Endersby moved forward suddenly. “I’ll stay with Talcott, and good luck, Trent!”
“Thanks!” Ray opened a barred door, stepped into the cage. Through the wire mesh they could see him check his apparatus, then seat himself into the chair and strap his body in. His long, lean hand punched buttons on the dial. In the utter silence the clicks were magnified, ominous.
“I’m setting my goal first for fifty years ahead,” his voice came through, curiously muffled. “Some of you may even be alive then.” He tried to sound gay. “Don’t high-hat me out of your superior age and wisdom.”
Ray had turned on the powerful magnetic warps. The malachine crystals dazzled with intense green-blue flame. The magnetons hummed like the droning of a million bees. The time traveler waved his hand.
Then the machine blurred. It became a curious shimmering through which the rear of the station vaguely showed. The shimmering grew more rapid. Only the faintest outlines were visible, a ghostly fantasy of man and cage. Then that died, and the dozen were staring wide-eyed at emptiness. Raymond Trent and his timecraft had disappeared.
“He’s really done it,” someone said in a half-hysterical voice. “He’s gone into the future—the first man in the history of the world.”
“And the last—I’m afraid,” Talcott said tightly. He was finding difficulty in controlling his voice. He had loved the younger man.
Endersby said: “I owe him more than an apology. Let’s hope he comes back. In the meantime, we’d better follow his instructions. If the impossible happens—and he succeeds—we’ll have to be prepared. If he doesn’t return, we’ll have to be prepared just the same.”
TEN of the dozen went below. Two miles down, under rock that was the backbone of the earth, in an artificial cavern about an acre in area and fifty feet high, artificially lighted, ventilated and watered. Soil for planting, a dozen chickens for eggs and meat, concentrated foods for perhaps half a century. Small-enough quarters in which to live, a dozen human beings, with love, marriage, offspring, work, research, with but a single driving thought through the years—the discovery of a weapon to blast the mysterious invaders off the outer face of the planet, and the repossession of a scorched and practically useless world.
Pale but determined, they went to work. Last-minute things, small matters overlooked in the rush of days, but vital for continued existence in the bowels of the earth.
Overhead, two miles up, two men were holding vigil, sitting with burning eyes, waiting for the return of the daring traveler. One full day of breathless waiting, staring at emptiness until their eyes ached and bleared, hoping against hope, knowing in their innermost souls that Ray Trent would never come back, that his pioneer craft had crashed somewhere in the frightening reaches of space and time.
Yet they said nothing of this to each other, but sat rigid, almost unseeing, while the minutes and the hours ticked slowly away. Outside it was the late antarctic summer. The sun moved in a long, slow arc across the heavens, skirting the ice horizon in a vast oval, but never setting.
A blustering storm was gathering over the farther mountains, grim fore-warner that the milder weather was over. Soon it would descend in howling blasts of snow, obscuring the heavens, burying the station once more under mountainous drifts.
That would not matter any more. Within a few hours they’d have to retreat to the depths, and the space things would descend in a swarm of green-glowing bubbles to take over the last poor section of a stricken planet.
As the hours slipped away—irrevocable wraiths—the two men watched and waited, not daring even to thrust a sidelong glance at each other. They did not wish to read on another face the aching conviction that was printed on their own. Ray Trent would never come back! He was dead, smashed in some far-off reach of time and space. It was senseless waiting. Down below there was much to do; things forgotten; things to be guarded against when the things came.
Yet they sat there, rigid, silent, not looking at each other.
The outrunners of the storm moved over the grim plateau. Preliminary gusts of wind rattled the station, retreated to gather new force. The sun was a red, wavering ball of misty fire. But still the central space on which they concentrated was bare—bare of cage or human being.
At eleven the next morning urgent messages came up from below. Since Trent had not returned in twenty-three hours, it was senseless to expect him any more. Suppose the terrible bubbles came a trifle ahead of schedule. They’d be taken unawares and destroyed. It took time to seal the cavern and explode the prepared charges.
But Talcott did not stir, and Endersby growled into the little microphone: “We wait until eleven thirty.”
At eleven thirty the calls became more urgent, threatening even in their fear. They’d have to seal themselves in if Endersby and Talcott didn’t come down in a hurry. The future of all mankind depended on them. Strangely enough, in the actual face of destruction, they had reconsidered, wanted to live.
“Ten minutes more,” snapped Endersby. “We’ve got to give Trent a break.” Talcott still said nothing; he seemed carved out of rock.
The storm burst with a thundering howl. Outside, the world was a swirling mass of gray, thick flakes, torn into shreds by a wind of hurricane violence. Winter had set in—the last winter the world would see.
At eleven forty the receiver crackled with urgency. Endersby sighed, got up reluctantly. He averted his face. “Come on, Talcott, there’s no more use.”
But the scientist was staring at a little whirling ball of mist that had materialized inside the station. “Look!” he cried in a thin, cracked voice. “Look at that!”
Endersby stared. “It’s the storm outside,” he said. “The sudden drop in temperature condensed some moisture, Come on.”
But Talcott was on his feet, quivering like a pointing setter. “It’s taking form,” he shouted. “It’s Trent! He has returned!”
The whirling mist had coalesced; it was shimmering now. The walls behind it grew faint, and a definite shape emerged. The shape of a barred cage, of a chair within and a figure strapped in its depths.
Then it became solid with a curious rush: these in the center of the room, at exactly the place where it had taken off into the unknown almost twenty-four hours before.
The figure inside stirred. Fingers plucked stiffly at the straps. Raymond Trent shook himself as though he were slowly coming out of a daze, got up, and walked with stiff, measured tread to the door.
Talcott and Endersby flung themselves forward. Their hearts thumped like pile drivers, sobs of pure joy tore at their throats.
“He’s come back,” they stammered. “He found the future and he returned!”
They literally dragged the younger man through the door; they pawed his lean figure, pumped his hand with fierce vehemence. They had to make sure that he was real.
“You found the future, didn’t you?” Talcott clamored.
Ray had not spoken as yet. Now he said in a flat, toneless voice: “I found the future, Talcott. Fifty years from now.”
“Swell! Swell!” jittered Endersby. “Everything’s swell now! Where are the weapons you brought back—the advanced weapons that will wipe the space things off the face of the earth? In fifteen minutes they’re coming. Give them to—”
For the first time they both noticed the expression on Ray’s face. It was hard and rigid, like a mask from which all human feeling, all emotion had been erased.
“I have no weapons,” Ray said dully.
“But . . . but—” Talcott stammered. He grasped feverishly at a straw. “Then the principle, the theory of subatomic power, at least. Surely by that time—”
Trent’s eyes were stony pebbles. “I have no theories or principles.”
“But damn it, man,” Endersby exploded. “If they didn’t know enough fifty years from now, why didn’t you go on—a hundred, five hundred years? We know the problem is not insoluble.”
Trent looked at them squarely. They fell back aghast at the sudden flare
in his eyes. Then that died. The mask fell back into place. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I went fifty, I went ten thousand years ahead. There is no future! The invaders won, of course. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Naturally, there aren’t any men in the future.”
The End
*********************************
Runaway Cargo,
by Nat Schachner
Astounding Oct. 1940
Novelette - 7875 words
The cargo was harmless enough—so long as no air hit it!
And it was automatically controlled from the Moon to Earth
—till the control stations were blown up!
Moon Station 2X hummed with activity. The great lucent dome was alive with lights and the bustle that presaged the departure of a great cargo craft. The pitted surface of Tycho cast eerie shadows, and the fierce Sun filtered through the artificial air within the huge, overarching span. Mighty derricks lifted giant fingers and scooped the precious Tycho dust into the hold of the waiting cargo ship. Orders crackled and men scurried like gnomes delving deep in the bowels of a planet. Every second counted; every extra moment's exposure of the dust to the disintegrating influence of the atmosphere increased the chances of blowing the Moon to kingdom come a hundredfold.
Shep Low tried to keep his eyes on the screen that registered incoming calls from New York, but they insisted on straying nervously to the ovoid ship that thrust its blunt nose, like an upended egg, through the sheathing dome and into the airlessness of the Moon. His short, chunky body was rigid, and his wide, generous mouth was clamped tight. Finally he could stand it no longer. He jumped up from his post, glared openly through the control-room window.
"Damn it, Neal!" he exploded. "Won't they ever get through loading that blasted, triple-blank stuff? I never saw such a bunch of slow-moving guys in my life!"
Neal Cass did not immediately answer. Carefully, and with exasperating calm, he kept on checking the readings of the cylindrical beam of force that surged through space between Moon Station 2X and Port New York. Amperage, voltage, magnetic sidesway, countervailing fields, hysteresis. Everything was right, and tight to the hairline. Everything was set for the quick, hurtling flight across the void.
Shep whirled on him. "How the blazes can you sit there like a mummified fish?" he said violently, "Those fellows out there are way behind schedule. That Tycho dust's liable to go popping on us any second."
"Keep your shirt on," Neal advised. "It disintegrates pretty fast; but not that fast. The rate follows a definite curve, and we know exactly how long it takes to reach the limiting point. Once it slides into the vacuum hold of the ship it's safe enough. As for the loading crew being behind schedule"—he looked at the moving time signal—"they're exactly five minutes ahead of it, my jittery friend."
Shep groaned and wiped his forehead with an old-fashioned handkerchief. "I'd have sworn it was noon of next month. I can take almost anything, but just sitting on my hands, waiting for some highly unstable dust to blast us out of the Galaxy, is more than should be expected of a reasonable man."
"Meaning you?"
"Yes, me!" Shep retorted inelegantly. "I wish to Hannah that first Moon expedition never discovered the dust in the old slag vents of Tycho."
"I'm with you there, Shep. But it was discovered, and by some miracle of chance a sample was brought back to Earth without exploding. Packed in vacuum shells, it makes the most terrible weapon civilized man has ever had. Doesn't even have to be detonated. As the shell strikes, contact releases a spring. The shell opens, the dust flies in all directions. The oxygen in the air does the rest." Neal's face grew grim. "I've heard of the tests. One shell wiped out an area five miles square and dug a hole a hundred feet deep."
"Yeah, I've heard, too." Shep glanced apprehensively out at the feverish workers. "I still say they should have left the dust here in Tycho where it belongs."
Neal nodded. "That was the original intention when our chemists laid the results before the North American Union. But the other unions got wind of it. They sent over their own expeditions. We claimed Tycho by right of discovery; they searched the other craters and set up their own Moon stations. Unfortunately they found the dust, too. So in self-defense, we've got to keep on mining and shipping."
Shep wiped his face again. "That's the hell of it! Everyone afraid to stop because of the others. Now if I had my way—"
The warning signal flashed red and buzzed sharply. Neal turned the screen switch. The round, serious face of Bruce Hopper blinked owlishly at ham from the silver surface. He was the New York operator.
"Hello, Neal!" he greeted, "Everything's set at this end. Landing beam's tight and ready. When does the Thunderbolt blast off?"
Neal glanced up at the time signal. "In about five minutes, Bruce, The loading's a bit ahead of schedule. I'll transmit the starting units as soon as she lifts."
"Good enough!" Bruce approved. Then his round, businesslike face took on a worried look. He glanced furtively around the deserted control chamber as though he were afraid of eavesdroppers. He lowered his voice. "You can't hurry the stuff over fast enough to suit Their Nibs."
"What's up?"
"Plenty! That is, nothing definite; nothing you could put a handle to. But Their Nibs are nervous. Been holding a lot of secret meetings. In fact, the great William Pruyn just contacted me to find out when that load of Tycho dust was coming through. Himself in person, too; not a stereo."
Neal whistled. "Their Nibs"—irreverently so-called by the control men—was the august Council of Experts who governed the North American Union; and Pruyn was its president. "That sounds bad," he agreed. "But hell, we've already delivered two cargoes. That dust's pretty deep down the vents. Takes at least a month to load up a ship. Besides, what are Their Nibs nervous about? The World Treaty's got another six months to run."
Bruce laughed mirthlessly. "You fellows have been on the Moon too long. Earth's become a vast whispering gallery of rumors. The way things are now, no union's going to pay much attention to a treaty. And the first two shipments are already past history. The detonating plants are clamoring for more."
"We've sent as much as any other Moon station," Neal protested. "And now that we've installed the new Shipman process we'll double the output."
"That's the trouble. The other unions got wind of it. That's why they're liable to strike before we get the edge on them." He stopped suddenly, flung his head around toward the rear of his chamber. "Signing off, Neal. Someone's coming. Send me the elements when the Thunderbolt blasts."
Then the screen wiped clean into a featureless blank.
"Holy cats!" breathed Shep, his dark face screwed up into little knots. "So that's the way it is! Maybe we'd better tell Gautry to put some guards around the station. No telling what might happen."
Neal grinned. "The only thing that'll happen will be a swell case of lunar madness for you if you don't take hold of yourself. They say the lesser gravity has a lot to do with it. Makes lesions in the brain cells, and the victim sees wimpuses and thinks he's a floating moonbeam."
"Shut up!" Shep yelled indignantly. "I'm serious."
"So am I. What do you want to guard against? Any flight from Earth would be seen by us in ample time."
"I'm not talking about Earth. How about the half dozen Moon stations? There's Gassendi, worked by the East Europe Union; Proclus with a heavy staff of Central Asians; Eratosthenes and so on. Any one of them could launch a swift attack against us without our having a chance."
Neal frowned and looked thoughtful. "There's something in that," he admitted. "Perhaps you're right. At any rate it wouldn't hurt. I'll talk it over with Gautry after the Thunderbolt clears." Everett Gautry was supervising chief of the station. "Ah! She's ready now. They've battened down the hatches; they're waving everyone out of range."
The huge orange light beam swung frantically outside. The annunciators blared warning. "Back, everyone! The ship's blasting off."
The men scurried for their lives, d
ropping into specially prepared shelter chambers, bounding with fantastic jumps for the rock-hewn central quarters. Ev Gautry, feet straddled, powerful frame leaning slightly forward, flashed a hand signal across the pumicelike ground toward the control chamber.
Neal stared tensely at the time signal, ready for readings.
There was a sudden blast of sound. The deep cavity underneath the ship was filled with belching flame. A lurid blaze flicked over the station. The Thunderbolt whooshed out through the skin-tight vent, streaked upward so fast the human eye could barely follow its flight. Already it was a tiny speck of shimmering metal against a cold, black sky, heading at a slight angle to the half Earth that glowed palely green overhead.
"Boy! She travels fast!" Shep said admiringly. Then he took a deep breath of relief. "Can't say's I'm sorry she left. It's Earth's headache now. I'll sleep easy for another month now."
Neal flung figures into the calculator, watched the shining mechanism spin and gyrate. Within seconds the plotted elements of the ship's course spewed out on flexible steel tape. He glanced at them with expert eye. "Everything's right and tight. The beam's holding it like a vise. A neat job, if I do pat myself on the back."
"You ought to," said Shop. "It's your idea—I mean the crewless cargo ship and the force beam to guide it. Come to think of it, why isn't it applied to other types as well?"
"Not enough flexibility of motion," explained Neal. "Can't swerve off the beam in case of necessity. The occasion might arise in one out of a billion cases—not enough to bother about with cargoes, but with passengers on board it's another matter. Besides, passengers need attention. Got to wipe their noses, furnish an audience for their 'ohs' and 'ahs' when they hit space for the first time, and answer a lot of fool questions."
When The Future Dies Page 29