When The Future Dies

by Nat Schachner

  Without an instant's hesitation, he whirled and jumped as high as he could—directly over the Gorm! There was a yell of astonishment from the Ganymedans—one had already clutched at his intended victim—as they fell back in horror from the edge. This Earthling was mad to brave the terrors of the Gorm!

  But Grant heard nothing. He was instantly conscious of a searing, racking pain that penetrated his every fiber. He forced his eyes upward, anywhere but beneath him. Was his theory correct, or was he destined to drop into the fiery lake. For a single interminable instant, he suffered untold agonies.

  Then his body quivered, and he felt an unmistakable push against him. He was moving upward, just as he had hoped. The Gorm was repelling him, even as it had the ship.

  Faster and faster he shot up, chasing the liner. Would he catch up with it? He strained his eyes. Exultation flooded through him as he realized that the distance was rapidly lessening between them. The added impetus of his leap over the Gorm had given him the required extra fillip of speed. By now, rays were streaking by him.

  Soon he was directly underneath. For an instant he had a quick fear that he might overshoot his mark. But no—he was sliding past the open air-lock. He threw himself sideways and caught at it. This time his fingers held.

  As he squirmed and wriggled into the lock, they were already careening into the orange tube through the red swirling clouds. There was no longer any air. Choking, he managed with numbed fingers to screw his helmet on. Then, closing the lock, he proceeded into the ship.

  Nona was guarding her prisoner vigilantly. Miro sat there, sullen, defiant. Her glad, welcoming cry filled Grant with a new strange warmth.

  "I was so afraid for you when the ship started and you didn't show up," she said, "but I didn't dare leave him alone." She indicated Miro.

  "Good girl," he said admiringly. "We'll bind him now and then I want to show you something."

  They stood a little later at the bow quartz port-hole. Down the long shaft through which they had risen they saw the glaring flame of the Gorm. As they looked, its regular pulsations turned irregular: it leaped and splashed as though it was a stormy, choppy sea. Then it gave one final mighty heave, and the universe seemed to shatter beneath them. The "walls" of the shaft collapsed about them and they were enswathed in a raging storm of red clouds.

  Nona turned to Grant. "Now, will you explain?"

  "Certainly," he grinned boyishly. "I simply reversed the switch that changes the current of the Gorm. I knew that it would then repel the liner out into space, as Miro was incautious enough to inform me.

  "Then I figured that if instead of direct current, an alternating flow could be induced, so as to attract and repel in quick succession, enough of a disturbance would be raised in that highly unstable mixture to start fireworks. So I rigged up an automatic break in the circuit, timed it to permit us to get up enough speed from the repulsion to be safely on our way before it would start. The circuit-breaker worked and the alternating current did the rest. That island is wiped out, and so is the Gorm. There'll be no further threat of danger to the solar system from that."

  "And Miro, what are we going to do with him?"

  "Turn him over to the Service. They'll take care of him. And now, young lady, if you have no further questions, shall I say it again?"

  She smiled up at him tenderly, answering:

  "If you wish."

  The End

  **************************

  The Time Express,

  by Nat Schachner

  Wonder Stories, Dec. 1932

  Novelette - 11638 words

  If we accept traveling in time as at all possible, we can go a step farther and envision regular tours through time, as we today journey through space. Time travels might even become a regular business, or a means of pleasure or education.

  What wonderful visions might open at that thought! We can imagine many ages linked together by regular transport; the year 3000, the year 4000, the year 5000 etc. might exchange thoughts and ideas, and even the accumulated wisdom of the ages.

  But Mr. Schachner is not swept away by such flights of fancy. He tries to keep his feet on the ground and to work out logically and consistently what might happen were regular trips through time possible. He sees many limitations, many disadvantages; but above all he sees unbounded field for adventure. In this story we get one of the thrilling possibilities of the future.

  Chapter I

  Denton Kels drifted unostentatiously off the aerobus, completely merged in a horde of chattering anticipatory tourists. A hundred heads turned to stare at the great gleaming crystal timedrome. Over the entrance to the long, semi-cylindrical building a legend flashed back into their fascinated eyes.

  “HOOK’S TOURS THROUGH TIME” it screamed in red neon lights, twenty feet high, “PERSONALLY CONDUCTED ALL-EXPENSE TOURS INTO THE FUTURE. VISIT YOUR GREAT GRANDCHILDREN IN TRADITIONAL HOOK COMFORT. THE LAST WORD IN TOURS.”

  A pleasurable sigh exuded from the hundred, then the chattering broke out afresh. The modulated, penetrating voice of the tour leader hushed them into sudden silence.

  “The Time Express starts in half an hour, ladies and gentlemen. We shall have to hurry. Kindly take your places on the passenger conveyor.”

  The tourists bustled on board the long-grooved ribbon belt, scrambled into the nearest seats. Denton Kels followed meekly. He was a mild looking man in the early forties, slightly bald with wisps of graying hair. His features were inconspicuous, his eyes speculative. An ideal operative for the special investigation in which he was employed by the World Council in this year of grace 2124 A.D.

  The conveyor shot into swift, noiseless motion, hurled them through the great portal into the spacious convex interior, and came to a smooth stop before an ellipsoid of mirror-like metal, one hundred feet long on its principal axis. It was suspended in air some twenty feet off the ground by powerful magnets set in the curving roof overhead. A steep movable ramp led into the interior. From every side huge burnished reflectors focussed upon the express. They were quiescent now; when they blazed into activating energy, the metallic ellipsoid would vibrate upon its tremendous journey.

  Kels had his tickets and identification passport carefully scrutinized by a hawk-faced individual who looked uncomfortable in the livery of Hook Tours. There were others too, in conventional civilian clothes, who stared at the tourists with probing eyes as they streamed excitedly up the ramp.

  Kels smiled thinly. His papers were in order. Denton Kels was his name and he was a retired butter and egg merchant. The hawk-faced individual returned them to him without comment. By not so much as a flicker of an eyelash did he show recognition.

  Kels put them back carefully into his wallet and shuffled on board in back of two giggling young girls.

  The interior of the express was fashioned entirely of the peculiar mirror-like metal. Chairs, tables, beds, instruments, even table cutlery, gleamed monotonously. This metal was particularly sensitive to the activating impulses from the reflectors.

  The ramp led into a small bar at which a white-coated attendant was rapidly filling metal cups with a slightly yellowish, fizzing drink.

  “Every tourist must drink a cupful,” he chanted.

  Kels drank his portion obediently. It was lukewarm and rather nauseous to the taste. The drink was radioactive, containing in suspension colloidal particles of the mirror-like metal. Their dispersion through the body rendered one amenable to the influence of the reflectors.

  The tour leader was much in evidence. He was a young man with fair hair and smooth rosy cheeks. Just now he was flushed with the exertion of herding his flock to their quarters. His name was John Bolton and he hated his job. But one must live and the pay was good.

  “You will have just fifteen minutes to find your quarters, and attend to your luggage,” he announced. “At the end of that period a gong will sound. You must gather immediately in the central salon, and take your seats. The Express starts ten minutes thereafter. The Company i
s not responsible for accidents to any tourist who fails to obey these instructions rigidly. The room numbers are on your tickets.”

  Kels looked at his ticket, found his room number to be 36. A uniformed attendant, in the familiar Hook blue-and-gold, directed him down a long corridor. His room was the farthest on the left.

  It was small but sufficient. His luggage, a battered serviceable suitcase and a small hand bag with a peculiar lock to it, was already set neatly against the bedstead.

  Kels went over and locked the door on the inside. His bright blue eyes raked the room for possible hiding places. There were none. Bare metallic walls stared back at him.

  Disregarding his suit case, he knelt before the handbag; his surprisingly long fingers worked deftly at the lock. It snapped open. Kels reached in, took out a tiny, thin-barreled dynol pistol that held a magazine of fifty almost microscopic dynol pellets. On striking its target, the pellet exploded into thousands of tiny slivers of steel. The victim died almost instantaneously, no matter how superficial the original impact.

  Kels hefted it speculatively, slipped it into his pocket.

  Then he drew out a blue slip of paper. It was a photostatic copy of a memorandum. He read it with frowning forehead.

  “The World Council of the year 4600,” it ran, “has managed to send us a warning. It is in possession of information to the effect that some one in the past is attempting to smuggle plans and specifications of power machinery via the Time Express into their time of 4600. Such plans the World Council of 4600 considers contraband of the most dangerous order, the mere possession of which is punishable by death. It is believed that the smuggling attempt will be made from our time of 2124 via the Hook’s Tour of July 17th.

  “The World Council of 4600 notifies us that unless we prevent such smuggling, all further tours to their time will be strictly prohibited. Inasmuch as the World Councils of all periods prior to 4600 have practically persuaded that Council to permit tours to be routed through its time into future ages, it is readily seen how such a limitation would be catastrophic. Not only would the broadening aspects of travels in time on our citizens be unduly curtailed, but a gigantic industry would suffer financially.”

  Kels permitted himself a smile at that, and read on.

  “It is therefore imperative that the smuggler be captured, and the contraband seized and destroyed. All operatives of the Secret Service are to proceed accordingly.”

  “Chief of the Secret Service Division,

  World Council, 2124.”

  Attached to the photostatic memorandum was a strip of paper with a typed message.

  “Attention Operative, Denton Kels.—You will take complete charge of field operations. You will be held responsible for their success.”

  Kels smiled wryly, took out of an inside pocket a tiny flame-inducer, flicked it into a bright hot glow. He held the memorandum against its tip, watched the paper curl into impalable ash. Then he deliberately opened the locks on his bags and left them open. Even his luggage was not immune from careful search; every Secret Service operative proceeded on the assumption that very other operative was suspect.

  Kels sat down and lit a cigarette. A bother over nothing much, he thought. He had heard something of this strange civilization of the future where machinery was anathema; where everything was done by human hands, or by tools fashioned by human hands. The course of civilization had been reversed. Kels knew vaguely the reason for this abandonment of power. Little bits of information had filtered back through time. Yet he thought the alleged reasons eminently unsatisfactory. He was sufficiently a child of the present machine civilization to be unable to conceive that it was, or ever could be, anything but an unmixed blessing.

  He got up and shrugged his shoulders. After all, it was none of his business. The Council of 4600 had a right to make its own regulations, and have them adhered to without meddling from the past. His orders were definite; catch the smuggler and destroy the plans.

  A gong sounded clamorously. It was the signal. Kels unlocked the door, went out into the corridor, was swept into the current of hurrying tourists. By the time he caught his breath, he found himself seated on a metal chair in the salon, discreetly in the rear of the motley array of both sexes, thrilling to the thought of a cruise into the future. A little platform reared itself at the farther end of the salon, and on it stood John Bolton, the tour leader, waiting for the hubbub to cease.

  Kels nodded unobstrusively. At once various soft-shoed individuals on the outskirts of the crowd slipped silently out of the salon. They were operatives. Kels settled back comfortably into his chair, knowing that every inch of the Express, every bit of luggage belonging to the passengers and the crew, would be submitted to a painstaking search.

  Bolton raised his hand for silence. All necks craned in his direction, all ears were attuned to the pearls of wisdom that were about to drop from the lecturer’s lips.

  “Before we commence on our tremendous venture into the future,” he began in his modulated, penetrating voice, “it would be well to acquaint ourselves with something of the history of time traveling, and the principles upon which it is based.”

  An elderly man in rusty black with a high intellectual forehead snorted contemptuously, leaned back and closed his eyes. A professor of science, on his sabbatical, no doubt, to whom the elementary explanations of the Hook’s man would appear childish.

  Bolton went on earnestly. “Because of the rapid advances that have been made in the science and art of time traveling, it is sometimes forgotten that the penetration of the future was deemed an absolute impossibility only nine years ago. It was in 2116 that Levallier, of immortal fame, first invented his crude time traveling machine. He was greeted with mockery, but in front of the assembled sceptical scientists of the world, he and his machine vanished from view. Three days later, during which interval the hall in which it had been housed remained under constant supervision, the machine reappeared, and Levallier staggered out, wild eyed, incoherent.

  “He spoke vaguely of great astounding civilizations of the future, in which time traveling, based on his invention, was an accomplished art. He spoke of general impressions, of marvelous advances in science, but somehow he could remember no sharp details. Nor could he give a coherent description of any machine, of any invention of the future that he had observed.

  “Trained scientists went with him on further ventures into the future, with the same results. It was impossible to bring back any but the most general observations. It seemed as though nature, outraged at man’s bold penetration into the mysteries of time, revenges herself by raising an impenetrable barrier against the use of future knowledge by men of the present. And that, our scientists and philosophers assure us, is philosophically correct. It would be an absurdity for us to avail ourselves of all the knowledge into which man will gradually evolve, before that knowledge even came to the race. Even I, who have accompanied this tour some thirty times, could not describe in detail any invention of the future.”

  A hatchet-faced spinster in mannish clothes said in a loud masculine voice: “Does that mean we won’t be able to bring back anything from our travels?”

  “Not a thing.”

  The spinster sniffed with explosive force. “Well, I declare! I must say, young man, your Company has imposed on us. What is the good of an expensive tour if you can’t bring souvenirs back to show your friends that you have been away!”

  A stout placid man with white hair and old-fashioned spectacles wagged his hand upright like a timid schoolboy. He caught the lecturer’s eye, stammered and blushed. “Why don’t Hook’s make up tours into the past? I—I’m all-fired anxious t’ see old grandpop again.”

  All eyes fastened on the old farmer from the hinterland.

  Bolton answered courteously: “A very understandable and praiseworthy desire on your part, Mr. Hardscrabble. Unfortunately, we have not achieved traveling into the past, and our philosophers tell us we never shall. We may move forward, and return to our own t
ime, but not for one second may we unroll the past. That is why the people of the future cannot come back to us.”

  A thin young man with an ascetic face and prominent nose looked up from a note book in which he was busily scribbling.

  “Mr. Leader,” he asked, “can you explain the theory of time traveling—scientifically, I mean? I’ll get extra credits if I can hand in a good thesis on the subject to my Prof.”

  “I’m glad you asked,” Bolton said heartily, though there was murder in his eyes. “The Company encourages students on its tours. There is nothing of great cultural value than traveling, either in space or in time. I shall try to explain the theory of time traveling as simply as possible.”

  The professor on his sabbatical was snoring loudly now. Another man, tall, lantern-jawed, groaned and shut his eyes ostentatiously.

  “It has long been known,” Bolton went on unheeding, “that the faster an object travels in space, the slower its growth processes. In other words, passengers in a rocket plane traveling at the rate of one thousand miles an hour, who according to the standard time calculations of instruments affixed to the ground, are one hour older at the end of that distance, are actually, as far as their perceptions and bodily reactions are concerned, not quite as old as that by the very small fraction of a second.

  “Now multiply that speed until it approaches the speed of light, if you can conceive passengers on a rocket ship traveling that fast. At the end of one hour by normal earth standards, they would have perceived, and their bodies would have aged, only a fraction of that time. At the very speed of light, our travelers would have achieved immortality; to them all time would be condensed into a single simultaneous eternal sensation; there would be no growth, there would be no decay.”