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

by Edited By Isaac Asimov

  “He has confessed to breaking the very basic laws of Economics!” shouted the leader. “What is the punishment?”

  There were cries of “Kill him! Exile! Send him to the plains for life!” and over and over one group was chanting savagely “Kill him! Kill him!”

  “I hear the sentence of death proposed by many of you,” cried the leader. “It is true that to kill is to waste a life—but what could be more fitting for one who has wasted things all his life?” (Loud cries of furious approval) “To your houses, every one of you! We will confine this creature who claims to be three thousand years old in the cellar of this hall. In the morning we will gather here again and give these Oldsters our public answer! And comrades! A piece of news for your ears alone—Comrade Stronghold has heard that in the morning the Oldsters will issue a felling order on the immature pith-trees!”

  And now was such a scene of rage and violence that the walls shook and Winters was dragged away with dizzy brain and failing feet and thrust upon a couch in a stone-walled room beneath the hall. He fell instantly in utter exhaustion and did not hear the tramp of departing feet overhead. His horror and fright had combined with his fatigue to render him incapable of further emotion. He lay unconscious, rather than asleep.

  Above in the small room off the now empty hall three young men congratulated each other, their soft brown eyes shining exultantly, and chatted a few minutes in great joy that they had protected the rights of their generation, regardless of the means which had been used to this desirable end. They parted for the night with that peculiar circling movement of the hand that seemed to have taken the place of the ancient hand-shaking.

  But while they talked (so swift does Treason run) a young man crouched in the shadows back of the Forester’s house and fumbled with the latch of a small door on the forest side. As the young men were bidding each other good night, a voice was whispering swiftly in the ear of the Chief Forester, whose rugged face and bristling eyebrows betrayed in turn astonishment, indignation, anger and fierce determination.

  Winters woke to watch a shaft of dawn-light lying upon the stone floor. His body was bruised from the rough handling he had received and his wasted muscles felt dull and deadened. But his brain was clear once again and he recalled the events of the meeting. What a fool he had been! How he had been led on to his own undoing! His eyes followed the shaft of light up to a grating set in the stone wall above his couch and he could see a little piece of sky softly blue there with a plump little cloud sailing in it, like a duck in a pond. There came upon him a wave of nostalgia. Oh to see a friendly face—or one homely thing, even a torn piece of newspaper lying on the cellar floor! But there was no use in such wishes. Thirty centuries lay between those things and himself—lay like an ocean between a shipwrecked sailor and his homeland.

  And then came other thoughts, his natural fund of curiosity arising in him once again. After all, this age was a reaction against his own. There had been two extremes, that was all history would say of it. Truth lay in neither, but in some middle gentler path. Mankind would find the road in time—say another thousand years or more. But what difference to him now? In a few more hours he would be dead. Presently the young men would come for him and he would be their sacrifice for some fancied wrong. In his weakened condition the whole thing struck him as unutterably pathetic and tears welled into his eyes until they were brushed away as the bitter bracing humor of the situation dawned upon his mind. As he mused he was startled to notice a shadow pass across the window grating and he thought he heard low voices.

  Now in an instant he was full of lively fears. He would not be taken to his death so tamely as this! He turned over on the couch to get upon his feet and felt a hard object beneath him. He felt and brought forth his revolver which he fell at once to examining—ears and senses attuned to hints of danger, though nothing further came. The weapon was an air-pistol firing .22 calibre lead slugs. It was deadly only at very close ranges —thirty feet or less, perhaps—and the extending lever compressed enough air for ten shots. It was something, at all events. Hastily he worked the lever, loaded and pulled the trigger to hear a satisfying “smack” of the lead against the stone wall.

  Now his mind was working full tilt and he brought the file from his belt and turned to the grating above his couch. If he could sever the bars he could manage to squeeze through the window! To his amazement these bars proved to be of wood—and his heart lifted in hope. The saw was out of his belt and he was at work in an instant. By dint of much arm-ache he severed four of the bars in as many minutes. Day was now dawning apace and a panic of haste seized him; he brought the hand-axe into play and with three blows had smashed the remaining wood in the window. As he did so a shadow approached and a face was thrust forward, blocking out the light. Winters crouched below with pistol pointed, finger on trigger.

  “Here he is!” said the face in shadow and Winters recognized the voice of the Chief Forester and held his fire.

  “Take my hand, stranger, and climb up out of there. We have been looking for you half an hour. Oh, have no fear, we will not permit you to come to harm!”

  But Winters was cautious. “Who will protect me?”

  “Hurry, stranger! You have fallen afoul of our young hot-heads in the orig—I blame myself for not taking greater thought—but there are a hundred Oldsters here with me. You will be safe with us.”

  And now Winters permitted himself to be helped through the window and up into the full light of morning. He was surrounded by men who gazed at him with interest and respect. Their attitude calmed his last suspicions.

  “We must hurry,” said the Forester. “The younger men will resist us, I am afraid. Let us reach my own house as soon as possible.”

  The party started across the clearing and two young men appeared almost at once in the doorway of a building near by. At sight of Winters in the midst of the Oldsters they turned and raced off in separate directions, shouting some indistinguishable cry as they ran.

  “We must go faster than this!”

  A short fat man with a red face and reddish hair put his arms beneath Winters’ shoulders and half carried him along. His face was familiar and Winters remembered the man he had seen in the televisor the day before. His strength was enormous and his energy indefatigable—a tie that drew Winters to him in this age of indolence. “I am Stalvyn of History at the next orig,” he boomed at Winters as they hurried along. “You are so valuable to me that I hope you do not mind if I take a personal interest in your protection!”

  * * * *

  They had a quarter of a mile to go and had half accomplished the distance when a mob of shouting youths burst from behind a house just ahead of them. There was a pause as though their natural disinclination to physical exertion might even yet prevent the clash. But their leaders were evidently urging them on and suddenly they charged down amid a shower of stones and waving of clubs. In an instant the shock was felt and a furious melee commenced—a primitive angry fight without science or direction.

  Here two youths beat an elderly man senseless with clubs and sprang in unison upon the next victim. There some mature, full-muscled bull of a man ran berserk among striplings, crushing them in his great arms or flailing fist like hams at their onrushing faces. As they fought, they kept moving toward their objective and had gone almost another hundred yards before the youths retreated. The superior numbers of the older ones had swung the balance.

  Fifty men, however, were all that remained around the Chief Forester. The others had either deserted the fight or been injured—perhaps killed, thought Winters, looking back at a score of still figures lying on the earth. The youths had retired only a hundred feet and still kept pace with the fugitives. Fresh bands of young men were hurrying from every direction and it would be a matter of minutes before the attack would recommence with the odds on the other side this time.

  Winters and Stalvyn, his self-appointed bodyguard, had not taken part in the struggle, for they had been in the center of the rescue p
arty. Now they worked to the front of the party where the Forester strode along determinedly. Winters showed his pistol. “With this thing I can kill them as they run there. Shall I use it, sir?”

  The Forester grunted. “Kill them, then. They are coming now to kill you!”

  As he spoke the mob of youths rushed upon them in a murderous fury. The elder men closed together in a compact mass and Winters shot into the front rank of the attackers, to see three of them topple over and thereby lessen the shock of the charge, for those who followed tripped over the fallen. And now Stalvyn and the Forester stepped forward, and around these immovable figures the fight raged. Winters crouched behind them, swiftly pulled back his lever, loaded bullets and pulled the trigger like an automaton in a nightmare. Cries of passion and pain mingled with the thud of blows and the panting gasps of the fighters. It was a savage scene, the more shocking because of the unfitness of these quiet people for such work.

  Suddenly the attackers withdrew sullenly, bearing injured with them. Two dozen remaining Oldsters looked dazedly around—free now to proceed to shelter. Fifty or more figures lay about on the ground and the Forester called out to the watchers in the windows to come and give first aid to friend and foe alike. This work was commenced at once, but with characteristic slowness, and he led his little band to the door of his house and inside.

  “Give the stranger some food and drink, Stalvyn,” drawled a tall thin man with ungainly limbs, who proved to be the biologist from an orig nearly a thousand miles away. “If I know our Youth they would never have wasted sustenance on a man who was so soon to die!” and he smiled a lazy sardonic smile at Winters as he placed in his hands a tumbler full of brown liquid. “Drink it without fear. It will both stimulate and nourish.”

  Winters was in a state of collapse now and Stalvyn had to help him drink and then carried him over to a couch. The biologist spent a few minutes examining him. “He must rest,” he announced. “There will be no questions asked him today. I will prepare some medicine for him.” Whereupon everyone left the room and Winters swallowed more drink and dropped fathoms deep in slumber. A man was set to guard the door of his room and the biologist tended him day and night. For a full week he was not permitted to wake. He had vague impressions as he slept of being rolled over, bathed, fed, massaged and watched over—impressions that were as dreams in an ordinary sleep. Under such expert ministration the thin cheeks filled out and the wasted flesh became plump and smooth.

  When Winters awoke it was late afternoon. His blood pulsed strongly through his body and he was wide awake the instant his eyes opened. There on a stool were set out his clothes, and he got to his feet and dressed. His belt still contained the pistol and hatchet as well as the smaller tools. Feeling like a new man he strode to the door and opened it, to be surrounded presently in another room by a swarthy group of a dozen of the greatest scientists in the world—for the news had by this time spread everywhere and there had been time for travel from the most distant points. And now there followed a long period of questions and examinations. Stalvyn and the historians plied him with posers as to the life and habits of his world; the biologists demanded the secret of his sleeping potion and control of the period of suspended animation; he was put before the fluoroscope and his appendix photographed; his measurements were taken and plaster moulds of his hand, foot and head were cast for a permanent record.

  Through it all Winters had a feeling of consummation—this was one of the things he had planned when he set off on his voyage into the future. Here was sane intelligence taking advantage of his work and respecting him for his exploit. But one thing was lacking completely. He had no sense of belonging to these people. He had hoped to find gods in human form living in Utopia. Instead, here were men with everyday human passions and weaknesses. True, they had progressed since his day—but his insatiable curiosity itched to learn what the future might produce.

  After an evening meal which all partook together, Winters retired to his room with the Chief Forester, the biologist and Stalvyn, and the four men sat talking lazily.

  “What do you plan to do now?” drawled the biologist.

  Winters sighed. “I don’t know exactly.”

  “I would ask you to settle down in my orig here,” remarked the Forester, “but most of our young people and many of the Oldsters who should know better hold you to blame for the recent troubles. I am helpless before them.”

  “Hold me to blame!” exclaimed Winters bitterly. “What had I to do with it?”

  “Nothing, perhaps. But the principle of the rights of the new Generation is still unsettled. The Council of Youth is obstinate and must be brought to see the sensible side of the matter. Their leaders pretend you, in some way, have been brought here to persuade them to cut down trees right and left at the whim of the nearest Oldster. Where it will end, I cannot say.”

  * * * *

  Stalvyn laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Human nature is seldom reasonable. Of course there is no logic in their attitude. Forget it! We will get you quietly into an airship and you shall come away from here and live with me. Together we will review and rewrite the history of your times as it has never been done!”

  “Stop a moment! Do you mean that I shall have to escape secretly from this village?”

  The others looked sheepish and the Forester nodded his head. “I am helpless in the matter. I could get perhaps twenty or thirty men to do my bidding—but you see, most of the villagers will not concern themselves with your fate. It is too much trouble to bother about it at all.”

  “Are they afraid of the youngsters?”

  “No, of course not! They greatly outnumber the youths. They merely are not willing to work beyond the village figure of one hour and fifty minutes a day so they say. I’m afraid you will not find any men to take your side except the four of us and a handful of my oldest men. That’s the way the world is made, you know!” and he shrugged his shoulders expressively.

  “It is a simple matter to escape from this house,” suggested the biologist. “Why not tour quietly around the globe and see our world entire before you decide upon your future plans?”

  Winters shook his head wearily. “I thank you for your kindness, gentlemen. I would never find a place for myself in this age. I gave up my own age for the sake of an ideal. I am searching for the secret of happiness. I tried to find it here, but you do not know it any more than we did three thousand years ago. Therefore I shall say goodbye and—go on to some future period. In perhaps five thousand years I shall awaken in a time more to my liking.”

  “Can your body support another long period of emaciation?” drawled the biologist. “To judge from your appearance you have hardly aged at all during your last sleep—but. . . five thousand years!”

  “I feel as if I were a little older than when I left my own times—perhaps a year or two. Thanks to your attention I am again in excellent health. Yes, I should be able to survive the ordeal once again.”

  “Man! Oh man!” groaned the red-headed Stalvyn. “I would give my right hand to take a place with you! But I have my duty to my own times.”

  “Is your hiding-place near here?” asked the Forester.

  “Yes. But I prefer to tell no one where it is—not even you three. It is well hidden and you cannot help me.”

  “I can!” put in the biologist. “I studied your metabolism as you lay unconscious all this week and I have prepared a formula. From it I shall make a drink for you to take with you. When—or if—you wake from your long sleep you must swallow it. It will restore your vitality enormously in a few hours.”

  “Thank you,” said Winters. “That might make all the difference between success and failure.”

  “How are you going to reach your hiding place? Suppose some youth sees you and follows—remembering old grudges as youth can?”

  “I must leave here secretly just before dawn,” said Winters thoughtfully. “I know in a general way where to go. By daylight I shall be close by and shall have hidden m
yself forever long before anyone in the village is awake.”

  “Well—let us hope so! When will you start?”

  “Tomorrow morning!”

  They parted for the night with many a last word of caution and advice. Winters lay down to sleep and it seemed only a few seconds before the Forester stood over him shaking him awake. He arose and made sure of such things as he was to take with him. Stalvyn and the biologist were on hand in the darkness (they did not dare show a light) and Winters took a light breakfast and said his goodbyes. The three friends watched his body show shadowy against the trees and vanish into the dark night.

  Winters walked with great care along the hard-surfaced roadway for almost an hour. He was sure he had made no slightest sound. He felt he must be almost at the right spot and left the road for the woods where he waited impatiently for the graying east to brighten. He spent half an hour in the shrubbery beside the road before he could see clearly enough to proceed. Just before he turned away he glanced from his leafy hiding back along the stretch of highway. In the distance, to his horror, he observed two figures hurrying toward him!