Murray Leinster (Duke Classic SiFi) (2 page)

Arthur ran to the window. As he reached it the sun rushed up, day
lasted a moment, there was darkness, and then the sun appeared again.

"Miss Woodward!" Arthur ordered suddenly, "look at the ground!"

Estelle glanced down. The next time the sun flashed into view
she gasped.

The ground was white with snow!

"What
has
happened?" she demanded, terrified. "Oh, what
has
happened?"

Arthur fumbled at his chin awkwardly, watching the astonishing
panorama outside. There was hardly any distinguishing between
the times the sun was up and the times it was below now, as the
darkness and light followed each other so swiftly the effect was
the same as one of the old flickering motion-pictures.

As Arthur watched, this effect became more pronounced. The tall
Fifth Avenue Building across the way began to disintegrate. In a
moment, it seemed, there was only a skeleton there. Then that
vanished, story by story. A great cavity in the earth appeared,
and then another building became visible, a smaller, brown-stone,
unimpressive structure.

With bulging eyes Arthur stared across the city. Except for the
flickering, he could see almost clearly now.

He no longer saw the sun rise and set. There was merely a streak of
unpleasantly brilliant light across the sky. Bit by bit, building
by building, the city began to disintegrate and become replaced
by smaller, dingier buildings. In a little while those began to
disappear and leave gaps where they vanished.

Arthur strained his eyes and looked far down-town. He saw a forest
of masts and spars along the waterfront for a moment and when
he turned his eyes again to the scenery near him it was almost
barren of houses, and what few showed were mean, small residences,
apparently set in the midst of farms and plantations.

Estelle was sobbing.

"Oh, Mr. Chamberlain," she cried. "What is the matter? What has
happened?"

Arthur had lost his fear of what their fate would be in his
absorbing interest in what he saw. He was staring out of the window,
wide-eyed, lost in the sight before him. At Estelle's cry, however,
he reluctantly left the window and patted her shoulder awkwardly.

"I don't know how to explain it," he said uncomfortably, "but it's
obvious that my first surmise was all wrong. The speed of the earth's
rotation can't have been increased, because if it had to the extent
we see, we'd have been thrown off into space long ago. But—have
you read anything about the Fourth Dimension?"

Estelle shook her head hopelessly.

"Well, then, have you ever read anything by Wells? The 'Time
Machine,' for instance?"

Again she shook her head.

"I don't know how I'm going to say it so you'll understand, but
time is just as much a dimension as length and breadth. From what I
can judge, I'd say there has been an earthquake, and the ground has
settled a little with our building on it, only instead of settling
down toward the center of the earth, or side-wise, it's settled in
this fourth dimension."

"But what does that mean?" asked Estelle uncomprehendingly.

"If the earth had settled down, we'd have been lower. If it had
settled to one side, we'd have been moved one way or another, but as
it's settled back in the Fourth Dimension, we're going back in time."

"Then—"

"We're in a runaway skyscraper, bound for some time back before
the discovery of America!"

It was very still in the office. Except for the flickering outside
everything seemed very much as usual. The electric light burned
steadily, but Estelle was sobbing with fright and Arthur was trying
vainly to console her.

"Have I gone crazy?" she demanded between her sobs.

"Not unless I've gone mad, too," said Arthur soothingly. The
excitement had quite a soothing effect upon him. He had ceased to
feel afraid, but was simply waiting to see what had happened. "We're
way back before the founding of New York now, and still going
strong."

"Are you sure that's what has happened?"

"If you'll look outside," he suggested, "you'll see the seasons
following each other in reverse order. One moment the snow covers
all the ground, then you catch a glimpse of autumn foliage, then
summer follows, and next spring."

Estelle glanced out of the window and covered her eyes.

"Not a house," she said despairingly. "Not a building. Nothing,
nothing, nothing!"

Arthur slipped, his arm about her and patted hers comfortingly.

"It's all right," he reassured her. "We'll bring up presently,
and there we'll be. There's nothing to be afraid of."

She rested her head on his shoulder and sobbed hopelessly for
a little while longer, but presently quieted. Then, suddenly,
realizing that Arthur's arm was about her and that she was crying
on his shoulder, she sprang away, blushing crimson.

Arthur walked to the window.

"Look there!" he exclaimed, but it was too late. "I'll swear to
it I saw the Half Moon, Hudson's ship," he declared excitedly.
"We're way back now, and don't seem to be slacking up, either."

Estelle came to the window by his side. The rapidly changing scene
before her made her gasp. It was no longer possible to distinguish
night from day.

A wavering streak, moving first to the right and then to the left,
showed where the sun flashed across the sky.

"What makes the sun wabble so?" she asked.

"Moving north and south of the equator," Arthur explained
casually. "When it's farthest south—to the left—there's always
snow on the ground. When it's farthest right it's summer. See how
green it is?"

A few moments' observation corroborated his statement.

"I'd say," Arthur remarked reflectively, "that it takes about fifteen
seconds for the sun to make the round trip from farthest north to
farthest south." He felt his pulse. "Do you know the normal rate
of the heart-beat? We can judge time that way. A clock will go
all to pieces, of course."

"Why did your watch explode—and the clock?"

"Running forward in time unwinds a clock, doesn't it?" asked
Arthur. "It follows, of course, that when you move it backward in
time it winds up. When you move it too far back, you wind it so
tightly that the spring just breaks to pieces."

He paused a moment, his fingers on his pulse.

"Yes, it takes about fifteen seconds for all the four seasons to
pass. That means we're going backward in time about four years a
minute. If we go on at this rate another hour we'll be back in the
time of the Northmen, and will be able to tell if they did discover
America, after all."

"Funny we don't hear any noises," Estelle observed. She had caught
some of Arthur's calmness.

"It passes so quickly that though our ears hear it, we don't separate
the sounds. If you'll notice, you do hear a sort of humming.
It's very high-pitched, though."

Estelle listened, but could hear nothing.

"No matter," said Arthur. "It's probably a little higher than your
ears will catch. Lots of people can't hear a bat squeak."

"I never could," said Estelle. "Out in the country, where I come
from, other people could hear them, but I couldn't."

They stood a while in silence, watching.

"When are we going to stop?" asked Estelle uneasily. "It seems as
if we're going to keep on indefinitely."

"I guess we'll stop all right," Arthur reassured her. "It's obvious
that whatever it was, only affected our own building, or we'd see
some other one with us. It looks like a fault or a flaw in the rock
the building rests on. And that can only give so far."

Estelle was silent for a moment.

"Oh, I can't be sane!" she burst out semihysterically. "This can't
be happening!"

"You aren't crazy," said Arthur sharply. "You're sane as I am. Just
something queer is happening. Buck up. Say your multiplication
tables. Say anything you know. Say something sensible and you'll
know you're all right. But don't get frightened now. There'll be
plenty to get frightened about later."

The grimness in his tone alarmed Estelle.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked quickly.

"Time enough to worry when it happens," Arthur retorted briefly.

"You—you aren't afraid we'll go back before the beginning of the
world, are you?" asked Estelle in sudden access of fright.

Arthur shook his head.

"Tell me," said Estelle more quietly, getting a grip on herself. "I
won't mind. But please tell me."

Arthur glanced at her. Her face was pale, but there was more
resolution in it than he had expected to find.

"I'll tell you, then," he said reluctantly. "We're going back a
little faster than we were, and the flaw seems to be a deeper one
than I thought. At the roughest kind of an estimate, we're all of
a thousand years before the discovery of America now, and I think
nearer three or four. And we're gaining speed all the time. So,
though I am as sure as I can be sure of anything that we'll stop
this cave-in eventually, I don't know where. It's like a crevasse
in the earth opened by an earthquake which may be only a few feet
deep, or it may be hundreds of yards, or even a mile or two. We
started off smoothly. We're going at a terrific rate.
What will
happen when we stop?
"

Estelle caught her breath.

"What?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know," said Arthur in an irritated tone, to cover his
apprehension. "How could I know?"

Estelle turned from him to the window again.

"Look!" she said, pointing.

The flickering had begun again. While they stared, hope springing
up once more in their hearts, it became more pronounced. Soon they
could distinctly see the difference between day and night.

They were slowing up! The white snow on the ground remained there
for an appreciable time, autumn lasted quite a while. They could
catch the flashes of the sun as it made its revolutions now,
instead of its seeming like a ribbon of fire. At last day lasted
all of fifteen or twenty minutes.

It grew longer and longer. Then half an hour, then an hour. The
sun wavered in midheaven and was still.

Far below them, the watchers in the tower of the skyscraper saw trees
swaying and bending in the wind. Though there was not a house or a
habitation to be seen and a dense forest covered all of Manhattan
Island, such of the world as they could see looked normal. Wherever
or rather in whatever epoch of time they were, they had arrived.

Arthur caught at Estelle's arm and the two made a dash for the
elevators. Fortunately one was standing still, the door open, on
their floor. The elevator-boy had deserted his post and was looking
with all the rest of the occupants of the building at the strange
landscape that surrounded them.

No sooner had the pair reached the car, however, than the boy came
hurrying along the corridor, three or four other people following
him also at a run. Without a word the boy rushed inside, the others
crowded after him, and the car shot downward, all of the newcomers
panting from their sprint.

Theirs was the first car to reach the bottom. They rushed out and
to the western door.

Here, where they had been accustomed to see Madison Square spread
out before them, a clearing of perhaps half an acre in extent showed
itself. Where their eyes instinctively looked for the dark bronze
fountain, near which soap-box orators aforetime held sway, they saw
a tent, a wigwam of hides and bark gaily painted. And before the
wigwam were two or three brown-skinned Indians, utterly petrified
with astonishment.

Behind the first wigwam were others, painted like the first with
daubs of brightly colored clay. From them, too, Indians issued,
and stared in incredulous amazement, their eyes growing wider
and wider. When the group of white people confronted the Indians
there was a moment's deathlike silence. Then, with a wild yell,
the redskins broke and ran, not stopping to gather together their
belongings, nor pausing for even a second glance at the weird
strangers who invaded their domain.

Arthur took two or three deep breaths of the fresh air and
found himself even then comparing its quality with that of the
city. Estelle stared about her with unbelieving eyes. She turned
and saw the great bulk of the office building behind her, then
faced this small clearing with a virgin forest on its farther side.

She found herself trembling from some undefined cause. Arthur glanced
at her. He saw the trembling and knew she would have a fit of nerves
in a moment if something did not come up demanding instant attention.

"We'd better take a look at this village," he said in an off-hand
voice. "We can probably find out how long ago it is from the weapons
and so on."

He grasped her arm firmly and led her in the direction of the
tents. The other people, left behind, displayed their emotions in
different ways. Two or three of them—women—sat frankly down on
the steps and indulged in tears of bewilderment, fright and relief
in a peculiar combination defying analysis. Two or three of the
men swore, in shaken voices.

Meantime, the elevators inside the building were rushing and
clanging, and the hall filled with a white-faced mob, desperately
anxious to find out what had happened and why. The people poured
out of the door and stared about blankly. There was a peculiar
expression of doubt on every one of their faces. Each one was asking
himself if he were awake, and having proved that by pinches, openly
administered, the next query was whether they had gone mad.

Arthur led Estelle cautiously among the tents.

The village contained about a dozen wigwams. Most of them were made
of strips of birch-bark, cleverly overlapping each other, the seams
cemented with gum. All had hide flaps for doors, and one or two were
built almost entirely of hides, sewed together with strips of sinew.