by Rog Phillips
couldsee that a few more days would see it completed. He took his eyes away,satisfied.
* * * * *
The Leader stood before the intricate panel. It was located in a deepsubterranean room, safe from all attack. He knew that there were othersimilar panels in countries all over the planet, different only in onerespect.
The hundreds of buttons on his panel were set to send robot rocketsroaring toward predetermined targets. In a second he could end the longwar by a rapid series of pushes on buttons. The enemy could do the same,wiping out his own country, Aleme.
These panels had been constructed by international agreement, so thatevery country could know that it would be suicide to use atom bombs inwar. Suicide for all. Afterwards there would be nothing but isolatedbands of wandering savages, without the rudiments of civilization. A fewgenerations after such a holocaust these wandering bands would lose allability to learn. The art of reading would be forgotten. The past wouldbe forgotten or distorted into legends of a God Race. If that happened,so much the better. When he reappeared again in the world he would beaccepted as a God.
With his superior knowledge, and with modern weapons to back hisauthority, he could be in reality the world Leader he HAD to be tofulfill his insatiable ambitions.
The war was stalemated. Soon the tide would turn and the enemy wouldgain the advantage. His hold on Aleme would weaken. If he survived thedefeat he knew must come, he would be tried as a war criminal accordingto the war code set up ten centuries before, and executed.
A few minutes of exertion pushing buttons, a hasty trip to thetri-matter slab, and over into the time machine that was set to returnhim to normal time rate after three centuries, and he would be in aposition to rule the world.
He contemplated the terrific cost. A billion and a half people would bekilled in the space of a few hours. Two hundred million of them would behis own state-slaves, his subjects.
His heart would feel the burden of that awful responsibility. Noordinary man was capable of deciding the good of the world for allfuture time with strict impartiality and willingness to sacrifice onewhole generation so that world peace might come. No ordinary man had agreat enough soul to carry the burden of the great responsibility. Theordinary man quaked with pangs of conscience at the murder of a singleperson. He, Hute, had many times had to decide on mass executions forthe good of the whole.
He had tried, as other great leaders before him, to bring aboutpermanent world peace by the forging of one world government, supreme,and controlled by one man,--unified under one dominant will.
Too few people could see that such was the only path to peace. On anyother course there would always be would-be leaders who would try to setthemselves up in authority.
On any other course world planning would be stalemated by the eternalbickering and disagreement among nations and self-anointed saviors ofthe common man.
Only in the Unified World State could competition be entirelyeliminated, and world planning become a reality.
Hute, standing before the control board, squared his heavy shouldersmanfully, jutted his strong jaw out at a dominant angle, and spoke tothe silent walls as he had often spoken to the masses.
"If I fail to have the courage to do this thing, then the welfare of allfuture generations will be on my shoulders. The sacrifice of the billionor two now living is a SMALL price to pay, compared to the sacrifice ofcountless billions of future generations if I weaken.
"If I weaken--!"
* * * * *
The thought of what would happen,--the war crimes trial, the ignomy ofdeath as a war criminal at the hands of fools who couldn't understandthe noble, selfless motives that governed his life and caused him tosacrifice the comforts of home and normalcy as a public servant and thepurpose,--the goal toward which he strove, gave him the courage to pressthe first button. With that simple act the fate of Tranx-Yrhl wasdirectly sealed, and with it the retaliation against his own country.That knowledge made easy the pressing of the other buttons.
When it was finished he walked stiffly from the room and took theelevator to the surface. His general staff awaited him. They stoodawkwardly, faces pale, in this historic moment.
He nodded imperceptibly to signify that the deed was done. A few drythroats swallowed loudly in the hush of imminent death.
Hute Hitle marched stiffly through the passive group. One after anotherfell in behind him. The procession marched down to waiting cars.
The cars crossed the bridge. There they stopped. As one man the Leaderand his general staff looked back at the great city they loved so well.The Sacrifice they were making for the good of humanity pressed heavilyon their hearts.
With bowed heads they turned back and went down the path to the researchbuilding.
Carl Grinch and his science aides were waiting. They paled at theknowledge that the deed was done and there was no turning back now.
Hute placed a fond hand on Carl's shoulder.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" he asked, his voicechoked with emotion.
"The success of the Plan depends on my staying," Carl replied, his voiceshaken with the emotion of the moment. "The time machine is constructedin connection with the tri-matter block so that nothing in either of theother two universes can enter it. After you enter, it must be sealedfrom this side for the period of time travel, so that nothing can enterfrom this side until it is time for you to come back. I, and my aides,must remain to do that."
"Your sacrifice is greater than mine," Hute said simply.
"It is very little compared to what you are sacrificing," Carl said,smiling, with a trace of amused contempt carefully hidden in the back ofhis eyes.
Hute took his hand from Carl's shoulder and gravely shook hands withCarl's aides. It was his simple gesture of reward for their greatsacrifice. They would die with the gratifying knowledge that the Leaderhimself had taken their hand and shaken it in gratitude at a servicewell performed.
Then he squared his massive shoulders and stepped onto the tri-matterslab--and vanished. One by one the members of his general stafffollowed.
When the last of them stepped into thin air above the softly glowingsquare, Carl walked over to a switch board and pulled the disconnectsthat broke the surge of power playing over the room.
His pale assistants watched, hypnotized.
Carl smiled at them encouragingly. He glanced at his watch and estimatedthe time left.
"Another hour at the most now," he said quietly. "It could come anysecond."
The wooden walls of the room closed them in with brooding foreboding. Aheavily barred window brought a view of the steel bridge that led to thecity.
A large clock on the wall became the center of attention. A red secondhand moved with slowly deliberate swiftness around the dial.
And in the center of the waiting group the luminous square built flushwith the wooden floor waited too, its face inscrutible, its substanceanchored in three roots of Being.
An electrical tension was building up around the hushed group ofscientists. Vague stirrings of cold light rippled the surface of thesquare block of tri-matter.
"The cleavage is beginning," Carl said quietly. "When I say the wordstep through. The entropy shift must be just right or we'll findourselves with Hitle and his gang. Now!"
As one man the group stepped onto the block and vanished. An instantlater the holocaust broke loose.
* * * * *
Carl Grinch stood before the tribunal of the United Nations of theplanet Amba. Video cameras pointed at him from every direction. Theaudience room was filled to overflowing with officials, and over thewhole planet people had paused in their work to watch him and listen tohis words.
"We, of Aleme," he was saying. "Dared not openly defy Hute Hitle. He wastoo strongly entrenched. Unless we obeyed his orders to the letter wewere executed; and a dead man cannot serve the interests of all Amba. Myresearches gave me the plan I had been looking
for.
"As you all know, time travel was discovered many centuries ago. Itamounted to nothing more than perfect stasis. A person could travelforward in time to any period, but not backward. The time machine inmarching forward existed at every instant, and was therefore alwayspresent to the view of outsiders.
"My researches made possible sideways travel in time. By means of adevice that used fabulous amounts of power, I was able to gather matterfrom two other universes existing in the same space as our own, but withdifferent time co-ordinates. I proved to Hitle that in one of theseother universes he could escape the destruction he planned, and thenreturn to a torn world and fulfill his destiny as ruler of the planet.
"I told him nothing but the truth. Because of that he believed me. If Ihad told him one lie he would have seen through the whole thing.
"In order for you to understand just what happened, and why Amba was notdestroyed when he pressed the buttons that started the atom bombs ontheir journeys of destruction, I