This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson. Flight from Tomorrow by H. Beam Piper. But yesterday, a whole planet had shouted, Hail Haradska! Hail the leader! Today they were screaming, Death to Haradska! Kill the tyrant! The palace, where Haradska, surrounded by his sycophants and guards, had lorded it over a solar system, was now an inferno. Those who had been too closely identified with the dictator's rule to hope for forgiveness were fighting to the last, seeking only a quick death in combat. One by one their isolated points of resistance were being wiped out. The corridors and chambers of the huge palace were thronged with rebels, loud with their shouts, and with the rasping hiss of heat beams and the crash of blasters, reeking with the stench of scorched plastic and burned flesh, of hot metal and charred fabric. The living quarters were overrun, the mobs smashed down walls and tore up floors in search of secret hiding-places. They found strange things, the spaceship that had been built under one of the domes, in readiness for flight to the still-loyal colonies on Mars, or the asteroid belt, for instance, but Haradska himself they could not find. At last the search reached the new tower, which reared its head five thousand feet above the palace, the highest thing in the city. They blasted down the huge steel doors, cut power from the energy screens. They landed from anti-grave cars on the upper levels, but except for barriers of metal and concrete and energy, they met with no opposition. Finally they came to the spiral stairway which led up to the great metal sphere which capped the whole structure. General Zarvas, the army commander who had placed himself at the head of the revolt, stood with his foot on the lowest step, his followers behind him. There was Prince Bervani, the leader of the old nobility, and Gorzesko Orm, the merchant, and between them stood Tob, the chieftain of the mutinous slaves. There were clerks, laborers, poor but haughty nobles, and wealthy merchants who had long been forced to hide their riches from the dictator's tax-gatherers and soldiers and spacemen. You'd better let some of us go first, sir. A blood-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 Paul was not the man to 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, Gorzesko Orm began. The time machine, Zarvas Paul replied, If he's managed to get it finished, 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. Sharpshooters took position to cover his assent. Prince Bervani and Tob the slave started to follow him. They hesitated as each motion to the other to proceed him. Then the nobleman followed the general, his blaster drawn, and the brawny slave behind him. The door at the top was open, and Zarvas Paul stepped through. But there was nothing in the great spherical room except a raised deus, some fifty feet in diameter. Its polished metal top strangely clean and empty. And a crumpled heap of burned cloth and charred flesh that had not long ago been a man. An old man with a white beard and the seven pointed star of the learned brothers on his breast advanced to meet the armed intruders. So he is gone, Krazizago, Zarvas Paul said, holstering his weapon. Gone in the time machine to hide in yesterday or tomorrow. And you let him go? The old one nodded. He had a blaster, and I had none. He indicated the body on the floor. Zoldy Jarv had no blaster either, but he tried to stop Radska. See, he squandered his life as a fool squanders his money, getting nothing for it. And a man's life is not money, Zarvas Paul. I do not blame you, Krazizago, General Zarvas said. But now you must get to work and build us another time machine so that we can hunt him down. Does revenge mean so much to you, then? The soldier made an impatient gesture. Revenge is for fools, like that pack of screaming beasts below. I do not kill for revenge.  Radska will do us no more harm, the old scientist replied. He is a thing of yesterday, of a time long past and half lost in the mists of legend. No matter, as long as he exists at any point in space-time, Radska is still a threat. Revenge means much to Radska. He will return for it when we least expect him. The old man shook his head. No, Zarvas Paul. Radska will not return. Radska holstered his blaster through the switch that sealed the time machine, put on the anti-grab unit, and started the time-shift unit. He reached out and set the destination dial for the mid-52nd century of the atomic era. That would land him in the ninth age of chaos, following the two-century war and the collapse of the world theocracy. A good time for his purpose, the world would be slipping back into barbarism and yet possessed the technologies of former civilizations. A hundred little nation-states would be trying to regain social stability, competing and warring with one another. Radska glanced back over his shoulder at the cases of books, record spools, tridimensional pictures, and scale models. These people of the past would welcome him and his science of the future, would make him their leader. He would start in a small way, by taking over the local feudal or tribal government, would arm his followers with weapons of the future. Then he would impose his rule upon neighboring tribes, or princetums, or communes, or whatever, and build a strong sovereignty. From that he envisioned a world empire, a solar system empire. Then he would build time machines, many time machines. He would recruit an army such as the universe had never seen, a swarm of men from every age in the past. At that point he would return to the hundredth century of the atomic era to wreak vengeance upon those who had risen against him. A slow smile grew on Radska's thin lips as he thought of the tortures with which he would put Tsarvis Paul to death. He glanced up at the great disc of the indicator and frowned. Already he was back to the year 7500 A.E., and the temporal displacement had not begun to slow. The disc was turning even more rapidly. 7000, 6000, 5500. He gasped slightly. Then he had passed his destination. He was now in the 40th century, but the indicator was slowing. The hairline crossed the 30th century, the 20th, the 15th, the 10th. He wondered what had gone wrong, but he had recovered from his fright by this time. When this insane machine stopped, as it must around the first century of the atomic era, he would investigate, make repairs, then shift forward to his target point. Radska was determined upon the 52nd century. He had made a special study of the history of that period, had learned the language spoken then, and he understood the methods necessary to gain power over the natives of that time. The indicator disc came to a stop in the first century. He switched on the magnifier and leaned forward to look. He had emerged into normal time in the year 10 of the atomic era, a decade after the first uranium pile had gone into operation, and seven years after the first atomic bombs had been exploded in warfare. The altimeter showed that he was hovering at 8000 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 occupied that space point at any moment within history, or legend, or even the geological knowledge of man. What lay below, however, was uncertain. It was night. The visible screen showed only a star-dusted moonless sky, and dark shadows below. He snapped another switch. For a few microseconds a beam of intense light was turned on, automatically photographing the landscape under him. A second later the developed picture was projected upon 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 broken brushes that was audible through the sound pickup. Radzka pulled the main switch. There was a click as the shielding went out and the door opened. A breath of cool night air drew into the hollow sphere. Then there was a loud bang inside the mechanism and a flash of blue-white light which turned to pinkish flame with a nasty crackling. Curls of smoke began to rise from the square black box that housed the time-shift mechanism and from behind the instrument board. In a moment everything was glowing hot. Driplets of aluminum and silver were running down from the instruments. Then the whole interior of the time machine was a fire. There was barely time for Radzka to leap through the open door. The brush outside impeded him and he used his blaster to clear a path for himself away from the big sphere which was now glowing faintly on the outside. The heat grew in intensity and the brush outside was taking fire. It was not until he had gotten two hundred yards from the machine that he stopped realizing what had happened. The machine, of course, had been sabotaged. That would have been young Zoldy whom he had killed or that old Billy-goat Kradzky Zago, the latter most likely. He cursed both of them for having marooned him in this savage age at the very beginning of atomic civilization with all his printed and recorded knowledge destroyed. Oh, he could still gain mastery over these barbarians. He knew enough to fashion a crude blaster or a heat beam gun or an atomic electric conversion unit. But without his books and records he could never build an anti-grave unit and the secret of the temporal shift was lost. For time is not an object or a medium which can be traveled along. The time machine was not a vehicle. It was a mechanical process of displacement within the space-time continuum. And those who constructed it knew that it could not be used with the sort of accuracy that the dials indicated. Radska had ordered his scientists to produce a time machine. And they had combined the possible, displacement within the space-time continuum, with the sort of fiction the dictator demanded for their own well-being. Even had there been no sabotage his return to his own time was nearly of zero probability. The fire, spreading from the time machine, was blowing toward him. He observed the wind direction and hurried around out of the path of the flames. The light enabled him to pick his way through the brush and, after crossing a small stream, he found a rutted road and followed it up the mountainside until he came to a place where he could rest concealed until morning. It was broad daylight when he woke and there was a strange throbbing sound. Radska lay motionless under the brush where he had slept, his blaster ready. In a few minutes a vehicle came into sight, following the road down the mountainside. It was a large thing, four-wheeled, with a projection in front which probably housed the engine and a cab for the operator. The body of the vehicle was simply an open rectangular box. There were two men in the cab and about twenty or thirty more crowded into the box body. These were dressed in faded and nondescript garments of blue and gray and brown. All were armed with crude weapons, axes, bill hooks, long-handled instruments with serrated edges, and what looked like broad-bladed spears. The vehicle itself, which seemed to be propelled by some sort of chemical explosion engine, was dingy and mud-splattered. The men in it were ragged and unshaven. Radska snorted in contempt. They were probably warriors of the local tribe, going to the fire in the belief that it had been started by raiding enemies. When they found the wreckage of the time machine they would no doubt believe that it was the chariot of some god and drag it home to be venerated. A plan of action was taking shape in his mind. First he must get clothing of the sort worn by these people and find a safe hiding place for his own things. Then, pretending to be deaf-mute, he would go among them to learn something of their customs and pick up the language. When he had done that he would move on to another tribe or village able to tell a credible story for himself. For a while it would be necessary for him to do menial work, but in the end he would establish himself among these people. Then he would gather around him a faction of those who were dissatisfied with whatever conditions existed, organize a conspiracy, make arms for his followers, and start his program of power seizure. The matter of clothing was attended to shortly after he had crossed the mountain and descended into the valley on the other side. Hearing a clinking sound some distance from the road, as of metal striking stone, Haradzka stole cautiously through the woods until he came within sight of a man who was digging with a mattock, uprooting small bushes of a particular sort, with rough grey bark and three pointed leaves. When he had dug one up he would cut off the roots and then slice away the root bark with a knife, putting it into a sack. Haradzka's lip curled contemptuously. The fellow was gathering the stuff for medicinal use. He had heard of the use of roots and herbs for such purposes by the ancient savages. The blaster would be no use here. It was too powerful and would destroy the clothing that the man was wearing. He unfastened a strap from his belt and attached it to a stone to form a hand-loop. Then inched forward behind the lone herb-gatherer. When he was close enough he straightened and rushed forward, swinging the improvised weapon. The man heard him and turned, too late. After undressing his victim Haradzka used the mattock to finish him and then to dig a grave. The fugitive buried his own clothes with the murdered man and donned the faded blue shirt, rough shoes, worn trousers and jacket. The blaster he concealed under the jacket, and he kept a few other hundredth-century gadgets, these he would hide somewhere, closer to his center of operations. He had kept, among other things, a small box of food-concentrate capsules, and in one pocket of the newly acquired jacket he found a package containing food. It was rough and unappetizing fare. Slices of cold cooked meat between slices of some cereal substance. He ate these before filling in the grave and put the paper wrappings in with the dead man. Then, his work finished, he threw the mattock into the brush and set out again, grimacing disgustedly and scratching himself. The clothing he had appropriated was verminous. Crossing another mountain he descended into a second valley, and for a time lost his way among a tangle of narrow ravines. It was dark by the time he mounted a hill and found himself looking down another valley, in which a few scattered lights gave evidence of human habitations. Not wishing to arouse suspicion by approaching these in the night-time, he found a place among some young evergreens where he could sleep. The next morning, having breakfasted on a concentrate capsule, he found a hiding place for his blaster in a hollow tree. It was in a sufficiently prominent position so that he could easily find it again and, at the same time, unlikely to be discovered by some native. Then he went down into the inhabited valley. He was surprised at the ease at which he established contact with the natives. The first dwelling which he approached, a cluster of farm buildings at the upper end of the valley, gave him shelter. There was a man, clad in the same sort of rough garments Hradska had taken from the body of the herb-gatherer, and a woman in a faded and shapeless dress. The man was thin and work-bent, the woman short and heavy. Both were past middle age. He made inarticulate sounds to attract their attention, then gestured to his mouth and ears to indicate his assumed affliction. He rubbed his stomach to portray hunger. Looking about, he saw an axe sticking in a chopping-block and a pile of wood near it, probably the fuel used by these people. He took up the axe, split up some of the wood, then repeated the hunger signs. The man and the woman both nodded, laughing. He had shown a pile of tree limbs, and the man picked up a short billet of wood and used it like a measuring rule to indicate that all the wood was to be cut to that length. Hradska fell to work, and by mid-morning he had all the wood cut. He had seen a circular stone, mounted on a trestle with a metal axle through it, and judged it to be some sort of a grinding wheel, since it was fitted with a foot-pedal and a rusty metal can was set above it to spill water onto the grinding edge. After chopping the wood, he carefully sharpened the axe, handing it to the man for inspection. This seemed to please the man. He clapped Hradska on the shoulder, making commendatory sounds. It required considerable time and ingenuity to make himself a more or less permanent member of the household. Hradska made a survey of the farmyard, noting the sorts of work that would normally be performed on the farm, and he pantomimed this work in its simpler operations. He pointed to the east where the sun would rise, and to the zenith and to the west. He made signs indicative of eating and of sleeping and of rising and of working. At length he succeeded in conveying his meaning. There was considerable argument between the man and the woman, but his proposal was accepted, as he expected that it would. It was easy to see that the work of the farm was hard for this aging couple.  In the days that followed, he made himself useful to the farm people. He fed the chickens and the livestock, milked the cow, worked in the fields. He slept in a small room at the top of the house, under the eaves, and ate with the man and woman in the farmhouse kitchen. It was not long before he picked up a few words which he had heard his employers using, and related them to the things or acts spoken of. And he began to notice that these people, in spite of the crudities of their own life, enjoyed some of the advantages of fairly complex civilization. Their implements were not handcraft products, but showed machine workmanship. There were two objects hanging on hooks on the kitchen wall, which he was sure were weapons. Both had wooden shoulder stocks and wooden four-pieces. They had long tubes extending to the front and triggers like blasters. One had double tubes mounted side by side and double triggers. The other had an octagonal tube mounted over a round tube and a loop extension on the trigger guard. Then there was a box on the kitchen wall with a mouthpiece and a cylindrical tube on a cord. Sometimes a bell would ring out of the box and the woman would go to this instrument, take down the tube and hold it to her ear and talk into the mouthpiece. There was another box from which voices would issue, of people conversing, or of orators, or of singing, and sometimes instrumental music. None of these were objects made by savages. These people probably traded with some fairly high civilization. They were not illiterate, he found printed matter indicating the use of some phonetic alphabet and paper pamphlets containing printed reproductions of photographs as well as verbal text. There was also a vehicle on the farm powered, like the one he had seen on the road, by an engine in which a hydrocarbon liquid fuel was exploded. He made it his business to examine this minutely and to study its construction and operation until he was thoroughly familiar with it. It was not until the third day after his arrival that the chickens began to die. In the morning Horatska found three of them dead when he went to feed them and the rest drooping unhealthily. He summoned the man and showed him what he had found. The next morning they were all dead and the cow was sick.  The man and the woman were also beginning to sicken, though both of them tried to continue their work. It was the woman who first noticed that the plants around the farmhouse were withering and turning yellow. The farmer went to the stable with Horatska and looked at the cow. Shaking his head he limped back to the house and returned carrying one of the weapons from the kitchen, the one with the single trigger and the octagonal tube. As he entered the stable he jerked down and up on the loop extension of the trigger guard, then put the weapon to his shoulder and pointed it at the cow. It made a flash and roared louder even than a hand blaster and the cow jerked convulsively and was dead. The man then indicated by signs that Horatska was to drag the dead cow out of the stable, dig a hole, and bury it. This Horatska did, carefully examining the wound in the cow's head. The weapon, he decided, was not an energy weapon but a simple solid missile projector. By evening neither the man nor the woman were able to eat and both seemed to be suffering intensely. The man used the communicating instrument on the wall, probably calling on his friends for help. Horatska did what he could to make them comfortable, cooked his own meal, washed the dishes as he had seen the woman doing, and tidied up the kitchen. It was not long before people, men and women whom he had seen on the road or who had stopped at the farmhouse while he had been there, began arriving, some carrying baskets of food. And shortly after Horatska had eaten, a vehicle like the farmers, but in better condition and of better quality, arrived and a young man got out of it and entered the house carrying a leather bag. He was apparently some sort of a scientist. He examined the man and his wife, asked many questions, and administered drugs. He also took samples for blood tests and urinalysis. This, Horatska considered, was another of the many contradictions he had encountered among these people. This man behaved like an educated scientist and seemingly had nothing in common with the peasant herb-gatherer on the mountain side. The fact was that Horatska was worried. The strange death of the animals, the blight which had smitten the trees and vegetables around the farm, and the sickness of the farmer and his wife all mystified him. He did not know of any disease which would affect plants and animals and humans. He wondered if some poisonous gas might not be escaping from the earth near the farmhouse. However, he had not himself been affected. He also disliked the way in which the doctor and the neighbor seemed to be talking about him. While he had come to a considerable revision of his original opinion about the culture level of these people, it was not impossible that they might suspect him of having caused the whole thing by witchcraft. At any moment they might fall upon him and put him to death. In any case, there was no longer any use in his staying here and it might be wise if he left at once. Accordingly he filled his pockets with food from the pantry and slipped out of the farmhouse. Before his absence was discovered he was well on his way down the road. That night Horatska slept under a bridge across a fairly wide stream. The next morning he followed the road until it came to a town. It was not a large place, there were perhaps four or five hundred houses and other buildings in it. Most of these dwellings were like the farmhouse where he had been staying, but some were much larger and seemed to be places of business. One of these ladder was a concrete structure with wide doors at the front. Inside he could see men working on the internal combustion vehicles which seemed to be in almost universal use. Horatska decided to obtain employment here. It would be best, he decided, to continue his pretense of being a deaf mute. He did not know whether a world language were in use at this time or not and even if not the pretense of being a foreigner unable to speak the local dialect might be dangerous. So he entered the vehicle repair shop and accosted a man in a clean shirt who seemed to be issuing instructions to the workers, going into his pantomime of the homeless mute seeking employment. The master of the repair shop merely laughed at him however. Horatska became more insistent in his manner, making signs to indicate his hunger and willingness to work. The other men in the shop left their tasks and gathered around. There was much laughter and unmistakable ribbled and derogatory remarks. Horatska was beginning to give up hope of getting employment here when one of the workmen approached the master and whispered something to him. The two of them walked away, conversing in low voices. Horatska thought he understood the situation. No doubt the workman, thinking to lighten his own labor, was urging that the vagrant be employed for no other pay than food and lodging. At length the master assented to his employees' urgings. He returned, showing Horatska a hose and a bucket and sponges and cloths, and sent him to work cleaning the mud from one of the vehicles. Then, after seeing that the work was being done properly, he went away, entering a room at one side of the shop. About twenty minutes later another man entered the shop. He was not dressed like any of the other people whom Horatska had seen. He wore a gray tunic and breeches, polished black boots, and a cap with a visor and a metal insignia on it. On a belt he carried a holstered weapon, like a blaster. After speaking to one of the workers, who pointed Horatska out to him, he approached the fugitive and said something. Horatska made gestures at his mouth and ears and made gargling sounds. The newcomer shrugged and motioned him to come with him, at the same time producing a pair of handcuffs from his belt and jingling them suggestively. In a few seconds Horatska tried to analyze the situation and estimate its possibilities. The newcomer was a soldier, or more likely a policeman, since monocles were part of his equipment. Evidently, since the evening before, a warning had been made public by means of communicating devices such as he had seen at the farm advising people that a man of his description, pretending to be a death-mute, should be detained and the police notified. It had been for that reason that the workmen had persuaded his master to employ Horatska. No doubt he would be accused of causing the conditions at the farm by sorcery. Horatska shrugged and nodded, then went to the water tap to turn off the hose he had been using. He disconnected it, coiled it, and hung it up, and then picked up the water bucket. Then, without warning, he hurled the water into the policeman's face, sprang forward, swinging the bucket by the bale, and hit the man on the head. Releasing his grip on the bucket, he tore the blaster, or whatever it was, from the holster. One of the workers swung a hammer, as though to throw it. Horatska aimed the weapon at him and pulled the trigger.  He used it again to drop the policeman, then thrust it into the waistband of his trousers, and ran outside. The thing was not a blaster at all, he realized, only a missile projector, like the big weapons at the farm, utilizing the force of some chemical explosion. The policeman's vehicle was standing outside. It was a small, single-seat, two-wheeled affair. Having become familiar with the principles of these hydrocarbon engines from examination of the vehicle on the farm, and accustomed, as he was, to far more complex mechanisms than this crude affair, Horatska could see at a glance how to operate it. Springing onto the saddle, he kicked away the folding support and started the engine. Just as he did, the master of the repair shop ran outside, one of the small hand weapons in his hand, and fired several shots. They all missed, but Horatska heard the whining sound of the missiles passing uncomfortably close to him. It was imperative that he recovered the blaster he had hidden in the hollow tree at the head of the valley. By this time, there would be a concerted search underway for him, and he needed a better weapon than the solid missile projector he had taken from the policeman. He did not know how many shots the thing contained, but if it propelled solid missiles by chemical explosion, there could not have been more than five or six such charges in the cylindrical part of the weapon which he had assumed to be the charge holder. On the other hand, his blaster, a weapon of much greater power, contained enough energy for five hundred blasts, and with it were eight extra energy capsules giving him a total of four thousand five hundred blasts. Handling the two-wheeled vehicle was no particular problem. Although he had never ridden on anything of the sort before, it was child's play compared to controlling a hundredth century strato rocket, and Horatska was a skilled rocket pilot. Several times he passed vehicles on the road. The passenger vehicles with enclosed cabins and cargo vehicles piled high with farm produce.  They scattered off the road in terror at his approach. Fortunately he hit none of them, for at the speed at which he was traveling such a collision would have wrecked his light vehicle. As he approached the farm where he had spent the past few days he saw two passenger vehicles standing by the road. One was a black one, similar to the one in which the physician had come to the farm, and the other was white with black trimmings and bore the same device he had seen on the cap of the policeman. A policeman was sitting in the driver's seat of this vehicle, and another policeman was standing beside it, breathing smoke with one of the white paper cylinders these people used. In the farmyard two men were going about with a square black box. To this box a tube was connected by a wire, and they were passing the tube about over the ground. The policeman who was standing beside the vehicle saw him approach and blew his whistle, then drew the weapon from his belt. Haradska, who had been expecting some attempt to halt him, had let go the right hand steering handle and drawn his own weapon. As the policeman drew he fired at him. Without observing the effect of the shot he sped on. Before he had rounded the bend above the farm several shots were fired after him. A mile beyond he came to the place where he had hidden the blaster. He stopped the vehicle and jumped off, plunging into the brush and racing toward the hollow tree. Just as he reached it he heard a vehicle approach and stop, and the door of the police vehicle slammed. Haradska's fingers found the belt of his blaster. He dragged it out and buckled it on, tossing away the missile weapon he had been carrying. Then, crouching behind the tree, he waited. A few moments later he caught a movement in the brush toward the road. He brought up the blaster, aimed and squeezed the trigger. There was a faint bluish glow at the muzzle and a blast of energy tore through the brush, smashing the molecular structure of everything that stood in the way. There was an involuntary shout of alarm from the direction of the road. At least one of the policemen had escaped the blast. Haradska holstered his weapon and crept away for some distance, keeping under cover, then turned and waited for some sign of the presence of his enemies. For some time nothing happened. He decided to turn Hunter against the men who were hunting him. He started back in the direction of the road, making a wide circle, flitting silently from rock to bush and from bush to tree, stopping often to look and listen. This finally brought him upon one of the policemen, and almost terminated his flight at the same time. He must have grown overconfident and careless. Suddenly a weapon roared and a missile smashed through the brush inches from his face. The shot had come from his left and a little to the rear. Whirling he blasted four times in rapid succession, then turned and fled for a few yards, dropped and crawling behind a rock. When he looked back he could see wisps of smoke rising from the shattered trees and brushes which had absorbed the energy output of his weapon, and he caught a faint odor of burned flesh. One of his pursuers, at least, would pursue him no longer. He slipped away down into the tangle of ravines and hollows in which he had wandered the day before his arrival at the farm. For the time being he felt safe, and finally confident that he was not being pursued, he stopped to rest. The place where he stopped seemed familiar, and he looked about. In a moment he recognized the little stream, the pool where he had bathed his feet, the clump of seedling pines under which he had slept. He even found the silver foil wrapping from the food-concentrate capsule. But there had been a change since the night when he had slept here. Then the young pines had been green and alive, now they were blighted, and their needles had turned brown. Rotska stood for a long time looking at them. It was the same blight that had touched the plants around the farmhouse. And here, among the pine needles on the ground, lay a dead bird. It took some time for him to admit to himself the implications of vegetation, the chickens, the cow, the farmer and his wife, had all sickened and died.  During the early centuries of the atomic era he knew there had been great wars, the stories of which had survived even to the hundredth century. Among the weapons that had been used there had been artificial plagues and epidemics, caused by new types of bacteria developed in laboratories, against which the victims had possessed no protection. Those germs and viruses had persisted for centuries, and gradually had lost their power to harm mankind. Suppose now that he had brought some of them back with him to a century before they had been developed.  He thought of the vermin that had infested the clothing he had taken from the man he had killed on the other side of the mountain. They had not troubled him after the first day. There was a throbbing mechanical sound somewhere in the air. He looked about, and finally identified its source. A small aircraft had come over the valley from the other side of the mountain and was circling lazily overhead. He froze, shrinking back under a pine tree. As long as he remained motionless he would not be seen, and soon the thing would go away. He was beginning to understand why the search for him was being pressed so relentlessly. As long as he remained alive he was a menace to everybody in the first century world. He got out his supply of food concentrates, saw that he had only three capsules left, and put them away again. For a long time he sat under the dying tree, chewing on a twig and thinking. There must be some way in which he could overcome, or even utilize his inherent deadliness to these people. He might find some isolated community, conceal himself near it, invade it at night, and infect it. And then, when everybody was dead, move in and take it for himself. But was there any such isolated community? The farmhouse where he had worked had been fairly remote, yet its inhabitants had been in communication with the outside world and the physician had come immediately in response to their call for help. The little aircraft had been circling overhead, directly above the place where he lay hidden. For a while Radska was afraid it had spotted him and was debating the advisability of using his blaster on it. Then it banked, turned, and went away. He watched its circle over the valley on the other side of the mountain and got to his feet. Almost at once there was a new sound, a multiple throbbing at a quick snarling tempo that hinted at enormous power growing louder each second. Radska stiffened and drew his blaster. As he did, five more aircraft swooped over the crest of the mountain and came rushing down toward him. Not aimlessly, but as though they knew exactly where he was. As they approached, the leading edges of their wings sparkled with light. Branches began flying from the trees about him and there was a loud hammering noise.  A wing flew from one of the aircraft and it plunged downward. Another came apart in the air, a third burst into flames. The other two zoomed upward quickly. Radska swung his blaster after them, blasting again and again. He hit a fourth with a blast of energy, knocking it to pieces, and then the fifth was out of range. He blasted at it twice, but without effect. A hand blaster was only good for a thousand yards at the most. Holstering his weapon, he hurried away, following the stream and keeping under the cover of trees. The last of the attacking aircraft had gone away, but the little scout plane was still circling about, well out of blaster range. Once or twice, Radska was compelled to stay hidden for some time, not knowing the nature of the pilot's ability to detect him. It was during one of these waits that the next phase of attack developed. It began, like the last one, with a distant roar that swelled in volume until it seemed to fill the whole world. Then, fifteen or twenty thousand feet out of blaster range, the new attackers swept into sight. There must have been fifty of them, huge tapered things with widespread wings, flying in close formation, wave after V-shaped wave. He stood and stared at them, amazed. He had never imagined that such aircraft existed in the first century. Then a high-pitched screaming sound cut through the roar of the propellers, and for an instant he saw countless small specks in the sky falling downward. The first bomb salvo landed in the young pines where he had fought against the first air attack. Great gouts of flame shot upward and smoke and flying earth and debris. Radska turned and started to run. Another salvo fell in front of him. He veered to the left and plunged on through the undergrowth.  He dodged, frightened, as the trunk of a tree came crashing down beside him. Then something hit him across the back, knocking him flat. For a moment he lay stunned, then tried to rise. As he did, a searing light filled his eyes and a wave of intolerable heat swept over him. Then darkness. "'Know's of us, Paul,' Kradzizago repeated. Radska will not return, the time machine was sabotaged.' "'So? By you?' the soldier asked.' The scientist nodded. "'I knew the purpose for which he intended it.' Radska was not content with having enslaved a whole solar system. He hungered to bring tyranny and serfdom to all the past and all the future as well. He wanted to be master not only of the present, but of the centuries that were and were to be as well. I never took part in politics, Zarbis Paul. I had no hand in this revolt. But I could not be party to such a crime as Radska contemplated when it lay within my power to prevent it. The machine will take him out of our space-time continuum, or back to a time when this planet was a swirling cloud of flaming gas,' Zarbis Paul asked. Kradzizago shook his head. "'No, the unit is not powerful enough for that. It would only take him about ten thousand years into the past. But then, when it stops, the machine will destroy itself. It may destroy Radska with it, or he may escape. But if he does, he will be left stranded ten thousand years ago when he can do us no harm.' Actually, it did not operate as he imagined, and there is an infinitely small chance that he could have returned to our time in any event. But I want to ensure against even so small a chance.' "'We can't be sure of that,' Zarbis Paul objected. He may know more about the machine than you think, enough more to build another like it. So you must build me a machine, and I'll take back a party of volunteers and hunt him down.' "'That would not be necessary, and you would only share his fate.' Then, apparently changing the subject, Kradzizago asked. "'Tell me, Zarbis Paul, have you never heard the legends of the deadly radiations?' General Zarbis smiled. "'Who is not? Every cadet at the officer's college dreams of rediscovering them, to use as a weapon, but nobody ever has. We hear these tales of how, in the early days, atomic engines and piles and fission bombs emitted particles which were utterly deadly, which would make anything with which they came in contact deadly, which would bring a horrible death to any human being. But these are only myths. All the ancient experiments have been duplicated time and again, and the deadly radiation effect has never been observed. Some say that it is a mere old-wife's terror tale. Some say that the deaths were caused by fear of atomic energy when it was still unfamiliar. Others contend that the fundamental nature of atomic energy has altered by the degeneration of fissionable matter.  The old one smiled wanly. None of these theories are correct. In the beginning of the atomic era, the deadly radiations existed. They still exist, but they are no longer deadly, because all life on this planet has adapted itself to such radiations, and all living things are now immune to them. And Haradzka has returned to a time when such immunity did not exist, but would that not be to his advantage? Remember, General, that man has been using atomic energy for ten thousand years. Our whole world has become drenched with radioactivity. The planet, the seas, the atmosphere, and every living thing are all radioactive now. Radioactivity is as natural to us as the air we breathe. Now you remember hearing of the great wars of the first centuries of the atomic era in which whole nations were wiped out, leaving only hundreds of survivors out of millions. You no doubt think that such tales are products of ignorant and barbaric imagination, but I assure you they are literally true. It was not the blast effect of a few bombs that created such holocausts, but the radiations released by the bombs. And those who survived to carry on the race were men and women whose systems resisted the radiations, and they transmitted to their progeny that power of resistance. In many cases their children were mutants, not monsters, although there were many of them too which did not survive, but humans who were immune to radioactivity. An interesting theory, Krazi Zago, the soldier commented, and one which conforms both to what we know of atomic energy and to the ancient legends. Then would you say that those radiations are still deadly, to the non-immune? Exactly, and Haradska, his body emitting those radiations, has returned to the first century of the atomic era to a world without immunity. Generals Arva's smile vanished. Man, he cried in horror, you have loosed a carrier of death among those innocent people of the past. Krazi Zago nodded. That is true. I estimate that Haradska will probably cause the death of a hundred or so people before he has dealt with. But dealt with he will be. Tell me, General, if a man should appear now, out of nowhere, spreading a strange and horrible plague wherever he went, what would you do?  Not for anything he did, but for the menace he was. And then I'd cover his body with a mass of concrete bigger than this palace. Precisely, Krazi Zago smiled, and the military commanders and the political leaders of the first century were no less ruthless or efficient than you. You know how atomic energy was first used. There was an ancient nation, upon the ruins of whose cities we have built our own, which was famed for its idealistic humanitarianism. Yet that nation, treacherously attacked, created the first atomic bombs in self-defense and used them. It is among the people of that nation that Haradska has emerged. But would they recognize him as the cause of the calamity he brings among them? Of course. He will emerge at the time when atomic energy is first being used. They will have detectors for the deadly radiations. Detectors we know nothing of today, for a detection instrument must be free from the thing it is intended to detect. And today everything is radioactive. It will be a day or so before they discover what is happening to them, and not a few will die in that time, I fear. But once they have found out what is killing their people, Haradska's days—no, his hours—will be numbered. A mass of concrete bigger than this palace—Tob the slave, repeated General Sarva's words—the ancient spaceport—Prince Bravani clapped him on the shoulder. Tob, man, you've hit it! You mean, Krautsizago began. Yes, you all know of it. It stood for nobody knows how many millennia, and nobody's ever decided what it was to begin with, except that somebody once filled a valley with concrete. Level from mountaintop to mountaintop. The accepted theory is that it was done for a firing stand for the first moon rocket. But, gentlemen, our friend Tob's explained it. It's the Tomb of Haradska, and it's been the Tomb of Haradska for 10,000 years before Haradska was born. And of Flight From Tomorrow by H. B. Piper, read by Mark Nelson. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson Police Operation by H. B. Piper Part 1 John Strawmeyer stood, an irate figure in faded overalls and sweat-whitened black shirt, apart from the others, his back to the weathered farm-buildings and the line of yellowing woods and the cirrus-streaked blue October sky. He thrust out a work-narled hand accusingly. That there heifer was worth two hundred, two hundred and fifty dollars, he clamored, and that their dog was just like one of the family, and now look at him. I don't like to use profane language, but Ewn's got to do something about this. Steve Parker, the district game protector, aimed his Leica at the carcass of the dog and snapped the shutter. We're doing something about it, he said shortly. Then he stepped ten feet to the left and edged around the mangled heifer, choosing an angle for his camera shot. The two men in gray whip-cores of the state police, seeing that Parker was through with the dog, moved in and squatted to examine it. The one with the triple chevrons on his sleeves took it by both four feet and flipped it over on its back. It had been a big brute of nondescript breed with a rough black and brown coat. Something had clawed it deeply about the head. Its throat was slashed transversely several times and it had been disemboweled by a single slash that had opened its belly from breastbone to tail. They looked at it carefully and then went to stand beside Parker while he photographed the dead heifer. Like the dog, it had been talon-raked on either side of the head and its throat had been slashed deeply several times. In addition, flesh had been torn from one flank in great strips. I can't kill a bear out of season, no, strawmire continued his plate. But a bear comes and kills my stalk and my dog and that there's all right. That's the kind of deal a farmer always gets in this state. I don't like to use profane language. Then don't, Parker barked at him impatiently. Don't use any kind of language.  He turned to the man in whip cords and gray stetsons.  He asked. Then let's go. They walked briskly back to the barnyard, strawmire following them, still vociferating about the wrongs of the farmer at the hands of a cynical and corrupt state government. They climbed into the state police car, the sergeant and the private in front, and Parker into the rear, laying his camera on the seat beside a Winchester car-bean. Weren't you pretty short with that fellow back there, Steve? The sergeant asked as the private started the car. Not too short. I don't like to use profane language, Parker mimicked the bereaved heifer owner, and then he went on to specify, I'm morally certain that he shot at least four illegal deer in the last year. When, and if, I ever get anything on him, he's going to be sorry for himself than he is now. There the characters that always beefed their heads off, the sergeant agreed. You think that whatever did this was the same as the others? Yes. The dog must have jumped it while it was eating at the heifer. Some superficial scratches about the head and deep cuts on the throat or belly. The bigger the animal, the farther front the big slashes occur. Evidently something grabs them by the head with front claws and slashes with hind claws. That's why I think it's a bobcat. You know, the private said, I saw a lot of wounds like that during the war. My outfit landed on Mindanao where the gorillas had been active, and this looks like Bolo worked to me. The surplus stores are full of machetes and jungle knives, the sergeant considered. I think I'll call up Doc Winters at the county hospital and see if all his squirrel fodder is present and accounted for. But most of the livestock was eaten at like the heifer Parker objected. By definition, nuts have abnormal tastes, the sergeant replied, or the eating might have been done later by foxes. I hope so. That'll let me out, Parker said. Ha! Listen to the man, the private howled, stopping the car at the end of the lane. He thinks a nut with a machete and a tarzan complex is just good clean fun. Which way now? Well, let's see. The sergeant had unfolded a quadrangle sheet. The game protector leaned forward to look at it over his shoulder. The sergeant ran a finger from one to another of a series of variously colored crosses which had been marked on the map. Monday night, over here on Copperhead Mountain, that cow was killed, he said. The next night, about ten o'clock, that sheep flock was hit on this side of Copperhead, right about here. Early Wednesday night, that mule got slashed up in the woods back of the Western farm. It was only slightly injured, must have kicked the watsit and got away. But the watsit wasn't too badly hurt because a few hours later it hit that turkey flock on the Rimer Farm. And last night, it did that. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Strawmire Farm. See, following the ridges, working toward the southeast, avoiding open ground, killing only at night. Could be a bobcat at that. Or, jinxed as maniac with the machete, Parker agreed. Let's go up by Hinman's gap and see if we can see anything. They turned after a while into a rutted dirt road, which deteriorated steadily into a grass-grown track through the woods. Finally they stopped, and the private backed off the road. The three men got out, Parker with his Winchester, the sergeant checking the drum of a Thompson, and the private pumping a buckshot shell into the chamber of a riot gun. For half an hour, they followed the brush-grown trail beside the little stream. Once they passed a dark gray commercial model jeep back to one side. Then they came to the head of the gap.  He had a bolt-action rifle across his knees and a pair of binoculars hung from his neck. He seemed about thirty years old, and any Bobby Soxer's idol of the screen would have envied him the handsome regularity of his strangely immobile features. As Parker and the two state policemen approached, he rose, slinging his rifle, and greeted them. Sergeant Haynes, isn't it? he asked pleasantly. Are you gentlemen out hunting the critter, too? Good afternoon, Mr. Lee. I thought that was your jeep I saw down the road a little. The sergeant turned to the others. Mr. Richard Lee, staying at the old kinswater place, the other side of Rutter's Fort. This is Mr. Parker, the district game protector, and Private Zinkowski. He glanced at the rifle. Are you out hunting Fort, too? Yes, I thought I might find something up here. What do you think it is? I don't know, the sergeant admitted. It could be a bobcat. Canada Lynx. Jink here has a theory that it's some escapee from the paper doll factory with a machete. Me, I hope not, but I'm not ignoring the possibility. The man with the matinee idol's face nodded. It could be a Lynx. I understand they're not unknown in this section. We paid bounties on two in this county in the last year, Parker said. Odd rifle you have there. Mind if I have a look at it? Not at all. The man who had been introduced as Richard Lee unslung and handed it over. The chamber's loaded, he cautioned. I never saw one like this, Parker said. Foreign? I think so. I don't know anything about it. It belongs to a friend of mine who loaned it to me. I think the action's German, or Czech. The rest of it's a custom job by some West Coast gunmaker. It's chambered for some ultra-velocity wildcat load. The rifle passed from hand to hand. The three men examined it in turn, commenting admiringly. You find anything, Mr. Lee? The sergeant asked, handing it back. Not a trace. The man called Lee slung the rifle and began to dump the ashes from his pipe. I was along the top of this ridge for about a mile on either side of the gap and down the other side as far as Hinman's run. I didn't find any tracks or any indication of where it had made a kill. The game protected me. There it had made a kill. The game protector nodded, turning to Sergeant Haynes. There's no use us going any farther, he said. Ten to one it followed that line of woods back of straw-mires and crossed over to the other ridge. I think our best bet would be the hollow at the end of Lowry's run. What do you think? The sergeant agreed. The man called Richard Lee began to refill his pipe methodically. I think I shall stay here for a while, but I believe you're right. Lowry's run. Or across Lowry's gap into Coon Valley, he said. After Parker and the state policeman had gone, the man whom they had addressed as Richard Lee returned to his log and sat smoking, his rifle across his knees. From time to time he glanced at his wristwatch and raised his head to listen. At length, faint in the distance, he heard the sound of a motor starting. Instantly he was on his feet. From the end of the hollow log in which he had been sitting, he produced a canvas musette bag. Walking briskly to a patch of damp ground beside the little stream, he leaned the rifle against a tree and opened the bag. First he took a pair of gloves of some greenish rubber-like substance and put them on, drawing the long gauntlets up over his coat-sleeves. Then he produced a bottle and unscrewed the cap. Being careful to avoid splashing his clothes, he went about pouring a clear liquid upon the ground in several places. Where he poured, white vapors rose and twigs and grass crumbled into brownish dust. After he had replaced the cap and returned the bottle to the bag, he waited for a few minutes, then took a spatula from the musette and dug where he had poured the fluid, prying loose four black, irregular-shaped lumps of matter, which he carried to the running water and washed carefully before wrapping them and putting them in the bag along with the gloves. Then he slung the bag and rifle and started down the trail to where he had parked the jeep. Half an hour later, after driving through the little farming village of Rutter's Fort, he pulled into the barnyard of a run-down farm and backed through the open doors of the barn. He closed the double doors behind him and barred them from within. Then he went to the rear wall of the barn, which was much closer the front than the outside dimensions of the barn would have indicated. He took from his pocket a black object like an automatic pencil. Hunting over the rough plank wall, he found a small hole and inserted the pointed end of the pseudo-pencil, pressing on the other end. For an instant nothing happened. Then a ten-foot square section of the wall receded two feet and slid noiselessly to one side. The section which had slid inward had been built of three-inch steel, masked by a thin covering of boards. The wall around it was two-foot concrete, similarly camouflaged. He stepped quickly inside. Fumbling at the right side of the opening, he found a switch and flicked it. Instantly the massive steel plate slid back into place with a soft, oily click. As it did, lights came on within the hidden room, disclosing a great semi-globe of some fine metallic mesh, thirty feet in diameter and fifteen in height. There was a sliding door at one side of this. The man called Richard Lee opened and entered through it, closing it behind him.  The gauges and dials on the panel and the levers and switches and buttons on the desk control board were all lettered and numbered with characters not of the Roman alphabet or the Arabic notation. And within instant reach of the occupant of the chair, a pistol-like weapon lay on the desk. It had a conventional index finger trigger and a hand-fit grip. But instead of a tubular barrel, two slender, parallel metal rods extended about four inches forward of the receiver, joined together at what would correspond to the muzzle by a streamlined knob of some light blue ceramic or plastic substance. The man with the handsome, immobile face deposited his rifle and musette on the floor beside the chair and sat down. First he picked up the pistol-like weapon and checked it. And then he examined the many instruments on the panel in front of him. Finally he flicked a switch on the control board. At once a small humming began from some point overhead. It wavered and shrilled and mounted in intensity and then fell to a steady monotone. The dome about him flickered with a queer, cold iridescence and slowly vanished. The hidden room vanished and he was looking into the shadowy interior of a deserted barn. The barn vanished. Blue sky appeared above, streaked with wisps of high cirrus cloud. The autumn landscape flickered unreally. Buildings appeared and vanished and other buildings came and went in a twinkling. All around him half-seen shapes moved briefly and disappeared. Once the figure of a man appeared inside the circle of the dome.  And there was an insignia composed of a cross and thunderbolt on his cap. He held an automatic pistol in his hand. Instantly the man at the desk snatched up his own weapon and thumbed off the safety. But before he could lift and aim it, the intruder stumbled and passed outside the force field which surrounded the chair and instruments. For a while there were fires raging outside. And for a while the man at the desk was surrounded by a great hall with a high, vaulted ceiling through which figures flitted and vanished. For a while there were vistas of deep forests always set in the same background of mountains and always under the same blue cirrus-laced sky. There was an interval of flickering blue-white light of unbearable intensity. Then the man at the desk was surrounded by the interior of vast industrial works. The moving figures around him slowed and became more distinct. For an instant the man in the chair grinned as he found himself looking into a big washroom where a tall blonde girl was taking a shower-bath and a pert little redhead was vigorously drying herself with a towel. The dome grew visible, course skating with many colored lights, and then the humming died and the dome became a cold and inert mesh of fine white metal. A green light above flashed on and off slowly. He stabbed a button and flipped a switch. Then got to his feet, picking up his rifle and musette and fumbling under his shirt for a small mesh bag from which he took an inch-wide disc of blue plastic.  Then he slid open the door and emerged into his own dimension of space-time. Outside was a wide hallway with a pale green floor, paler green walls, and a ceiling of greenish off-white. A big hole had been cut to accommodate the dome, and across the hallway a desk had been set up and, at it, set a clerk in a pale blue tunic who was just taking the audio plugs of a music box out of his ears. A couple of policemen in green uniforms, with ultrasonic paralyzers dangling by thongs from their left wrists, and holstered sigma-ray needlers, like the one on the desk inside the dome. We're kidding with some girls in vivid orange and scarlet and green smocks. One of these, in bright green, was a duplicate of the one he had seen rubbing herself down with a towel. Here comes your boss-man, one of the girls told the cops as he approached. They both turned and saluted casually. The man who had lately been using the name of Richard Lee responded to their greeting and went to the desk. The policemen grasped their paralyzers, drew their needlers, and hurried into the dome. Taking the disk of blue plastic from his packet, he handed it to the clerk at the desk, who dropped it into a slot in the voter in front of him. Instantly a mechanical voice responded. Verkan Vall, Blue Seal Noble, Hereditary Mavrada of Narros, Special Chiefs Assistant, Paratime Police, Special Assignment. Subject to no orders below those of Tortha Karf, Chief of Paratime Police, to be given all courtesies and cooperation within the Paratime Transposition Code and the Police Powers Code, further particulars. The clerk pressed the No button. The blue single fell out of the release slot and was handed back to its bearer, who was drawing up his left sleeve. You'll want to be sure I'm your Verkan Vall, I suppose? he said, extending his arm. Yes, quite, sir. The clerk touched his arm with a small instrument, which swabbed it with antiseptic, drew a minute blood sample, and medicated the needle-prick all in one almost painless operation. He put the blood sample on a slide and inserted it at one side of a comparison microscope, nodding. It showed the same distinctive permanent colloid pattern as the sample he had ready for comparison. The colloid pattern given in infancy by injection to the man in front of him, to set him apart from all the myriad other Verkan Valls on every other probability line of Paratime. Right, sir, the clerk nodded. The two policemen came out of the dome, their needlers holstered and their vigilance relaxed. They were lighting cigarettes as they emerged. It's all right, sir, one of them said. You didn't bring anything in with you this trip. The other cop chuckled. Remember that fifth-level wild man who came in on the freight conveyor at Jandar last month? He asked. If he was hoping that some of the girls would want to know what wild man, it was a vain hope. With a blue-seal maverat around, what chance did a couple of ordinary coppers have? The girls were already converging on Verkan Vall. When are you going to get that monstrosity out of our restroom? The little redhead in green coveralls was demanding. If it wasn't for that thing, I'd be taking a shower right now. You were just finishing one about fifty per seconds off when I came through, Verkan Vall told her. The girl looked at him in obviously feigned indignation.  Verkan Vall chuckled and turned to the clerk. I went astralo rocket and pilot for Durgabar right away. Called Durgabar para-time police field and give them my ETA. Have an air taxi meet me, and have the chief notified that I'm coming in. Extraordinary report. Keep a guard over the conveyor. I think I'm going to need it again soon. He returned to the little redhead. Want to show him either way out of here, to the rocket field, he asked. Outside, on the open landing field, Verkan Vall glanced up at the sky, then looked at his watch. It had been twenty minutes since he had backed the jeep into the barn on that distant other timeline. The same delicate lines of white cirrus were etched across the blue above. The constancy of the weather, even across two hundred thousand para-years of perpendicular time, never failed to impress him. The long curve of the mountains was the same, and they were modeled with the same autumn colors. But where the little village of Rutters Fort stood on that other line of probability, the white towers of an apartment city rose, the living quarters of the plant personnel, and of police operation part one.