yesterdays war

by gerald hall

  “It’s a term that means adopting the culture and values of the place that you have moved to. You could also say that assimilating is another way of saying ‘blending in’ with one’s neighbors.“ I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I forget sometimes that some of the words that I use aren’t necessarily well-known for everyone else.”

  “That’s alright, Harold. I just wish that I knew more about your past. You are so brilliant and loving, yet so mysterious still.”

  Harold smiled, but inside he hid the fear of what Dorothy might feel if she really knew his history and what he had in mind for the future. Of course, he had all of the best intentions in the world. But would she trust him if she knew who he really was? Harold still felt that he couldn’t take that chance with Dorothy or anyone else.

  Harold Cavill’s Home Derby, Western Australia September 29, 1930

  Dorothy didn’t want to just sit at home while Harold worked. So Harold found Dorothy a job with his corporation’s accounting office. She eagerly started working there less than a month after her arrival in Derby.

  Dorothy had a short workday at the office and came home early. On those days, she would often go into Harold’s study and pull out one of his books to read. On this day, she spotted a copy of Jules Verne’s ‘Master of the World’ at the end of one of the book shelves. Then Dorothy spotted something unusual after pulling the book off of the shelf.

  “What is this, I wonder?” She said as she reached out to touch what appeared to be a hidden switch at the end panel of the bookcase. She pressed the switch and immediately heard a quiet click. Then the entire bookcase began to swivel to the side slightly. Dorothy was then able to easily pull the bookcase and discovered it to be the door to Harold’s secret room.

  She hesitated for a moment then opened the door. The room itself was rather small, less than the size of a child’s bedroom. There was a drafting table in the middle of the room with what appeared to be blueprints and a variety of unusual sketches on and around it. There was a desk in one corner with books scattered on it in addition to a variety of strange-looking electrical devices. The only thing that didn’t seem out of place in the room was the incandescent light bulb in the lamp on the desk.

  Dorothy was absolutely astonished at what she saw. The drawings on the drafting table looked almost like they came from another world. There were aircraft, ships, vehicles and devices of all sorts that were depicted in the sketches.

  She saw what appeared to be a strange looking typewriter. But there was no place to insert paper, just an attached flat hinged portion that was all black. An electric cable ran from the device to a set of large batteries. Another pair of cables ran to a set of small boxes. She had no idea that she was looking at an advanced portable computer connected to a pair of high-capacity data storage units. On the desk were also detailed notes about numerous world events that according to the dates had not yet occurred.

  Dorothy very carefully placed everything back where she had found it. She didn’t want to accidentally ruin anything for Harold. She was frightened as she left the hidden room and closed the door to it. She was afraid of the mysterious objects, illustrations and notes that she had found there. But even more importantly, Dorothy was terrified because of the realization that she had so grievously violated Harold’s trust.

  “What can I do now?” A shaken Dorothy asked herself. She could remain silent and hope that Harold never found out that she had been inside the secret room. There was always a possibility that he would never find out.

  Of course, if Harold did find out without Dorothy being up front about what she had done would certainly destroy any trust that he had in her. If he did know from her that she was aware of his secrets, then perhaps she could do something more to help this mysterious man that she loved so very much.

  Dorothy has a few hours to think about all of this before Harold was due to come home. Until then, she prayed and wondered. What would be the right thing to do? Eventually, the door would open, Harold would come in and Dorothy would have to make that fateful decision.

  The time for that decision eventually did come, of course.

  “Hello, Sweetheart. I have an admission to make. I found the entrance to your secret room today.” Dorothy told Harold when he got home from had been a particularly long day at work for him. Dorothy still felt very guilty about violating Harold’s trust and it showed in her expression and tone.

  Harold was both shocked and terrified by what Dorothy had just said. What else did she do? What has she seen? He had hoped that the concealment alone would have been enough to keep anyone out, especially with the hidden switch to the door being the only other obstacle to entry.

  “Did you go inside, Dorothy?” Harold warily asked.

  “Yes, Sweetheart. I did.” She admitted before continuing. “I apologize for violating your request. But I just had to learn what you had inside of there. You have always been so secretive about that room. I knew that it somehow was related to the nightmares that you keep having.”

  “Yes, Dorothy. I have been very secretive about the contents of that room…and for very good reason.” An angry and worried Harold replied, terrified of the potential of this ‘genie’ being let out.

  “I understand why. You are right to be worried about what the world might learn. But I am not the world. I am your wife and would never reveal your secrets to anyone, especially what I have learned. It is plain to see that you are all that Wells and Verne wrote about and so much more. What is in that room has to be from another world….or perhaps another time? Isn’t it, Harold?” Dorothy asked with a look that silently pled for forgiveness and understanding.

  “I don’t quite know what to do. It’s not like I can undo what you have done, Dorothy. What could come of this may be very dangerous for everyone, not just you or I.”

  “You can choose to trust me when I say that I will never reveal your secrets here. It must be very important for you to be here, doing what you are doing. What I don’t understand is why you are here? I know that I can help you if I know what you want to accomplish here.

  But I know your heart, Harold. I know that you are a good man. So, no matter what you tell me or show me, I will still always love you.”

  Harold was angry and hurt that Dorothy would violate his trust in such an important matter. But he was also intrigued as well. She wasn’t shocked about what she had seen, even if she still did not know the entire story.

  Now that she knows so much about what Harold brought back with him from the future, maybe Dorothy will understand why his work is so important to him, Harold hoped.

  “Dorothy, if you must know about why I am here, I will tell you. But, no matter what, no one else must ever know. The fate of this world and the future of humanity is at stake here.”

  Harold then led Dorothy to the secret room, opened the room and walked inside with her. He had Dorothy sit down on the one chair in the room. Harold sat on a stack of books in the corner.

  “This is all going to seem utterly fantastic. But you might as well know the whole story now. Obviously, I can’t hide anything from you any longer.” Harold solemnly said.

  Then he began to explain about the technology in the room, the future that he came from and what he wanted to accomplish.

  Dorothy silently listened for over an hour as Harold explained everything, even as he emotionally talked about his late first wife Judith. Dorothy shed her own tears as Harold spoke of Judith and of all of the friends that he left behind on a dying Earth after the end of the nuclear war. After that, Harold explained his basic plans for trying to prevent mankind from destroying itself in the year 2040.

  Then when Harold finally finished revealing all of his secrets, Dorothy only said one thing.

  “Sweetheart, what can I do to help?”

  The warm, loving smile that Dorothy showed at that moment wiped away any worries that Harold had about her knowing what he had kept hidden for so long.

  “First, it is vitally important that you tell abs
olutely no one else about any of this. You can understand now why, I hope. Secondly, I really could use someone that I can talk to about all of this. Having a second opinion available can be very helpful, especially from someone else who knows the situation.” Harold replied with a relieved smile of his own.

  “I will not tell anyone. You can be completely certain of that, my dear, incredible husband. Now, you haven’t told anyone else about all of this?”

  “I have alluded to the fact that I have knowledge of the future to several of the Aborigine tribal elders. I needed the aborigines as loyal allies for the work that I needed to accomplish. I haven’t pretended to be a god to them or anything like that. I simply told them that I had knowledge of the future and that I needed their help.”

  “That would explain how the aborigines look at you with what appears to be such awe. I’m quite astonished about what I have just learned myself in spite of being well educated. But for the aborigines, what you know has to seem like magic to them.”

  “I know, Dorothy. While I haven’t told them my entire story, I also haven’t lied to the aborigines either. It’s their future that I am trying to protect as well as everyone else’s on Earth.”

  “You mean that terrible war that you told me of will kill all of humanity, even the people down here thousands of miles away from Asia, Europe and the Americas?”

  “Yes, that certainly appeared to be the case when I was preparing to go through the temporal portal. The temperatures were already beginning to drop very rapidly in most parts of the world. There had been predictions for many years that such a war would plunge the entire world into a new ice age and lead to mass extinctions. It would be too cold to grow crops, much less feed livestock. Billions of people who survived the bombs would either starve to death, succumb to diseases, or die from exposure to the cold. Very few people are even remotely capable of surviving such a calamity. There would not be enough survivors among humanity to keep our species from dying off within a few generations.”

  “You truly believe that you can prevent this war that happens more than a century from now, Harold?”

  “I pray that I can. I cannot believe that God would have allowed this door to the past to be created if He did not want someone to go back through it to save mankind. But first, we have to deal with the war that coming soon. That conflict will make the war that destroys humanity possible.”

  “Another war?”

  “Yes, my dear. This war will be the largest that mankind has ever seen and will encompass the entire globe. Tens of millions of people will die in it. But this conflict will also provide the reason for the development of the nuclear weapons that will doom our descendants one hundred years later.

  Mind you, I have no problems at all with the development of nuclear power for peaceful purposes. But the technology has to be kept under control for the benefit of all mankind. Even rational people make irrational decisions that can cost the lives of billions. I know this all too well, I’m afraid.” Harold sadly said.

  “I had read about the experiments with radium and pitchblende earlier, Harold. But I thought that making bombs that would destroy entire cities and poison millions of people to be purely fantasy that belonged in the pages of an H.G. Wells novel.”

  “No, Dorothy. What the scientists and engineered created was most certainly no fantasy. During the next world war, single bombs using refined uranium or a new man-made radioactive element called plutonium completely destroyed two Japanese cities. Then for the next nine decades, nations built tens of thousands more of these terrible weapons, some a thousand times more powerful than the first nuclear bombs.” Harold grimly explained.

  “These ‘nuclear’ weapons are the reason why you traveled back in time, Harold?” Dorothy asked while intently looking into Harold’s eyes. He could see the love, worry and strength is Dorothy’s eyes as she looked at him and listened to his incredible story.

  “Mostly, but I also wanted to try to change some other things as well. The people that have been running Russia since 1917 spread their Marxist poison throughout much of the world in the decades to come. They tried to convince people that communism would make everyone equal. Instead, they enslaved the majority of their fellow countrymen to a tiny corrupt elite and instigated numerous wars of aggression. This led to many millions of unnecessary deaths even before the final war. This was also a major element in the war that doomed humanity in the future that I came from. I want to try to change things so that Marxism will be defeated before it can do so much damage to the world. Maybe with it and nuclear weapons gone, we can find a course that will take us away from all of this conflict.

  I’d love for humanity to be able to ultimately focus its efforts away from war and towards travelling to the stars. That way, we all really do have a future this time.”

  “Harold, that sounds like an incredible goal. I will do everything that I can to help you achieve it. But I am afraid that there is going to be a lot more war in the near future based on what I have been reading. You feel the same way too, I think. You are building companies that can easily make weapons of war, some of them are specifically oriented towards armaments.”

  “You are right, Dorothy. But we in the civilized world cannot survive without the means of defending ourselves. I just don’t want us to go down the path of developing weapons that will destroy us all in the blink of an eye before we can stop the madness. There are far too many charismatic madmen in the world who would take that step regardless of the consequences.”

  “Something tells me some of those charismatic madmen are already among us.” Dorothy insightfully responded.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. Unfortunately, even I cannot do anything about them at this point.” Harold admitted.

  “Can we do anything about them now? Surely you know who they are.”

  “Yes, I can research all sorts of information from my computer database on people like Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and others like them. The problem is while they are very influential men, they are only part of the problem. The systems that each of them represents have to be destroyed. That is going to take a massive war to accomplish.”

  You couldn’t just arrange to assassinate them? I know that would mean murdering them. But aren’t they already guilty of murder themselves by now?” Dorothy asked.

  “Perhaps some of them could be killed. It would be very difficult because many of these evil men are already very well protected by their supporters. Also, if I try to attack them directly, it will draw unnecessary attention to me and my current efforts. There is also the possibility that someone will replace them who is even worse as well.”

  “I understand. So you won’t be able to stop the war that is coming?”

  “Not this one, I’m afraid. I just don’t have the power at this point. But maybe I can help save some lives and prevent other conflicts that come after this one. This war, like the one before, spread the seeds of many other conflicts, including the one that destroys the world in the future that I came from. Maybe I can do something about that.”

  “That is certainly a worthy goal, Harold. I can see why are doing what you are doing then. It also probably applies your strengths as well. You are obviously very talented as a businessman but also you know the applied sciences very well.”

  “Yes, this is all true. I studied at the University to be a mechanical engineer at a relatively young age which is where I received much of my technical training. But I also received minors in Business and Economics as well before I truly started my career.”

  Dorothy then sat silently for a few moments before speaking.

  “I am very curious about the wife that you lost while you were in the future. You told me some things about Judith. I dearly want to learn the rest of her story. How did you lose her? It must have been very hard on you because of how much you used her name while you had those terrible nightmares.”

  Harold hesitated for a moment. Dorothy had asked a very difficult and
painful question. But he knew that now was the time to be completely open and honest if she was going to truly understand him.

  “Judith was Jewish, you know. In fact, she was what some people would call a Zionist. She believed so strongly in the continued existence of the modern state of Israel that she would often travel there and help the Israelis in whatever way that she could, no matter the danger. She even served as a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Force as a young woman. She saw the horrors of war and terrorism first hand. But Judith never shied away from what she felt needed to be done. Judith also beautiful, brilliant and extraordinarily talented. She was even more intelligent than I.

  Well, she was visiting Tel Aviv, when an Arab terrorist plot was uncovered. The Islamic terrorists had planted a nuclear bomb somewhere in the city. Rather than run away, Judith volunteered to search for the device. She was on the team that found it. She stayed to try to disarm the bomb while the area was being evacuated.

  They realized that they could not stop the timer on the bomb. But Judith still refused to leave. She attacked the device with whatever tools were at hand, hoping to damage it enough that it would not detonate. She very nearly succeeded. The bomb detonated finally. But because of the damage to it inflicted by Judith, the device did not reach critical yield. The explosive force was a tiny fraction of what it might have been. Instead of destroying virtually an entire city, the bomb only destroyed the building that it had been found in.

  The Israelis told me that they knew that Judith had been the one who saved all those lives because what she did was all caught by a video camera.”

  “A video camera?”

  “I know. Video is still a little before your time. But it was essentially a small movie camera that transmitted the images electronically to a separate monitor screen, something like the screen on my portable computer here.”

  “You had such wonderful devices in the future, Harold. I hope that I live to see all of them.” An amazed Dorothy remarked.