They have surrendered their chance to live.”
The Hunt for Stenson
The pavements and sidewalks moved
swiftly beneath our machine, and we realized
Wonder Stories
22
“TELL me, old man,” whispered Clay, turning
masonry had stood, towering into the blue sky,
to me, “am I dreaming some terrible became nothing but emptiness. The buildings nightmare?”
crumbled into the thinnest of dust.
“No, I’m afraid we’re only too wide
We stared into the street and saw
awake.”
hundreds of fleeing persons trapped in another
“The refugees are heading out toward
invisible ray. The pavement was torn up,
open country, poor devils. And there is only
Where hordes of human beings had stood was
room in the time machine for one other now nothing but desolation. I pressed my person. If we find Stenson we’ll be crowded.
hands before my eyes to shut out this sight. I
If we could only save a few of those wondered if Stenson had met a similar fate.
unfortunate people.”
“Is there no chance, if we return to the
“What a happy city to have lived in.
‘present’ of forestalling all this horror?” Clay
Look at the great parks. The Jersey side must
cried pleadingly,
be a continuation of New York City, Just look
“You mean to our own time?” I
at the towering skyscrapers across the rejoined, “I doubt it. We are looking upon the Hudson.”
inevitable. We can no more lift our finger to
I followed his finger and nodded. Then
prevent all this than if we never existed.”
I peered down the street.
“Come, let us push our search for Mr.,
“They will have to go many miles Stenson,” cried Halden. “I’m very much afraid before the city ends. I suppose it covers all of
we are lax. We have wasted much time up
Westchester county by now.”
here fruitlessly.”
“It will be like looking through a
We were down in a boulevard again
haystack for a needle to find Larry,” I said.
fighting our way through the crowds. Building
“Let us stay here for a few moments,”
after building fell before the invisible rays
said Professor Halden, “and think of a logical
projected by the domed-headed men.
course to follow in finding him. I was too
“We can warn the world of this when
hopeful when I said we could track him easily.
we return,” said Clay.
I’m very much afraid.”
“Yes we might do that when we return
“The death of an individual is sad,”
to 1945—or Professor Halden when he finds
remarked Clay, “but it is inevitable. This mass
himself back in 2015. But we’d be laughed at
destruction is hideous.”
as madmen. Just like we regarded Stenson
Halden shook his head in agreement.
when he collapsed that night. And hundreds of
“That is the horror of what we are gazing
years will pass before all this transpires. It will upon—mass destruction. We must all die be forgotten for innumerable decades before when our allotted span of time comes. But do
the end comes. We’ll have been dead and
we not feel that we survive in those that come
crumbled into ashes before this takes place.”
after us?”
“What an amazing experience we’ve
“Look, the city is being annihilated
had, Lane.”
rapidly now!” shouted Clay. “Why, it’s
“The world is being swept into
melting away before our very eyes. The devils
nothingness. The rays of extermination that
are pushing their destruction furiously.”
Chang Hsu invented are turning everything
A mass of buildings, that must have
into dust.”
covered a half square mile, was caught in the
Two buildings, barely a quarter of a
path of death rays, projected for all we knew
mile away, were caught in the unseen cone of
from half way across the globe. Where solid
destruction. They vanished before our eyes.
The Time Annihilator
23
Clay turned to me:
down the steps, oblivious of our nearness. I
“Did you hear that man that just passed
caught a glimpse of his face and recognized
say that London and Paris have been half
Stenson. Clay brought the mechanism of the
destroyed.”
time machine to a sharp halt and projected his
“And my home, Europolis,” said head through the glass door. “Stenson!” he Halden in agitation. “The beautiful capital of
shouted.
the United States of Europe. It, too, is being
Larry Stenson turned sharply. His
swept away.”
clothing was torn and his face covered with
“Look, there goes another building, blood and dirt. A cry of thankfulness sprang Clay,” I yelled. “It must be nearly a half mile
from his lips as he ran toward us. He sprang
high. It’s the most startling structure I’ve ever
through the doorway of the time chamber and
seen. Look quick!”
collapsed in our arms.
“And the two buildings adjoining it!”
“THANK God you found me,” he said,
THE sharp outlines of the three mountainous
sobbing. “I felt like a lost soul—adrift in the
buildings, through which aerial highways future.”
swept, eighty stories in the air, appeared
“And we came across Professor
against the Southern sky. We saw a spiral of
Halden at the tomb of Chang Hsu—where you
dust whip the hot air from the tallest building,
left him when you decided to return to 2250.”
and fainter columns arose from the other
“Yes, I see you’ve picked the professor
structures. The sky was acquiring a reddish
up,” said Stenson as he grasped the savant’s
glint from the clouds of dust and darkness,
hand. “I suppose he recounted his
artificial and terrifying, fell upon the city.
astonishment when I dropped in on him at his
The sky was clear of airships now. The
laboratory?”
twenty-five million denizens of the metropolis
“He certainly did,” I smiled. “I wonder
were in flight afoot and on swift vessels if anyone ever got such a surprise in all the sweeping up the Hudson river.
history of the world?”
We neared the park again and moved
“It was an amazing thing—as if a
aimlessly amid the serried rows of gigantic
stranger had fallen into my laboratory from
palms. Here and there great holes appeared in
Jupiter,” said Halden, “But it could not
the ground and we realized that these spots
compare with what took place during the time
had been visited by the fury of the electrical
journey, I thought I would never be found as I
air rays. The park was deserted now, save for
waited in the desert. If I had been captured by
<
br /> hundreds of dead. Many had been trampled to
these inhuman creatures I am sure my fate
death. The refugees were moving northward.
would have been terrible. But looking at this
A marble building, the roof of which
sad spectacle, I am filled with even greater
was supported by Gothic columns, stood near
horror than at anything that could happen to
a lake and we moved toward the structure,
me alone.”
What guided our course toward the building
“If we could only track down Chang
has since been a profound mystery to me.
Hsu,” said Stenson.
Possibly a hunch caused us to advance in that
“It might be possible,” rejoined
direction.
Professor Halden. “While I was in the tomb of
A bleeding form emerged from amid
that Oriental fiend, hiding from the guards, I
the pillars, clad in the drab clothing of our
came across an inscription. Fortunately I have
epoch. Clay shouted but the man continued
some slight knowledge of Oriental languages.
Wonder Stories
24
The inscription said something about Chang
back to your own time.”
Hsu—I was unable to read just what—and
Halden nodded and the dial moved
mentioned a date which would correspond again in Clay’s tanned fingers, backward in roughly to our year 2193.”
the direction of our own speck of infinity. He
“We will go back to that year!” said
swung the indicator to the year 2045 and we
Stenson, determined.
passed rapidly through decades and
The bombardment halted, at least for
generations in which the human race seemed
the time being. We drew deep sighs of relief.
to have soared in its most glorious heights.
“We can move about the globe without Passing from land to land we saw immense changing the present time element,” said cities inhabited by happy peoples. Wars had Stenson. “All ready?”
long since been abolished and it seemed that
“Yes.”
hatred had died from the globe.
Stenson placed his finger on the space
I envied the peoples of the era that
dial handle, which regulated movement about
preceded the catastrophe of 2250. Never could
the earth without changing the year, and we
humanity have lived more gloriously and
whirled swiftly through other cities in the joyously. Occasionally Stenson halted the processes of annihilation. They were in momentum of the indicator and we lived for a transition into nothingness.
few thrilling moments among these future
For a few moments we found peoples. We spent brief visits in New York ourselves in London near the Houses of and the great city of Europolis, the capital of a Parliament. The Thames river flowed as I had
united Europe where barriers of race and
seen it centuries before. But towering language had been abolished.
structures now rose throughout the British
“I wish I could spend my life among
capital. They were vanishing under the force
these people,” I said. “What carefree
of the death rays.
happiness they enjoy.”
Again I found myself in a strange
Life seemed to be lived goldenly by
Paris. The Place de la Opera, for the gold
these people. We paused now and then in
domed structure still survived, was being great wooded groves to listen to splendid ravaged. Throngs swept through the orchestras. Education was universal. There boulevards, lined with skyscrapers so unlike
seemed to be neither extremes of wealth or of
the Paris of my own time.
poverty. Even the common people lived in
We stared a few hours later at a palatial surroundings. People traveled from Chinese city and saw myriads of yellow faces,
land to land and felt themselves, indeed,
blank with terror, milling through winding citizens of the globe.
streets. Buildings were swept from the face of
“This is Utopia, Larry,” remarked Clay
the globe by the unseen hands of the surveying one of the great parks of Europolis.
annihilation ray explosions. One blast that we
“They’ve got heaven on earth here.”
observed wiped out at least 5,000 human
“Here is my own city as it will be long
beings.
after my own time,” said Professor Halden in
The time machine, however, was a thrilled voice.
overburdened and I saw an expression of fear
The indicator sped backward, cutting
cross Larry Stenson’s face. He turned toward
down the years as a scythe lays low a harvest
Professor Halden.
of grain. “We are nearing my time,” said
“We cannot continue long with four in
Halden. “Soon I must bid you men,
the time chamber,” he said. “We will take you
contemporaries of my own ancestors, good
The Time Annihilator
25
bye.”
asked.
“But we shall meet again,” said Clay.
“Yes. That was the date. We are going
Halden shook his gray head rather to shoot ahead to 2193 and try and locate sadly. “No, something tells me, my dear Chang Hsu. Perhaps, after all, we may be able friends, that we will part forever. You will
to frustrate him. But I am very doubtful.”
return to your own era—and I can but wish
The climb through time was breathless
you every happiness.”
as we hovered near the indicator dial. The
The time machine stopped. Time had
passing of decades dropped like leaves about
flowed backward through its mysterious us. Again we underwent the experience of agency very much to my mind as if a river
hurtling through a jumble of lands and
streamed uphill. We were in the Europolis of
periods, catching brief glimpses of varied
2045, just a little more than a century after our
phases of life. “Too bad we could not take
own time. Halden, returned to his own epoch,
Halden along,” said Clay.
seemed pleased. I could not help but envy
“The machine would have been too
him. The life of the people of Europolis in
overburdened,” remarked Stenson. “Three
2045 was infinitely superior to that of 1945,
men crowd this little chamber. With a fourth
although considerably less advanced than that
we would be against the ever impending threat
of the period that was to climax in the of disaster. It was best that we left him off in destruction of civilization in 2045. A hundred
his own year.”
years separated his particular era from that
The beating wings of time seemed
saturnalia of doom.
alive on the journey to the Pei of 2193. Here
The time machine had halted beside a
we were to face the last of our adventures.
grove. Flowers blossomed about us and we
Oceans, continents swirled beneath us in an
heard the singing of a multitude of birds.
ever recurring tide. And then—we stood in the
Halden seized our hands and moved toward
laboratory of Chang
Hsu. We were again in
the door.
the land of Pei, that desert fastness from which
“Adieu, my good friends,” he cried as
the domed-headed monsters sprang to destroy
he opened the door and walked through.
humanity.
Looking backward—or forward—to
Chang Hsu, I am convinced the man was a
CHAPTER VIII
megalomaniac. Certainly no more
The Wizard of Pei
misanthropic being ever blotted the globe than
Chang Hsu. He was mad, or else so filled with
the godlike possibilities that lay in his
THE time machine throbbed into life again,
knowledge of the protoplasm of life that he
with the indicator swinging into the future.
was determined to wipe out humanity to make
“There is only one thing left for us to
room for his own creatures to possess the
do before we return to our own time,” said
globe.
Stenson. “The fact that Professor Halden was
As I stood in the laboratory of Chang
able to decipher the inscription in the tomb of
Hsu, I recalled the vision of the then-to-be
Chang Hsu, at least to the extent of finding an
dead body in the yellow robe seated on the
approximate date for the time In which that
golden throne in the tomb under the crumbling
foe of mankind existed, may prove lama temple. I pictured the dead Chang Hsu, invaluable.”
whose yellow hands had spanned the centuries
“He said the year 2193, didn’t he?” I
to hurl destruction on all the countries of the
Wonder Stories
26
The Time Annihilator by Edgar A, Manley and Walter Thode Page 6
