Time After Time (5 page)

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Authors: Karl Alexander

BOOK: Time After Time
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Stunned, Wells sank back into his chair. Jack the Ripper? That maniac hadn't been in the news for several years, and many experts speculated that he had either left the country or committed suicide. So what was Scotland Yard doing looking for him now in Mornington-Crescent? His prowl had been the unfortunate streets of Whitechapel.
Undoubtedly there had been a murder, but why even suspect Jack the Ripper? God knows, there had been several hundred cheap imitations of the man's style in the past two years alone, if The Times were to be believed. But how could the police be so certain that the grisliest killer of them all was at it again? Wells shuddered. He knew
that they knew. He possessed absolutely no knowledge of criminology, but he had an intelligent respect for Scotland Yard. If their detectives said that Jack the Ripper was in the neighborhood, chances were, he was. Wells understood that and regretted the manner in which he had treated Adams and Duggan. He sighed again and thought that the detectives' visit was actually a blessing for he knew that his house was safe. He turned and read the clock on the desk. Ten minutes to seven. The fire had gone out and there was no more claret. It was time he retired.
Just then Mrs. Nelson called out to him from the hall by the front door. “Mr. Wells? Did Dr. Stephenson go with the others?”
“Of course he did.”
“Did you actually see him leave?”
“Mrs. Nelson—”
“Why would he leave his cape and bag in the cupboard? He couldn't have left.”
“The police just searched the house, Mrs. Nelson! There's no one here but you and I.” Just after he had spoken, he realized that he was probably wrong. He bolted up out of his chair and hurried into the hall.
Mrs. Nelson was white with fear. She was holding up Stephenson's cape and staring at it aghast. She glanced at Wells, then pointed to the hem of the garment. He frowned, for he did not immediately see the object of her concern.
“What, Mrs. Nelson?”
“Bloodstains, Mr. Wells.”
He took the cape from her, inspected it more closely and did indeed find several brown spots on the wool. Only a person as meticulous as Mrs. Nelson would have noticed them in the first place.
He hung the garment up again in the cupboard, then pulled the leather physician's bag down from the shelf and stared at it for a
long moment. When he finally moved to open it, Mrs. Nelson shrank back against the wall. He looked up at her. “Shouldn't you be fixing us some breakfast, Mrs. Nelson?”
She nodded, then hurried out of the hall. He watched her leave. When he heard the door to the kitchen close, he turned back to the bag, unsnapped the hasp and slowly pushed the sides apart. His heart pounded. He exhaled in a long hiss while lifting some bloodstained rags out of the bag. He dropped them on the floor and leaned farther forward. Under the rags was a collection of stainless-steel surgical knives that glittered brightly even though no direct light was hitting them. An odor penetrated his nose. It reminded him of a childhood Sunday morning when his father was butchering chickens behind the shop for the evening meal. He pinched his nostrils shut with his fingers and breathed through his mouth to avoid gagging.
There was a small tin in one corner of the bag. With his other hand he reached inside and lifted the top off the tin. He gasped and lurched back.
The police had been right about Jack the Ripper, for the tin contained a finger, a kidney and two eyes.
Wells quickly jammed the rags back inside the bag, snapped it shut, then stood and pushed it into the cupboard with his foot. He closed the door and leaned against it. His jaw muscles worked furiously. So, Dr. Leslie John Stephenson, former classmate and journeyman surgeon, had been doubling as Jack the Ripper all these years. H.G. felt cold and shuddered. Who would have known? The man always had seemed bright, articulate and socially graceful. Yet, H.G. had noticed a quiet, foreboding, even sinister quality in Stephenson that occasionally had manifested itself in the form of a brief, violent outburst. He recalled once when he'd watched Stephenson play for an unprecedented third straight handball championship at the university. Hard pressed to win, Stephenson had maneuvered his challenger into a corner, then slammed the ball so
that it ricocheted off the center wall and into the man's face. Victorious, Stephenson had stormed off the court without an apology or even the traditional handshake. At the time H.G. had attributed the act to the frustrations and pressures of a student preparing himself for a career as a surgeon, not realizing until now the full and horrible import of his speculation.
It suddenly occurred to H.G. that the handball incident had happened in the spring of 1884 when he was finishing his first year at the university and Stephenson his last. Obviously, then, the 1888 murders had taken place when Stephenson was a student at the Cambridge medical school. If only H.G. had known then what he knew now. But why? What had possessed Stephenson? What kind of hideous demon ruled the inner recesses of his mind? H.G. did not have a clue.
More urgent thoughts came to mind. Was Stephenson still in the house? If so, where? How could the police have missed him? Their search had taken well over an hour and no doubt had been very thorough. True, Stephenson could have left with the others, but he never would have gotten past Duggan without his cape and bag. Maybe he had, however. Maybe he had left the cape and bag because he obviously didn't want them searched. No, the logic was all wrong. H.G. had been at the front door with the detective the entire time. Stephenson had not been there. He had not been searched and he had not said his good-byes. In the confusion and excitement, he had apparently not been missed. If he had left the house, he had done so by another exit.
H.G. slapped his hand to his forehead. Great Scott, what had taken him so long to figure it out?
He raced down the hall to the small door that led to the back stairs. He opened it and hurried down into the basement. He saw that the door to his laboratory had been broken into and was now slightly ajar. The yellow glow of an incandescent lamp shone through.
Had he forgotten to turn the light off? No. The electric light bulb was too new and precious to be ignored.
He slowly crossed to the door and pushed it the rest of the way open. There was no one in the laboratory. His eyes narrowed. Stephenson was definitely gone, and he had left in a most unconventional manner.
The time machine was carrying its first passenger.
The time machine sat in the center of the laboratory, a faint bluish glow emanating from it that soon died away. To an objective eye, the device probably would have seemed squat, ugly and askew, but to its creator it was a thing of beauty.
The cabin was square and stood eight feet high. It was constructed out of heavy steel plates which were held together by rivets and bolts. The sides of the machine were tapered to facilitate rotating through the fourth dimension. Small, paned windows were built in all around so that the passenger could see what historical event he might be getting into at low-velocity manual operation. Of course, at a cruising speed of two years per minute, the outside world would appear as nothing more than a blur of colored molecules as the device slipped through time in a vaporized state.
Beneath the cabin and extending three feet into the ground was the engine. Most of the parts were precisely machined stainless steel, but here and there nickel and ivory glistened alongside buffers of industrial diamonds.
The heart of the device was the arrangement of twisted crystalline bars which worked to juxtapose, concentrate and swirl the electromagnetic fields of energy, enabling the machine to spin out of and into time spheres.
Inside the cabin were the controls, which could easily be operated from a captain's chair. The chair swiveled so that the passenger would not be affected by the incredibly high-speed rotation. That amount of centrifugal force would certainly kill a man in seconds. The dials indicating years and dates did rotate with the machine, but the steering and pressure mechanisms were also gyroscopically installed so that the device could be controlled when entering a particular time plane. An emergency supply of food, oxygen and clothing was stored in an enclosed space behind the chair.
H.G. approached the time machine, his face full of wonder. He peered in a window. The chair was empty, so apparently Stephenson had at least gone beyond the present. Then he dropped to his knees, opened the engine hatch and looked inside. He checked several connections (ones where the crystalline bars had been fused with metal gear faces) that he had been losing sleep over. They were intact. Then he carefully placed his hand on the Interstices Vaporizing Regulator. It was still warm, but obviously had not heated up and melted. That was good news. He closed the hatch, straightened up and wiped his hands on a rag.
He walked around to the front of the machine and tentatively pushed on the cabin door. It was locked. That left no doubt in his mind since the door locked only from the inside. Stephenson had used the machine and left it somewhere on another time plane. Since the man didn't have the special key to override the Rotation Reversal Lock circuitry, the door had automatically latched. After the prescribed ninety-second delay, the RRL had gone into operation, and the machine had returned to its home hour.
“My God, it worked,” H.G. said softly. He smiled with pride at the shiny brass plate that he had riveted over the door just yesterday. Etched lettering spelled out THE UTOPIA, the name he had bestowed on his device. He had planned to christen it with a bottle of champagne before the maiden voyage.
Suddenly he frowned and became indignant. “He comes into my home masquerading as an old friend and a legitimate physician, drinks my claret, devours the hors d'oeuvres, picks my brain and uses my time machine! The bloody bastard! How dare he!”
But how had Stephenson been able to successfully pilot the machine? Was it that simple-minded? H.G. glanced over at his workbench and saw that his technical diagrams were out of place and had been hurriedly studied. That was how.
He removed his key ring from a pocket, unlocked the cabin door, stepped inside, sat down and studied the control panel. The Rotator Control was set in the extreme eastward position, and the dials told him that Stephenson had gone to 1979. Why then? Wells frowned and thought. Early in the evening he had predicted that the world would be a Utopia by the late twentieth century, but he hadn't mentioned a precise date. He smiled grimly. Apparently, Stephenson hadn't needed one.
Obviously, the man had used the time machine to escape the police. When inside the device and at the controls, he had no doubt become befuddled, realizing that he couldn't dally over dates with two Scotland Yard detectives upstairs. So he had dialed today, then added on the first year that came to mind, which was 1979. H.G. frowned. He could not fathom the logic of Stephenson's decision, but whatever his reasoning, H.G. guessed that Stephenson hadn't gone that far into the future because he didn't want to encounter too radical a change in terms of human behavior, dress, speech and so on.
“Not so,” he muttered. If he were right about the late twentieth century, Stephenson would be totally lost and out of place in 1979. The man would have serious problems trying to adjust to a Utopia in that there would be no violence or aberrant behavior with which he could identify. Suddenly, H.G. straightened up. Good Lord, what was he worrying about Stephenson for? What about the happy and contented people of 1979? If technology had in fact freed them from
the drudge of mindless toil, the oppression of conservative political systems and the scourge of poverty, then they would be an artistic and unabashed people. They would patronize and participate in music, dance, poetry, painting and other forms of culture. They would be open and honest. They would accept Stephenson as one of their own and they wouldn't know! And what if he went on another ghastly rampage as he had done in '88 and '92? If they weren't used to crime, the people of 1979 would be helpless when faced with London's most notorious butcher. There would be panic. A great deal of panic.
H.G. stared at the control panel. He had to do something. Quickly.
Suddenly angry again, he climbed out of the machine and slammed the heavy door shut. A bloody murderer using my unprecedented device to escape justice, he thought. My time machine that was built for and should exist for the betterment of mankind; that was named for a perfect human society. Then a horrible thought struck him. Had he created a technological monster? If he hadn't built the device in the first place, Stephenson would not have traveled into the future. That meant that Stephenson was his responsibility, and he didn't want to be accountable for what that maniac would do in 1979. It wasn't merely principles of justice and morality; it wasn't just H.G.'s personal sense of worry and outrage. It was as if he were the owner of the trading ship that had brought the black plague to Europe in the Middle Ages.
He paced and fumed and quickly made up his mind. Dr. Leslie John Stephenson might not believe in retribution, but H.G. Wells was of a different opinion. There was only one thing to do: get Jack the Ripper and bring him back.
 
 
He strode resolutely to a safe built into the wall of the laboratory, spun the combination and opened the door. He removed the fifty
pounds that he kept there for emergencies, started to put the money into his billfold, then stopped and thought. What about Mrs. Nelson? It wasn't as if he were taking a trip to Africa and could mail her a few pounds from Johannesburg if she needed it. No, he had best leave her the fifty pounds. It would keep her solvent for at least six months, and if he weren't back by then … . He shuddered.
He moved back to his workbench, put the money into an envelope, then hastily scribbled a note.
My Dear Mrs. Nelson:
I must leave London for a while. If I have not returned in thirty days, please use what is left of this currency to help yourself secure another position.
My Best,
HGW
He folded the note and put it into the envelope, hoping that its implications weren't too ominous. Then he placed the packet outside the laboratory, closed and locked the door. He moved back to the safe, reached farther in and took out some heirloom jewelry that his mother had given him for his firstborn daughter, whenever that happened. He grimaced as he looked at the precious stones. Children? There were too many in the world already.
He pocketed the jewelry, moved to the time machine, took a deep breath—desperately hoping that it would not be one of his last—and climbed inside. He locked the door, got into the chair and strapped himself in. There was no need to reset the Time-Sphere Destination Indicator, for Stephenson had already determined it: year, 1979; month, November; day, five.
He synchronized his pocket watch with the clock on the control panel, quickly figuring that 1979 was forty-three minutes away. It was now 7:14 A.M. Stephenson had at least an hour and a half head start.
He engaged the series of switches that activated the engine. A low hum from below told him that energy fields were already interacting and building up to speed. He was only moments away. A small light on the control panel flashed. The machine was ready.
He hesitated. It still wasn't too late to change his mind. Stephenson had left out of desperation, but he, H. G. Wells, didn't have to go hurtling through time. He could remain in the present and go on tinkering, writing and dreaming. He could lead a decent, productive life without jumping off into the unknown. Hadn't his mother always warned him about being impulsive? He remembered one of the last times she had chastised him. He had refused to study for his third-year examinations at the university because he was in the middle of writing a short story. The piece was published in the Journal, but he lost his scholarship and was asked not to return to the Normal School of Science.
He moved to shut down the engine. He was halfway through deactivating the switches when he suddenly stopped himself. What the devil was he thinking of? Had he put in all those years of study and research and construction for nothing? The story had been “The Chronic Argonauts” and had started him thinking about fourth-dimensional geometry in the first place! Impulsive, yes; but foolhardy, never! Besides, was not his entire raison d'être to chart the unknown? To do what no man had ever done before?
He reactivated the switches.
When the machine was ready again, he released the brake on the Accelerator-Helm lever with a trembling hand, then gently pushed it. Nothing happened. He swore under his breath. He had been so timid he hadn't even moved it. He gritted his teeth and resolutely shoved the lever all the way forward until it locked in the flank position.
He was not prepared for The Utopia's response. It very quickly
picked up speed and soon was turning so fast that the blurred walls of the laboratory became translucent. At once he felt like he was falling helplessly, and at the next moment it seemed that a great invisible force was pushing him upward. He imagined that he was in the eye of a giant tornado's funnel, then became dizzy. His head rolled against the back of the chair; his stomach churned, and he felt that he was going to be sick. Had he done something wrong? Had he failed to anticipate something? Had he violated some unknown precept of the universe?
The machine continued to accelerate, and his sense of logic left him. The feeling of motion changed to that of a careening, headlong rush; the physical momentum became awesome. He began to scream. He knew he was going to crash, explode and die somewhere in the extra-temporal fog that whirled around him. Terrified, he fought to get out of the chair as if that would do him any good. But time traveling had already weakened him so much that he did not have the strength to unbuckle the straps that held him in the seat. It was a good thing, too, for if he had left the chair he would have been thrown into the vortex and disintegrated instantly.
He whimpered and trembled as the machine swayed and jarred along its odyssey-twirl. He felt lost and doomed. Suddenly he dropped his chin down onto his chest, closed his eyes tightly and, for the first time since he was a child of nine, automatically began praying. Tears of agnostic remorse ran down his cheeks. He asked for repentance. He asked for release. Then he abruptly opened his eyes and shook his head to clear it. Now was no time to revert to religion. He had to regain control of himself. But it was no use. His eyelids drooped. He imagined that a blackness was coming over his body and enveloping his mind. He grew sleepy. He felt as if he were floating. Melting. There was no substance anymore. Nothing. His last conscious thought was that he was painlessly dissolving somewhere along the fourth dimension.
 
 
He woke with a start. The grayness had lifted and the hum of The Utopia was less pronounced. He rubbed his eyes and saw that the swirl around him was now a myriad of bright colors. Then he dug into his vest, pulled out his pocket watch and held it out in front of him. He blinked, then gasped and stared. Not only was the watch a myriad of bright colors, but so were his hand and arm! He looked down. So were his legs and feet! He must be vaporized. He quickly felt his body. It seemed no different; it was just that it was difficult to see. The principle of time dilatation at work, he assumed.
He waved his arm in front of his eyes and saw what looked like a dancing swarm of fireflies. He giggled. True, he had obviously disintegrated, yet he felt fine. He was at one with the universe!
But where was he and what time was it? Or was it any time? He strained to read the watch. First he saw a faint black outline around his hand and arm. Then he brought the watch closer to his eyes and stared at it for a long time. The colors jumped around like indiscriminate licks of flame, but eventually he made out the faint outlines of the clock hands and numbers.

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