In short, a normal, workaday world in which the social sciences were once more relegated to the obscure utterances of long-haired professors, and the average man passed hurriedly over columns of politics and the international situation to pore intently on the chances of the Yankees over the Athletics, and the inch-by-inch measurements of the Hebraic challenger, Max Bernstein, juxtaposed against those of the Nordic heavyweight champion of the world, the mighty Hans Schilling himself.
What could possibly happen in a world of such even-going pace, except casual normalities, like:
James Mann looked up feebly at the terrifying shadow of his boss. The boss was Spanish, darkly predatory.
"Look here, Mann," he was saying. "Your accounts are out two cents again."
"I—I can't understand it, sir."
"I'm not asking you to understand it," the boss said sharply. "I want accuracy, loyalty. The next time you make a mistake, out you go—fired. How much am I paying you now?"
"Fifteen a week, sir."
"The minimum, hey? You're not worth that much. Five would be more like it."
Now James Mann, bookkeeper and near-sighted bachelor, prided himself on one thing in his meek, rabbitlike existence. That was the fact that he was superior to all foreigners by virtue of his ancestor having signed the Domesday Book in illiterate, highly illegible Anglo-Saxon.
Something burst within him now, some long-underlaid streak of reckless insanity. He rose from his desk to a full five feet four; thrust a violently wagging forefinger under his boss's nose.
"You—you filthy foreigner!" he half screamed. "Keep your filthy job! My ancestors—"
Now consider:
Herr Hellwig, Dictator of Mideuropa, struck a characteristic pose. At once a hundred thousand Blue Shirts extended their hands and shouted in unison: "Heil Hellwig!" The roar of it shook the earth with the thunder of far-marching armies.
The bristly little mustache of his sallow face fairly quivered. His mouth opened; he spoke:
"The future of the world belongs to the Mideuropans! The other nations know it; they are panic-stricken! It was treachery, base treachery, that won for them before! Down with the Jews and Communists!"
"Down with the Jews and Communists!" thundered the antiphonal response.
Herr Hellwig was gratified.
"We have eliminated the scoundrels!" he orated. "We are a pure race of Nordics! Vercingetorix was our ancestor! We shall, we must prevail! Blah—blah—blah!"
Or if you prefer the purlieus of Boston Brahmism:
Georgiana Cabot looked with marked distaste at her tall, iron-gray husband. He was distinguished-looking, was Henry Cabot: especially now, as he put the last finishing touch to his dress tie and hummed before the mirror a slow, seductive waltz. She herself was faded, prim, and highly rouged.
"I don't mind so much your low-bred taste in having an affair with a chorus girl," she observed coldly; "but at least you could have the decency not to let all Boston in on the sordid details. Remember, you are a Cabot, and I—"
"Yes, yes. I know," the man said wearily. The light had gone out of his face. "You are an Adams, and a Daughter of the American Revolution. That's just the trouble. If you could forget those damning facts for a moment, perhaps there would have been no chorus girl."
"Why, Henry, it is outrageous of you—"
And so the quarrel started.
Of course, there are pleasanter scenes. Take this one for example:
The park in late springtime. A girl sat on the bench; overhead a dogwood spread its waxen blooms. The girl was beautiful, with a certain warm, olive-tinted Latinity to her. She palpably expected some one. Her eager eyes raked the winding path both ways; she glanced at her wrist watch, and the worried lines on her forehead deepened. She bit her lip.
There was the sound of crunching, hurried footsteps. She looked up, saw a very blond young man half running. Her face lit up with happiness. The worried lines disappeared.
"Paul!"
"Emily!"
The discreet squirrels looked the other way for the next minute or so. When they did glance around again, the girl was patting her hair back into place, and the young man was explaining:
"I just had it out with the mater."
The girl turned swiftly.
"Paul! You told her?"
He nodded gloomily.
"Yes."
"And—"
"Damn it all!" he exclaimed irrelevantly. "Suppose my forbear was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. He might just as well have been hung, the old pirate!"
"And my father came over in the steerage. I understand."
The young man said fiercely:
"I won't give you up."
In spite of the red-faced cop standing stolidly not a hundred feet away; in spite of bright-eyed, chattering sparrows unversed in the delicacies of squirrels, his arms went out for her. She moved blindly toward him—
Now this is really very unusual; not only for 1935, year of normalities; it would have been passing strange even in 1933, when the world was stirring and quickening with the yeast of its motion. In the first place, it involves science, and science is always unusual. But listen for yourself:
The laboratory was filled with precision instruments, such as a hundred other physical laboratories could have duplicated. There was something else, however, and this was truly unique. Emmet Pennypacker had made it after three years of unremitting toil, and now it was finished. Any number of internationally known scientists, if they had known, as of course they didn't, could have told you that if an invention took Pennypacker that long to complete, it must be a world beater.
Pennypacker admitted it himself; there was no false modesty about the man! Even Sam Corey, his assistant, had to admit it, though he resented many other things in his chief. For it must be confessed that the scientist's personality was not particularly pleasing. He was ruthless, unscrupulous, avid for personal aggrandisement and glory. He swallowed the unsung, unknown labors of talented assistants like Sam Corey without so much as an acknowledgement; he tore the professional reputations of his colleagues to pieces if only it meant another column of praise in the press.
Now, as he stood, arms akimbo, in the laboratory, staring at his last and most marvelous invention, Pennypacker's lips were wreathed in a thin smile of triumph. Sam Corey watched the yellowish, high-cheeked features, the strong, beak-like nose, the single line of the thick, black eyebrow, with a bit of distaste. Pennypacker's fingers twitched. Lord! Was he going to repeat that idiotic, habitual gesture? There it came. The right hand moved unconsciously up, twisted around the back of the neck, and scratched the tip of the longish nose. A contortionist's trick; one that Sam Corey couldn't have duplicated if he tried.
Pennypacker stepped back.
"It's the supreme product of human powers," he said. "My name will resound through the ages as the greatest man of all time. Look at it, Sam! Look at it!"
Sam smiled wryly. Not a word about his share in the planning and making of the machine. As a matter of fact, the whole idea and construction had really been his. But he only said: "Absolutely, Mr. Pennypacker," and turned to stare at the machine as though it were the first time, and not the thousandth.
It was well worth staring at. Resting on a movable platform was a large square box, tall enough and wide enough to accommodate several men, as well as a cluster of shiny machinery, tubes, numerous gadgets and controls. What was peculiar about the box was the material of which it was made. A transparent, metallic-like substance, harder and less clear than glass, and shimmering in a sort of ecstatic dance as though its component atoms were afflicted with a stuttering St. Vitus.
"A beautiful thing," acknowledged Sam. "I hope it works."
"Works?" Pennypacker echoed, as though he had not heard aright. "Of course it works. This time machine is absolutely foolproof. Works! Ha!" He snorted and glared. "Even you could work it!"
"Of course," said Sam with subtle meaning. "But it's dangerous business, meddling with the past.
What's done is done. 'The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on'— You know the rest. We try to introduce an anachronistic element into the past, and the consequences may be incalculable. Now, if you were traveling into the future, I'd be glad to—"
"Bunk! Stuff and nonsense!" interrupted the older man rudely. "Don't quote poetry at me, Corey, to bolster up your cowardice. I'm going into the past for that very reason; it's more difficult. The glory will be greater, and—the world will believe more readily. I can bring back proof; the future is a myth; they'll accuse me of inventing it."
That was it, thought Sam bitterly. Thinking only of the effect upon an admiring world instead of the true scientific spirit. The past was dead; nothing to be learned there; but the future—
Aloud he said: "Curious element, vibratium. Without its strange property of reversing itself or speeding up in time, the machine could never have been made."
"Y-e-es," Pennypacker assented grudgingly, as though Corey were setting undue limits to his powers. Then: "But come; get everything ready. I am anxious to start."
Sam walked through a slide door into the machine. He adjusted the shining, shimmering controls, made certain tests, carefully ascertained that the automatic reverse was set for three hours, to insure the return of the machine within that time limit.
"All set, sir," he reported.
Pennypacker gulped down a colloidal solution of the new element to impregnate his body with its peculiar qualities. Then he walked steadily into the machine. The man was brave in his fashion.
"I'd like to go with you, sir," said Corey.
Pennypacker stopped, swung on his heel, glared through the open door at his assistant.
"No!" he literally barked. "This first trip is mine, mine alone! You wait here and watch."
The slide slid noiselessly into position. Corey saw a strangely distorted figure press a button inside.
"Good-by," he shouted viciously, sure that he could not be heard. "I hope you meet your great ape of a great-great-grandfather. He'll commit suicide when he sees what he created!"
The time machine cleared magically a moment, then clouded into milky opaqueness. The sharp outlines blurred and faded until there was only a gray mist; then nothingness. The machine had started on its tremendous journey back into time!
Sam Corey cursed to relieve his feelings; then, because he was above all a scientist, sat down to await the ending of the three-hour interval, every nerve taut for the slightest interruption to the great experiment.
Mrs. Murphy sat dry-eyed, listening to her lord and master. When he paused for a particularly strangling hiccup, she said:
"You're drunk!"
Her three children, ranging from Bridget, seven, to Tim, three, the cause of all the commotion, hung on to her ample skirts, whimpering, frightened.
Mr. Murphy sank into a rickety wooden chair and wiped his slobbering mouth with the back of an uncertain hand.
"Drunk, 'm I?" he muttered, glowering. "Well, maybe I am! An' why shouldn't I be, Mrs. Murphy?" he roared suddenly. Tim began to cry loudly.
Mr. Murphy rose unsteadily to his feet, glared at his youngest offspring with bloodshot eyes.
"Look at 'm!" he shouted. "Black's ace o' spades! A bloody Eytalian, thass wha' he is. Ain't no Murphy 'bout 'm; like Bridget an' Michael, the darlints. You, Mrs. Murphy"—he pointed a wavering, hairy finger—"been—been unfaithful!"
He sank back into the chair, bowed his head on the table, and keened beerily.
Mrs. Murphy shrugged her shoulders with a Mona Lisa smile. She was used to these scenes; they occurred every time Mr. Murphy came home more than ordinarily drunk.
Tim, the youngest, looked so un-Irish.
In Cuba there was the usual revolution. Gonzales, the president pro tem, was about to be shot by order of Merrido, the president-to-be. The firing squad were sighting down their rifles, waiting for the signal.
In England a newly made member of Parliament was haranguing a bored House of Commons; in Sicily a peasant was lustily treading out the dark-red juice of the grapes with bare, muscular feet, singing the "Drinking Song" from Otello to the accompaniment of his downward jumps. An orthodox Jewish rabbi was conning his prayer book. An Ogpu officer stalked into a Russian factory to arrest a sabotaging counter-revolutionist. A Turkish soldier waited at the barred gate to the harem.
All quiet on the western, southern, eastern, and northern fronts!
No! I almost forgot. There was one event stirring in this year of 1935 that had the world by the ears. America certainly was all agog; every one discussed it, argued with all the factual discrepancies and rancor of experts. Broadcasting networks were hooked up as never before; announcers were on their toes; reporters pounded furiously on typewriters; cable and wireless companies reaped a harvest; and Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia, waited for the tremendous dénouement. Mideuropa was wild with Hellwigish enthusiasm, of course.
The mammoth, gigantic, overadvertised conflict of all time was in progress. Max Bernstein, Semitic challenger, against Hans Schilling, champion, for the heavyweight championship of the world!
The Garden was black with humanity; tier on tier of them, crammed into every available inch of space, clinging to the rafters, solidly packed into the aisles, hysterical, limp, raucous, imploring, yelling for blood.
It had been a great fight so far. The great bulk of the champion, with his ponderous reach and bone-crushing, sledge-hammer blows; the lighter, shorter challenger, with his superior speed and agility. Both were battered out of all semblance to humanity; both were groggy and game.
The beginning of the tenth round of a fifteen-round so-called boxing contest. The bell clanged harshly, and its last notes were lost in the roar of the crowd. Everybody was on his feet, struggling for a better view, cursing his neighbor, collars sweaty and torn, chanting:
"Knock 'im out! Kill 'im! Get the big bum! In the breadbasket! Put the big palooka out!"
In short, all the cultured give-and-take of a fully developed civilization.
The two gladiators were in the center of the ring; the beating lights glistened from sweaty, muscular bodies.
Schilling led off with a smashing right. Bernstein ducked slightly, and the blow passed over his shoulder. He countered with a short jab to the chin. The champion's head rocked back. The crowd yelled. Schilling shook his head, swung his left. It caught Bernstein in the side; staggered him. To save himself, he clinched. There was a rapid hammering of blows on reddened ribs; then the referee sprang in.
"Break!" he shouted.
The fighters parted. Schilling's lips went back from split mouth in a snarl.
"Yah!" he taunted. "Kike! Back to the ghetto!"
Bernstein went dead-white, then the dark blood swarmed over head and shoulders. He swung suddenly from the floor. Every ounce of power was in that blow. It smashed square into Schilling's nose.
The giant rocked on his heels, went down. The referee sprang over him; Bernstein backed into a corner. The Garden was wild with sound.
"One—two—three—four—"
The referee could hardly be heard in the tumult.
"Five—six—seven—eight—" he called.
Somewhere in the dim, bewildered brain of the fallen champion sounds penetrated. He heaved, staggered slowly to his feet on the last count, grinned foolishly, and fumbled for his opponent.
Bernstein drew his right calmly back; measured the befuddled giant for the final killing blow. The glove flicked forward; the roar of the mob was indescribable—
Emmet Pennypacker seemed suspended in the void; a void of sullen blankness in which there was neither day nor night, form nor shape, machine nor man. How long this state of not being lasted, he never was able to tell. Time itself had no sense or meaning.
Then awareness came; awareness of a lightening in a materialized universe; a sense of solidity to body and a pressure against unyielding floor. The time machine was slowing down.
Pennypacker's thoughts went round and round in whirligig
fashion. "Don't know where stop—stop where can—calculations impossible—impossible know—maybe no world—out in space—afraid—"
His senses cleared; he gaped foolishly around. The machine was solid about him; the walls were milky-white. That meant he was almost at the end of his journey. He felt uneasily for the gun in his pocket. It was still there, fully loaded, but it gave him no comfort. He regretted now that he had wanted all the glory for himself; Sam Corey would have been a tower of strength.
The milkiness was clearing. He strained his eyes anxiously. What was outside; what strange monsters and steamy swamps? Perhaps the earth was a molten mass; perhaps it had whirled backward from under him, and he was suspended horribly in space.
The vibratium walls shimmered into translucency; the atoms were approaching normal speeds. A tiny jar, and vision was established. The machine had come to a halt.
Emmet Pennypacker stared, groaned, and cowered back.
The machine was resting against the solid stone of a wall. It was the edge of a great square in the heart of an ancient city; Roman, by the massiveness and simplicity of its architecture. But that was not what had elicited the groan from Pennypacker.
The city was in flames; the sparks flew upward on surges of dense black smoke; walls tottered and fell in ruining destruction. Even that did not represent the full horror of it. For the great square was a shambles; the bodies of dead and dying lay in great, sprawling heaps. Through the vibratium walls came shouts and screams and shrieks and the crash of collapsing houses.
Figures rushed wildly across the square, like puppets jerked by invisible strings. Men in the characteristic Roman armor ran headlong, unarmed, the doom of approaching death on set lips and darkened eyes. Women, old, young, granddames, maidens, fled helterskelter, stumbling over the dead, hair streaming wildly, shrieking with insane intensity.
When The Future Dies Page 8