The Time Annihilator by Edgar A, Manley and Walter Thode Read online

  They have surrendered their chance to live.”

  The Hunt for Stenson

  The pavements and sidewalks moved

  swiftly beneath our machine, and we realized

  Wonder Stories

  22

  “TELL me, old man,” whispered Clay, turning

  masonry had stood, towering into the blue sky,

  to me, “am I dreaming some terrible became nothing but emptiness. The buildings nightmare?”

  crumbled into the thinnest of dust.

  “No, I’m afraid we’re only too wide

  We stared into the street and saw

  awake.”

  hundreds of fleeing persons trapped in another

  “The refugees are heading out toward

  invisible ray. The pavement was torn up,

  open country, poor devils. And there is only

  Where hordes of human beings had stood was

  room in the time machine for one other now nothing but desolation. I pressed my person. If we find Stenson we’ll be crowded.

  hands before my eyes to shut out this sight. I

  If we could only save a few of those wondered if Stenson had met a similar fate.

  unfortunate people.”

  “Is there no chance, if we return to the

  “What a happy city to have lived in.

  ‘present’ of forestalling all this horror?” Clay

  Look at the great parks. The Jersey side must

  cried pleadingly,

  be a continuation of New York City, Just look

  “You mean to our own time?” I

  at the towering skyscrapers across the rejoined, “I doubt it. We are looking upon the Hudson.”

  inevitable. We can no more lift our finger to

  I followed his finger and nodded. Then

  prevent all this than if we never existed.”

  I peered down the street.

  “Come, let us push our search for Mr.,

  “They will have to go many miles Stenson,” cried Halden. “I’m very much afraid before the city ends. I suppose it covers all of

  we are lax. We have wasted much time up

  Westchester county by now.”

  here fruitlessly.”

  “It will be like looking through a

  We were down in a boulevard again

  haystack for a needle to find Larry,” I said.

  fighting our way through the crowds. Building

  “Let us stay here for a few moments,”

  after building fell before the invisible rays

  said Professor Halden, “and think of a logical

  projected by the domed-headed men.

  course to follow in finding him. I was too

  “We can warn the world of this when

  hopeful when I said we could track him easily.

  we return,” said Clay.

  I’m very much afraid.”

  “Yes we might do that when we return

  “The death of an individual is sad,”

  to 1945—or Professor Halden when he finds

  remarked Clay, “but it is inevitable. This mass

  himself back in 2015. But we’d be laughed at

  destruction is hideous.”

  as madmen. Just like we regarded Stenson

  Halden shook his head in agreement.

  when he collapsed that night. And hundreds of

  “That is the horror of what we are gazing

  years will pass before all this transpires. It will upon—mass destruction. We must all die be forgotten for innumerable decades before when our allotted span of time comes. But do

  the end comes. We’ll have been dead and

  we not feel that we survive in those that come

  crumbled into ashes before this takes place.”

  after us?”

  “What an amazing experience we’ve

  “Look, the city is being annihilated

  had, Lane.”

  rapidly now!” shouted Clay. “Why, it’s

  “The world is being swept into

  melting away before our very eyes. The devils

  nothingness. The rays of extermination that

  are pushing their destruction furiously.”

  Chang Hsu invented are turning everything

  A mass of buildings, that must have

  into dust.”

  covered a half square mile, was caught in the

  Two buildings, barely a quarter of a

  path of death rays, projected for all we knew

  mile away, were caught in the unseen cone of

  from half way across the globe. Where solid

  destruction. They vanished before our eyes.

  The Time Annihilator

  23

  Clay turned to me:

  down the steps, oblivious of our nearness. I

  “Did you hear that man that just passed

  caught a glimpse of his face and recognized

  say that London and Paris have been half

  Stenson. Clay brought the mechanism of the

  destroyed.”

  time machine to a sharp halt and projected his

  “And my home, Europolis,” said head through the glass door. “Stenson!” he Halden in agitation. “The beautiful capital of

  shouted.

  the United States of Europe. It, too, is being

  Larry Stenson turned sharply. His

  swept away.”

  clothing was torn and his face covered with

  “Look, there goes another building, blood and dirt. A cry of thankfulness sprang Clay,” I yelled. “It must be nearly a half mile

  from his lips as he ran toward us. He sprang

  high. It’s the most startling structure I’ve ever

  through the doorway of the time chamber and

  seen. Look quick!”

  collapsed in our arms.

  “And the two buildings adjoining it!”

  “THANK God you found me,” he said,

  THE sharp outlines of the three mountainous

  sobbing. “I felt like a lost soul—adrift in the

  buildings, through which aerial highways future.”

  swept, eighty stories in the air, appeared

  “And we came across Professor

  against the Southern sky. We saw a spiral of

  Halden at the tomb of Chang Hsu—where you

  dust whip the hot air from the tallest building,

  left him when you decided to return to 2250.”

  and fainter columns arose from the other

  “Yes, I see you’ve picked the professor

  structures. The sky was acquiring a reddish

  up,” said Stenson as he grasped the savant’s

  glint from the clouds of dust and darkness,

  hand. “I suppose he recounted his

  artificial and terrifying, fell upon the city.

  astonishment when I dropped in on him at his

  The sky was clear of airships now. The

  laboratory?”

  twenty-five million denizens of the metropolis

  “He certainly did,” I smiled. “I wonder

  were in flight afoot and on swift vessels if anyone ever got such a surprise in all the sweeping up the Hudson river.

  history of the world?”

  We neared the park again and moved

  “It was an amazing thing—as if a

  aimlessly amid the serried rows of gigantic

  stranger had fallen into my laboratory from

  palms. Here and there great holes appeared in

  Jupiter,” said Halden, “But it could not

  the ground and we realized that these spots

  compare with what took place during the time

  had been visited by the fury of the electrical

  journey, I thought I would never be found as I

  air rays. The park was deserted now, save for

  waited in the desert. If I had been captured by
<
br />   hundreds of dead. Many had been trampled to

  these inhuman creatures I am sure my fate

  death. The refugees were moving northward.

  would have been terrible. But looking at this

  A marble building, the roof of which

  sad spectacle, I am filled with even greater

  was supported by Gothic columns, stood near

  horror than at anything that could happen to

  a lake and we moved toward the structure,

  me alone.”

  What guided our course toward the building

  “If we could only track down Chang

  has since been a profound mystery to me.

  Hsu,” said Stenson.

  Possibly a hunch caused us to advance in that

  “It might be possible,” rejoined

  direction.

  Professor Halden. “While I was in the tomb of

  A bleeding form emerged from amid

  that Oriental fiend, hiding from the guards, I

  the pillars, clad in the drab clothing of our

  came across an inscription. Fortunately I have

  epoch. Clay shouted but the man continued

  some slight knowledge of Oriental languages.

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  24

  The inscription said something about Chang

  back to your own time.”

  Hsu—I was unable to read just what—and

  Halden nodded and the dial moved

  mentioned a date which would correspond again in Clay’s tanned fingers, backward in roughly to our year 2193.”

  the direction of our own speck of infinity. He

  “We will go back to that year!” said

  swung the indicator to the year 2045 and we

  Stenson, determined.

  passed rapidly through decades and

  The bombardment halted, at least for

  generations in which the human race seemed

  the time being. We drew deep sighs of relief.

  to have soared in its most glorious heights.

  “We can move about the globe without Passing from land to land we saw immense changing the present time element,” said cities inhabited by happy peoples. Wars had Stenson. “All ready?”

  long since been abolished and it seemed that

  “Yes.”

  hatred had died from the globe.

  Stenson placed his finger on the space

  I envied the peoples of the era that

  dial handle, which regulated movement about

  preceded the catastrophe of 2250. Never could

  the earth without changing the year, and we

  humanity have lived more gloriously and

  whirled swiftly through other cities in the joyously. Occasionally Stenson halted the processes of annihilation. They were in momentum of the indicator and we lived for a transition into nothingness.

  few thrilling moments among these future

  For a few moments we found peoples. We spent brief visits in New York ourselves in London near the Houses of and the great city of Europolis, the capital of a Parliament. The Thames river flowed as I had

  united Europe where barriers of race and

  seen it centuries before. But towering language had been abolished.

  structures now rose throughout the British

  “I wish I could spend my life among

  capital. They were vanishing under the force

  these people,” I said. “What carefree

  of the death rays.

  happiness they enjoy.”

  Again I found myself in a strange

  Life seemed to be lived goldenly by

  Paris. The Place de la Opera, for the gold

  these people. We paused now and then in

  domed structure still survived, was being great wooded groves to listen to splendid ravaged. Throngs swept through the orchestras. Education was universal. There boulevards, lined with skyscrapers so unlike

  seemed to be neither extremes of wealth or of

  the Paris of my own time.

  poverty. Even the common people lived in

  We stared a few hours later at a palatial surroundings. People traveled from Chinese city and saw myriads of yellow faces,

  land to land and felt themselves, indeed,

  blank with terror, milling through winding citizens of the globe.

  streets. Buildings were swept from the face of

  “This is Utopia, Larry,” remarked Clay

  the globe by the unseen hands of the surveying one of the great parks of Europolis.

  annihilation ray explosions. One blast that we

  “They’ve got heaven on earth here.”

  observed wiped out at least 5,000 human

  “Here is my own city as it will be long

  beings.

  after my own time,” said Professor Halden in

  The time machine, however, was a thrilled voice.

  overburdened and I saw an expression of fear

  The indicator sped backward, cutting

  cross Larry Stenson’s face. He turned toward

  down the years as a scythe lays low a harvest

  Professor Halden.

  of grain. “We are nearing my time,” said

  “We cannot continue long with four in

  Halden. “Soon I must bid you men,

  the time chamber,” he said. “We will take you

  contemporaries of my own ancestors, good

  The Time Annihilator

  25

  bye.”

  asked.

  “But we shall meet again,” said Clay.

  “Yes. That was the date. We are going

  Halden shook his gray head rather to shoot ahead to 2193 and try and locate sadly. “No, something tells me, my dear Chang Hsu. Perhaps, after all, we may be able friends, that we will part forever. You will

  to frustrate him. But I am very doubtful.”

  return to your own era—and I can but wish

  The climb through time was breathless

  you every happiness.”

  as we hovered near the indicator dial. The

  The time machine stopped. Time had

  passing of decades dropped like leaves about

  flowed backward through its mysterious us. Again we underwent the experience of agency very much to my mind as if a river

  hurtling through a jumble of lands and

  streamed uphill. We were in the Europolis of

  periods, catching brief glimpses of varied

  2045, just a little more than a century after our

  phases of life. “Too bad we could not take

  own time. Halden, returned to his own epoch,

  Halden along,” said Clay.

  seemed pleased. I could not help but envy

  “The machine would have been too

  him. The life of the people of Europolis in

  overburdened,” remarked Stenson. “Three

  2045 was infinitely superior to that of 1945,

  men crowd this little chamber. With a fourth

  although considerably less advanced than that

  we would be against the ever impending threat

  of the period that was to climax in the of disaster. It was best that we left him off in destruction of civilization in 2045. A hundred

  his own year.”

  years separated his particular era from that

  The beating wings of time seemed

  saturnalia of doom.

  alive on the journey to the Pei of 2193. Here

  The time machine had halted beside a

  we were to face the last of our adventures.

  grove. Flowers blossomed about us and we

  Oceans, continents swirled beneath us in an

  heard the singing of a multitude of birds.

  ever recurring tide. And then—we stood in the

  Halden seized our hands and moved toward

  laboratory of Chang
Hsu. We were again in

  the door.

  the land of Pei, that desert fastness from which

  “Adieu, my good friends,” he cried as

  the domed-headed monsters sprang to destroy

  he opened the door and walked through.

  humanity.

  Looking backward—or forward—to

  Chang Hsu, I am convinced the man was a

  CHAPTER VIII

  megalomaniac. Certainly no more

  The Wizard of Pei

  misanthropic being ever blotted the globe than

  Chang Hsu. He was mad, or else so filled with

  the godlike possibilities that lay in his

  THE time machine throbbed into life again,

  knowledge of the protoplasm of life that he

  with the indicator swinging into the future.

  was determined to wipe out humanity to make

  “There is only one thing left for us to

  room for his own creatures to possess the

  do before we return to our own time,” said

  globe.

  Stenson. “The fact that Professor Halden was

  As I stood in the laboratory of Chang

  able to decipher the inscription in the tomb of

  Hsu, I recalled the vision of the then-to-be

  Chang Hsu, at least to the extent of finding an

  dead body in the yellow robe seated on the

  approximate date for the time In which that

  golden throne in the tomb under the crumbling

  foe of mankind existed, may prove lama temple. I pictured the dead Chang Hsu, invaluable.”

  whose yellow hands had spanned the centuries

  “He said the year 2193, didn’t he?” I

  to hurl destruction on all the countries of the

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  26