Astounding Stories, June, 1931 Part 2

"Look!" cried Harbauer. "He's been attacked by another dog, or some other animal, while in the future. See the blood on his shoulders?"

We ventured the humble opinion that the dog had scratched or bit himself in struggling to free himself from the cords with which Harbauer had bound him, and the inventor flew into a terrible rage, cursing and waving his arms as though demented. Feeling that discretion was the better part of valor, we beat a hasty retreat, pausing at the barbed-wire gate only long enough to ask Mr. Harbauer if he would be good enough, sometime when he had a few minutes of leisure, to dash into next week and bring back some stock market reports to aid us in our investment efforts.

Under the circ.u.mstances, we did not wait for a response, but we presume we are persona non grata at the Harbauer establishment from this time on.

All in all, we are not sorry.

I folded the paper and pa.s.sed it back to him; some of the allusions I did not understand, but the general tone of the article was very clear indeed.

"You see?" said Harbauer, his voice grating with anger. "I tried to be courteous to that man; to give him a simple, convincing demonstration of the greatest scientific achievement in centuries. And the fool returned to write _this_: to hold me up to ridicule, to paint me as a crack-brained, wild-eyed fanatic."

"It's hard for the layman to conceive of a great scientific achievement," I said soothingly. "All great inventions and inventors have been laughed at by the populace at large."

"True. True." Harbauer nodded his head solemnly. "But just the same--"

He broke off suddenly, and forced a smile. I found myself wis.h.i.+ng that he had completed that broken sentence, however; I felt that he had almost revealed something that would have been most enlightening.

"But enough of that fool and his babblings," he continued. "I am here as living proof that my experiment is a success, and I have a tremendous curiosity about the world in which I find myself. This, I take it, is a s.h.i.+p for navigating s.p.a.ce?"

"Right! The _Ertak_, of the Special Patrol Service. Would you care to look around a bit?"

"I would, indeed." There was a tremendous eagerness in the man's voice.

"You're not too tired?"

"No; I am quite recovered from my experience." Harbauer leaped to his feet, those abnormally long, slitted eyes of his glowing. "I am a scientist, and I am most curious to see what my fellows have created since--since my own era."

I picked up my dressing gown and tossed it to him.

"Slip this on, then, to cover your clothing. You would be an object of too much curiosity to those men who are on duty," I suggested.

I was taller than he, and the garment came within a few inches of the floor. He knotted the cincture around his middle and thrust his hands into the pockets, turning to me for approval. I nodded, and motioned for him to precede me through the door.

As an officer of the Special Patrol Service, it has often been my duty to show parties and individuals through my s.h.i.+p. Most of these parties are composed of females, who have only exclamations to make instead of intelligent comment, and who possess an unbounded capacity for asking utterly asinine questions. It was, therefore, a real pleasure to show Harbauer through the s.h.i.+p.

He was a keen, eager listener. When he asked a question, and he asked many of them, he showed an amazing grasp of the principles involved.

My knowledge of our equipment was, of course, only practical, save for the rudimentary theoretical knowledge that everyone has of present-day inventions and devices.

The ethon tubes which lighted the s.h.i.+p, interested him but little. The atomic generators, the gravity pads, their generators, and the disintegrator-ray, however, he delved into with that frenzied ardor of which only a scientist, I believe, is capable.

Questions poured out of him, and I answered them as best I could: sometimes completely, and satisfactorily, so that he nodded and said, "I see! I see!" and sometimes so poorly that he frowned, and cross-questioned me insistently until he obtained the desired information.

In the big, sound-proof navigating room, I explained the operation of the numerous instruments, including the two three-dimensional charts, actuated by super-radio reflexes, the television disc, the attraction meter, the surface-temperature gauge and the complex control system.

"Forward," I added, "is the operating room. You can see it through these gla.s.s part.i.tions. The navigating officer in command relays his orders to men in the operating room, who attend to the actual execution of those orders."

"Just as a pilot, or the navigating officer of a s.h.i.+p of my day gives his orders to the quartermaster at the wheel," nodded Harbauer, and began firing questions at me again, going over the ground we had covered, to check up on his information. I was amazed at the uncanny accuracy with which he had grasped such a great ma.s.s of technical detail. It had taken me years of study to pick up what he had taken from me, and apparently retained intact, in something more than an hour, Earth time.

I glanced at the Earth-time clock on the wall of the navigating room as he triumphantly finished his questioning. Less than an hour remained before the time set for our return trip.

"I'm sorry," I commented, "to be an ungracious host, but I am wondering what your plans may be? You see, we are due to start in less than an hour, and--"

"A pa.s.senger would be in your way?" Harbauer smiled as he uttered the words, but there was a gleam in his long eyes that rather startled me, and I wondered if I only imagined the steeliness of his voice. "Don't let that worry you, sir."

"It's not worrying me," I replied, watching him closely. "I have enjoyed a very remarkable, a very pleasant experience. If you should care to remain aboard the _Ertak_, I should like exceedingly to have you accompany us to our Base, where I could place you in touch with other laboratory men, with whom you would have much in common."

Harbauer threw back his head and laughed--not pleasantly.

"Thanks!" he said. "But I have no time for that. They could give me no knowledge that I need, now; you have told me and showed me enough. I understand how you have released atomic energy; it is a matter so simple that a child should have guessed it, and man has wondered about it for centuries, knowing that the power was there, but lacking a key to unfetter it. And now I have that key!"

"True. But perhaps our scientists would like, in exchange, the secret of moving forward in time," I suggested, reasonably enough.

"What do I care about them?" snapped Harbauer. He loosened the cord of the robe with a quick, impatient gesture, as though it confined him too tightly, and threw the garment from him.

Then, suddenly, he took a quick stride toward me, and thrust out his ugly head.

"I know enough now to give me power over all my world," he cried.

"Haven't you guessed the reason for my interest in your engines of destruction? I came down the centuries ahead of my generation so that I might come back with power in my hand; power to wipe out the fools who have made a mock of me. And I have that power--here!" He tapped his forehead dramatically with his left hand.

"I will bring a new regime to my era!" he continued, fairly shouting now. "I will be what many men have tried to be, and what no man has ever been--master of the world! Absolute, unquestioned, supreme master!" He paused, his eyes glaring into mine--and I knew from the light that shone behind those long, narrow slits, that I was dealing with a madman.

"True; you will," I said gently, moving carelessly toward the microphone. With that in my hand, a slight pressure on the General Attention signal, and I would have the whole crew of the _Ertak_ here in a moment. But I had explained the workings of the navigating room's equipment only too well.

"Stop!" snarled Harbauer, and his right hand flashed up. "See this?

Perhaps you don't know what it is; I'll tell you. It's an automatic pistol--not so efficient as your disintegrator-ray, but deadly enough.

There is certain death for eight men in my hand. Understand?"

"Perfectly." What an utter fool I had been! I was not armed, and I knew that Harbauer spoke the truth. I had often seen weapons similar to the one he held in the military museums. They are still there, if you are curious--rusty and broken, but not unlike our present atomic pistols in general appearance. They propelled the bullet by the explosion of a sort of powder; inefficient, of course, but, as he had said, deadly enough for the purpose.

"Good! You are a good sort Hanson, but don't take any chances. I'm not going to, I promise you. You see,"--and he laughed again, the light in his long eyes dancing with evil--"I'm not likely to be punished for a few killings committed centuries after I'm dead. I have never killed a man, but I won't hesitate to do so now, if one--or more--should get in my way."

"But why," I asked soothingly, "should you wish to kill anyone? You have what you came for, you say; why not depart in peace?"

He smiled crookedly, and his eyes narrowed with cunning.

"You approve of my little plan to dominate the world?" he asked softly, his eyes searching my face.

"No," I said boldly, refusing to lie to him. "I do not, and you know it."