prove how solid was this apparition, we heard the clankof metal, and the door slid open.

  I turned to make sure that Mary was hiding well behind me. The wayback to the street, if need for escape arose, was open to her.

  I turned again, to face the shining cage. In the doorway somethingstood peering out, a light behind it. It was a great jointed thing ofdark metal some ten feet high. For a moment it stood motionless. Icould not see its face clearly, though I knew there was a suggestionof human features, and two great round glowing spots of eyes.

  It stepped forward--toward us. A jointed, stiff-legged step. Its armswere dangling loosely; I heard one of its mailed hands clank againstits sides.

  "Now!" Alten whispered.

  I saw Alten's revolver leveling, and my own rifle went up.

  "Aim at its face," I murmured.

  We pulled our triggers together, and two spurts of flame spat beforeus. But the thing had stooped an instant before, and we missed. Thencame Larry's shot. And then chaos.

  * * * * *

  I recall hearing the ping of Larry's bullet against the mailed body ofthe Robot. At that it crouched, and from it leaped a dull red-blackbeam of light. I heard Mary scream. She had not fled but was clingingto me. I cast her off.

  "Run! Get back! Get away!" I cried.

  Larry shouted, as we all stood bathed in the dull light from theRobot:

  "Look out! It sees us!"

  He fired again, into the light--and murmured, "Why--why--"

  A great surprise and terror was in his tone. Beside me, withhalf-leveled revolver, Alten stood transfixed. And he too wasmuttering something.

  All this happened in an instant. And there I was aware that I wastrying to get my rifle up for firing again; but I could not. My armsstiffened. I tried to take a step, tried to move a foot, but couldnot. I was rooted there; held, as though by some giant magnet, to theground!

  This horrible dull-red light! It was cold--a frigid, paralyzing blast.The blood ran like cold water in my veins. My feet were heavy with theweight of my body pressing them down.

  Then the Robot was moving; coming forward; holding the light upon us.I thought I heard its voice--and a horrible, hollow, rasping laugh.

  My brain was chilling. I had confused thoughts; impressions, vague anddreamlike. As though in a dream I felt myself standing there withMary clinging to me. Both of us were frozen inert upon our feet.

  I tried to shout, but my tongue was too thick; my throat seemedswelling inside. I heard Alten's revolver clatter to the stonepavement of the yard. And saw him fall forward--out.

  * * * * *

  I felt that in another instant I too would fall. This damnable,chilling light! Then the beam turned partly away, and fell more fullyupon Larry. With his youth and greater strength than Alten's or mine,he had resisted its first blast. His weapon had fallen; now he stoopedand tried to seize it; but he lost his balance and staggered backwardagainst the house wall.

  And then the Robot was upon him. It sprang--this mechanism!--thismachine in human form! And, with whatever pseudo-human intelligenceactuated its giant metal body, it reached under Larry for his rifle!Its great mailed hand swept the ground, seized the rifle and flung itaway. And as Larry twisted sidewise, the Robot's arm with a sweepcaught him and rolled him across the yard. When he stopped, he laymotionless.

  I heard myself thickly calling to Mary, and the light flashed againupon us. And then we fell forward. Clinging together, we fell....

  I did not quite lose consciousness. It seemed that I was frozen, anddrifting off half into a nightmare sleep. Great metal arms weregathering Mary and me from the ground. Lifting us; carrying us....

  We were in the cage. I felt myself lying on the grid of a metal floor.I could vaguely see the crossed bars of the ceiling overhead, and thelatticed walls around me....

  * * * * *

  Then the dull-red light was gone. The chill was gone. I was warming.The blessed warm blood again was coursing through my veins, revivingme, bringing back my strength.

  I turned over, and found Mary lying beside me. I heard her softlymurmur:

  "George! George Rankin!"

  The giant mechanism clanked the door closed, and came with stiff,stilted steps back into the center of the cage. I heard the hollowrumble of its voice, chuckling, as its hand pulled a switch.

  At once the cage-room seemed to reel. It was not a physical movement,though, but more a reeling of my senses, a wild shock to all my being.

  Then, after a nameless interval, I steadied. Around me was a humming,glowing intensity of tiny sounds and infinitely small, infinitelyrapid vibrations. The whole room grew luminous. The Robot, seated nowat a table, showed for a moment as thin as an apparition. All thisroom--Mary lying beside me, the mechanism, myself--all this wasimponderable, intangible, unreal.

  And outside the bars stretched a shining mist of movement. Blurredshifting shapes over a vast illimitable vista. Changing things;melting landscapes. Silent, tumbling, crowding events blurred by ourmovement as we swept past them.

  We were traveling through Time!

  CHAPTER V

  _The Girl from 2930_

  I must take up now the sequence of events as Larry saw them. I wasseparated from Larry during most of the strange incidents which befellus later; but from his subsequent account of what happened to him I amconstructing several portions of this history, using my own wordsbased upon Larry's description of the events in which I personally didnot participate; I think that this method avoids complications in thenarrative and makes more clear my own and Larry's simultaneousactions.

  Larry recovered consciousness in the back yard of the house on PattonPlace probably only a moment or two after Mary and I had been snatchedaway in the Time-traveling cage. He found himself bruised andbattered, but apparently without injuries. He got to his feet, weakand shaken. His head was roaring.

  He recalled what had happened to him, but it seemed like a dream. Theback yard was then empty. He remembered vaguely that he had seen themechanism carry Mary and me into the cage, and that the cage hadvanished.

  La
rry knew that only a few moments had passed. The shots had arousedthe neighborhood. As he stood now against the house wall, dizzilylooking around, he was aware of calling voices from the nearbywindows.

  Then Larry stumbled over Alten, who was lying on his face near thekitchen doorway. Still alive, he groaned as Larry fell over him; buthe was unconscious.

  Forgetting all about his weapon, Larry's first thought was to rush outfor help. He staggered through the dark kitchen into the front room,and through the corridor into the street.

  Patton Place, as before, was deserted. The houses were dark; the alarmwas all in the rear. There were no pedestrians, no vehicles, and nosign of a policeman. Dawn was just coming; as Larry turned eastward hesaw, in a patch of clearing sky, stars paling with the comingdaylight.

  * * * * *

  With uncertain steps, out in the middle of the street, Larry raneastward through the middle of the street, hoping that at the nextcorner he might encounter someone, or find a telephone over which hemight call the police.

  But he had not gone more than five hundred feet when suddenly hestopped; stood there wavering, panting, staring with whirling senses.Near the middle of the street, with the faint dawn behind it, a ballof gathering mist had appeared directly in his path. It was aluminous, shining mist--and it was gathering into form!

  In seconds a small, glowing cage of white luminous bars stood there inthe street, where there had just been nothing! It was not theTime-traveling cage from the house yard he had just left. No--he knewit was not that one. This one was similar, but much smaller.

  The shock of its appearance held Larry for a moment transfixed. It hadso silently, so suddenly appeared in his path that Larry was nowwithin a foot or two of its doorway.

  The doorway slid open, and a man leaped out. Behind him, a girl peeredfrom the doorway. Larry stood gaping, wholly confused. The cage hadmaterialized so abruptly that the leaping man collided with him beforeeither man could avoid the other. Larry gripped the man before him;struck out with his fists and shouted. The girl in the doorway calledfrantically:

  "Harl-no noise! Harl-stop him!"

  Then, suddenly the two of them were upon Larry and pulling him towardthe doorway of the cage. Inside, he was jerked; he shouted wildly; butthe girl slammed the door. Then in a soft, girlish voice, in Englishwith a curiously indescribable accent and intonation, the girl saidhastily:

  "Hold him, Harl! Hold him! I'll start the traveler!"

  The black garbed figure of a slim young man was gripping Larry as thegirl pulled a switch and there was a shock, a reeling of Larry'ssenses, as the cage, motionless in Space, sped off into Time....

  * * * * *

  It seems needless to encumber this narrative with prolonged details ofhow Larry explained himself to his two captors. Or how they told himwho they were; and from whence they had come; and why. To Larry it wasa fantastic--and confusing at first--series of questions and answers.An hour? The words have no meaning. They were traveling through Time.Years were minutes--the words meaning nothing save how they impressedthe vehicle's human occupants. To them all it was an interval ofmutual distrust which was gradually changing into friendship. Larryfound the two strangers singularly direct; singularly forceful inquiet, calm fashion; singularly keen of perception. They had not meantto capture him. The encounter had startled them, and Larry's shoutswould have brought others upon the scene.

  Almost at once they knew Larry was no enemy, and told him so. And in amoment Larry was pouring out all that had happened to him; and toAlten and Mary Atwood and me. This strange thing! But to Larry now,telling it to these strange new companions, it abruptly seemed notfantastic, but only sinister. The Robot, an enemy, had captured MaryAtwood and me, and whirled us off in the other--the larger--cage.

  And in this smaller cage Larry was with friends--for he suddenly foundtheir purpose the same as his! They were chasing this otherTime-traveler, with its semi-human, mechanical operator!

  The young man said, "You explain to him, Tina. I will watch."

  He was a slim, pale fellow, handsome in a queer, tight-lipped,stern-faced fashion. His close-fitting black silk jacket had a whiteneck ruching and white cuffs; he wore a wide white-silk belt, snugblack-silk knee-length trousers and black stockings.

  And the girl was similarly dressed. Her black hair was braided andcoiled upon her head, and ornaments dangled from her ears. Over herblack blouse was a brocaded network jacket; her white belt,compressing her slim waist, dangled with tassels; and there were othertassels on the garters at the knees of her trousers.

  She was a pale-faced, beautiful girl, with black brows arching in athin line, with purple-black eyes like somber pools. She was no morethan five feet tall, and slim and frail. But, like her companion,there was about her a queer aspect of calm, quiet power and force ofpersonality--physical vitality merged with an intellect keenly sharp.

  She sat with Larry on a little metal bench, listening, almost withoutinterruption, to his explanation. And then, succinctly she gave herown. The young man, Harl, sat at his instruments, with his gazesearching for the other cage, five hundred feet away in Space, but inTime unknown.

  And outside the shining bars Larry could vaguely see the blurred,shifting, melting vistas of New York City hastening through thechanges Time had brought to it.

  * * * * *

  This young man, Harl, and this girl, Tina, lived in New York City inthe Time-world of 2930 A. D. To Larry it was a thousand years in thefuture. Tina was the Princess of the American Nation. It was anhereditary title, non-political, added several hundred yearspreviously as a picturesque symbol. A tradition; something to makeless prosaic the political machine of Republican government. Tina wasloved by her people, we afterward came to learn.

  Harl was an aristocrat of the New York City of Tina's Time-world, ascientist. In the Government laboratories, under the same roof whereTina dwelt, Harl had worked with another, older scientist, and--soTina told me--together they had discovered the secret ofTime-traveling. They had built two cages, a large and a small, whichcould travel freely through Time.

  The smaller vehicle--this one in which Larry now was speeding--was, inthe Time-world of 2930, located in the garden of Tina's palace. Theother, somewhat larger, they had built some five hundred feet distant,just beyond the palace walls, within a great Government laboratory.

  Harl's fellow scientist--the leader in their endeavors, since he wasmuch older and of wider experience--was not altogether trusted byTina. He took the credit for the discovery of Time-traveling; yet,said Tina, it was Harl's genius which in reality had worked out thefinal problems.

  And this older scientist was a cripple. A hideously repulsive fellow,named Tugh!

  "Tugh!" exclaimed Larry.

  "The same," said Tina in her crisp fashion. "Yes--undoubtedly thesame. So you see why what you have told us was of such interest. Tughis a Government leader in our world; and now we find he has lived in_your_ Time, and in the Time of this Mary Atwood."

  From his seat at the instrument table, Harl burst out: "So he murdereda girl of 1935, and has abducted another of 1777? You would not haveme judge him, Tina--"

  "No one," she said, "may judge without full facts. This man here--thisLarry of 1935--tells us that only a mechanism is in the largercage--which is what we thought, Harl. And this mechanism, without adoubt, is the treacherous Migul."

  * * * * *

  There was, in 2930, a vast world of machinery. The god of the machinehad developed them to almost human intricacy. Almost all the work ofthe world, particularly in America, and most particularly in themechanical center of New York City, was done by machinery. And themachinery itself was guided, handled, operated--even, in someinstances, constructed--by other, more intricate machines. They werefashioned in pseudo-human form--thinking, logically acting,independently acting mechanisms: the Robots. All but human, theywere--a new race. Inferior to humans, yet similar.


  And in 2930 the machines, slaves of idle human masters, had beendeveloped too highly! They were upon the verge of a revolt!

  All this Tina briefly sketched now to Larry. And to Larry it seemed avery distant, very academic danger. Yet so soon all of us were plungedinto the midst of it!

  The revolt had not yet come, but it was feared. A great Robot namedMigul seemed fomenting it. The revolt was smouldering; at any momentit would burst; and then the machines would rise to destroy thehumans.

  This was the situation when Harl and Tugh completed the Time-travelingvehicles in this world. They had been tested, but never used. ThenTugh had vanished; was gone now; and the larger of the two vehicleswas also gone.

  Both Harl and Tina had always distrusted Tugh. They thought him alliedto the Robots. But they had no proof; and suavely he denied it, andhelped always with the Government activities struggling to keep themechanical slaves docile and at work.

  * * * * *

  Tugh and the larger vehicle had vanished, and so had Migul, theinsubordinate, giant mechanism--at which, unknown to the Governmentofficials, Tina and Harl had taken the other cage and started inpursuit. It was possible that Tugh was loyal; that Migul had abductedhim and stolen the cage.

  "Wait!" exclaimed Larry. "I'm trying to figure this out. It seems tohang together. It almost does, but not quite. When did Tugh vanishfrom your world?"

  "To our consciousness," Tina answered, "about three hours ago. Perhapsa little longer than that."

  "But look here," Larry protested: "according to my story and that ofMary Atwood, Tugh lived in 1935 and in 1777 for three years."

  Confusing? But in a moment Larry understood it. Tugh could have takenthe cage, gone to 1777 and to 1935, alternated between them for whatwas to him, and to those Time-worlds, three years--then have returnedto 2930 _on the same day of his departure_. He would have lived thesethree years; grown that much older; but to the Time-world of 2930neither he nor the cage would have been missed.

  "That," said Tina, "is what doubtless he did. The cage is travelingagain. But you, Larry, tell us only Migul is in it."

  "I couldn't say that of my own knowledge," said Larry. "Mary Atwoodsaid so. It held only the mechanism you call Migul. And now Migul haswith him Mary and my friend George Rankin. We must reach them."

  "We want that quite as much as you do," said Harl. "And to find Tugh.If he is a friend we must save him; if a traitor--punish him."

  Larry began, "But can you get to the other cage?"

  "Only if it stops," said Tina. "_When_ it stops, I should say."

  "Come here," said Harl. "I will show you."

  * * * * *

  Larry crossed the glowing room. He had forgotten its aspect--theghostly unreality around him. He too--his body, like Harl's andTina's--was of the same wraith-like substance.... Then, suddenly,Larry's viewpoint shifted. The room and its occupants were real andtangible. And outside the glowing bars--everything out there was theunreality.

  "Here," said Harl. "I will show you. It is not visible yet."

  Each of the cages was equipped with an intricate device, strange ofname, which Larry and I have since termed a Time-telespectroscope.Larry saw it now as a small metal box, with tuning vibration dials,batteries, coils, a series of tiny prisms and an image-mirror--thewhole surmounted by what appeared the barrel of a small telescope.Harl had it leveled and was gazing through it.[1]

  [Footnote 1: The workings of the Time-telespectroscope involve all theintricate postulates and mathematical formulae of Time-travelingitself. As a matter of practicality, however, the results obtained aresimple of understanding. The etheric vibratory rate of the vehicleswhile traveling through Time was constantly changing. Through thetelespectroscope one cage was visible to the other across the fivehundred feet of intervening Space when they approached a simultaneousTime; when they, so to speak, were tuned in unison.

  Thus, Harl explained, the other cage would show as a ghost, thefaintest of wraiths, over a Time-distance of some five or ten years.And the closer in Time they approached it, the more solid it wouldappear.]

  The enemy cage was not visible, now. But Harl and Tina had glimpsed iton several occasions. What vast realms Time opens within a singlesmall segment of Space! The larger vehicle seemed speeding back andforth. A dash into the year 1777! as Larry learned from Mary Atwood.

  And there had been several evidences of the cage halting in 1935.Larry's account explained two such pauses. But the others? Thoseothers, which brought to the City of New York such amazing disaster?We did not learn of them until much later. But Alten lived throughthem, and presently I shall reconstruct them from his account.

  The larger cage was difficult to trace in its sweep along thecorridors of Time. Never once had Tina and Harl been able to stopsimultaneously with it, for a year has so many separate days andhours. The nearest they came was the halt in the night of June 8-9,when they encountered Larry, and, startled, seized him and moved onagain.

  * * * * *

  Harl continued to gaze through the eyepiece of the detectinginstrument. But nothing showed, and the mirror-grid on the table wasdark.

  "But--which way are we going?" Larry stammered.

  "Back," said Tina. "The retrograde.... Wait! Do not do that!"

  Larry had turned toward where the bars, less luminous, showed a darkrectangle like a window. The desire swept him to gaze out at theshining, changing scene.

  But Tina checked him. "Do not do that! Not yet! It is too great ashock in the retrograde. It was to me."

  "But where are we?"

  In answer she gestured toward a series of tiny dials on the tableedge. There were at least two score of them, laid in a triple bank.Dials to record the passing minutes, hours, days; the years, thecenturies! Larry stared at the small whirring pointers. Some were ablur of swift whirling movement--the hours and days. Tina showed Larryhow to read them. The cage was passing through the year 1880. In a fewmoments of Larry's consciousness it was 1799. Then 1793. The infantAmerican nation was here now. But with the cage retrograding, soonthey would be in the Revolutionary War.

  Tina said. "The other cage may go back to 1777, if Tugh meant ill toMary Atwood, or wants revenge upon her father, at you said. We shallsee."

  They had reached 1790 when Harl gave a low ejaculation.

  "You see it?" Tina murmured.

  "Yes. Very faintly."

  Larry bent tensely forward. "Will it show on the mirror?"

  "Yes; presently. We are about ten years from it. If we get closer, themirror will show it."

  But the mirror held dark. No--now it was glowing a trifle. A vagueluminosity.

  Tina moved toward the instrument controls nearby. "Watch closely,Harl. I will slow us down."

  * * * * *

  It seemed to Larry that the humming with which everything around himwas endowed, now began descending in pitch. And his head suddenly wasunsteady. A singular, wild, queer feeling was within him. An unrest. Atugging torment of every tiny cell of his body.

  Tina said. "Hold steady, Larry, for when we stop."

  "Will it shock me?"

  "Yes--at first. But the shock will not harm you: it is nearly allmental."

  The mirror held an image now--the other cage. Larry saw, on thesix-inch square mirror surface, a crawling, melting scene of movement.And in the midst of it, the image of the other cage, faint andspectral. In all the mirrored movement, only the apparition of thecage was still. And this marked it; made it visible.

  Over an interval, while Larry stared, the ghostly image grew plainer.They were approaching its Time-factor!

  "It is stopping," Harl murmured. Larry was aware that he had left theeyepiece and joined Tina at the controls.

  "Tina, let us try to get it right this time."

  "Yes."

  "In 1777; but which month, would you say?"

  "It has stopped! See?"

  *
* * * *

  Larry heard them clicking switches, and setting the controls for astop. Then he felt Tina gently push him.

  "Sit here. Standing, you might fall."

  He found himself on a bench. He could still see the mirror. The ghostof the other cage was now lined more plainly upon it.

  "This month," said Tina, setting a switch. "Would not you say so? Andthis day."

  "But the hour, Tina? The minute?"

  The vast intricate corridors of Time!

  "It would be in the night. Hasten, Harl, or we will pass! Try thenight--around midnight. Even Migul has the mechanical intelligence tofear a daylight pausing."

  The controls were set for the stop. Larry heard Tina murmuring, "Oh, Ipray we may have judged with correctness!"

  The vehicle was rapidly coming to a stop. Larry gripped the table,struggling to hold firm to his reeling senses. This soundless,grinding halt! His swaying gaze strayed from the mirror. Outside theglowing bars he could now discern the luminous greyness separating.Swift, soundless claps of light and dark, alternating. Daylight anddarkness. They had been blended, but now they were separating. Thepassing, retrograding days--a dozen to the second of Larry'sconsciousness. Then fewer. Vivid daylight. Black night. Daylightagain.

  "Not too slowly, Harl; we will be seen!... Oh, it is gone!"

  Larry saw the mirror go blank. The image on it had flared to greatdistinctness, faded, and was gone. Darkness was around Larry. Thendaylight. Then darkness again.

  "Gone!" echoed Harl's disappointed voice. "But it stopped here!...Shall we stop, Tina?"

  "Yes! Leave the control settings as they are. Larry--be careful, now."

  A dragging second of grey daylight. A plunge into night. It seemed toLarry that all the universe was soundlessly reeling. Out of the chaos,Tina was saying:

  "We have stopped. Are you all right, Larry?"

  "Yes," he stammered.

  * * * * *

  He stood up. The cage room, with its faint lights, benches andsettles, instrument tables and banks of controls, was flooded withmoonlight from outside the bars. Night, and the moon and stars outthere.

  Harl slid the door open. "Come, let us look."

  The reeling chaos had fallen swiftly from Larry. With Tina's smallblack and white figure beside him, he stood at the threshold of thecage. A warm gentle night breeze fanned his face.

  A moonlit landscape lay somnolent around the cage. Trees were nearby.The cage stood in a corner of a field by a low picket fence. Behindthe trees, a ribbon of road stretched away toward a distant shiningriver. Down the road some five hundred feet, the white columns of alarge square brick house gleamed in the moonlight. And behind thehouse was a garden and a group of barns and stables.

  The three in the cage doorway stood whispering, planning. Then two ofthem stepped to the ground. They were Larry and Tina; Harl remained toguard the cage.

  The two figures on the ground paused a moment and then movedcautiously along the inside line of the fence toward the home of MajorAtwood. Strange anachronisms, these two prowling figures! A girl fromthe year 2930; a man from 1935!

  And this was revolutionary New York, now. The little city lay well tothe south. It was open country up here. The New York of 1935 hadmelted away and was gone....

  This was a night in August of 1777.

  CHAPTER VI

  _The New York Massacre of 1935_

  Dr. Alten recovered consciousness in the back yard of the house onPatton Place just a few moments after Larry had encountered thesmaller Time-traveling cage and been carried off by Harl and Tina.Previously to that, of course, the mysterious mechanism in the guiseof a giant man had abducted Mary Atwood and me in the largerTime-cage.

  Alten became aware that people were bending over him. The shots we hadtaken at the Robot had aroused the neighborhood. A policeman arrived.

  The sleeping neighbors had heard the shots, but it seemed that nonehad seen the cage, or the metal man who had come from it. Alten saidnothing. He was taken to the nearest police station where grudgingly,he told his story. He was laughed at; reprimanded for alcoholism.Evidently, according to the police sergeant, there had been a fight,and Alten had drawn the loser's end. The police confiscated the tworifles and the revolver and decided that no one but Alten had beenhurt. But at best it was a queer affair. Alten had not been shot; hewas just stiff with cold; he said a dull-red ray had fallen upon himand stiffened him with its frigid blast. Utter nonsense!

  Dr. Alten was a man of standing. It was a reprehensible affair, but hewas released upon his own recognizance. He was charged with breakinginto the untenanted home of one Tugh; of illegally possessingfirearms; of disturbing the peace--a variety of offenses all rationalto the year 1935.

  * * * * *

  But Alten's case never reached even its hearing in the Magistrate'sCourt. He arrived home just after dawn, that June 9, still cold andstiff from the effects of the ray, and bruised and battered by thesweeping blow of Miguel's great iron arm. He recalled vaguely seeingLarry fall, and the iron monster bearing Mary Atwood and me away. Whathad happened to Larry, Alten could not guess, unless the Robot hadreturned, ignored him and taken his friend away.

  During that day of June 9 Alten summoned several of his scientificfriends, and to them he told fully what had happened to him. Theylistened with a keen understanding and a rational knowledge of thepossibility that what he said was true; but credibility they could notgive him.

  The noon papers came out.

  NOTED ALIENIST ATTACKED BY GHOST Felled by One of the Fantastic Monsters of His Brain

  A jocular, jibing account. Then Alten gave it up. He had about decidedto plead guilty in the Magistrate's Court to disorderly conduct andall the rest of it! That was preferable to being judged a liar, orinsane.

  * * * * *

  And then, at about 9 P.M. on the evening of June 9, the first of themechanical monsters came stalking from the house on Patton Place--thebeginning of the revenge which Tugh had threatened when arrested. Thepoliceman at the corner--one McGuire--turned in the first hystericalalarm. He rushed into a little candy and stationery store shoutingthat he had seen a piece of machinery running wild. His telephone callbrought a squad of his comrades. The Robot at first did no damage.

  McGuire later told how he saw it as it emerged from the entryway ofthe Tugh house. It came lurching out into the street--a giant thing ofdull grey metal, with tubular, jointed legs; a body with a greatbulging chest; a round head, eight or ten feet above the pavement;eyes that shot fire.

  The policeman took to his heels. There was a commotion in Patton Placeduring those next few minutes. Pedestrians saw the thing standing inthe middle of the street, staring stupidly around it. The headwobbled. Some said that the eyes shot fire; others, that it was notthe eyes, but more like a torch in its mailed hand. The torch shot asmall beam of light around the street--a beam which was dull-red.

  The pedestrians fled. Their cries brought people to the nearby housewindows. Women screamed. Presently bottles were thrown from thewindows. One of these crashed against the iron shoulder of themonster. It turned its head: as though its neck were rubber, somesaid. And it gazed upward, with a human gesture as though it were notangry, but contemptuous.

  But still, beyond a step or two in one direction or another, it merelystood and waved its torch. The little dull-red beam of light carriedno more than twenty or thirty feet. The street in a few moments wasclear of pedestrians; remained littered with glass from the brokenbottles. A taxi came suddenly around the corner, and the driver, withan almost immediate tire puncture, saw the monster. He hauled up tothe curb, left his cab and ran.

  * * * * *

  The Robot saw the taxicab, and stood gazing. It turned its torch-beamon it, and seemed surprised that the thing did not move. Then thinkingevidently that this was a less cowardly enemy than the humans, it madea rush to it. The chauffeur had n
ot turned off his engine when hefled, so the cab stood throbbing.

  The Robot reached it; cuffed it with a huge mailed fist. Thewindshield broke; the windows were shattered; but the cab stoodpurring, planted upon its four wheels.

  Strange encounter! They say that the Robot tried to talk to it. Atlast, exasperated, it stepped backward, gathered itself and pounced onit again. Stooping, it put one of its great arms down under thewheels, the other over the hood, and with prodigious strength heavedthe cab into the air. It crashed on its side across the street, and ina moment was covered with flames.

  It was about this time that Patrolman McGuire came back to the scene.He shot at the monster a few times; hit it, he was sure. But the Robotdid not heed him.

  The block was now in chaos. People stood at most of the windows,crowds gathered at the distant street corners, while the blazingtaxicab lighted the block with a lurid glare. No one dared approachwithin a hundred feet or so of the monster. But when, after a time, itshowed no disposition to attack, throngs at every distinct point ofvantage tried to gather where they could see it. Those nearestreported back that its face was iron; that it had a nose, a wide,yawning mouth, and holes for eyes. There were certainly little lightsin the eye-holes.

  A small, fluffy white dog went dashing up to the monster and barkedbravely at its heels. It leaped nimbly away when the Robot stooped toseize it. Then, from the Robot's chest, the dull-red torch beam leapedout and down. It caught the little dog, and clung to it for aninstant. The dog stood transfixed; its bark turned to a yelp; then agurgle. In a moment it fell on its side; then lay motionless withstiffened legs sticking out.

  * * * * *

  All this happened within five minutes. McGuire's riot squad arrived,discreetly ranged itself at the end of the block and fired. The Robotby then had retreated to the entryway of the Tugh house, where itstood peering as though with curiosity at all this commotion. Therecame a clanging from the distance: someone had turned in a fire alarm.Through the gathered crowds and vehicles the engines came tearing up.

  Presently there was not one Robot, but three: a dozen! More than that,many reports said. But certain it is that within half an hour of thefirst alarm, the block in front of Tugh's home held many of the ironmonsters. And there were many human bodies lying strewn there, bythen. A few policemen had made a stand at the corner, to protect thecrowd against one of the Robots. The thing had made an unexpectedinfuriated rush....

  There was a panic in the next block, when a thousand people suddenlytried to run. A score of people were trampled under foot. Two or threeof the Robots ran into that next block--ran impervious to the manyshots which now were fired at them. From what was described as slotsin the sides of their iron bodies they drew swords--long, dark,burnished blades. They ran, and at each fallen human body they made asingle stroke of decapitation, or, more generally, cut the body inhalf.

  The Robots did not attack the fire engines. Emboldened by this,firemen connected a hose and pumped a huge jet of water toward theTugh house. The Robots then rushed it. One huge mechanism--some saidit was twelve feet tall--ran heedlessly into the firemen'shigh-pressure stream, toppled backward from the force of the water andvery strangely lay still. Killed? Rather, out of order: deranged: itwas not human, to be killed. But it lay motionless, with the fire hoseplaying upon it. Then abruptly there was an explosion. The fallenRobot, with a deafening report and a puff of green flame, burst intoflying metallic fragments like shrapnel. Nearby windows were brokenfrom the violent explosion, and pieces of the flying metal were hurleda hundred feet or more. One huge chunk, evidently a plate of thething's body, struck into the crowd two blocks away, and felledseveral people.

  At this smashing of one of the mechanisms, its brother Robots went forthe first time into aggressive action. A hundred or more were pouringnow from the vacant house of the absent Tugh....

  * * * * *

  The alarm by ten o'clock had spread throughout the entire city. Policereserves were called out, and by midnight soldiers were beingmobilized. Panics were starting everywhere. Millions of people crowdedin on small Manhattan Island, in the heart of which was this strangeenemy.

  Panics.... Yet human nature is very strange. Thousands of peoplestarted to leave Manhattan, but there were other thousands during thatfirst skirmish who did their best to try and get to the neighborhoodof Patton Place to see what was going on. They added greatly to theconfusion. Traffic soon was stalled everywhere. Traffic officers,confused, frightened by the news which was bubbled at them from everyside, gave wrong orders; accidents began to occur. And then, out ofthe growing confusion, came tangles, until, like a dammed stream, allthe city mid-section was paralyzed. Vehicles were abandonedeverywhere.

  Reports of what was happening on Patton Place grew more confused. Thegathering nearby crowds impeded the police and firemen. The Robots, byten o'clock, were using a single great beam of dull-red light. It wastwo or three feet broad. It came from a spluttering, hissing cylindermounted on runners which the Robots dragged along the ground, and thebeam was like that of a great red searchlight. It swung the length ofPatton Place in both directions. It hissed against the houses;penetrated the open windows which now were all deserted; swept thefront cornices of the roofs, where crowds of tenants and others weretrying to hide. The red beam drove back the ones near the edge, exceptthose who were stricken by its frigid blast and dropped like plummetsinto the street, where the Robots with flashing blades pounced uponthem.

  Frigid was the blast of this giant light-beam. The street, wet fromthe fire-hose, was soon frozen with ice--ice which increased under theblast of the beam, and melted in the warm air of the night when theray turned away.

  From every distant point in the city, awed crowds could see that greatshaft when it occasionally shot upward, to stain the sky with blood.

  * * * * *

  Dr. Alten by midnight was with the city officials, telling them whathe could of the origin of this calamity. They were a distracted groupindeed! There were a thousand things to do, and frantically they weregiving orders, struggling to cope with conditions so suddenlyunprecedented. A great city, millions of people, plunged intoconditions unfathomable. And every moment growing worse. One calamitybringing another, in the city, with its myriad diverse activities sointerwoven. Around Alten the clattering, terrifying reports weresurging. He sat there nearly all that night; and near dawn, anofficial plane carried him in a flight over the city.

  The panics, by midnight, were causing the most deaths. Thousands,hundreds of thousands, were trying to leave the island. The tubetrains, the subways, the elevateds were jammed. There were riotswithout number in them. Ferryboats and bridges were thronged to theircapacity. Downtown Manhattan, fortunately comparatively empty, gavespace to the crowds plunging down from the crowded foreign quartersbordering Greenwich Village. By dawn it was estimated that fivethousand people had been trampled to death by the panics in variousparts of the city, in the tubes beneath the rivers and on departingtrains.

  And another thousand or more had been killed by the Robots. How manyof these monstrous metal men were now in evidence, no one couldguess. A hundred--or a thousand. The Time-cage made many trips betweenthat night of June 9 and 10, 1935, and a night in 2930. Always itgauged its return to this same night.

  The Robots poured out into Patton Place. With running, stiff-leggedsteps, flashing swords, small light-beams darting before them, theyspread about the city....

  CHAPTER VII

  The Vengeance of Tugh

  A myriad individual scenes of horror were enacted. Metal travesties ofthe human form ran along the city streets, overturning stalledvehicles, climbing into houses, roaming dark hallways, breaking intorooms.

  There was a woman who afterward told that she crouched in a corner,clutching her child, when the door of her room was burst in. Herhusband, who had kept them there thinking it was the safest thing todo, fought futilely with the great thing of iron. Its sword
slashedhis head from his body with a single stroke. The woman and the littlechild screamed, but the monster ignored them. They had a radio, tunedto a station in New Jersey which was broadcasting the events. TheRobot seized the instrument as though in a frenzy of anger, tore itapart, then rushed from the room.

  No one could give a connected picture of the events of that horriblenight. It was a series of disjointed incidents out of which theimagination must construct the whole.

  The panics were everywhere. The streets were stalled with traffic andrunning, shouting, fighting people. And the area around GreenwichVillage brought reports of continued horror.

  The Robots were of many different forms; some pseudo-human; others,great machines running amuck--things more monstrous, more horribleeven, than those which mocked humanity. There was a great pot-belliedmonster which forced its way somehow to a roof. It encountered acrouching woman and child in a corner of the parapet, seized them, onein each of its great iron hands, and whirled them out over thehousetops.

  * * * * *

  By dawn it seemed that the Robots had mounted several projectors ofthe giant red beam on the roofs of Patton Place. They held a fullsquare mile, now, around Tugh's house. The police and firemen had longsince given up fighting them. They were needed elsewhere--the policeto try and cope with the panics, and the firemen to fight theconflagrations which everywhere began springing up. Fires, the naturaloutcome of chaos; and fires, incendiary--made by criminals who tookadvantage of the disaster to fatten like ghouls upon the dead. Theyprowled the streets. They robbed and murdered at will.

  The giant beams of the Robots carried a frigid blast for miles. Bydawn of that June 10th, the south wind was carrying from the enemyarea a perceptible wave of cold even as far as Westchester. Allen,flying over the city, saw the devastated area clearly. Ice in thestreets--smashed vehicles--the gruesome litter of sword-slashed humanbodies. And other human bodies, plucked apart; strewn....

  Alten's plane flew at an altitude of some two thousand feet. In thegrowing daylight the dark prowling figures of the metal men wereplainly seen. There were no humans left alive in the captured area.The plane dropped a bomb into Washington Square where a dozen or twoof the Robots were gathered. It missed them. The plane's pilot had notrealized that they were grouped around a projector; its red shaftsprang up, caught the plane and clung to it. Frigid blast! Even atthat two thousand feet altitude, for a few seconds Alten and theothers were stiffened by the cold. The motor missed; very nearlystopped. Then an intervening rooftop cut off the beam, and the planeescaped.

  * * * * *

  All this I have pictured from what Dr. Alten subsequently told me. Heleaves my narrative now, since fate hereafter held him in the New YorkCity of 1935. But he has described for me three horrible days, andthree still more horrible nights. The whole world now was alarmed.Every nation offered its forces of air and land and sea to overcomethese gruesome invaders. Warships steamed for New York harbor.Soldiers were entrained and brought to the city outskirts. Airplanesflew overhead. On Long Island, Staten Island, and in New Jersey,infantry, tanks and artillery were massed in readiness.

  But they were all very nearly powerless to attack. Manhattan Islandstill was thronged with refugees. It was not possible for the millionsto escape; and for the first day there were hundreds of thousandshiding in their homes. The city could not be shelled. The influx oftroops was hampered by the outrush of civilians.

  By the night of the tenth, nevertheless, ten thousand soldiers weresurrounding the enemy area. It embraced now all the mid-section of theisland. The soldiers rushed in. Machine-guns were set up.

  But the Robots were difficult to find. With this direct attack theybegan fighting with an almost human caution. Their bodies wereimpervious to bullets, save perhaps in the orifices of the face whichmight or might not be vulnerable. But when attacked, they skulked inthe houses, or crouched like cautious animals under the smashedvehicles. Then there were times when they would wade forward directlyinto machine-gun fire--unharmed--plunging on until the gunners fledand the Robots wreaked their fury upon the abandoned gun.

  The only hand-to-hand conflicts took place on the afternoon of June10th. A full thousand soldiers were killed--and possibly six or eightof the Robots. The troops were ordered away after that; they madelines across the island to the north and to the south, to keep theenemy from increasing its area. Over Greenwich Village now, thecircling planes--at their highest altitude, to avoid the upflungcrimson beams--dropped bombs. Hundreds of houses there were wrecked.Tugh's house could not be positively identified, though the attack wasdirected at it most particularly. Afterward, it was found by chance tohave escaped.

  * * * * *

  The night of June 10th brought new horrors. The city lights failed.Against all the efforts of the troops and the artillery fire which nowwas shelling the Washington Square area, the giant mechanisms pushednorth and south. By midnight, with their dull-red beams illumining thedarkness of the canyon streets, they had reached the Battery, andspread northward beyond the northern limits of Central Park.

  It is estimated that by then there were still a million people onManhattan Island.

  The night of the 11th, the Robots made their real attack. Those whosaw it, from planes overhead, say that upon a roof near WashingtonSquare a machine was mounted from which a red beam sprang. It was notof parallel rays, like the others; this one spread. And of such powerit was, that it painted the leaden clouds of the threatening, overcastnight. Every plane, at whatever high altitude, felt its frigid blastand winged hastily away to safety.

  Spreading, dull-red beam! It flashed with a range of miles. Its lightseemed to cling to the clouds, staining like blood; and to cling tothe air itself with a dull lurid radiance.

  It was a hot night, that June 11th, with a brewing thunderstorm. Therehad been occasional rumbles of thunder and lightning flashes. Thetemperature was perhaps 90 deg. F.

  Then the temperature began falling. A million people were hiding inthe great apartment houses and homes of the northern sections, orstill struggling to escape over the littered bridges or by theparalyzed transportation systems--and that million people saw thecrimson radiance and felt the falling temperature.

  80 deg.. Then 70 deg.. Within half an hour it was at 30 deg.! In unheated houses,in midsummer, in the midst of panic, the people were swept by chillingcold. With no adequate clothing available they suffered greatly--andthen abruptly they were freezing. Children wailing with the cold; thenasleep in numbed, last slumber....

  Zero weather in midsummer! And below zero! How cold it got, there isno one to say. The abandoned recording instrument in the WeatherBureau was found, at 2:16 A.M., the morning of June 12, 1935, to havetouched minus 42 deg. F.

  The gathering storm over the city burst with lightning and thunderclaps through the blood-red radiance. And then snow began falling. Asteady white downpour, a winter blizzard with the lightning flashingabove it, and the thunder crashing.

  With the lightning and thunder and snow, crazy winds sprang up. Theywhirled and tossed the thick white snowflakes; swept in blasts alongthe city streets. It piled the snow in great drifts against thehouses; whirled and sucked it upward in white powdery geysers.

  * * * * *

  At 2:30 A.M. there came a change. The dull-red radiance which sweptthe city changed in color. Through the shades of the spectrum it swungup to violet. And no longer was it a blast of cold, but of heat! Ofwhat inherent temperature the ray of that spreading beam may havebeen, no one can say. It caught the houses, and everything inflammableburst into flame. Conflagrations were everywhere--a thousand spots ofyellow-red flames, like torches, with smoke rolling up from them tomingle with the violet glow overhead.

  The blizzard was gone. The snow ceased. The storm clouds rolled away,blasted by the pendulum winds which lashed the city.

  By 3 A.M. the city temperature was over 100 deg. F--the dry, blistering
heat of a midsummer desert. The northern city streets were litteredwith the bodies of people who had rushed from their homes and fallenin the heat, the wild winds and the suffocating smoke outside.

  And then, flung back by the abnormal winds, the storm clouds crashedtogether overhead. A terrible storm, born of outraged nature, ventitself on the city. The fires of the burning metropolis presently diedunder the torrent of falling water. Clouds of steam whirled and tossedand hissed close overhead, and there was a boiling hot rain.

  By dawn the radiance of that strange spreading beam died away. Thedaylight showed a wrecked, dead city. Few humans indeed were leftalive on Manhattan that dawn. The Robots and their apparatus hadgone....

  The vengeance of Tugh against the New York City of 1935 wasaccomplished.

  (_To be continued._)

  Advertisement.]

 

‹ Prev Next ›