Forgotten Fiction

by Lloyd Eshbach

  On through space they continued until the earth sprang up to meet them; and with their voyaging done, they came to rest.

  To an eager, wondering world they told their story, then—the story of the Light from Infinity. Then they, too, joined in the gigantic task of humanity, the wresting of earth’s civilization from the chaos of destruction that the Light had left.

  THE TIME CONQUEROR

  He created the Brain for his own amusement . . . but when it turned upon him in revenge . . .

  IN this novelette the idea of time, as a closed circle of events is most dramatically portrayed. We have read in the Bible, that “the sins of the father will be visited upon the children” Modern biologists tell us that hereditary characteristics for good or evil are passed on from generation to generation. Now students of the history of the race tell us that people of the distant future will be happy or will suffer depending upon what we of today do.

  Mr. Eshbach projects us from the present into the far future to see the working out of great destinies. Under the all powerful domination of the brain, his story moves swiftly and fiercely toward its destined end. The human race is capable of many queer transformations, but none queerer than those our author has so vividly pictured.

  THE room was dingy beyond description, its furnishings wretched and poverty-stricken. The stream of white moonlight pouring through a wide rent in the dilapidated roller shade that covered the one small window, served to accentuate the miserly character of the place, rather than to decrease its squalor. It did not illuminate the room, however; it but lessened the degree of darkness, giving a dim, shadowy outline to the furnishings.

  There was a bed along one side, covers dirty and unkempt; a small, rickety table stood beside the bed, its top littered with odds and ends, conspicuous among which was a grimy hypodermic syringe. A disabled chair sagged perilously against the wall opposite the bed, and a miserable wash-stand stood in a far corner. That was all, save for the greasy, threadbare, pitiful rag of a carpet that strove ineffectually to conceal the rough boards of the floor.

  The room was tenantless—and silent.

  Suddenly there came a faint, creaking noise outside the door. Someone was stealthily mounting the stairs. A muffled step in the hallway, the doorknob turning softly, and with a faint, protesting squeak of rusty hinges, the door swung open—and shut again.

  For a wavering second the moonlight rested on the face of the intruder; and at that instant the white rays were cut off by a cloud—though it almost seemed that they fled in fear of the abhorrent ugliness of the man!

  His was a face that might have been seen in a nightmare, a face of infinite and cruel power, yet one that was cloaked with a harsh, mocking cynicism. Roughly formed, it was, like a half-finished sketch or model of a head; a face like the Sphynx, its features stern and rugged, as though worn by the grinding sands of ages of desert winds.

  Starting from the mass of close-cropped black hair, his forehead, broad and high, slanted down at a sharp angle, forming two bony protuberances just above the eyes. Those eyes, pale blue and heartlessly cold, were sunken deep behind a high ridge that ran around the eye-socket. His cheek-bones were prominent and square-cut; his cheeks inclined to be hollow until they bulged abruptly out in a massively-built jaw that thrust itself well beyond the upper lip.

  His mouth was thin-lipped and wide, and it drooped sharply at the corners in an expression of cruel mockery. And his nose, large and aquiline, fell away from the forehead in a straight line, depressing suddenly at the tip—like a vulture’s beak. Considered as a whole, his face was a picture of grim relentlessness.

  Only for a few moments did the cloud cut off the moonlight; suddenly the white radiance again poured through the rent in the shade. It revealed a dark, motionless figure crouching in the blackness of the most poorly-lighted corner.

  Slowly the minutes dragged by. Through the night drifted a medley of faint sounds, an indefinable conglomeration of noises; yet, paradoxically, the silence in the room seemed to deepen. And so motionless was the man in the corner, that he seemed to become a part of the shadows that concealed him.

  Suddenly he stiffened. A door had banged shut on the floor below. Now someone was ascending the stairs— with the slow, weak, shuffling tread of the infirm or aged. The approaching man coughed in a wheezing, asthmatic way as he moved along the hall, finally pausing before the door of the squalid room. He thrust it open and shuffled in.

  There came the scraping of a match against the wall; and with an angry sputter a diminutive gas-jet flared into life. Blinking in its sickly, yellow light, the newcomer slowly crossed the room to the rickety table. His eyes, gleaming out of deep, black sockets, set in a gaunt, pallid, hollowcheeked face, were fixed hungrily on the hypodermic syringe. Grasping the instrument eagerly, he thrust back the sleeve of his threadbare, ill-fitting coat, his frayed, dirty wrist-band, and pricked his flesh with the point of the needle.

  At that instant a harsh, mirthless laugh cut through the room; the hypodermic clattered to-the floor; and the little man whirled. Circling his lips with the tip of his tongue nervously, his eyes roved around the room in a furtive, terror-stricken glance—and in an instant were fixed on the ugly face of the man in the corner.

  “You—you—Koszarek!” he snarled, his lips twitching, a gleam of utter hatred leaping into his eyes.

  “Yes, Dr. Ovington, ’tis Leo Koszarek.” The even voice of the other was devoid of expression. “I see you are still a slave to cocaine!”

  “Curse you, yes!” the little man shrieked wildly. “And you know damned well why I’m a slave of the drug! You’re responsible for it all, you devil’s spawn!” His voice was rising in a shrill falsetto. “You stole the fruits of my brain; you held me prisoner and forced drugs on me until I had to have them; you were the cause of my becoming a pariah, an outcast—you—you!” His tirade ended in an inarticulate shriek; then a sudden paroxysm of coughing seized him.

  LEO KOSZAREK, M.D., Ph.D., watched the wreck of a human being before him, smiling contemptuously. When the coughing had ended, he asked in mocking tones:

  “Well, have you said all you want to say?”

  “No, by God!” Ovington shrilled. “No, you—” and a stream of foul invectives flowed from his lips.

  “Enough of that!” Koszarek snarled, darting across the room. “I don’t want the neighborhood aroused; it might prove embarrassing.” He caught the little man roughly by his shoulder and pushed him violently to a seat on the bed. “Stay there, and shut up!”

  Completely cowed, Ovington shrank back.

  Koszarek stood over him in a menacing attitude; and there was an ugly light in his pale-blue eyes when he spoke.

  “What you say is true. I did take your discovery away from you—but since you weren’t capable of protecting it, you didn’t deserve to receive the credit. After all, I made better use of your discovery than you could possibly have done.

  “But I didn’t come here tonight to resurrect ancient history; I have some business to transact. I need a trained observer as an assistant in an experiment I am about to conduct—the most important one of my career. And you, Ovington, are just the type of man I need!”

  “I!” the other exclaimed uncomprehendingly.

  “Yes, Ovington, you.” Koszarek’s voice sank to a soft purr. “You are to be singularly honored. I need the brain of someone who has been trained in the sciences, someone who has the ability to interpret and record with mathematical exactness all that he sees—and you fit the requirements better than anyone else I know.”

  “You—you ask me to assist you!” Ovington choked. “I’ll see you—see you in Hell first! Get out! Get out I say! You have no right to be here; I want you to leave! You—you heartless brute!”

  “Enough of this nonsense,” Koszarek growled impatiently. “You’ll help me, though you’ve no desire to do so.” He stooped over and suddenly held up the hypodermic syringe. “Suppose I’d make it impossible for you to secure any of this stuff! Suppos
e I’d exert a little influence in certain quarters, and have you sentenced to prison—where the cocaine would not be available! Then what would you do?”

  Ovington seemed paralyzed for an instant; then he sprang to his feet. His eyes were fixed on Koszarek in a glassy stare of deprecating horror.

  “Not—not that! God! not that! It—it would kill me! I must have it—I can’t do without it! . . . I’ll help you.” He sank back on the bed, trembling violently.

  “I thought you would.” Koszarek’s drooping mouth widened in a thin smile. “Shall we go?”

  Ovington nodded uncertainly, helplessly. He arose then, and with his customary, weak, faltering stride, moved toward the door. Koszarek held it open for him; and after turning out the light, he followed him through the hallway, down the stairs, and out into the street.

  A big, high-powered car was parked about a half square away. Koszarek led the way to this, and at his direction Ovington seated himself in the front seat. Getting in beside him, Koszarek drew a flat black case from an inside pocket. He opened it and revealed a hypodermic syringe.

  “Here,” he said, “you’ll need this. It contains a heavier dose of cocaine than you’ve had in a long time—and it’s sanitary.”

  Ovington looked at the instrument doubtfully, a suspicious gleam in his eyes.

  Koszarek shook his head impatiently. “Come, take it; it contains nothing but cocaine. If I wanted to drug you with anything else, I’d do so myself. You needn’t fear; I want you to remain conscious and to have your mind as alert as it may possibly be.”

  Eagerly then Ovington seized the hypodermic, and baring his arm sent the drug into his bloodstream. A change came over him almost instantly. His eyes brightened; his nerves grew steady; he squared his shoulders in sudden animation.

  “I needed that badly,” he exclaimed. “I feel better than I’ve felt for quite a few months.” Furtively he dropped the hypodermic into a pocket of his ragged coat. A ghost of a mocking smile wreathed Koszarek’s lips for an instant; then it was gone.

  “I knew it would clear your wind,” he remarked as he started the motor. “And I wanted your brain clear so we could discuss my experiment.”

  For ten or fifteen minutes they drove through the city in silence. They reached the suburbs, sped into the open country. It was only then that Koszarek renewed the conversation.

  “Ovington,” he began abruptly, “what is your conception of time?”

  “My conception of time?” the other asked wonderingly.

  “Yes; what is time?”

  “Why—I—time is—is—” Ovington paused in surprise. “By Jove, I don’t believe I have any conception of what time is. I’ve never given it thought.”

  KOSZAREK nodded. “Few people have. I’ll tell you.

  Listen carefully. Time is the distance separating events in the order of their succession, and binding them in different wholes or units. You may not comprehend all that lies in that definition, but don’t question it; it is correct!”

  “Another question: what do you think about the past and future? Do they exist, or are they non-existent?”

  “Non-existent, of course,” Ovington replied promptly. “I have no belief whatever in the pseudo-scientific idea of the past and future existing along with the present, so that we may travel from one to the other!”

  Koszarek nodded a second time. “The popular belief—but it’s entirely wrong. Here! You think, I suppose, that the past already does not exist because it has passed, disappeared, transformed itself into something else. And you think the future also does not exist. As yet; it has not arrived, has not formed. Is that correct?”

  “Yes!” Ovington exclaimed. “Exactly.”

  “And by the present,” Koszarek continued, “we mean the moment of transition of the future into the past. For that moment only does a phenomenon exist for us in reality; before, it existed in potentiality; afterward, it will exist in remembrance.”

  Again Ovington acquiesced.

  “Then according to that, the present is the moment of transition of a phenomenon from one non-existence to another non-existence—since you say the future and past do not exist. But that short moment that we term the present is after all fictional in character; it cannot be measured. We can never seize it. That which we did seize is always the past! So, according to your own conception of time, Ovington, neither past, present nor future exists!”

  “But that’s absurd!” Ovington objected. “You and I exist, and the world exists—and all in the presei—”

  “Of course. And that proves the falsity of the popular conception of the so-called divisions of time. The world, according to that idea, would appear to be a perpetual bursting forth of sparks from an igneous fountain, each spark flashing for an immeasurable instant, then disappearing, never to return. This operation goes on endlessly, there are an infinite number of sparks, which together produce the impression of flame—yet in reality they do not exist!

  “The future does not exist now, they say, but it will exist! But how can that appear which has no existence? The past and future cannot be non-existent, for if they do not exist, then neither does the present exist. All three must exist somewhere together—but our finite senses cannot detect them.”

  For a silent moment Ovington frowned thoughtfully, then exclaimed:

  “Your argument seems sound—but I can’t say that I’m entirely convinced. However, conceding for the sake of argument that you are correct, to what does it all lead? What is your reason for mentioning it?”

  “Simply this—the experiment in which you are going to assist me, will be an attempt to prove the existence of a fourth dimension, and to see both the past and the future! Don’t misconstrue my statement; I haven’t invented any fantastic time-traveling machine or any absurd contraption of a similar nature. I merely desire to prove by a certain means that I have in mind, that there is a fourth dimension, that it is time, and that both the past and future are accessible to the human mind.”

  “I know that in certain of their calculations,” Ovington commented slowly, “mathematicians are employing four mutually interchangeable coordinates, three of space and one of time. They use time as a dimension of space—but there it’s purely a mathematical conception.

  “I am aware of that, of course,” Koszarek agreed, “but I am going to prove that it has an existence outside of mathematics.”

  They were silent then, each busy with his thoughts, while the big car bore them through the night. Ovington strove mightily to digest all that he had heard; and Koszarek marshalled his thoughts to present other arguments. Ovington’s mind had to be prepared for the task that he had planned for it.

  As before, Koszarek broke the silence.

  “Has it dawned upon you, Ovington, that we never really see anything? We live groping about like blind men, only conscious of the small, finite sphere made known to us through our senses. And those five organs of sense are actually only feelers! We are constantly feeling our way through life. We never really see, for if we could see, we would be conscious of the existence of the fourth dimension of which we are a part.

  “Really, Ovington, our senses are a joke! We say we see, feel, or in some way sense the material universe—yet we are conscious of only three dimensions! Space is infinite, is it not? It possesses an infinite extension in all directions. Yet for some strange reason we can measure it only in three directions—length, breadth and height. But the universe, all creation, is infinite—and therefore must possess infinity in all directions and in all possible relations. So in space there must be an infinite number of dimensions—or an infinite number of lines perpendicular to each other. Is that clear?”

  CHAPTER II

  Ovington Revolts

  THE usually pallid face of Ovington was flushed with excitement as he nodded. “It’s clear enough—but it’s revolutionary! A fourth, or even a fifth and sixth dimension in mathematics—yes. But an infinite number of dimensions! It doesn’t seem possible . . . Surely you do
not expect to penetrate into those dimensions!”

  There was a regretful note in Koszarek’s voice when he answered. “No; I’m afraid the fourth dimension is about as far as man can go. But there, at least in mind, he can go! And you and I are going to prove that this is so.” With a triumphant smile on his ugly face, Koszarek completed his dissertation.

  Ovington shook his head somewhat dazedly. The effects of the cocaine were becoming less evident; his mind was sinking back into its habtual lethargic state. With an effort he roused himself.

  “I’ve read of attempts being made before this to unite the idea of the fourth dimension with time, but—”

  “But,” Koszarek interrupted, “in those theories there was always brought forth the thought of some spatial element existing in time, and with it, motion upon that space. Such an idea is fundamentally wrong, for motion cannot proceed outside of time, nor does time possess a three-dimensional space through which man can travel. Since the majority of those theories demand a new time, a time apart from motion, a three-dimensional time, they explain nothing. Pseudo-scientific drivel—that’s what they are!

  “But here we are at my experimental laboratory, my home. In a short while you’ll learn how very important a part you’ll play in my experiment with the fourth dimension—my conquest of time!”

  They had halted before a gloomy stone building that loomed against a skyline of ghostly sycamores like an ugly, forbidding thing. Somehow it seemed to reflect the repellent personality of the man whose dwelling it was. The building stood alone in a little hollow; no other habitation was in sight.

  After they had alighted, John Ovington looked furtively around him and shivered. Hesitantly he turned toward Koszarek, standing in the glare of the headlight.