CHAPTER VI
Across Time
Red Barrett was the first to break the silence that blanketed the little group.
"See, Ramey?" he cried. "Look at that! What did I tell you! Now, I bet there's steps in that thing. A trapdoor or something."
But womanlike, it was Sheila Aiken who, obeying the Pandora impulse, stepped forward into the open cubicle. Darkness swallowed her like an engulfing maw. Dr. Aiken cried out in swift alarm, "Sheila! Be careful!"
Her voice came back, excited but unfearful, "I'm all right, Daddy. And—Barrett was right! There is a ladder in here. But it goes up instead of down! Come and bring the torch! This is the strangest room!"
Syd had already torn the flambeau from its bracket. Now he and the others crowded forward eagerly into the metal chamber. But if they had hoped a view of its interior would solve their questions, they were doomed to disillusionment. For the mystery of the cube was heightened, rather than decreased, by that which the flickering torch revealed.
An interior fashioned and equipped like a small room; for all the world, Ramey thought confusedly, like one of those efficiently compact cabins on ocean liners. A metal bench or working table. Two wooden chair frames, now seatless. In one corner a stiff pallet. Everywhere mouldering dust that fumed upward as their feet scuffed the floor; dust that must be, Ramey realized suddenly, the detritus of ages. The wheezy puff they had heard as the door swung open was proof that the cubicle was nearly airtight. That which eddied about them now, tickling their nostrils, must be the dust of less permanent materials than metal and wood, disintegrated by slow years. Those whorls beneath the seatless chairs might once have been rush or tapestry; the thick, powdery fluff on the pallet be the residue of vanished bedsilks.
But it was foolish to conjecture on things vanished when so many tangible wonders greeted the eye. For as Sheila had said, a ladder climbed the near wall to the ceiling; on the wall before one of the chairs was a panel, and on this panel—
Ramey's eyes bulged.
"Doctor!" he cried. "Those dials! Those levers!"
Dr. Aiken was staring at the panel like one who sees a lifetime of reason and learning collapse before him. "I—I can't understand it!" he stammered weakly. "Machinery? But the ancients had no knowledge—"
Ramey, moving forward, kicked something. He bent and picked it up. It was as incomprehensible as the panel. It was a metal arch about three feet long, supported by a cross-brace upon which was mounted a sealed cylinder, also of metal. The instrument was equipped with a rest carven to fit the shoulder. Its semi-circular portion was pierced on the outer rim at one-eighth inch intervals with tiny holes, and where the hoop joined the cylinder there were what seemed to be two handgrips equipped with finger-studs.
Instinctively Ramey raised it to his shoulder. It balanced like an archer's crossbow, except that it had neither stock nor projectile grooves. That it was a weapon of some sort he had no doubt. An impulse stirred him to press the stud beneath his trigger finger, but he subdued it. It would be folly to test a weapon of unguessed nature in such confined quarters.
In this weird moment he had forgotten everything save his own excitement. Now a cry dragged him back from the world of wonder to the world of actuality.
"The door!" roared Lake O'Brien. "It's closing!"
Whirling, Ramey saw the unguarded metal shield swinging shut. With a hoarse cry he leaped toward it. His shoulder and that of Lake smashed it at the same time. But the bruising impact was in vain. Even as they struck it there came the snick! of clasping locks. They were sealed in the metal cube. And Syd O'Brien's voice told why.
"It didn't close!" roared Syd. "It was closed on us—intentionally! Tomasaki!"
Ramey, glancing about him, realized that of their number all were present but the little brown man. Suspicion, latent until now, flared into sudden understanding.
"Then he's the one! The one who showed the Japs the 'plane, told them who I was! He's been with them since the beginning. Sneaked around to betray us at the east gate, and probably shot Sirabhar himself when Sirabhar tried to warn us."
Lake boomed, "By God! That's why he offered to go after supplies! So he could reveal our hiding place. He's probably gone to fetch the Japs now, the traitorous little—"
As ever, Dr. Aiken's head was levelest in a crisis.
"There are Quislings in all races," he said sadly. "It's too bad we discovered the enemy in our midst so late. But we have no time to waste in recriminations. We must get out of here before the soldiers come. The ladder—where does it go?"
Red had mounted the rungs, was fumbling above him. Now he called down, "It's a trapdoor of some kind, Doc. Just a minute and—Ouch! This damn catch is stuck. There it comes—oh-oh!"
Hastily he let drop back into place the yard-square sheet of metal he had pried open. Ramey looked at him anxiously. "What's the matter, Redhead?"
"This thing opens right smack into the main altar room," whispered Barrett. "There's a bunch of Japs up there snooping around. They almost seen me."
"Then we—we're trapped?" asked Sheila faintly.
Ramey's eyes narrowed. "Not yet! That trap door gives us a chance. When Tomasaki leads the Japs down here, emptying the courts above, we'll beat it out that way!"
He glanced at Dr. Aiken commiseratingly. "Tough luck, Doc! Just when you make the greatest find of your career, we have to duck out. But maybe someday we can come back and figure out this mystery. Meanwhile we ought to try to find some way to lock this door from the inside. Tomasaki's just clever and treacherous enough to have seen how Red opened it. We've got to try to stall the Japs for an hour or so to give us a head start. One of these levers might be the answer."
He stared at the wall panel dubiously. Dr. Ian Aiken said, "I don't know, Ramey. It's foolhardy to experiment with things we don't understand. I'd be careful if I were you."
"It's now or never," Ramey reminded him. "In a few minutes it'll be too late to experiment."
He stepped toward the largest of several levers. As he did so a shrill cry sounded behind him. A mournful cry of terror.
"Aiee! Out of the chamber of the past comes doom! Doom to the men of the earth and of not-earth!"
"Will somebody please gag that perambulating wailing-wall?" demanded Ramey irately. "All right, everybody—look sharp! I'm going to try it easy. If you see anything happening, holler! And be careful no trap doors open beneath you. Okay! Here we go!"
He laid his hand on the upright strip of metal and pulled it slowly toward him. But nothing happened. So long had it rested unused that it seemed welded to the plate on which it stood. Ramey tried again, more forcibly. Still no result. He hunched his shoulders, took a good grip. This time he wrenched at the lever with every ounce of power in his six-foot frame. And—
The rod gave suddenly, jolting back in its groove, burying its handle in the pit of Ramey's stomach, jarring the wind out of him. Ramey sat down, abruptly. A startled "Ooph!" burst from his lips. Then as he caught his wind, a grin overspread his features. "Did it!" he claimed triumphantly. Then as he stared about him, seeing no change in either the room or his companions' expressions, his eyebrows raised. "But now that I did it," he demanded plaintively, "what did I do?"
"You pulled a little stick," said Red genially. "Only nothing happened. I'll give you a recommend if you ever need one. Chief stick-puller and nothing-happened."
But one at least did not share his mirth. "Wait!" Sheila Aiken cried suddenly. "Something did happen! Listen—a humming noise—"
It was so. Singing so faintly through the cubicle as to be almost inaudible was the thin, far moan as of a diminutive motor heard from a vast distance. And where Ramey's hand touched the floor, he thought he could detect just the faintest, the barest, tingle of vibration coursing through the metal. Nor was this just an hallucination. Because—
"It is a motor!" cried Dr. Aiken. "We must be moving! For, see? The panel!"
Ramey's eyes followed the archeologist's finger. On the curious instrument panel before them was a circular dial. And the pointer of this dial was slowly revolving!
Red Barrett, who had clambered down the ladder, took one startled look at the spinning needle and started up again. "Excuse me, folks," he gulped, "I just remembered I got to see a guy about nine million miles away from here!" His hands fumbled for the latch of the ceiling trap door.
Dr. Aiken stayed him with a sharp command. "No, Red! Don't!"
"H-huh? Why not?"
"Because something is happening to us. Obviously, we are moving in some direction or other. It might be perfectly safe to open that trap door, but on the other hand—well, I think it would be better to wait until the needle reaches the end of its circuit."
"If you ask me," vouchsafed Syd O'Brien gloomily, "we've probably marched ourselves right into some sort of ancient torture chamber. An Iron Maiden, or something like that. We'll probably end up under the moat or being cooked in boiling mud—" He stared about him suspiciously. "Do these walls look like they're closing in on us?"
His brother chuckled. "Cheerful little cherub, isn't he? I agree with the doctor; you shouldn't open that trap door just yet, Barrett. But I don't think we're in any danger. Evidently this chamber was a secret of the ancient priesthood. They wouldn't build anything to hurt themselves. Wherever it's taking us—"
"Taking us?" interrupted Ramey. "What's all this talk about movement? We don't seem to be going anywhere."
Dr. Aiken permitted himself a thin smile. "Spoken like a true airman, Ramey. I'm afraid your profession has accustomed you to judge motion by external appearances. Within this closed chamber we have no object relative to which we can judge speed or direction. But by the hum of the motors, movement of these several dials, it is perfectly obvious we are doing something. Just what, I cannot say." Here a frown flickered across the forehead of the older man. "It is quite true that if we move either up or down there should be a visceral sensation similar to that experienced in elevators. Similarly, were we moving in a lateral direction we should have felt the shock of over-balanced inertia when we started in one or another direction. Since we did not feel these things there is only one other possibility, but it is so fantastic—"
"It ain't fantastic," broke in Red Barrett. "It's whacky. We ain't going up or down; we ain't going sideways. That's all the directions there is."
"All the common directions known to man," corrected Dr. Aiken slowly. "There is one other about which we know absolutely nothing. A direction of flight which is, at best, but a mathematical concept—"
This time Sheila Aiken stared at her father. "Daddy, it's unbelievable. You can't mean—?"
"I venture no opinion," said the old man mildly. "I am simply trying to apply to a most unusual situation the rules of logic."
Ramey gave up. He looked at the girl helplessly.
"What does he mean, Sheila?"
There was equal helplessness, and for the first time, an expression of uncertainty, in the girl's eyes as she answered. "He means—we may be moving across Time, Ramey!"
"Time!" For a moment Ramey was jarred completely out of his self-possession. Then his sense of humor came to his rescue. "Oh, come now! We are letting ourselves go hogwild! It's been a hell of a day, I know. And we've had some unnerving experiences, but—Time!"
Syd O'Brien did not share his scorn. The more sober twin nodded moodily. "Nevertheless, it's a possibility, Winters. Time is a dimension just as truly as height, breadth, depth. Some have called it the Fourth Dimension and evolved the concept of a Space-Time continuum wherein all things past and present exist side by side. Even the man-in-the-street acknowledges the dimension of Time in his everyday life. When he says he will meet a friend at Broad and Main Streets, his directions are inadequate unless he specifies the floor, for if he is on the tenth floor and his friend waits at ground level they will not meet. The third dimension, height, must be taken into consideration.
"Similarly, if he tells his friend he will meet him on the tenth floor of a building at Broad and Main, and he is there at ten o'clock but his friend does not arrive until two, they will still not meet—for they did not take into consideration the Fourth extension, Time."
"I understand that," acknowledged Ramey impatiently. "But to speak of crossing Time or 'traveling through' Time—that's absurd. Sheer nonsense for imaginative fictioneers to toy with."
The old scientist stared at him quizzically. "I wish I could be as sure of that as you, Ramey. Unfortunately, science is forced to admit too many contradictory points of evidence to make such bold statements. I might mention the strange case of the two Twentieth Century American lady-tourists who, strolling in the gardens at Versailles, found themselves suddenly translated, incomprehensibly face to face with members of the Eighteenth Century royal French Court. This record is, unhappily, too well authenticated to ignore. I might also point to the accuracy of the prophecies of Michel de Nostradamus who claimed that by means of his magic he was able to move forward into the future and see those things which were to be.[5]
"Many other instances. An Italian record of a stranger who appeared mysteriously in Sicily some two hundred years ago in a machine, the description of which shows a marked resemblance to a rocket-propelled airship. Legend relates that this wise man, who spoke a curiously distorted English, made his home with the natives for several months, taught them new and better methods of husbandry, instructed them in the construction of mechanical devices, and stayed an incipient plague by medical means unknown to that era."
"Still," expostulated Ramey, "to travel across Time—"
"As a hazard," pursued the old man, "let us suppose the continuum of Space-Time may be likened to a huge volume in which is inscribed all the history of past, present, and future. All things are written there—all. From man's darkest beginnings till the last feeble flutter of a dying sun stills in cold death a forlorn earth. Man, reading this volume, must perforce turn the pages one by one. He has memory of that which he has read, comprehension of that upon which his eyes presently rest—but no knowledge whatsoever of what lies before.
"But there is another pathway through this volume. The creeping pathway of the bookworm. This is the shortest route between era and era. Through this infinitesimal tunnel the bookworm—or let us say a 'time machine' constructed by one who knows the manner of its making—can skip from epoch to epoch in the twinkling of an eye."
Ramey stared at him incredulously. "And you—you think this thing we're in may be a sort of mechanical bookworm piercing the pages of Time?"
"I do not know," Dr. Aiken told him again. "I simply point out that at least hypothetically these things could be. I do not know; no. But we will learn in a minute. For, see? The needle has stopped. And if I am not mistaken, the humming, too, has ended."
He pointed. The moving needle had indeed completed its circuit and come to rest; the vibration was gone. Whatever had been the nature of the metal chamber's movements, it was motionless now. Red fidgeted impatiently above them.
"All right now, Doc? Okay for me to lift the trap now?"
"Yes. By all means, Barrett."
Red raised the trapdoor gingerly. But no sunlight filtered into the inch-wide slit. He lifted it still farther, glanced anxiously down at his companions. "Hey, lookit! This is funny! It's dark! No, wait a minute—there's a little spot of light. And there's another wall here and another ladder."
"Give him the torch, Syd," cried Dr. Aiken. "There.... Got it, Barrett? Go on up. Climb the ladder. See if you can find out where we are, and what—"
The flaming brand bobbed upward ten, twenty feet, for a few seconds weaved in uncertain circles, its light reflecting to those below only a gray formlessness and the foreshortened outlines of the climbing Barrett. Then:
"Ramey! Doc!" cried Red.
"What is it?"
"Come on up here, everybody, quick! Look! There's a platform up here and a couple of peepholes, and—and it's the damnedest thing you ever seen. We ain't moved an inch. We're still in the temple. But—but it ain't empty now. There's about three billion people gathered in it!"