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

  globe. But he was alive now. The future, when

  his devilishness, Pei was a land where they

  his creatures possessed the globe, was yet to

  could live in security for hundreds of years if

  come.

  need be until the time came for them to stage

  As I write these lines, uncertain phases

  their coup d’ etat.

  of the story linger strongly in my mind. None

  Doubtless Chang Hsu would leave

  of us were ever able to determine whether

  ample provision for their subsistence. His

  Chang Hsu had actually created these beings

  scientific knowledge would provide food,

  in his laboratory. There was a possibility that

  possibly out of the organisms floating in the

  he had merely used some strange glandular

  air, until the day of world reckoning came.

  process to make a race of giants out of human

  A scuffling sound broke the silence of

  beings—endowing them with superhuman the laboratory and the Asiatic servant of qualities of body and mentality.

  Chang Hsu hurried to the door, opening it

  The time machine, with its invisible

  noiselessly. Three huge domed-headed men

  crew, were in the laboratory within a few feet

  entered, naked save for dirty loin cloths. They

  of Chang Hsu. I studied the man through the

  seemed terribly repulsive, with their huge

  glass of Stenson’s time vehicle. The living

  heads and leather skins. This was the first time

  face of Chang Hsu was as impassive as the

  I had ever beheld any of the creatures stripped.

  dead countenance I had gazed upon in the year

  2418. I watched him bending over a battery of

  “I DON’T think he has improved much on

  electrical wires connected with what appeared

  nature,” said Clay. “At least not in

  to be a gigantic furnace. Another Oriental

  appearance. Aren’t they ugly devils?” “But

  stood at his side.

  look at these foreheads,” interjected Stenson.

  “Here is where—that race started,” “What brains they must hold. And the great whispered Clay.

  bodies. They are stronger than any human

  “Let us watch him for a little while,”

  being that ever lived.”

  said Stenson.

  “They haven’t progressed to the

  Chang Hsu’s thin black mustache dressed-up stage yet,” said Clay. “Remember curled stiffly down to his yellow clad how they were wearing silky duds and jewelry shoulders and a black cap rested on his head.

  when we saw them in the floating palace?”

  It was impossible to gauge the man’s age. The

  “Sh! They’re going to do something.”

  Occidental mind was baffled in fathoming the

  The three domed-headed men

  passing years that had swept about him.

  prostrated themselves at Chang Hsu’s feet

  Stenson and Clay joined me in with extravagant gestures of obeisance. Chang regarding him. The laboratory might have Hsu glanced at them with scornful eyes that been in a great university, so completely was

  narrowed savagely. Then he turned to the

  it equipped, rather than in the abandoned furnace. What connection this furnace had spaces of the Desert of Pei, cut off from the

  with the evolutionary process we were

  outer world by mountains that touched the

  watching has unfortunately remained a

  clouds.

  mystery to us. I saw Chang Hsu pour fluid

  Here was an ideal nesting place to

  into vials and these in turn were placed in a

  breed the strange race evoked by Chang Hsu.

  sort of matrix. Then Chang Hsu moved to the

  Whether they were created actually by Chang

  other side of the furnace.

  Hsu, living matter from out of the deadness of

  We attempted to follow him, but we

  inanimate material, or merely an evolution of

  were too slow. Something was happening

  the human species worked into monsters by

  vague yet terrible; something impossibly

  The Time Annihilator

  27

  gigantic and horrible. We knew that evoke—I hesitate at the word create—the protoplasm was being created in the domed-headed men and lay the world in laboratory.

  ashes. It was inevitable that this breed, filled

  “He’s solved the problem of life,” I

  with the vigor of new creatures, should

  cried.

  succeed a humanity grown flabby through

  “He’s mastered the secret of years of luxury as the powerful men from out protoplasm—that’s what he’s done!” of the North crushed Rome.

  marveled Stenson. “What lessons we could

  ‘For the first Morning of Creation

  learn from him.”

  wrote,

  “Suppose we wreck the whole works?”

  What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.’

  interjected Clay. “Maybe we can interfere I had followed Clay, and was now out of the with the course of time. We’ll die ourselves,

  time machine. It had vanished from our sight.

  but we’ll have saved humanity.”

  Only good old Larry, wise beyond us, cool

  A crusading valor surged over us at his

  where we were rash had remained in it. We

  words. If we succeeded what was to have

  heard his voice. “I’m with you boys.”

  transpired in the years to come would be

  There we stood again adrift in time

  frustrated. We clasped hands in silent alliance.

  facing Chang Hsu, his visage distorted with

  The glass cut us off from actual physical hatred. There was unimaginable cruelty in his contact with those in the laboratory. We had

  face, with its forehead of such noble

  stepped through it before. This time, we potentialities. Never have I gazed upon such a vowed, our course must be beyond chance of

  magnificent forehead as Chang Hsu’s. I knew

  needless catastrophe.

  then I was glancing into the countenance of

  “Wait, maybe those domed birds will

  one of the supreme intellects of all time.

  leave and we’ll have those two Chinks alone,”

  Chang Hsu, with a contemptuous

  said Clay. “We’ll seize those metal bars in the

  laugh, drew back and paused at a table. A

  corner and crush their brains out. Is it a go?”

  group of small objects, barely the size of

  “And

  how.”

  oranges, were on the table. Clay tried to rush

  As if in answer to our prayers—and

  Chang Hsu.

  through rare good luck to boot—the robot

  “You are welcome to my laboratory,”

  creatures departed through the laboratory said Chang Hsu. “Men from out of the past, door. Chang Hsu and his assistant were alone

  you have long outlived your time.”

  in the big laboratory. They were utterly

  “I’ll kill you,” shouted Clay.

  unaware of our presence.

  “Come back, you fool,” I yelled, I

  “All set, fellows?” asked Clay.

  suddenly realized the futility of our act.

  “We’re ready. Grab those bars.”

  “Clay!” cried the invisible Stenson.

  “Let’s

  go.”

  “Either go on or come back!”

  Clay, followed by
Stenson and me,

  “We’re going on,” shouted Clay. “At

  rushed to the invisible door and threw it open.

  him,” I cried madly. I howled with hatred as I

  The wizard of Pei, evidently startled by this

  reached Clay’s side and we darted toward

  invasion of his domain, advanced toward Chang Hsu. If I could strangle this odious Clay, who had passed over the doorway. He

  being, I felt I should have died happy. I never

  shouted for aid and his assistant joined him.

  completed the rush.

  Perhaps all things are written from the

  start. It was inscribed undoubtedly on the CHANG Hsu picked up one of the small tablets of eternity that Chang Hsu should round objects from the table and hurled it

  Wonder Stories

  28

  toward us. A hazy cloud spread about the

  fate if we had been lost in the future without

  laboratory, wiping out Chang Hsu from my

  means of returning to our own time.

  vision. I struggled in a world of inky

  “Lucky thing we let Professor Halden

  blackness that followed on the path of the

  off before we went to Chang’s laboratory,”

  mist.

  said Clay. “Just think, if he had returned with

  A blinding flash—a roar like that of a

  us he would have been trapped a hundred

  dozen Niagaras—crushed me. I fell into years before his time on earth.”

  insensibility.

  “Let’s get out,” I said. “This light is

  Clay and Stenson bent over me, fading.”

  shaking my head and slapping by cheeks to

  We opened the door and stepped into

  arouse me. I stared up at them wonderingly

  Stenson’s outer laboratory. The library lay

  and perceived that their faces were blackened

  beyond and I darted toward the book-lined

  and scarred. “Where are we?” I demanded.

  room, overjoyed at its familiar appearance.

  “Still in the time chamber. We’re back in

  “Sit down fellows,” said Stenson. “I’m

  1945—thank God.”

  going to cook a little food for us. Coffee and

  Stenson trembled as he spoke and I

  eggs. How does that sound?”

  glanced up at him.

  “Great.”

  “What

  happened?”

  He telephoned to the operator in the

  “The last thing I remember, Lane, was

  lobby of the building and asked the date. It

  Chang Hsu hurling that little round object.

  was the eighteenth of June. We had started on

  You fellows stumbled backward toward me

  our journey on the sixteenth. Two days had

  and I could just pull you into the machine and

  passed into the future, while we had traveled

  shoot back to our starting point.”

  hundreds of years. Stenson cooked the meal

  “We were lucky.”

  on an electric stove. We chatted with him as

  “Yes. I’m sure Chang Hsu meant to

  we cut a rather stale loaf of bread and set the

  destroy us. Only because you came within my

  table.

  reach could I rescue you. Otherwise you

  “Are you going to make another

  would have been killed. A strange fate, for

  machine, Larry?” I asked.

  men of our period to die in far-off 2193.”

  “No. I’m through.”

  “And the time machine?”

  “But perhaps we might return and kill

  “It’s wrecked. It was smashed when it

  Chang Hsu. And then I’d like to chat with

  shot back to the present.”

  Halden again.”

  I struggled to my feet, faint with

  “No, fellows. I’m afraid we can never

  weakness. It suddenly dawned upon me that

  interfere with the future. I am going to leave

  none of us had eaten in a long time. I was

  records for future generations to hunt out the

  weak from hunger. For a time I watched land of Pei. Perhaps they can crush Chang Stenson glancing dispiritedly about the time

  Hsu. Doubtless Halden will do the same. But

  chamber, the glass of which was broken in a

  neither his time nor ours extends into the

  thousand places. The dial box was wrecked. I

  period of Chang Hsu. Hundreds of years will

  shuddered to think what would have been our

  elapse—and we will be laughed at as fools.”