The Chronocide Mission

23 PROFESSOR MARCUS BROCK (2)

Jeff and Alida, Brock, and the Kernleys were being served coffee and hot pecan rolls in the dining room by Mrs. Jefferson. The rolls, fresh from the oven, were delicious. It seemed sad indeed that DuRosche, who was paying for all of this, was apparently unable to taste food.

Arne couldn’t taste food either—or wouldn’t. He refused with a shake of his head, and now he was walking in widening circles about the house and grounds.

“He looks,” said Alida, who was watching him through the window, “like a general planning a battle. You said he was a general, didn’t you?”

“Yes—in addition to those other things,” Brock said. Egarn had given him permission to tell his story to a few others whose discretion could be trusted and whose help was needed.

“He seems young for it,” Alida said, “but he also seems so overwhelmingly serious. Maybe that is the explanation. Do we really have to believe this?”

“Egarn insisted there was a Johnson connected with this house when everyone said there wasn’t, and he was right. DuRosche’s condition has baffled specialists from around the world, and Egarn immediately knew all about it. Everything that has happened has fit perfectly with what he has told me. Yes, I think we have to believe this. The weapon Arne has in his pocket would stand the Pentagon on its head—if the Pentagon knew about it. Which it must not do. Do you understand? None of us must ever breathe a word of this. Even though we don’t understand how these things are possible—I’m a specialist and a presumed expert, and I can’t begin to understand—a careless remark might give a clue to someone who would find a way to make use of it, and the whole terrible scenario of repeated destructions of Earth and humanity would follow.”

Jeff said slowly, “And the weapon that will cause the destruction was—or will be—invented right here in Rochester?”

“Was invented, I think, and here in this house. DuRosche had some connection with it—he received brain damage from that strange lens. We must find out what the connection was. This house has to have the most thorough search possible without tearing it down. We not only will have to look around and under and in everything, but we also will have to look for all those things mystery writers are so fond of—secret panels, and hinged openings in the floor, and false partitions, and whatever. That is where I thought you two could help. Those students who organized themselves to find Janie’s killers—would any of them be available for this?”

“If I tell them it is important, they will all be available,” Alida said. “Anyone who doesn’t have a class, that is. And some who do.”

“It is a big house, but we don’t want so many they would get in each other’s way. Perhaps fifteen or twenty?”

“I’ll telephone,” Alida said.

“I have another call to make. Let me go first.”

Brock telephoned his wife and sent her out to his laboratory to search the files. When she returned, she told him, “C. DuRosche is the name on the card. Dated twenty-five years ago. Shall I read your summary?”

“Please do.”

“’Lens with undulating surfaces. Thinks it is the philosopher’s stone of lenses with all kinds of unlikely potentialities.’ Then you wrote the word ‘crackpot’ with a question mark.”

“’Unlikely potentialities’ was an understatement, and I was the ‘crackpot.’ Anything happening there?”

“Not a thing,” his wife said cheerfully. “We are watching an old movie.”

“One that would interest me?”

“No. You don’t like Charles Boyer.”

“He gives me an inferiority complex. I want you to do something right away. Immediately. This instant. Then come back and tell me you have done it. Take that card to the fireplace and burn it. Pulverize the ashes. Make sure nothing is left. And forget what you just read.”

“If you say so.”

He waited. Finally she returned. “Done. Burned, ashes pulverized. I don’t remember anything about it. I wouldn’t have anyway. Do you want me to sprinkle the ashes on the geraniums?”

“It wouldn’t hurt a bit. Enjoy Charles Boyer.”

Five carloads of students arrived. Arne watched with a disapproving frown as they piled out, laughing and joking, and hurried into the house, but they went to work seriously enough. An hour later, Alida, who was helping Charlie and Shirley in the attic, turned and saw Detective Sergeant Fred Ulling standing on the stairs and eying them perplexedly.

“Hello, Sergeant,” she said. “Couldn’t you find anyone downstairs?”

“Someone told me Professor Brock was up here. What is going on?”

“The Kearneys gave us permission to search the house provided we leave things more or less the way we found them. We are doing our best.”

“You certainly have plenty of help. What do you expect to find that the police didn’t?”

“It’s complicated,” Alida said. “I’ll let Professor Brock explain it. Did you know Hy was the mysterious Johnson.”

“That’s what the professor said on the telephone. He didn’t explain why it mattered. He also didn’t say he was bringing in a wrecking crew to tear the house apart.”

“Come, now. We haven’t wrecked a thing—yet. I’ll see if I can find him for you.” She said to Shirley and Charlie, “If you two need a hand with anything, shout.”

She and the detective vanished down the stairway. Charlie applied weight and muscle and shoved a massive old bureau aside. An enormous pile of magazines had been stacked behind it.

He dusted his hands with satisfaction. “That just about does it up here. There is nowhere else to look unless you want the floorboards ripped up.”

“We are just getting started,” Shirley told him. “Now we’ve got to go through every one of those magazines, page by page— the secret plans, or the stolen treaty, or the missing will, or the formula for poison gas, or whatever it is could be hidden in one of them. After that, we’ve got to move everything back where it was.”

“You’re kidding! What does it matter which side of the attic this junk is on?”

“You are here to supply the muscle. Leave the philosophy to me. Alida said we have to put things back back where we found them.”

“You mean—all the stuff we just moved from this end to that end we have to move back to this end?”

“Right. But first we tackle these magazines.”

Charlie wearily slumped to the floor and picked up a magazine.

In a room below, Alida and the detective found Brock and Jeff Mardell. Brockwas watching while Jeff wielded a yardstick from the top of a ladder.

“Just what is it you expect to find?” the detective wanted to know.

“If we knew, it might be a lot easier,” Brock said. “I finally got around to taking a look at DuRosche’s background. Elderly eccentric millionaire. Tinkered with things. Called himself an inventor. Years and years ago, when Mrs. Kernley was his cook, he made a few telescopes. Ground the lenses himself.”

“You figure that’s important?”

“Very. In the years before his illness, he suddenly got secretive about what he was doing. People were calling him a crackpot and making fun of him, and he resented that. He also resented the fact that experts he consulted—including myself—were too thick-headed to recognize his ability. So no one knows what he was doing at the time his illness struck. He had an elaborate workshop in the basement, but after he became disabled, a nephew—who has since died—cleaned the place out and took everything. Curse him.”

“Then you think this funny business concerns something he was working on when he got sick? Someone got wind of it and is trying to steal it?”

“It seems so.”

“If the nephew cleaned everything out, why the search for hiding places?”

Jeff spoke from the top of the ladder. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. Why would he bother to hid things in a false ceiling, or under the floor, or behind fake partitions? If it was something he was using regularly, he would want it where he could get at it. If he wanted a really secure hiding place, he could have rented a safe-deposit box.”

“With eccentric millionaires, you never know,” Brock said. “I talked to his attorney. He guarantees there was nothing in his safe except deeds, stock certificates, bonds, financial records, things of that kind. He doesn’t think DuRosche had a safe-deposit box. No rental notice has ever arrived for one. Also, no important papers are missing. So we have to search.”

“And how did Hy—whatever his last name was—get connected with this thing?” the detective demanded.

“That part is easy,” Brock said. “He found what we are looking for.”

Ulling shook his head. “You academic types have your own special brand of logic. If Hy found it, then it is no longer hidden. So why are you looking for it?”

“Because it isn’t around anywhere. Therefore Hy hid it again—or left it hidden.”

“If that kind of mental loop-the-loop appeals to you, I suppose you might as well look. If you have nothing better to do, that is. Unfortunately, I do, but Colonel Lobert telephoned someone at headquarters, and that someone spoke to someone else, who spoke to my boss, and I’m assigned to keep an eye on you. As long as I’m here, I might as well look, too. The sooner we finish looking, the sooner all of us can do something else.”

From the first floor came an enormous clatter. Alida and the detective ran. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the plump Mrs. Jefferson was just ahead of them, moving with surprising speed. In the kitchen, one of the students sat dejectedly on the floor surrounded by pans of every description.

Mrs. Jefferson shook her finger at him and said angrily, “There are no hiding places in my kitchen!”

By evening, the students were convinced there were no hiding places anywhere. They had examined the floor boards throughout the house except where carpets had been in place for years. They had eliminated any possibility of false ceilings, false partitions, secret rooms, hidden staircases, or even wall cavities. One carload at a time they were giving up and leaving.

Alida, descending the cellar stairs, found Jeff standing on a chair and scrutinizing with intense interest a bulge in a furnace pipe. “Have we sunken to that?” she asked.

“I’m afraid it’s the only thing left,” Jeff said, “except for a suspicion I’ve been nourishing about that old oil tank at the other end of the cellar. It easily could contain blueprints, or drawings, or notes of experiments, or even some of those strange lenses. Unfortunately, it is at least a third full of oil. I’m wondering if I should try to drain it.”

“Better not,” Brock said from the other side of the furnace. “I already asked about it. The oil furnace was installed after DuRosche had his stroke. When they changed to natural gas, they kept the tank just in case they decided to switch back.”

“Scratch one oil tank. How are things going upstairs?”

“The same as down here,” Alida said. “Our detective decided we weren’t worth keeping an eye on. His superiors agreed, so he left. Most of the students had to leave for classes. The ones still here are persisting but with noticeably less enthusiasm. They want to know if they should start over again. I’m afraid it’s a washout.”

“Too bad,” Jeff said. “It seemed like such a good idea—especially with Hy being the mysterious Johnson.”

“The only thing the search established beyond a doubt is that Mrs. Kernley is an excellent housekeeper,” Alida said. “By the way, she insists that anything connected with Hy will be hidden down here. He sometimes ranged through the rest of the house doing chores, but this is where he spent his leisure— which seems to have taken up quite a lot of his time. No one knows what he did with it except that sometimes he tinkered. Mrs. Kernley thinks he slept a lot.”

“She’s wrong,” Jeff said. “About there being anything hidden down here, I mean. We have searched everything but the cellar walls. I thought of tapping on them, but those stones wouldn’t sound hollow even if they were. Was Hy a tinkerer?”

“He fixed things, if that’s what you mean. When he first came here, years ago, he would roam the alleys and pick up junk and repair it.”

“And sell it?”

“He wasn’t much concerned with money. He would give it away if someone wanted it.

“Then where is it? That sort of person usually converts his environment into a junk yard.”

“Mrs. Kernley wouldn’t have tolerated that.”

Jeff picked up a hammer and tapped on the nearest wall. “See? Even if it were hollow, it wouldn’t sound any different. I suppose I could look for loose stones.”

He went on tapping and prying at the stones. Alida and Brock stood watching him. He worked as far as the old wardrobe, and then he resumed on the other side.

“You aren’t being consistent,” Alida said. “That wardrobe is the only thing down here that could be hiding something. It’s right up against the wall.”

Jeff grabbed the wardrobe, tried to shove it, tried to lift a corner. “It seems to be cemented down,” he said.

“Let’s try moving it the other way,” Brock said. “I’ll push and you pull.”

He put his shoulder to the other side of the wardrobe. Jeff pulled. It swung aside with ridiculous ease, dumping Jeff to the floor. It was hinged, and it served as a door to an opening in the basement wall. Beyond it, in the shadows, was a small room. At the back stood a workbench and equipment.

There were papers on the bench; at one side there was a bracket with an odd-looking circular object. There were similar objects scattered on the bench.

“Finally, the Honsun Len!” Brock breathed.

The wardrobe had a spring that closed it automatically. Jeff set a chair against it to hold it open. Brock stepped into the hidden room.

“It’s the old well for an outside stairway,” he announced. “DuRosche must have poured a cement roof and sodded over it so he could have a secret workshop. These are technical drawings.”

He pulled the chain on a dangling light bulb and bent over the drawings. “This is it,” he said. There was a queer flutter of excitement in his voice. “We have got it. The important thing now is not to let anyone touch anything until we are very sure what we are going to do with it.”

He continued to scrutinize the drawings. “DuRosche’s name has been trimmed from one of these but not from the others. And here is a sheet of paper where someone has practiced lettering the name ‘H. H. Johnson’ in the same style as the lettering on the drawings. Meaning ‘Hyacinth Hyatt Johnson,’ I suppose. I do believe Hy was about to steal DuRosche’s invention. And look—here are Hy’s personal papers, including a diploma from the Mellia Technical Institute certifying that one H. H. Johnson accomplished this and that. I’ve never heard of it. Has anyone seen Arne?”

“He is still wandering around outside,” Jeff said. “I think he is worrying about what might happen here after dark.”

Professor Brock nodded. “The house is highly vulnerable, you know. As for this workshop, we simply must not let anyone else near it. Looking into this odd lens can be dangerous. That’s what DuRosche did. The lens releases bursts of energy, probably at random moments, and he had the bad luck to catch the full blast of one. Probably he was at work down here. He staggered backward and collapsed on the basement floor. The wardrobe swung shut, and no one except him knew the secret workroom existed. And the doctors, who had never seen such an affliction, thought he’d had a stroke. Maybe he did, in a way. He might have suffered broken blood vessels.

“And then, long afterward, Hy discovered the workroom. He was an educated man ruined by drink. He was getting ready to claim he had invented the lens himself and patent it. Johnson lens—Honsun Len. Of course.”

“Why don’t we just release the wardrobe and put a guard on it?” Jeff suggested.

“There is no way we can guard it,” Brock said. He was thinking about the lens that had been snatched from his own laboratory. Perhaps they were watching—and getting ready to suck up the drawings and lenses at any moment.

He dashed into the next room and came back with a small bookcase. He moved the lenses to the center of the bench and placed the bookcase on top of them and the drawings, open-side down.

“I need something heavy,” he said.

“I saw a few bags of ready-mix cement beside the rear entrance.”

“The very thing.”

They brought them, one at a time, and stacked them atop the bookcase. From Egarn’s description, Brock didn’t think the small machine had sufficient power to deal with the weight. Even the large machine, the one that accidentally snatched Egarn out of the past and then sent him back again, would have difficulty handling that much mass, and Egarn had said it wasn’t all that accurate anyway. The setup was as safe as he could make it.

“We’ll leave the wardrobe open,” he said. “You stand guard, Jeff. Shout if anything peculiar starts to happen. Now I must make a phone call. Then maybe I will know what to do next.”

“I’ll call off the search,” Alida said. “Are you going to tell the detective?”

“No,” Brock said. “We know how DuRosche fits into this, and we know what Hy’s connection is, but we still have no explanation for the murders that would be acceptable to a police officer.”

He and Alida climbed the stairs—she to look for the students, and he to make his telephone call—but the phone in Egarn’s retreat rang unanswered. Brock tried again. And again. When he gave up, he was frowning worriedly.

As he turned away, the telephone rang. Brock snatched at it. It was Fred Ulling, the detective. “Any new developments there?”

“Yes,” Brock said. “We found DuRosche’s secret workroom. He was an amateur inventor. He had an invention he was almost ready to patent when he had his stroke. Hy found it and planned to steal it and patent it in his own name. That is as much as I’m able to explain.”

“It’s no explanation at all. What does all that have to do with the murders?”

“Murders are your department. Secret workrooms and inventions are mine.”

“Whatever it is you’re sitting on, it is hot and about to go boom. Six people from that neighborhood have telephoned complaints about loiterers and prowlers. What are they after? DuRosche’s invention?”

“That’s as good an answer as any.”

“Then I’d better get some men in there quickly.”

Brock said slowly, “If you come charging in here with an army of police, you may set off a war.”

“A war? Who are those people?”

“You might call them foreign agents trying to grab DuRosche’s invention.”

The detective was silent for a moment. Brock had finally said something that made sense to him. “I’ll move some officers in there quietly,” he said. “The focus of activity seems to be Cobbs Hill Park, which is a few blocks south of you. They must have been hiding out in the park. Now they are crossing Interstate 490 on Culver and then spreading out through the residence streets south of East Avenue. It’s odd they aren’t using cars.”

“They aren’t hiding out in the park,” Brock said. “They are landing there.”

“ Landing?Are you sober?”

“Too much so, I’m afraid. When they have this neighborhood completely under control, they will start landing here.”

“To do what?” the detective demanded.

“That I don’t know. But this house may be under siege very shortly—if it isn’t already. I am going to look around now and see what can be done.”

“Help is on the way,” the detective said. “Just hang on and don’t do anything rash.”

Alida had been listening. “Now that’s cheerful advice,” Brock told her, hanging up. “Don’t do anything rash. How many students are still here?”

“Seven,” Alida said. “They’re having coffee and rolls in the dining room. They will be glad to stay as long as the rolls last. If seven aren’t enough, we easily can get more.”

“No. Seven are too many. This isn’t a parlor game. This suddenly has become very, very dangerous business.”

“It has been very, very dangerous all along,” Alida said soberly. “Four people have died.”

“Which is an excellent reason for not involving more people than we have to.”

Brock went down the hallway to the front door and stepped outside. He was surprised to find it so dark—he hadn’t been aware of how late it was. No outside lights were on. The few lighted windows on the ground floor gave out only shallow rectangles of illumination. The street light on DuRosche Court was very distant and faint. The night seemed peaceful, but a shadow suddenly scudded across the drive and vanished into the shrubbery. Brock hurried down the steps to the cover of a bush and squinted into the gathering night.

He called softly, “Arne?”

Arne slipped from the nearby shadows, making no sound at all.

Brock wanted to know if the house was surrounded. He pointed down the drive. Then he pointed to one side and the other and made a circular motion. On the third third try, Arne suddenly understood.

His limited English vocabulary included yes and no. He pointed down the drive—yes. To the side that adjoined the street, no. To the other side, no. To the rear, no.

So they weren’t surrounded—yet.

Brock was worried about the students and about the servants, too. The maids and the nurse were getting ready to leave. They had stayed later than usual—the uproar caused by the search had upset their routine. Now he was wondering how the invaders would react. They might suspect the students or servants of trying to smuggle out the plans.

Should the plans be destroyed? That seemed to be Egarn’s intention, but Brock hesitated to take such a drastic step without consulting him. Had the invaders found him despite Colonel Lobert’s precautions?

If the invaders tried to storm the house, Arne’s weapon could focus the ultimate power of the universe on them. It also could devastate the neighborhood and kill a lot of innocent people. The invaders, since they came from the same place Arne did, probably had the same weapon. If Arne used his, what would prevent them from blasting the house to splinters?

Alida called to him from the door. “Telephone,” she said. “It’s a Colonel Lobert.”

He took all of the front steps in one leap.

The colonel said, “We spotted some suspicious-looking characters nosing around the motel we were using. They were masquerading as Zoro, or the Three Musketeers, or something. We didn’t like their looks, so we smuggled Egarn out the back way and left the room’s lights on and the TV going. The characters haven’t missed us yet—they are still hanging around there. I just checked with the proprietor. So we may have got away cleanly, but I’m not taking any bets yet. I can’t figure out how they got onto us. They must be clairvoyant.”

“That’s as good a way to describe it as any,” Brock said.

“We are at a different motel, now—one a long, long way from the other. Better write down this number.” He dictated it, and the professor wrote. “Egarn isn’t feeling well—I’ve sent for a doctor. He doesn’t look well, either. He must be rather be rather old.”

“Several hundred years,” the professor said.

The colonel chuckled. “No doubt. I’m sure these events have aged him. He wants to talk with you.”

Egarn’s voice came faintly. “Have you found it?”

“We’ve got the whole works,” Brock said. “DuRosche was the inventor. He had a secret workroom. There are plans there for the lens and also some samples. You and Arne were right— DuRosche must have had his mind damaged while he was working on the lens. No one else knew about his workroom, but eventually Hy found it. I told you Hy’s name was Johnson. I think he was going to patent the lens under his own name, H. H. Johnson. For Hyacinth Hyatt Johnson. That would have made it the Johnson Lens.”

“Yes,” Egarn said weakly. “Yes. That explains everything. What did you do with the plans?”

“I put a bookcase on top of them and bags of cement on top of the bookcase to keep them from being snatched. I wanted to talk with you before I did anything else. While we were waiting to hear from you, an army of characters in what look like black capes has been forming outside. The police say it has the whole neighborhood surrounded.”

“The plans must be destroyed,” Egarn said excitedly. “The plans and the lens. Completely. Utterly. But if you do that, the Lantiff may destroy the house and everyone in it. They are ruthless. Their minds are damaged the way DuRosche’s was— less severely but enough to burn away all of their humane impulses.”

“If they have weapons like Arne’s, they can cut this house to pieces any time they feel like it and us with it,” Brock said.

“No. They won’t dare. If they did that, they might destroy the plans. As long as you have the plans and lens intact, you are safe. But once they get their hands on them—”

“I understand. They don’t really want them. They just want them preserved so future history won’t be altered. If someone else took them and patented them, it wouldn’t be a Honsun Len, it might be a Smith Len or a Miller Len, but that wouldn’t significantly alter the future. But wait—if we destroy the plans and the lenses, then no one can patent the lens, and future history will be fractured. They will no longer exist—or will they?”

“I don’t know,” Egarn said soberly. “You see—even if you destroy the future, they are already in the present. Changing the future may not have any effect at all on the ones already here. How many are there?”

“I haven’t any idea. They are mostly concealed in the shrubbery at the edge of the estate. From what the police told me, there could be several hundred about.”

“The Peer of Lant can send an army if she wants to,” Egarn gasped. “If you destroy the plans, the Lantiff will run wild. They could devastate the entire city—maybe even the entire state.”

“I understand. I saw Arne demonstrate the weapon. So what do you suggest?”

“I don’t know,” Egarn said. “It is a terrible decision to force on you. The len has killed millions and billions already—will kill them. I feel tired and sick, and I am having trouble thinking. I just can’t—”

The voice faded away. A moment later, Colonel Lobert spoke. “I’m afraid the old fellow’s dying. He looks extremely bad. His breathing is fast and shallow, and his heart is racing. He wanted to talk with Arne, but I don’t think he is able to. If the doctor doesn’t get here quickly—did you get what you wanted?”

“No,” Brock said, “but I’m afraid I got all I am going to get.”

“If he improves, I’ll call you again.”

Brock hung up and found Alida at his elbow. She said brightly, “Don’t worry. There are twenty or thirty students on the way. If those thugs try to rush the house, they will get a surprise.”

“You are much too late,” Brock protested. “We will soon be cut off if we aren’t already. The students won’t be able to get through to us.”

“Yes, they will—if they come quickly, they will. There is a back way through the adjoining property. Mr. Kernley has gone to meet them.”

“But this is terrible!” Brock exclaimed. “Here I am trying to find a way to get people out of here safely, and you are bringing in twenty or thirty more! I suppose it is too late to tell them to stay away.”

“Much too late,” Alida said. “They are already on their way. Don’t worry about getting us out of here. All of us are staying. So are the maids and the nurse.”

Mrs. Kernley, who was standing at the front door, called, “Professor—there is someone coming!”

Brock went to the door. A shadowy figure was strolling nonchalantly up the drive. Every few strides, the gusting breeze tugged at his black cape. He looked formidable. He looked like the Prince of Darkness calmly arriving to take over his property.

But when he stepped into the light that touched the area around the front door, he resolved into a thin, pasty-faced youth.

He said, “Marcus Brock, please.”

Brock was astonished. Then he remembered that Roszt and Kaynor had spoken English well enough to get by. This youth was an emissary from the future’s darker side.

“I am Marcus Brock,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I am Gevis.”

“You are trespassing, Gevis. This is private property, and you are here without permission. Do you have an errand?”

“You give plans,” Gevis said. “We go away. No one hurt.”

“If you don’t go away, we will burn the plans. Do you understand?”

“Bad for you,” Gevis said. “We burn house, people dead.”

“Bad for you,” Brock said. “The place you came from, and everyone who is there, will go ‘poof!’ and be gone forever. Can you understand that?”

Gevis seemed to be struggling for words.

Suddenly a voice rang out. “Gevis!”

Gevis winced and turned quickly. Even in the dim light, he suddenly looked frightened.

Arne strode up to him and spoke. Gevis raised his hands as though warding off blows, but the only violence done to him was with words, spoken softly but with unmistakable venom. Finally Gevis turned and staggered back down the drive like a man fleeing from a beating. He vanished into the shrubbery. Arne turned indifferently and faded back into the shadows. Brock had no doubt that a brief but bitter drama had been enacted, but he couldn’t begin to guess what it signified.

The end of the drive was faintly touched by the DuRosche Court streetlight, and as Brock stared in that direction, a black-cloaked figure appeared out of nowhere. It stepped aside, and another followed it. And another. And another. Negotiations had failed, and the Peer of Lant was sending her army.