Yesterday's Revenge

by H. L. Nichols

"Stupid!" shrilled the Master. "Can you not see that in that old time, where all my power is undreamed of, I would be cut off from my robots, my Guard, my police and my armies? In that village all my power would be naught, and even the mention of it would close me in a madhouse!" At the mere thought the Master's voice grew high and thin with terror. Almost he abandoned the whole project; yet the thought of the girl with golden hair and fearless eyes returned to him, filling him with eagerness and desire which, jaded by absolute power, he had thought never to feel again. "Lure her to the trap!" he cried. "But if she comes to any harm, you shall repent it in the longest, keenest agony my torturers can devise."

Yet the nameless, growing fear grew stronger within the Master as the days crept on and Heidkamp's experiments progressed. The future could not be foreseen ... who could know that the past might not somehow reach darkly toward the Master, and destroy him? Yet the mad passion inspired by the girl in the Time Visor gave him no rest; it grew too, waxing stronger as Heidkamp's science gradually placed her nearer to his grasp, and finally this passion outstripped even the Master's fear. Daily he summoned Heidkamp to the visiscreen, threatened him anew with endless torture if he should fail, and heard with satisfaction Heidkamp's story of progress. For the genius of the Technician, rising to the monstrous demands made upon it by the Master, was actually bringing to pass the miracle which he had commanded.

When on the 28th day of the allotted thirty Heidkamp reported that all was in readiness, the Master prepared to leave his lofty haven for the first time in many months. For this expedition he chose to be accompanied by the robots, rather than by the brutal Guard; and lest a half mile of steel and glass and air should too much intervene between his thoughts and the telepathic amplifier-converter, he had two of the robots carry it between them. These two went into the elevator, but before following them, the Master walked slowly around his eyrie, appraising what he saw, and beyond that, the distances unseen.

He had taken over from the Pacifist Democrats their plans for the rebirth of a world destroyed by war, and he congratulated himself that he had achieved beyond their dreams. Fair indeed was this great city, rising in miles of mighty windowed ramparts along the western bank of the purple Hudson, and fair indeed were a thousand lesser cities, set like jewels around the healing earth. And the vast fruitful farms and terraced orchards, dotted with placid lakes and webbed by shining canals, stretching to the north to break at last against the desolate shell torn slopes of the Highlands, and to the west into the cauldron of the sunset, these were things of wonder and beauty too. But for all his building and possession of this vast achievement, the Master knew that nowhere beneath that darkening sky could he count a single friend, or any person loyal except thru fear or greed. And as he turned away, he saw the crimson of the west spread over the whole dome of the heavens like a great flame, and the city and the landscape seemed to flow with blood. With a deep foreboding he shuddered into the elevator, bidding two more robots after him, and rocket-like they plummeted into the depths of the great building, in the safe and familiar light of the phosphene ceiling.

Soft as a breath the swift car came to rest at the level of the upper vaults, and into the blue lighted corridor issued the strange procession—four strange creatures beyond any man's imaginings, whose very presence made the air electric with menace; two of them bearing the glittering thing that gave them life, the irreplaceable telepath whose structure was known to the Master and to no other living man, and within the shelter of their square walked the puissant owner of the world, quick with desire for the woman he hoped to resurrect from the forgotten dead, but still fearful in the memory of the bright flame of the sky and the city drenched in blood. He remembered now that as he had first seen the girl, the heavens had unleashed upon him that great storm, quivering with a concentration of the hate that always subtly beat upon him, and he wondered whether the old gods still lived, and had shown him then a sign and now another sign.

"Perhaps," he thought, "I should turn back, lest I and my great destiny should be trapped and lost in the dimness of these vaults and the enticements of the past, so that I might never again look forth upon the planet that lies crushed beneath my will, or behold the great cold space of twinkling suns that yet may feel my power. But no, this is weakness, for the past is mine as well as the future, and this woman shall be but the first tribute I shall exact."

Thus fixed in his determination, he came to the laboratory, where Heidkamp stood alone and tense among the fantastic trappings of his science. In the center of the room was a great cylinder of softly glowing orange, on the warm surface of which danced flecks of silver light. This was the mold into which the whining generators, banked tier on tier in the further shadows, were pouring dissonances to be flung across the incredible emptiness of timelessness to snatch back a living prize. Upon its side an insulated handle stood out sharp and black, and around it a faint suggestion of a door showed thru the radiance.

No spark of hatred showed in Heidkamp's eyes as he saluted. "Your Excellency has arrived within three minutes of the time when the Ronferth potential will be at maximum. You will observe on the right a visiscreen connected thru a time visor so as to show the house and its surroundings. Upon the steps sits the girl whom you desire. She is waiting for her escort. I have drawn this black circle upon the screen itself, to show where the trap will be sprung."

"And how will you lure her to the trap?"

"I have taken advantage of your Excellency's authority to obtain from the museums diamonds and other gems that were highly esteemed in her time. Upon the floor of this cylinder I have placed a heap of these, which will be carried backward with the force screen and appear upon her lawn as the trap is set. Unless women were far different then than now, she will come to this glittering bait, penetrating the force screen that will be invisible and harmless while at rest, and then we shall pull the screen and the woman back together, so that she shall await the Master's pleasure within this glowing cell."