Before The Golden Age - A SF Anthology of the 1930s

by Edited By Isaac Asimov

  “Listen,” hissed Harl.

  To their ears came the sound of voices. They listened intently. Mingled with the voices was the harsh grating of steel. The voices seemed to come from their right. They grew in volume.

  “If we only had our guns,” moaned Harl.

  The clamor of voices was close and seemed to be almost beside them.

  “It’s the other prisoners,” gasped Bill. “They must be feeding them or something.”

  His surmise was correct.

  * * * *

  Before their cell appeared an old man. He was stooped and a long white beard hung over his skinny chest. His long hair curled majestically over his shoulders. In one hand he carried a jug of about a gallon capacity and a huge loaf of bread.

  But it was neither the bread nor the jug which caught the attention of Harl and Bill. In his loincloth, beside a massive ring of keys, were thrust their two .45’s.

  He set down the jug and the loaf and fumbled with the keys. Selecting one he unlocked and slid back a panel near the bottom of the great door. Carefully he set the jug and the loaf inside the cell.

  The two men inside exchanged a glance. The same thought had occurred to each. When the old man came near the door, it would be a simple matter to grasp him. With the guns there was a chance of blazing a way to the ship.

  The oldster, however, was pulling the weapons from his loincloth.

  Their breath held in wonder, the time-travelers saw him lay them beside the jug and the loaf.

  “The command of Golan-Kirt,” he muttered in explanation. “He has arrived to witness the games. He commanded that the weapons be returned. They will make the games more interesting.”

  “More interesting,” chuckled Harl, rocking slowly on the balls of his feet.

  These future-men, who seemed to possess absolutely no weapons, apparently did not appreciate the deadliness of the .45’s.

  “Golan-Kirt?” questioned Bill, speaking softly.

  The old man seemed to see them for the first time.

  “Yes,” he said. “Know you not of Golan-Kirt? He-Who-Came-Out-of-the-Cosmos?”

  “No,” said Bill.

  “Then truly can I believe what has come to my ears of you?” said the old man.

  “What have you heard?”

  “That you came out of time,” replied the oldster, “in a great machine.”

  “That is true,” said Harl. “We came out of the twentieth century.”

  The old man slowly shook his head.

  “I know naught of the twentieth century.”

  “How could you?” asked Harl. “It must have ended close to a million years ago.”

  The other shook his head again.

  “Years?” he asked. “What are years?”

  Harl drew in his breath sharply.

  “A year,” he explained, “is a measurement of time.”

  “Time cannot be measured,” replied the old man dogmatically.

  “Back in the twentieth century we measured it,” said Harl.

  “Any man who thinks he can measure time is a fool,” the future-man was uncompromising.

  Harl held out his hand, palm down, and pointed to his wrist watch.

  “That measures time,” he asserted.

  The old man scarcely glanced at it.

  “That,” he said, “is a foolish mechanism and has nothing to do with time.”

  Bill laid a warning hand on his friend’s arm.

  “A year,” he explained slowly, “is our term for one revolution of the earth about the sun.”

  “So that is what it means,” said the old man. “Why didn’t you say so at first? The movement of the earth, however, has no association with time. Time is purely relative.”

  “We came from a time when the world was much different,” said Bill. “Can you give us any idea of the number of revolutions the earth has made since then?”

  “How can I?” asked the old man, “when we speak in terms that neither understands? I can only tell you that since Golan-Kirt came out of the Cosmos the earth has circled the sun over five million times.”

  Five million times! Five million years! Five million years since some event had happened, an event which may not have occurred for many other millions of years after the twentieth century. At least five million years in the future; there was no telling how much more!

  Their instrument had been wrong. How wrong they could not remotely have guessed until this moment!

  The twentieth century. It had a remote sound, an unreal significance. In this age, with the sun a brick red ball and the city of Denver a mass of ruins, the twentieth century was a forgotten second in the great march of time, it was as remote as the age when man emerged from the beast.

  “Has the sun always been as it is?” asked Harl.

  The old man shook his head.

  “Our wise ones tell us that one time the sun was so hot it hurt one’s eyes. They also tell us it is cooling, that in the future it will give no light or heat at all.”

  The oldster shrugged his shoulders.

  “Of course, before that happens, all men will be dead.”

  The old man pulled the little panel shut and locked it. He turned to go.

  “Wait,” cried Harl.

  The old one faced them.

  “What do you want?” he asked, mumbling half-angrily in his beard.

  “Sit down, friend,” said Harl. “We would like to talk further.”

  * * * *

  The other hesitated, half wheeling to go, then turned back.

  “We came from a time when the sun hurt one’s eyes. We have seen Denver as a great and proud city. We have seen this land when the grass grew upon it and rain fell and there were broad plains where the sea now lies,” said Harl.

  The oldster sank to the sand in front of their cage. His eyes were lighted with a wild enthusiasm and his two skinny hands clutched the iron bars.

  “You have looked upon the world when it was young,” he cried. “You have seen green grass and felt rain. It seldom rains here.”

  “We have seen all you mention,” Harl assured him. “But we would ask why we have been treated as foes. We came as friends, hoping to meet friends, but ready for war.”

  “Aye, ready for war,” said the old man in trembling tones, his eyes on the guns. “Those are noble weapons. They tell me you strewed the sands with the dead ere you were taken.”

  “But why were we not treated as friends?” insisted Harl.

  “There are no friends here,” cackled the old man. “Not since Golan-Kirt came. All are at one another’s throats.”

  “Who is this Golan-Kirt?”

  “Golan-Kirt came out of the Cosmos to rule over the world,” said the old man, as if intoning a chant. “He is neither Man nor Beast. There is no good in him. He hates and hates. He is pure Evil. For after all, there is no friendliness or goodness in the universe. We have no proof that the Cosmos is benevolent. Long ago our ancestors believed in love. This was a fallacy. Evil is greater than good.”

  “Tell me,” asked Bill, moving closer to the bars, “have you ever seen Golan-Kirt?”

  “Aye, I have.”

  “Tell us of him,” urged Bill.

  “I cannot,” there was stark terror in the old man’s eyes. “I cannot!”

  He huddled closer to the cage and his voice dropped to an uncanny whisper.

  “Men out of time, I will tell you something. He is hated, because he teaches hate. We obey him because we must. He holds our minds in the hollow of his hand. He rules by suggestion only. He is not immortal. He fears death—he is afraid—there is a way, if only one with the courage might be found—”

  The old man’s face blanched and a look of horror crept into his eyes. His muscles tensed and his clawlike hands clutched madly at the bars. He slumped against the gate and gasped for breath.

  Faintly his whisper came, low and halting.

  “Golan-Kirt—your weapons—believe nothing—close your mind to all suggestion—”
<
br />   He stopped, gasping for breath.

  “I have fought—” he continued, haltingly, with an effort. “I have won—. I have told you—. He has—killed me—he will not kill you—now that you—know—.”

  The old man was on the verge of death. Wide-eyed, the two saw him ward it off, gain a precious second.

  “Your weapons—will lull him—he’s easy to kill—by one who does not —believe in him—he is a—.”

  The whisper pinched out and the old man slid slowly to the sands in front of the cage.

  The two stared at the crumpled form of humanity.

  “Killed by suggestion,” gasped Harl.

  Bill nodded.

  “He was a brave man,” he said.

  Harl regarded the corpse intently. His eyes lighted on the key ring and kneeling, he reached out and drew the body of the future-man close. His fingers closed on the ring and ripped it from the loincloth.

  “We’re going home,” he said.

  “And on the way out we’ll bump off the big shot,” added Bill.

  He lifted the guns from the floor and clicked fresh cartridges into the chambers. Harl rattled the keys. He tried several before he found the correct one. The lock screeched and the gate swung open protestingly.

  With quick steps they passed out of the cell. For a moment they halted in silent tribute before the body of the old man. With helmets doffed the twentieth century men stood beside the shriveled form of a man who was a hero, a man who had flung his hatred in the face of some terrible entity that taught hate to the people of the world. Scanty as was the information which he had given, it set the two on their guard, gave them an inkling of what to expect.

  As they turned about they involuntarily started. Filing into the amphitheater, rapidly filling the seats, were crowds of future-men. A subdued roar, the voice of the assembling people, came to their ears.

  The populace was assembling for the games.

  “This may complicate matters,” said Bill.

  “I don’t think so,” replied Harl. “It’s Golan-Kirt we must deal with. We would have had to in any case. These men do not count. As I understand it he exercises an absolute control over them. The removal of that control may change the habits and psychology of the future-men.”

  “The only thing we can do is fight Golan-Kirt and then act accordingly,” said Bill.

  “The man who captured us spoke of his minions,” Harl said thoughtfully.

  “He may be able to produce hallucinations,” Bill hazarded. “He may be able to make one believe something exists when it really doesn’t. In that case, the people would naturally believe them to be creatures which came at his beck and call.”

  “But the old man knew,” objected Harl. “He knew that it was all mere suggestion. If all the people knew this the rule of Golan-Kirt would end abruptly. They would no longer believe in his omnipotence. Without this belief, suggestion, by which he rules, would be impossible.”

  “The old man,” asserted Bill, “gained his knowledge in some mysterious manner and paid for its divulgence with his life. Still the old fellow didn’t know all of it. He believed this entity came out of the Cosmos.”

  Harl shook his head, thoughtfully.

  “It may have come out of the Cosmos. Remember, we are at least five million years in the future. I expect to find some great intelligence. It is physical, for the old man claimed to have seen it, and that should make our job easier.”

  “The old man said he was not immortal,” commented Bill. “Therefore, he is vulnerable and our guns may do the work. Another thing—we are not to believe a single thing we feel, hear, or see. He seems to rule wholly by suggestion. He will try to kill us by suggestion, just as he killed the old fellow.”

  Harl nodded.

  “It’s a matter of will power,” he said. “A matter of brain and bluff. Apparently the will power of these people has degenerated and Golan-Kirt finds it easy to control their minds. They are born, live, and die under his influence. It has almost become hereditary to accept his power. We have the advantage of coming out of an age when men were obliged to use their brains. Perhaps the human mind degenerated because, as science increased the ease of life, there was little need to use it. Some fine minds may still remain, but apparently they are few. We are doubters, schemers, bluffers. Golan-Kirt will find us tougher than these future-men.”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER III

  The Struggle of the Ages

  Bill produced cigarettes and the two lighted up. Slowly they walked across the vast arena, guns hanging in their right hands. People were filing into the place and the tiers were filling.

  A roar came out of the tiers of seats before them. They recognized it. It was the cry of the gathering crowd, the cry for blood, the expression of a desire to see battle.

  Harl grinned.

  “Regular football crowd,” he commented.

  More and more poured into the arena, but it was apparent that the inhabitants of the ruined city could fill only a very small section of the thousands upon thousands of seats.

  The two seemed lost in the mighty space. Above them, almost at the zenith, hung the vast red sun. They seemed to move in a twilight-filled desert rimmed in by enormous white cliffs.

  “Denver must have been a large city at the time this place was built,” commented Bill. “Think of the number of people it would hold. Wonder what it was used for?”

  “Probably we’ll never know,” said Harl.

  They had gained the approximate center of the arena.

  Harl halted.

  “Do you know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking. It seems to me we must have a fairly good chance against Golan-Kirt. For the last fifteen minutes every thought of ours has been in open defiance of him, but he has not attempted our annihilation. Although it is possible he may only be biding his time. I am beginning to believe he can’t read our minds as he could the mind of the old man. He killed him the moment he uttered a word of treason.”

  Bill nodded.

  As if in answer to what Harl had said, a great weight seemed to press in upon them. Bill felt a deadly illness creeping over him. His knees sagged and his brain whirled. Spots danced before his eyes and a horrible pain gripped his stomach.

  He took a step forward and stumbled. A hand clutched his shoulder and fiercely shook him. The shake momentarily cleared his brain. Through the clearing mist which seemed to hang before his eyes, he saw the face of his friend, a face white and lined.

  The lips in the face moved.

  “Buck up, old man. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re feeling fine.”

  Something seemed to snap inside his head. This was suggestion—the suggestion of Golan-Kirt. He had to fight it. That was it—fight it.

  He planted his feet firmly in the sand, straightened his shoulders with an effort, and smiled.

  “Hell, no,” he said, “there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m feeling fine.”

  Harl slapped him on the back.

  “That’s the spirit,” he roared. “It almost floored me for a minute. We’ve got to fight it, boy. We’ve got to fight it.”

  Bill laughed, harshly. His head was clear now and he could feel the strength flowing back into his body. They had won the first round!

  “But where is this Golan-Kirt?” he burst out.

  “Invisible,” snarled Harl, “but I have a theory that he can’t put in his best licks in such a state. We’ll force him to show himself and then we’ll give him the works.”

  The frenzied roar of the crowd came to their ears. Those on the bleachers had seen and appreciated the little drama out in the middle of the arena. They were crying for more.

  Suddenly a spiteful rattle broke out behind the two.

  They started. That sound was familiar. It was the rat-a-tat of a machine gun. With no ceremony they fell flat, pressing their bodies close against the ground, seeking to burrow into the sand.

  Little puffs of sand spurted up all about them. Bill felt a searing pain
in his arm. One of the bullets had found him. This was the end. There was no obstruction to shield them in this vast level expanse from the gun that chuckled and chattered at their rear. Another searing pain caught him in the leg. Another hit.

  Then he laughed—a wild laugh. There was no machine gun, no bullets. It was all suggestion. A trick to make them believe they were being killed —a trick, which, if carried far enough, would kill them.