Drengo sat down and stretched his legs. "The Dictator appeared four
years ago, a nobody, a man from the masses of people on the planet. He
rose into public favor like a sky-rocket, a remarkable man, an amazing
man--a man who could talk to you, and control your thoughts in a
single interview. There has never been a man with such personal
magnetism and power, Roger, in all the history of Earth. A man who
raised himself from nothing into absolute Dictatorship, and has
handled the world according to his whim ever since.
"He is only a young man, Roger, just 32 years of age, but an
irresistible man who can win anything from anybody. He writhed into
the presidency first, and then deliberately set about rearranging the
government to suit himself. And the people let him get away with it,
followed him like sheep. And then he was Dictator, and he began
turning the social and economic balance of the planet into a
whirlwind. And then came Mars."
Martin stretched again, and lit a cigarette, his thin face grave in
the darkened room. "The first landing was thirty years ago, and the
possibilities for rich and peaceful commerce between Earth and Mars
were clear from the first. Mars had what Earth lacked: the true
civilization, the polished culture, the lasting socio-economic
balance, the permanent peace. Mars could have taught us so much. She
could have guided us out of the mire of war and hatred that we have
been wallowing in for centuries. But the Dictator put an end to those
possibilities." Drengo shrugged. "He was convinced that the Martians
were weak, backward, decadent. He saw their uranium, their gold, their
jewelry, their labor--and started on a vast impossible imperialism. If
he had had his way, he would have stripped the planet in three years,
but the Martians fought against us, turned from peace to suspicion,
and finally to open revolt. And the Dictator could not see. He
mobilized Earth for total war against Mars, draining our resources,
decimating our population, building rockets, bombs, guns--" He stopped
for a moment, breathing deeply. "But the Dictator didn't know what he
was doing. He had never been on Mars. He has never seen Martians. He
had no idea what they think, what they are capable of doing. He
doesn't know what we know--that the Martians will win. He doesn't
realize that the Martians can carry out a war for years without
shaking their economy one iota, while he has drained our planet to
such a degree that a war of more than two or three months will break
us in half. He doesn't know that Mars can win, and that the Earth
can't--"
Roger walked across the room, thoughtfully, his mind fitting pieces
into place. "But where do I come in? David--Ann--I don't understand--"
Drengo looked Roger straight in the eye. "The Dictator's name," he
said, "is Farrel Strang."
Roger stopped still. "Strang?" he echoed.
"Your son, Roger. Yours and Ann's."
"But--you said the Dictator was only 32--" Roger trailed off,
regarding Ann in amazement.
Martin smiled. "People don't grow old so quickly nowadays," he said.
"You are 57 years old, Roger. Ann is 53." He leaned back in his chair,
his gaunt smile fading. "The Dictator has not been without opposition.
You, his parents, opposed him at the very start, and he cast you off.
People wiser than the crowds were able to rebuff his powerful personal
appeal, to see through the robe of glory he had wrapped around
himself. He has opposition, but he has built himself an impregnable
fortress, and dealt swift death to any persons suspected of treason. A
few have escaped--scientists, technologists, sociologists, physicists.
The work of one group of men gave us a weapon which we hoped to use to
destroy the Dictator. We found a way to move back in Time. We could
leave the normal time-stream and move to any area of past time. So
four of us went back, searching for the core of the economic and
social upheaval on Earth, and trying to destroy the Dictator before he
was born. Given Time travel, it should have been possible. So we went
back--myself, John Morrel, Ann Strang, and you."
Roger shook his head, a horrible thought forming in his mind. "You
were trying to kill David--my son--" he stopped short. "David
_couldn't_ have been my son!" He whirled on Martin Drengo. "_Who was
that boy?_"
Martin looked away then, his face white. "The boy was your father," he
said.
* * * * *
The drone of the jet bombers came again, whining into the still room.
Roger Strang stood very still, staring at the gaunt man. Slowly the
puzzle was beginning to fit together, and horror filtered into his
mind. "My father--" he said. "Only twelve years old, but he was to be
my father." He stared helplessly at the group in the room. "You were
trying--to kill him!"
Martin Drengo stood up, his lean face grave. "We were faced with a
terrific problem. Once we returned to a time-area, we had no way of
knowing to what extent we could effect people and events that had
already happened. We had to go back, to fit in, somehow, in an area
where we never had been, to _make_ things happen that had never
happened before. We knew that if there was any way of doing it, we had
to destroy Farrel Strang. But the patterns of history which had
allowed him to rise had to be altered, too; destroying the man would
not have been enough. So we tried to destroy him in the time-area
where the leading time-patterns of _our_ time had been formed. We had
to kill his grandfather."
Roger shivered. "But if you had killed David--what would have happened
_to me_?"
"Presumably the same thing that would have happened to the Dictator.
In theory, _if we had succeeded_ in killing your father, David, both
you and the Dictator would have ceased to exist." Drengo took a deep
breath. "The idea was yours, Roger. You knew the terrible damage your
son was doing as Dictator. It was a last resort, and Ann and John and
I pleaded with you to reconsider. But it was the obvious step."
Ann walked over to Roger, her face pale. "You insisted, Roger. So we
did what we could to make it easy. We used the Dictator's favorite
trick--a psycho-purge--to clear your mind of all conscious and
subconscious memory of your true origin and environment, replacing it
with a history and memory of the past-time area where we were going.
We chose the contact-time carefully, so that we appeared in New York
in the confusion of the bombing of 2078, making sure that your records
would stand up under all but the closest examination. From then on,
when Martin carried you out from the fire, you stored your own memory
of that time-area and became a legitimate member of that society."
"But how could we pose as David's _parents_, if he was my father?"
Ann smiled. "Both David's parents were killed in the New York bombing;
we knew that David survived, and we knew where he could be found.
There was a close physical resemblance between you and the boy,
though actually the resemblance was backwards, and he accepted you as
a foster-father without question. With you equipped with a complete
memory of your marriage to me in that time, of David's birth, and of
your own history before and after the bombing of New York, you fit in
well and played the part to perfection. Also, you acted as a control,
to guide us, since you had no conscious knowledge beyond that
time-area. Martin and Morrel were to be the assassins, the Intruders,
and I was to keep tabs on you--"
"And the success of the attempt?"
Ann's face fell. "We don't know yet. We don't know what we
accomplished, whether we stemmed the war or not--"
The tall man who had stepped into the room moved forward and threw a
sheaf of papers on the floor, his face heavy with anger, his voice
hoarse. "Yes, I'm afraid we do know," he said bitterly.
Martin Drengo whirled on him, his face white. "What do you mean,
Markson?"
The tall man sank down in a chair tiredly. "We've lost, Martin. We
don't need these calculations to tell. The word was just broadcast on
the telecast. Farrel Strang's armada has just begun its attack on
Mars--"
* * * * *
For a moment the distant bombing was the only sound in the room. Then
Martin Drengo said, "So he gave the order. And we've lost."
"We only had a theory to work on," said Morrel, staring gloomily at
the curved window. "A theory and an equation. The theory said that a
man returning through time could alter the social and technological
trends of the people and times to which he returned, in order to
change history that was already past. The theory said that if we could
turn the social patterns and technological trends just slightly away
from what they were, we could alter the entire makeup of society in
our own time. And the Equation was the tool, the final check on any
change. The Equation which evaluates the sum of social, psychological
and energy factors in any situation, any city or nation or human
society. The Equation has been proven, checked time and time again,
but the theory didn't fit it. The theory was wrong."
Roger Strang sat up, suddenly alert. "That boy," he said, his voice
sharp. "You nearly made a sieve of him, trying to shoot him. Why
didn't he die?"
"Because he was on a high-order variable. Picture it this way: From
any point in time, the possible future occurrences could be seen as
vectors, an infinite number of possible vectors. Every activity that
makes an alteration, or has any broad effect on the future is a
high-order variable, but many activities have no grave implications
for future time, and could be considered unimportant, or low-order
variables. If a man turns a corner and sees something that stimulates
him into writing a world-shaking manifesto, the high-order variable
would have started when he decided to turn the corner instead of going
the other way. But if he took one way home instead of another, and
nothing of importance occurred as a result of the decision, a
low-order variable would be set up.
"We found that the theory of alterations held quite well, for
low-order variables. Wherever we appeared, whatever we did, we set up
a definite friction in the normal time-stream, a distortion, like
pulling a taut rubber band out. And we could produce changes--on
low-order variables. But the elasticity of the distortion was so great
as to warp the change back into the time-stream without causing any
lasting alteration. When it came to high-order changes, _we simply
couldn't make any_. We tried putting wrong data into the machines that
were calculating specifications for the Barrier, and the false data
went in, but the answers that came out were answers that _should_ have
appeared with the _right_ data. We tried to commit a murder, to kill
David Strang, and try as we would we couldn't do it. Because it would
have altered a high-order variable, and they simply _wouldn't be
altered_!"
"But you, Morrel," Roger exclaimed. "How about you? You were top man
in the Barrier Base Security office. You must have made an
impression."
Morrel smiled tiredly. "I really thought I had, time after time. I
would start off a series of circumstances that should have had a grave
alterative effect, and it would look for awhile as if a long-range
change was going to be affected--and then it would straighten itself
out again, with no important change occurring. It was maddening. We
worked for five years trying to make even a small alteration--and
brought back our data--" He pointed to the papers on the floor. "There
are the calculations, applied on the Equation. Meaningless. We
accomplished nothing. And the Dictator is still there."
Drengo slumped in his chair. "And he's started the war. The real
attack. This bombardment outside is nothing. There are fifteen
squadrons of space-destroyers already unloading atomic bombs on the
surface of Mars, and that's the end, for us. Farrel Strang has started
a war he can never finish--"
Roger Strang turned sharply to Drengo. "This Dictator," he said.
"Where is he? Why can't he be reached now, and destroyed?"
"The Barrier. He can't be touched in the Palace. He has all his
offices there, all his controls, and he won't let anyone in since the
attempted assassination three months ago. He's safe there, and we
can't touch him."
Roger scowled at the control panel on the wall. "How does this
time-portal work?" he asked. "You say it can take us back--_why not
forward?_"
"No good. The nature of Time itself makes that impossible. At the
present instant of Time, everything that has happened has happened.
The three-dimensional world in which we live has passed through the
fourth temporal dimension, and nothing can alter it. But at this
instant there are an infinite number of things that could happen next.
The future is an infinite series of variables, and there's no
conceivable way to predict which variable will actually be true."
Roger Strang sat up straight, staring at Drengo. "Will that portal
work both ways?" he asked tensely.
Drengo stared at him blankly. "You mean, can it be reverse-wired? I
suppose so. But--anyone trying to move into the future would
necessarily become an _infinity_ of people--he couldn't maintain his
identity, because he'd have to have a body in every one of an infinite
number of places he might be--"
"--_until the normal time stream caught up with him in the future!_
And then he'd be in whatever place he fit!" Roger's voice rose
excitedly. "Martin, can't you see the implications? Send me
ahead--just a little ahead, an hour or so--and let me go into the
Palace. If I moved my consciousness to the place where the Palace
should be, where the Dictator should be, then when normal time caught
up with me, _I could kill him_!"
Drengo was on his feet, staring at Roger with rising excitement.
Suddenly he glanced at his watch. "By God!" he muttered. "_Maybe you
could_--"
* * * * *
Blackness.
He had no body, no form. There was no light, no shape, nothing but
eternal, dismal, unbroken blackness. This was the Void, the place
where time had not yet come. Roger Strang shuddered, and felt the cold
chill of the blackness creep into his marrow. He had to move. He
wanted to move, to find the right place, moving with the infinity of
possible bodies. A stream of consciousness was all he could grasp, for
the blackness enclosed everything. A sort of death, but he knew he was
not dead. Blackness was around him, and in him, and through him.
He could feel the timelessness, the total absence of anything.
Suddenly he felt the loneliness, for he knew there was no going back.
He had to transfer his consciousness, his mind, to the place where the
Dictator was, hoping against hope that he could find the place before
time caught him wedged in the substance of the stone walls of the
Palace. He reached the place that _should_ be right, and waited--
And waited. There was no time in this place, and he had to wait for
the normal time stream. The blackness worked at his mind, filling him
with fear, choking him, making him want to scream in frightened
agony--waiting--
And suddenly, abruptly, he was standing in a brightly lighted room.
The arched dome over his head sparkled with jewels, and through
paneled windows the red glow of the city's fires flickered grimly. _He
was in the Palace!_
He looked about swiftly, and crossed the room toward a huge door. In
an instant he had thrown it open. The bright lights of the office
nearly blinded him, and the man behind the desk rose angrily, caught
Roger's eye full--
Roger gasped, his eyes widening. For a moment he thought he was
staring into a mirror. For the man behind the desk, clothed in a rich
glowing tunic was a living image of--_himself!_
The Dictator's face opened into startled surprise and fear as he
recognized Roger, and a frightened cry came from his lips. There was
no one else in the room, but his eyes ran swiftly to the visiphone.
With careful precision Roger Strang brought the heat-pistol to eye
level, and pulled the trigger. Farrel Strang crumpled slowly from the
knees, a black hole scorched in his chest.
Roger ran to the fallen man, stared into his face incredulously. His
son--and himself, as alike as twin dolls, for all the age difference.
Drengo's words rose in Roger's mind: "Medicine is advanced, you know.
People don't grow old so soon these days--"
Swiftly Roger slipped from his clothes, an impossibly bold idea
translating itself into rapid action. He stripped the glowing tunic
from the man's flaccid body, and slipped his arms into the sleeves,
pulling the cape in close to cover the burned spot.
He heard a knock on the door. Frantically he forced the body under the
heavy desk, and sat down in the chair behind it, eyes wide with fear.
"Come in," he croaked.
A young deputy stepped through the door, approached the desk
deferentially. "The first reports, sir," he said, looking straight at
Roger. Not a flicker of suspicion crossed his face. "The attack is
progressing as expected."
"Turn all reports over to my private teletype," Roger snapped. The man
saluted. "Immediately, sir!" He turned and left the room, closing the
door behind him.
Roger panted, closing his eyes in relief. He could pass! Turning to
the file, he examined the detailed plans for the Martian attack; the
numbers of ships, the squadron leaders, the zero hours--then he was at
the teletype keyboard, passing on the message of peace, the message to
stop the War with Mars, to make an armistice; ALL SQUADRONS AND SHIPS
ATTENTION: CEASE AND DESIST IN ATTACK PLANS: RETURN TO TERRA
IMMEDIATELY: BY ORDER OF FARREL STRANG.
Wildly he tore into the files, ripping out budget reports,
stabilization plans, battle plans, evacuation plans. It would be
simple to dispose of the Dictator's body as that of an imposter, an
assassin--and simply take control himself in Farrel's place. They
would carry on with _his_ plans, _his_ direction. And an era of peace,
and stability and rich commerce would commence at long last. The sheaf
of papers grew larger and larger as Roger emptied out the files: plans
of war, plans of conquest, of slavery--he aimed the heat-pistol at the
pile, saw it spring into yellow flame, and circle up to the vaulted
ceiling in blue smoke.
* * * * *
And then he sat down, panting, and flipped the visiphone switch. "Send
one man, unarmed, to the building across the courtyard. Have him bring
Martin Drengo to me."