A. van Vogt: The Empire of Isher

He motioned toward the wall which had been a mirror and then the window through which McAllister had gazed at the monstrous structure in question. The speaker went on: “We’ve known, ever since the building was completed five years ago, that it was a power building aimed against us; and now from it new energy has flown out to engulf the world, immensely potent energy so strong that it broke the very tensions of time, fortunately only at this nearest gunshop. Apparently, it weakens when transmitted over distance.”

“Look, Dresley,” came a curt interruption from a small, thin man, “what good is all this preamble? You have been examining the various plans put forward by regional groups. Is there, or isn’t there, a decent one among them?”

Dresley hesitated. To McAllister’s surprise, the man’s eyes fixed doubtfully on him, his heavy face worked for a moment, then hardened. “Yes, there is a method, but it depends on compelling our friend from the past to take a great risk. You all know what I am referring to. It will gain us the time we need.”

“Eh?” said McAllister, and stood stunned as all eyes turned to stare at him.

It struck McAllister that what he needed again was the mirror to prove to himself that his body was putting up a good front. His gaze flicked over the faces of the men. The gunmakers made a confusing pattern in the way they sat, or stood, or leaned against glass cases of shining guns; and there seemed to be fewer than he had previously counted. One, two— twenty-eight, including the girl. He could have sworn there had been thirty-two. His eyes moved on, just in time to see the door of the back room closing. Four of the men had gone to whatever lay beyond that door.

He shook his head, puzzled. And then, consciously drawing his attention back, stared thoughtfully at the faces before him. He said: “I can’t understand how any one of you could even think of compulsion. According to you, I’m loaded with energy. I may be wrong, but if any of you should try to thrust me back down the chute of time, or even touch me, that energy in me would do devastating things—”

“You’re damned right!” chimed in a young man. He barked irritably at Dresley: “How the devil did you ever come to make such a psychological blunder? You know that McAllister will have to do as we want to save himself; and he’ll have to do it fast!”

Dresley grunted. “Hell,” he said, “the truth is that we have no time to waste in explanation and I just figured that he might scare easily. I see, however, that we’re dealing with an intelligent man.”

McAllister’s eyes narrowed over the group. This was phony. He said sharply, “And don’t give me any soft soap about being intelligent. You fellows are sweating blood. You’d shoot your own grandmothers and trick me into the bargain, because the world you think right is at stake. What’s this plan of yours that you were going to compel me to participate in?”

It was the young man who replied. “You are to be given insulated clothes and sent back to your own time—”

He paused. McAllister said: “That sounds okay so far. What’s the catch?”

“There is no catch!”

McAllister stared. “Now, look here,” he began, “don’t give me any of that. If it’s as simple as that, how the devil am I going to be helping you against the Isher energy?”

The young man scowled blackly at Dresley. You see,” he said, “you’ve made him suspicious with that talk of yours about compulsion.” He faced McAllister. “What we have in mind is an application of a sort of an energy lever and fulcrum principle. You are to be the weight at the long end of a kind of energy ‘crowbar,’ which lifts the greater weight at the short end. You will go back five thousand years in time; the machine in the great building, to which your body is tuned and which has caused all this trouble, will move ahead in time several months.”

“In that way,” interrupted another man before McAllister could speak, “we should have time to find another counter agent. There must be a solution, else our enemies would not have acted so secretly. Well, what do you think?”

McAllister walked slowly over to the chair that he had occupied previously. His mind was turning at furious speed, but he knew with a grim foreboding that he hadn’t the technical knowledge necessary to safeguard himself. He said slowly:

“As I see it, this is supposed to work something like a pump handle. The lever principle, the old idea that if you had a lever long enough, and a suitable fulcrum, you could move the Earth out of its orbit.”

“Exactly!” It was the heavy-faced Dresley who spoke. “Only this works in time. You go five thousand years, the building goes—”

His voice faded, his eagerness drained from him as he caught the expression in McAllister’s face.

“Look!” said McAllister. “There’s nothing more pitiful than a bunch of honest men engaged in an act of dishonesty. You’re strong men, the intellectual type, who’ve spent your lives enforcing an idealistic conception. You’ve always told yourselves that if the occasion should ever require it, you would not hesitate to make drastic sacrifices. But you’re not fooling anybody. What’s the catch?”

It was startling to have the suit thrust at him. He had noticed the men emerge from the back room; and it came as a shock to realize that they had gone for the insulated clothes before they could have known that he would use them. McAllister stared grimly at Peter Cadron, who held the dull, grayish, limp thing toward him, and said in a tight voice:

“Get into this, and get going! It’s a matter of minutes, man! When those guns out there start spraying energy, you won’t be alive to argue about our honesty.”

Still he hesitated. The room seemed insufferably hot. Perspiration streaked down his cheeks and he felt sick with uncertainty. Somewhere in the background a man was saying:

“Our first purpose must be to gain time, then we must establish new shops in communities where they cannot be easily attacked. Simultaneously, we must contact every Imperial potential who can help us directly or indirectly, and finally we must—”

The voice went on, but McAllister heard no more. His frantic gaze fell on the girl, standing silent and subdued near the front door. He strode toward her; and either his glare or presence was frightening, for she cringed and turned white.

“Look!” he said. “I’m in this as deep as hell. What’s the risk in this thing? I’ve got to feel that I have some chance. Tell, me, what’s the catch?”

The girl was gray now, almost as gray and dead looking as the suit Peter Cadron was holding. “It’s the friction,” she mumbled finally, “you may not get all the way back to 1951. You see, you’ll be a sort of ‘weight’ and—”

McAllister whirled away from her. He climbed into the soft almost flimsy suit, crowding the overall-like shape over his neatly pressed clothes. “It comes tight over the head, doesn’t it?”

“Yes!” It was Lystra’s father who answered. “As soon as you pull that zipper shut, the suit will become completely invisible. To outsiders, it will seem just as if you have your ordinary clothes on. The suit is fully equipped. You could live on the moon inside it.”

“What I don’t get,” complained McAllister, “is why I have to wear it. I got here all right without it.” He frowned. His words had been automatic, but abruptly a thought came. “Just a minute,” he said, “what becomes of the energy with which I’m charged when I’m bottled up in this insulation?”

He saw by the stiffening expressions of those around him that he had touched on a vast subject.