Synthetic Men Read online

  In ten minutes, the shoes were reduced to ragged piles of tattered leather. Erickson's deft fingers painstakingly placed the nails, one by one, in the line. The distance left to cover was less than six inches!

  He lined up the last few nails. Then both men were sinking back on their heels, as they saw there was a gap of three inches to cover!

  "Beaten!" Erickson ground out. "By three inches! Three inches from the present ... and yet it might as well be a million miles!"

  Miller's body felt as though it were in a vise. His muscles ached with strain. So taut were his nerves that he leaped as though stung when Major nuzzled a cool nose into his hand again. Automatically, he began to stroke the dog's neck.

  "Well, that licks us," he muttered. "There isn't another piece of movable metal in the world."

  Major kept whimpering and pushing against him. Annoyed, the druggist shoved him away.

  "Go 'way," he muttered. "I don't feel like—"

  Suddenly then his eyes widened, as his touch encountered warm metal. He whirled.

  "There it is!" he yelled. "The last link. The nameplate on Major's collar!"

  In a flash, he had torn the little rectangular brass plate from the dog collar. Erickson took it from his grasp. Sweat stood shiny on his skin. He held the bit of metal over the gap between wire and pole.

  "This is it!" he smiled brittlely. "We're on our way, Dave. Where, I don't know. To death, or back to life. But—we're going!"

  The metal clinked into place. Live, writhing power leaped through the wire, snarling across partial breaks. The transformers began to hum. The humming grew louder. Singing softly, the bronze globe over their heads glowed green. Dave Miller felt a curious lightness. There was a snap in his brain, and Erickson, Major and the laboratory faded from his senses.

  Then came an interval when the only sound was the soft sobbing he had been hearing as if in a dream. That, and blackness that enfolded him like soft velvet. Then Miller was opening his eyes, to see the familiar walls of his own kitchen around him!

  Someone cried out.

  "Dave! Oh, Dave, dear!"

  It was Helen's voice, and it was Helen who cradled his head in her lap and bent her face close to his.

  "Oh, thank God that you're alive—!"

  "Helen!" Miller murmured. "What—are—you—doing here?"

  "I couldn't go through with it. I—I just couldn't leave you. I came back and—and I heard the shot and ran in. The doctor should be here. I called him five minutes ago."

  "Five minutes ... How long has it been since I shot myself?"

  "Oh, just six or seven minutes. I called the doctor right away."

  Miller took a deep breath. Then it must have been a dream. All that—to happen in a few minutes— It wasn't possible!

  "How—how could I have botched the job?" he muttered. "I wasn't drunk enough to miss myself completely."

  Helen looked at the huge revolver lying in the sink.

  "Oh, that old forty-five of Grandfather's! It hasn't been loaded since the Civil War. I guess the powder got damp or something. It just sort of sputtered instead of exploding properly. Dave, promise me something! You won't ever do anything like this again, if I promise not to nag you?"

  Dave Miller closed his eyes. "There won't be any need to nag, Helen. Some people take a lot of teaching, but I've had my lesson. I've got ideas about the store which I'd been too lazy to try out. You know, I feel more like fighting right now than I have for years! We'll lick 'em, won't we, honey?"

  Helen buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and cried softly. Her words were too muffled to be intelligible. But Dave Miller understood what she meant.

  He had thought the whole thing a dream—John Erickson, the "time impulsor" and Major. But that night he read an item in the Evening Courier that was to keep him thinking for many days.

  POLICE INVESTIGATE DEATH OF SCIENTIST HERE IN LABORATORY

  John M. Erickson, director of the Wanamaker Institute, died at his work last night. Erickson was a beloved and valuable figure in the world of science, famous for his recently publicized "time lapse" theory.

  Two strange circumstances surrounded his death. One was the presence of a German shepherd dog in the laboratory, its head crushed as if with a sledgehammer. The other was a chain of small metal objects stretching from one corner of the room to the other, as if intended to take the place of wire in a circuit.

  Police, however, discount this idea, as there was a roll of wire only a few feet from the body.

  The End

  [1] Obviously this electric time impulsor is a machine in the nature of an atomic integrator. It "broadcasts" great waves of electrons which align all atomic objects in rigid suspension.

  That is to say, atomic structures are literally "frozen." Living bodies are similarly affected. It is a widely held belief on the part of many eminent scientists that all matter, broken down into its elementary atomic composition, is electrical in structure.

  That being so, there is no reason to suppose why Professor Erickson may not have discovered a time impulsor which, broadcasting electronic impulses, "froze" everything within its range.—Ed.

  *****************************

  When Time Rolled Back,

  by Ed Earl Repp

  Comet, May 1941

  Short Story - 6622 words

  Long before Rog found the mysterious, shining ball back in the mountains, he knew he was far different from the rest of his tribe that lived along the river. He knew it because he didn't think the same way they did, and because there was a difference even in their appearance.

  Sarak, who was the Old Man of the tribe as well as his sire, and Monah, Rog's mother, were short and heavy and thickly covered with hair. Rog was taller and straighter, and endowed with much less hair. Too, his face was much broader through the cheekbones and less heavy-looking around the mouth. There was only one other in the tribe who seemed to be of the same physical cast as Rog, and that was Lo, a young woman who dwelt with her family in Sarak's cave.

  Though the stalwart, blond young man took an active part in all the work of the tribe—hunting, skinning, tool-making—there were times when he would detach himself from the rest as though he were a creature of a higher world viewing a savage orgy.

  Such a time was the delirious madness of eating after the lucky kill of a giant mammoth. All the able-bodied men of the tribe would aid in dragging the great, quiet animal into the clearing beside the river, and then, to the cries of men, women, and children, huge hunks of flesh would be torn off and devoured by all. The orgy did not cease until no one was able to stand without falling.

  But Rog and Lo would stand back in the shadows and watch gravely, gnawing passively on smaller pieces of meat.

  The others of the tribe realized that Rog and Lo were somehow different from them. And because of the young man's tremendous strength and because he was the son of the Old Man, he was not molested. But secretly the slow-thinking men and women classed him with Ta, the half-witted boy who sat all day playing with a stick.

  None of them, not even the thoughtful Lo, ever stopped to wonder how far back their ancestors had lived in this spot. Nor did they care. But Rog found himself wondering if life had always been like this, or if it had once been superior or inferior to their mode of life. Sometimes he would grow curious enough to wander far down the river, or off into the hills, alone.

  It was on one of those excursions, prompted by an increasing dissatisfaction with the life of the tribe, that Rog wandered back four or five ranges from the cave dwellings. He had just sat down to eat some of the dried meat he had brought along when his eye was caught by a glint of flashing metal off through the dense woods.

  Startled, he leaped up and made his way nearer. Within ten minutes he was standing aghast, staring at a great, gleaming globe of silver, half buried in the soft, moldy ground. He was terrified, for an instant, and broke into panic-stricken flight before this thing that none of the aborigines had ever seen. Then Rog's overpowe
ring curiosity brought him creeping back.

  It was fifty times as tall as he was, just the half of it he could see. It sparkled in the sunlight like white fire. Then, down near the ground, Rog saw a round cut in the smooth surface. Something told him this was the way inside the ball, though there was no reason why he should not have believed it was anything but solid. But there was an inner urge that made him approach gingerly and take hold of the long cross-bar that was set into the door.

  Eagerly he pulled at it. Nothing happened. He pushed, twisted, shoved, and still the thing would not budge. Then a gleam of comprehension flickered in his eyes. He grasped both ends of the bar and turned it the way a plumber turns a pipe-cutter. It moved!

  The round entrance swivelled about on threads that were glass-smooth, until suddenly it swung aside on a hinge. Rog gasped and poked his head inside. He was so amazed that for a couple of minutes he could only stand in the portal, gaping.

  The ball was divided into floors, apparently, for there was a spiral staircase in the middle that went up through the high ceiling, and a continuation of the stairway going down into the lower half of it. From some small globes hanging from the ceiling a soft radiation was thrown into the room. There were gleaming tables and cabinets and shelves of mystifying apparatus that Rog's eyes had never seen.

  At last he ventured inside. He went from one glass-covered table to the next, frowning at the things he saw. He could make nothing of them.

  There were twenty tables, and each bore a maze of strange symbols on its top. He was at a loss to divine what they meant, until he discovered that at the bottom of each chart there was a picture of a globe, with a tiny red arrow pointing to a section of it. Then he knew. The tables were supposed to tell him what was to be found on each floor.

  All this Rog knew, although he had never seen metal before, or glass, or heard of a floor. But somehow he felt more at home in here than he did in the cave with Sarak and Monah. With perfect confidence he went to the staircase and climbed to the first floor.

  A low, shining fence leading from the stairway made it plain that he was to follow inside it and view each exhibit as he went. Rog went to the first table, and within five minutes he was plunged into a maze of conjectures and mysteries that made his aboriginal brain ache.

  The first table bore a number of short groups of symbols, completely lost on him. There were flowing, cursive characters; then a line of wedge-shaped pictures; line after line of characters differing only slightly; and finally, at the very bottom, something he could understand.

  There was pictured a figure that brought a quick smile of apprehension to Rog's face—an old man, bowed with age. Beside him was a young child, enclosed in a red circle that set him off from the old man. A word leaped to his lips.... Not, perhaps, the word that the artist had intended, but close enough.

  "Beginning!" was the thought that came from his lips.

  After that the messages in the words and pictures made more sense to him. Stupefied, trembling with excitement at this thing that was happening to him, he went on and on.

  He ignored the symbols as mere decorations, and read the pictures, hurrying from one group to the next. He stared long and amazed at amazingly life-like representations of the life of a tribe such as his own. The men and women even looked like his did—short, squat, hairy. The scenes showed them killing great animals somewhat similar to the ones on whose meat they lived, portrayed them chipping flint holes, and doing the other dozens of things life demanded of them.

  But as he went on the life changed.

  From cave-houses the migration was to peculiar dwellings of poles and boughs, making box-like affairs in which men and women lived. The tribe-folk, even, changed. They grew more upright and less hairy, and their faces looked something like the reflection that stared back at Rog from quiet forest pools.

  The message of the pictures did not by any means unfold fully to Rog, but from the chain of scenes he began to grasp something. Life steadily became more and more complex, as though it were working toward something—with a purpose. Men grew taller, their dwellings bigger, their weapons stranger and apparently more efficient. He saw small tribal conflicts broaden into great wars between numbers of tribes.

  He gaped at inventions which he could not begin to comprehend. Before his startled gaze caves gave way to great dwelling-places so large that men looked like ants beside them. He had to smile at the fanciful picturization of a man flying through the air in a fantastic machine. But as Rog neared the end of the exhibit, he realized that the story, if story it was, did not satisfy him.

  In his crude, barbaric way, he had great visions of improving life so that death was not such a stern, everpresent reality, and men would have time for things other than eating and sleeping and mating. He was a philosopher, if such a thing were conceivable of a man who lived on raw meat. And this story did not appeal to him, for as far as he could tell men grew more and more dissatisfied, instead of contented....

  Terrible wars were shown to him. Violent death stalked the streets of the beautiful cities. War after war piled on top of struggling civilization until at last a conflict that seemed to embrace every shred of man's life took place. After that there were scenes of cities utterly deserted, crumbling into ruins. The final picture made Rog gasp with shock.

  They showed ten men laboring on a great steel ball, filling it with tiny miniatures and statues and boxes. The last picture was of one man lying under a transparent glass dome at the bottom of the ball.

  Rog was suddenly frightened. He turned and fled back down the stairs and out the door, and plunged into the forest—

  He said nothing to the rest of the tribe that day. Somehow he knew he must guard his secret with his life. If the others found what he had discovered, they would crowd into it and tear to shreds these things that he treasured, simply through love of destruction. When he thought of that, his fists clenched and hatred blazed in his eyes. The ball must be kept safe, so that he could learn what it meant. It meant more than life itself, more than Lo, even, that he should solve the message in the shining globe.

  But the next day he found time to sit by the river with Lo. "You were gone yesterday," she said. "Where?"

  Rog's heart leaped into his mouth. He looked down in sudden confusion. "Only down the river," he lied. "I went to hunt roots."

  Her questioning eyes told him she knew he was lying. But she was wise, and held her tongue.

  After a long time he could hold himself in no longer. "Do you ever wonder," he asked intensely, "why we live this way? I mean—have men always lived like this, in caves, killing their meat and gorging themselves on it, and then starving until they killed again?"

  Lo's dark eyes met his boring glance, but she said nothing. She was feminine enough, and civilized enough, to realize it wasn't an answer he wanted, but an audience.

  In a moment he went on. "You and I aren't like the others, Lo. The Old Man and all the rest of the people aren't happy unless they are eating. But we can be happy talking, and ... wondering."

  She smiled at him in happy understanding. "Luk-no says you are lazy," she said naïvely. "But I know you work hard even when you are quiet. Else how would you find things to make like the Thing that Floats?"

  He warmed at her mention of his raft. It was only a short while ago that he had conceived the idea of tying a bundle of logs together to ferry things across the river, but now it was in daily use. But when his mind rested on Luk-no, he scowled.

  "Some day I will kill him," he promised savagely. "Always he interferes."

  Luk-no was a great, stubby trunk of a man who resented Lo's interest in Rog and took every chance to get in his way. His greatest delight was to carry tales of his laziness to Sarak, who would promptly beat his son with a club. Such treatment rankled under Rog's skin.

  Then he forgot his hatred of the black-browed one in contemplation of other things. "I do not like the way we live," he said simply. "Our caves are cold and sometimes wet. Our weapons are scarcely abl
e to kill the animals we need before they kill us. I do not like the way the Old Man rules us, telling us what we can do and what we cannot do. Why shouldn't I make better things for myself if I want, instead of being beaten for not working? Some day...."

  Lo caught up the thread of thought quickly. "I know," she nodded. "Some day you will challenge Sarak and kill him. Then you will be the Old Man! You will be the one who rules!"

  "So that is what you two talk of! I knew it was not how to get food for the tribe!" The voice was triumphant and harsh, close behind them.

  They were on their feet in an instant, whirling to face the brutally-built man who had come up behind them. It was Luk-no. His little red-rimmed eyes were alight with anticipation.

  "You came at the wrong moment," Rog growled sullenly. "We were not talking of that, but Lo grew over-enthusiastic."

  "Well, and won't the Old Man be glad to hear this?" Luk-no taunted. "When I tell him, he will cave your head in like an acorn."

  Rog's face was black with fury. "If you tell Sarak what you heard," he said tensely, "I will take your dirty throat in my hands and break it. Then I'll gouge your prying eyes out. I'll tear your tongue out so you can never tell anything else you hear again. Or perhaps I will just do it now!" He took a menacing step towards the smaller, burlier man, his club resting on his shoulder.

  Luk-no cringed, essaying a grin. "You are too quick to anger!" he protested. "It was a joke."

  "A joke," Rog mocked. "Like the time you toppled a rock on the head of one of the others who wished to mate with Lo! I don't like your jokes, dirty one. Go back to your caterpillar-grubbing before I change my mind."

  But as Luk-no slunk away, he felt icy chills run down his back. He must be more careful! Here he had been on the point of telling everything to Lo. What would have resulted if Luk-no had heard! The globe, perhaps, would have been discovered and ruined!