Part 1

Facing destruction, Earth's last immortals sent an emissary through time to alter history. Thus, he appeared in 1952, searching for the--

CHILDREN of the CHRONOTRON

By S. J. Byrne

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy December 1952 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_When their sun began to wane, the Xlarnans at first retreated underground to hoard the heat and life-supporting energies which their nuclear generators could supply. But as their world grew colder, century after century, they devised a means of creating a substitute for the ionosphere--a protective layer of radioactive gases in the upper reaches of the sky which could warm them by means of its slow, controlled reaction, give them eternal light, and yet absorb its own harder radiations._

_Thus--a planetary cell of life, isolated from the universe, independent of solar heat. And the Xlarnans at last emerged from their subterranean cities to take up life anew in a tropical Paradise that knew neither nightfall nor seasons. They missed the starlit night skies of old, the sunrises and sunsets, and most of all the stupendous celestial rainbow, the Great Ring, which some of them believed to be formed of the particles of a large satellite that had encircled their world back in the dim Beginning._

_But the time arrived when they knew they were losing control of their reaction sphere in the sky. The hard radiations increased inexorably in spite of all the coolants they could generate and send aloft. They had to admit that the day would come when they would be destroyed by the very instrument that had given them an extra hundred millenniums of life._

_At the end of time--the Xlarnans, pressed against a wall, the reaction sphere, from which came hard radiations, burning them. The ethnic urge to survive in the face of swiftly approaching death. Necessity mothering invention. And then--_

_The Chronotron...._

_Electronic envelopes speeding faster than light. Three dimensional nature rejecting the envelope. Only in Time can anything be in two places--along the duration line._

_The Chronotron--planting new Cause in the beginning of Effect. And there is alternate time._

_Large numbers of Xlarnans, through the Chronotron, back to the beginning of the reaction sphere era, an already advanced race with the course of another hundred thousand years to run before facing the threat from the sky once more._

_The first cycle ends, and at the last extremity of alternate time veritable super beings achieve immortality. With immortality, less procreation. And at last, sterility._

_Still the deadly threat above them. The daily promise of sudden and complete devastation. Now there are rockets at last, but certain techniques and necessary discoveries in the fields of chemistry and metallurgy elude them. Attempted space flights end in collisions with meteors or death due to radiations in the outer void--but escape velocity never achieved._

_Then came--THE THEORY...._

_Very vague and unidentifiable fossils discovered in astoundingly deep strata. Nothing definite, but a bothersome hint of high development. Hypothesis evolved into theory; Xlarn had known a complete geological cycle before the Beginning, perhaps when the Great Ring around the planet had been a moon! Granted this previous cycle, one might assume a complete evolutionary development. If such a world had existed on Xlarn previously then perhaps some highly intelligent race had evolved. They might have been threatened by some cataclysm in their own time and found a means of getting away from the planet--perhaps even to another solar system!_

_Sheer desperation. Sterile immortals of Xlarn supercharging a greatly improved Chronotron. A single emissary, shot through Time's great darkness beyond Beginning...._

_A long wait at the end of time. The remaining immortals wondered at the futility of it all. Theirs was the only life in the universe, in all space and time. Or was it? Would their emissary actually substantiate the theory of a world beyond Beginning?_

* * * * *

"Extrapolation!" exclaimed the nuclear physicist, with an air of strained indulgence. His keen, blue eyes also told young Henry that the scientist was vastly amused. And he resented it. "Sonny, if you'd keep out of unabridged dictionaries until you were of age your mind might have a better chance of catching up to itself _and_ the world around you!"

Henry closed his science fiction magazine with as much of an indignant "bang" as was possible with a well-worn pulp and turned his back on the intruder. He tried not to listen to him as he went on arguing with Uncle Andy. He tried to concentrate on the wisps of clouds straggling low over the gray Atlantic Ocean ten thousand feet below. He watched the giant nacelles of the right wing engines as the double-decked strato-cruiser droned monotonously onward toward New York. But he could not shut off his ears....

"Really, Dearden, you ought to watch that," the physicist was saying to the kindly man who had adopted Henry. "A bright, adolescent mind driving itself into the pit of self-delusion! Get him interested in something more realistic than science fiction. Lord knows the world needs some _practical_ minds these days!"

"Just now I could quote Henry in a lot of appropriate ways," Uncle Andy replied. "He's very serious about this business of extrapolation. He thinks it is a new perspective, a seventh sense, as it were, that Man ought to develop. Furthermore, as long as you're interested...."

Good old Uncle Andy, thought Henry. A brilliant man, a leading technological specialist, yet as old-fashioned and unassuming as--as--Well, who _was_ like Uncle Andy nowadays?

In his mind's eye he could see him, while he listened to his quiet conversation. Going on forty-five and looking the part, without pretense--graying at the temples, balding, and with a front upper plate in his mouth that was inoffensive but also no secret. He was a little heavy, and as out of condition, physically, as was considered to be average. But he had a good-looking, strong, kind face, clear gray eyes and a restful, reassuring manner. The strongest impression one gathered, outside of the fact that his pipe tobacco was abominable, was that he was the turtle that outran the hare. The reliable type, _sans_ heroism, fanaticism or hysteria. A swell guy.

But what was that nosey Doctor Edwards putting in his two cents for? I am _none_ of his business!--Henry decided abruptly.

"Doctor Edwards!" he interrupted, suddenly getting back into the argument, "did it ever occur to you that orthodox scientists are _not_ the top of the intellectual pyramid?--that they are, in fact, the robotic servants of those who _dare_ to think _originally_?"

* * * * *

Dr. Edwards, also a balding man in his middle forties, but rueful of the fact, managed a thin smile, and Henry perceived that a tender spot had been probed. "I'll overlook a rather unbecoming lack of respect for your elders," retorted the scientist, "but go ahead! As an 'original thinker,' Henry, you should be sufficiently philanthropic to at least drop us groveling orthodox scientists a crumb of pure thought from the overwhelming Cornucopia of your banquet table." His eyes narrowed suddenly with disciplinary sternness. "To put it plainly--"

"You needn't paraphrase the innuendo," Henry cut him off. "And I'll just _toss_ you a crumb!"

"Now Henry," chided Uncle Andy, tamping more tobacco into his pipe, "come down off your Pegasus, boy!"

"No, let him go ahead," insisted Edwards. "This will be a good measurement for both of us!"

Three men in the triple seat behind Henry were poking each other. He could hear what they were saying.

"Get this kid!" one of them grunted. He was the slick, heavy-bearded fellow in the powder blue suit, the one with the mean looking scowl caused by a bright scar on one side of his mouth. But he was not being critical. He was genuinely interested.

"Yeah. Smart alec!" a second man muttered.

"There's about eighty people on board," said the third. "Gotta be at least one genius amongst 'em!" That was the big construction stiff from the base where Uncle Andy had worked--in French Morocco.

Henry squared his mental shoulders, stuck out his sixteen-year-old chin and thought--This is it!

"All right!" he said aloud, "how about a good hypothesis on novae, arrived at by extrapolation?"

Dr. Edwards slapped his knee in mock enthusiasm. "Just the information the world has been waiting for!" he exclaimed. "Go ahead!"

"I shall attempt to demonstrate that lightwaves produced by any given nova were produced long before their appearance, regardless of astronomical proximity to the observer, and that those waves actually were propagated through Time, along the Fourth Coordinate," Henry began, emphatically.

But there was an interruption.

"Well _really_!" exclaimed the Englishwoman, turning around to stare back at Henry, as if the emotional and physical expenditure required to deliver those two words were sufficient to handle the situation. She turned abruptly to a resumption of her magazine reading, while the plump, middle-aged governess beside her snored softly.

Henry's rather lean face lengthened as he contemplated the back of her persnickety-looking hat, which he thought was a ridiculous assembly of straw, lace and painted berries. He was blushing slightly as he looked back at Uncle Andy and Dr. Edwards, who wondered if he was going to ignore the lady's protest. When Henry looked at the three men behind him and noticed the all too knowing smirks on their faces, he gave up.

"Aw, skip it!" he said, and he got up, making his way to the aisle.

"Wait, Henry--!" Dr. Edwards started to say.

"Let him go," interrupted Uncle Andy. Those were the last words Henry caught as he hurried away down the aisle toward the stairway leading to the lower deck and the observation lounge and commissary.

It was all on account of Martia, he thought sullenly. She was the daughter of that stuck up English woman. He didn't like people like that, with her airs and the big pretense she put up trying to appear to be still the great lady, with her hatboxes and her governess. Lady Dewitt his foot! Everybody knew that such anachronisms were on their last legs now, with war economies eating away the foundations of landed wealth in England. If Martia weren't merely fifteen years old or so, Henry would have accused Lady Dewitt, in his mind, of coming to New York to catch her daughter a wealthy American husband. Actually, she was just another English evacuee. They were coming to Canada and the States by the tens of thousands, on the eve of war, inasmuch as World War Three's version of the V-2 was expected to be atomic--and England was becoming a glorified foxhole.

* * * * *

Martia had seemed to reflect her mother's snobbishness, in a way, but she was strikingly pretty and had the biggest, bluest--However, it wasn't the color of her eyes that had made Henry fall all over himself at the airport in London. He could not define it, but it was a powerful thing that had made him seem not to care what anyone thought. Martia, with her smug chin, pug nose, brunette bangs and patrician attitude, had some indefinable something about her that he _knew_ he could never find again--in his entire life. And which was vitally important to _him_, alone.

So from that moment on, many of the passengers had been aware that he was "that way" about the English girl, in spite of the Lady Dewitt's determination to place all possible barriers in his path. She had lost no time in investigating Uncle Andy and discovering that he was, according to the passenger list, a mere construction engineer, and that Henry was an adopted orphan whose genealogy had been lost in one of the many obscurities resulting from World War II.

Heck!--thought Henry. I don't want to _marry_ the little snob! I just wanted to--"Oh, excuse me!" he exclaimed, bumping into someone at the head of the staircase.

He turned around and was surprised to discover that no one was in the aisle. Yet he _had_ bumped into someone!

"What for?" asked a young G.I. seated at his elbow.

Henry looked at the friendly, round face of the soldier. He looked at the other soldiers next to him, and at those in the seat ahead of them. They were all looking at him strangely, but not belligerently. He thought: They're coming home from U.N. duty. Troop rotation. Maybe soon they'll have to go back and really use their guns. Uncle Andy said that if by next spring, in 1960--

A strange ringing sound was in Henry's ears and he felt vaguely airsick.

"I thought I bumped into somebody," he answered, lamely. And he still looked at the soldiers.

There were three who looked like Texans, all buddies, sitting in one seat and playing rummy. Buddies. What buddies had _he_ ever had? Never had there been much in common between him and his adolescent associates, either in the war orphanage in France or after Uncle Andy had adopted him. All kids were like--well, in a world apart. Except that girl, Martia. He hadn't even talked to her--and yet the two of them knew something. Something important concerning just themselves. But what?

"You feel all right, kid?" asked the same soldier again.

_Kid!_ Henry was sixteen. The other was only twenty. Where did he get off at--

The ringing in his ears was more insistent. He swayed, dizzily, catching the stair rail for support.

One of the soldiers was a negro, one of those dark ones that almost looked blue-black. But he was the friendliest of all. He even got up to see what he could do.

"Man, you look like you're all mixed up," he said, smiling. "Are you airsick, or constipated?"

The others laughed. Henry blushed again and ran down the narrow, circular staircase, this time actually crashing into a large man in a dark suit who looked like the ads in Esquire concerning "Men of Distinction." He had gray at the temples and a ruddy, confident face with penetrating gray eyes.

"Sorry!" exclaimed Henry, and went on. He had recognized the man. He had been pointed out earlier as Congressman Burley, attached to some world-touring congressional committee on something or other. Sure were a lot of big shots on board, he reflected, as he came down onto B deck.

There were many of them here in the observation lounge--heavily braided officers, some of them high-ranking women in the Service; scientists, international businessmen, newspaper correspondents, entertainers--and foreigners. Henry was especially impressed with the Prince from India who wore thousand dollar turbans and beautiful jewelry. And the Swedish movie star, a beautiful blonde who was anything but dumb. Uncle Andy had been especially interested in her, as well as that young air hostess over there talking to the bald-headed man by the magazine rack.

* * * * *

Suddenly, he saw Martia Dewitt at the commissary counter. There were also two young women with year old youngsters in their arms, buying suckers to keep them from yowling. But he was interested only in Martia. This time he had caught her alone.

The girl was dressed neatly in a blue, pleated skirt, red jacket and lacy blouse with a velvet tie and a yellow straw hat, red bobby socks and black shoes; but there was a home-spun look about her clothes that hinted at a struggle to maintain appearances.

When Martia spotted him, she lowered her eyes and attempted to hurry past, but he caught her, gently, surprised at his own boldness. "We might as well talk about it now," he said to her quickly. "There won't be another chance."

She held her eyes averted, strained slightly to be released, then relaxed. Her large, clear blue eyes found his and his head swam.

"All right," she answered, simply.

They could not find a seat by the observation panels, which was to be expected, so they stood near the drinking fountain and looked at each other's feet.

"Then it's true," said Henry. "We have something to talk about, don't we?"

"Yes," she replied, glancing quickly at him and then looking down again.

"Well--what is it?" he asked.

"I--I don't know. I thought you--"

Henry swayed, his ears ringing insistently. To his surprise, she grasped his arm seeking support. Her face paled.

This time their eyes really met. It was unnecessary for her to tell him her ears were ringing too. He knew it.

"I'm scared!" she exclaimed. "What is it?"

"It--it isn't quite like ringing," he told her. "It's more like--"

"Like very high flutes going up and down a scale."

"Yeah--in a weird kind of way."

The small tots in the young mothers' arms were shrieking unaccountably now, in spite of the suckers they had been allowed to taste.

Henry looked at them curiously. "Their ears are ringing, too," he said.

Martia did not question how he knew this, because she was also sure the babies were hearing the eerie ringing of the flutes. And that no one else heard--none of the adults on board....

"Your name is Henry," she said, irrelevantly.

"Yes, and yours is Martia. I feel like something is going to happen."

"That's why I'm scared."

She pressed against him and held on to him, shuddering in nameless terror, as hysterical screams and shouts suddenly emanated from A deck, above them. He held her, equally frightened, while the babies screamed--and while the people on B deck began to shout and scurry about in all directions.

"What in God's name--!" a man yelled, getting up from his seat by the windows.

"Something's happened on A deck!" exclaimed the commissary steward.

"What the hell! It's a fight!" shouted a grizzled construction worker.

"Come on!" cried another, excitedly anticipating something to write home about.

"Stay where you are! Don't panic!" shouted a newsman, fumbling frantically with the straps of his camera carrying case.

No one could ascend the spiral staircase because a panic stricken mob from A deck was descending, with the G.I. negro sliding down over their heads. The whites of his eyes glistened in unreasoning terror. Screams of women and the angry shouting and cursing of men filled the staircase, while outside the muffled roar of the great engines continued unabated.

"_All right! All right!_" came a tense voice over the P.A. system. "_Passengers will remain seated and refrain from panic. Do not crowd B deck as it changes the load factors and we'll not be able to trim if you don't stay put!_" It seemed to Henry that the announcer wanted to say more but was interrupted by the sudden press of the emergency, whatever it was.

* * * * *

Henry caught sight of a young woman wearing the uniform of a WAAC nurse sliding down upside down under the feet of the mob, her face bloodied, eyes rolled upward into her head. Either she had fainted or been knocked unconscious. Or she was dead. Grown men, frothing at the mouth and shrieking curses, struck at each other with intent to kill. It was blind panic riding on the animal instinct to survive.

Far from regarding the scene calmly, Henry was visited by an instinctive desire to run through that crowd and find Uncle Andy, who always knew the answer when the chips were down. But the quivering girl beside him detained him, and her presence also made him fight to control an incipient trembling of his chin. It was as though he could smell events and the events there in the lounge had a stench of disaster, of death, of tragic newspaper headlines. You couldn't really smell such things, but Henry had no name for the strange sense that gave him a vivid impression of the total human element surrounding him.

The air hostess maintained a clear head. She ran to two high-ranking officers, one an Army Colonel and the other a Major of the Air Force.

"_Do_ something!" she exclaimed.

Which was sufficient to arouse them from their momentary paralysis. With a look at each other, a few hurried words and quick nods of agreement, the two officers sprang into action.

"All men on B deck!" yelled the Colonel, suddenly brandishing a Service automatic. "Converge on the staircase and pull the passengers out--women first where possible!"

Henry stared curiously at the gun. He knew it did not contain ammunition. Although this ship was a MATS charter, ammunition was not allowed for sidearms on such flights.

The Major and two Army non-coms were already at the staircase, working fast.

"Come down single file, those of you on the staircase!" yelled the Major. "All others remain on A deck! No fighting, you! Move!" He was also waving a gun in the air.

When one man struck out wildly at another who was in his way, the Major reached up and hit him over the head with his weapon--under the sudden brilliance of the newsman's flash bulb. The man slumped, and a number of B deck men heaved at him, pulling him through.

Henry wondered if Uncle Andy was playing it safe, staying in his seat. Couldn't be a fire. No smoke. Something much different, more dangerous, he sensed. He recalled the ringing in his and Martia's ears. Then he also remembered having bumped into someone in the aisle upstairs--someone that he could not see.... A prickly sensation crept down his spine.

They had the unconscious WAAC nurse stretched out on a seat under the observation windows. The air hostess was calling to the commissary steward to break out the first aid supplies, and the Swedish actress ran to get them for her. The Indian Prince had lost his turban and, being quite bald, was trying to wrap it around his head again, while his eyes stared in fright at the milling crowd and he cowered in the farthest corner muttering prayers in Hindustani.

"What the hell's happening up there?" asked the Major of one male passenger from A deck who seemed to be more rational. Henry remembered that this was the scar-faced man who had sat behind him and Uncle Andy. On his hardened face was an expression of deep concern, and his forehead glistened with sweat.

"It's a--a man," he stammered.

"A man! Well what the--"

"A _monster_!" cried a woman, her hair disheveled, her dress and shoes gone and her petticoat half ripped off. "Oh God help us!"

"Mother!" shrieked Martia, suddenly. She broke away from Henry and ran toward the crowd at the staircase.

* * * * *

Henry ran after her and caught her by the wrist. "You'll get yourself killed trying to get up there!" he yelled at her. "Stay here!"

"Mother!" she cried out again, sobbing hysterically and struggling frantically to break away from him.

"Shush, girl!" commanded the Colonel. The P.T. speaker was blaring.

"_This is co-pilot Nelson speaking for Captain Merman_," came the same, tense, male voice they had heard previously. "_All passengers are to remain where they are. There is nothing wrong with the ship, except we've got to keep trimming against that load in the lounge. I repeat, there is nothing wrong with the ship. B deck passengers are advised that we have been boarded, in some undetermined way, by a sort of--man. He has made no move to harm anyone although he appears to be armed. Captain Merman is trying to communicate with him. In the meantime you are advised that we are under emergency conditions affecting the rules of international travel. The Captain's orders will be followed to the letter, by all nationalities represented on board, regardless of rank or position. I repeat, this is an emergency. But there will be no panic. Violators will be placed under arrest by any male member of the crew or by any male commissioned personnel on board. All male commissioned military personnel in the service of the government of the United States are hereby deputized to make arrests and hold in custody any offender. That is all. Stand by!_"