Redskins! Boston tealeggers! Jeep men! Time
traveler Devin Orth clutched his temples,
battling insanity. Some "genius" had waved
a wand over Terran history and produced a—
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The sun was dying. About its sullen shadow-streaked red globe thousandsof miniature artificial worlds clustered like a swarm of night-chilledmidges. So thickly did they hug the great globe of dulling flame thatit seemed Sol had acquired an outer husk of interlocked asteroids andmoonlets.
Of all the planets and their satellites only Earth remained—a shrunkenand changed planet. And Earth too had shifted its orbit until it nowswung but a few million miles from its molten primary.
In the huge ovoid of metal that was the Time Bubble the three menmaking up its crew had by now grown accustomed to the changes thatthree million years had brought to the solar system. They had expectedgreat changes—and found them. This was to be their first stop in theirtime quest for an efficient shield against the deadly radiations ofatomic disintegration's side effects.
Devin Orth, the lean, dark-haired young scientist sharing thecontrol blister with his employer and friend, Norris Horn, studiedthe expanding green wilderness of what had once been northern Ohio.He turned to the big bald man in whose brain the plans for the timespanner had been born.
"The continents are there," he said unbelieving, "almost exactly as weleft them. And yet Earth is smaller. Its diameter has dwindled morethan a thousand miles!"
Horn's broad thick body quivered as he loosed a volcanic chuckle.
"I know," he said. "And the oceans, big though they are, are probablyvery shallow. A thousand feet at the most. Water will be growingprecious."
"But," puzzled Orth, "why are there no cities and why have thecontinents changed so little? Surely three million years...."
"I'd say the inhabitants of those small globes near the sun," suggestedHorn, "are descendants of Earthmen. They have used their superb commandof science to make of Earth a beautiful park or preserve as it was inour own primitive age.
"Surely, if they have such knowledge, they can give us the secretof atomic control that will overcome the sterility threateningmankind. We cannot return now to the limited culture afforded bythe lesser power-sources of coal or gas without great damage tocivilization—perhaps its utter downfall."
"They have it all right," said Orth, scowling down at the open parklikemeadow toward which Horn was blasting, "but I'm worried about gettingback. So far this time travel is simply negation—outside the TimeBubble three million years pass and to us it seems less than twohours."
Horn thrummed the landing jets smoothly and laughed his deep boomingbellow. The grassy glade came up to meet them.
"A minor detail," he said as he cut the jets and the ship joltedabruptly to an uneven grounding. The deck was slightly tilted and frombelow there sounded a muffled explosion.
"You all right, Neilson?" shouted Orth into the intercom.
The third member of their crew sounded breathless as he answered fromthe power compartment.
"Thought the mixer was going for a bit," he gasped. "A forward jet wentkafoo. Boulder maybe blocking off that last blast."
Orth told Horn what Neilson had said. The big man unzipped his safetyharness and came over to his side, his big capable hand on Orth'sshoulder.
"Don't worry about getting home," he said, taking up the thr