Fredric Brown - The Second Fredric Brown Megapack

They turned and looked his way and suddenly the man stopped the vehicle—stopped it in an incredibly short distance for the speed at which they’d been traveling. Of course, Braden thought—they’ve driven past here before and the gray dome was here and now it’s gone. The car started up again. Braden thought, they’ve gone to tell someone.

He went to the door and outside, out onto the lovely boulevard. Out in the open he realized why there were so few people, so little traffic. His chronometers had gone wrong. Over thirty years they were off by hours at least. It was early morning—from the position of the Sun between six and seven o’clock.

He started walking. If he stayed there, in the house that had been thirty years under the dome, someone would come as soon as the young couple who had seen had reported. And yes, whoever came would explain what had happened but he wanted to figure it out for himself, to realize it more gradually than that.

He walked. He met no one. This was a fine residential part of town now and it was very early. He saw a few people at a distance. Their dress was different from his but not enough so as to make him an object of immediate curiosity. He saw more of the incredible vehicles but none of their occupants chanced to notice him. They traveled incredibly fast.

At last he came to a store that was open. He walked in, too consumed by excited curiosity by now to wait any longer. A young man with curly hair was arranging things behind the counter. He looked at Braden almost incredulously, then asked politely, “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Please don’t think I’m crazy. I’ll explain later. Just answer this. What happened thirty years ago? Wasn’t there atomic war?”

The young man’s eyes lighted. “Why, you must be the man who’s been under the dome, sir. That explains why you…” He stopped as though embarrassed.

“Yes,” Braden said. “I’ve been under the dome. But what happened? After Boston was destroyed what happened?”

“Space-ships, sir. The destruction of Boston was accidental. A fleet of ships came from Aldebaran. A race far more advanced than we and benevolent. They came to welcome us into the Union and to help us. Unfortunately one crashed—into Boston—and the atomics that powered it exploded, and a million were killed. But other ships landed everywhere within hours and explained and apologized and war was averted—very narrowly. United States air fleets were already en route, but they managed to call them back.”

Braden said hoarsely, “Then there was no war?”

“Of course not. War is something back in the dark ages now, thanks to the Galactic Union. We haven’t even national governments now to declare a war. There can’t be war. And our progress, with the help of the Union, has been—well, tremendous. We’ve colonized Mars and Venus—they weren’t inhabited and the Union assigned them to us so we could expand. But Mars and Venus are just suburbs. We travel to the stars. We’ve even…” He paused.

Braden held tightly to the edge of the counter. He’d missed it all. He’d been thirty years alone and now he was an old man. He asked, “You’ve even—what?” Something inside him told him what was coming and he could hardly hear his own voice.

“Well, we’re not immortal but we’re closer to it than we were. We live for centuries. I wasn’t much younger than you were thirty years ago. But—I’m afraid you missed out on it, sir. The processes the Union gave us work only on humans up to middle age—fifty at the very most. And you’re—”

“Sixty-seven,” Braden said stiffly. “Thank you.”

Yes, he’d missed everything. The stars—he’d have given almost anything to go there but he didn’t want to now. And Myra.

He could have had her and they’d both still be young.

He walked out of the store and turned his footsteps toward the building that had been under the dome. By now they’d be waiting for him there. And maybe they’d give him the only thing he’d ask of them—power to restore the force field so he could finish what was left of his life there under the dome. Yes, the only thing he wanted now was what he’d thought he wanted least—to die, as he had lived, alone.

Three great discoveries were made, and tragically lost, during the twentieth century. The first of these was the secret of invisibility.

The secret of invisibility was discovered in 1909 by Archibald Praeter, emissary from the court of Edward VII to the court of Sultan Abd el Krim, ruler of a small state loosely allied to the Ottoman Empire.

Praeter, an amateur but enthusiastic biologist, was injecting mice with various serums for the purpose of finding an injection which would cause mutations. When he injected his 3019th mouse, the mouse disappeared. It was still there; he could feel it in his hand, but he could not see a hair or claw of it. He put it carefully in a cage and two hours later it appeared again, unharmed.

He experimented with increasing dosages and found that he could make a mouse invisible for up to twenty-four hours. Larger doses made it ill or torpid. He also learned that a mouse killed while invisible reappeared instantly at the moment of death.

Realizing the importance of his discovery, he wired his resignation to England, dismissed his servants and locked himself in his quarters, and began to experiment with himself. Starting with a small injection that made him invisible for only a few minutes, he worked up until he found his tolerance was equal to that of mice; an injection that made him invisible for more than twenty-four hours also made him ill. He also found that although nothing of his body was visible, not even his dentures if he kept his lips closed, nudity was essential; clothing did not become invisible with him.

Praeter was an honest and fairly well-to-do man, so he did not think of crime. He decided to return to England and offer his discovery to His Majesty’s government for use in espionage or war.

But he decided first to allow himself one indulgence. He had always been curious about the closely guarded harem of the Sultan to whose court he had been attached. Why not have a close look at it from inside?

Besides, something—some nagging thought that he couldn’t quite isolate—bothered him about his discovery. There was some circumstance under which… He couldn’t get beyond that point in his mind. An experiment was definitely in order.

He stripped and made himself invisible for the maximum period. It proved simple to walk past the armed eunuchs and enter the harem. He spent an interesting afternoon watching the fifty-odd beauties at their daytime occupation of keeping themselves beautiful, bathing and anointing their bodies with scented oils and perfumes.

One, a Circassian, especially attracted him. It occurred to him, just as it would have occurred to any man, that if he stayed the night—perfectly safe since he would be invisible until the following noon—he could keep her in sight to learn which room she slept in and, after the lights were out, join her; she would think the Sultan was favoring her with a visit.

He kept her in sight and noticed the room she entered. An armed eunuch took his post at the curtained doorway, others at each of the other doorways to the sleeping rooms. He waited until he was sure she would be asleep and then, at a moment when the eunuch was looking down the hall and would not see the movement of the curtain, he slipped through it. The light had been dim in the hallway; here the darkness was utter. But he groped carefully and managed to find the sleeping couch. Carefully he put out a hand and touched the sleeping woman. She screamed. (What he had not known was that the Sultan never visited the harem by night but sent for one, or sometimes several, of his wives to visit his own quarters.)