Paradox

Roy Glashan's Library
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CHARLES CLOUKEY

PARADOX

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ILLUSTRATED BY WALITT

First published in Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1929
Reprinted in Amazing Stories, September 1968

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2020
Version Date: 2020-03-16
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Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1929, with "Paradox"

It is in the light of later knowledge that apparent inconsistencies often disappear, or are explained. Who has not experienced an occurrence that seemed absolutely inexplicable, perhaps for years, when another event fully explained the old experience? Life is full of paradoxes, and science has its share of them. Perhaps the inconsistencies of the fourth dimension and the puzzles of the Einstein Theory will become simple matters to some future generation. Perhaps it is because Mr. Cloukey does not take the world so seriously that he can poke a little fun at us, and that some things about time- traveling become so simple when we read his story.

A PREDICTION

"Two hundred years ago any ordinary man would have said that television was impossible, and could have given several excellent arguments to prove it," returned Sherman easily. "Just because we can't do it now is no reason to say that men will never learn to travel in time as freely as in space. H. G. Wells, in his Time Machine..."

Preston interrupted impatiently. "I've read the book. It should be obvious that Wells used the idea of traveling into the future merely as a background upon which to superimpose his ideas of the ultimate destiny of civilization. Since Wells there have been dozens of time stories, wherein the hero invents a machine, or discovers a ray, or something, which takes him. immediately to the year 4443, or the day after to-morrow, or prehistoric times, or some other time, wherein he meets the beauteous heroine, et cetera. The writers of such stories follow a definite formula, gentlemen. They're a bunch of imaginations. The idea of time- traveling is a scientific absurdity, for dozens of reasons.

"Did you ever consider the fact, Sherman, that if you were to travel to the year 2000, for instance, through time or the fourth dimension, you would have to travel quite a few million miles through space also? For by the year 2000, this earth, and the solar system, and probably our whole universe as well, will have moved a long way through space from the place they occupy at this second. And that's only one of the many objections."

"I don't consider even that beyond the realm of possibility," replied Sherman. "When you consider the accomplishments of science in the past, it is rash to say that anything is imposs—"

Preston interrupted again. "You will find inconsistencies and paradoxes in any time-traveling or four-dimensional story if you look for them. And—"

"Undoubtedly. But suppose you told a man in 1700 that a device would be invented whereby a man three thousand miles away from a speaker could hear his words sooner than a man sitting three hundred feet away in the auditorium. The man, even though he were an enlightened and intelligent individual, would declare that the thing was a scientific absurdity, a paradox 'Sound,' he would say, 'travels a mile in five seconds; therefore the nearer person would hear the voice first, even though a marvelous device did make the sounds audible to a man three thousand miles away.' A story involving such a device would be inconsistent to his point of view. And yet we know that radio waves travel so quickly that a man listening in with his heterodyne, actually does hear the speaker's words a minute fraction of a second before the person in the rear of the auditorium. What is 'scientifically inconsistent' in one generation can often be fully and logically explained by the science of the next. Therefore I believe that a time-machine may, and probably will, be invented at some future time. When science knows more, perhaps many of our inconsistencies can be explained away."

There was silence for a minute after Sherman had finished this exposition of his ideas. Then Raymond Cannes, who had not spoken previously, said slowly, addressing us all, "You are right, Mr. Sherman. The time-wave, that mysterious force which travels through time, the fourth dimension, will be discovered in the year 2806, just after the second terrible Martio-Tellurian War. It will be discovered by a great scientist who will be called Dwar Smit, the twenty-ninth century equivalent of Edward Smith, and it will be called the NN-4 wave, for a reason which I do not understand."

CANNES BEGINS HIS STORY

A FEW words of explanation are necessary before I transcribe the story told by Raymond Cannes. A certain exclusive Philadelphia club, which shall here be quite nameless, is the regular Sunday night rendezvous of a small group of the more serious-minded social aristocrats of the city. They meet in a corner of the lounge-room and discuss, often with some heat, any political, economic, social, literary, or scientific question that happens to come up. Their informal meetings are usually quite interesting, if you happen to be the sort of person who could enjoy an impromptu debate.

There were eight present that evening, but Preston and Sherman had been doing most of the talking. Sherman had brought me as a guest, for I am not a member of the club, and probably never shall be. I think Cannes was also a guest. Both Sherman and Preston told me afterward that they had never seen him before.

I shall repeat his story as accurately as possible, as I remember it, and I shall try to keep my own personal ideas and prejudices entirely out of the picture.

Cannes' opening and extraordinary statement was received first with silence and then with laughter. Preston asked him what he was talking about, and Cannes continued with an even more astounding remark.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I have cheated death by means of the fourth dimension. It is quite unusual that your conversation to- night should happen to be about the idea of traveling through time. I have done that very thing, and I just returned to the present at three o'clock this afternoon. There are many things about my experience that I fail to understand, just as a man in King Arthur's time would fail to understand an airplane, even if he could have ridden in one. As Mr. Sherman has pointed out, however, if I could understand twenty-ninth century science the seeming absurdities and impossibilities would explain themselves to me.

"I'll tell you the story if you want me to, and if you'll agree to refrain from making interruptions or wisecracks when you discover an apparent paradox or two. It is a matter of the utmost unimportance to me whether you believe it or not. I can't prove it. I destroyed the supporting evidence myself, for a very good reason. I doubt if I can make it convincing, but perhaps it will entertain you, and I think Mr. Preston will find it different from the 'formula' for time-traveling fiction, even though there is a pretty girl in it. My anachronistic love affair, however, was far from successful, ashamed though I am to admit it.

"About six months ago, Dr. Endicott Hawkinson called me on the phone and asked me to come over to his laboratory. Of course I went, for Hawkinson and I had been college chums, and I hadn't seen him for several months. You gentlemen remember perhaps the mysterious fire that destroyed the laboratory and killed him late last summer? His phone call summoned me thirty-three days before the fire occurred.

"He met me at the door. 'Cannes,' he said, 'what kind of an infernal hoax are you trying to put over on me now?' I didn't understand what he meant, and said as much. He was obviously puzzled.

"'Didn't you write this?' he asked, showing me a sheaf of thirty pages of pale blue-tinted paper, closely written in longhand. 'I'd recognize that angular backhand script of yours any place,' he declared.

"I glanced through the manuscript. It was absolutely incomprehensible to me, as more than half of it consisted of intricate calculations, mathematical formulas, and equations that seemed to consist largely of Greek letters. The last ten pages contained some sort of complicated instructions, apparently for the manufacture of a large electrical machine. My college course had been academic and classical, while Endicott had specialized in mathematical physics and electricity. The stuff was as meaningless to me as Morse code would be to a Japanese goldfish. I knew I had not written it, but the handwriting was undoubtedly a very good imitation of mine, I thought—particularly after I had closely examined the first line on the first page, which said 'To Dr. Endicott Hawkinson', and was written precisely as I would have done it. Furthermore, it was underlined twice, a little habit of mine. I tell you, gentlemen, I was puzzled. What motive could anyone have had for writing a sheaf of higher math, copying my handwriting in such a manner, and leaving the manuscript in the doctor's mailbox? When I eventually did discover the motive it was unusual indeed. More about that, later.

"His reply surprised and amused me. At that time, of course, I thought it was quite impossible to travel through time. But his sincerity impressed me as he told me that the manuscript apparently proved the existence of a fourth dimension, and furthermore showed the possibility of constructing a machine for projecting a body through the fourth dimension in much the same manner as we can throw a baseball through space.

"'I have checked these computations twice,' he told me. 'If it is some fraud, some joke, some deception, there must be a fallacy in it somewhere. But I can find none. And you did not write it. After all, you couldn't have written it, Cannes! I'm almost convinced that it's genuine, after checking it twice, and you never went further than elementary algebra. But, then, who could have done it? If it's genuine it's the work of a genius. Why, then, would the genius give it to me? And that similarity of handwriting is remarkable—'

"He was wandering off into a maze of speculations, and seemed to forget me entirely. I left a few minutes later and heard nothing more from him until slightly more than a month had passed. He again called me on the phone with the startling news that he had been successful in constructing the four-dimensional machine. He asked me to come over immediately. I went.

"I am extremely foolish and impulsive by temperament, given to acting hastily without thinking. And so it is that I accepted the wild suggestion of Endicott Hawkinson to take a trip through time. But he didn't make the suggestion until he had demonstrated the machine to me.

"An odd-looking thing, that machine! That is, as much as I could see of it. Most of it was inside an enormous cabinet having a bakelite panel upon which were numerous switches and three dials. Eight heavy cables led from the bottom of the machine to the eight corners of a heavy cubical metallic box supported by four large vitreous insulators. The box was large enough to hold three men, and had a small trap-door in the top.

"I also noticed that Endicott had had a special power line installed by the electric lighting company.

"Endicott placed a large stone in the metal box and closed the trap-door. Then he threw five switches, halted to inspect something on the panel, and threw another switch, meanwhile watching his wrist watch. At the end of ten seconds he opened the switch again and told me to try to lift up the trap-door.

"Though he had not locked it, and it had been easily manageable a few minutes ago, all of my strength was now insufficient to lift it an inch. Hawkinson picked up an enormous crowbar and helped me pry the lid off. As soon as we had lifted it a trifle I was startled by a loud concussion and it came off easily. It was so hard to lift because there was an absolute vacuum within. After the air had rushed in, the lid was easily removable.

"I looked in. The undersized boulder had completely disappeared. I could see absolutely no explanation of the fact. The insulators supported the box a foot or more from the floor. The thirty-pound rock could not have passed through any one of the six sides of the hollow cube without becoming plainly visible to me. I was satisfied that I had not been deceived. The explanation leaped to my brain,

"'Precisely, It didn't escape in any of the other three, did it? A being living and thinking in only two dimensions could be imprisoned in a two-dimensional square. He couldn't escape without passing through one of its sides. But if he should discover the third dimension, if he should be able to travel in three-dimensional space, he could leave his plane and escape from his prison, and eventually return to his two-dimensional plane again, but outside the square. The analogy is simple. A being living in and knowing of only three dimensions, such as a man, can be imprisoned in a three-dimensional room. He can't escape without passing through one of its sides. But if he could travel into four-dimensional space, that is, into time-space, no prison or dungeon in the world could hold him. He could later return to his own three-dimensional "plane," but outside the prison. You understand that? It's some of the most elementary four- dimensional geometry.'

"'I was under the impression,' I replied, 'that four- dimensional geometry was entirely a theoretical, hypothetical science. You speak as if hyperspace and the fourth dimension had a concrete existence!'

"'After what you have seen, Cannes, do you doubt that? Certainly the fourth dimension exists. Einstein and others have proven that it is time.*

[* Transcriber's note. There is some mistake here, either in the late Dr. Hawkinson's discussion with Cannes, of in Cannes' narration of said discussion to the club. Einstein's theory has not been "proven," yet, unless Cannes' story is accepted as truth, which is impossible because of the lack of supporting evidence. This is one of the many mysterious details connected with Cannes' story; in fact, one of the club members later expressed a belief that Cannes was lying from beginning to end, and had here betrayed himself, for it seems unlikely that a man with Hawkinson's scientific reputation would have made such an erroneous statement. Hawkinson is dead. However, it has been ascertained that he did have a private power line installed in his laboratory precisely thirty-three days before the fatal fire that destroyed the laboratory and all its contents. And Cannes was known to have been an intimate friend of the scientist.]

"'But we're three-dimensional beings, my friend. Our senses, our experience, our ideas, do not recognize duration as a dimension in the same manner as we think of length, width, and height. Time, to us, seems to be something else.'

"The doctor continued to speak in like manner for some time. To save time, gentlemen, I am going to omit the rest of his lecture. He fully convinced me that his machine radically changed electricity in some way that I cannot understand, for I do not know the difference between a transformer and a kilowatt-hour. I believe that, among other things, the frequency of the current was enormously increased, but I'm not sure of even that detail.

"Yes, gentlemen, I expected you to smile. It would be more convincing if I could be specific, wouldn't it? Never mind. Truth, you know, doth often wear the mask of fiction. If you think you are hearing lies, the worst is yet to come. And yet my story is cold and unadorned truth."

CANNES was perfectly at ease. What we thought of his narrative was nothing to him. He smoked a minute in silence before he resumed, and he was honored with complete and undivided attention.

"This altered current, gentlemen, had immensely different properties from those of electricity; and, by using the marvelous machine which he had constructed according to the specifications and directions in the pale blue manuscript, written in—well—in my handwriting, that had been mysteriously placed in his mail box, Dr. Hawkinson was able to send objects into the future by employing this current, which he called the time-wave.

"So far, we had not discovered a single trace of the writer of the paper. I discovered him later, one thousand and two years later, to be exact. For I went into the future.

"I don't know yet just what was the fascination that urged me to do such a thing. I said that I am impulsive, hot-headed, foolishly short-sighted, and impetuous, I had no relatives to keep me home, and I longed for the strange adventure. I never thought about getting back. And Hawkinson wanted knowledge of the future. He said that certain statements in the manuscript had convinced him that living beings were not harmed by the process, and that he hoped I would eventually find a means to return to him, though there was positively nothing in the manuscript to indicate that the process could be reversed. It concerned itself only with entering future time.

"So, late that same night, before my impulsive decision had had a chance to cool, I climbed into the box, heavily clothed, and with my head encased in an unbreakable transparent globe. An oxygen-generator strapped on my back and connected by a tube to the headgear provided me with an exhilarating atmosphere, though I don't understand the precise reason for the outfit being necessary.

"Late that same night I climbed into the box, heavily clothed,
and with my head encased in an unbreakable transparent globe.
An oxygen generator strapped on my back and connected by a
tube to the headgear provided me with an exhilarating atmosphere."

"I saw Hawkinson's face as he closed the lid, and suddenly I wanted to turn back. And I'm sure he did, too. But we went through with it. Death came to him soon after, but because of that experiment I have cheated death.

"I was in the box only about ten seconds before I had a sensation as if I were rising with ever-increasing speed through a perfectly black void. I could see nothing, I was very cold, and the sensation of motion became greater and greater. Then something clicked three times, and my journey was ended.

"I did not learn, until I returned to the present at three o'clock this very afternoon, that Hawkinson had been killed. Some faulty insulation somewhere had permitted a short circuit between his house-lighting system and his special line. The frame house and laboratory took fire and burned, and somehow he was trapped in it. This must have happened only an hour or so after I left him, according to what I learned a few hours ago by telephonic conversation with his family. At least, the accident did not occur after the doctor had finished sending me into the future, for I arrived all right.

"As soon as I heard the three clicks, I perceived that I was standing erect in a room with brilliant crimson walls. There were windows at one side that permitted sunlight to enter. And there were two men present, each seated in a comfortable chair. One would think that my sudden appearance would cause some surprise or astonishment to men of the future. But the individual at my left, in a most commonplace tone of voice, merely made a remark to the other that to me was nothing less than astounding.

"'Here's another anachronism,' he said. 'They're getting to be a damned nuisance.'

"I REMOVED the transparent globe from my head and addressed the nearer man, inquiring where I was in space and time.

"'You are in district 700254 of New York, and the date is August 2, 2930.' The accent of the man was peculiarly nasal, but his words were clearly understandable, although I had traveled one thousand and two years and some odd months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds into the future. In those thousand years the English language had altered less than it had in the two hundred years preceding. This, I later learned, was due to the adoption of printing to an ever-increasing extent, which had served to fix or standardize the language. Of course, an enormous number of words had become obsolete and multitudes more had been coined. But I never had any great difficulty in conversing with my friends in that distant era.

"Before I had much time to marvel that I had passed through ten centuries in what had seemed like so many seconds the man of the future was addressing me again.

"'It is requested,' said he, 'that all persons visiting this era from the past be sent to Dwar Bonn's laboratories in Australia. The government of the world has employed Bonn to compile as accurate a history as possible of the last two hundred years—the period since the second Martio-Tellurian War. You will doubtless be able to give him some useful information about the year you left to come here, and the period previous to that.'

"'The history,' he answered, 'is only one of the thousands of things Bonn and his assistants are taking care of. Not one laboratory. Three hundred. Bonn has been the world's greatest scientist since the death of Dwar Smit. You know of him, of course?'

"'How could you have come here, employing his invention, without knowing of him?' Unveiled suspicion was in the eyes and the tone of my questioner. He pressed a button or switch that I didn't see very plainly, for it was behind him on the top of a table. I must have lost consciousness, for the next thing I remember is sitting upright and finding myself to be the sole occupant of a small airplane, high above the earth, rushing through space without visible control at a rate of exactly 1000 kilometers, about 621 miles, an hour, if the speed indicator in front of my face was correct.

"I could not see the earth, for a heavy uniform layer of clouds was below me. I later learned that they were completely under the control of man, and that the agricultural region over which I was passing was receiving its daily four o'clock rain.

"I marveled that I felt no motion. Only by looking out through the thick glass windows at either side of my enclosed compartment at the rushing clouds below could I realize that I was moving. I reasoned that I must be going in an absolutely straight line, for I knew that in 1928, when racing aviators made turns at more than three hundred miles an hour they lost consciousness for a moment.

"But I found out in a few minutes that there was something wrong with my conclusions. With a suddenness that startled me, the clouds were passed, and I was high above an ocean. Far off to my left, traveling at great speed, and in a direction that showed its course would intersect mine, was approaching a colossal mono- triplane, three streamlined wings behind one another supporting a fuselage larger than the Leviathan. I found out later that seventy or eighty thousand ton air freighters and passenger planes were common. I experienced a very real fear in the few seconds it took for that flying city to approach the tiny plane in which I was, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner.

"When it seemed that a collision was inevitable, something clicked on the instrument board before me, and my plane soared over the other without decreasing speed in the slightest. And only by my eyes did I know that I was moving. Somehow, in the planes of the thirtieth century, inertia and centrifugal force had been nullified so that I could turn sharp corners at six hundred miles an hour and not know it if I had my eyes shut!

"Almost three hours later the little plane, having successfully dodged automatically several dozen others of all sizes and types, glided down to the roofdrome of a skyscraper something more than half a mile high. The door of the plane snapped open, and as I stepped out I was greeted by no less a person than Dwar Bonn, greatest living scientist of the era. I had been shipped to his Australian headquarters by automatic airplane delivery service.

"Bonn introduced himself, took me to an elevator, closed the door, and five seconds later opened it again some hundred and fifty stories lower in the building. I did not feel the descent, nor even the jerk that must have taken place when we stopped. Bonn conducted me to a room whose walls were a brilliant scarlet. Why they were so, I haven't the slightest idea. When we had been comfortably seated, he explained:

"'Your appearance, Mr. Cannes, has given us an enormous amount of valuable and interesting information about the twentieth century. You were rather foolishly suspected to be a dangerous character by a couple of business men' (his tone held a marked contempt) 'whom you interrupted in the midst of an important business conference. The world has lately been excited by the announcement of an Egyptian scientist that a method of producing true invisibility has been discovered. The men, seeing that you were not wearing the time-traveling apparatus that is usually worn by people coming from the past, and hearing your statement that you did not know of Dwar Smit, discoverer of the NN-4 wave, rather stupidly jumped to the conclusion that you were perhaps just an invisible intruder who had been spying on their affairs, so they rendered you unconscious by using a very common hypnotic apparatus that may be purchased anywhere, although it is not generally used for such purposes.

"'A few minutes' reflection and an examination of you showed them their mistake, so they got in touch with my New York representatives. The latter hooked you up to another hypnotic machine, and your brain, if I may use the simile, was turned upside down like a bag of information. So you have already disclosed to me everything you know about your civilization and your former life.

"'You have been a particularly interesting case, and you have corrected many erroneous ideas we have held about your time. You are the first man to come to us from a time previous to the year 2806, when Dwar Smit discovered the NN-4 wave. You traveled through time before the system of time-traveling was ever invented. Your friend found a mysterious manuscript, we discovered when we read your brain. This manuscript gave specific directions for the construction of a machine identical with the earliest crude one made in 2806 by Dwar Smit.

"'There is only one explanation. Someone, sometime later than 2806, copied Dwar Smit's earliest calculations and directions, traveled back through time, and left them in your friend's mail box. Dr. Hawkinson could therefore copy a machine that was not really made until centuries after his death! It sounds almost incredible at first. It's what you might call a paradox.

"'But understand this, Cannes. Although he tried all his long life, Dwar Smit did not invent a machine for traveling back through time. He was never able to do anything but send people and objects into the future. And most of to-day's scientific minds believe that traveling into the past, traveling negatively through the fourth dimension, is impossible. I have not held that belief, for many reasons, the most understandable of which to you is the fact that one can travel in either direction through any of the other three dimensions.

"'Three days ago I completed a machine that I believe will enable me to send objects back through time. When I learned of your arrival I was greatly excited, for in a way you are evidence that my machine will work. Let me explain.

"'The manuscript Dr. Hawkinson found was in your handwriting. You are now existing in the year 2930, more than a hundred years since Smit invented the machine for utilizing the NN-4 wave. What is to prevent you from copying his work, traveling back through time to the night before Hawkinson found the manuscript, and placing it in his mail box? The fact that the manuscript was placed there shows that you will be successful in placing it there!'

"'I doubt if I could copy such calculations accurately. I might make a mistake.'

"'Don't let that worry you. I have a clerical machine in the next room that can do that. It is often used to make translations and for the writing of certain complex hieroscript codes I use for private records. The codes are undecipherable except by machine and cannot be written by the ordinary dictaphono-printer, which anyway is not equipped with the mathematical symbols necessary. This clerical machine of mine will examine, photoelectrically, any small sample of your handwriting and, in somewhat the same way as it translates messages from one language to another, it will copy the calculations and specifications in Smit's book, putting them on paper in a very close approximation of your handwriting.

"'Since Smit's invention of his time machine it has been radically changed and improved and its size decreased. I plan to strap one of these on your back, tell you how to use it, send you and it into the past to the night before your friend found the manuscript so you can place it there for him to find, and then you will return to me by using the improved and compact machine on your back. Please give me a sample of your handwriting.'

"My mind was in confusion but I did as he asked. He took a volume from a concealed bookcase, went into the next room, and closed the door, leaving me wondering if I were dreaming. By the time I had almost convinced myself that I was not, by pinching the back of my neck, Bonn returned with a sheaf of blue-tinted pages. I started.

"'Here is the manuscript, Cannes. It looks familiar, eh? No doubt it seems paradoxical to you that your friend used it a thousand years before it was made. You had better put his name on it so he'll know whom it's for.'

"Still mentally dazed, I took the manuscript and automatically wrote 'To Dr. Endicott Hawkinson.' Then I started again, violently. Unconsciously, without thinking about the matter at all, I had underlined those four words twice. The manuscript in my hand was the identical one that was to provide the means for sending me into the future. But I was already in the future! It occurred to me that I had emphatically denied having anything at all to do with the placing of the manuscript in the mail box.

"You cannot understand how mixed up all my mental faculties were. My knowledge was a thousand years behind the times, and I could not begin to understand the things I saw happen.

"Gentlemen, I am going to omit details. It is becoming late and there is another part of this story I want to tell. Suffice it to say that I was transported into the past farther than I had come into the future! I placed the manuscript in the doctor's mail box. But before I did this I had to walk a mile, for I had arrived that far away from his house. While I was walking, my mind cleared. Because this manuscript had been found by the doctor, I reasoned, I had been able to go to 2930. But also, only because I had gone to 2930 had the manuscript come into being. Which was the cause and which was the effect? That is a paradox I cannot explain. A thousand years from now it will be understandable and common to the people of the world.

"I started reasoning along another line. Suppose I should have traveled into the past to the time when my grandfather had been a little boy. If I were so inclined, I could kill my grandfather before he had had a chance to meet my grandmother, thereby depriving myself of the privilege of being born! But the fact that I was present to kill my unfortunate grandfather would show that I had been born. Therefore, I could not have killed my grandfather. It was hopeless.

"The most intelligent man in the world in 1428 could have proven to his entire satisfaction that such a thing as radio was scientifically and logically impossible; yet we have radio to- day. I actually convinced myself that time-traveling was logically and scientifically nothing but the utterest nonsensical paradox; yet I delivered the manuscript as per Bonn's instructions.

"Then, still following instructions, I returned to the exact point at which I had arrived from the year 2930. As I returned I wondered what would have happened if I had thrown the manuscript into the river, instead of putting it in the mail box. Hawkinson, next morning, would never have found it, and therefore could never have sent me into the future. But unless he had found it and sent me into the future, I could never have had the manuscript to throw into the river. However, I seemed to think that throwing the manuscript into the river would be deliberately cheating fate. So I had delivered it.

"Later, when my life was at stake, I deliberately did cheat fate. That's why I'm here now. My death was scheduled for yesterday. I'll explain that later on.

"I stood near the river, ready to follow Bonn's final instructions. I was to press a button in the belt that helped to support the complex improved time-machine on my back. I was ready to return to Bonn and tell him that the experiment was a success, that his invention had functioned as well in sending me back through the fourth dimension as the other had in sending me into the future. I was ready to return to Dwar Bonn. But suddenly I hesitated. Why should I go back into the future? Nothing compelled me to comply with Bonn's request. I had not even promised him to return. He had taken it for granted that I would. If it had not been for that aversion I then had for the thought of cheating fate, I think that then and there, I would have taken off the portable machine and thrown it into the river.

"Another thought occurred to me. The night before Hawkinson had called me on the phone I had been sleeping peacefully in my Lansdowne apartment. Undoubtedly I was sleeping there peacefully that very second, for I had traveled back through time to that same night. Then, if I should throw the machine into the river, there was nothing in the world to stop me from going over to Lansdowne and waking myself up. The idea fascinated me. It occurred to me that I would have a hard time convincing myself that I was I. Suddenly I started again. It was a scientific impossibility for a man to be in two places at the same time. But I was.

"Another paradox. I then determined that I should return to 2930 and have Dwar Bonn explain things to me. So I pressed the button in my belt. The 7.6 grams of 'solid electricity' in the generator of the outfit on my back was changed from matter into energy, producing a powerful current, which was transformed into what Bonn always called the NN-4 wave by the apparatus on my back, and I rose through the fourth dimension once more. I found Bonn smiling as I suddenly appeared in the laboratory, hardly a foot from the point from which I had started.

"A short while later I requested him to explain to me the seeming paradoxes connected with time-traveling. And he did! He explained them fully. He explained them logically and painstakingly. He explained them as simply as he could, but the cold fact remained that my brain was a thousand years behind his. (I defy any scientist of to-day to write an explanation of the talking movies that would be understandable to a man living in the tenth century.) Bonn finally decided to stop trying. He told me that if I decided to remain in that era of time, he would arrange for me to be hypnotically educated by machines built for that purpose, though my brain would probably not be capable even then of comprehending the abstruse science behind that seeming paradox. For a long time I puzzled over myself and the hypothetical murder of my innocent grandfather, but it remained, and remains yet, an endless circle to me.

"There was another endless circle connected with my experience in the years to come, but it was perhaps a trifle more easily understandable. I met a girl and loved her with a love that was never requited. The more I loved her the more I wanted to be with her, and the more I was with her the more I loved her. But she never thought of me as anything more than a scientific curiosity, one of many living anachronisms. Traveling into the future had become almost common after Smit's invention of the time-machine in 2806. Yet it was because of that girl that I cheated the grim reaper in 2930, and then gypped him again in 1928. I really have no right to be alive now.

"Gentlemen, I feel like a particularly silly fool to sit here and tell you that I fell hopelessly in love with a girl who doesn't exist, and won't exist until ten long centuries have passed. Perhaps one should not speak of the affairs of one's heart, even if one is heartbroken. No, I'm not joking with you—

"Dwar Bonn had invited me to be his guest, for in a small way I had helped him to realize one of his life's ambitions, that of sending objects into the past. For the first month or so after my arrival I spent all of my time learning about and trying to comprehend the highly involved and complicated civilization of the period after the second great interplanetary war. And I learned something of the history of the world, something about the unspeakable horror of those two wars, of the time when three- quarters of the world's population were killed in one day—

"Greta Bonn instructed me in many things, and I was happy to have her as my tutor. Perhaps the happiest month of my life passed in that great laboratory in Australia, and slowly I awoke to the realization that I, an anachronism by a thousand years, was madly in love with the daughter of him who had earned the title of world's greatest scientist.

"But my month passed, and in a few short hours occurred that chain of startling events that resulted in my leaving the future forever. This last adventure is fresh in my memory, for it seems only this morning that it happened. And I would give anything to know what happened after I left that era. Anything. But I shall never know.

"Greta was enormously excited when she greeted me in the early evening of September 28, 2930. A little more than fifteen hours ago, that was. Or it seems so to me.

"She had found relatives of mine, descendants of my brother, who were living in California, and had talked to them by radio. And in old records the family possessed, my birth and death were listed, together with the notation that I had fought in the First World War and had been wounded. Yet it was a terrible blow to me to find out that my old and dignified family name had been phonetically altered to Canz.

"But the most interesting thing to me was the date and the manner of my death. In the family records no mention was made of my traveling through the fourth dimension, I have never informed my relatives about it. But it was stated that I had been killed by a motor truck on October 7, 1928.

"Before I could grasp the full significance of this fact Dwar Bonn appeared and told Greta and me that he was going to New York on the new monster plane Patrician, and invited us to accompany him. I accepted, of course, for I was eager to see the enormous metropolis, and Greta went along because she had some girl-friends in the city and was getting tired of visiting them by television only.

"A few hours later the three of us were sitting in our private parlor aboard the Patrician. Bonn told me that in the past month he had been improving and reducing the size of his newest invention, so that it took up only a trifle more space than did the portable machine of Dwar Smit's that I had used. After he had mastered the principle, he said, it was easy for him to improve the details and eliminate unnecessary bulk and weight, in much the same manner as Dwar Smit's machine had been gradually improved. He was taking this new machine to New York for a private demonstration to some of his personal friends and colleagues.

"In some manner or other the discussion turned to atoms, and Bonn tried vainly for a while to explain to me the latest theory about the structure of the universe. In the early twentieth century, he stated, men believed that everything was made from some ninety-two or so different kinds of atoms, which were supposedly indivisible. Then later it was learned that the entire universe, including the atoms, was made up of only three different things, the electron, the proton, and the photon, or light-corpuscle. For you know, gentlemen, that even today it is recognized that there are facts that the wave-theory of light cannot explain. Bonn told me that in some of his researches and experiments concerning transmutation (the simple process of adding or removing a few electrons and protons from one kind of atom to make of it another variety), he had found evidence that had convinced him that the electron, the proton, and the photon were different manifestations of one and the same thing—

"Human nature had not altered very much. The discussion was old stuff to Greta, and it visibly bored her. She rose and went out on the deck, and I soon excused myself and followed her, for I could grasp very little of what Bonn was saying. I had been under the impression that protons and electrons were positive and negative charges of electricity. And the photon was a new one to me. Besides, I was much more fascinated by Greta than by the speculative physics of the thirtieth century, A. D.

"The thousand years had made little impression on the moon. As the plane sped along, vibrationless at the incredible speed of 1200 kilometers an hour, I could see through the transparent roof of the upper deck the full moon, tinted a vivid orange by some atmospheric condition or other. Once before, in 1927, on the Rappahannock River, had I seen such a moon. To me it was a link with the past.

"I found Greta at the extreme front of the 3000-foot fuselage, on the topmost deck, which was covered over by a transparent, unbreakable, glass-like metal or alloy of some kind, hard as steel. She was standing in the gentle breeze that emerged from one of the great ventilators, apparently lost in contemplation of the stars. Through the transparent roof I could hear faintly the hundred high-pitched whistles made by the air as the Patrician hurtled through it more than twelve miles a minute.

"Her hair was like spun gold in the moonlight. My love for her came to the surface, my impulsive, temperamental nature asserted itself once more. I took her in my arms and kissed her, but there was no answer in her lips.

"And then the fireworks started. I truly believe, if she had had a firearm of any kind, she would have gladly shot me dead. Never have I beheld anyone so mad, so outraged. Having no suitable deadly weapon at hand, she attacked me with her fists. I stood still and took all she gave me. I couldn't run away, could I? I couldn't strike her, could I? And I couldn't reason with her. She was doing all of the talking. I won't repeat what she said, I gathered from it that she was disgusted with me, that she utterly hated, loathed, and despised me; that she would be greatly pleased if she never saw me again. For it is evident to me that a kiss, in 2930, was a much more significant thing than it is now, and Greta's indignation knew no bounds. None whatsoever.

"While she was wildly attacking me, her fist happened to strike one of the two metal disks, six inches in diameter and an inch thick, that were attached to the shoulders of the coat I had been given to wear, and in some way snapped it off the rod that supported it an inch above my shoulder. The blow must have hurt her hand cruelly. The metal disk fell into the ventilator. I presume it went out at the other end and fell to the earth. I don't know.

"I had noticed that everyone I had seen on the plane, including Bonn and Greta, had two of these disks attached to his or her shoulders, but I had not given the matter any thought. I was used to seeing things I couldn't understand.

"When the girl's fit of temper was finally over she turned and walked stiffly away. I stayed where I was and looked at the orange moon, meanwhile bitterly cursing my luck. When I had cooled down a little, I realized that the only thing I could do was to go to her and to her father, apologize for my actions, and explain that I had intended no harm, asking their forgiveness on the ground that I was still unfamiliar with the customs of the time, and had foolishly let my emotions get the better of me.

"When I re-entered the room in which I had left Dwar Bonn, he was sitting upright in his chair, dead. Through his heart, projecting ten inches from both his back and his chest, was a heavy steel needle, pointed at both ends, a perfectly hellish weapon.

"I thought I heard a noise in the corner of the room, but I saw nothing there except the large chest in which was Bonn's latest and greatest invention, the machine for traveling back through the fourth dimension. Then I was positive I heard a slight noise in that corner of the room. I took a couple of steps forward.

"Something shrieked past my ear. I heard a thud behind me and turned involuntarily. Protruding from the metal wall was another long metal needle, quivering. Suddenly I recalled the words of Dwar Bonn. 'The world has lately been excited by the announcement of an Egyptian scientist that a method for producing true invisibility has been discovered,' he had told me. Instinctively I acted. I hurled myself toward the chest in the corner.

"I could feel my arms encircle the body of a man, but could see nothing. He who struggled in my arms was completely covered by a soft flexible gelatinous garment that in some manner caused light to pass around him as water flows around a submarine, as air flows around the streamlined fuselage of a plane. It was not transparency, or partial invisibility, or an optical illusion that I had to deal with. I saw around the killer of Bonn, but my eye could perceive no evidence of his existence.

"I expected every second to feel a long slender needle forced into my body as I held the unseen fighter, but he was apparently helpless as long as I held him tightly, for he stopped struggling after a few moments. Probably he had used the only two of the needles he possessed. It is still a mystery to me how he could shoot them with such force, for I never had a chance to examine the device that fell at my feet as I seized the man. I think it was a pistol of some kind for firing those odd, impractical- looking messengers of death.

"When he stopped struggling, I made a desperate and unexpectedly successful attempt to rip his unseen covering from him. I jerked at it, tearing it, which apparently rendered it useless, for the slight but well-formed body of the man became visible, still covered by the torn and now visible and transparent membrane, which was connected by dozens of tiny wires to a box strapped on his back.

"When he stopped struggling, I made a desperate and unexpectedly
successful attempt to rip his unseen covering from him.
I jerked at it, tearing it, which apparently rendered it useless."

"I expected no great difficulty in dealing with him after he had become visible, for I had superior strength and a forty-pound advantage in weight. It was my intention to summon one of the plane's officers and deliver the murderer into his custody. Then I looked at the eyes of my prisoner, and astonishment, fear, and horror overcame me. The eyes were a deep red-flecked purple, and without pupils. I was holding the body of a man, but in it was a Martian brain.

"In that split second of terror I remembered some facts Greta had told me about the Martians. Unable to live long on the earth because of the superior gravity that soon wrecked their fragile bodies, the Martian spies that had prepared the way for the second Martio-Tellurian War, little more than a century previous, had killed men by suffocation, and by means of their marvelous surgery had transferred their own brains into the human bodies before the latter had become cold or rigid. Then they had revived the unharmed bodies. But the eyes had troubled them. Of all the organs of the body they were the only ones that did not function for the Martian brain, so Martian eyes had been transferred, too. And the unsuspected spies, their eyes concealed by colored glasses, had gained the necessary information, made plans, and had laid the foundation for that war that so nearly had eliminated mankind.

"Now, for the first time in a hundred years, another Martian spy was on the earth. I was startled by the revelation. A sudden fear came to me that perhaps the Martian was hypnotizing me now, that soon I would be under his power. But that did not come to pass. Though tremendously advanced in some lines of science, the Martians had practically neglected the possibilities of the psychological sciences. My will was stronger than my prisoner's.

"But he took advantage of my moment of surprised terror and broke away by a sudden effort. He rushed for the door, threw it open, and would have been gone, had he not collided with Greta Bonn. In that second I recaptured him. Greta saw the eyes, her slain father, the needle in the wall, and acted. She called the captain of the plane at once on the phone. The latter tuned his televisor on the room, took one rapid glance at the situation, and sent an armed officer with several men to our parlor immediately. They bound the Martian securely and then questioned him. He remained stolidly silent, unashamed hate in the flashing purplish eyes.

"Seeing that the Martian had not the slightest intention of saying a word, the officer employed a little hypnotic machine to force a confession, the same type of machine, I believe, that had rendered me unconscious in New York, and which had numerous other uses. This is what the Martian said:

"'In three days not a terrestrial will remain alive. You have captured me, you may spread the news, but you will not escape. This plane is doomed. You do not know that many tons of Martian brarron are aboard. In your cargo-rooms are crates labeled "merchandise" that contain only our explosive. You terrestrials have been careless. The few Martians left alive after the last war have watched you from afar and have waited. Through space we have come to your South Polar lands and taken on our hideous disguise of "human" flesh. In fifteen minutes we strike! The brarron on this plane is only a very small part of the quantity distributed over your world, at its most densely populated parts. Fifteen minutes from now the station at the South Pole will broadcast over the world a wave that no man-made interference can drown out. All of the brarron in the world will be detonated then. You have forced me to tell you this but you are too late to save yourselves. Yesterday I stole the device of a terrestrial of Egypt, a thing that let me come here unseen. I regret that I was not able to take this new invention of the dead man in the chair; it would have been useful to us. I would have escaped from this death-laden plane and taken both of these valuable things to my superior. But it does not matter much. In three days not a terrestrial will exist!'

"The hypnotic machine disclosed that he was telling the truth about the cargo of explosive and the station at the South Pole. There were only fifteen minutes left in which to escape from the plane before it would be blown to atoms. I remembered what I had heard about the Martian explosive brarron, its unearthly power of destruction. Men had never been able to analyze the samples that had fallen into their hands at the end of the previous war. All that was known was that it contained some compounds of nitrogen and that it could be detonated easily by certain etheric waves.

"There was not time enough to maneuver the enormous plane down to earth in the night in a place unfamiliar to the officers and not suited as a landing field. Like an enormous ocean liner the great plane was difficult to handle at its terminals. And I think that at that time it was over the Pacific Ocean, for the journey had lasted only two and one-half hours so far, and the plane could not yet have crossed the Pacific entirely at its rate of speed. However, so much artificial land had been produced in the preceding centuries that we may have been over dry land. But that is unimportant. It would have been highly foolish for the officers to have attempted a landing in the short time available. Nor could the great amount of cargo be removed. The captain of the Patrician did the best thing he could possibly have done. Instructing his radio operator to spread the news to all the world on the emergency wave, he gave orders for the hurtling plane to come to a full stop. It slowed and stopped motionless in the night air, supported by its ten large four-bladed helicopters. Then he gave the order to abandon the plane. All of the doors and windows were opened, and I was amazed to see hundreds upon hundreds of people calmly jumping off into the night. As I was wondering, I saw Greta beside me.

All the doors and windows were opened, and I was amazed to see
hundreds upon hundreds of people calmly jumping off into the night.

"'Cannes,' she said, 'I broke your life-disks. Take mine, and jump.' Her tone was cold, impersonal. She began to unbutton the coat she was wearing. Then I comprehended the purpose of the two disks worn by everyone on the plane. In case of disaster they acted as parachutes, in some way extracting power from the supply that was always being broadcast for public use, and using that power to break the fall.

"I looked at the stern-faced girl beside me. She hated me, despised me, but because she had broken my disks, she was offering me hers. Why? Because it was her code of honor, of sportsmanship. With an unbroken pair of disks I could live, at least for a while. Without them I was sure of death. She held herself responsible for the destruction of my means of escape, so she offered me hers, urging me to take them as there were no others obtainable in time, although some were stored in another part of the plane. Because everyone was obliged by law to wear a pair of disks, the ones on the plane had not been stored very accessibly.

"She would not listen to my refusal. She told me, when I asked, that one pair of disks could not possibly support the two of us, that they would snap under a strain they were not designed for, and drop us to a quick death below. She told me she preferred to die on the plane where her father had been killed, and that she would not be so dishonorable as to leave me to my death after she had broken my disks. It was useless for me to tell her that I had only myself to blame for my predicament, that her attack was justified, that I should not have kissed her. We wasted four precious minutes arguing.

"Then all my love and admiration for the stubborn, brave, beautiful girl who would not save her life against her code of honor came surging up from my heart. I seized her, rebuttoned the coat she had almost removed to give to me, picked her up in my arms disregardful of her struggles, kissed her forehead, and threw her out into the night.

"The orange moon was still above. For a few seconds I saw her face as she sunk out of sight, and momentarily at least out of danger, too. For it was six minutes yet before the explosion would occur, and by that time she would have fallen far enough to be safe, unless some murderous piece of the wreckage should happen by the merest chance to strike her as she fell—

"I saw her face for a second or two, a second or two that are burnt into my memory, never to be erased. And yet I cannot interpret the expression I saw there. Certainly some of the anger was gone, some of the steely hardness. After all, in spite of her outraged feelings, had my kiss aroused something in her heart that responded to my great love for her? Had she insisted so strongly on my taking the disks partially because she did care a little? I'm afraid not. She was as cold as steel. Yet those last two seconds there was something in her face that—I wish to God I knew what it was.

"When she had fallen out of sight I began to think seriously about my own safety. I had no disks, I did not know where any were stored, and I couldn't search the whole gigantic plane in five minutes. Though I was, as far as I knew, the only person left aboard, the helicopters were still running smoothly, the plane was hovering motionless in the air. The controls had been locked. The plane would not move until the world-wide explosion took place. Five minutes!

"Then I remembered the machine in the chest, Bonn's machine for traveling back through time. Feverishly I rushed to the parlor where the three of us had been discussing atoms only a short hour previous. I opened the box and lifted out the machine, strapping it hastily on my back. It was very heavy and cumbersome, but that didn't bother me. I saw two dials on the belt that strapped around my waist which could be adjusted to indicate any latitude and longitude. I set them to about 39° 50' North and 75° 10' West, respectively, which was as close as I remembered the location of Philadelphia. Another set of dials could be arranged to indicate any day since 2000 B, C. up to 2930 A.D.

"But suddenly I recalled that according to the old family records I had been killed by a motor truck on October 7, 1928. I didn't want to return to the day before my death was scheduled and be killed the next day. I had puzzled so much about the seeming paradoxes of travelling through time that I had lost all repulsion to the idea of cheating fate. I decided that, no matter how impossible it seemed, I was deliberately going to cheat death. Though I did not understand the science involved, Dwar Bonn had told me that such a thing was not at all impossible. So I set the dials for today, October the eighth, 1928. You gentlemen understand now what I meant when I said I had gypped the grim reaper. In other words, I was late to my own funeral! I did not return to October 7, yesterday, so I was not present to be run over by a truck.

"When I had finally adjusted the dials my wrist-watch told me that there was only one minute left. I pressed the button. Everything went black, and I had a sensation as if I were falling, plunging into a void. You understand that I was not really falling, but that was the way my brain, unaccustomed to motion through the fourth dimension, interpreted it.

"When I arrived in the present, through some trifling inaccuracy, I arrived four feet up in the air instead of on the surface of the earth, so I did a little real falling. When I picked myself up, the time-machine was hopelessly smashed. I recognized the Delaware River nearby, and realized that I had landed several miles north of Philadelphia, I threw the smashed machine into the river, thereby destroying the one shred of evidence I had that the adventure had really happened. You see, a few hours ago, I decided that I would never disclose my story to anyone. I changed my mind when I heard your discussion. I could not resist the temptation to tell what had happened to me, even though you will not believe a word—

When I picked myself up, the time-machine was hopelessly smashed.

"I walked to the nearest highway. A kind-hearted motorist gave me a lift to Lansdowne. During my absence, my apartment had not been re-rented. I obtained a key from my landlord, entered again the rooms I call home, and changed into some clothes not so conspicuous as my thirtieth century costume. Later I met a friend, attended an afternoon church service in Philadelphia, and later dropped in here.

"You are under no obligation to believe a word of it, but I shall state again that it was not a dream, that it really happened to me; that is, it will happen to me a thousand and two years from now.

"I rather wish I knew whether or not the Martians did annihilate the human race in those three days. I would give my life to know what happened to Greta, But Hawkinson is dead, and the manuscript was destroyed in the flames. It's a paradox, gentlemen, but it's true. Good evening."

A DISASTROUS MISTAKE

RAYMOND CANNES moved into the next room, picked up a magazine, and sat down in an armchair where we could see him through the doorway. He did it, I think, for no other reason than to give us a chance to discuss his story freely. Until he walked away none of us realized how intently we had been listening to him. Preston laughed.

"Clever," he said. "Almost infernally clever. Are you convinced now, Sherman, that time-traveling is impossible? That fellow has brought out clearly in his tale the reasons why it is absurd to think of going into the past or the future. I've heard that grandfather argument before. It alone is enough to show the fallacy in the whole fantastic idea. Our friend Cannes is a satirist of no little ability. I'll have to cultivate his acquaintance."

Sherman did not say anything for a long moment. Then he stated slowly and seriously, "Regardless of what you say or think, Preston, I do believe that he was telling the truth, that far from demonstrating the impossibility of time-traveling he has shown conclusively that it is possible, even if there are confusing and mysterious circumstances connected with the process. I'll swear he was sincere in what he said. I was watching his face."

Preston snorted. "Do you mean to tell me that you sat there and swallowed that dope about solid electricity and the NN-4 wave, the Patrician, and the paradox?"

"I do, whether you think I'm crazy or not." Preston turned to me. "What do you think about it, Cloukey?"

"I think," said I, "that arriving four feet up in the air wasn't the only trifling inaccuracy that machine made. Didn't it occur to any of you gentlemen that Cannes had his dates mixed? Today isn't the eighth, but Sunday the seventh of October." I glanced at the clock. "It's so close to midnight that it doesn't make much difference."

Cannes had left the club a minute previously. The entire group who had listened to his story followed Preston as he went to the door. Stepping outside, we noticed Cannes buying a newspaper at the drug store across the street. Involuntarily I looked up at City Hall Tower. It was still the seventh of October, five minutes to twelve, and suddenly I had a premonition of disaster. Preston called across to him. Raymond Cannes turned, looked at us a minute, and started across the street to us.

A deathly white came to Sherman's face as a speedy light delivery-truck careened around the corner at thirty miles an hour. Cannes never knew what hit him.

THE END