When The Future Dies

by Nat Schachner

“Horver,” she repeated impatiently. “Surely you know as well as I.” The girl’s face was clear and candid; she was not pulling his leg.

  LITTLE THINGS began to click together in orderly array in Derek’s brain. A faint light was dawning on him, yet so fantastic was the hypothesis, so ridiculous in the extreme, that he was tempted to dismiss it immediately.

  “You said you had a history of our time. Only one?”

  “Yes; it is all that has survived. You see,” she explained, “about the year 2050 the world went to war—the last war of mankind. It ended in catastrophe—the human race almost succeeded in wiping itself out. Every city, every community of any size, was buried in its own ruins. The few survivors reverted to primitive conditions; it was hundreds of years before civilization reasserted itself.

  “Every book, every document of your time, and most of those of prior ages, were lost, destroyed, except for this one history that managed to escape the general disaster. It was found by archaeologists digging in the submerged ruins of a great city not many miles from here, securely embedded in a rusted steel box. Fortunately it gives a rather complete history of that age.”

  The faint light in Derek’s brain exploded into brilliant flame. “The name of this veracious history?” he begged breathlessly.

  “ ‘Fronting the Tyrant.’ The author was evidently a prominent contemporary historian—the preface so states—his name is Rosenzweig.”

  Derek sucked his breath in sharply. He knew the book, also its author, a penniless journalist friend of his who had noted with disgust the flood of books glorifying the American criminal. He wrote a book to end all crime books—a burlesque, written in the soberest style—a history, in fact!

  Mike Spinnot became Michael Spinney, a sort of modern Robin Hood, tilting against the depression in the person of an archtyrant—Horver.

  The book went over big, but not as a burlesque. Ironically, the people seized upon it as a Actionized cry of protest and read it in good faith, to the great discomfiture of the author, but to the speedy enrichment of his pocket. It had a tremendous sale.

  And now—the greatest irony of all—this one book of all extant volumes was to survive through the ages! To cap the climax, the book which had been written early in 1932, had ended with the execution of its hero, Michael Spinney, in the latter part of 1933 in the manner and for the reason the girl had given Derek. The newspapers had played up heavily the strange coincidence at Mike’s trial and subsequent sentencing.

  “And so,” Derek managed to gasp out, “you came back to rescue him. Why you and your father?”

  “Because,” her eyes met his proudly, “we are his lineal descendants. We are Spinneys.”

  For the moment Derek was crushed. Then he reflected. “This is as true as the rest of it. Mike’s name is not Spinney, of course.”

  His gray eyes mused over her.

  “This machine, is it in common use in your time?”

  “Oh, no; father invented it. You see,” she explained, “father is a profound student of history. The story of his great ancestor has always held a fascination for him. Even in our day we are honored as descendants of the hero. He brooded over it, waxed indignant over the untimely end of Michael Spinney. Then one day he shut himself up, refused to talk, to disclose what he was doing.

  “For two years he labored. This is the result. He had invented a time-traveling machine to take him back to the year 1933. The principle is surprisingly simple; it depends upon bringing the vibration of the molecules in cage and occupants to a speed approaching that of light. When that is done, time for the traveler slows down to minutes, while continuing for the universe at what is called normal speed.”

  Derek nodded. “We knew that. It explains traveling into the future. But how about returning to the past?”

  Merle hesitated. “Father explained that, too,” she said doubtfully, “but I’m not sure I understood. It has something to do with negative speeds, involving the square root of minus one. But it works. Thoron decided to rescue Michael the Great, bring him back to life. I went with him. We have succeeded.”

  Derek stared at the lovely flushed face of the girl. There was no doubt she was telling the truth—as she conceived it. His brain was turning mental somersaults. The future coming back to the present—the present going forth into the future!

  “We have reached home,” Thoron said joyfully, his face concentrated on the gleaming dials. He pressed buttons, pulled a little switch. Derek felt a sudden shifting of weight, as if he were getting heavier. The gray blur outside disintegrated into hurtling fragments. The machine was slowing down, coming to a halt from its tremendous journey through time.

  The flying streaks gave way to a spinning wall, branches that moved swiftly, and a great yellow moon that circled in wheeling arcs. Slower and slower, and then a slight jar. The machine had come to complete rest.

  Thoron slid open the door. “Come, O Michael,” he urged respectfully; “we are in our own time again. Here you will be safe from the tyrant of your own day, and the world will do you fitting honor.”

  THEY WERE in a garden, but such a garden as was undreamed of in the year 1933. A wall of translucent red inclosed a bit of paradise. Fantastic trees overarched gracefully, strange blooms filled the night air with perfumed sweetness, fountains threw colored waters high into the air, waters sang and fluted in cadenced harmonies.

  Derek watched the crime lord’s reactions. That worthy’s face was a study. Fear and dim comprehension succeeded each other in turn. He had treated Thoron’s story as the ravings of an escaped madman. The rescue, the whole amazing interlude, had not yet penetrated his senses.

  Now for the first time he began to believe. Derek saw a gleam light up Mike Spinnot’s features.

  Mike said: “Sure, Thoron, you’re a good guy, and on the level. What’m I supposed to do here?”

  “I have arranged for everything,” Thoron answered promptly. “You shall remain as my guest. The council will welcome you to its deliberations. Festivities, ceremonies, will take place in your honor.”

  Mike’s roving eye caressed Merle’s shapely form. The girl flushed under the insolent gaze.

  “Swell looker, that dame!” Mike winked at Derek. “Maybe I’ll take her back with me to good old New York. I see possibilities.”

  Derek flamed at the unmistakable tenor of Mike’s discourse. He took a quick step forward, shook a warning finger under Mike’s nose.

  “Listen, Spinnot!” His voice vibrated with cold fury. “You got away with murder in our time, and now you’re trying the same stunt here. These people are not onto you yet, but they’re going to be. In the meantime you lay off the girl, you hear me?”

  His body was tense, alert.

  Murder was writ large on Mike’s face then, murder and sudden death. His hand went under his armpit, to come away empty. There was no room for a shoulder holster in the garb of a felon.

  “You keep your trap shut!” he snarled. “I’m the big boss around here, and if you want to keep on living—”

  Derek’s fist shot out like lightning. It caught Mike off balance, lifted him clear off the ground. He went down in a twisted sprawl yards away. Merle screamed.

  Derek turned to see her eyes wide with terrified warning; to see Thoron raging at him with hand outstretched. Little blue lights glinted from under the finger nails. Derek threw up his hand instinctively, but it did not save him. A dull roaring filled his ears; a million red-hot needles pierced his body, and his last consciousness was of falling heavily to the ground.

  DEREK weltered out of a heaving sea. A dull pain suffused his being; a strong paralysis fettered his limbs. He groaned and opened his eyes.

  “You poor boy!” The voice was warm with pity. “How you have been tortured.”

  Derek turned his head and gazed into Merle’s limpid eyes. Her rounded arms were supporting him. He was in a small, high-ceiled chamber, glowing with invisible illumination—a girl’s boudoir, simply yet luxuriously furnished.

  D
erek brushed a weak hand over his brow. For a moment everything was strange to him. His wounded body, the girl bending to him. Then it came back to him with a rush.

  “How did I get here?”

  “Father and Michael wished to kill you as you lay under the paralysis. I prevailed on Thoron to obtain the council’s permission for your execution. While they were away attending the meeting, I caused you to be removed secretly to my chamber.”

  “Thank you!” he said simply. “But why did you save my life? I am only a tool of the tyrant, and Mike Spinnot is your heroic ancestor.”

  Merle flushed; she felt the sarcasm. “I am beginning to believe that you were telling the truth,” she answered slowly. “This Michael Spinney does not act or talk like a great man. There were several things I caught—” She checked herself and burst out passionately: “Why does history lie like that—make heroes out of knaves, and real men die unknown, unheard-of?” She looked meaningly at Derek.

  It was his turn to blush. He hid his confusion with a laugh. “I see history has not changed much in six thousand years. In our time we have the same complaint. But,” he continued, “if you are now convinced that Mike Spinnot is, or was, justly sentenced to death, why don’t you tell your father and have the man dealt with as he deserves?”

  The girl was oddly embarrassed. “I’ve tried,” she told him hesitatingly, “but it does no good. Thoron, my father, has almost all his life been absorbed in the theme of the greatness of his ancestor. It has become a passion to him, his very reason for existence. His mind is closed to all evidence; he refuses to see the manifest absurdity of the legend. Why, when I argued with him, he flew into a rage, threatened to cast me off as a disgrace to the Spinneys. And in the fanaticism, he has convinced the council, too, of the truth of his story.”

  Derek arose, still a bit shaky, wounds smarting painfully, but in full command of his faculties. “The only thing to do now,” he said decisively, “is for me to think of some plan to show up Mike in his true colors.”

  She shook her head despairingly. “You don’t know the members of the council. Once they definitely commit themselves to a course, nothing can make them admit that they are wrong.”

  “That sounds familiar, too.” Derek smiled faintly. “Then I’ll have to hide for a while and try for the machine.”

  “It is under heavy guard,” she said hopelessly. “And as for hiding, I don’t know where. Even now the guards of the council are searching for you. They have orders to kill at sight. No place is immune from their search; not even this chamber of mine. Their invisible search-beams can see through the thickest wall as if it were glass.”

  “Not a cheerful prospect for yours truly!” Derek grinned. “What would happen if I were caught here—I mean, as far as you are concerned?”

  “That does not matter.”

  “I must know,” he insisted.

  “I should be put to death. Even my father would insist upon that penalty.”

  Derek considered a moment. “They won’t find me here then,” he said grimly. “I’m leaving right now.”

  “Where to?”

  “Anywhere.”

  Merle shook her head decisively. Suddenly her eyes widened with alarm.

  Derek spun around to follow her gaze. Set high on the wall was what appeared to be a burnished mirror. In it was seen the figure of a man swinging a metal tube in front of him. No light emanated from its orifice, yet the man’s eyes were eagerly following its arc, as if searching for something. Then his eyes seemed to meet Derek’s gaze in the mirror. His mouth opened in a soundless shout, and he dashed forward.

  Involuntarily Derek whirled to meet the attack and found himself staring at a blank wall.

  Merle tugged violently at his arm. “Quick, we must run for it now! He saw you with the search-beam.”

  “But how did I see him, too?” Derek wondered.

  “That mirror on the wall is a search-mirror also. Come!”

  She half pushed him straight for the opposite wall. An oblong patch opened miraculously in it at her approach. A long, twisting corridor extended ahead. The wall closed behind him, just in time to shut off the quick lunge of the guard.

  FOR WHAT seemed hours they hurried through interminable passageways and rooms; impenetrable walls opened before them and closed as swiftly behind. The noise of pursuit died away in the distance, but Merle would allow no slackening.

  Another little door opened before them. Derek learned afterward that all these slides were actuated by photo-electric eyes. Then presence of Merle’s body at a certain angle cut off an invisible light ray and started the mechanism in motion.

  The girl thrust him in quickly, closed the slide behind them. They were in a little cubicle, bare-walled.

  Merle was whispering now. “Do not make the slightest noise,” she warned. “Directly on the other side of that wall is the council chamber. They are meeting shortly to honor Michael Spinney. The guards won’t dream of searching for you here. You are safe for a while.”

  Derek looked at her unsmilingly. “And you?”

  She looked at him strangely, was about to speak, when suddenly she stiffened.

  “What has happened?” Derek asked in alarm.

  She waved to him for silence; her face strained forward as if she were hearing unseen voices. Then very swiftly she ripped a tiny metal ornament off the shoulder of her garment. Derek had not noticed it before.

  She placed it on Derek’s shoulder. “Listen!”

  Faint in Derek’s ears came a sibilant whisper, then as contact steadied, out of the air droned a voice.

  “Merle Spinney, Merle Spinney. Your father Thoron is seeking you. He believes that you have met with foul play at the hands of the stranger from an ancient time. He has escaped and cannot be found. Answer if you can through the telerad or snap on the visualization. Do you hear, Merle Spinney?”

  Derek snatched off the tiny bead, and faced Merle. “They are calling you. You won’t go.”

  “I must!” she cried desperately, as she adjusted the telerad again on her shoulder. “You will surely be found if I stay with you. The search will be unrelenting. If I go back, I may throw them off the trail.”

  “They will harm you. It’s a trap. They know you helped me.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “That’s impossible and you know it,” he accused her flatly. “You’re only going back to sacrifice yourself for me.”

  “No, no!” she panted. “Let me go; it is for both our sakes.” She tried to duck around him.

  Derek put himself squarely in front of her.

  “If I must die, it certainly won’t be at your expense,” he stated grimly.

  The girl shuddered and tried to get past him again.

  “No, you don’t,” he said. “I told you I won’t allow it.” His arm reached out and grasped her gently but firmly by the shoulder.

  She shuddered again, more violently. Her own arm extended, as if to support herself against his shoulder.

  “Please forgive me!” she half sobbed. “But it is for your own good.”

  Her fingers straightened out. A warm shock quivered through Derek. He tried to move but could not. Merle darted past his helpless immobility with a little cry. The door slid silently open and closed behind her fleeing figure.

  She was gone.

  Derek stared at the blank wall. She was risking her life—for him. He had no illusions about the telerad call. It was a lure. The council knew by now quite definitely of her part in his escape. And Mike Spinnot, too!

  The fetters of paralysis were slowly leaving him. Merle had used only a weak ray. Agonized, Derek waited for his limbs to recover their use. The seconds passed like eternities.

  At long last his legs, his arms responded. The influence of the ray was gone.

  He threw himself at the wall through which he had seen Merle vanish. A smooth unbroken surface met his frantic questing hands. He drew back to hurl himself despairingly upon it. Possibly he could jar the mechanism loose. As
he shifted his position, there was a little whir, and the blessed slide opened. He had stepped unwittingly in the way of the ever vigilant photo-electric eye. He catapulted through, out into the pale dawn of morning.

  For a moment he stopped dead. Before him stretched a magnificent vista of radiating boulevards, flanked by cloud-piercing structures, each set in its own parkland. The high spires glinted with delicate colorings in the first rays of the sun. Above glided noiselessly long, streamlined vehicles, swift on their appointed courses.

  But his eyes were not for these, nor for the marvelous strangeness of the scene. Only Merle mattered now. Then he saw her, a running figure, far off.

  He darted after her, heedless of possible discovery. He saw her stop short, twist something on her shoulder, pause for a moment, then off she was again.

  “She’s communicating with them,” Derek said savagely, “the brave little—fool!”

  It was a nightmare of a chase; up one boulevard, down another. Never once did she look back; always she hurried ahead, intent on her errand of sacrifice. Derek gained on her, but not enough. He groaned, knowing that she would reach her destination before he could catch up. Never once did he think of his own danger in thus openly traversing the public highways. Luckily it was early yet. Hardly any one was stirring. Once or twice he met with a man of the future, who turned and stared curiously after the racing savage-looking figure. Once he heard a shout behind him, but he did not pause in his headlong pace.

  IN THE distance a high translucent wall reared itself. Derek recognized it. He saw Merle hesitate a moment; then brace herself as if for some ordeal. She disappeared through, and the wall gleamed blandly as before. So intent was Derek on marking the exact spot where she had entered that he collided violently with a man who had just emerged from an intersecting thoroughfare.

  “Sorry!” Derek muttered automatically, and tried to disengage himself from the reeling figure. Then he stiffened suddenly. Recognition was mutual. A hoarse cry broke from the other: “The minion of the tyrant.”