by Earl
“Each person living today is a complete, independent entity. With atomic power, the essentials of physical life are simply transmuted from earth or water or rock or anything. Our heritage of science long ago conquered every obstacle of nature to human life. We live today as free as the wind, unfettered, unbound. We can do anything we want at any time we like.”
“You don’t seem so free to me,” said Don dryly. “You have to move around in armored cars to safeguard life, and any minute you may be attacked.”
“Oh, we always fight over a principle of some sort,” Tosto explained. “Generally it is some minor point of disagreement between the two parties. But the real and only issue is fighting superiority. Each human today has his own type of craft, weapons, armor and such. Sigag prefers a monowheel. I use a walking house because I like to batter down trees. Virdi, the Unconquered, uses a swift airship. She has fought and won over two thousand duels.”
“She!” gasped Don. “A woman?”
“Yes, and what a mind! Her electron screens are impregnable. There is not one man on earth would not gladly defeat her—and mate with her. I tried it twice myself. She left laughing, both times, after shooting all my car’s six legs away.”
“What about the—the race?” queried Don. “Your children—mothers?”
“We have a special consideration for women about to become mothers. From three months before birth of a child to six months after, women are understood to be free from molestation. After that, they are in the running again. However, we are more chivalrous than that. It is an understood rule that a woman is not to be challenged till her child is five years old, unless she herself is the aggressor. At the age of five, a child is put into its own vehicle. It follows its mother around but is not challenged itself until it has announced its own independence by leaving its mother. That usually happens at the age of eight or nine.”
“What precocious children!” commented Don. At the same time he pitied their lot, cast off from love and kindness at such a tender age. No wonder they grew up to be such inveterate fighters.
“Those duels,” asked Don then, “don’t they sometimes result in death?”
“Now and then, through misfortune. We are really not bloodthirsty at heart, you know. Sigag, for instance, nearly finished me when my screen spluttered for a split second. Part of his fire-bomb leaked through.”
“What do you do in between duels?” asked Don, suddenly weary of so much battle talk.
“A hundred and one things,” replied Tosto vaguely. “Repairs, improvements, experimentation. Now and then I indulge in a debate with somebody over some scientific point or another. Once I had a debate with Chans-Z-18 for three days as to whether a’ plus ‘b’ is equal to ‘b’ plus ‘a’.”
“Who won that interesting argument?” grinned Don.
“I did. I shot away his tractor motor and tossed his cabin into a lake! He believes now that they are not equal!”
A WEEK went by, a week in which Don learned much about life in the state of anarchy. Tosto had given him a suit of marvelously soft leather, bright with many colors. He had offered food and water at regular intervals. The food consisted of gelatins of various flavors and not unsavory. Don was at first doubtful that it lived up to Tosto’s claim as a perfect food with every substance and vitamin necessary for health. But before many days had passed, he realized it was so.
Tosto, moody at times for hours, made up for it with periods of light loquaciousness. And more and more Don began to realize what a vast gulf separated him and this posterity of the times he had known.
Atomic power had been as much a curse as a blessing.
In a world overrun by a more prolific animal and vegetable life than had ever risen before since the carboniferous age, mankind kept up a petty, senseless squabble over ambiguous nothings. The science of this Age of Anarchy was a restricted science, dealing only with improvements of individual armament and locomotion. Many of the greater secrets of the past Scientific Age had been lost, and never looked for—interplanetary travel, concepts of the universe, and astronomical lore. It was a curious blend of mechanical ingenuity and mental narrowness.
Tosto, for instance, knew how to make beryllium steel from stone, but he could not tell Don how far away the planet Mars was!
Don also revealed much to Tosto of the times he had known. Tosto, impatient with English, had taught Don his own language by means of the miraculous hypnotic process—the language spoken universally in the world of Anarchy. With its aid—for it was an expressive tongue—Don was able to give a living picture of the Twentieth Century, a picture that in Tosto’s conception was fantastic and aboriginal. He grinned amusedly at the explanation of “home life.” He laughed aloud when told of “taxation.” It amazed him to hear that human beings had once eaten plants and animals. The world had known synthetic food for tens of thousands of years.
Tosto had been working on a new offensive weapon off and on, that week. The vehicle had been motionless all that time, and Don felt a great ennui stealing over him. He breathed in relief when his companion fingered the controls. The giant walking house came to rumbling life and plunged through the immense forest which Don was told had no end.
Then Tosto turned to one of his many peculiar apparatuses. Small tubes glowed, and with the hum of etheric forces a pencil of light traced searchingly over a luminous chart squared off in fine cross-lines.
“Hmm,” said Tosto. “Jestun-T-15, who has made a study of history, is only a hundred miles north of here—just about the spot where I picked you up after my victory over Algy. I must radio Jestun and see if he can tell me from what Age you come.”
“What do you want?” bellowed a voice after Tosto had sent a signal beam to the north.
Tosto made his request, giving several items which Don had told him would identify his times. He misquoted one of them, saying Neandertal Man had just built the Cheops pyramid a few thousand years before Don’s time.
“Neandertal Man did not build the Cheops pyramid!” roared back Jestun. “He was extinct long before that. The Romans built it!”
“Is that so?” retorted Tosto equally as loudly. “The Romans never saw the Cheops pyramid because they sank with their continent, Atlantis, under the ocean fifteen thousand years before!”
A growl came from the speaker. “Are you questioning my statements, Tosto?”
“Your statements! You mean your lackabrain rantings!”
“Coming from your infantile tongue, I can excuse the insult!”
At this Tosto’s face darkened. Don suddenly found himself laughing silently as his companion went through the same stages of anger he had with Sigag before their battle. That this would end in challenge and battle, Don knew.
THE argument, a long series of insults, took a new turn when Tosto, glancing at Don, spoke with an important tone: “You may be an authority on ancient history, Jestun, but you wouldn’t care to argue against the word of a man who had lived in that time, would you? I have in my cabin at this moment a primeval being who has come to the Anarchy from pre-atomic times” !
A vague splutter came from the radio, and Tosto grinned exultantly toward Don: “I guess that took him down a way.” Then Jestun’s voice came, suave: “Which means nothing, Tosto, because I have here in my cabin a similar person from that long-ago past!”
Don leaped to his feet, a look of wild hope and incredulity on his face. “That must be—can only be—Professor White! He must have followed me into the future——”
But Tosto did not hear him, engrossed as he was in shouting: “Jestun, you’re a liar! You’re just jealous that I have a man from the past in my cabin!”
“I’m a liar, am I!” shrieked Jestun’s voice. “You must prove that by force of arms. I challenge you——”
“Challenge accepted!” barked Tosto. With rapid, terse words, the two arranged for a duel. As Tosto turned away from the radio, Don grasped him by the shoulders. “Good Lord, you can’t fight each other. My friend, Professor White�
��he’s aboard that other car!”
“Friend?” queried Tosto blankly. “You mean ally? There is no such thing.”
“Of course not, in your anarchistic conception,” cried Don. “But we—the professor and I—are friends—friends—friends! Can’t you understand? We know each other—like each other——”
Tosto was both angry and puzzled. Then he shrugged indifferently. “You don’t think we’ll cancel the battle and sacrifice honor for a whim of yours!”
Don thought of arguing, but his intuition told him it would be useless. How could he impress such a being—one who had lived a lone-wolf existence since childhood—with his concern and friendship toward another man?
He might just as well describe the color red to a blind man.
Don sank hopelessly to his seat.
AS THE great walking house lumbered northward to meet its enemy, Don had much to think about. Why had Professor White taken the same step he had? It had been his greatest aim back in their times to complete his data on wave mechanics and publish them. The transmission of Don’s body into the far future was to have been the final step, giving the scientist the vibration rate of a human brain and therefore of that mysterious thing called “thought.” Instead, the scientist had cast all fame aside and had plunged recklessly into an alien world. Had Professor White gone mad at the last minute? Or had he perhaps induced some other man to be the subject of his experiment?
Don shook his head bewilderedly and stared out at the primeval-looking jungle bathed in silvery moonlight. Tomorrow there would be a battle of the giants. One or the other might be destroyed. If he could only signal the professor—or whoever it was—somehow! But that was out of the question with what little he knew of Tosto’s complicated apparatus for outside communication.
The more Don thought it over, the more it became apparent to him that he would have to use physical force to prevent Tosto from fulfilling his battle-plan. The idea of doing this to a man who had befriended him in an alien world, at first repugnant to Don, gradually assumed another aspect. Being in Rome, he would do as the Romans did, and would use anarchistic methods in this world of anarchy.
Thinking it over carefully, Don decided to pull his little coup the next day, when they had sighted Jestun’s vehicle. If he did it now, he would risk having Tosto turn the tables, or even tricking him and moving away, instead of toward Jestun.
It was not long afterward that Tosto stopped his war-car, stretched out on his couch, and said by way of good-night: “Tomorrow you shall witness a real battle. Jestun and I have never met before, and have the same number of victories to our credit. But of course tomorrow I’ll have one more than he.”
“Of course,” agreed Don amiably. Then the light snapped out, hiding Tosto’s confident grin.
In the cover of darkness, Don shook his fist toward the other, smiling grimly in the thought that tomorrow the victory would be his, Don’s, and not Tosto’s.
Next day, charging rapidly northward, the walking car neared its enemy. But Tosto’s alarm system buzzed too soon, indicating the proximity of a third party. It was a rather small ovoid airship which skimmed aimlessly over the jungle top. For the first time he had known him, Don saw Tosto get excited. It was not anger that overcame him, but some other, more inexplicable emotion.
The signal light flashed. Tosto hesitated, then opened his radio.
“Greetings, Tosto!” came a mocking, feminine voice. “Where are you bound? Are you looking for me perhaps?”
“I’m answering a challenge,” said Tosto shortly.
“Ah! Let’s hope you fare better with that party than you did with me,” trilled the other voice with suppressed merriment.
“Well,” said Tosto weakly, “I can’t stand here arguing with you. Go pick on Virdi once. She’ll take the starch out of you.”
He snapped off the switch quickly, but not before one word had come back, an imperious “Wait!”
Tosto vacillated, his finger poised over the switch. The pilot light blinked, showing that the other craft was trying to regain contact. Then, with a petulant gesture, Tosto swung his hands instead to his motivating controls and sent his vehicle rumbling away from the ovoid airship.
“Some day,” growled Tosto, “I’m going to challenge her again. It was only luck she won last time.”
“Did you challenge her because you wanted to—to mate with her that last time?” asked Don curiously.
“No!” exploded Tosto. “I wouldn’t mate with her if I did conquer her!”
But Don read something else from the telltale red that spread over his companion’s face. He knew it was customary for man and woman antagonists to televise themselves before or after battle. Don wondered—guessed, in fact—that perhaps Tosto had gazed upon her vision and had not been averse to thinking of her as his lover.
Tosto was moody for the rest of the trip. But when Jestun’s craft finally hove into view—a great thing on stilts whose lower ends were caterpillar treads—the battle lust sprang into his dulled eyes. The two war-cars established radio contact, and there was an exchange of insults over the radio. It was Don’s cue.
Coming up behind Tosto, Don leaned over his shoulder and shouted into the microphone: “There isn’t going to be any battle! Professor White—or whoever you are from the past—keep Jestun away from his controls. I’ll take care of Tosto here!” Don then swung around, clenched fists upraised, as Tosto darted away from the control board. For a moment they faced each other.
“Take my advice,” warned Don grimly, “and give in quietly. Don’t force me to prove that I’m stronger than you.”
Tosto’s face changed from vexation to purple anger. Without a word he lunged at Don, swinging his fists with the unpractised awkwardness of a woman. Chuckling at his adversary’s futile efforts, Don tapped him lightly in the chest. Tosto staggered but came back for more. Don clipped him on the chin, sent him reeling. Tosto recovered, glared his apoplectic rage. Don grinned back amiably.
“Had enough, Tosto? Now you have an idea what real fighting is like.”
Tosto, too enraged yet to speak at this unexpected turn of affairs, made as if to attack again. Then, with an alacrity amazing to Don, he dodged past him and darted for the far end of the cabin. Don realized his danger too late.
Tosto grabbed up his force-beam harness, swung it around, just as Don leaped for him. As if an invisible wall had sprung up, Don thudded into thin air that had suddenly become hard. He sank to the floor in the grip of unbreakable force-beams. He had lost!
“Fool!” cried Tosto, panting. “I’ve been wondering when you would show your atavistic nature. You are dangerous now to my——”
The rest was drowned out in a great clap of thunder, and Don saw the entire roof puff away in thick vapor. Had Professor White, or whoever it was from the past in that other vehicle, failed also, letting Jestun hurl his Jovian bolts to them? A sudden rage at the way things had turned out shook Don. Then he noticed that the shock of the explosion had loosened Tosto’s hands from the force-beam harness. Don lunged for him. With a wild cry, Tosto attempted to retrieve the only defense he had against the stronger man. But this time Don was the quicker. His fist crashed on Tosto’s chin, knocking him cold against one wall.
So far so good. If only his ally now in the other car had succeeded as well! Don crawled to the front window and raised his head, expecting any moment to see a terrific fire-bomb catapult across from the other craft. But it too was silent and lifeless.
SUDDENLY the radio light blinked and Don snapped the switch eagerly. A voice came, breathless and excited, “Don, you all right?”
“Professor White!” almost yelled Don. “It is you after all! Yes, I’m all right; I knocked Tosto out.”
“I had a tough time of it here,” the professor went on. “Jestun is a sort of a burly chap. He fought back like a wildcat. He shot the fire-bomb that took off your roof before I could drag him away from his controls. Then he tripped me and ran for his force-beam harness. But I caught
him and throttled him till his face was blue. He’s quiet now.”
“How long have you been here in the anarchy?” asked Don then.
“As long as you. Speak the language and everything. Jestun picked me up from the same spot you had been picked up from by Tosto a few hours earlier. Jestun considers me quite a find, as he is interested in ancient history. His knowledge of it is grossly inaccurate. He thinks Chop Suey is the name of a great city of our time!”
“Damn’ funny world,” grunted Don. “Professor, we’ve got to get together while we have the chance, and away from these battling maniacs. Maybe, once joined, you and I can get along in the forests—like savages. And steer clear of any more walking laboratories or floating penthouses.”
“Can you get out of that walking house?” asked the scientist. “It probably has a descending force-beam just as this vehicle has.”
“I think I can. I’ll try, anyway, and meet you on the ground.”
Don sprang away from the radio and stepped before the bank of six buttons which he knew controlled the floor panels and the descension beam. But which button did which? He pressed the first and to his satisfaction the bifold slide panels yawned apart. Far below was the leaf-carpeted ground. Which button now operated the descension beam?
Don swore and swung himself through the aperture by his hands. He had seen the branch of a huge tree not five feet below and a little to one side. Better to descend with a little work than to take a chance with a tricky invisible beam of force. His toes were barely able to touch the limb, but it was thick and Don let go with his hands. His released weight bent the branch with an ominous cracking sound, but it held, and Don scrambled hastily toward the thicker trunk. It was a simple matter then to clamber downward. He shinned down the last twenty feet of sheer trunk, rough bark affording him foothold.
He ran the hundred yards to the other vehicle. Crossing the felled tree trunks which the caterpillar treads had thrown over, Don failed to find his friend anywhere about. He shouted and an answering shout came from above: “Stand under this housing, Don. I’m going to pick you up with a lifting force-beam!”