Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  Then he squared his massive shoulders and stepped onto the tri-matter slab--and vanished. One by one the members of his general staff followed.

  When the last of them stepped into thin air above the softly glowing square, Carl walked over to a switch board and pulled the disconnects that broke the surge of power playing over the room.

  His pale assistants watched, hypnotized.

  Carl smiled at them encouragingly. He glanced at his watch and estimated the time left.

  "Another hour at the most now," he said quietly. "It could come any second."

  The wooden walls of the room closed them in with brooding foreboding. A heavily barred window brought a view of the steel bridge that led to the city.

  A large clock on the wall became the center of attention. A red second hand moved with slowly deliberate swiftness around the dial.

  And in the center of the waiting group the luminous square built flush with the wooden floor waited too, its face inscrutible, its substance anchored in three roots of Being.

  An electrical tension was building up around the hushed group of scientists. Vague stirrings of cold light rippled the surface of the square block of tri-matter.

  "The cleavage is beginning," Carl said quietly. "When I say the word step through. The entropy shift must be just right or we'll find ourselves with Hitle and his gang. Now!"

  As one man the group stepped onto the block and vanished. An instant later the holocaust broke loose.

  * * * * *

  Carl Grinch stood before the tribunal of the United Nations of the planet Amba. Video cameras pointed at him from every direction. The audience room was filled to overflowing with officials, and over the whole planet people had paused in their work to watch him and listen to his words.

  "We, of Aleme," he was saying. "Dared not openly defy Hute Hitle. He was too strongly entrenched. Unless we obeyed his orders to the letter we were executed; and a dead man cannot serve the interests of all Amba. My researches gave me the plan I had been looking for.

  "As you all know, time travel was discovered many centuries ago. It amounted to nothing more than perfect stasis. A person could travel forward in time to any period, but not backward. The time machine in marching forward existed at every instant, and was therefore always present to the view of outsiders.

  "My researches made possible sideways travel in time. By means of a device that used fabulous amounts of power, I was able to gather matter from two other universes existing in the same space as our own, but with different time co-ordinates. I proved to Hitle that in one of these other universes he could escape the destruction he planned, and then return to a torn world and fulfill his destiny as ruler of the planet.

  "I told him nothing but the truth. Because of that he believed me. If I had told him one lie he would have seen through the whole thing.

  "In order for you to understand just what happened, and why Amba was not destroyed when he pressed the buttons that started the atom bombs on their journeys of destruction, I must tell you a little of the basic nature of reality. Our universe is at all times and in every respect a root of a cubic equation. It has long been known that space is curved. Being curved, it is not the expression of linear equations, but of equations of some higher order. It had never been determined if that order was quadratic, cubic or higher. I determined that it was cubic.

  "To tell you how I solved the constants of the equation would be to go into material too complicated for any but the expert, so I'll skip that. When I solved that, though, I was able to calculate the field necessary to create a bridge from this root of the equation to the other two, gather substances from those two, blend the substances, and create a natural bridge. I did that. BUT instead of blending substance from our own universe with the other two, I kept the field going. The field acted as a bridge, and when the disconnects were broken that bridge vanished, leaving only a bridge between the other two universes.

  "Now while the field lasted, all three roots were blended into the Whole, or cubic equation. In plain language, all three universes within the limits of the field were identical. So it was a simple matter to get Hute and his general staff to carry out their plans in one of the other universes rather than this one, and then escape into a time machine in the third universe.

  "After they did that I merely pulled the disconnects and destroyed the field that linked our universe temporarily with the one where the destruction went on according to plan. When Hitle and his men wake up a few centuries from now they will find that things went according to plan. They will find their destruction and their bands of savages to rule, if they can rule them. But their threat to us is gone. We are rid of them for good."

  The chairman cleared his throat importantly as Carl paused.

  "But what of the people in this other universe,--the ones who were destroyed by the bombs let loose there? And their descendents who will survive until the day Hitle returns to force his will on them?"

  Carl smiled broadly.

  "They were destroyed, sir," he answered. "According to plan. That is the truth. But is isn't ALL of the truth. You see, the cubic equation that connects this universe of ours with the other two has only ONE real root. The other two are imaginary. That is what I didn't tell Hitle. The number one is a cube root of itself, and represents our own universe. The field set up by the machine was literally another cube root of one acting on our universe as a factor, transposing its forms into an imaginary universe. There Hitle succeeded in his conquest of all Amba. It was not the conquest he figured on however, because events are merely single values that fit the cubic equation,--never the equation itself. What Hitle did not know was that no one can ever succeed at conquest, but only at what might more accurately be termed the cube root of conquest.

  "And in his case that cube root of conquest was imaginary, represented by the number, (a minus one half, plus the square root of a minus three fourths.) Cube that quantity yourself! You will get one for the answer. Square that quantity and you will get the third cube root of unity. Blend or multiply the two together and you get unity, which is reality in our plane of the omniverse. Multiply unity by one of the two imaginary cube roots of one, and you transform the one, or our reality, into an imaginary plane. Try it. Get a piece of paper and work it for yourself! And study the metaphysical applications of the relationships of the three cube roots of unity,--the relationship of mind, imagination, and reality, the relationships of the positive, the negative, and the neutral units of matter;--and wonder!"

  * * *

  Contents

  THE OLD MARTIANS

  By Rog Phillips

  They opened the ruins to tourists at a dollar a head but they reckoned without The OLD MARTIANS

  The man with the pith helmet had his back toward me. Hunched forward, he was screaming at the girl in the lens of his camera. "Don't just stand there, Dotty! Move! Do something! Back up toward that column with inscriptions on it...."

  The girl was tall and longlegged with ideal body proportions, her features and skin coloring a perfect norm-blend with no throwback elements. Right now she seemed confused and half-frightened as she tried to comply with the directions of the man with the movie camera. She smiled artificially, turned her head to look at the fragment of a wall behind her, reached out with a finger and started tracing the lines of an almost obliterated inscription in its stone surface.

  The camera stopped whirring. Its owner straightened and grumbled, "That's all."

  Now the girl was allowed to go back to her worrying. Swiftly she surveyed the crowd, but didn't find the person she was looking for. She started moving toward one of the arches that led deeper into the ruins.

  I followed her slowly.

  She passed through the arch, stopped, and turned her head toward the right, her eyes on something out of sight. She'd found him, but she saw me at the same time and her worry deepened.

  When she moved back into the crowd, I strolled casually through the archway.

  There was a vaguely d
efined passageway, the roof over it gone for half a million years, of course. And twenty feet away, oblivious of his surroundings except for what was directly in front of him, was my man.

  His height and build were somewhat less than the norm. But it was his profile that drew my attention. A remarkable throwback; a throwback of a distinct type.

  In fact, he might well have served as the model in the types textbooks labeled British. The resemblance was subtle. Only one trained to differentiate would ever have noticed it.

  I let my attention take in his whole figure. His elbows had a habit of making fluttery movements when his exploring hands paused so that a strange birdlike impression was given. Also an air of ungainliness in the lines of the lean body, rather than the feline smoothness and grace of the norm-blend. It was so in keeping with his features that it served to strengthen the psycho diagnosis.

  A throwback to an era ten thousand years in the past, and therefore, as the textbooks say, prone to mental instability. It was no wonder that the girl called Dotty had had the air of being perpetually worried!

  She appeared now, from the far side of the ruin and approached the man.

  He sensed rather than saw her and straightened up, every line of him etched with excitement.

  "Dotty!" he said. "I've found it. I've found the proof. I've been here before, thousands of years ago when this wasn't a ruins. I remember."

  The girl's manner reflected weariness, "Please, Herb. You've got to forget all about it. You'll talk too much!"

  His shoulders stiffened. "Don't worry. I won't talk until I have proof to convince even them. Somewhere around here something lies buried. Something I will be able to remember. They will dig where the rocks haven't been touched for five thousand centuries and find what I say is there."

  Dotty was shaking her head. "No, Herb, If it were on Earth I might half believe you. But not here on Mars. These--these people weren't even humanoid!"

  "Neither was I," Herb whispered hoarsely.

  I sighed regretfully. I'd seen too many cases like this one. I'd grown to dread them. But it was a job and a man had to eat.

  * * * * *

  The guide began herding the tourists back to the bus. I mingled with the crowd, and when Dotty and Herb climbed aboard I managed to stick close to them.

  "Where'd you two go to?" the man in the pith helmet called from where he was sitting. "Stick close to me. I put a new roll in the camera. At the next place I want to get some shots of both of you together."

  "All right, George," Dotty said obediently.

  She and Herb were forced to find separate seats. They would do no talking, so I faced around and studied the three alternately. The man in the pith helmet, George, was a normal blend; totally unconcerned about his reactions on others so long as he could pursue his hobby.

  The bus detoured a roped-off area in the center of the ancient city, the part considered too dangerous because of cave-in possibilities, and made its way out to the northern edge of ruins to the part that resembled the ancient cemeteries on Earth. The only major difference was that there were no remains under the evenly spaced stones. There was some doubt that it had been a cemetery. But the guide announced it as one. And that announcement as the bus came to a stop had a pronounced effect on Herb. He began his fluttery elbow movements again and looked around at Dotty with a triumphant smile. I moved up quickly to keep him in earshot.

  He protested when George insisted on taking camera shots, then gave in and cooperated in order to get it over with.

  Finally George snapped his camera shut. Herb mumbled something to Dotty that I didn't catch, and started down one of the lanes between rows of stones as though headed for a definite goal.

  I couldn't very well follow after they left the main group. It would have been obvious. Instead, I veered off to one side, gambling that when they reached their destination I would be able to read their lips.

  I got well away from stragglers and took out my mirroscope, pointing if off in the distance and swinging the objective lens around until it centered on them. I was lucky. They were facing in my direction.

  "It isn't a cemetery," Herb was saying with emphatic motions of his hands. "It was a parking area, and this stone was where I parked my airsled. I can remember it as though it were yesterday."

  I had to admire the man's subconscious. It was a remarkably shrewd guess. The experts wouldn't play along with it, but they would probably never be able to prove him wrong on that count. But Dotty was arguing with him. "How can you prove it was a parking area?" Her eyes roamed over the large field with its regularly spaced stones. "It certainly looks impractical for a parking lot."

  "Just the same, that's what it was. I wish I had a shovel here. I seem to remember burying something near my stone. If I could find that it would prove I really remember."

  "Why don't you forget it?" Dotty pleaded. "After all, even if it were true, what does it matter now?"

  "It matters to me. Ever since we arrived here I've seen familiar things. Too familiar to be coincidence. I never felt this way before. I always considered reincarnation as ancient superstitious belief, just like everyone else. But not any more. I know. I lived here when all this was new."

  "But can't you just be satisfied to feel that you did and let it go at that?" Dotty asked. "I'm afraid of what they would do to you if they found out what you're thinking."

  "Hah!" Herb snorted. "I have a feeling that before we leave Mars I'll be able to prove it to them. Somewhere in this city is something that only I know exists. It's hidden under stones that haven't been disturbed since man first set foot on the planet. It isn't entirely clear yet, but it will come--it will come. Then I'll make them listen. They'll dig, and they'll find what I say is there. You wait and see."

  "They'll lock you up, darling," Dotty said. "They won't believe you."

  The guide was calling everyone back to the bus. I watched Herb scowl fiercely at the stone marker that he believed to have been his, open his mouth to say something, then turn away so that his lips were out of sight. Regretfully I put the mirroscope away and went back to the bus.

  * * * * *

  I knew where we were going next, and I was uneasy about it. Herb and Dotty managed to sit together and I got a place right behind them where I could eavesdrop. But they sat in silence.

  The bus had left the ancient city behind, to head out over the desert toward one of the few structures on Mars which had withstood the ravages of time without crumbling. An immense dome of solid concrete reinforced with pure copper rods harder than steel. The Martians had known what Earth civilization didn't learn until around the year three thousand: that copper can't be tempered, but pure copper becomes tempered of itself in a thousand years.

  That immense dome was a honeycomb of passageways and rooms, some of which were not open to tourists. It would be a natural for Herb.

  The bus stopped. The people were piling out and staring curiously at the smooth surface of the dome. Especially at places where the reinforcement rods were protruding and glittering like tarnished gold.

  Two of the permanent guards had come out to take charge of the tour. I caught the eye of one of them and nodded toward Herb. The guard caught my meaning, edged over to his partner, and soon both men were warned that Herb was to be closely watched.

  I felt better, knowing that a couple of others knew about him. Maybe it would have been smarter to have taken him in custody right then. But it would have meant a scene.

  The procedure of the tour was for the guide to do all the talking, leading the procession through the roped off parts of the dome, while the two guards followed along behind to make sure no stragglers got left.

  I let three or four people move in front of me so Herb wouldn't get suspicious. Dotty was sticking close to him, plainly worried. And he was more excited than he had been at any of the other spots. He fairly quivered, his eyes caressing the walls with a fevered look.

  Dotty didn't miss his increased agitation. Especially after he whispered
in her ear a couple of times.

  The guide took the usual path. Straight into the dome, pausing at half a dozen small rooms with carved walls, to arrive at a bank of elevators installed in the exact center; then straight up to the roof and the observation platform from which miles and miles of desert and ruins could be seen. Then back down to the second level, a zig-zag course through other rooms, and finally down a flight of steps to where the tour started.

  I kept my eyes on the back of Herb's head. You can tell a lot by doing that. At first his head turned this way and that, indicating he was full of curiosity. I was waiting for that telltale sudden tensing, with the head directed at some spot, that would tell of a sudden "memory" stirring in the man's mind.

  I almost missed it when it came, because it was between two passages--a blank wall. The briefest pause, then Herb was going on again as though nothing had happened.

  But now his head had stopped its curiosity-motivated pivotings. It was the head of a man who was no longer curious--who has made up his mind about something. I didn't like it.

  And when the group emerged into open air once more without Herb having tried anything I knew as certainly as I had ever known anything that he intended coming back here, and soon.

  In the comfort station before boarding the bus I scrawled a hasty note to the guards to investigate the spot halfway between passageways 14 and 15 on the first level, and slipped it to one of them as I passed him to get on the bus.

  We visited four other spots on the tour. When Herb showed no real interest in them it only clinched what I was already sure of, that he planned on returning.

  * * * * *

  At the Ancient City Hotel once again, I gave the high sign, and shortly Herb and Dotty were being watched by capable men, leaving me free to go to my room.

  Once there, I called the dome. They were just getting the X-ray setup in place to explore that wall and promised to call me as soon as they were finished. Next I called C.I. and made my report. I was still making it when the operator broke in.