He Who Shrank: A Collection of Short Fiction

by Henry Hasse

  Vee spoke up eagerly, “Oh, I understand that! I read somewhere that time is what keeps everything from happening at once.”

  “Vee, don’t try to be funny!” Bob exclaimed.

  “That’s not so facetious as it sounds,” Broxted said. “Nothing can happen without time to happen in. And you, Bob, are wrong when you say time is only an abstract conception. My time theory is only a matter of logic, and I’ll give you a lucid example. Suppose a book lies on a table. The book has length, breadth, and depth. Would you say, with those dimensions, the book exists?”

  “Yes,” Bob said positively.

  Broxted turned to Vee, smiling in his best class-room manner. “And you, Vee? Would you say it exists?”

  “Well, I’ll say no, but I think there’s some catch in it.”

  “No catch, merely logic. No, the book would not exist. To exist any object must have not only length, breadth, and depth—but also time in which to exist!”

  “Then why are we existing,” Bob persisted, “if time has stopped?”

  “Time is still here,” Broxted explained patiently, “it’s merely static. Suppose I reach out and move that book to the other end of the table. I could not have moved, nor could I have caused the book to move, save through a certain section—a few seconds—of the fourth dimension, time. Or, very simply defined, time is merely the duration of movement. So now that my machine has jammed the time-flux, nothing can move except by some outside impetus.”

  “How right you are,” Bob said bitterly. “Everything out there’s motionless, from cigarette smoke to the ocean itself!”

  “But what about decay and disease?” Vee said practically. “Do you suppose that’ll come if things are—are left this way?”

  “I doubt if there’s any danger of that,” Broxted replied. “But you’re right; something must be done—and the only way is to reach my time device and release it.”

  “And you say it’ll take months to make another one!”

  Vee exclaimed suddenly, “Bob! Where did Rac go?” She was looking anxiously around the laboratory, but Rac was nowhere to be seen. “He was here. He was standing right here by me just a minute ago! Rac, where are you?” she called.

  And then, although they couldn’t see him, they heard Rac’s voice.

  “Here I am,” his voice said from somewhere very near. Then Rac suddenly appeared, out of the thin air, and walked over to Vee!

  Broxted stood quite tense for a moment, staring. Then he yelled, “He came out of there!” He rushed over to Rac and exclaimed, “How did you do it? How did you get in there? Tell me!”

  Rac cringed against Vee.

  “Wait a minute,” Bob said, “you’re scaring him!”

  “But he got in there—through the barrier!” Broxted was very excited. “Ask him how he did it. Tell him to do it again!”

  “Now, Rac,” Bob said to the little Martian, “this is very important. Tell us how you got in there. Or, better still, just show us. This will be a big help to us, Rac. You understand that? Just do again what you did a few minutes ago.”

  Rac bobbed his head, quickly comprehending. “Like this,” he said. He turned, walked toward that invisible barrier—and disappeared!

  “But why?” exclaimed Broxted, puzzled. “Why can he do it, and not us?”

  “Rac,” Bob called, “can you see us?”

  “Yes,” the little Martian replied, puzzled. “I can see you.”

  “Is there a machine in there?”

  “Yes, all shiny.”

  “Don’t touch it!” Broxted called quickly. “Come on out, Rac.”

  Rac emerged, pleased at the excitement he had caused. But he couldn’t understand it! All this talk about barriers. All he had done was walk straight to the shiny glass machine he saw standing in the center of the room.

  “I simply can’t understand it,” Broxted was muttering. “Why, why—”

  “Why?” Bob answered. “Because Rac’s a very remarkable person, that’s why, and he’d do anything for us! “He was pleased at this unexpected prowess of Rac’s. But to himself he muttered, “No, damned if I know how he did it!”

  “Then—if he can get through there like that, he might release my time device and bring it back!” Broxted pondered a moment, then added hopelessly, “No, it’s no use. Too complicated a task.”

  “Doctor,” Bob said, “we’ll excuse your saying that this time, because you don’t know Rac very well. But let me tell you, nothing’s too complicated for Rac. You just draw a diagram showing him what to do.”

  “I can do better than that. I have a tiny model I made before the real one. But you don’t understand. Even if I could get in there myself. I’m not sure I could bring it back. It’s more than just pulling a lever or pressing a button. There will have to be certain calculations, adjustments.”

  “You just bring out your model and show Rac what to do.”

  Then Bob turned to the little Martian and said, very seriously “Rac, all the other things you’ve learned weren’t very important. What you must learn now is more important than all of them put together—but I know you can do it. In your hands lies the salvation of our entire world, the world we told you about. You understand? You must listen very carefully to what Doctor Broxted tells you.”

  Rac understood. He bobbed his head solemnly. Using the tiny model, Broxted explained the complicated details no less than a dozen times, slowly, step by step. Rac merely watched, listened, sometimes nodded or asked a terse question. To him it was all very fascinating.

  Then Rac showed him that he’d absorbed it all. He went through the whole process by himself, flawlessly. Broxted was amazed, for it had included a rather complicated formula. He looked upon Rac with a new but bewildered respect.

  Bob said proudly, “See?”

  They were moving over to the time barrier with Rac. Vee suddenly called, “Wait a minute! If this works, if Rac releases the machine, what will happen? Will everything go on just as before, from where time stopped?”

  “Yes,” replied Broxted, “I’m sure of it.”

  “And all the people out there, everywhere in the world—for them apparently no time will have passed?”

  “Come to think of it, no.”

  “Then we’ve got to wait!” Vee exclaimed. “Don’t you see? Time stopped precisely at midnight, and it must resume exactly at that time, even if it is a day late!”

  “Good Lord, that’s right,” Broxted said, looking at his watch. “Otherwise, according to all clocks out there, the sun would rise two hours late in the morning! It’s barely 10 p.m. now.”

  “And what about Bob and me?” Vee went on. “Crowds were waiting for us at the spaceport—including reporters and photographers, no doubt. It’ll still be midnight of July 31st for them, and they’ll still be waiting there. But no Terra in sight!”

  Bob groaned. “I wish you’d quit thinking of these things! Well, tomorrow we’ll simply have to give ourselves up to the reporters; we’ll tell them we strayed off the radio beam, made a blind landing, and came on here to the doctor’s house.”

  For the ensuing two hours Rac practiced his movements with the miniature controls until they were sure there would be no slipup. At last it was midnight and all was ready for the real test. Rac walked through the time barrier with ease and disappeared. Breathlessly they waited. Nothing happened.

  Rac appeared again, puzzled. One of the controls, he told Broxted, was different than the one on the model. He showed him, and Broxted remembered that he’d made a slight change. He explained the difference to Rac, who nodded and entered the time zone again. It was then two minutes past midnight.

  Broxted hovered around the time barrier, nervously tugging at his thinning hair. Vee and Bob went out onto the lawn. Almost fearfully they waited for the change to come, not knowing quite what to expect. But all remained the same; the city was dark and still and motionless. What had gone wrong. Had Rac failed after all? Had he forgotten the inst
ructions? Had all the calculations been of no avail?

  And then it came, with a stunning, frightening suddenness. For many hours they had encountered an utterly silent world, and now, in the merest split-second, the city was as it had been before. A vast blanket of light leaped up and they heard a whole city roar back to life . . . .

  But to the millions there had been no silence; there had been no cessation; nothing had been wrong. To all but three persons and a little Martian, it was still midnight of July 31st . . . .

  On the one hundredth floor of the Aero Club Mike Bessini staggered back from the window with a curious presentiment of disaster, words tumbling from his lips; then everything was normal, and Mike passed a hand across his bewildered brow.

  “Funny!” he muttered, “I could have sworn— Say, I guess I’d better see the doc first thing in the morning; maybe I’ve been working too hard.”

  In the casino beyond his private door the music and the dance number continued, no one aware that anything had been amiss.

  In the vicinity of Cincinnati the wreckage of the huge passenger liner was found; but it was considered strange that no one had seen or heard the fatal plunge.

  The man whom Bob had moved beyond the danger of the approaching car now looked back, terrified at the sudden screaming of the brakes, amazed at the alacrity with which he’d moved from the curb!

  The roar of traffic and planes resumed; the stentorian newsboys shouted the headlines; the sign around the Times Building continued to spell out the news of the Terra’s return. In a certain restaurant a pompous gentleman who had been about to attack the duck dinner on the table before him was amazed to see it vanish, seemingly under his very eyes! It was simply no longer there! After being revived he demanded to know what legerdemain was going on here. He stalked out furiously, refusing to pay his check and vowing that they’d no longer get his patronage.

  And all Miss Della Jones did was make the front page with a heroic story and a three-column cut of her demonstrating just how she had held the revolver. The words over her picture read: Daring Girl Foils Bandit.

  She told reporters, “I simply don’t know how it happened. When he pointed that gun at me I was so scared my knees were shaking. But I was awfully excited too, and I guess I just grabbed the gun without thinking—because suddenly there it was in my hand. I know I wouldn’t do it again! “

  There was a sensation when it was discovered that no less than forty-nine planes had crashed throughout the country that night. That many usually didn’t crash in a month’s time. Furthermore, it was discovered that all these planes had failed to have their gravity-control on. There were suspicions of sabotage; there were rumors of secret weapons in the hands of foreign powers; there were investigations galore, but they resulted in nothing . . . .

  In Broxted’s laboratory Bob and Vee saw the time device for the first time. It stood there in the middle of the room, very visible now.

  “You’re about to witness the end of the first time machine,” Broxted said bitterly as he began dismantling it. “And it’ll be the last one if I can help it. For three years I worked on this, and for what? So I could send it a fraction of a second into the future. But, after all, it’s for the best. I’ve proven that time travel is impossible; it must never be attempted again. I shall destroy my notes. And I could even rest contented if it weren’t for one thing! I’ll never be satisfied until I know why Rac could walk through that time barrier and we couldn’t!”

  Instinctively three pairs of eyes turned to the little Martian. At this, Rac fidgeted uncomfortably. They weren’t really expecting him to speak, but Rac thought they were.

  Rac touched the shiny machine again, lovingly, and said in a hesitant voice, “Maybe it would work on my world. Here your time does not affect me, so maybe our time would not—” Rac stopped, abashed, as though afraid they might laugh at his idea.

  But they did not laugh. Broxted stared at him a moment, then sank down into a chair. “Of course, Rac, you’re right. It’s as simple as that. Why didn’t I think of it before ? It’s a new time theory! There’s no time in empty space, of course, except when there’s something out there for which it can exist, such as your Terra. And so it must be with worlds, a different time field affecting each world and the people of that world. If our time has no barrier for Rac, the Mars time should have no barrier for us!” Broxted was on his feet again, pondering this new idea.

  Vee said, “Well, Doctor, we saw some gorgeous ruins of ancient cities up near the Martian polar cap. If your time experiment works there, you could go back and see what the race was like that Rac’s descended from!” The idea seemed to intrigue her.

  “That’s all very well,” Bob said, “but tomorrow we introduce Rac to the world—the world we promised him—and something tells me that’s going to be a job! So what about getting some sleep?”

  “I cannot sleep tonight!” Broxted said. He was dismantling his time device, carefully packing the parts away until the day he could continue the experiment on Mars. Rac stood beside him, watching each of those mysterious parts as it came out. The cowl-like frill over his eyes was beginning to ruffle again, denoting his growing excitement. Bob and Vee looked at each other and laughed.

  “What’s the matter?” Broxted asked, looking up.

  “You’ll find out! Good night, Doctor.”

  So Broxted, in blithe innocence, continued to dismantle his machine. And Rac, who had already fallen in love with it, gazed at the shining intricacies with his perpetual wide-eyed wonder. And Rac, being Rac, could not remain silent long.

  For an hour, valiantly, Broxted answered Rac’s incessant queries. Suddenly he realized this had every indication of going on forever! He looked at Rac half in respect, half in a sort of horror. He decided, with a sigh, that he’d better get some sleep after all.

  The End

  ******************************

  Passage to Planet X,

  by Henry Hasse

  Planet Stories Winter 1945

  Novelette - 12405 words

  They trailed a legend through the void,

  seeking a world of freedom, adventure and

  wealth. They reached their goal, a planet

  beyond all planets, a weird land of the

  Lost—where silent death prepared to strike.

  I

  Mark Travers hoisted himself up from the floor. He leaned against the supply locker, rubbed his aching jaw where the big man's fist had just landed, and grinned ruefully.

  The big spaceman didn't grin. He faced Mark straddle-legged and snapped, "Who are you?"

  "Mark Travers." His smooth gray eyes surveyed the man's bulk. He thought he could handle him, but filed it for future reference when he saw the neutro-gun in the other's fist.

  "Travers, eh. A blasted stowaway! You come aboard at Marsport?"

  "Obviously."

  "How?"

  "It was easy," Mark shrugged. "Your ship was small, dark, and carried no insignia. I watched your men loading supplies secretly. Furthermore, you hadn't filed your destination with Central Bureau. Just the kind of set-up I wanted."

  "You know a lot," the big spaceman's eyes went hard. "Are you a sneaking I-S-P? Never mind. I'll see for myself!" He came a step forward, and his gun got playful with the third button on Mark's plasticoid shirt. Expertly the man's fingers went over him.

  "Careful, there, I'm ticklish!"

  "So's the release on this trigger, so just stand still."

  Mark stood still. The search revealed no papers or identification of any kind.

  "I'm not I-S-P," Mark told him sincerely. "If I were, do you think you'd ever have lifted gravs from Marsport?"

  "Okay, fella. I'm Mal Driscoll. Sorry I had to clip you so hard, but you never should have pointed that contraption at me when I stepped in here. So help me, I thought it was some new kind of weapon." His eyes narrowed. "What is it?"

  For a mere second Mark hesitated. He glanced down at the small, stub-lensed box which he
had clung to.

  "Why, it's—only a camera. New type, invention of my own."

  Driscoll nodded. "Come on, stowaway. We'll go up and see Janus. No skin off my teeth, if he wants to keep you aboard."

  They stepped out of the room and along a corridor, bracing themselves against the forward thrust of the rocket engines.

  "Who's Janus?"

  "Our Commander."

  "And what if he doesn't want me aboard?" Unobserved, Mark pressed a hidden stud in the black box. Tiny but powerful coils hummed to life, quickly ascended the scale to the inaudible. Camera? Mark smiled to himself and hoped none of the men here knew anything about cameras!

  "You know the space-code on that," Driscoll answered his question. "If it is so desired, stowaways are tossed into space."

  Mark racked his brain. "I don't remember that in the Interplanetary Code!"

  Driscoll turned, grinned at him. "Who's talking about Interplanetary Code? We make our own!"

  Janus was in a forward cabin poring over charts on a glass-topped table. Three other men were lounging there. Janus was six-feet-four, with bulk to match. He had flaming red hair and an outlandish full beard that made a vivid splash against the drab gray of his insulated tunic.

  He scowled fiercely as the two men entered. Driscoll pushed Mark forward.

  "Found this stowaway in the supply room. Says his name is Mark Travers. I don't think he's I-S-P, though."

  Janus' deep-set gray eyes seemed to bore through Mark, then they flashed to the black box.

  "What's that?"

  "New-design projection camera. It—"

  "Put it here," Janus indicated the corner of his desk. Mark did so with some reluctance. This man was no fool!