The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dictator of Time, by Nelson S. Bond This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Dictator of Time Author: Nelson S. Bond Release Date: March 30, 2020 [EBook #61707] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICTATOR OF TIME *** Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net DICTATOR OF TIME An Exciting Novel By NELSON S. BOND Humanity against the Arch-Brain of the Future! Twentieth-Century Larry Wilson and Sandra Day lead the Armageddon of the Ages against Harg, crafty, vain monster-intellect bent on warping Man to his Inhuman Will! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1940. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Larry Wilson was going to miss his train. He swung from his cab at Philadelphia's Broad Street Station, glanced swiftly at his wrist-watch, tossed a bill in the general direction of the cabby, then dashed for the staircase that led to the train platform. His watch showed exactly 10:59. The New York express was scheduled to leave at eleven sharp. Behind him, morning traffic made its customary din in the streets of the Quaker City. Automobile horns whonked belligerently. Radio loudspeakers blared from the doorways of tiny Market Street shops. A newsboy bellowed headlines on the European war situation. A bus chugged into the station, disgorged its cargo of human freight, lumbered ponderously on down the street. A vendor offered dried lavender; his whine was a thin, discordant note in the hum of a busy city. But Larry Wilson, intent only on gaining the train platform above, did not notice these things. He brushed by a puffing matron at the foot of the stairs, steamed past a descending red-cap, and noticed with only casual interest as he took the steps three at a time a silken-clad calf before him. He might make it yet, he thought hopefully, if— Then, suddenly, something was indefinably wrong! Larry had ascended these stairs dozens of times in the past, both leisurely and, as now, at top speed. But at no time had they ever been like this! His stride faltered; then, even as the first, tiny fingers of wonderment plucked at his bewildered brain, he realized that the bright electric lights that limned the staircase had vanished. That in their place was a dull, unearthly, grayish glow that seemed to emanate equally from the walls, the staircase, and from the roof above him. His foot, reaching for the next step, encountered no support. He staggered, thrown off balance, and stumbled forward to his hands and knees. Yet he was not bruised. As he fell he realized, with numb astonishment, that the steps were no longer there! Wildly he scrambled to save himself. His shoulder collided with something fragrantly yielding. His outthrust hand clutched warm, firm flesh cased in sheer silk. Then he was falling helplessly, headlong, dizzily, down a dim tunnel of spinning grayness—and he was rolling over and over on a warm, grassy turf. The scent of flower-laden air was in his nostrils. And a voice was saying indignantly, "Well, really! If you don't mind—!" In one hand Larry still clutched his bag. In the other—. He flushed, relaxed his grip in swift embarrassment. The girl was the one whom he had glimpsed before him on the steps of the Broad Street Station. It was her ankle that, in his moment of blind groping, his hand had clutched. "I—I'm sorry!" gulped Larry. "I didn't mean to be—" Then he stopped, staring about him transfixed. "But what's this? Where the he—I mean, where in blazes are we?" They were lying on a grassy plain horizoned by a forest of towering trees that reached aimlessly toward a wan and cloudless sky. The girl, her own blue eyes wide in astonishment, forgot her pique in amazement that matched his. "I don't know. I was running for the train—" "So was I. I saw you on the steps. Just then the staircase seemed to become strangely gray—" "And it moved!" added the girl. "I remember now. Something like a ripple passed over it—" "I didn't see that," admitted Larry. "I was too busy running. But—but where are we, anyway?" A touch of panic flickered in the girl's eyes. "We—we couldn't be dead?" Larry shook his head. "I thought of that. But it isn't likely. Not both of us. One of us might have fallen down the steps and broken a neck—but not two, together. And there was no explosion or anything like that. I don't see—" Suddenly the girl gasped, clutching his arm. "Look! Over there in the trees!" Larry looked—and moved swiftly. With a jerk, he ripped open his bag, pawed through its contents, and came up with a snub-nosed automatic. "Get behind me!" he shouted. "I don't know what's going on here, but—" "Don't shoot!" The girl's hands tightened swiftly about his wrist, dragged it down as he drew a careful bead on the towering beast that, from the edge of the grassy glen, surveyed the two through tiny, myopic eyes. An incredible mountain of flesh it was. More than eighty feet long with a rubbery, elephantine hide that draped its ugly carcass in sinewy ripples. Its long neck, surmounted by a ridiculously minute head, twitched nervously from one side to the other as its inadequate nostrils strove to identify this strange, tantalizingly foreign scent. As Larry watched spellbound, the gigantic monster broke into lumbering motion. Its huge feet created thunder as it crashed blindly through the forest, leaving in its wake a swath of broken young trees and trampled underbrush. "It won't attack us," explained the girl in answer to Larry's questioning stare. "It's herbivorous. That is, if it's what I think it is. It was probably more frightened than we were. But how it ever got here, in this age—" "For Pete's sake, what was it?" The girl shook her head. "Unless," she answered slowly, "I've gone completely mad—and I may easily have done so— it was a brontosaurus! An ancient reptile of the Mesozoic Age. The last one should have died over a hundred million years ago!" "Preposterous!" gasped Larry. "I know it's preposterous. But we saw it. Which means—" The girl turned a puzzled face to him. "Do you know anything about Time?" "Time?" Larry glanced at his watch. "Why, it's exactly 10:59. Say, that's funny! It was just 10:59 when I was running up those steps." "I don't mean that kind of time. Though that may have something to do with it. I mean, do you know anything about the scientific theory of Time? For if our experience means anything ... if that really was a brontosaurus we saw ... and if your wrist-watch has stopped at 10:59...." "Yes?" said Larry. "Then," said the girl solemnly, "somehow or other you and I have experienced a temporal shift outside the ken of Earthly physics. We are lost in Time!" "Neatly put, young lady!" said a quiet, approving voice. "Very neatly decided. I should not have expected such quick intelligence from one of your era." Larry and the girl turned swiftly. Standing near them was a tiny man, no higher than Larry's shoulders. He wore a curious one-piece garment of woven metal fabric, on the belt or harness of which depended a host of studded instruments, pouches, and oddly shaped tools or ornaments. Upon his overlarge, almost bulbous head was a sort of cap which completely covered his scalp and ears. Strange telescopic glasses, covering his bulging eyes, lent his face an elfin quality. There was a pleased smile on his lips—one which disclosed a pale, double ridge of cartilage in his upper and lower jaws where his teeth should have been. His face was smooth and hairless. "Who," demanded Larry, "are you? And how did you get here?" "You were so engrossed in the brontosaurus," said the diminutive stranger, "that you did not notice my approach. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Harg-Ofortu, Chief Archeologist of the Planetary Museum. And you?" "Larry Wilson. Civil engineer. And this is Miss—Miss—" "Sandra Day," supplied the girl. "I am—or was—assistant curator of the Philadelphia Museum." "So?" The little man nodded delightedly. "Don't tell me, now. Let me guess!" He placed a wizened finger on his temple, studied the two carefully. "Those garments ... and that antique firearm ... your early Amerglish speech ... I should judge you to be from that period just preceding the Communal World State. About the year—let me see—the year 2000 A.D. Is that right?" "You know damned well it's right!" snorted Larry. "This is the year 1940, of course. What's the gag?" "Gag?" repeated Harg wonderingly. "Oh, yes—gag! A jest; a trick. Why, there is no—er—gag. I was merely attempting to place your position in the world line. You see, this is the year M-62. You would call it—" He pondered briefly. "You would call it—25,983 A.D." "What!" Larry's fingers crept tighter about the butt of his automatic. "Hey, Sandra, let's get out of here! This guy's nuts!" Harg smiled upon the young engineer benignly, but his hand toyed with one of the metallic studs on his harness. "I shouldn't attempt anything—er—rash, if I were you," he suggested quietly. "I believe the young lady is beginning to comprehend. Am I not right, Miss Day?" "I—I think so," nodded the girl faintly. "Larry, this really is the two-hundred-and-sixtieth century. Harg is not fooling us. Through some incredible accident ... or maybe by design...." Harg rubbed his wee hands together triumphantly. "But by design!" he cried. "Oh, most assuredly by design! I brought you here! I, Harg-Ofortu! You are the results of my experiments." "Experiments?" Larry didn't like the sound of the word. His eyes narrowed. "Yes. The results of my experiments with the Time warp. Surely you know that Time can be warped? But, yes—of course you do. Even in your unenlightened era men had begun to recognize that fact. Still, it has taken all these intervening millenia for a human brain to unravel the problem of utilizing this knowledge. And I, Harg-Ofortu, have done it! I have brought you here, alive and unharmed, as a living proof of my genius." "And now that we're here—?" began Sandra. Harg beamed. "Ah, the glory that is yours! You most fortunate children of a slumbrous past. From you we shall learn many things, things to fill gaps in our history of mankind. From your infantile brains we can extract racial memories stretching back to the early simian beginnings. From your bodies we can learn the history of man's early structure. "You have hair! Teeth! Ears! It would not even surprise me to find that you have rudimentary gills. Maybe vermiform appendices! Oh, what marvelous subjects you will make for the dissecting table!" Sandra's color fled; her breath hissed sharply. "Dissecting table! But surely you can't mean to use us for—" Harg silenced her with a tiny gesture. "Come, now. Let us waste no more time in idle chatter. We have delayed long enough, and I am afire with impatience. We will go to the laboratory." Until this morning, Larry had maintained an incredulous silence. But now, with a sudden movement, he stepped before Sandra, his automatic leveled. "Not us, fella!" he rapped. "I'm not such a keen student of this Time business, but I know when I'm behind the little black ball numbered eight. You got us here, you say? Okay—we've had a nice visit but we don't like the climate. So we'll be toddling off now. Send us back where we belong. And—" He jiggled the gun threateningly. "And get working on it before I make you look like a second-hand punch-board." "My dear aborigine!" laughed Harg softly. His tiny fingers sought and pressed one of his metal studs. A golden glow diffused about him, forming a radiant mesh of shimmering light about his body. "Certainly you do not think to harm me with your elementary weapon of destruction? Now, come, before I am compelled to use force." "You," said Larry grimly, "asked for it!" And his finger tightened on the trigger. The automatic barked leaden death directly at Harg's breast. The little man of time yet-to-be smiled maddeningly. Before Larry's stupefied gaze, a flattened, shapeless blob of lead splatted against the golden haze, fell dully to the ground! Again Larry fired. This time Harg moved slightly. The bullet glanced off the lustrous force-armor, ricocheted from the ochre web to fly screaming into the woods beyond. Larry flung his impotent weapon away. "Well, if that won't do it, maybe this—" And he stepped toward the smirking scientist, fists clenched. His arms touched the thin mist, then his heaving chest. And, strangely, his head was aswim with an overwhelming giddiness. His limbs were numb with a creeping impotence that suffused his body, dulled his senses. The gray sky above seemed to recede far, far into the distance. There was mocking laughter in his ears, darkness gathering before his eyes. The last sound he heard as he sank, weak and helpless, into the swirling haze of unconsciousness, was the cry of Sandra Day— "Larry!" II First all was blackness, then in that blackness was a spot of light that grew larger and larger and ever larger until the world was filled with roaring light. And now the dim, fluttering sounds began to make sense, and a voice was saying, "I see the young man is awakening. Good. Now we will take a little trip through my laboratories." This was Larry Wilson's welcome to the incredible surroundings in which he found himself. He was lying on a small pallet. Or, rather, two small pallets which had been placed end to end to accommodate his six- foot frame. Above him was a silken coverlet, beneath his head a soft pillow cased in the same material. He moved an arm experimentally and discovered that his rough, English tweed business suit was missing, as were his heavy leather brogues. While he had been unconscious, someone had replaced his Twentieth Century garments with those of Harg's era. A soft and pliable leather harness fitted snugly about his waist—but as he stretched himself up from his cot he saw that his gear lacked the multitude of cryptic studs and instruments with which the scientist's had been decked. Then, "Larry—you're all right?" Sandra Day, who had leaped to her feet as Larry stirred, flew across the room. Her clothing, too, had been supplanted by that of the later era. Her harness differed from Larry's only in the addition of a cupped breast-girdle similar to that once worn by Egyptian women. Leather, soft and white and pliant, clung closely to her slim, lithe body. As Larry looked at her, she faltered. A slow flush mantled her cheeks. Harg moved forward, a delighted gleam in his protruding eyes. "Modesty!" he said in a tone of enchantment. "Sex shame! Imagine! And we had believed that it died out long before the Machine Era. It would be interesting to mate you two young people and—" He stroked his temple thoughtfully. "But we will think of that later. Come, my dear young savages. Let me show you my other experiments." Larry's eyes, smoldering rebellion, sought those of Sandra. The girl's cheeks still flamed with a high pride, but she nodded almost imperceptibly, cautioning him to cause no immediate trouble. He grunted, "Okay, let's go. What is there to see?" The chamber in which he had awakened was a square box of metal, lighted from above by concealed globes of cold light. No windows or doors marred the smooth luster of the walls. But as Harg stepped forward and touched his fingers to a spot on the wall briefly, a section slid back, exposing a brilliantly lighted corridor beyond. Silently the three moved into the passage, Larry bringing up the rear. As he passed through the portal, he studied it cautiously. If he could only learn the secret of the operation of that door.... "It would do you," Harg interrupted his scrutiny, "no good, of course. This is but one of many inner chambers. There are many other doors and many guards to pass. Moreover, you cannot return to your Time ever—without my help." Larry started guiltily. The man was uncanny! He seemed to be able to read thoughts! "Now, here—" said Harg, "are the results of some of my earlier attempts to bring life-samples through the Time warp." They had turned a corner and entered into a long chamber walled into sections. In each section there was an animal of some sort. So lifelike were the postures of these beasts that Larry half expected a cacaphony of protest to greet their entrance. But the creatures were stiff, silent. Harg smiled his white-gummed, toothless smile. "Dead," he said regretfully. "All of them. Their bodies survived the passage through the Time warp. But when they arrived, the spark had gone. We have identified most of them. But some still puzzle us." He pointed to the motionless figures in the cages as, one by one, they passed them. "A cow," he said, "which I brought through from the Fiftieth Century. Notice the exaggerated udders. The result of centuries of cross-breeding for milk. Somewhat different from the same beast of your day, I presume. "This next is a pterodactyl from the Jurassic Age. I am glad to say it lived two whole weeks after coming down through the warp. The hardier animals were the only ones to survive at all—until I perfected my process. You have already seen my brontosaurus. A harmless thing. We allow it to roam freely, but we had to destroy the dinosaur that came after it.... "You recognize this sabre-toothed tiger? And the kangaroo? An interesting subject, by the way. I brought it through from the year 12,000. It had reached a high stage of development and could converse in simple phrases. A far cry from man's estate, however." "You mean," said Sandra, "it could talk?" "Oh, yes. But then many of the lower animals do speak, you know. Of course I use the ancient meaning of the word. I mean they employ the vocal organs. They have not this!" He tapped the skull covering which both Larry and the girl had noticed before. "That?" said Larry wonderingly. "What is it?" But the little man was wringing his hands in exasperation. "Now, I declare!" he cried. "All this time, you have been opening and closing your mouths while we were communicating, and I thought it was caused by some physical disturbance! You use vocal converse, too!" "But of course," said the girl. "It is quite unnecessary!" snapped the scientist. "With the menaudo, I can understand your thoughts clearly—and communicate my own to you, as well. In the future, both of you will be kind enough to think without speaking!" "Why?" asked Larry bluntly. "Miss Day and I aren't mind-reading big-brains like you. If we wish to speak to each other —" For the first time since they had met him, Harg's ever-present smile faded. A trace of his annoying superiority, self- confidence, seeped away. In his eyes there was a groping expression oddly akin to fear. "There is nothing you need tell her!" he ordered. "I do not care to risk my—" He stopped suddenly, cannily. When he spoke again, it was in a milder tone. "You may, if you wish, converse with your mouths when I am not present. But in my presence I require you to think your conversation." A sudden suspicion began to form in Larry's mind. He stifled it instantly; thrust it from him lest Harg grasp that faint, half-formed thought. Hastily he changed the subject. "This other beast—" he began aloud. Then, remembering Harg's warning, he stopped and rephrased the query in his mind. "This other strange beast," he thought. "What is it?" He knew, then, why Harg had taunted him for his interest in the mechanism of the door. For swift as an arrow the answer formed itself in his brain. "A phoenix," replied Harg, "of the late Stone Age. A most curious creature; half animal, half bird. Originally it was a native of the planet Mars. It adapted itself to utter cold and airlessness when that planet's atmosphere waned. A few phoenix migrated to Earth, but failed to survive in our heavy atmosphere." "That explains," cried Sandra, "the legend of the phoenix prevalent in our day. It was believed that the bird destroyed itself in fire to rise again, reborn." "An amusing misapprehension," nodded Harg. "No doubt it was founded on someone's having seen a phoenix pass unscathed through flame. The creature was quite immune to temperature changes. But not to disease. It was this that, finally, caused its extinction. "Now, in this next chamber—" He paused, obviously piqued. "I must confess, we have been unable to classify this beast. It is utterly unknown to our science. Apparently it does not breed true, nor can we determine its age—" Larry and Sandra stared once at the quadruped in the booth, then broke into a duet of long and hearty laughter. Harg stared at them annoyedly. "Well?" he snapped. "Well?" Larry said solemnly, "Harg, you've caught a rare beast there. There are none left in your day and age except the two- legged variety." Harg said, "You know it, then? Its name, quickly!" "We call it," Larry told him, grinning, "the jackass!" The tour of inspection completed, Harg returned his two captives to the cell they shared. When the door closed behind him, Larry turned swiftly to Sandra. "Now what? I'm not sure I understand just what's going on around here, but whatever it is, it means trouble. Spelled with a capital 'Harg.' That little monkey didn't knock me cold with his yellow fuzz just for the hell of it. He means business." "I'm afraid," said Sandra seriously, "he intends to do just what he said—and in just as offhand a manner as that in which he mentioned it. To probe our brains for race memories, then dissect us for biological knowledge." "But why?" demanded Larry. "For Lord's sake, why? We're human beings, the same as he. He couldn't kill us in cold blood, just to—" "To him," said Sandra, "we are nothing but a pair of savages. He is not being deliberately cruel, no more so than a Twentieth Century scientist who practices vivisection to add to his knowledge. He is proud of us as an acquisition. May even like us in some cold, inhuman fashion, as we like cats and dogs. But we represent a scientific problem to be solved —and there is no thought in his mind of mercy." "Then," said Larry forcefully, "we've got to pull our freight. Get out of here. But how? That's the rub." "We're helpless against him," mused the girl, "on all save one point. That is the subject he wanted to avoid. Hearing. Larry—Harg can't hear! Not as we understand the word. His ears have atrophied. Or, perhaps—" A sudden light shone in her eyes. "I have it! His ears are—" "Wait a minute!" broke in Larry excitedly. "For once I beat you to the draw. I guessed it in the museum. These jaspers of the 260th Century are not only unable to hear, they're afraid to hear! They wear those leather headgears because they have to. Because something had made them extremely sensitive to percussion." "And I know," chimed in the girl positively, "what caused it. It was the change!" "Change?" "Yes. You've noticed the sky, haven't you? Didn't you see something strange about it?" Larry thought for a moment. Then, "The sun! There isn't any sun." "There is a sun," cried the girl, "but you can't see it. It's concealed behind a huge dome of impervite—a sort of leaded, polarized glass. Harg told me all about it while you were unconscious. "In the year 17,000 A.D., or thereabouts, there was a terrible catastrophe on Earth. Man's constant drainage of electrical energy created a rupture in the Heaviside layer, and the layer collapsed. As you know, the Heaviside layer is Earth's only protection against potentials from space, from the undiluted strength of the Milliken rays. "Without that protection, life on Earth was doomed. So large areas were domed over with this sixty-foot-thick layer of impervite. And—" "And in the meantime," interrupted Larry, "intense subjection to cosmic radiation, along with the increasing use of telepathy, turned the human race's hearing apparatus from a useful organ into a vestigial one." "And one," agreed the girl, "sensitive as the nerve of a tooth. It must be that. It couldn't be anything else. So there is Harg's weakness. Now, if we can only find some way to play upon it—" Larry said gloomily, "But he still is the only one who can return us to our own time." Sandra's hand touched his swiftly, confidently. "We'll find some way to make him," she whispered. "We'll do it, you and I—" Even under these circumstances Larry Wilson found the touch of that hand thrilling, the confidence of Sandra's voice, with its "you and I," endearing. It was a jest of the gods that this new glory should have come to him at last in such a situation. But the year mattered little. Time or no Time, he knew, and he thought she knew— "Sandra," he said, "there is one thing—" "Shhh!" she cautioned suddenly. "Footsteps!" The metallic doorpane slid back, and once again Harg entered the room, this time accompanied by a pair of diminutive companions garbed in plainer, cruder harness than that of the scientist. Larry made an effort to expunge all thought from his mind, fearful that the man of the future might read his new determination. But Harg smiled easily. "You will come with me now, Miss Day." Instantly Larry was on the alert. "Where are you taking her?" "It is not yours to ask, savage," said Harg curtly. "But reassure yourself. She will come to no harm." Sandra's eyes pleaded with Larry; silently she let the attendants lead her away. After the door had closed behind them, Larry began to pace the floor angrily. His mind was tumultuous with conflicting thoughts and emotions. Damn them! he thought. If this was the world of the future, it would be better that the future never come! Anyway, he knew he wanted none of it! He wanted to be back in the good old Twentieth Century where men were men, not callous, grinning little sawed-off runts. But—how to get there? A scraping sound from the farther wall of his cell interrupted his angry reverie. Instantly Larry was again a man of action. On silent feet he tiptoed toward the mysterious sound. The scratching persisted. Larry drew a deep breath, then pounded on the metal with his bare fist. "Who's there?" Immediately the noise ended. Larry waited breathlessly. Was this a trap of some kind? Or was it just some experiment of Harg's, designed to test him as laboratory students test the reaction of rats in a maze? His footsteps deliberately loud, he stomped away from the wall. Then he stole back quietly. After a brief moment of waiting, the gentle, fumbling sound resumed. Larry pressed his ear to the metal wall. He could hear a faint noise as of someone breathing deeply. He leaned closer.... Then, suddenly, the wall before him slid away, and he was catapulted forward against a flesh-and-blood body that grunted under the impact of his weight! Larry regained his balance; came up with doubled fists. But his fists, like his mouth, dropped open abruptly as he stared in astonishment at his antagonist. This was no puny dwarfling such as he had expected. This was a man—a man whose stature was greater even than his own! A mighty, bronzed, strong-thewed giant with a shock of silvery-white hair capped by the menaudo of the future folk! The great one's face was etched with bitter lines of disappointment. But the look faded as his eyes swept up Larry's six foot frame, noted the breadth of shoulder and the lean, hard muscles of arm and thigh. The stranger rose, and his full lips parted in a smile of greeting. And, "Peace, friend!" he said in a deep, resonant voice, "I, too, am a captive!" III Sandra Day, seated in an inner chamber of Harg's laboratories, watched curiously as the little scientist busied himself with cryptic recording devices. Two assistants silently performed the tasks allotted them. Save for these three, the room was innocent of humans. Harg turned to one of the assistants. "Where is the menaudo for our subject?" he snapped. The man stared stupidly. "In the vaults, Master. I did not know you would want one." "Fool! You should have known. Let me have yours." The assistant paled. "No, no, Master! I will get another one quickly. See, I run—" "You will not be harmed, dolt!" said Harg coldly. "You may get another for yourself immediately—but now I need one for Miss Day. Come, the menaudo!" Reluctantly, fearfully, the assistant stripped the telepathic device from his hairless pate, passed it to Harg. Harg handed it to Sandra. "You will put this on. While my menaudo allows us to converse normally, the experiment we are about to try requires complete flux between both minds. This is only possible when each person wears the menaudo." Sandra understood, now, why her innermost thoughts, her conversations with Larry, had not been intercepted. Telepathy was a matter of willed direction. Thought beams, being electrical, radiated only toward a focused object. Harg could only receive the messages she allowed him to get. Her eyes flickered lightly over the assistant who had already started for the door. Now was the time to test her theory. She scraped one sandalled foot raspingly across the rung of her chair. The noise was a tiny, grating squeak, barely audible—but the assistant's face contorted in swift agony. His eyes bulged with alarm; he clapped his hands to his ears and raced from the chamber. "Hurry, woman!" Harg was growing impatient. Subduing her smile of triumph with an effort, Sandra buckled on the menaudo. As she did so, a wild giddiness assailed her; she grasped the arms of the chair for support. A powerful wave length of forces unsuspected burst through her brain. She caught the faint, amused hauteur of the assistant across the room; felt Harg's keen, scalpel-like mentality probing the depths of her mind. The giddiness passed as she became accustomed to the strange sensation. The turmoil in her brain settled, from its chaos came clear-cut order. "You must relax now. Clear your mind of all extraneous thought. I wish to learn something of your former existences...." Strange that Harg's eyes should be so large. They were like a large light glowing deep into the dark recesses of her brain. A light that kept her awake when she was so tired ... so tired.... If she could but rest, now. Sleep for a while and let the dizzy years slip by ... and the strange sounds ... and the strange scenes ... for surely this could not be she? But it was she ... and she was standing by the open fireplace in a medieval castle, facing a knight in full battle-armor.... Her heart was filled with nameless anguish.... "Prithee, lass," he was saying, "take this parting not to heart. Ere the moon wanes our work shall be at an end, the king avenged and the foul despoiler wrenched from the arms of his scuttish lady. Mordred hath said—" "Mordred! Mordred!" she cried bitterly. "Even now it is Mordred you speak of. Yet aforetime didst thou call him a prince's brat and a lickspittle. Pray, Gawaine, my love, forswear this mad fancy and flee now to the defense of our lady Guenevere ere it be too late!" "Nay, sweet," was his answer. "If Arthur be not shamed of his own cuckolddry, then must the Table Round avenge the pride of Britain for him. But, hark! Gareth calls. I must leave thee, love. Farewell. I return soon." He strode from the hall, proud and straight in his armor. She wept and could not tell why. "Gawaine, my lord!" she sobbed. "There bodes in me a sense that nevermore shall we twain meet...." "Go back!" a voice was whispering in Sandra's mind. "Back farther still. To the days of the past...." The daryeb glided, soft as the wing of a moth, upon the smooth blue waters of the Nile. The golden cascade of the sun baked the sudd that floated on the water's surface. She raised her finger imperiously and the boatsman obediently turned the light craft to the shore. As the Nubian reefed the sail, a young man ran down from the portal of the observatory to the edge of the beach. He grasped her hands eagerly. "Belia!" He bent and smothered a kiss in her perfumed hair. She drew away, pouting. "Now, by Set," she swore prettily, "thou are more ardent than the bulls of Anubis—when the sun shines. But at night where art thou? In there—star-gazing!" She glanced distastefully at the massive pyramid built by the Pharoah Cheops for his astronomers. Her lover's bronzed face sobered. "Great things betoken, lovely Belia. Things thou wouldst scarce understand." He pointed to the blinding orb that blazed above them. "Hear, now—ever has man thought that Ra drives his golden chariot about our mother Earth. But now I, silent and alone, have learned a greater truth. It is not the sun that moveth—but we! Ra's abode is the hub about which our tiny mote revolveth! This message have I sent, with my proofs thereof, to the great Pharoah. When he has read them, glory and fame will be my lot!" A swift fang of fear, sharper than the sting of the scorpion, knifed her heart. Her voice was deep and low. "You speak sacrilege, my love! What have you done? Not fame will be thy lot—but swift death! This thing cannot be so...." "Into the years beyond," came the whispered command. "Project yourself still further backward, woman from the past. Back ... and back ... and back...." Dank, steamy rain splattered on her crouched back, plastering the long, coarse hair to her naked body. A tongue of flame ripped from the thunderous vault above and the gods roared in mighty anger. She was Thaa, daughter of Gor, mate of Bab the Hungry One. Hunkered against the farthest wall of their cave, she shivered with cold and fright as she clutched her mewling newborn to her downy breast. Ten days had the god-tears fallen, now, turning the world into a morass of water. The time of Great Cold approached, when meat was scarce and comfort scarcer. Thaa shivered. Again the gods hurled a shaft of forked light down the skies. Bab, glowering at the cave mouth, called to her. "Thaa! See?" She sidled to him, forgotting her coldness in the strange sight that greeted her eyes. In the plain below was a round and shining ball. A cave stood open in the sides of the ball; from this cave issued creatures. Not men, like themselves, nor animals like Tran the Long-Toothed or Shur the Swinger. But odd creatures dressed in silver hair that glistened. Hastily she swung behind Bab as he clambered down the side of the cliff, intent on plumbing this marvel. Fearlessly they approached the shining ball. One of the creatures raised his voice in strange, fluent, meaningless syllables. Others of the Shining Ones came running. They raised hands in token of friendship. Bab and Thaa responded. Thaa shivered in awe as she watched the strange beings. Were they gods? she thought. One of the visitors saw her shiver, moved forward. "Poro methe eus?" he asked. Thaa gazed at him dumbly; her eyes adoring. The tongue of the gods was not for mortals to know. She bowed. The young visitor turned to one of his elders. "The creature is cold, but knows not that I have asked her so. What shall I do?" The elder nodded sadly. "What matters it? Let them live or die, sad brutes, as you think best. When I consider the waste, the futility, of our tedious voyage across the emptiness of space to find these as our neighbors—" He sighed. "Yet some day," mused the younger one, "may evolve from these beasts men like ourselves. Who knows? Our world is older than theirs, and wiser. Yet even now our planet is dying. By the time they have become intelligent enough to return this visit, we may be dead, our civilization ended. "Poor brutes! I am minded to show them kindness. They should live. We can give them at least one comfort—" From his pocket he drew a glittering toy. As Thaa watched he pressed it. A ruddy, wavering tongue licked from its mouth. "Poro methe eus?" he repeated gently. He handed the tiny cylinder to Bab. Bab's clumsy fingers fumbled with the button, once more the tongue of fire leaped forth. Bab dropped the bauble, howling, and scampered for the refuge of his cave. But Thaa retrieved the little gift. She too pressed the release, and a pleasure-look passed over her features. Here was warmth! Here was a god-gift against the time of the Great Cold. With this to protect them, their cave would be always comfortable. She raised her eyes gratefully. "Poro-pro—" Her brute tongue mouthed the god-words awkwardly. "Pro—methe—eus—" "Back ... back ..." whispered the insistent command. "Back farther still. To the very dawn of life...." She heard the voice but could not obey. Her mind was a vast sea of swirling blackness, her senses shrieked in rebellion against intolerable pain. "Back—" Mad pictures imaged on her brain, fled howling. There was one brilliant burst of coruscating light—then darkness and peace. Harg-Ofortu frowned impatiently, fingered his subject's pulse, and snapped off a switch. He motioned to his assistant. "The woman," he said, "has fainted. Take her away. We will continue our experiments later." When Sandra wakened at last, it was to find Larry bending over her, chafing her wrists, looking down into her eyes anxiously. There was a lingering warmth on her lips; short seconds ago might have found his face even closer to hers. He sighed with relief as her eyes opened. The sigh became an oath. "Damn his rotten little hide! I thought you were out for keeps. What did he do, Sandy? Are you all right?" She was all right. A little rocky. She discovered that when she tried to rise and her head ached wickedly. But she was all right. She told him her memories of the experiment. "It was like a horrible dream, Larry. But it was more than a dream. It was true. I have lived those scenes before ... somewhere ... sometime. They were so clear, so vivid." She shuddered. "But I hate to think of going through that again. I won't be able to stand it. I could feel my brain tottering on the brink of insanity toward the end." Larry said savagely, "You won't have to go through it again!" Sandra touched his hand, smiling wanly. "It's no use pretending, Larry. We're caught in a trap, you and I. Fate has destroyed us; thrust us forward into a Time when man is without mercy. Humanity is dead. All that remains is a race of grinning, scientific demons." "That," interrupted Larry feverishly, "is where you're wrong, youngster! I haven't been sitting around twiddling my thumbs while you were gone. I've had a visitor." "A—a visitor?" Larry told her, then, of the silver-haired giant who had forced entrance into the cell. "His name was Sert. He was a man and a friend. He was one of the Underlings." "The Underlings?" repeated Sandra. "Yes. This world we are in is not peopled only by cold-blooded creatures like Harg. There are two mutant races of humanity. One tall and strong, as we always dreamed the future-man might be; the other spindling, puny, and viciously intelligent. "These latter, Harg and his fellows, are the descendants of those men whose brains, for some reason more receptive to the stimulus of ultra-short wave radiation, were spurred to great heights during the period of the Great Catastrophe. "The cosmic bombardment had three types of result. Either it killed outright—and Sert tells me that millions died—or it damaged the brain and did not harm the body, or it impaired the physique and stimulated the brain. During the era of chaos which preceded the building of the impervite domes, the highly activated dwarfs seized the reins of leadership. They have held them ever since. The Underlings are their workers, their slaves, their servants." Sandra said despairingly, "But I don't see how it can profit us to join forces with dull-witted slaves—" "Slaves, yes! But they are dull-witted no longer. Generations have erased the madness from the Underlings' brains. The Masters hold them in subjection now only because they have superior armament. The golden force-ray, for one thing. "But rebellion is stirring amongst the Underlings. Sert is one of the leaders of a secret rebel party. He was stealing through the building, seeking new converts, when he accidentally entered our cell." Some of Larry's excitement communicated itself to the girl. She said, "But what are we going to do?" "Sert," Larry told her, "taught me how to open the doors around this joint. It's not hard when you get the hang of it. Every wall has a door-lock. The locks work on a network of selenium cells imbedded in the metal; these are controlled automatically by body-radiation emanating from the fingertips. Ever hear of anything like that before?" Sandra said dazedly, "Mitogenic radiation!" "Yes. That's what Sert called it, too. Well, all you have to do is discover the proper way to touch the doors. The right combination and bingo! If your fingers are sensitive, you can do it without much fumbling. I learned easily." "You still haven't told me what we're going to—" "We're pulling out of this coop—tonight! In the machine shops, Sert has a gang of a half hundred rebels. We will join them." "And then?" "Then," said Larry tightly, "we'll figure out some way to clean out this rat's nest. We're going to give Earth back to the Men again. And I do mean 'men!'" IV Larry Wilson tossed a grin over his shoulder to the girl behind him. His fingers moved swiftly, deftly, twisting into strange, unnatural angles as he sought the combination that would open the smooth wall before him. "Some fun, hey?" Sandra said anxiously, "How much farther, Larry?" "We're almost there now. Sert told me there were nine chambers between the one we were in and the machine room. They're all supposed to be unoccupied, too." "But—if they're not?" "Then our plans go up the creek. But Sert wouldn't be likely to make a mistake. He has more at stake than we—Ah! There she blows!" Larry's fingers had finally moved into the right combination. The smooth wall slid back. The pair from the past moved into the next room of the labyrinth of the future. The door closed behind them, and Larry moved immediately to the wall fronting them. "One more small chamber, and then—" He stopped, shocked and alarmed. For just as his hand touched the wall, it moved backward and a figure loomed before him. Sandra screamed a little scream of fright. To be so near success, and then— But the voice that spoke was that of a friend. "Ah, Larry Wilson! You were long in coming. So I came to find you. But, come! Our council awaits you." The three entered, then, the final and largest of the chambers. During the working hours of the day it was a machine shop in which Underlings toiled under the harsh supervision of their Master overseers. Now it was deserted save for rather more than twoscore conspirators similar in physique and coloring to the leader, Sert. Introductions were a brief formality. It was evident that some of the Underlings could not comprehend the anomaly of Sandra and Larry's presence. But what these rebel serfs lacked in intellect they made up for in their lust for freedom. And the two young Americans, hailing from a land that, in its time, had been the bulwark of this precious inheritance, felt a kinship with the suppressed uprisers. At length Sert said, "—so that is as far as our plans have gone, Larry Wilson. You see how pitifully inadequate they are. "Not only do the Masters outnumber us, but theirs is the possession of the golden force-ray which no armament can pierce. None, that is, of the feeble type we own. The force of our greater strength ... tools converted into crude swords...." He looked hopelessly at the massive machinery surrounding them. "Could we but find a way to destroy their protective force-field, we would tear these machines into bits to mold weapons for ourselves. But we cannot." Larry said, "I've been thinking about that problem. And I've got an idea that may or may not work. Sert, it is only the Masters whose ears are sensitive to sound, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with your hearing?" "That is right, Larry Wilson." "Then sound—" began Larry. Sert shook his head. "Do you forget the menaudo, my friends? The Masters wear it at all times. It blocks out the sound waves that would torture them, drive them mad." "I haven't forgotten it," grunted Larry. "I'm trying to think of a way to pour sound over 'em without making 'em remove the football helmet. And I think I know how to do it. Strangely enough, you have to make them turn on the golden force-ray before it will work!" "I don't understand," said Sert. Others edged in curiously as Larry explained. "When the force ray surrounds them," he explained, "their bodies become, in effect, a helical core. Such a core can be made responsive to musical tones by what, in my day, we called C.E.M.F.—counter electromotive force. I suppose you know the method of manufacture of the force ray?" "Not the details. But the purely mechanical part, yes. We wind the relays in this shop—" "Then," said Larry crisply, "you've got 'em licked! We'll get to work—now!—and build an electrical resonator. One that shoots out plenty of noise on the wave length to which their force-fields are attuned. When this howler gets going, the force-field will act as a conductor, leading the sound directly into their bodies!" Sert's face broke in a huge grin. "And if they turn off the force-field—" he howled. "Right! You work out on them with whatever you can lay your hands on." Larry was suddenly all work. "Give me one or two technicians and I'll rig up the electrical siren in jig-time. The rest of you start gathering weapons. This rebellion starts the minute they find out what we're cooking up!" Thus, for the next couple of hours, the room became once more a place of strenuous labor—but this time there was gladness and will in the way the Underling rebels went to work. With ruthless disregard for assigned uses, they tore apart a brace of mighty machines. Bellows sighed, lathes screamed, as rods, bars, balanced shafts became blunt-edged swords, lances and maces. Meanwhile, in one corner, Larry Wilson cudgeled his brain to remember almost forgotten college physics. Finally his task was done. Before him lay a box some two feet square; within it were two tubes, a slide condenser, and an armature turning on a "howler" disc, pierced with circles of varying diameter. Larry lugged the contraption to Sert's side and crossed his fingers. "Here it is," he said. "Salvation or the bum's rush in one small package. It'll work as a radio, I know that, but I'm not sure it will pull the trick against the force-field. I've rigged a rheostat control which gives a certain choice of wave- lengths. But if the field blocks 'em all out—" He shook his head ruefully. But Sert laid a hand on his shoulder. "It will work, my friend," he said. "It will work because —it must! And, now—" He turned to the others gathered about him. "And, now we will strike! For freedom!" Larry turned to Sandra Day. "This," he said, "is going to be no place for you, darling. Not in a few minutes. So grab yourself a box-seat in the background somewhere and after the fireworks are over I'll—" The girl said, "L-Larry—what did you say?" "Beat it. Over in one of the other chambers—" "No. I mean before that. You called me—" She flushed. That was one thing, Larry discovered, about these clothes of the future. A flush was a real flush, no halfway thing. It started from— He said, suddenly gentle, "I called you 'darling.' Do you mind—darling?" "I think," she replied softly, "it's the prettiest word I ever heard." Then she applied that fine feminine attribute for which there is no allowance in man's equations; a woman's logic. "But it is not the word to make me get out of here. I stay, Larry. Beside you—where I belong." Larry protested, "Now, look here, Sandy—" She merely smiled sweetly. "How," she asked, "do you operate this gadget? I might need to know, later on." Larry gave up. Grinning, he showed her. The other Underlings knew their parts in the short play soon to be enacted. It was a play with a simple plot. It required two stooges; two who, daring swift annihilation, would go forth into the frequented parts of the giant building of which this laboratory was but a section, beard the Masters in their dens, and bring them down to this place. Already such a pair had been selected from the number—the full fifty, it had warmed Larry's heart to notice—who had volunteered. The rest of the men were waiting ... just waiting. Hopefully. Uncertainly. But hopefully. Sert came to Larry's side. "They have been gone a full ten minutes. Do you think, Larry Wilson, we should send out others? Perhaps—" Then he stopped abruptly. There was the sound of a commotion in one of the corridors leading to the chamber, the scrape of running feet, the clash of metal on metal. Larry grinned, his eyes bright, but there was no humor in his grin. "There's your answer, Sert!" he roared—and bent to his wave-length howler. As he did so, the two messengers came flying into the machine room. One was unharmed, but the other had, Larry noticed with a swift, sickening distaste, lost an arm completely. It had not been cut off. It had just vanished—and there hung from the man's shoulder a short knob of flesh, seared and crisp at the point of cicatrice. So the Masters, Larry thought, had other weapons in their bag? This must be a needle-sharp heat ray— There came a sharp impingement of thought on the brains of Larry and Sandra; a command that was so clear and forceful that for a moment Larry's hand stayed in its journey to the rheostat. "Surrender, rebels! Surrender or you die!" Then the Masters were racing into the room after their prey. A handful of them at first, then more and more until they were a veritable avalanche of tiny, gnome-like, nervous figures with bulbous heads, curiously shaped guns in their wee, gnarled hands. It must have been a rare thing, indeed, to find two rebellious subjects; the very rarity had drawn a horde...