My Best Science Fiction Story

by Leo Margulies

  A fat, jolly, moon-faced fellow in the costume of old Babylon waddled up to them. That he was the master of the inn, Merrill knew by the brimming wine-cups he was carrying as he greeted them.

  “Welcome, friend Guinard!” he boomed. “And you too, Ikhnaton—but remember, no more arguments about theology.”

  His eyes fell on Merrill, behind them. And he stiffened. “But this man is not one of us!”

  The booming words rang out so suddenly loud that they cut across the argument in the room, and all heads turned toward them.

  The tall, bald, bleak-eyed Roman put down his goblet and strode up to them. He faced Merrill.

  “How came you here?” he demanded sharply. “Do you have the Sign?”

  “Wait, Caesar,” begged Guinard urgently. “He doesn’t have the Sign. But it’s hot his fault that he’s here.”

  Caesar? Julius Caesar? Merrill could only stare at the Roman and then at the others.

  The quiet, grave-faced man in Elizabethan costume interposed himself into the argument.

  “You remember me, Guinard? Francis Bacon. May I ask where you and Ikhnaton found this man?”

  The Egyptian king made a gesture of denial. “I never saw him until a few minutes ago.”

  “His name is Merrill, and he came with me,” Carlus Guinard said rapidly. His voice rose with tension. “It’s my fault that he’s here. I was not careful enough about being alone when I came through, and he got caught in the force of the Sign and was swept with me.”

  Guinard hurried on. “If there’s any blame for his coming, it attaches to my carelessness. But I was half-crazy tonight with worry. Back in my time, my people reel on the brink of anarchy and destruction. I have to save them. And so I have come to you others—for help.”

  The handsome young man in the queer flexible metal garment stared at him incredulously.

  “For our help? You know we can’t help you to do anything in your own time, Guinard!”

  “Zyskyn is right,” nodded Francis Bacon. “You surely should have known that, Guinard.”

  “But I must have help!” Guinard exclaimed feverishly. “Some of you are from times future to my own, and your greater science and wisdom can save millions of my people. At least, let me tell you!”

  Caesar’s curt voice cut into the excited babble that followed. “Let’s take things in order. This is a serious thing you propose, Guinard. For the time being, we’ll pass over the matter of this man you chanced to bring with you. His fate can be decided later. Sit down, all of you, and we’ll hear what Guinard has to say.”

  Merrill could see that Gurnard’s proposal had thrown a bombshell into this group. As they returned to the table, all were still excitedly talking, all except the brooding, cowled man who had not stirred.

  Merrill found himself pushed into a seat at the table by Ikhnaton. The young Egyptian king looked at him with friendly glance.

  “It must seem strange to you, eh?” Ikhnaton said, over the excited clamor. “It did to me, when I first came through. I was almost afraid to use the Sign.”

  “How did you get the Sign?” Merrill asked him. “How were you initiated into—this?”

  Ikhnaton explained. “Rodemos of Atlantis—he isn’t here tonight—was the first to find a way into this world. He passed down the secret, which is imparted to only a few men in each generation.”

  The Egyptian continued. “I imagine you have heard of most of these here tonight. Though some, of course, are still in your future.”

  Merrill learned that the handsome Zyskyn was a great scientist of the 31st century Antarctican civilization. The old Chinese was Lao-tse of the 6th Century B.C. and the swarthy, slender man beside him was the Dutch philosopher Spinoza.

  Stout, pawky Benjamin Franklin sat beside the great Buddhist emperor Asoka. Next to them was John Loring, a famous space-explorer of the 25th Century, and across from them the merry face of Francois Rabelais.

  “It’s incredible,” Merrill said hoarsely. “I’ve read and heard of most of these men—Caesar, yourself—I know how long you lived and how you died.”

  Ikhnaton interrupted sharply. “Don’t mention anything like that! It’s considered bad taste to talk here of a man’s personal future, even when you know it from history. It would be disconcerting, you know.”

  Merrill gestured past the excitedly clamoring group toward the cowled man who sat strangely silent and unmoved at the end of the table.

  His face fascinated Merrill. It was smooth and young, but his dark, watching eyes had something infinitely old about them.

  “Who is that?” he asked the Egyptian.

  Ikhnaton shrugged. “That’s Su Suum, who never talks about himself. We know only that he comes from some far future time, farther even than Zyskyn’s age. He comes often, but just sits and listens.”

  The clamor of discussion that had been unloosed by Guinard’s proposal was quelled again by the crisp voice of Julius Caesar.

  “Will you not be quiet enough so that we may at least hear what Guinard has to say?” he demanded.

  The uproar quieted. Men sat back down, and looked toward Guinard. Franklin polished his steel-rimmed spectacles with a silk handkerchief, while Rabelais drained his wine-cup and set it down with a sigh.

  Merrill looked back and forth along the faces. From Ikhnaton of old Egypt, beside him, to the farthest end of the table where sat the silent figure of Su Suum, man of the remotest future.

  Guinard was speaking urgently. “I know the laws of our brotherhood as well as you. First, to keep this world and our meetings always secret. Second, to give the Sign which is our badge of fellowship only to those who are above petty self-seeking. And third, that one age of Earth must never through us directly influence another age.

  “Nevertheless,” he continued earnestly, “I desire tonight that you grant an exception to that third law. I come here for my people, seeking aid to save my 20th Century land and race from utter misery.”

  He went on, telling them of his war-stricken land and of the danger that anarchy and terror would crush its millions. He pictured his own helplessness to halt the tide.

  Loring, the space-explorer of the 25th, interrupted. “But from what I’ve read of your century’s history, those convulsions of which you speak will finally end.”

  “They will end, yes, but before then millions of my people will have lived starved and stunted lives!” Guinard exclaimed. “It is to prevent that that I appeal to you for help.”

  “Let us be clear,” said Socrates keenly. “Just what sort of help do you desire?”

  Guinard looked toward Zyskyn, and John Loring, and the silent man called Su Suum.

  “You three,” he told them, “come from far future times when scientific progress is great. Could none of you suggest any scientific means of psychologically pacifying my people into good-will and cooperation?”

  Merrill saw that Su Suum remained silent, watching abstractedly and making «o sign of assent. But young Zyskyn answered slowly.

  “Why, yes, down in Antarctica our psycho-mechanists long ago solved that problem. We have certain apparatus whose subtle radiation we use to manipulate the psychology of backward peoples, and twist their thinking toward peace and cooperation.”

  “Give me the secret of that apparatus and with it I can save millions in my time from misery!” cried Guinard.

  That the proposal was disturbing, Merrill could see. The group were silent, looking troubledly at each other.

  Then old Lao-tse spoke, using the unfamiliar language slowly and with difficulty.

  “I am opposed to doing that. For it would violate the laws of time and infinity which separate the ages of our Earth. It would introduce a confusion of eras which might bring on cosmic disaster.”

  Ikhnaton retorted warmly. “What harm could it do? Guinard would keep his use of the apparatus secret. And it would save many. I say, let us make an exception to our law and help him.”

  Loring, the space-explorer, looked anxiously at the bald Gree
k next him. “Socrates, you’re one of the wisest of us. What do you say?”

  The Greek rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “It is my belief that all outward things are but forms and shadows of the ideal, and I cannot credit that the ideal laws of the universe would permit transgressing the bounds of Earthly time without dire results.”

  Francis Bacon spoke precisely and calmly. “I hold the other opinion. Once I wrote that our object should be to extend man’s dominion over all the universe. Why not conquer time as space has been conquered?”

  Spinoza and Franklin shook their heads doubtfully, and then Caesar interrupted restlessly.

  “Talk, talk—we have too much of it here. What Guinard wants is action and help. Are we to give it to him?”

  “I say again, let us help him!” Ikhnaton exclaimed. “Why should not the future aid the past, as the past has always aided its future?”

  Rabelais shook his head sorrowfully. “Men are fools. Guinard’s people would have no more troubles if they forgot their hatreds and hopes and stuck to their drinking.”

  Zyskyn spoke troubledly to the old statesman. “Guinard, they seem to feel there is too much danger in what you ask.”

  Guinard’s thin shoulders sagged. “Then I shall never be able to steer my people out of their misery.”

  Uproar of argument broke out again. Merrill ignored it. The desperation, the hopelessness, in the old statesman’s face had wakened a fierce resolve in the young American.

  “Guinard, there’s one way to get what you want,” he muttered. “This way!”

  And Merrill snatched out the flat pistol inside his jacket and leveled it at Zyskyn.

  “I hate to do this,” he said to the dumfounded group. “But I’ve seen the misery that Guinard is trying to relieve. He’s got to have your help. You’ll promise him the apparatus he needs, or—”

  “Or what, man of the past?” said young Zyskyn, smiling faintly at Merrill.

  He made a swift motion with his hand. From a bracelet on his wrist leaped a little tongue of green light.

  It hit Merrill’s arm with paralyzing shock. The pistol dropped from his nerveless fingers.

  The silence was broken by Caesar’s laugh. “I like that young fool. At least, he doesn’t just talk—he tries to act.”

  “He has shown that the people of his age are too barbaric to be trusted with Zyskyn’s science,” snapped the space-explorer, Loring.

  Guinard looked down strickenly at the American. “Lieutenant, you shouldn’t have done that!”

  And then suddenly, through the increased uproar of disputing voices that followed Merrill’s impulsive action and defeat, there came a slow, chill voice.

  “Will you listen to me, brothers?”

  It was the man at the farthest end of the long table who was speaking. The cowled figure of Su Suum, always before silent.

  Zyskyn, Caesar, Franklin—all in the room were stricken to silence by the unexpected voice. They stared wonderingly at Su Suum.

  “You have often wondered about me,” Su Suum said quietly. “I told you that I came from Earth’s far future, but I did not tell you more than that. I preferred to listen. But now, I think, I must speak.

  “I come from a time far in Earth’s future, indeed. By your reckoning, it would be the 14,000th Century.”

  “That far?” whispered Zyskyn, astounded. “But—”

  Su Suum, his strange young-old face quiet and passionless, continued. “As to who I am—I am the last.”

  A terrible realization came to Merrill, of the meaning of those quiet words. “You mean—?” Socrates was murmuring astoundedly.

  “Yes,” said Su Suum. “I mean that I am the last man of all men. The final survivor of the race to whose past you all belong.”

  His brooding eyes looked beyond them into infinite space and time. “All the history of our race, I know. I could tell you all of it, how the first star-colonists left Earth in the 34th Century, how the cooling Earth was itself evacuated in the 108th, how for thousands on thousands of years our race spread out through the galaxies and founded a cosmic empire of power and splendor you could not even imagine.

  “And I could tell you, too, of how with the long ages that empire finally shrunk and withered as the galaxies faded and died. Of how the mighty realm and the trillioned races of men fell in inevitable decline, shrinking with the eras to fewer worlds, until at last but a remnant of them were left on a dying world far across the galaxy.

  “I was the last of that remnant,” Su Suum continued. “The last of all men left in a dying, darkened universe. With me, human history concludes its glorious span as we all knew that somewhere and someday it must conclude itself.”

  The cowled man made a gesture. “I was lonely, in that dying, haunted universe. And before I died I wanted to come back to the little world from which our race sprang, the Earth. Dead, icy and forlorn it is in my era—and I the only man upon it.

  “That is why, by means of the Sign that descended through the ages to me, I came among you. I have sat here many times with you men of the past, listening to your talk of the ages. And to me, it has been as though I relived the wonderful saga of our race.”

  The men—these men from as many different ages—stared at Su Suum as though he were indeed a ghost from beyond death.

  Merrill finally heard old Lao-Tse ask, “Then, last of men, what is your word as to the decision we must make on Guinard’s request?”

  Su Suum spoke slowly. “My word is this: Even though it were possible to transgress the bounds of Earth’s ages without disaster, even though you were able thus to save your peoples from confusion and struggle, would it be great gain?

  “I tell you this—no matter what great powers you win, no matter how high you carry human achievement, in the end it must all conclude with me. Must end with a perished race, humanity’s story told, all the great goals you struggled toward fallen to dust and nothingness.

  “So, it is not important that you may not attain the goals toward which you struggle. What is important is the way in which you carry on that struggle, your own courage and kindness from day to day. Though you attain the most glittering Utopia of your dreams, yet it will someday perish. But the mere passing days of struggle that you make splendid by your courage, the record that you write in the pages of the past, that can never perish.”

  Merrill saw Guinard stand up, and in the midst of a deep silence speak unsteadily.

  “I am answered from the world’s end,” said the old statesman. “And you have given me the courage of which you speak.”

  He looked around the silent group. “I shall return now. May my young friend return with me? I guarantee his silence.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and then Caesar made a gesture. “Let him go, friends. Gurnard’s guarantee is good.” Guinard held his medallion-watch above himself and Merrill, pressed the jewels on its back. The thread of blinding light from the instrument struck the American and he knew nothing.

  Merrill awoke with sun streaming into his eyes. He sat up dazedly and found himself on the couch in Guinard’s shabby hotel room.

  The old man was bending over him. “I fear that you fell asleep in here last night, Lieutenant.”

  Merrill sprang to his feet. “Guinard! We’re back on Earth, then! They let me come back!”

  Guinard frowned at him in perplexity. “Back on Earth? I don’t understand. I’m afraid you’ve been dreaming.”

  Merrill clutched his arm. “It was no dream! You were there with me, with Caesar, Socrates, all of them! And that man Su Suum—good God, the last of the human race—”

  Guinard soothingly patted his shoulder. “There, Lieutenant, you’ve apparently had a nightmare of some kind.”

  Merrill stared at him. Then he spoke slowly. “I think I understand. You guaranteed my silence. You know that if you pretend it all never happened, I’ll have to keep silent, since nobody would ever believe me.”

  The old statesman shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t kno
w what you’re talking about.”

  Merrill felt staggered. Had it all then really been mere fabric of dream, that brotherhood of the ages? If it were— Guinard was speaking. “Enough of this. There’s work to do. Work that may or may not pull my people together. But it’s got to be tried.”

  “But last night you were so hopeless,” Merrill said wonderingly.

  “That was my weakness,” Guinard said quietly. “I forgot that it is not whether we win or lose the struggle that matters most, but how we bear ourselves in the fight. I shall not weaken again.”

  The words of Su Suum reechoed in Merrill’s mind. And he knew now that it had been no dream, even though Guinard would never admit it, even though he’d never be able to convince anyone.

  And Guinard knew he knew, for the statesman’s eyes met his in a long, quiet look. Then the old man turned toward the door.

  “Come, Lieutenant. Our work is waiting for us.”

  The Professor Was a Thief - L. Ron Hubbard

  Preface

  IT was about two o’clock in the afternoon and Sergeant Kelly, having imbibed a bit too much corned beef and cabbage at lunch, was dozing comfortably at his desk. He did not immediately hear the stumbling feet of Patrolman O’Rourke, but when he did, he was, in consequence, annoyed.

  Sergeant Kelly opened his eyes, grunted, and sat slowly forward, hitching at his pants which he had unbuckled to ease his ballooning stomach.

  His eye was offended at first by Patrolman O’Rourke’s upset uniform and then, suddenly, interested. And what sergeantly eye would not have been? For Patrolman O’Rourke’s mouth was slack and his eyes could have been used as bowling balls. He ran into a spittoon and heeded its thundering protest and departure not at all. Bracing his tottering self against the desk without changing his dazed expression, O’Rourke gulped:

  “It’s gone.”

  “Well!” said Sergeant Kelly. “Don’t stand there like a jackanapes! Speak up! What’s gone?”