by Anthology
“An old, old man, wild as the wind and dirty as a hog wallow,” King thought, “yet, somehow, clearly the man I was after.”
Wolfe nodded slowly at his superior’s glance. “Sure, why not? I’ll cut his hair and give him a shave and a wash. When we’re about finished here, we can fire a shot from the gun on the table, if it’s still loaded . . . good! Report that Meyers caught him and held him for us; then, while we were questioning him, he went crazy, and Meyers took a shot at him.”
“Hm-m-m.” King’s idea had been about the same. “Men might suspect something, but I can trust them. He’d never stand a careful inspection, of course, without a lot of questions about such things as those feet, but the way things are, no really competent medical inspection will be made. It’ll be a little hard to explain those rags, though.” Meyers nodded to a bag against the wall. “You’ll find sufficient of his clothes there, major; we couldn’t pack out much luggage, but that much we brought.” He sank back into a rough chair slowly, the hollow in his cheeks deepening, but a grim humor in his eyes. “Now, you’ll want to know how it happened, no doubt? How he died? Suicide—murder; they’re one and the same here. He died insane.”
The car was long and low. European by its somewhat unrounded lines and engine housing, muddy with the ruck that sprayed up from its wheels and made the road almost impassable. Likewise, it was stolen, though that had no bearing on the matter at hand. Now, as it rounded an ill-banked curve, the driver cursed softly, jerked at the wheel, and somehow managed to keep all four wheels on the road and the whole pointed forward. His foot came down on the gas again, and it churned forward through the muck, then miraculously maneuvered another turn, and they were on a passable road and he could relax.
“Germany, my Leader,” he said simply, his large hands gripping at the wheel with now needless ferocity. “Here, of all places, they will least suspect you.”
The Leader sat hunched forward, paying little attention to the road or the risks they had taken previously. Whatever his enemies might say of his lack of bravery in the first war, there was no cowardice about him now; power, in unlimited quantity, had made him unaware of personal fear. He shrugged faintly, turning his face to the driver, so that the reversed question-mark scar showed up, running from his left eye down toward the almost comic little mustache. But there was nothing comic about him, somehow; certainly not to Karl Meyers.
“Germany,” he said, tonelessly. “Good. I was a fool, Meyers, ever to leave it. Those accursed British—the loutish Russians—ungrateful French—trouble-making Americans—bombs, retreats, uprisings, betrayals—and the two I thought were my friends advising me to flee to Switzerland before my people—Bah, I was a fool. Now those two friends would have me murdered in my bed, as this letter you brought testifies. And the curs stalk the Reich, such as remains of it, and think they have beaten me. Bonaparte was beaten once, and in a hundred days, except for the stupidity of fools and the tricks of weather, even he might have regained his empire . . . Where?”
“Bresseldorf. My home is near there, and the equipment, also. Besides, when we have—the legion with us, Bresseldorf will feed us, and the clods of peasants will offer little resistance. Also, it is well removed from the areas policed by the Army of Occupation. Thank God, I finished the machine in time.”
Meyers swung the car into another little used, but passable, road, and opened it up, knowing it would soon be over. This mad chase had taken more out of him than he’d expected. Slipping across into Switzerland, tracking, playing hunches, finally locating the place where the Führer was hidden had used almost too much time, and the growth within him that would not wait was killing him day by day. Even after finding the place, he’d been forced to slip past the guards who were half protecting, half imprisoning the Leader and use half a hundred tricks to see him. Convincing him of the conspiracy of his “friends” to have him shot was not hard; the Leader knew something of the duplicity of men in power, or fearful of their lives. Convincing him of the rest of the plan had been harder, but on the coldly logical argument that there was nothing else, the Führer had come. Somehow they’d escaped—he still could give no details of that—and stolen this car, to run out into the rain and the night over the mountain roads, through the back ways, and somehow out unnoticed and into Germany again.
The Leader settled more comfortably into the seat with an automatic motion, his mind far from body comforts. “Bresseldorf? And near it—yes, I remember that clearly now—within fifteen miles of there, there’s a small military depot those damned British won’t have found yet. There was a new plan—but that doesn’t matter now; what matters are the tanks, and better, the ammunition. This machine—will it duplicate tanks, also? And ammunition?”
Meyers nodded. “Tanks, cars, equipment, all of them. But not ammunition or petrol, since once used, they’re not on the chain any longer to be taken.”
“No matter. God be praised, there’s petrol and ammunition enough there, until we can reach the others; and a few men, surely, who are still loyal. I was beginning to doubt loyalty, but tonight you’ve shown it does exist. Some day, Karl Meyers, you’ll find I’m not ungrateful.”
“Enough that I serve you,” Meyers muttered. “Ah, here we are; good time made, too, since it’s but ten in the morning. That house is mine, inside you’ll find wine and food, while I dispose of this car in the little lake yonder. Fortunately, the air is still thick here, even though it’s not raining. There’ll be none to witness.”
The Leader had made no move to touch the food when Meyers returned. He was pacing the floor, muttering to himself, working himself up as Meyers had seen him do often before on the great stands in front of the crowds, and the mumbled words had a hysterical drive to them that bordered on insanity. In his eyes, though, there was only the insanity that drives men remorselessly to rule, though that ruling may be under a grimmer sword than that of Damocles. He stopped as he saw Meyers, and one of his rare and sudden smiles flashed out, unexpectedly warm and human, like a small, bewildered boy peering out from the chinks of the man’s armor. This was the man who had cried when he saw his soldiers dying, then sent them on again, sure they should honor him for the right to die; and like all those most loved or hated by their fellow men, he was a paradox of conflictions, unpredictable.
“The machine, Karl,” he reminded the other gently. “As I remember, the Jew—Christ—cast a thousand devils out of one roan; well, let’s see you cast ten thousand out of me—and devils they’ll be to those who fetter the Reich! This time I think we’ll make no words of secret weapons, but annihilate them first, eh? After that—there’ll be a day of atonement for those who failed me, and a new and greater Germany—master of a world!”
“Yes, my Leader.”
Meyers turned and slipped through the low door, back into a part of the building that had once been a stable, but was now converted into a workshop, filled with a few pieces of fine machinery and half a hundred makeshifts, held together, it seemed, with hope and prayer. He stopped before a small affair slightly larger than a suitcase, only a few dials and control knobs showing on the panel, the rest covered with a black housing. From it, two small wires led to a single storage battery, “This?” The Führer looked at it doubtfully. “This, Leader. This is one case where brute power has little to do, and the proper use everything. A few tubes, coils, condensers, two little things of my own, and perhaps five watts of power feeding in—no more. Just as the cap that explodes the bomb may be small and weak, yet release forces that bring down the very mountains. Simple in design, yet there’s no danger of them finding it.”
“So? And it works in what way?”
Meyers scowled, thinking. “Unless you can think in a plenum, my Leader, I can’t explain,” he began diffidently. “Oh, mathematicians believe they can—but they think in symbols and terms, not in the reality. Only by thinking in the plenum itself can this be understood, and with due modesty, I alone in the long years since I gave up work at Heidelberg have devoted the time a
nd effort—with untold pure luck—to master such thought. It isn’t encompassed in mere symbols on paper.”
“What,” the Leader wanted to know, a plenum?”
“A complete universe, stretching up and forward and sidewise—and durationally; the last being the difficulty. The plenum is—well, the composite whole of all that is and was and will be—it is everything and everywhen, all existing together as a unit, in which time does not move, but simply is, like length or thickness. As an example, years ago in one of those American magazines, there was a story of a man who saw himself. He came through a woods somewhere and stumbled on a machine, got in, and it took him three days back in time. Then, he lived forward again, saw himself get in the machine and go back. Therefore, the time machine was never made, since he always took it back, let it stay three days, and took it back again. It was a closed circle, uncreated.
but existent in the plenum. By normal nonplenar thought, impossible.”
“Someone had to make it.” The Leader’s eyes clouded suspiciously.
Meyers shook his head. “Not so. See, I draw this line upon the paper, calling the paper now a plenum. It starts here, follows here, ends here. That is like life, machines, and so forth. We begin, we continue, we end. Now, I draw a circle—where does it begin or end? Yes, followed by a two-dimensional creature, it would be utter madness, continuing forever without reason or beginning—to us, simply a circle. Or, here I have a pebble—do you see at one side the energy, then the molecules, then the compounds, then the stone, followed by breakdown products? No, simply a stone. And in a plenum, that time machine is simply a pebble—complete, needing no justification, since it was.”
The Leader nodded doubtfully, vaguely aware that he seemed to understand, but did not. If the machine worked, though, what matter the reason? “And—”
“And, by looking into the plenum as a unit, I obtain miracles, seemingly. I pull an object back from its future to stand beside its present, I multiply it in the present. As you might take a straight string and bend it into a series of waves or loops, so that it met itself repeatedly. For that, I need some power, yet not much. When I cause the bending from the future to the present, I cause nothing, since in a plenum, all that is, was and will be; when I bring you back, the mere fact that you are back means that you always have and always will exist in that manner. Seemingly then, if I did nothing, you would still multiply, but since my attempt to create such a condition is fixed in the plenum beside your multiplying at this time, therefore I must do so. The little energy I use, really, has only the purpose of not bringing you exactly within yourself, but separating individuals. Simple, is it not?”
“When I see an example, Meyers, I’ll believe my eyes,” the Leader answered.
Meyers grinned, and put a small coin on the ground, making quick adjustments of the dials. “I’ll cause it to multiply from each two minutes,” he said. “From each two minutes in the future, I’ll bring it back to now. See!”
He depressed a switch, a watch in his hand. Instantly, there was a spreading out and multiplying, instantaneous or too rapid to be followed. As he released the switch, the Leader stumbled backward away from the small mountain of coins. Meyers glanced at him, consulted his watch, and moved another lever at the top. After a second or so, the pile disappeared, as quietly and quickly as it had come into being. There was a glint of triumph or something akin to it in the scientist’s eyes as he turned back to the Führer.
“I’ve tried it on myself, so it’s safe to living things,” he answered the unasked question.
The Leader nodded impatiently and stepped to the place where the coin had been laid. “Get on with it, then. The sooner the accursed enemies and traitors are driven out, the better it will be.” Meyers hesitated. “There’s one other thing,” he said doubtfully. “When those others are here, there might be a question of leadership, which would go ill with us. I mean no offense, my Leader, but—well, sometimes a man looks at things differently at different ages, and any disagreement would delay us. Fortunately, though, there’s a curious by-product of the use of this machine; apparently, its action has some relation to thought, and I’ve found in my experiments that any strong thought on the part of the original will be duplicated in the others; I don’t fully understand it myself, but it seems to work that way. The compulsion dissipates slowly and is gone in a day or so, but—”
“So?”
“So, if you’ll think to yourself while you’re standing there: ‘I must obey my original implicitly; I must not cause trouble for my original or Karl Meyers,’ then the problem will be cared for automatically. Concentrate on that, my Leader, and perhaps it would be wise to concentrate also on the thought that there should be no talking by our legion, except as we demand.”
“Good. There’ll be time for talk when the action is finished. Now, begin!”
The Leader motioned toward the machine and Meyers breathed a sigh of relief as the scarred face crinkled in concentration. From a table at the side, the scientist picked up a rifle and automatic, put them into the other’s hands, and went to his machine.
“The weapons will be duplicated, also,” he said, setting the controls carefully. “Now, it should be enough if I take you back from each twenty-four hours in the future. And since there isn’t room here, I’ll assemble the duplicates in rows outside. So.”
He depressed the switch and a red bulb on the control panel lighted. In the room, nothing happened, for a few minutes; then the bulb went out, and Meyers released the controls. “It’s over. The machine has traced ahead and brought back until there was no further extension of yourself; living, that is, since I set it for you in life only.”
“But I felt nothing.” The Leader glanced at the machine with a slight scowl, then stepped quickly to the door for a hasty look. Momentarily, superstitious awe flicked across his face, to give place to sharp triumph. “Excellent, Meyers, most excellent. For this day, we’ll have the world at our feet, and that soon!”
In the field outside, a curious company was lined up in rows. Meyers ran his eyes down the ranks, smiling faintly, as he traced forward. Near, in almost exact duplication of the man at his side, were several hundred; then, as his eyes moved backward, the resemblance was still strong, but differences began to creep in. And farthest from him a group of old men stood, their clothes faded and tattered, their faces hidden under mangled beards. Rifles and automatics were gripped in the hands of all the legion. There were also other details, and Meyers nodded slowly to himself, but he made no mention of them to the Führer, who seemed not to notice.
The Leader was looking ahead, a hard glow in his eyes, his face contorted with some triumphant vision. Then, slowly and softly at first, he began to speak and to pace back and forth in front of the doorway, moving his arms. Meyers only half listened, busy with his own thoughts, but he could have guessed the words as they came forth with mounting fury, worked up to a climax and broke, to repeat it all again. Probably it was a great speech the Leader was making, one that would have swept a mob from their seats in crazy exultation in other days and set them screaming with savage applause. But the strange Legion of Later Leaders stood quietly, faces betraying varying emotions, mostly unreadable. Finally the speaker seemed to sense the difference and paused in the middle of one of his rising climaxes; he halfturned to Meyers, then suddenly swung back, decisively.
“But I speak to myselves,” he addressed the legion again in a level, reasonable voice. “You who come after me know what is to be this day and in the days to come, so why should I tell you? And you know that my cause is just. The Jews, the Jew-lovers, the Pluto-democracies, the Bolsheviks, the treasonous cowards within and without the Reich must be put down! They shall be! Now, they are sure of victory, but tomorrow they’ll be trembling in their beds and begging for peace. And soon, like a tide irresistible and without end, from the few we can trust many shall be made, and they shall sweep forward to victory. Not victory in a decade, nor a year, but in a month! We shall go north and sou
th and east and west! We shall show them that our fangs are not pulled; that those which we lost were but our milk teeth, now replaced by a second and harder growth!
“And, for those who would have betrayed us, or bound us down in chains to feed the gold lust of the mad democracies, or denied us the room to live which is rightfully ours—for those, we shall find a proper place. This time, for once and for all, there shall be an end to the evils that corrupt the earth—the Jews and the Bolsheviks, and their friends, and friends’ friends. Germany shall emerge, purged and cleansed, a new and greater Reich, whose domain shall not be Europe, nor this hemisphere, but the world!
“Many of you have seen all this in the future from which you come, and all of you must be ready to reassure yourselves of it today, that the glory of it may fill your tomorrow. Now, we march against a few peasants. Tomorrow, after quartering in Bresseldorf, we shall be in the secret depot, where those who remain loyal shall be privileged to multiply and join us, and where we shall multiply all our armament ten-thousandfold! Into Bresseldorf, then, and if any of the peasants are disloyal, be merciless in removing the scum! Forward!”
One of the men in the front—the nearest—was crying openly, his face white, his hands clenched savagely around the rifle he held, and the Leader smiled at the display of fervor and started forward. Meyers touched his shoulder.
“My Leader, there is no need that you should walk, though these must. I have a small auto here, into which we can put the machine. Send the legion ahead, and we’ll follow later; they’ll have little trouble clearing out Bresseldorf for us. Then, when we’ve packed our duplicator and I’ve assembled spare parts for an emergency, we can join them.”
“By all means, yes. The machine must be well handled.” The Führer nodded and turned back to the men. “Proceed to Bresseldorf, then, and we follow. Secure quarters for yourself and food, and a place for me and for Meyers; we stop there until I can send word to the depot during the night and extend my plans. To Bresseldorf!”