The Time Mirror
Page 6
theantiquarian step back and bring the gun in his hand to bear on ProfessorDuchard.
"So you're going to force me to bring Elaine back to the twentiethcentury!" the rejected suitor mocked. "So you think you still have achance to save her from death at the hands of Baron Morriere'sretainers!"
The old man's eyes were like blue steel as he met the antiquarian'sgaze.
"You devil!" he said. "You admit it! You have killed her!"
Vance nodded, his narrow face sinister.
"Of course I admit it. Why shouldn't I? What is there you can do aboutit? Or do you think the police are going to hold me on a charge ofsubjecting your daughter to involuntary time travel by sending her amirror?" He laughed harshly, smoothed his sleek black hair. Thencontinued:
"Yes, professor. Go to the police. Tell them all about my hideouscrimes." Again he laughed. "See how long it takes them to put you underpsychiatric observation."
The aged scientist's lips quivered with passion and despair.
"Why do you stay?" he cried. "You have won. Why do you mock us? Go away!Let us alone!"
"Oh, no." The other shook his head. "I don't want to leave just yet,professor. There are still some things I have to tell you. Things Ilearned while making preparations for Elaine's little trip."
He paused to gloat.
"How thoroughly have you investigated the case of that first ElaineDuchard, in whose body your daughter now resides, Professor Duchard?" hedemanded.
The white-haired savant did not even answer. He leaned weakly against alaboratory bench, a broken man.
"Did you know, for instance," Adrian Vance continued, "that BaronMorriere's men tortured Elaine Duchard before they murdered her?"
"You fiend! Not even a savage would do a thing like that!"
Vance chuckled evilly.
"You exaggerate," he sneered. "Besides, Elaine's sweetheart, here"--heprodded the still-prone Mark with his foot--"no doubt will protect her."
His face darkened.
"And if you did not want harm to befall her, why did you let her rejectme when I asked to marry her? I gave her her chance. When she didn'ttake it, what else could she expect but my revenge?"
"Go away. Please go away."
* * * * *
On the floor, Mark stirred uneasily. His brain was clear now, though hishead throbbed like a jungle tom-tom under the beat of a mad witchdoctor. Slowly, he tried his muscles. Tensed them. Relaxed them. Testedthem for complete control.
Vance said:
"In case you still have any notions of rescuing your daughter from thefar reaches of time, professor, forget them now. It's impossible to calla person back. In the first place, a time mirror would be needed--andthe only one in existence, the one I bought from a French sorcerer whoonce studied under Eliphas Levi, now stands on that easel in thecorner."
Sobs racked the other's frail form. He still leaned against the bench,his face buried in his hands.
But on the floor, Mark Carter's jaw grew hard. He readied himself for asavage leap.
"Furthermore," their captor went on, "your precious Elaine remembersnothing of her life in this century. For all practical purposes she hasbecome the first Elaine Duchard. I know this, because I tried out themirror by sending one of my clerks three months into the past. He waspossessed by a strange amnesia that left his mind a perfect blank so faras what had happened in those three months was concerned!"
The antiquarian paused, savoring the full effect of his words onElaine's father with evil glee. His black eyes were shining with hell'sown fire.
And in that tense, silent second, Mark Carter struck.
He came off the floor like a tiger springing, and the roar of a junglebeast was in his throat. His arms shot out to embrace Adrian Vance'slegs and pull him down. His fingers hungered for the feel of hisenemy's throat.
He was still in the air when the other moved. Like lightning, Vanceleaped aside. Away from Mark's clutching hands. He landed, tense andpoised, the gun in his fist sighted on young Carter's chest, a grin oftriumph splitting his oily face.
"Did you think I was asleep, you fool?" he crowed. "Did you think Iwasn't watching you every second out of the corner of my eye? I've beenready to kill you from the moment your eyelids first fluttered!"
Mute, his face still livid with hate, Mark staggered to his feet.
"Come on!" Vance challenged. "If you think you can jump me before I pullthe trigger, come ahead! I'll be glad to take my chances before a jurywhen you're dead!"
Elaine's fiance glared helplessly. His fists clenched and relaxed againand again.
"You win," he said at last, his face grey beneath its tan. "Go on. Getout. You've got us licked."
But the antiquarian shook his head.
"Not quite yet," he answered. "I've still got one job to do."
Then, so fast the eye could hardly follow, his gun-hand came up.
_Bang--bang--bang!_
* * * * *
Three shots he fired. Three shots, straight toward the easel in thecorner. Dead center into the mirror that stood upon it.
There was a wild tinkling of falling glass. The tablecloth slipped away.Revealed the shattered remnants of the time mirror.
"I'm taking no chances!" cried Vance. "Professor Duchard's reputation asa research physicist is too high." And then, mockingly: "However, Idoubt that even he can make any good use of that mirror now!"
With that final sally, he backed away and out the door, the Magnum inhis hand still grim and unwavering as he covered Mark and the oldscientist.
Curtly:
"I wouldn't come out too soon if I were you."
The door slammed shut.
Mark started forward. But the professor caught his arm.
"It is useless," the savant said. "To follow him would bring death andwould avail nothing, my boy. He has won."
Like men in a daze, then, they stared into each other's eyes. They sawonly dull hopelessness. The last spark was gone out.
Slowly, Mark walked over to the corner where stood the shattered mirror.Looked blankly down at its fragments. Bending, he picked up a splinter.Inspected it idly.
The next instant he whirled about.
"Professor Duchard!" he rapped. "How did this devil's looking-glasswork?"
The scientist looked up dispiritedly, shrugged.
"I could not make you understand. It is a complicated matter ofspace-time theory--"
The other strode back to him. Gripped his shoulder.
"I don't care about the details. Just try to give me a simplifiedversion of the principle."
Professor Duchard gazed into the younger man's eyes. Caught the fiercelight within them--the gleam of spirit that marks those who will not bedowned for long, no matter what the odds. The ray of struggle that onlydeath could take away.
For a long moment, then, the old man sat buried in thought. At last helooked up again. Broke the silence.
"Have you ever seen the physical experiment in which a wave of sound isused to break a glass?"
"No. But I've heard of it. I know what you're talking about."
"Very well, then. Imagine, if you can, that the barrier between spaceand time is that glass. It is apparently impenetrable."
"I see." Elaine's fiance nodded eagerly.
"Then try to conceive of a terrific wave of energy being concentratedagainst it, just as the sound wave is concentrated on the glass. Butthis time, the wave must be so manipulated as to strike the barrier as apebble strikes and breaks a window. Otherwise it would be too weak tobreak through. Or, if it was strong enough, it would break down theentire space-time relationship."
* * * * *
Again Mark nodded, this time more slowly.
"You mean that the wave of energy really must be like a sword, stabbingone small hole through the barrier?"
"Exactly." A pause. "The time mirror represented just such a holethrough the barrier. What appeared to us to be waves in the glassac
tually were frozen ripples in the space-time continuum--just as if youhad dropped a stone in water, and the hole and ripples had frozen."
"Then when you looked into the mirror--"
"Your mind went out through that gap in the barrier. Ordinarily, ofcourse, you would not even know that this was happening. But if yourmind was concentrated on something in the past or future--as Elaine'swas upon the picture of her ancestor--, you were automatically hurtledthrough time to that period."
The younger man frowned.
"Then why didn't my mind go, too, when Elaine's did? We both werelooking into the mirror."
"But from different