Flight From Tomorrow

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  Flight From Tomorrow

  _COMPLETE NOVELET_

  _by H. Beam Piper_

  There was no stopping General Zarvas' rebellion

  (Illustration by Lawrence)

  _Hunted and hated in two worlds, Hradzka dreamed of a monomaniac's glory, stranded in the past with his knowledge of the future. But he didn't know the past quite well enough...._

  1

  But yesterday, a whole planet had shouted: _Hail Hradzka! Hail theLeader!_ Today, they were screaming: _Death to Hradzka! Kill thetyrant!_

  The Palace, where Hradzka, surrounded by his sycophants and guards, hadlorded it over a solar system, was now an inferno. Those who had beentoo closely identified with the dictator's rule to hope for forgivenesswere fighting to the last, seeking only a quick death in combat; one byone, their isolated points of resistance were being wiped out. Thecorridors and chambers of the huge palace were thronged with rebels,loud with their shouts, and with the rasping hiss of heat-beams and thecrash of blasters, reeking with the stench of scorched plastic andburned flesh, of hot metal and charred fabric. The living quarters wereoverrun; the mob smashed down walls and tore up floors in search ofsecret hiding-places. They found strange things--the space-ship that hadbeen built under one of the domes, in readiness for flight to thestill-loyal colonies on Mars or the Asteroid Belt, for instance--butHradzka himself they could not find.

  At last, the search reached the New Tower which reared its head fivethousand feet above the palace, the highest thing in the city. Theyblasted down the huge steel doors, cut the power from theenergy-screens. They landed from antigrav-cars on the upper levels. Butexcept for barriers of metal and concrete and energy, they met with noopposition. Finally, they came to the spiral stairway which led up tothe great metal sphere which capped the whole structure.

  General Zarvas, the Army Commander who had placed himself at the head ofthe revolt, stood with his foot on the lowest step, his followers behindhim. There was Prince Burvanny, the leader of the old nobility, andGhorzesko Orhm, the merchant, and between them stood Tobbh, thechieftain of the mutinous slaves. There were clerks; laborers; poor buthaughty nobles: and wealthy merchants who had long been forced to hidetheir riches from the dictator's tax-gatherers, and soldiers, andspacemen.

  "You'd better let some of us go first sir," General Zarvas' orderly, ablood-stained bandage about his head, his uniform in rags, suggested."You don't know what might be up there."

  The General shook his head. "I'll go first." Zarvas Pol was not the manto send subordinates into danger ahead of himself. "To tell the truth,I'm afraid we won't find anything at all up there."

  "You mean...?" Ghorzesko Orhm began.

  "The 'time-machine'," Zarvas Pol replied. "If he's managed to get itfinished, the Great Mind only knows where he may be, now. Or when."

  He loosened the blaster in his holster and started up the long spiral.His followers spread out, below; sharp-shooters took position to coverhis ascent. Prince Burvanny and Tobbh the Slave started to follow him.They hesitated as each motioned the other to precede him; then thenobleman followed the general, his blaster drawn, and the brawny slavebehind him.

  The door at the top was open, and Zarvas Pol stepped through but therewas nothing in the great spherical room except a raised dais some fiftyfeet in diameter, its polished metal top strangely clean and empty. Anda crumpled heap of burned cloth and charred flesh that had, not longago, been a man. An old man with a white beard, and the seven-pointedstar of the Learned Brothers on his breast, advanced to meet the armedintruders.

  "So he is gone, Kradzy Zago?" Zarvas Pol said, holstering his weapon."Gone in the 'time-machine', to hide in yesterday or tomorrow. And youlet him go?"

  The old one nodded. "He had a blaster, and I had none." He indicated thebody on the floor. "Zoldy Jarv had no blaster, either, but he tried tostop Hradzka. See, he squandered his life as a fool squanders his money,getting nothing for it. And a man's life is not money, Zarvas Pol."

  "I do not blame you, Kradzy Zago," General Zarvas said. "But now youmust get to work, and build us another 'time-machine', so that we canhunt him down."

  "Does revenge mean so much to you, then?"

  The soldier made an impatient gesture. "Revenge is for fools, like thatpack of screaming beasts below. I do not kill for revenge; I killbecause dead men do no harm."

  "Hradzka will do us no more harm," the old scientist replied. "He is athing of yesterday; of a time long past and half-lost in the mists oflegend."

  "No matter. As long as he exists, at any point in space-time, Hradzka isstill a threat. Revenge means much to Hradzka; he will return for it,when we least expect him."

  The old man shook his head. "No, Zarvas Pol, Hradzka will not return."

  * * * * *

  Hradzka holstered his blaster, threw the switch that sealed the"time-machine", put on the antigrav-unit and started the time-shiftunit. He reached out and set the destination-dial for themid-Fifty-Second Century of the Atomic Era. That would land him in theNinth Age of Chaos, following the Two-Century War and the collapse ofthe World Theocracy. A good time for his purpose: the world would beslipping back into barbarism, and yet possess the technologies of formercivilizations. A hundred little national states would be trying toregain social stability, competing and warring with one another. Hradzkaglanced back over his shoulder at the cases of books, record-spools,tri-dimensional pictures, and scale-models. These people of the pastwould welcome him and his science of the future, would make him theirleader.

  He would start in a small way, by taking over the local feudal or tribalgovernment, would arm his followers with weapons of the future. Then hewould impose his rule upon neighboring tribes, or princedoms, orcommunes, or whatever, and build a strong sovereignty; from that heenvisioned a world empire, a Solar System empire.

  Then, he would build "time-machines", many "time-machines". He wouldrecruit an army such as the universe had never seen, a swarm of men fromevery age in the past. At that point, he would return to the HundredthCentury of the Atomic Era, to wreak vengeance upon those who had risenagainst him. A slow smile grew on Hradzka's thin lips as he thought ofthe tortures with which he would put Zarvas Pol to death.

  He glanced up at the great disc of the indicator and frowned. Already hewas back to the year 7500, A.E., and the temporal-displacement had notbegun to slow. The disc was turning even more rapidly--7000, 6000, 5500;he gasped slightly. Then he had passed his destination; he was now inthe Fortieth Century, but the indicator was slowing. The hairlinecrossed the Thirtieth Century, the Twentieth, the Fifteenth, the Tenth.He wondered what had gone wrong, but he had recovered from his fright bythis time. When this insane machine stopped, as it must around the FirstCentury of the Atomic Era, he would investigate, make repairs, thenshift forward to his target-point. Hradzka was determined upon theFifty-Second Century; he had made a special study of the history of thatperiod, had learned the language spoken then, and he understood themethods necessary to gain power over the natives of that time.

  The indicator-disc came to a stop, in the First Century. He switched onthe magnifier and leaned forward to look; he had emerged into normaltime in the year 10 of the Atomic Era, a decade after the firsturanium-pile had gone into operation, and seven years after the firstatomic bombs had been exploded in warfare. The altimeter showed that hewas hovering at eight thousand feet above ground-level.

  Slowly, he cut out the antigrav, letting the "time machine" down easily.He knew that there had been no danger of materializing inside anything;the New Tower had been built to put it above anything that had occupiedthat space-poin
t at any moment within history, or legend, or even thegeological knowledge of man. What lay below, however, was uncertain. Itwas night--the visi-screen showed only a star-dusted, moonless-sky, anddark shadows below. He snapped another switch; for a few micro-seconds abeam of intense light was turned on, automatically photographing thelandscape under him. A second later, the developed picture was projectedupon another screen; it showed only wooded mountains and a barren,brush-grown valley.

  * * * * *

  The "time-machine" came to rest with a soft jar and a crashing of brokenbushes that was audible through the sound pickup. Hradzka pulled themain switch; there was a click as the shielding went out and the dooropened. A breath of cool night air drew into the hollow sphere.

  Then