Clifford Simak: The World of the Red Sun

The crowd burst into a roar of farewell. Harl climbed into the plane and closed the door.

The motors bellowed, droning out the shouting of the future-men and the great machine charged down the sand. With a rush it took the air. Three times Bill circled the ruined city in a last mute good-bye to the men who watched silently and sorrowfully below.

Then Harl threw the lever. Again the utter darkness, the feeling of hanging in nothingness.

The motors, barely turning, muttered at the change. A minute passed, two minutes.

“Who says we can’t travel back in time!” Harl shouted triumphantly. He pointed to the needle. It was slowly creeping back across the face of the dial.

“Maybe the old man was wrong after—”

Bill never finished the sentence.

“Roll her out,” he screamed at Harl, “roll her out. One of our engines is going dead!”

Harl snatched at the lever, jerked frantically at it. The faulty motor choked and coughed, sputtered, then broke into a steady drone.

The two men in the cabin regarded one another with blanched faces. They knew they had escaped a possible crash — and death — by bare seconds.

Again they hung in the air. Again they saw the brick-red sun, the desert, and the sea. Below them loomed the ruins of Denver.

“We couldn’t have gone far back in time,” said Harl. “It looks the same as ever.”

They circled the ruins.

“We had better land out in the desert to fix up the engine,” suggested Harl. “Remember we have traveled back in time and Golan-Kirt still rules over the land. We don’t want to have to kill him a second time. We might not be able to do it.”

The plane was flying low and he nosed it up. Again the faulty engine sputtered and missed.

“She’s going dead this time for certain,” yelled Bill. “We’ll have to chance it, Harl. We have to land and chance getting away again.”

Harl nodded grimly.

Before them lay the broad expanse of the arena. It was either that or crash.

As Bill nosed the plane down the missing motor sputtered for the last time, went dead.

They flashed over the white walls of the amphitheater and down into the arena. The plane struck the sand, raced across it, slowed to a stop.

Harl opened the door.

“Our only chance is to fix it up in a hurry and get out of here,” he shouted at Bill. “We don’t want to meet that damn brain again.”

He stopped short.

“Bill,” he spoke scarcely above a whisper, “am I seeing things?”

Before him, set on the sands of the arena, only a few yards from the plane, was a statue of heroic size, a statue of himself and Bill.

Even from where he stood he could read the inscription, carved in the white stone base of the statue in characters which closely resembled written English.

Slowly, haltingly, he read it aloud, stumbling over an occasional queer character.

“Two men, Harl Swanson, and Bill Kressman, came out of time to kill Golan-Kirt and to free the race.”

Below it he saw other characters.

“They may return.”

“Bill,” he sobbed, “we haven’t traveled back in time. We have traveled further into the future. Look at that stone — eroded, ready to crumble to pieces. That statue has stood there for thousands of years!”

Bill slumped back into his seat, his face ashen, his eyes staring.

“The old man was right,” he screamed. “He was right. We’ll never see the twentieth century again.”

He leaned over toward the time machine.

His face twitched.

“Those instruments,” he shrieked, “those damned instruments! They were wrong. They lied, they lied!”

With his bare fists he beat at them, smashing them, unaware that the glass cut deep gashes and his hands were smeared with blood.

Silence weighed down over the plain. There was absolutely no sound.

Bill broke the silence.

“The future-men,” he cried, “where are the future-men?”

He answered his own question.

“They are all dead,” he screamed, “all dead. They are starved — starved because they couldn’t manufacture synthetic food. We are alone! Alone at the end of the world!”

Harl stood in the door of the plane.

Over the rim of the amphitheater the huge red sun hung in a sky devoid of clouds. A slight wind stirred the sand at the base of the crumbling statue.