The Fourth Time Travel MEGAPACK®

by Fritz Leiber

  “No. The power of the mind cannot be amplified—”

  “I don’t mean amplification; I mean an additional source. I have a hyperwave receiver here. With a little rewiring, it’ll act as a transmitter. Can we tie it in?”

  Bram shook his head. “Would that I were a technician,” he said. “I know only what is required to operate the device.”

  “Let me take a look,” Tremaine said. “Maybe I can figure it out.”

  “Take care. Without it, we fall before the Niss.”

  “I’ll be careful.” Tremaine went to the machine, examined it, tracing leads, identifying components.

  “This seems clear enough,” he said. “These would be powerful magnets here; they give a sort of pinch effect. And these are refracting-field coils. Simple, and brilliant. With this idea, we could beam hyperwave—”

  “First let us deal with the Niss!”

  “Sure.” Tremaine looked at Bram. “I think I can link my apparatus to this,” he said. “Okay if I try?”

  “How long?”

  “It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes.”

  “That leaves little time.”

  “The cycle is tightening,” Tremaine said. “I figure the next transmissions…or attacks…will come at intervals of under five minutes for several hours now; this may be the last chance.”

  “Then try,” said Bram.

  Tremaine nodded, went to the suitcase, took out tools and a heavy black box, set to work. Linda Carroll sat by Bram’s side, speaking softly to him. The minutes passed.

  “Okay,” Tremaine said. “This unit is ready.” He went to the Repellor, hesitated a moment, then turned two nuts and removed a cover.

  “We’re off the air,” he said. “I hope my formula holds.”

  * * * *

  Bram and Miss Carroll watched silently as Tremaine worked. He strung wires, taped junctions, then flipped a switch on the hyperwave set and tuned it, his eyes on the dials of a smaller unit.

  “Nineteen minutes have passed since the last attack,” Bram said. “Make haste.”

  “I’m almost done,” Tremaine said.

  A sharp cry came from the wall. Tremaine jumped. “What the hell makes those sounds?”

  “They are nothing—mere static. But they warn that the harmonic generators are warming.” Bram struggled to his feet. “Now comes the assault.”

  “The shadows!” Miss Carroll cried.

  Bram sank into the chair, leaned back, his face pale as wax in the faint glow from the wall. The glow grew brighter; the shadows swam into focus.

  “Hurry, James,” Miss Carroll said. “It comes quickly.”

  Bram watched through half-closed eyes. “I must man the Repellor. I.…” He fell back in the chair, his head lolling.

  “Bram!” Miss Carroll cried. Tremaine snapped the cover in place, whirled to the chair, dragged it and its occupant away from the machine, then turned, seized the grips. On the wall the Niss moved in silence, readying the attack. The black-clad figure was visible, climbing to his place. The wall cleared. Tremaine stared across at the narrow room, the gray-clad Niss. They stood now, eyes on him. One pointed. Others erected leathery crests.

  Stay out, you ugly devils, Tremaine thought. Go back, retreat, give up.…

  Now the blue glow built in a flickering arc across the Niss machine. The technicians stood, staring across the narrow gap, tiny red eyes glittering in the narrow alien faces. Tremaine squinted against the brilliant white light from the high-vaulted Niss Command Center. The last suggestion of the sloping surface of the limestone wall was gone. Tremaine felt a draft stir; dust whirled up, clouded the air. There was an odor of iodine.

  Back, Tremaine thought. Stay back.…

  There was a restless stir among the waiting rank of Niss. Tremaine heard the dry shuffle of horny feet against the floor, the whine of the harmonic generator. His eyes burned. As a hot gust swept around him he choked and coughed.

  NO! he thought, hurling negation like a weightless bomb. FAIL! RETREAT!

  * * * *

  Now the Niss moved, readying a wheeled machine, rolling it into place. Tremaine coughed rackingly, fought to draw a breath, blinking back blindness. A deep thrumming started up; grit particles stung his cheek, the backs of his hands. The Niss worked rapidly, their throat gills visibly dilated now in the unaccustomed flood of oxygen.…

  Our oxygen, Tremaine thought. The looting has started already, and I’ve failed, and the people of Earth will choke and die.…

  From what seemed an immense distance, a roll of thunder trembled at the brink of audibility, swelling.

  The black-clad Niss on the alien machine half rose, erecting a black-scaled crest, exulting. Then, shockingly, his eyes fixed on Tremaine’s, his trap-like mouth gaped, exposing a tongue like a scarlet snake, a cavernous pink throat set with a row of needle-like snow-white teeth. The tongue flicked out, a gesture of utter contempt.

  And suddenly Tremaine was cold with deadly rage. We have a treatment for snakes in this world, he thought with savage intensity. We crush ’em under our heels.… He pictured a writhing rattler, broken-backed, a club descending; a darting red coral snake, its venom ready, slashed in the blades of a power mower; a cottonmouth, smashed into red ruin by a shotgun blast.…

  BACK, SNAKE, he thought. DIE! DIE!

  The thunder faded.

  And atop the Niss Generator, the black-clad Niss snapped his mouth shut, crouched.

  “DIE!” Tremaine shouted. “Die!”

  The Niss seemed to shrink in on himself, shivering. His crest went flaccid, twitched twice. The red eyes winked out and the Niss toppled from the machine. Tremaine coughed, gripped the handles, turned his eyes to a gray-uniformed Niss who scrambled up to replace the operator.

  I SAID DIE, SNAKE!

  The Niss faltered, tumbled back among his fellows, who darted about now like ants in a broached anthill. One turned red eyes on Tremaine, then scrambled for the red cut-out switch.

  NO, YOU DON’T, Tremaine thought. IT’S NOT THAT EASY, SNAKE. DIE!

  The Niss collapsed. Tremaine drew a rasping breath, blinked back tears of pain, took in a group of Niss in a glance.

  Die!

  * * * *

  They fell. The others turned to flee then, but like a scythe Tremaine’s mind cut them down, left them in windrows. Hate walked naked among the Niss and left none living.

  Now the machines. Tremaine thought. He fixed his eyes on the harmonic generator. It melted into slag. Behind it, the high panels set with jewel-like lights blackened, crumpled into wreckage. Suddenly the air was clean again. Tremaine breathed deep. Before him the surface of the rock swam into view.

  NO! Tremaine thought thunderously. HOLD THAT APERTURE OPEN!

  The rock-face shimmered, faded. Tremaine looked into the white-lit room, at the blackened walls, the huddled dead. No pity, he thought. You would have sunk those white teeth into soft human throats, sleeping in the dark…as you’ve done on a hundred worlds. You’re a cancer in the cosmos. And I have the cure.

  WALLS, he thought, COLLAPSE!

  The roof before him sagged, fell in. Debris rained down from above, the walls tottered, went down. A cloud of roiled dust swirled, cleared to show a sky blazing with stars.

  Dust, stay clear, Tremaine thought. I want good air to breathe for the work ahead. He looked out across a landscape of rock, ghostly white in the starlight.

  LET THE ROCKS MELT AND FLOW LIKE WATER!

  An upreared slab glowed, slumped, ran off in yellow rivulets that were lost in the radiance of the crust as it bubbled, belching released gasses. A wave of heat struck Tremaine. Let it be cool here, he thought. Now, Niss world.…

  “No!” Bram’s voice shouted. “Stop, stop!”

  Tremaine hesitated
. He stared at the vista of volcanic fury before him.

  I could destroy it all, he thought. And the stars in the Niss sky.…

  “Great is the power of your hate, man of Earth,” Bram cried. “But curb it now, before you destroy us all!”

  “Why?” Tremaine shouted. “I can wipe out the Niss and their whole diseased universe with them, with a thought!”

  “Master yourself,” Bram said hoarsely. “Your rage destroys you! One of the suns you see in the Niss sky is your Sol!”

  “Sol?” Tremaine said. “Then it’s the Sol of a thousand years ago. Light takes time to cross a galaxy. And the earth is still here…so it wasn’t destroyed!”

  “Wise are you,” Bram said. “Your race is a wonder in the Cosmos, and deadly is your hate. But you know nothing of the forces you unloose now. Past time is as mutable as the steel and rock you melted but now.”

  “Listen to him, James,” Miss Carroll pleaded. “Please listen.”

  Tremaine twisted to look at her, still holding the twin grips. She looked back steadily, her head held high. Beside her, Bram’s eyes were sunken deep in his lined face.

  “Jess said you looked like a princess once, Miss Carroll,” Tremaine said, “when you drove past with your red hair piled up high. And Bram: you were young, and you loved her. The Niss took your youth from you. You’ve spent your life here, fighting them, alone. And Linda Carroll waited through the years, because she loved you…and feared you. The Niss did that. And you want me to spare them?”

  “You have mastered them,” said Bram. “And you are drunk with the power in you. But the power of love is greater than the power of hate. Our love sustained us; your hate can only destroy.”

  Tremaine locked eyes with the old man. He drew a deep breath at last, let it out shudderingly. “All right,” he said “I guess the God complex got me.” He looked back once more at the devastated landscape. “The Niss will remember this encounter, I think. They won’t try Earth again.”

  “You’ve fought valiantly, James, and won,” Miss Carroll said. “Now let the power go.”

  Tremaine turned again to look at her. “You deserve better than this, Miss Carroll,” he said. “Bram, you said time is mutable. Suppose—”

  “Let well enough alone,” Bram said. “Let it go!”

  “Once, long ago, you tried to explain this to Linda Carroll. But there was too much against it; she couldn’t understand. She was afraid. And you’ve suffered for sixty years. Suppose those years had never been. Suppose I had come that night…instead of now—”

  “It could never be!”

  “It can if I will it!” Tremaine gripped the handles tighter. Let this be THAT night, he thought fiercely. The night in 1901, when Bram’s last contact failed. Let it be that night, five minutes before the portal closed. Only this machine and I remain as we are now; outside there are gas lights in the farm houses along the dirt road to Elsby, and in the town horses stand in the stables along the cinder alleys behind the houses; and President McKinley is having dinner in the White House.…

  * * * *

  There was a sound behind Tremaine. He whirled. The ravaged scene was gone. A great disc mirror stood across the cave, intersecting the limestone wall. A man stepped through it, froze at the sight of Tremaine. He was tall, with curly blond hair, fine-chiseled features, broad shoulders.

  “Fdazh ha?” he said. Then his eyes slid past Tremaine, opened still wider in astonishment. Tremaine followed the stranger’s glance. A young woman, dressed in a negligee of pale silk, stood in the door, a hair-brush in her hand, her red hair flowing free to her waist. She stood rigid in shock.

  Then.…

  “Mr. Bram…!” she gasped. “What—”

  Tremaine found his voice. “Miss Carroll, don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’m your friend, you must believe me.”

  Linda Carroll turned wide eyes to him. “Who are you?” she breathed. “I was in my bedroom—”

  “I can’t explain. A miracle has been worked here tonight…on your behalf.” Tremaine turned to Bram. “Look—” he started.

  “What man are you?” Bram cut in in heavily accented English. “How do you come to this place?”

  “Listen to me, Bram!” Tremaine snapped. “Time is mutable. You stayed here, to protect Linda Carroll—and Linda Carroll’s world. You’ve just made that decision, right?” Tremaine went on, not waiting for a reply. “You were stuck here…for sixty years. Earth technology developed fast. One day a man stumbled in here, tracing down the signal from your Repellor; that was me. You showed me how to use the device…and with it I wiped out the Niss. And then I set the clock back for you and Linda Carroll. The Portal closes in two minutes. Don’t waste time.…”

  “Mutable time?” Bram said. He went past Tremaine to Linda. “Fair lady of Earth,” he said. “Do not fear.…”

  “Sir, I hardly know you,” Miss Carroll said. “How did I come here, hardly clothed—”

  “Take her, Bram!” Tremaine shouted. “Take her and get back through that Portal—fast.” He looked at Linda Carroll. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “You know you love him; go with him now, or regret it all your days.”

  “Will you come?” asked Bram. He held out his hand to her. Linda hesitated, then put her hand in his. Bram went with her to the mirror surface, handed her through. He looked back at Tremaine.

  “I do not understand, man of Earth,” he said “But I thank you.” Then he was gone.

  * * * *

  Alone in the dim-lit grotto Tremaine let his hands fall from the grips, staggered to the rocker and sank down. He felt weak, drained of strength. His hands ached from the strain of the ordeal. How long had it lasted? Five minutes? An hour? Or had it happened at all…?

  But Bram and Linda Carroll were gone. He hadn’t imagined that. And the Niss were defeated.

  But there was still his own world to contend with. The police would be waiting, combing through the house. They would want to know what he had done with Miss Carroll. Maybe there would be a murder charge. There’d be no support from Fred and the Bureau. As for Jess, he was probably in a cell now, looking a stiff sentence in the face for obstructing justice.…

  Tremaine got to his feet, cast a last glimpse at the empty room, the outlandish shape of the Repellor, the mirrored portal. It was a temptation to step through it. But this was his world, with all its faults. Perhaps later, when his strength returned, he could try the machine again.…

  The thought appalled him. The ashes of hate are worse than the ashes of love, he thought. He went to the stairs, climbed them, pressed the button. Nothing happened. He pushed the panel aside by hand and stepped into the kitchen. He circled the heavy table with the candlestick, went along the hall and out onto the porch. It was almost the dawn of a fresh spring day. There was no sign of the police. He looked at the grassy lawn, the row of new-set saplings.

  Strange, he thought. I don’t remember any saplings. I thought I drove in under a row of trees.… He squinted into the misty early morning gloom. His car was gone. That wasn’t too surprising; the cops had impounded it, no doubt. He stepped down, glanced at the ground ahead. It was smooth, with a faint footpath cut through the grass. There was no mud, no sign of tire tracks—

  The horizon seemed to spin suddenly. My God!! Tremaine thought I’ve left myself in the year 1901…!

  He whirled, leaped up on the porch, slammed through the door and along the hall, scrambled through the still-open panel, bounded down the stairs and into the cave—

  The Repellor was gone. Tremaine leaped forward with a cry—and under his eyes, the great mirror twinkled, winked out. The black box of the hyperwave receiver lay alone on the floor, beside the empty rocker. The light of the kerosene lamp reflected from the featureless wall.

  Tremaine turned, stumbled up the steps, out into the air. The sun showe
d a crimson edge just peeping above distant hills.

  1901, Tremaine thought. The century has just turned. Somewhere a young fellow named Ford is getting ready to put the nation on wheels, and two boys named Wright are about to give it wings. No one ever heard of a World War, or the roaring Twenties, or Prohibition, or FDR, or the Dust Bowl, or Pearl Harbor. And Hiroshima and Nagasaki are just two cities in distant floral Japan.…

  He walked down the path, stood by the rutted dirt road. Placid cows nuzzled damp grass in the meadow beyond it. In the distance a train hooted.

  There are railroads, Tremaine thought. But no jet planes, no radio, no movies, no automatic dish-washers. But then there’s no TV, either. That makes up for a lot. And there are no police waiting to grill me, and no murder charge, and no neurotic nest of bureaucrats waiting to welcome me back.…

  He drew a deep breath. The air was sweet. I’m here, he thought. I feel the breeze on my face and the firm sod underfoot. It’s real, and it’s all there is now, so I might as well take it calmly. After all, a man with my education ought to be able to do well in this day and age!

  Whistling, Tremaine started the ten-mile walk into town.

  BRIDGEHEAD, by Frank Belknap Long

  Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, August 1944.

  The blond Eurasian giant swung in between the big doors, and crossed the room in three long strides. Thick folds of scorched flesh lidded his pupils and his eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, giving him the aspect of a lean and angry bulldog straining at the leash.

  “Sit down, Ivor,” a steely voice said. “Over there, where your face won’t be in shadows.”