For McAllister, the moment that followed was one of blank impression. He stood, body twisted awkwardly, only vaguely conscious of the shop’s interior, but tremendously aware in the brief moment before he was interrupted of what lay beyond the transparent panels of the door through which he had just come.
There was no unyielding blackness anywhere, no Inspector Clayton, no muttering crowd of gaping spectators, no dingy row of shops across the way. It was not even the same street. There was no street. Instead, a peaceful park was visible. Beyond it, brilliant under a noon sun, was the skyline of a vast city. From behind him, a husky, musical, woman’s voice said:
“You will be wanting a gun?”
McAllister turned. The movement was automatic reaction to a sound. And because the affair was still like a dream, the city scene faded almost instantly; his mind focused on the young woman who was advancing slowly from the rear section of the store. Briefly, his thought wouldn’t come clear. A conviction that he ought to say something was tangled with first impressions of the girl’s appearance. She had a slender well-shaped body; her face was creased with a pleasant smile. She had brown eyes, and wavy brown hair. Her simple frock and sandals seemed so normal at first glance that he gave them no further thought. He was able to say:
“What I can’t understand is why the police officer, who tried to follow me, couldn’t get in. And where is he now?”
To his surprise, the girl’s smile became faintly apologetic: “We know that people consider it silly of us to keep harping on that ancient feud.” Her voice grew firmer. “We even know how clever the propaganda is that stresses the silliness of our stand. Meanwhile, we never allow any of her men in here. We continue to take our principles very seriously.”
She paused as if she expected comprehension from him. But McAllister saw from the slow puzzlement creeping into her eyes that his face must look as blank as the thoughts behind it. Her men! The girl had spoken the words as if she were referring to some personage, and in direct reply to his use of the word, police officer. That meant her men, whoever she was, were policemen; and they weren’t allowed in this gunshop. So the door was hostile, and wouldn’t admit them. An emptiness struck into McAllister’s mind, matching the hollowness that was beginning to afflict the pit of his stomach, a sense of unplumbed depths, the first staggering conviction that all was not as it should be. The girl was speaking in a sharper tone:
“You mean you know nothing of all this, that for generations the gunmaker’s guild has existed in this age of devastating energies as the common man’s only protection against enslavement? The right to buy guns—” She stopped, her narrowed eyes searching him; then: “Come to think of it, there’s something very peculiar about you. Your outlandish clothes—you’re not from the northern farm plains are you?”
He shook his head dumbly, more annoyed with his reactions every passing second. But he couldn’t help it. A tightness was growing in him now, becoming more unbearable instant by instant, as if somewhere a vital mainspring was being wound to the breaking point.
The young woman went on more swiftly: “And come to think of it, it is astounding that a policeman should have tried the door, and there was no alarm.”
Her hand moved. Metal flashed in it, metal as bright as steel in blinding sunlight. There was not the slightest hint of an apology in her voice as she said: “You will stay where you are, sir, until I have called my father. In our business, with our responsibilities, we never take chances. Something is very wrong here.”
Curiously, it was at that point that McAllister’s mind began to function clearly. The thought that came paralleled hers. How had this gunshop appeared on a 1951 street? How had he come here into this fantastic world? Something was very wrong indeed.
It was the gun that held his attention. It was a tiny thing, shaped like a pistol, but with three cubes projecting in a half circle from the top of the slightly-bulbous firing chamber. He began to feel shaken, looking at it, for that wicked little instrument, glittering there in her browned fingers, was as real as herself.
“Good Heaven,” he whispered. “What the devil kind of a gun is it. Lower that thing and let’s try to find out what all this is about.”
She seemed not to be listening. He noticed that her gaze was flicking to a point on the wall somewhat to his left. He followed her look in time to see seven miniature white lights flash on. Curious lights I He was fascinated by the play of light and shade, the waxing and waning from one tiny globe to the next, a rippling movement of infinitesimal increments and decrements, an incredibly delicate effect of instantaneous reaction to some supersensitive barometer. The lights steadied; his gaze reverted to the girl. To his surprise, she was putting away her gun. She must have noticed his expression.
“It’s all right,” she said coolly. “The automatics are on you now. If we’re wrong about you, we’ll be glad to apologize. Meanwhile, if you’re still interested in buying a gun, I’ll be happy to demonstrate.”
So the automatics were on him, McAllister thought. He felt no relief at the information. Whatever the automatics were, they wouldn’t be working in his favor. The young woman putting away her gun in spite of her suspicions spoke volumes for the efficiency of the new watchdogs. He’d have to get out of this place, of course. Meanwhile, the girl was assuming that a man who came into a gunshop would, under ordinary circumstances, want to buy a gun. It struck him, suddenly, that of all the things he could think of, what he most wanted to see was one of those strange guns. There were incredible implications in the very shape of the instruments. Aloud he said:
“Yes, by all means show me.” A thought occurred to him. He added, “I have no doubt your father is somewhere in the background making some sort of study of me.
The young woman made no move to bring out any weapons. Instead, she stared at him in puzzlement.
“You may not realize it,” she said slowly, “but you have already upset our entire establishment. The lights of the automatics should have gone on the moment father pressed die buttons, as he did when I called him. They didn’t! That’s unnatural, and yet—” her frown deepened—“if you were one of them, how did you get through that door? Is it possible that her scientists have discovered human beings who do not affect the sensitive energies? And that you are but one of many such, sent as an experiment to determine whether or not entrance could be gained? Yet that isn’t logical either. If they had even a hope of success, they wouldn’t risk the chance of throwing away an overwhelming surprise. In that case, you would be the entering wedge of an attack on a vast scale. She is ruthless, she’s brilliant; and she craves complete power over poor fools like you who have no more sense than to worship her and the splendor of the Imperial Court.”
The young woman paused, with the faintest of smiles. “There I go again, making a political speech. But you can see that there are at least a few reasons why we should be careful about you.”
There was a chair in one corner. McAllister started for it. His mind was calmer. “Look,” he began, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even know how I came to be in this shop. I agree with you that the whole thing requires explanation, but I mean that differently than you do.”
His voice trailed. He had been half lowered over the chair, but instead of sinking into it, he came erect, slowly, like an old, old man. His eyes fixed on lettering that shone above a glass case of guns behind her. He said hoarsely:
“Is that—a calendar?”
She followed his gaze, puzzled. “Yes, it’s June 3rd. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t mean that. I mean—” He caught himself with an effort. “I mean those figures above that: I mean—what year is this?”
The girl looked surprised. She started to say something, then stopped and backed away. Finally: “Don’t look like that! There’s nothing wrong. This is eighty-four of the four thousand seven hundredth year of the Imperial House of Isher. It’s quite all right.”
II
Very deliberately McA
llister sat down, and the conscious wonder came: Exactly how should he feel? Not even surprise came to his aid. The events were beginning to fall into a kind of distorted pattern. The building front superimposed on those two 1951 shops; the way the door had acted. The great exterior sign with its odd linking of freedom with the right to buy weapons. The actual display of weapons in the window, the finest energy weapons in the known universal . . . He grew aware that the girl was talking earnestly with a tall, gray-haired man who was standing on the threshold of the door through which she had originally come. There was a tenseness in the way they were talking. Their low-spoken words made a blur of sound in his ears, strange and unsettling. McAllister could not quite analyze the meaning of it until the girl turned, and said:
“What is your name?”
McAllister gave it.
The girl hesitated, then: “Mr. McAllister, my father wants to know what year you’re from!”
The gray-haired man stepped forward. “I’m afraid,” he said gravely, “that there is no time to explain. What has happened is what we gunmakers have feared for generations: that once again would come one who lusted for unlimited power; and who, to attain tyranny, must necessarily seek first to destroy us. Your presence here is a manifestation of the energy force that she has turned against us—something so new that we did not even suspect it was being used against us. But I have no time to waste. Get all the information you can, Lystra, and warn him of his own personal danger.” The man turned. The door closed noiselessly behind his tall figure.
McAllister asked: “What did he mean—personal danger?”
He saw the girl’s brown eyes were uneasy as they rested on him. “It’s hard to explain,” she began in an uncomfortable voice. “First of all, come to the window and I’ll try to make everything clear. It’s all very confusing to you, I suppose.”
McAllister drew a deep breath. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
His alarm was gone. The gray-haired man seemed to know what it was all about. That meant there should be no difficulty getting home again. As for all this danger to the gunmaker’s guild, that was their worry, not his. He stepped forward, closer to the girl. To his amazement, she cringed away as if he had threatened her. As he stared blankly, she laughed humorlessly; and finally she said:
“Don’t think I’m being silly; don’t be offended—but for your life’s sake, don’t touch any human body you might come in contact with.”
McAllister was conscious of a chill. Then, suddenly, he felt a surge of impatience at the fear that showed in the girl’s face. “Now look,” he began, “I want to get things clear. We can talk here without danger, providing I don’t touch, or come near you. Is that right?”
She nodded. “The floor, the walls, every piece of furniture—in fact the entire shop is made of non-conducting material.”
McAllister had a sense of being balanced on a tight rope over a bottomless abyss. He forced calm onto his mind. “Let’s start,” he said, “at the beginning. How did you and your father know that I was not of—” he paused before the odd phrase, then went on—“of this time?”
“Father photographed you,” the girl said. “He photographed the contents of your pockets. That was how he first found out what was the matter. You see, the sensitive energies themselves become carriers of the energy with which you’re charged. That’s what was wrong. That’s why the automatics wouldn’t focus on you, and—”
“Energy—charged?” said McAllister.
The girl was staring at him. “Don’t you understand?” she gasped. “You’ve come across seven thousand years of time. And of all the energies in the universe, time is the most potent. You’re charged with trillions of trillions of time-energy units. If you should step outside this shop, you’d blow up Imperial City and half a hundred miles of land beyond.
“You—” she finished on an unsteady, upward surge of her voice—“you could conceivably destroy the Earth!”
III
He hadn’t noticed the mirror before. Funny, too, because it was large enough, at least eight feet high, and directly in front of him on the wall where, a minute before he could have sworn had been solid metal.
“Look at yourself,” the girl was saying soothingly.” There’s nothing so steadying as one’s own image. Actually, your body is taking the mental shock very well.”
He stared at his image. There was a paleness in the lean face that stared back at him. But his body was not actually shaking as the whirling in his mind had suggested. He grew aware again of the girl. She was standing with a finger on one of a series of wall switches. Abruptly, he felt better.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I certainly needed that.”
She smiled encouragingly; and he was able now to be amazed at her conflicting personality. There had been on the one hand her inability a few minutes earlier to get to the point of the danger, an incapacity for explaining things with words. Yet obviously her action with the mirror showed a keen understanding of human psychology. He said: “The problem now is, from your point of view, to circumvent this Isher woman and get me back to 1951 before I blow up the Earth of . . . of whatever year this is.”
The girl nodded. “Father says that you can be sent back, but as for the rest, watch!”
He had no time for relief at the knowledge that he could be returned to his own time. She pressed another button. Instantly, the mirror was gone into metallic wall. Another button clicked. The wall vanished. Before him stretched a park similar to the one he had already seen through the front door, obviously an extension of the same garden-like vista. Trees were there, and flowers, and green, green grass in the sun.
One vast building, as high as it was long, towered massively dark against the sky and dominated the entire horizon. It was a good quarter mile away; and incredibly, it was at least that long and that high. Neither near that monstrous building, nor in the park, was a living person visible. Everywhere was evidence of man’s dynamic labor, but no men, no movement. Even the trees stood motionless in that breathless sunlit day.
“Watch!” said the girl again, more softly. There was no click this time. She made an adjustment on one of the buttons, and the view was no longer so clear. It wasn’t that the sun had dimmed its bright intensity. It wasn’t even that glass was visible where a moment before there had been nothing. There was still no apparent substance between them and that gemlike park. But the park was no longer deserted.
Scores of men and machines swarmed out there. McAllister stared in amazement; and then as the sense of illusion faded, and the dark menace of those men penetrated, his emotion changed to dismay.
“Why,” he said at last, “those men are soldiers, and the machines are—”
“Energy guns!” she said. “That’s always been their problem. How to get their weapons close enough to our shops to destroy us. It isn’t that the guns are not powerful over a very great distance. Even the rifles we sell can kill unprotected life over a distance of miles, but our gunshops are so heavily fortified that, to destroy us, they must use their biggest cannon at point-blank range. In the past, they could never do that because we own the surrounding park, and our alarm system was perfect—until now. The new energy they’re using affects none of our protective instruments; and, what is infinitely worse, affords them a perfect shield against our own guns. Invisibility, of course, has long been known, but if you hadn’t come, we would have been destroyed without ever knowing what happened.”
“But,” McAllister exclaimed sharply, “what are you going to do? They’re still out there, working—”
Her brown eyes burned with a fierce, yellow flame. “My father has warned the guild. And individual members have now discovered that similar invisible guns are being set up by invisible men outside their shops. The council will meet shortly to discuss defenses.”
Silently, McAllister watched the soldiers connecting what must have been invisible cables that led to the vast building in the background; foot thick cables that told of the titanic
power that was to be unleashed on the tiny weapon shop. There was nothing to be said. The reality out there overshadowed sentences and phrases. Of all the people here, he was the most useless, his opinion the least worth while. He must have said so, but he did not realize that until the familiar voice of the girl’s father came from one side of him.
“You’re quite mistaken, Mr. McAllister. Of all the people here you are the most valuable. Through you, we discovered mat the Isher were actually attacking us. Furthermore, our enemies do not know of your existence, therefore have not yet realized the full effect produced by the new blanketing energy they have used. You, accordingly, constitute the unknown factor. We must make immediate use of you.”
The man looked older, McAllister thought. There were lines of strain in his lean, sallow face as he turned to his daughter, and his voice, when he spoke, was edged with sharpness: “Lystra, No. 71”.
As the girl’s fingers touched the seventh button, her father explained swiftly to McAllister, “The guild supreme council is holding an immediate emergency session. We must choose the most likely method of attacking the problem, and concentrate individually and collectively on that method. Regional conversations are already in progress, but only one important idea has been put forward as yet and—ah, gentlemen!”
He spoke past McAllister, who turned with a start. Men were coming out of the solid wall, lightly, easily, as if it were a door and they were stepping across a threshold. One, two, three—thirty.
They were grim-faced men, all except one who glanced at McAllister, started to walk past, and then stopped with a half-amused smile.
“Don’t look so blank. How else do you think we could have survived these many years if we hadn’t been able to transmit material objects through space? The Isher police have always been only too eager to blockade our sources of supply. Incidentally, my name is Cadron—Peter Cad-ron!”
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