Time Travel Omnibus Volume 2

by Anthology

  “Yeah, but how long will that take?” Metal clanked on the heels of Pam’s question, and as we watched, the loops of chain that had been wrapped about psycho-blonde collapsed into the vacant space she’d once occupied. “I think the fat lady just sang. How’s it feel to know you’ve saved London?”

  “Right now it still hurts. Too bad the bruises that woman inflicted didn’t vanish along with her.” I stared at the pile of chain. “I wonder what kind of person she’ll be with a different history? Maybe not too bad.”

  “Are you planning on looking her up?”

  “No way. I think I’m going to be a little wary of blondes for a while.” I suddenly noticed shouting outside. “I think all the gunplay has attracted too much attention.” I went to what must have been the same point where psycho-blonde had been firing from and looked downward. People who had cause to be about in the very early hours of the morning were gathering around the bodies of the dead soldiers, examining them and speaking in indistinct but clearly excited voices. “We’d better get out of here.”

  “Not without this.” Pam indicated the now-silent device. Unlike psycho-blonde, it’d been put here by a history that still existed. “I hope it’s not too heavy.” She tried to raise it, then grinned with relief as it came up easily. “Not bad at all. I can handle it alone. Let’s go before anyone realizes the shots came from here.”

  “Wait.” I checked to make sure psycho-blonde’s weapon had vanished along with her. Sometimes the strangest things get left behind even after the reason for their existing had looped out. But that’s another story. “Where’s your gun?”

  Pam smiled. “Already on me. But thanks for thinking of that. Now let’s go.”

  Pam and I ran again, this time out of the observatory. Once at the door, we slackened our pace to a walk, moving nonchalantly away from the growing crowd around the remains of His Majesty’s brave military men. I felt sick again, even though I knew that because of historical circumstances their deaths Here and Now wouldn’t even be a drop in the tides of history. Odds were that all of those soldiers would have died anyway within a few years, between 1914 and 1918.

  Or during the influenza epidemic that started in 1918. But that’s also another story and not one I like remembering. Then my shoeless foot hit a stone and another pain occupied my attention.

  We soon entered a built-up area where the streets meandered past still-closed shops and pubs. I wondered what the local time was, thinking it must be getting close to dawn. Pam finally paused and set down the trunk. “It’s high time we jumped out of here. The local cops are going to be looking for anyone who might know anything about those dead men. And as long as this homing device is still Here and Now, there’s a chance someone might try to retrieve it. Do you want it?”

  I had Jeannie calculate the cost of jumping that extra mass uptime and winced. “Not unless you don’t want it.”

  “Okay. I think I know some people who’ll give me a few bucks for it.” She smiled and offered her hand. “Nice working with you.”

  “Likewise.” We shook hands, then I gathered my courage. “Pam, what would you think about getting together on a non-business basis?”

  “I’d like that.” She named a date about a century uptime from me, and then saw my expression. “Are you up or down from that?”

  “Down.” I named my own date and Pam had the grace to look disappointed. There are expensive get-togethers, and then there’s going on jumps for get-togethers, which only the incredibly rich and idle can afford. I didn’t fit either category.

  “Well, maybe something will work out,” Pam offered. “Come up and see me sometime.”

  “If I can, I will.”

  “Too bad we can’t see the sites of London together. Thanks again for the help. And the company. See you around.” Pam smiled, blew me a kiss, and then jumped uptime, leaving me gazing at the empty place on the sidewalk where she’d been.

  I checked in my pockets, confirming that my stash of ill-gotten cash had dwindled to a few small coins I suspected even beggars would turn up their noses at. Both of my feet hurt from running on cobblestones and the occasional tree trunk or rock.

  There I stood in Edwardian London, with no money, no girl, and no shoes, doubtless being sought at this moment by numerous Sherlock Holmes-wannabes from Scotland Yard. Hail the conquering hero.

  “Jeannie, prepare the jump back home.” Maybe I’d be able to hit up my friends for contributions to pay for my trip here and back. Bill sure as heck owed me some, but professors didn’t tend to have large bank accounts and he might not even remember the entire incident. “And look up any organizations that might give me some sort of reward for saving London and ensuring Hitler’s defeat. That ought to be worth something.”

  “You will have to convince them that the history they know is the result of your intervention,” Jeannie reminded me.

  “I know. Hopefully they’ll accept your files on this trip.” When you’re a temporal interventionist, history is what you make of it, but you usually don’t make enough from making history. I faced east, where a gradual lightening of the night sky foretold the Sun still rising on the British Empire. “Let’s go home, Jeannie.”

  WORLDS TO BARTER

  John B. Harris

  Lines of haggard men and women were struggling toward transporter . . . those feared and despised machines which had become symbols of rescue.

  Chapter I

  Outside the tall laboratory windows the sun shone brightly on the gardens. It was that kind of June morning when one forgets the deficiencies of our civilization and everything seems for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Certainly in the minds of Professor Lestrange and myself there was no suspicion of any untoward occurrence. We had already been working for some three and a half severely practical hours.

  Lestrange, in that year 1935, was not unlike the photographs, taken ten years later, which now adorn the physics textbooks. Already, at forty, his most striking characteristics were that broad white forehead where so many mysteries were solved and those piercing eyes which saw so much that was hidden from ordinary men. Already his adaptations and improvements marked him for success though he had made none of those revolutionary discoveries individual enough to be understood and acclaimed by the public.

  The time was yet to come when the name of Lestrange would be more familiar than that of Edison had ever been and when his commanding face would peer out from a million printed pages.

  The critical moments of our present experiment were approaching. I was attempting to fight down my rising excitement so that no trembling might show in my hands. Lestrange was, to all appearances, as calm as a frozen sea. During his work he preserved the mien of a poker player. Not a hurried movement betrayed any anxiety as in the silence of the long laboratory he tested the last connections and inspected the final adjustments.

  “Stand by,” he ordered, at length, in an unemotional voice.

  As I moved aside, his hand was on the switch. My eyes were fixed upon the intricate apparatus before us. In a few seconds now, the throw of a copper bar would prove whether we faced a marvellous discovery or the symbol of wasted months of labor.

  There was a mighty crash behind us.

  That noise, so dreaded in our surroundings, hit m y taut nerves like a hundred volts. I whirled round. Lestrange’s scientific abstraction was shattered. Slowly his hand left the switch and his mouth dropped open. A t any other time the way blank amazement succeeded intelligent concentration might have amused me, but, now, I myself, was too bewildered.

  Two thirds of the way up the room, in the middle of what had been a clear floor space, lay a piece of machinery. A few feet from it sprawled the figure of a man.

  As we stared, the man sat up.

  He was dressed in a close-fitting black suit of a texture and finish resembling leather and apparently made in one piece. His build was tall and strong and his face, though it bore an expression of confusion at the moment, showed firmness of character.
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  For a few seconds he gazed about wonderingly, then alarm seized him. His voice was urgent as he addressed us.

  “Quick,” he said. “Some Quick.”

  Something in his manner caused me to search my pockets without question.

  “Here,” I said, holding out a length of packing twine.

  He snatched it and turned to the machine behind him. Hurriedly he raised the contraption from its side to a vertical position. More than anything else it seemed to resemble the skeleton framework of a miniature building using, instead of steel, bright silvery bars which crisscrossed in all directions. Enmeshed in them was a bucket seat before which were arrayed two rows of dials. There was no time for a further examination.

  The stranger leaned over the instrument board, adjusted several dials, tied a loop in the end of my bit of string and slipped it over a small lever. He took as many steps away as the length of the string permitted and gave a jerky pull . . .

  There was no machine; before our startled eyes stood only the stranger, the string dangling from his hand. A sigh of relief broke from his lips as he turned towards us.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “You do, sir,” replied Lestrange. “I should be pleased to know by what right you intrude.”

  “I admit, I have no right. I can plead only what they used to call in the old days, sanctuary. You are Mr. Lestrange—the inventor of the battery? My own name is Lestrange—Jon Lestrange.”

  “My name is Lestrange,” the Professor admitted, “but I have invented no battery.”

  “Not yet?” said the stranger. “I am earlier than I thought. You must excuse me, my dates were never good.”

  There was puzzlement on Lestrange’s face as replied.

  “I do not understand you. No doubt you will explain later, to infer from your name that you claim relationship?”

  “Certainly we are related, but—er—distantly.”

  “The matter must be examined. I cannot pretend ever to have heard of you before. Let me present my assistant, Henry Wright.”

  The stranger held out his hand.

  “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Wright,” he said with a smile. “Your rescue of Mr. Lestrange was an act of real bravery.”

  It was my turn to be puzzled. In all the six years I had known Lestrange he had never been in more danger than anyone who crosses a busy street.

  “I see I have made another blunder. Please forgive me,” the man apologized.

  A change came over his expression. The smile of greeting gave way to a look of anguish. His eyes seemed to plead as he asked:

  “Tell me, have you ever, either of you seen or heard of another machine like the one I came on?”

  We shook our heads. I could recall no invention bearing any resemblance to it.

  “There was really no chance, not one in a hundred million,” he said slowly. “I knew it wasn’t possible, but I had to ask.

  His gaze wandered round the room pausing here and there upon apparatus until it came to rest upon the material of our thwarted experiment. His eyes brightened and he took a few steps towards it.

  Lestrange and I were recovering now from our sense of unreality. Our eyes met and we knew that the same thought was in both our minds. All mystery was ripped from the affair with a jerk—the man was a spy, with the minutest care he was examining the product of our secret months of labor. Lestrange pulled a revolver from a drawer.

  “Put your hands up,” he snapped. The other obeyed, a slight smile on his lips.

  “I’ve heard that these were troublous times,” he remarked.

  “Come over here,” Lestrange ordered, “and tell us just why you are so interested in that experiment.”

  The other, who called himself Lestrange, opened his eyes wide in evident surprise.

  “Surely,” he expostulated, “it is reasonable to show interest in the discovery which changed the face of the world? Besides, I may be mistaken, but it seems slightly different from what I remember. It’s a couple of years since I saw a picture of it, but I have a distinct impression that several of the connections ran differently . . . that terminal on the left should be coupled direct to.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” roared Lestrange. “You must be mad. The thing’s only been assembled four days.”

  “Oh, Lord,” said the stranger, “I’ve put my foot in it again. I’ll have to try to explain it all to you, but it’s a long story. May I have some food first—I haven’t eaten for twenty four hours.

  Chapter II

  The Man from the Future

  By the end of the meal the visitor’s status had changed. He was no longer an interloper, but a guest whom we were calling, at his own request, Jon. Somehow in that desultory form of conversation appropriate to the lunch table, we had lost our suspicions though we were no nearer to understanding him. He was curiously ignorant at the same time that he was well informed. His broad outlines of current politics were good, but of the details he seemed to know nothing.

  In speaking of well-known characters he appeared to hesitate as though he might commit himself. His knowledge of literature was excellent though occasionally he referred to works of which I had never heard, by authors whose fame was worldwide. My condensed impression was that while he appreciated the high lights of most matters, he was sure of himself only in a few subjects.

  “You’ll smoke?” inquired Lestrange as we retired to his comfortable study. “Tobacco?” asked Jon.

  “Of course,” replied the Professor with a touch of surprise. “What else?”

  “There are many things to smoke where I come from—one has to be careful.”

  He settled himself comfortably in a big chair and lit a cigar.

  “Now,” he said, “if you can put up with a long tale, I, would like to explain this intrusion.”

  “Our experiment . . .” I began.

  “Would not be a success in its present form. Believe me, I can tell you where there is a miscalculation.”

  I accepted his statement. He seemed to know something of our work. Lestrange, too, nodded agreement.

  Jon began:

  “I think the first thing to be explained is why I chose to thrust my company upon you rather than upon any one else. Perhaps the first reason is our relationship and the second that my studies have informed me that you, Professor, have probably a more open mind and a greater grasp of possibilities than any man now living . . .”

  “This relationship . . . ?”

  “Our family has been proud of its direct descent from you and your wife, Joy.” Lestrange and I looked at one another. Now there was no doubt that the man was off the rails somewhere.

  “But I’m not married, I . . .”

  “Please let me go my own way. It is a difficult situation, but I hope I shall convince you. Very few men can have had the chance of convincing their great-great-great grandfathers of anything. I am now an anachronism. You see, I was born in the year A.D. 2108,—or should it be, I shall be born in 2108?—and I am—or will be—a refugee from the twenty-second century. I assure you that you will be married shortly, but I can’t remember when—I think I told you I was bad at dates.

  “It will probably be easier for you if I tell the story in the past tense. Certainly it is a past life for me. You saw me burn my bridges when I tied the string to that machine.

  “Of course the nature of time, we of the twenty-second century knew little more than you of the twentieth. Habit of thought still caused us still to think of it in terms of progression along a straight line. Though we were aware, of course, that this was inaccurate, yet for all practical purposes it served us as well as it had served the world for thousands of years before.

  “Because I am here now, I know that time is somehow folded or circular so that it is all co-existent, or non-existent. But of the working principle of that machine which brought me here, I am as ignorant as you. I set the dials, pulled the lever—and there was your laboratory.

  “I
daren’t keep the thing to examine it. It’s even betting that the owners had some way of tracing it and that was not a risk worth taking.

  “The world I was living in was not all you twentieth century men expected. It would have disappointed Wells and his fellow prophets to have had a true vision of A.D. 2135. We were on another swing of the pendulum.

  “Scientific progress in the sense of physics, chemistry and engineering had slowed its advance to a minimum while the world caught up and readjusted. By the end of the twentieth century science was so far advanced that civilization was becoming seriously lopsided so that nature tended to restore the balance. Even today I expect you can begin to see how large scale production has begun to upset politics and social conditions which were designed to cope with a simpler way of life. It is making war no longer the solution of difficulties, it is uprooting the old order of things, but not reorganizing.

  “So you will see that I come from a world in which Mr. Wells’ ‘Sleeper’ might awake, but from an age which had spent the previous century in improving its institutions rather than its machines.

  “Since the year 2000 the Lestrange battery, of which you heard me speak, had been almost the only driving agent for machinery. In 2000, Mr. Lestrange, the internal combustion engine will have passed away. The whole world’s trains, ships, planes, radios, cranes, everything save the most ponderous machines will be depending upon your discovery.

  “It is strange to tell a man of his results before the experiment has been made. Nevertheless, I assure you that your little storage battery is going to have a greater effect upon the whole world than any other single invention in the history of mankind. Even the machine which brought me here depended upon a modified form of your battery to carry it across half a million years.”

  “But you said—”

  “Oh, yes, I have taken only a little local trip on it. A mere jaunt of a couple of centuries.”

  The Coming of the Menace