Walter Kubilius

“ Donovan breathed deeply. "Immortality!"
Blascomb did not smile. "Only if the C.D. does not find you. Unlicensed rejuvenation is punishable by execution in an extremely painful manner. You're a doomed man now if the C.D. even finds you. The worst tortures of the Middle Ages would be nothing compared to what Crane would do to you or me if he tracks us down."
"You can stay in the present time-cycle," Donovan said, "but I'm tired of control and supervision. Send me to some period where an individual had a chance to work and live without state control. Give me the times of individualism!" ”

“ The metallic legs of the car, immune to the gaseous atmosphere, carefully stepped over the bodies. On the hilltop, through the mist that clouded the vision plates of the car, he could see the other villages being destroyed, as this one was.
Cobber shuddered. The planet of Kama was like death itself without the ghastly war that had descended upon it.
Seeing the crimson thunderhead clouds rear high into the stratosphere and knowing the approach of another storm, he hastened the speed of his car towards the huge mother-ship. ”

“ You've come here to kill all of us! You came here to destroy the factory! You came here to stop the machines! It's you who wanted the war!"
"No. No." Millet insisted, "we are not going to do anything. Nothing, you understand, nothing. There's no war going on. No war."
"No war!" she cried, "there's always war! Always! The Day will come, my father told me and his father told him. There's always war! Always! the day has come!" ”

“ Yes, I failed, Cobber said, the bitterness of complete defeat rankling in his heart. The man your people want for revenge is my chief. I cannot deliver him. I cannot!
When Cobber first came to our planet, the Great Kama's thoughts rang in his head, who welcomed him? Who crossed the barriers between our different forms of life? Who told Cobber the tragic history of our people? ”

“ Millet said, "Do you remember the bombings of the Second World War? Wave after wave of enemy planes came, blowing up the factories and industrial centers of the enemy. Coventry, Hamburg, Detroit! All of them smashed to bits! When industrial centers were smashed by air-raids, what is the logical answer? Build factories and plants in out of the way places, far from the arm of the airplane!"
"I suppose you'll say that's how this factory was built?"
"Yes! And perhaps there are still more throughout the arctic! Cities of living dead, still making bombs and bombers after all these centuries. ”

“ The finished sketch of the cycle travellers was basically correct, but the most important operating mechanism was still missing. Try as he could, he was unable to bring it up from his memory.
"By the solar system," he swore, "what is the matter with me? I have forgotten every detail."
He tried to think back. At one time he had known the mechanism thoroughly. As an engineer he was completely familiar with every single plate and tube, but now he couldn't remember anything but the general appearance of the finished machine. Fear spurred his mind as he hunted for a solution. ”

“ Wilson's tank rumbled a few feet forward from the semi-circle.
"You don't dare shoot, Cobber," he said quietly. "You're outnumbered thirty to one."
"Stand back! All of you!" Cobber shouted into the mike. "I'll blow up the first one that moves!"
"Don't be a fool, Cobber," Wilson said. "There's enough catalytic rock stored in the ship for all of us. I can make you a rich man. Put down those guns and we'll forget what has happened. Put down those guns."
"This ship is not going back to Earth," Cobber said.
"Put down those guns, Cobber!" Wilson shouted. "You can't win!" ”

“ Nowhere could they find a single soul.
"They must all be at the factory," Johnson said.
"And the children?"
"In schools and nurseries." "But they can't all be in factories and schools," protested Weaver. "There's nobody home or in the streets. Nobody!"
"Let's look into a factory," Millet suggested.
In the center of the city they found two factories. Both were of tremendous size, stretching for many times the size of a city block. From their mighty stacks stretched black fingers of smoke. A strange feeling of age hung about the factory. ”

“ Sometimes he felt the avenging sword of the Komitet hanging over his head.
There were some statesmen and philosophers mentioned in the newspapers whose ideas seemed to indicate a 25th century origin, but he avoided them in the fear that they might be plants to draw out the illegals. It was probably that the C.D. would never find out the deception, and if they did there was little chance of locating him among the two billion people on Home Planet.
"You have to make a living somehow," the agent persisted.
"I know nothing but engineering," Donovan said, "and that I will never do." ”

“ But his weak and old hands would prove of little value against the youthful strength of Wilson.
"Oxygen! In an atmosphere of carbon disulphide and methane you sell them tanks of oxygen!"
"Yes."
"You know what you sell the Kamae?" Cobber asked, gripping him by the shoulders. "Death! A single spark—one rock striking another, a simple stroke—and that oxygen becomes a bursting, fuming flame! In this atmosphere it is worse than the most powerful dynamite. Whole villages have been wiped out. Entire cities have been burned to the ground by your oxygen. ”

“ They'll keep on building those bombers till the machines are worn out and become dust!"
"But the people—the people!" Weaver protested.
"The people!" Millet snorted, "Did you hear the phonograph droning over and over again: you must work—you must work—you must work! Over and over again for two hundred years! It enters into the blood! The child is born and hears those words; you must work—you must work—you must work! He spends his days in the factory—watching and watching until the day that his father dies. Then he too goes up to his positions—working—working—working. ”

“ Blascomb explained as he plunged in the needle, "but a selective antibody that attacks only aging tissue and forces replacements practically on an embryonic level of activity. Unlike the Callistan serum, which is merely a stimulant, this antibody creates from its destroyed tissue a catalyst capable of stimulating chromosomes and genes. By the very process of feeding upon itself, the body grows younger. The net result is a reversal of the life process, an anabolism making you grow younger, year by year." ”

“ The place was a roaring factory in full blast. Giant cranes screeched along, carrying in their iron hands heavy machines which were placed in position by the waiting workmen. Long lines of coarsely clad men and women stood by the conveyors, each with his or her task. Some of the men handled the delicate tools. Others, the women and the children, did nothing but
watch and sometimes help when a moving mass of machines on the belt rumbled and shook as it rolled on a bumpy part of the conveyor. ”

“ Millet shouted to Weaver, trying to make himself heard above the din of the factory, "Giant warplanes!"
"Why hasn't anyone stopped us?" Weaver asked as they strolled under the wings of the bomber and out into the open air, "Nobody even looked at us while we walked through the whole plant!"
'Suppose they're too busy," Johnson grunted.
"Did you see the children?" Weaver asked again. "Even children! What a factory! It's like a tomb!"
"Efficient though, isn't it?" Millet smiled, "They're getting the bombers out fast enough. Let's see where they take them." ”

“ Pressed by the need for money, and fascinated by the possibilities in science fiction, Donovan began to write a story. He employed a pen-name, and avoided the general theory of retrograde-cycle travel backward above time, but limited himself to travelling spirally into the future. He described the mechanism he himself would have to produce in order to get back to Blascomb for anabolism-correction, and produced a fanciful tale regarding life in the year 3,000. The letter from the editor came within a week. ”

“ The spaceship would return home with a cargo full of catalytic and the story of ignorant beings willing to mine the metal for tanks of oxygen. Cheap, easy to manufacture oxygen in exchange for power! Other ships would come and other men like Wilson, greedy men, powerful men, men with lust in their hearts.
Kama's people, scarcely on the first rung of civilization's ladder, would be thrust back into the darkness. Tribal warfare, spurred on and encouraged by Earthmen, would deplete the planet. A new culture, just born, would die. ”

“ At one time he remembered every detail of life in the 25th century, and could describe them easily. Now events were dim and he knew now why his recent stories were poor. They were not written from actual memory of the future, but were the ordinary stories one might expect from a 20-year-old boy. ”

“ Always be careful," the booming voice in the factory rang out. "Do not make mistakes. Efficiency counts above all else. Efficiency! Work carefully. Work carefully. Work carefully. Work carefully and enjoy your work. Enjoy your work. Enjoy your work because it is your work. ”

“ Blascomb and Crane, Crane and Blascomb, which was the C.D. agent, and what was C.D. anyway?
Enough of the details remained to shock him into an awareness of his desperate plight. The rejuvenation process had worked too well, for Donovan had waited dangerously long. As the body grew younger the tissue cells were consumed and youthful cells replaced them. The process that had worked for body cells did the same for the cells of the brain. Those portions of the brain containing the knowledge and ability of a 70-year-old man were gradually being replaced with new, untrained cells. ”

“ Here and there the anhydrous bodies of the Kamae lay stone still. The small village, tucked away by the shores of the russet sea, was wiped out. Many of the bodies were ripped apart, torn to shreds as if by some monster from the depths of the methane sea. ”

“ I've been an agent since 2452."
High-strung Donovan moistened his lips. Of course he had heard of the C.D. In an age when cyclic travel backward through the centuries was an established science, the Komitet that governed the Home Planet had to employ ruthless measures to cope with any experimenters whose uncontrolled work might threaten to change past temporal cycles. The C.D. were the scavengers of the World Komitet; they scoured the past centuries eliminating illegal and unlicensed cyclic travellers. ”

“ Slowly Millet, Weaver and Johnson began to get the complete picture of the strange factory. Huge boxes were brought in from the outside, obviously from the second factory, and were unpacked. The machinery and parts were assorted and distributed. Motors were sent to one place, girders, wires, steel, plates and glass to other places. The trio followed the distribution from one end to another. By the time they reached the center of the plant they realized what was being made. At the end of the factory, ready to be rolled out, they saw it. ”

“ Blascomb gestured toward two graying pools on the plasticized floor in back of them.
"Murder and suicide," he said, obviously pleased with himself, "The C.D. will think you are dead. The murderer's body is also there to provide a motive for the transfer of the Trust's funds in the event Crane becomes too thorough. He'll be here soon; we work fast now."
The special pilo-cab dropped them into a gravity-shielded warehouse above the European Desert. It housed Blascomb's laboratory. The rejuvenation process was even simpler than Donovan had expected. ”

“ We've nothing to lose. If there's a village we're saved. If not—"
"If not?" Millet asked, smiling.
Johnson ignored him. He drew his meagre overcoat more tightly about him and went out into the whirling snow. The three took one final look at the wreckage of the plane and the bodies that were already covered by a white mantle. Johnson led the way and Weaver followed, his arm rapidly becoming numb. Millet, face down to avoid the bite of the wind, brought up the rear.
The sun was already overhead when they reached the mountain top and saw before them in the valley the strange city. ”

“ Free will is an illusion; it is synonymous with incomplete perception."
"Then send me into the 20th century. As an engineer I would be able to make some sort of living there."
"Dangerous. Don't practice your profession. Study some field which is completely alien to you so that should you come across a C.D. agent he would not recognize the work of a 25th century man."
"You mean like an artist or a writer?"
"Why not?"
Donovan laughed. "I've never held a paint brush or written more than a one-page letter, but why not? Unloose the cyclic band, Blascomb ”

“ What would happen if we allowed you to be rejuvenated, and then permitted extra-terrestial emigration? There would be millions of old or sick people like you demanding equal treatment and equal consideration. ”

“ But the Eskimo is extinct."
"Have we got food?" Johnson asked.
"None," Millet said curtly, to dispel all false hopes.
"I am not sure," Weaver said slowly, "but five minutes before we crashed I—I'm sure I saw a thin line of smoke coming up from a valley. That valley there." he said, pointing toward a mountain range.
"Nonsense!" Millet muttered, looking at the inhospitable icy peaks.
"Nonsense?" Johnson shouted, "What do you mean nonsense? Who are you to say it's nonsense! Maybe there are explorers here, an expedition of seme sort. ”

“ Only those whose social value is above Par 195 may be rejuvenated. Not much value is placed upon engineers and Trust managers who can easily be replaced from each year's Birth Quota. The application is denied, and there's no use appealing it. ”

“ Leaving her alone the three men rushed to one of the windows and looked out upon the open field. The day before it was empty. Now, upon its white level, were three large black bombing planes.
"They mustn't fly!" ”