Collected fiction, p.199
Collected Fiction, page 199
“It’s a cinch. Doc. You been strapped for dough for them experiments of yours, so I fixed it how we can make plenty. Let’s say a guy wants to know somethin’ about the Past. Well, all he has to do is tell us when it happened an’ we go back in person an’ find out about it—right on the spot! In your Time-chair, see?”
Aker laughed, a hollow, scornful laugh. “That, my good man, is ridiculous. No one would believe you.”
Pete looked complacent.
“No? Well, I already got a customer lined up. He phoned in, an’ I told him how we work. He’s interested, an’ he’ll be here in about five minutes. Wants to find out about them old Greeks. I been readin’ up.” He displayed a book, “The Life of the Ancient Grecians.”
“In the back room I got a duplicate of the Time-chair pretty well set up. They know me pretty well around your lab at Plymouth U. So I had a coupla workmen look the thing over an’ make a copy. The final delicate adjustments’ll be up to you, of course.”
Mayhem was dubious.
“But I have no desire to commercialize my invention. I am a pure scientist—”
“You mean you’re a poor scientist. Stick with me, kid, an’ you’ll wear diamonds. No more pesterin’ your department head for dough.” He glanced shrewdly at Professor Aker.
Surprisingly, Aker agreed with Pete.
“Manx—er—has something there,” he said warmly. “Your experiments have been running us into debt lately, Dr. Mayhem. What with our endowment income shrinking yearly, and philanthropists becoming an extinct species, it might be wise to capitalize on your achievement.”
A timid knock sounded on the door. The visitor proved to be an emaciated, long-haired man of indeterminate age, with spectacles and unpressed clothes. He had the sad expression of a bloodhound. Vaguely he announced himself as calling in response to the ad in the morning paper.
“I am Henry Larose,” he said gloomily.
Mayhem and Aker looked interested. Larose was a famous historical novelist, with one best seller and three motion pictures to his credit.
“The situation is simple,” sighed Larose lugubriously. “I am doing a fictionized treatment of the life of Helen of Troy and the Trojan War.” He shook his head in sorrowful contemplation. “There are difficulties. Source material is a hopeless confusion of fact and legend—a mess of stuff about gods always interfering. I don’t know why I bother . . . However, Mr. Manx claims to be able to return to this era. If so, perhaps you could learn what really went on at the fall of Troy. Separate history from myth. I can scarcely believe such a thing possible, but—”
Mayhem swelled indignantly.
“Sir! We are not fakers! Our representative, Mr. Manx, can go anywhere in history I choose to send him. The sense of progressive Time is an artificial thing, self-imposed by humans to bring order and regulation to their affairs. Actually, all Time is coexistent, a sort of cosmic circle bounding the Central Time Consciousness. We release the mind into the Central Consciousness where, under the influence of a sort of psychic centrifuge, it is whirled out again into the mind of a person in any age we select. History is like the rim of a wheel, with Time the hub—”
“Oh, dear,” murmured Larose wearily.
The didactic Mayhem could not be stopped so easily.
“This is not an abnormal thing, but rather the fruition of what all human minds strive to do daily. Man constantly contemplates the future, or reminisces of the past. Unconsciously his Time sense tries to break the barriers holding him to the present moment. With my Time-chair, we give impetus to this struggle for psychic Time-freedom—”
“I have heard,” interposed Larose mournfully, “of the Time-chair.”
Mayhem swelled, beaming.
“Ah, then you know what we can do?”
“Scientific journals mention your work cautiously. Word-of-mouth rumors are getting around. You can’t hide a Time-chair.” Larose spoke cheerlessly. “You will probably be a famous man soon, Doctor. O, fame.” He buried his head in his hands.
Mayhem almost purred with content. Pete interposed.
“So let’s can th’ gab, fellas,” he snapped. “The guy wants us to take a gander at the Trojan War. What’s holdin’ us back?” Then he remembered. “Oh, yeah. The fee. Ancient Greece bein’ a long ways back, it’ll cost you five hundred smackers, Mr. Larose.”
The novelist promptly counted out the required sum. In melancholy tones, he said, “An eye-witness account of the siege of Troy would be worth twice that much. But how can I assure myself that I won’t be the victim of a fraud?”
Pete blushed, admitting honestly to himself that there might be some cause for doubt. He knew his capabilities. On the midway, or at a sideshow, or from door-to-door, Manx was a supreme, fast-talking salesman. But his talent did not extend to inducing the upper classes to invest in intangibles. As he pondered, the sound of tinkering came from the back room where Mayhem was already absorbed in putting the finishing touches to the new Time-chair.
FORTUNATELY, Professor Aker came to the rescue.
“As chairman of the physics department at Plymouth University, I think I may claim an unimpeachable character,” he declared impressively. “I have been associated with Time-traveling in the past, and frankly, the idea of seeing Helen of Troy intrigues me. If it would reassure you, Mr. Larose, I would take the trip with Manx myself.”
Larose laid down the five hundred without further ado. Manx pocketed it, then glowered at Aker.
“But remember, guy, no monkey business. Ye’re just goin’ back to see what happens. No mixin’ into things an’ gettin’ in trouble, see?”
Aker smiled haughtily.
“You need not fear. I intend to play the role of innocent bystander, strictly. I have never tried to change the course of history,” he ended pointedly.
“Okay, okay. Skip it. Let’s go.” Pete led the way into the back room, to find Mayhem had already finished the few remaining hookups. The Time-chair, constructed unusually wide so as to seat two persons, was ready. Without further argument Manx and Aker seated themselves side by side, while Mayhem adjusted the electrodes around head and wrists of the travelers.
“A month back there should be enough, shouldn’t it?” suggested Dr. Mayhem. A month was agreeable.
Dynamos whined, arcs arced, converters converted, and transformers transformed. Mayhem threw the famous switch that had caused more than one upheaval in the days of yore.
Larose, in Pete’s line of vision, began to show some signs of animation. He jiggled, then wobbled; his outlines began to blur and fade. There was a sickening sensation, a cosmic wrenching—
“ARE you ill, Captain?”
Pete opened his eyes upon a wide plain bathed in blinding sunshine. The plain heaved once uncertainly, then settled back. Blinking, Pete shaded his eyes from the hot sun till the momentary dizziness passed. Then he turned to the man beside him.
The latter was a middle-aged, hardbitten warrior. He was dressed, as was Pete, in helmet, cuirass, and greaves to protect the legs below the knees. Both wore short swords. Judging from the wealth of insignia on his uniform, the tough-looking battler must be none other than Agamemnon, himself, commander-in-chief of the Greek army.
“What did you say?” asked Pete, and shrank in terror at his own voice. It was tremendous, a roar that would have filled the Coliseum, or would have leveled the very walls of a lesser structure.
The battle-scarred veteran smiled admiringly.
“You are in fine voice today. Captain Stentor. I merely asked if you were ill. You staggered, and the sun has been hot—”
Pete was quick on the up-take. Already he began to get the picture. He had returned to the glory that was Greece in the mind of the famous Captain Stentor, who reputedly had been able to command ten thousand troops by just the sound of his mighty voice. Also, Pete recalled reading, Stentor had been respected because he was apparently able to commune at will with the gods.
Pete’s chest thrust out. At last! In other eras he had been a lowly thief, a slave, a bum. But now he had inherited a position worthy of his mettle.
“Just watch my smoke!” he muttered to himself.
Pete gazed about the Plains of Ilium proudly. There was a military encampment stretched out almost endlessly, tens of thousands of tents, chariots, soldiers, and their accoutrements. Weapons flashed distantly as raiding parties sallied out to scour the countryside for food. A hundred thousand Greeks, reflected Pete, and not a single restaurant. He smiled.
Remembering his companion’s question, Pete seized upon the suggestion.
“Yes, Agamemnon, I have had a touch of the sun.” It afforded a readymade alibi in case he had to ask any awkward questions, such as:
“Er—this is the siege of Troy, ain’t it?”
The Greek looked strangely at Pete.
“Indeed it is, Captain. Yonder lies Troy.”
Pete looked, saw in the distance a moderate-sized fort. It seemed not more than a few acres in area, surprisingly small to have withstood the siege of thousands of determined Achaeans for so long. Still, Pete shrugged, it was none of his business. He was there to observe, to get the story and see the climax of this great spectacle, the fall of Troy. He started toward the army encampment, when a sudden thought smote him disturbingly.
“Say! How long has this war been goin’ on, anyhow?”
“Why, for nine years, as the captain well knows. Has the sun-god Helios stolen your memory?”
“Nine years!” Pete groaned. The Trojan War had lasted ten years. Dr. Mayhem, uncertain of his calculations with the substitute Time-chair, had missed his mark a trifle. In order to get what Larose wanted, Pete would have to hang around for months dressed in this umpire’s get-up. And that was of the question. Why, he’d miss the World Series.
Desperately in search of counsel, Pete glanced about.
“Aker!” he let loose with his foghorn voice. “Professor Aker! Are you anywhere around?”
There was a great stirring among the nearby Greek soldiers, with puzzled smiles and ribald jokes directed at Captain Stentor’s shout. But no one answered. Evidently Aker was not in the immediate vicinity. Or perhaps, Pete snickered, he had returned in the mind of one of the mongrel hounds which slunk scavenging about the camp.
At any rate, the decision was strictly up to Pete. He communed briefly with himself. Though he had vowed not to become involved, nevertheless the circumstances obviously called for action. Yes, Pete was forced in the name of business ethics to deal himself a hand in the Trojan War, and wind it up before his month was out.
Happily—for Pete was one of those individuals cursed with an incurable itch to meddle in other’s affairs—he strode to the center of the camp and jumped up on a chariot wheel.
“My-y-y friends!” he bellowed tremendously, threatening to blast away the tents on the wings of his wind. “Come one! Come all! Gather ’round, folks! It’s th’ gr-r-reatest show on earth!”
In short order he had a military audience of fifty thousand curious Greeks.
“Men!” Pete roared with his magnificent tool for propaganda. “We been fightin’ this war for nine years an’ nothin’s happened decisive yet. Am I right?”
There was a murmur of agreement. Pete pointed dramatically toward the walls of Troy.
“Nine years, and yonder still stands the insolent aggressor, barring the path to our manifest destiny. The Trojans refuse to face things realistically, to acknowledge that the world has to be remade to conform with the rights of us Greeks, the superior race. We must have living space!” Pete winced inwardly at the hollow illogic of these catch phrases. Still, he had a legitimate reason for this rabble-rousing.
“Within those walls suffers an oppressed minority,” Pete thundered. The kidnaped Helen, he figured, was certainly a minority. “It is our duty to free that minority and—uh—establish a new economic order!” What was this nonsense? However, it was no less effective in 1194 B.C. than it was to prove some thirty-one centuries later. “We must be prepared to make every sacrifice in a final assault to annihilate the enemy. Are you ready?”
“Yea, yea! Hear, hear!”
A few minutes of this had the Greeks thoroughly aroused. They understood nothing, but they were mad at somebody. “Last night,” Pete announced, “I was visited by the—er—gods. By revelation was given me the means whereby we may accomplish the destruction of our enemies. Secret weapons will devastate them . . .”
Eventually, Pete tired of his oratory and stepped down with a promise of quick victory. Agamemnon awaited him, looking puzzled.
“I do not understand, Captain Stentor, this sudden desire of yours for quickly ending the war. We are enjoying ourselves now. Few on either side are suffering injuries, which is well since we do not hate the enemy particularly. Another year will see the starving Trojans forced to surrender.”
“Blockade!” snorted Pete. “That’s no good these days. What we need is Blitzkrieg, not Sitzkrieg!”
Agamemnon shook his head, mystified.
“Your words are strange. But if it is immediate victory you wish, why not give our plan of—”
Pete brushed aside the impending suggestion.
“Look, Aggie. I got something you never heard of. Tanks! We’ll take Troy by storm.”
“Tanks?”
“Sure. You’ll see. All I need is a bunch of chariots and some skilled workmen. Armorers.”
AGAMEMNON agreed in puzzlement. By nightfall the materials and workmen would be ready. Pete Stentor retired to his tent, took up papyrus and quill, and commenced to draw designs for his new engine of warfare.
“Blitzkrieg ba-by,” he hummed as he worked. “You’re my little bombshell-l-l of lo-o-ove!”
The Stentor Tank was simplicity itself. Two chariots were lined up rear to rear, joined by two ten-foot shafts. Then light armor covered sides and top, with apertures through which to shoot. Completely protected, in between the shafts, would be a horse. He wouldn’t be able to move such weight very rapidly, but then, the idea of the tank wasn’t speed, anyhow. The entire contraption would carry three archers and ammunition.
Once the specifications were standardized, production moved apace. In four days’ time, the Stentorian motorized armored division was ready to move. The attack was launched one morning with dozens of the fantastic-looking tanks rumbling laboriously across the plains of Ilium toward the thus far impregnable walls of Troy.
“They’ll move right up under the fort,” Pete explained his strategy to Agamemnon, “without danger, and pick off the defenders as fast as they pop their heads above the walls. That way we’ll establish fire superiority. Then the infantry can move in at their leisure and bust down the gates. Simple, hey?”
Agamemnon was not enthusiastic. He was a military reactionary.
“If the plan succeeds,” he admitted reluctantly, “it will revolutionize warfare.”
The tank brigade rolled into position and arrows began to hiss. The Trojans quickly learned they could do little with the attackers, except by occasional lucky shots through the loopholes. In short order they ducked down behind the walls’ protection.
“See?” boasted Pete. “Now for the final—er . . .”
Strange things were happening outside the ancient walls of Troy. A hand, holding a pot, reached over the parapet and spilled some liquid upon one of the tanks.
“Boiling water!” guessed Pete, scoffing. “They can’t hurt us!”
A second hand lifted into view carrying a lighted torch. This was cast upon the saturated tank. The latter immediately burst into a low, flickering blue flame. The horse, beginning to cook, began to engage in some mad gyrations. The tank charged forward, then backed and twirled around in a sprightly dance. Shortly the hastily-constructed contraption fell apart with a bang. Three men and a horse ran madly away from that place, with an occasional Trojan shaft delicately pinking their derrieres.
Other potfuls of fluid cascaded upon the assaulting tanks; well-aimed torches followed. One by one Pete’s panzer division units began to sizzle, going into marvelous contortions. Dike a nest of weird eggs, the flimsy machines broke open to hatch out panic-stricken horses and Greeks. The attack turned into a complete rout.
From the officers’ vantage point, Agamemnon and Pete watched the debacle. The former concealed a faint smile.
“The art of war, it appears, is not so easily revolutionized, Captain Stentor.”
Amazed by the turn of events, Pete began to have a horrible suspicion. How could the Trojans have known of a defense against tank warfare that wasn’t developed till the Spanish Revolution of 1936? And how could they develop incendiary fluid? Could it be—It must be! Professor Aker had returned in the mind of a Trojan! Pete fumed.
“I been double-crossed, that’s what!” he blustered. “The idea was okay, but I’ve been knifed by a Fifth Columnist, that’s what!”
Angrily Pete rigged up a flag of truce and, under it, drove his two-horsed chariot up to the walls of Troy. Again his terrific artillery rolled out.
“Aker! I know you’re in there! Come out and meet me like a man!”
PRESENTLY a young man appeared atop the parapet. He was tall and curly-haired and very handsome. He grinned down at Pete. “Ah, Manx, I believe? What beautiful irony that you, a side-show barker, should have such a magnificent voice—centuries too soon!”
“Never mind the cracks. D’you know this war’s due to drag on for months yet unless we finish it off quick? History says so.”
“I am well founded in Greek history.”
“Well, then, what’s the idea obstructin’ me? Y’oughta help me end the siege so’s we can earn Larose’s money without havin’ to come back again. You don’t wanta hang around here for months, do ya?”
The handsome Trojan grinned wider.
“As a matter of fact, Manx, I do . . . By the by, how did you like my incendiary fluid? I distilled alcohol from wine and—”
“You do wanta stay here!” roared Pete. “Why?”
“That is very simple. I have returned to this glorious era in the mind of a well-respected young man named Paris.”
“Paris! Why, you’re the guy that snatched Helen!”
