globe. But he was alive now. The future, when
his devilishness, Pei was a land where they
his creatures possessed the globe, was yet to
could live in security for hundreds of years if
come.
need be until the time came for them to stage
As I write these lines, uncertain phases
their coup d’ etat.
of the story linger strongly in my mind. None
Doubtless Chang Hsu would leave
of us were ever able to determine whether
ample provision for their subsistence. His
Chang Hsu had actually created these beings
scientific knowledge would provide food,
in his laboratory. There was a possibility that
possibly out of the organisms floating in the
he had merely used some strange glandular
air, until the day of world reckoning came.
process to make a race of giants out of human
A scuffling sound broke the silence of
beings—endowing them with superhuman the laboratory and the Asiatic servant of qualities of body and mentality.
Chang Hsu hurried to the door, opening it
The time machine, with its invisible
noiselessly. Three huge domed-headed men
crew, were in the laboratory within a few feet
entered, naked save for dirty loin cloths. They
of Chang Hsu. I studied the man through the
seemed terribly repulsive, with their huge
glass of Stenson’s time vehicle. The living
heads and leather skins. This was the first time
face of Chang Hsu was as impassive as the
I had ever beheld any of the creatures stripped.
dead countenance I had gazed upon in the year
2418. I watched him bending over a battery of
“I DON’T think he has improved much on
electrical wires connected with what appeared
nature,” said Clay. “At least not in
to be a gigantic furnace. Another Oriental
appearance. Aren’t they ugly devils?” “But
stood at his side.
look at these foreheads,” interjected Stenson.
“Here is where—that race started,” “What brains they must hold. And the great whispered Clay.
bodies. They are stronger than any human
“Let us watch him for a little while,”
being that ever lived.”
said Stenson.
“They haven’t progressed to the
Chang Hsu’s thin black mustache dressed-up stage yet,” said Clay. “Remember curled stiffly down to his yellow clad how they were wearing silky duds and jewelry shoulders and a black cap rested on his head.
when we saw them in the floating palace?”
It was impossible to gauge the man’s age. The
“Sh! They’re going to do something.”
Occidental mind was baffled in fathoming the
The three domed-headed men
passing years that had swept about him.
prostrated themselves at Chang Hsu’s feet
Stenson and Clay joined me in with extravagant gestures of obeisance. Chang regarding him. The laboratory might have Hsu glanced at them with scornful eyes that been in a great university, so completely was
narrowed savagely. Then he turned to the
it equipped, rather than in the abandoned furnace. What connection this furnace had spaces of the Desert of Pei, cut off from the
with the evolutionary process we were
outer world by mountains that touched the
watching has unfortunately remained a
clouds.
mystery to us. I saw Chang Hsu pour fluid
Here was an ideal nesting place to
into vials and these in turn were placed in a
breed the strange race evoked by Chang Hsu.
sort of matrix. Then Chang Hsu moved to the
Whether they were created actually by Chang
other side of the furnace.
Hsu, living matter from out of the deadness of
We attempted to follow him, but we
inanimate material, or merely an evolution of
were too slow. Something was happening
the human species worked into monsters by
vague yet terrible; something impossibly
The Time Annihilator
27
gigantic and horrible. We knew that evoke—I hesitate at the word create—the protoplasm was being created in the domed-headed men and lay the world in laboratory.
ashes. It was inevitable that this breed, filled
“He’s solved the problem of life,” I
with the vigor of new creatures, should
cried.
succeed a humanity grown flabby through
“He’s mastered the secret of years of luxury as the powerful men from out protoplasm—that’s what he’s done!” of the North crushed Rome.
marveled Stenson. “What lessons we could
‘For the first Morning of Creation
learn from him.”
wrote,
“Suppose we wreck the whole works?”
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.’
interjected Clay. “Maybe we can interfere I had followed Clay, and was now out of the with the course of time. We’ll die ourselves,
time machine. It had vanished from our sight.
but we’ll have saved humanity.”
Only good old Larry, wise beyond us, cool
A crusading valor surged over us at his
where we were rash had remained in it. We
words. If we succeeded what was to have
heard his voice. “I’m with you boys.”
transpired in the years to come would be
There we stood again adrift in time
frustrated. We clasped hands in silent alliance.
facing Chang Hsu, his visage distorted with
The glass cut us off from actual physical hatred. There was unimaginable cruelty in his contact with those in the laboratory. We had
face, with its forehead of such noble
stepped through it before. This time, we potentialities. Never have I gazed upon such a vowed, our course must be beyond chance of
magnificent forehead as Chang Hsu’s. I knew
needless catastrophe.
then I was glancing into the countenance of
“Wait, maybe those domed birds will
one of the supreme intellects of all time.
leave and we’ll have those two Chinks alone,”
Chang Hsu, with a contemptuous
said Clay. “We’ll seize those metal bars in the
laugh, drew back and paused at a table. A
corner and crush their brains out. Is it a go?”
group of small objects, barely the size of
“And
how.”
oranges, were on the table. Clay tried to rush
As if in answer to our prayers—and
Chang Hsu.
through rare good luck to boot—the robot
“You are welcome to my laboratory,”
creatures departed through the laboratory said Chang Hsu. “Men from out of the past, door. Chang Hsu and his assistant were alone
you have long outlived your time.”
in the big laboratory. They were utterly
“I’ll kill you,” shouted Clay.
unaware of our presence.
“Come back, you fool,” I yelled, I
“All set, fellows?” asked Clay.
suddenly realized the futility of our act.
“We’re ready. Grab those bars.”
“Clay!” cried the invisible Stenson.
“Let’s
go.”
“Either go on or come back!”
Clay, followed by
Stenson and me,
“We’re going on,” shouted Clay. “At
rushed to the invisible door and threw it open.
him,” I cried madly. I howled with hatred as I
The wizard of Pei, evidently startled by this
reached Clay’s side and we darted toward
invasion of his domain, advanced toward Chang Hsu. If I could strangle this odious Clay, who had passed over the doorway. He
being, I felt I should have died happy. I never
shouted for aid and his assistant joined him.
completed the rush.
Perhaps all things are written from the
start. It was inscribed undoubtedly on the CHANG Hsu picked up one of the small tablets of eternity that Chang Hsu should round objects from the table and hurled it
Wonder Stories
28
toward us. A hazy cloud spread about the
fate if we had been lost in the future without
laboratory, wiping out Chang Hsu from my
means of returning to our own time.
vision. I struggled in a world of inky
“Lucky thing we let Professor Halden
blackness that followed on the path of the
off before we went to Chang’s laboratory,”
mist.
said Clay. “Just think, if he had returned with
A blinding flash—a roar like that of a
us he would have been trapped a hundred
dozen Niagaras—crushed me. I fell into years before his time on earth.”
insensibility.
“Let’s get out,” I said. “This light is
Clay and Stenson bent over me, fading.”
shaking my head and slapping by cheeks to
We opened the door and stepped into
arouse me. I stared up at them wonderingly
Stenson’s outer laboratory. The library lay
and perceived that their faces were blackened
beyond and I darted toward the book-lined
and scarred. “Where are we?” I demanded.
room, overjoyed at its familiar appearance.
“Still in the time chamber. We’re back in
“Sit down fellows,” said Stenson. “I’m
1945—thank God.”
going to cook a little food for us. Coffee and
Stenson trembled as he spoke and I
eggs. How does that sound?”
glanced up at him.
“Great.”
“What
happened?”
He telephoned to the operator in the
“The last thing I remember, Lane, was
lobby of the building and asked the date. It
Chang Hsu hurling that little round object.
was the eighteenth of June. We had started on
You fellows stumbled backward toward me
our journey on the sixteenth. Two days had
and I could just pull you into the machine and
passed into the future, while we had traveled
shoot back to our starting point.”
hundreds of years. Stenson cooked the meal
“We were lucky.”
on an electric stove. We chatted with him as
“Yes. I’m sure Chang Hsu meant to
we cut a rather stale loaf of bread and set the
destroy us. Only because you came within my
table.
reach could I rescue you. Otherwise you
“Are you going to make another
would have been killed. A strange fate, for
machine, Larry?” I asked.
men of our period to die in far-off 2193.”
“No. I’m through.”
“And the time machine?”
“But perhaps we might return and kill
“It’s wrecked. It was smashed when it
Chang Hsu. And then I’d like to chat with
shot back to the present.”
Halden again.”
I struggled to my feet, faint with
“No, fellows. I’m afraid we can never
weakness. It suddenly dawned upon me that
interfere with the future. I am going to leave
none of us had eaten in a long time. I was
records for future generations to hunt out the
weak from hunger. For a time I watched land of Pei. Perhaps they can crush Chang Stenson glancing dispiritedly about the time
Hsu. Doubtless Halden will do the same. But
chamber, the glass of which was broken in a
neither his time nor ours extends into the
thousand places. The dial box was wrecked. I
period of Chang Hsu. Hundreds of years will
shuddered to think what would have been our
elapse—and we will be laughed at as fools.”
The Time Annihilator by Edgar A, Manley and Walter Thode Page 7
