Before The Golden Age - A SF Anthology of the 1930s

by Edited By Isaac Asimov

  Maida Haynes pressed close to Blake. He put a reassuring hand on her arms the horses trudged on over the soft ground. The firelight behind them grew brighter. Occasional resinous, coniferous trees flared upward and threw fugitive red glows upon the riding figures. But gradually the glare grew steadier and stronger. The white walls of a rambling stucco house became visible. Out buildings…barns…a monstrous structure which looked startlingly like a barracks.

  It was a farm, an estate, a Roman villa transplanted to the very edge of a wilderness. It was, Blake remembered vaguely, like a picture he had once seen of a Roman villa in England, restored to look as it had been before Rome withdrew her legions from Britain and left the island to savagery and darkness. There were small mounds of curing hay about them, through which the horses picked their way. Blake suddenly wrinkled his nostrils suspiciously. He sniffed.

  Maida pressed close to him. Her lips formed words. Lucy Blair rode close to Minott, glancing up at him from time to time. Harris rode beside Bertha Ketterling, and Bertha sat her horse as if she were saddle sore. Tom Hunter clung close to Minott as if for protection, leaving Janet Thompson to look out for herself.

  “Jerry,” said Maida, “What—what do you think?”

  “I don’t like it,” admitted Blake in a low tone. “But we’ve got to tag along. I think I smell—”

  Then a sudden swarm of figures leaped at the horses—wild figures, naked figures, sweaty and reeking and almost maniacal figures, some of whom clanked chains as they leaped. A voice bellowed orders at them from a distance, and a whip cracked ominously.

  Before the struggle ended, there were just two shots fired. Blake fired them both and wheeled about. Then a horse streaked away, and Bertha Ketterling was bawling plaintively, and Tom Hunter babbled hysterically, and Harris swore with a complete lack of his customary air of apology.

  Minott seemed to be buried under a mass of foul bodies like the rest, but he rasped at his captors in an authoritative tone. They fell away from him, cringing as if by instinct. And then torches appeared suddenly and slaves appeared in their light—slaves of every possible degree of filth and degradation, of every possible racial mixture, but unanimous in a desperate abjectness before their master amid the torchbearers.

  He was a short, fat man, in an only slightly modified toga. He drew it close about his body as the torchbearers held their flares close to the captives. The torchlight showed the captives, to be sure, but also it showed the puffy, self-indulgent, and invincibly cruel features of the man who owned these slaves and the villa. By his pose and the orders he gave in a curiously corrupt Latin, he showed that he considered he owned the captives, too.

  * * * *

  XI.

  The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur decided that it had been very wise indeed for him to walk in the fresh air. Paris at night is stimulating. That curious attack of vertigo had come of too much champagne. The fresh air had dispelled the fumes. But it was odd that he did not know exactly where he was, though he knew his Paris well.

  These streets were strange. The houses were unlike any that he remembered ever having seen before. In the light of the street lamps, and they were unusual too, there was a certain unfamiliar quality about their architecture. He puzzled over it, trying to identify the peculiar flair these houses showed.

  He became impatient. After all, it was necessary for him to return home sometime, [even though his wife]. The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur shrugged. Then he saw bright lights ahead. He hastened his steps. A magnificent mansion, brilliantly illuminated.

  The clattering of many hoofs. A cavalry escort, forming up before the house. A pale young man emerged, escorted by a tall, fat man who kissed his hand as if in an ecstasy of admiration. Dismounted cavalrymen formed a lane from the gateway to the car. Two young officers followed the pale young man, ablaze with decorations. The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur noted subconsciously that he did not recognize their uniforms. The car door was open and waiting. There was some oddity about the car, but the deputy could not see clearly just what it was. There was much clicking of heels, steel blades at salute. The pale young man patiently allowed the fat man to kiss his hand again. He entered the car. The two bemedaled young officers climbed in after him. The car rolled away. Instantly, the cavalry escort clattered with it, before it, behind it, all around it.

  The fat man stood on the sidewalk, beaming and rubbing his hands together. The dismounted cavalrymen swung to their saddles and trotted briskly after the others.

  The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur stared blankly. He saw another pedestrian, halted like himself to regard the spectacle. He was disturbed by the fact that this pedestrian was clothed in a fashion as perturbingly unfamiliar as these houses and the spectacle he had witnessed.

  “Pardon, m’sieu’,” said the deputy from Aisne-le-Sur, “I do not recognize my surroundings. Would you tell me—”

  “The house,” said the other caustically, “is the hotel of Monsieur le Duc de Montigny. Is it possible that in 1935 one does not know of Monsieur le Duc? Or more especially of Madame Ia Duchesse, and what she is and where she lives?”

  The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur blinked. “Montigny? Montigny? No,” he admitted. “And the young man of the car, whose hand was kissed by—”

  “Kissed by Monsieur le Duc?” The stranger stared frankly. “Mon dieu! Where have you come from that you do not recognize Louis the Twentieth? He has but departed from a visit to madame, his mistress.”

  “Louis—Louis the Twentieth!” stammered the deputy from Aisne-le-Sur. “I—I—do not understand!”

  “Fool!” said the stranger impatiently. “That was the king of France, who succeeded his father as a child of ten and has been free of the regency for but six months—and already ruins France!”

  * * * *

  The long-distance operator plugged in with a shaking hand. “Number please…I am sorry, sir, but we are unable to connect you with Camden…The lines are down…Very sorry, sir.” She plugged in another line. “Hello…I am sorry, sir, but we are unable to connect you with Jenkintown. The lines are down. Very sorry, sir.”

  Another call buzzed and lighted up.

  “Hello…I am sorry, sir. We are unable to connect you with Dover. The lines are down…” Her hands worked automatically. “Hello…I am sorry, but we are unable to connect you with New York. The lines are down…No, sir. We cannot route it by Atlantic City. The lines are down…Yes, sir, I know the telegraph companies cannot guarantee delivery. No, sir, we cannot reach Pittsburgh, either, to get a message through…” Her voice quivered. “No, sir, the lines are down to Scranton…And Harrisburg, too. Yes, sir…I am sorry, but we cannot get a message of any sort out of Philadelphia in any direction…We have tried to arrange communication by radio, but no calls are answered…

  She covered her face with her hands for an instant. Then she plugged in and made a call herself:

  “Minnie! Haven’t they heard anything?…Not anything?…What? They phoned for more police?

  The—the operator out there says there’s fighting? She hears a lot of shooting? What is it, Minnie? Don’t they even know?…They—they’re using the armored cars from the banks to fight with, too? But what are they fighting? What?…My folks are out there, Minnie! My folks are out there!”

  The doorway of the slave barracks closed and great bars slammed against its outer side. Reeking, foul, unbreathable air closed about them like a wave. Then a babbling of voices all about. The clanking of chains. The rustling of straw, as if animals moved. Some one screeched, howled above the others. He began to gain the ascendancy. There was almost some attention paid to him, though a minor babbling continued all about.

  Maida said in a strained voice: “I—I can catch a word here and there. He’s telling these other slaves how we were captured. It’s Latin, of sorts.”

  Bertha Ketterling squalled suddenly, in the absolute dark. “Somebody touched me!” she bawled. “A man!”

  A voice spoke humorously, somewhere near. There was laughter. It was the
howled laughter of animals. Slaves were animals, according to the Roman notion. A rustling noise, as if in the noisome freedom of their barracks, the utterly brutalized slaves drew nearer to the newcomers. There could be sport with new-captured folk, not yet degraded to their final status.

  Lucy Blair cried out in a stifled fashion. There was a sharp, incisive crack. Somebody fell. More laughter.

  “I knocked him out!” snapped Minott. “Harris! Hunter! Feel around for something we can use as clubs! These slaves intend to haze us, and in their own den there’s no attempt to control them. Even if they kill us they’ll only be whipped for it. And the women will—”

  Something, snarling, leaped for him in the darkness. The authoritative tone of Minott’s voice was hateful. A yapping sound arose. Other figures closed in. Reduced to the status of animals, the slaves of the Romans behaved as beasts when locked in their monster kennel. The newcomers were hateful if only because they had been freemen, not slaves. The women were clean and they were frightened and they were prey. Chains clanked ominously. Foul breaths tainted the air. The reek of utter depravity, of human beings brought lower than beasts, filled the air. It was utterly dark.

  Bertha Ketterling began to blubber noisily. There was the sudden savage sound of a blow meeting flesh. Then pandemonium and battle, and the sudden terrified screams of Lucy Blair. The panting of men who fought. The sound of blows. A man howled. Another shrieked curses. A woman screamed shrilly.

  Bang! Bang! Bang—bang! Shots outside, a veritable fusifiade of them. Running feet. Shouts. The bars at the doorway fell. The great doors opened, and men stood in the opening with whips and torches, bellowing for the slaves to come out and attack something yet unknown. They were being called from their kennel like dogs. Four of the whip men came inside, flogging the slaves out, while the sound of shots continued. The slaves shrank away, or bounded howling for the open air. But there were three of them who would never shrink or cringe again.

  Minott and Harris stood embattled in a corner of the slave shed. Lucy Blair, her hair disheveled, crouched behind Minott, who held a heavy beam in desperate readiness for further battle. Harris, likewise, held a clumsy club. With torchlight upon him, his air of savage defiance turned to one of quaint apology for the dead slave at his feet. And Hunter and two of the girls competed in stark panic for a position behind him. Maida Haynes, dead white, stood backed against a wall, a jagged fragment of gnawed bone held dagger wise.

  The whips lashed out at them. Voices snarled at them. The whips again. Minott struck out furiously, a huge welt across his face. And revolvers cracked at the great door. Blake stood there, a revolver in each hand, his eyes blazing. A torchbearer dropped, and the torches flared smokily in the foul mud of the flooring.

  “All right,” said Blake fiercely. “Come on out!”

  Hunter was the first to reach him, babbling and gasping. There was sheer uproar all about. A huge grain shed roared upward in flames. Figures rushed crazily all about it. From the flames came another explosion, then two, then three more.

  “Horses over here by the stables,” said Blake, his face white and very deadly indeed. “They haven’t unsaddled them. The stable slaves haven’t figured out the cinches yet. I put some revolver bullets in the straw when I set fire to that grain shed. They’re going off from time to time.”

  A figure with whip and dagger raced around an outbuilding and confronted them. Blake shot him down.

  Minott said hoarsely: “Give me a revolver, Blake! I want to—”

  “Horses first!” snapped Blake.

  They raced into a courtyard. Two shots. The slaves fled, howling. Out of the courtyard, bent low in the saddle. They swept close to the villa itself. On a little raised terrace before it, a stout man in an only slightly modified toga raged. A slave groveled before him. He kicked the abject figure and strode out, shouting commands in a voice that cracked with fury. The horses loomed up and he shook his fists at the riders, purple with wrath, incapable of fear because of his beastly rage.

  Blake shot him dead, swung off his horse, and stripped the toga from him. He flung it to Maida.

  “Take this!” he said savagely. “I could kill—”

  There was now no question of his leadership. He led the retreat from the villa. The eight horses headed north again, straight for the luridly flaming forest.

  They stopped once more. Behind them, another building of the estate had caught from the first. Sheer confusion ruled. The slaughter of the master disrupted all organization. The roof of the slave barracks caught. Screams and howls of pure panic reached even the fugitives. Then there were racing, maddened figures rushing here and there in the glare of the fires. Suddenly there was fighting. A howling ululation arose.

  Minott worked savagely, stripping clothing from the bodies slain in that incredible, unrecorded conflict of Confederate soldiers and Roman troops, in some unguessable pathway of space and time. Blake watched behind, but he curtly commanded the salvaging of rifles and ammunition from thern dead Confederates, if they were Confederates.

  And as Hunter, still gasping hysterically, took the load of yet unfamiliar weapons upon his horse, the eight felt a certain incredible, intolerable vertigo and nausea. The burning forest ahead vanished from their sight. Instead, there was darkness. A noisome smell came down wind; dampness and strange, overpowering perfumes of strange, colored flowers. Something huge and deadly bellowed in the space before them which smelled like a monstrous swamp.

  * * * *

  The liner City of Baltimore plowed through the open sea in the first pale light of dawn. The skipper, up on the bridge, wore a worried frown. The radio operator came up. He carried a sheaf of radiogram forms. His eyes were blurry with loss of sleep.

  “Maybe it was me, sir,” he reported heavily. “I felt awful funny for a while last night, and then all night long I couldn’t raise a station. I checked everything and couldn’t find anything wrong. But just now I felt awful sick and funny for a minute, and when I come out of it the air was full of code. Here’s some of it. I don’t understand how I could have been sick so I couldn’t hear code, sir, but—”

  The skipper said abruptly: “I had that sick feeling, too—dizzy. So did the man at the wheel. So did everybody. Give me the messages.”

  His eyes ran swiftly over the yellow forms.

  “News flash: Half of London disappeared at 2:00 a.m. this morning…S.S. Manzanillo reporting. Sea serpent which attacked this ship during the night and seized four sailors returned and was rammed five minutes ago. It seems to be dying. Our bow badly smashed. Two forward compartments flooded…Warning to all mariners. Pack ice seen floating fifty miles off New York harbor…News flash: Madrid, Spain, has undergone inexplicable change. All buildings formerly known now unrecognizable from the air. Air fields have vanished. Mosques seem to have taken the place of churches and cathedrals. A flag bearing the crescent floats…European population of Calcutta seems to have been massacred. S.S. Carib reports harbor empty, all signs of European domination vanished, and hostile mobs lining shore…

  The skipper of the City of Baltimore passed his hand over his forehead. He looked uneasily at the radio operator. “Sparks,” he said gently, “you’d better go see the ship’s doctor. Here! I’ll detail a man to go with you.”

  “I know,” said Sparks bitterly. “I guess I’m nuts, all right. But that’s what come through.”

  He marched away with his head hanging, escorted by a sailor. A little speck of smoke appeared dead ahead.

  It became swiftly larger. With the combined speed of the two vessels, in a quarter of an hour the other ship was visible. In half an hour it could be made out clearly. It was long and low and painfully black, but the first incredible thing was that it was a paddle steamer, with two sets of paddles instead of one, and the after set revolving more swiftly than the forward.

  The skipper of the City of Baltimore looked more closely through high glasses and nearly dropped them in stark amazement. The flag flying on the other ship was bl
ack and white only. A beam wind blew it out swiftly. A white death’s head, with two crossed bones below it—the traditional flag of piracy!

  Signal flags fluttered up in the rigging of the other ship. The skipper of the City of Baltimore gazed at them, stunned.

  “Gibberish!” he muttered. “It don’t make sense! They aren’t international code. Not the same flags at all!”

  Then a gun spoke. A monstrous puff of black powder smoke billowed over the other ship’s bow. A heavy shot crashed into the forepart of the City of Baltimore. An instant later it exploded.

  “I’m crazy, too!” said the skipper dazedly.

  A second shot. A third and fourth. The black steamer sheered off and started to pound the City of Baltimore in a businesslike fashion. Half the bridge went overside. The forward cargo hatch blew up with a cloud of smoke from an explosion underneath.