Weird Tales volume 36 number 02

by McIlwraith, Dorothy

  out alive within the next twenty-four hours, I will have the answer to the earth's salvation in my head. Should I fail to return and unlock the door—the task of informing the world of its ultimate end lies with you both." He smiled then. "I guess that's all." With these words he left them and went swiftly down the corridor.

  TJUT Aaron Carruthers was not alone -*-* when he reached the door to the Projector laboratory. Vignot and Danzig were close behind.

  "So!" boomed Vignot. "You want to get rid of me now I'm here and have checked on your arithmetic. You want to make your experiment alone and leave me and Karl behind. Nonsense. We're in this crazy experiment as much as you are. Your dangers will be our dangers."

  "Vignot's right," agreed Danzig. "I won't say another word, Aaron. Let's get started."

  "I'm grateful to you both," sighed Carruthers, opening the door. "Come in, please. The room is more or less upset, but the apparatus is in perfect working order."

  They entered.

  "Hmmmm!" grunted the chemist. "What is this machine—an atom smasher?"

  Carruthers nodded. "A variation of the main principle, but it goes much farther in its delving into the core of life. This ponderous machine, though much smaller than those giants in use at the government's research laboratories, has successfully bombarded that rare clement of Thoridium, atomic weight 319, "with heavy neutrons thereby stepping its weight up to 320. And since the even-numbered atoms are explosive, the Thoridium split into two parts creating the greatest energy ever produced by man."

  He held up his hand as Vignot attempted to break in. "Wait a minute. Let me continue. This energy explosive and

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  powerful though it is when harnessed to our new atomic motors, has produced a bi-product of weird potentialities. When I imprisoned this energy within a vacuum prism of Saigon's metallic glass, I became aware of a most singular phenomenon. This energy, when sealed in a vacuum, quickened the pulse of the universe, and shattered the world's yardstick of time. That is—the force of this newly-created energy is so potent, so far beyond anything man has yet dreamed of, that it moves faster than time itself. A paradox? Perhaps. But it is the sole actuating force of the Time Projector."

  Vignot tugged at his beard. "These transparent walls around projector walls. What is their purpose?"

  "Pure quartz. An outside as well as an inside wall with water between to keep the emanations from escaping. Karl, you'd better switch on our own power. I don't want to chance any fluctuation of the city current if I can help it. And phone the building engineer to start our basement dynamos."

  A moment after Danzig had carried out these orders, the laboratory began to vibrate gently.

  "There isn't much to be seen," explained Carruthers, "but the control board, the insulated chairs with their contact helmets, and the 21-inch circular prism of Saigon's metallic glass suspended between plastic posts which keeps the prism rigid."

  He indicated the chairs. "Sit down, please, both of you. Karl, you take the chair near the power control station. Vignot, you sit in the center chair. And Til take the one on the right which enables me to control and regulate the forces sealed within the Thoridium power plant which actuates the Time Projector. Is it all clear?"

  "Not quite," said Vignot. "This metal helmet . . ."

  "Place it over your head the same as I'm

  doing. And I'm warning you, Vignot, that you're goiog to be subject to some pain and bewildering sensations. Keep both palms on the metal handrests of the chair, and don't look at me, or at Danzig. Keep your eyes and mind focused on one point only —the Saigon prism."

  He turned to the control panel beside him. "Now. I'll adjust the cycle of our explorations into the time period ten years in advance of this hour with an automatic shut-off just in case—"

  "One more question," observed Vignot. "What part of us is it that goes forward in space?"

  "All of us, and yet no part of us, for our bodies will actually remain here in these chairs. Always keep that in mind no matter what happens. We may be injured. We may be killed. But that will be in the future. And when the experiment has ended, we will find ourselves in these same chairs, neither injured or dead, but exactly as we are at this moment."

  "Go ahead," snapped the chemist. "This waiting has become intolerable."

  "Contact, Karl. The energy tube series first, using the odd numbers. Then switch to the even ones with a ten-second interval between. First contact. Good. Careful now—three, four, five—not yet—seven, eight, nine—contact points of the even-numbered series—Close your switch!"

  FROM somewhere inside the laboratory came a sputtering crack. And across their field of vision shot a serpentine streamer of deep-red flame. It impinged against the prism and flowed over it like red dye.

  Within the metal walls of the Thoridium power plant there was a sound like an imprisoned gale escaping. Carruthers listened for a disturbed moment, then he brought his mind back to the prism.

  He saw it glowing redly then change slowly to orange and through the orderly

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  prismatic scheme of yellow and blue to violet. He braced himself for whit lay beyond the violet. This was the breaking point between the present and the unknown future.

  A gradual mistiness engulfed the laboratory, the prism and the Thoridium power plant.

  The vibrations within the laboratory seemed to lessen in intensity. An eerie silence muffled all sounds. Almost imperceptibly the mist became denser. It enveloped the plastic posts like streamers of fog, then swirled around the glowing prism in a translucent, ghostly halo.

  Its effect was hypnotic. He couldn't move his eyes. His mind lost its alertness and became sluggish. Slowly the violet glow faded into a color beyond the purple —a color he had never seen before.

  This strange and unfamiliar hue distressed him, made him uneasy. He knew he was seeing something nature had never intended man to see, and in seeing it, he was being punished. Still, there was no way he could stop it. The experiment had passed beyond his control.

  Restlessness crept over him in slimy coils of doubt. He felt light-headed and unstable as if his body was suspended over a deep abyss and would at any moment drop into black, terrifying silence that would last forever.

  There were no thoughts in his mind of the other two men. The spell of the prism had erased them completely from his memory. He had even forgotten why he was sitting in the chair, staring at the scintillating, changing effulgence of the space-quickening prism.

  It was then that lightness and darkness seemed to be struggling for supremacy. Dark would follow daylight. And daylight would follow dark. At first, these changes were slow and labored. Gradually, however, they quickened in tempo until the space between his eyes and the prism that

  held them in thralldom flickered with lights and shadows.

  He sensed, somehow, that these Bickerings were caused by the swift passage of days and nights. And he knew that he was moving forward into time.

  How long he remained in this state of mind suspension he never knew. The end came following a torturous succession of sounds and sensations. He became aware of a monotonous ticking in his ears. Cold enveloped him that quickly changed to a devitalizing heat. Dimly, at first, he sensed a change in his surroundings. Things seemed to be the same, yet different. The prism suspended between the plastic posts was diminishing into space. To his ears, after the peculiar ticking had subsided, came strange sounds like the lament of thousands upon thousands of voices.

  It was like a dirge of despair, of hope abandoned, of fear and anguish. It seemed purposeless and without meaning. Suddenly, and without warning, a ball of purple, eye-searing radiance exploded all around him.

  The last link between the present and the future had snapped. In the vortex of the concussion some unseen force gripped him, and hurled his helpless body squarely into the core of this purple flame.

  There was no pain, no sensation in this weird phenomenon. Ther
e was only for-getfumess and memory failure. He had successfully crossed the unknown abyss of ten years in less than seven earth minutes. And he never knew it.

  Part II

  STANDING before the quartz glass windows, Aaron Carruthers watched the exodus of human beings from the great city. Never had he seen the four-speed transportation bands so jammed with people.

  The sight of the continuous stampede

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  mads him sad. He knew why they were leaving the hot pavements of the city and fleeing to the seashore, lakes and rivers. He knew, also, that wherever they went, whatever they did, they could not escape. The world seemed doomed.

  Each day the glowing Mass in the sky was drawing steadily nearer and increasing in size as it came closer. It was so bright that it could be seen by day. Its brilliance was like that of a small sun. And its heat more intense.

  He turned from the window. As he reached his desk he noted the small calendar. The year of 2017 still had four months to go. Probably it would be the last year in the history of mankind. The door to the corridor was opening. Through it came Danzig and Vignot. Their faces were red and moist with sweat.

  "It's what you might call warm outside, 1 ' complained the chemist. "And it isn't going to get any cooler either. Everybody is leaving the city. As a matter of fact all the cities are being abandoned. Wherever there is a lake, river or any body of water, the populace is flocking toward these blessed spots. Any news?" he finished.

  "None," said Carruthers, grimly, "but what you already know."

  "How is your Annihilator progressing?"

  "Iu's about finished—or it should be. I'm making an inspection trip in a few minutes. Better come with me."

  "You think it will work?"

  Carruthers shrugged, and his jaw tightened. "How can I be absolutely certain. It should work by all the laws of science. At any rate, it's too late to worry as to whether it'll work or not. If it succeeds, we'll live to know. If it doesn't, I don't know as it will matter. We'll be nothing but powdered ashes. If you're ready now, we'll go to Thunder Mountain at once."

  They left the laboratory, went to the roof and there boarded a rocket ship

  which carried them north to the site of what might prove to be the world's last folly in scientific engineering.

  From the air as the ship approached the landing field on top of Thunder Mountain towered a giant steei tube that at first glance seemed puny when viewed from the great heights of the air. But once the rocket ship had landed, and the men readied the workings, its monstrous size became apparent.

  Through a new metallurgical process, the metal tube had been cast in a block without seams or rivets. It towered nearly three-hundred feet upwards from its base, and was roughly fifty feet in diameter. What the tube contained inside only a few men understood.

  Irs purpose—to annihilate the approaching Mass of vegetation and earth by a continuous bombardment of its metal core with a concentrated beam of heavy neutrons. People, including many famous scientists, had scoffed at the sheer audacity of the idea. It was preposterous and doomed to failure.

  Yet, in spite of opposition from all quarters, Aaron Carruthers had gone ahead perfecting the Annihilator. It had taken him years to figure out the construction and beam control. First there had been a small model which hadn't worked. That was the first setback. The metal of which he had constructed the first tube wouldn't stand up under the terrific onslaught of neutrons pouring from the electro-car-bonide rods. Even the best of the metallurgists had been unable to furnish him with the right kind of metal.

  Quite by accident Carruthers discovered a formula he had once used to replace a Tungsten wire within a vacuum tube of an electronic oscillator resistor coil. Using this formula, he had constructed a second machine. The metal walls of the tube on this second machine not only took the beating from the neutrons, but also increased their

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  power by keeping them into a solid beam that could be directed into space without endangering any metallic substance near at hand.

  And this was the machine they had come to inspect. It had been erected on a high mountain away from any city. Its foundations were anchored deep in bedrock. Steel cables, their tension controlled by pneumatic shock absorbers, kept the metal tube from swaying in the high winds that constantly swept the mountain top.

  Current for the dynamos beneath the structure came from a power-station at the base of the mountain. Yet no one knew, even Carruthers himself, whether this mammoth tube, pouring forth a controlled stream of annihilating neutrons, would be of sufficient power to break up the Mass hurtling toward the earth. But the young scientist had gone too far with his preparations to abandon them for something equally unpredictable. The Mass must be destroyed.

  Even in the light of day men all over the world could see that it was coming steadily nearer and nearer. Occasionally it would flare into a white brilliance as it crashed into a meteor or wandering planetoid. But these collisions did not turn it aside. It came on and on, never swerving never slowing up.

  Its heat spread out before it, increasing each day, Now the glowing Mass was in the east, now in the west as the earth circled lazily around the sun. The temperature continued to rise steadily night and day from seventy, to ninety, to a hundred and three. On this day it had readied a hundred and seven.

  As Carruthers walked swiftly toward the metal structure that was destined to play so important a part in the world's salvation, the construction engineer came to meet him.

  "It's no use, Carruthers," he said, grimly. "We're near the end of the job, but

  not yet finished. All the men are quitting. It's too damned hot. They can't stand it."

  "Hire more men," ordered Carruthers. "The work's got to go on. We can't stop now. Don't you understand the importance—?"

  "I'm simply explaining' the facts."

  "Hire more men as I said, and work them three hours a day at double pay for a full day's work."

  "I'll do the best I can," nodded the engineer, "but I make no promises that the work will continue according to schedule. It isn't that the men don't want—" He stopped abruptly and stared stupidly at the young scientist.

  The earth was trembling. A sudden flash of bluish light struck the top of the mountain, swirled like a miniature cyclone, then vanished in a thunderous, splitting crack. The shock knocked every man down.

  Carruthers scrambled to his feet. He had known this was coming. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, enormous tides and floods all over the world would be the natural result of the approaching Mass. And his heart began to pound with unknown fears.

  Yet there was no sign of fear on his face as he stood erect once more and then braced himself against the next ground upheaval. His eyes swerved upward. The steel tube was rocking perilously. One of the cables had come loose from its anchorage in the ground.

  He raced toward its free end whipping crazily at the tube's base. But he never readied it. Something else claimed his attention. He kept on running to where the ground sloped away sharply, and checked suddenly on the raw edge of an earth crevasse six feet wide. He understood now why the cable had puiied ioose from its anchorage. The earth had split in a wide seam, and from it began to roll thick clouds of brownish smoke.

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  Coughing, he stepped back and stumbled over a coil of rope. He gathered it up, fastened one end around the steel cable, and looped the free end around the base of a pine tree.

  Hardly had he finished when the ground began to rock in a grinding movement from east to west. He dropped to his hands and knees. Smoke, pouring from the widening crevasse, enveloped him with noxious fumes.

  His courage at that moment dropped to a low ebb. Was this to be the end of his years of patient and heart-breaking work? Was the world going to lose its one chance of survival because of an unpredictable eruption underground. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. They were smarting from the fumes belching from the fissur
e.

  Voices that were indistinct reached his ears. He closed his eyes against the smoke and staggered toward the sound. A hand closed around his arm and he heard Danzig speaking.

  "We've got to get down from this mountain, Aaron. Some deep earthquake disturbance has almost split Thunder Mountain in two."

  Carruthers continued to rub his eyes. "And leave the work of years unfinished, Karl?*' He shook his head. "You can go if you want to. You're under no obligation to remain. But I'm staving right here. I've work to do—work that can no longer be delayed. I wasn't prepared to start the bombardment. There's still a great deal of equipment lacking. However, I have no choice. Leave me alone now. Til carry on."

  "But, Aaron. You can't. If these shocks continue, they'll cause the base of the Anni-hilator to disintegrate. It's almost ready to topple right now."

  A gust of wind swirled across the mountain top driving the smoke away from the giant structure. "See?" pointed out the

  young scientist. "The tube is still standing. And as long as it stands, I believe there is hope. I'm starting right now to unleash the heavy neutrons. There can be no more delay."

  "And Tm going to remain with you," promised Danzig. Turning, he ran toward the steel hatchway leading inside the metal tube.

  Carruthers started to follow. Then his eyes wandered toward the smoking crevasse some distance away. Even as he watched it. the distance across its top continued to widen. The wind slackened, and smoke billowed around him. Groping blindly, he crashed into George Vignot. Together both men stumbled toward the opening in the metal tube.

  Danzig slammed the metal door shut. "I think we're all three of us fools, Aaron. We ought to have gone with the others. No telling how long this mountain will remain in existence."

  Carruthers seemed not to have heard. He went at once to the glittering panel of his ether-vision machine. Seating himself before it he kicked a switch forward with his foot, clicked two more with his right hand, and slowly began to revolve a dial.

  The silver surface of a magnetic vision screen became fogged and slightly agitated. This lasted but a few seconds until the space tubes warmed to their utmost efficiency. Then the silver of the magnetic screen faded slightly and turned to a greenish blue.