Fugitive of Time. John Russell Fearn
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Royd moved to a filing cabinet, shuffled a series of manilla folders for a while, and then returned with half-a-dozen matte-surfaced prints in full plate size. Gordon took them, studied them, and still wondered what he ought to think. They showed Royd in various postures, in various surroundings, but there was certainly nothing to suggest but what the photographs could have been taken in the ordinary way. They were remarkably clear too, very much like the ‘stills’ put out by a film studio.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you? That these photographs are so many red herrings?” Royd gave a dry smile. “I can assure you that they are perfectly genuine and have been photographed directly from my own brain. I appear each time because I cannot escape holding my body in my thoughts. Nobody can. We would vanish if we didn’t.”
“Uh-huh,” Gordon agreed, and handed the prints back.
“These photos,” Royd added, “illustrate scenes from my future life where, at one time or another, I shall find myself doing exactly as the scenes depict. I don’t expect you to believe me, but you can prove it by letting me take a scene from your future life. If it works, then anybody on this planet can see a scene from their future life if they wish.”
There was a long silence, and it persisted even after Royd had put the photographs back in their folders. Gordon paced about the laboratory, studying the apparatus, all the time watched by the scientist’s half-amused gray eyes.
“What is the pay for this experiment?” Gordon asked finally.
“How much did you anticipate? Name your figure.”
“That’s difficult: but for nerve strain, expenses, and being unable to rid myself of the fear of death, I’d say it’s worth five thousand pounds.”
“I’ll make it ten, payable now to show you I keep faith.”
Gordon opened his mouth and then closed it again. By the time he had finished another circuit of the laboratory, he found the check was being thrust into his hand.
“Thanks,” he said, nodding. “Now, do I strip or anything?”
“Gracious, no! Just sit in that chair. I don’t even have to darken the room.”
Gordon sat down slowly and found the chair no more uncomfortable than that of a hairdresser’s. There was, however, a certain anguish as he waited whilst Royd fussed about with his apparatus.
“Twenty-five, you say? Right: that means an expectation of life of say fifty years. We’ll have a look at fifty years hence and see what there is.”
Generators hummed, switches sizzled and snapped, then Gordon found himself in a brief golden glare which dazzled him. His scalp crawled as though mites were creeping in his hair.
“Fortunately,” Royd said, switching off again, “I have devised an instantaneous developing and printing system so there will be no waiting.”
Gordon glanced. “There’s no more to it than this?”
“No more. I told you it was perfectly safe.”
Gordon sat back happily. Ten thousand pounds in his pocket and a glorified sun-ray treatment. Money for jam!
“Mmmm,” said Royd presently. “You’ll evidently be dead at seventy-five.”
Gordon sat up again with a jerk. “Eh?”
The scientist came over with a damp print in his fingers. It was totally black.
“This means your brain doesn’t register at the age of seventy-five,” he explained, “which inevitably means it’s got no impressions. At seventy-five you will be dead.”
Gordon shrugged. “Oh, well, that’s fifty years off, so I’m not bothered. Try something else.”
“Yes.... Let me see— We’ll try sixty-five.”
Again the golden glow, the fast developing process, and a totally black print.
“Sorry,” Royd sighed. “You’ll be dead at sixty-five, too.”
“This,” Gordon said uneasily, “is getting a bit too much for me! Sure the thing’s working?”
“Definitely! We’ll try ten years earlier.”
They did. But fifty-five and forty-five were both blank. By this time Gordon was perspiring freely.
“Are you sure I’m alive at all?” he demanded.
“Eh?” Royd peered over his spectacles. “Oh, yes. You’re alive but you won’t be twenty years hence. Sorry, young man, but this machine is quite ruthless. Maybe we’ve done enough.”
“Enough! I haven’t done anything yet! I’ve sat here and been fried, and all I’ve seen has been these damned black prints. Try—try something else.”
“I could try tomorrow,” Royd said, hesitating.
“Okay. If that’s a blank as well, it must mean I’m going to commit suicide—or else the thing only works on your brain and not mine.”
“That is what I must find out. All right, here we go.”
The process was so familiar to Gordon by now that he did not even blink—but he did when he saw the photograph that was handed to him. It depicted him in a white smock busy at a bench in the very laboratory where he now sat.
“Yes, it’s me!” He gave a whistle of amazement. “This is uncanny! Anyway, what would I be doing here tomorrow? I’ll be back in London.”
Royd shook his head. “You’ll be here if this says so. You cannot change the law of constant-Time.”
“I—I see. I suppose you can’t, really.”
“Young man, would you allow me to probe further? I wish to be sure where your continuity ends. In other words, I would like to know when you are going to die. If you do not wish to know the date or time, I will withhold them from you. The picture will not tell you that. But for my own satisfaction, I wish to be sure that those earlier photographs were the outcome of genuine obliteration and not due to a technical fault.”
“All right, Doc, it’s your money. And don’t give me the answer.”
Royd switched on, this time using a different type of lens in the apparatus, presumably to find the exact ‘end of continuity’ he wanted without a lot of probing. At the end of five minutes, he switched off again and stood waiting for the print to be ejected. When it came he studied it and frowned.
Gordon got slowly out of the chair and came over to see the photograph for himself. He started when he did so. It showed the interior of a railway compartment, apparently first class, with two windows visible and flaring light outside. On one window in reverse was a label saying YBGUR, which Gordon quickly turned around in his mind to read RUGBY.
He himself—for he recognized his own features, even though they were plumper and very prosperous-looking—was half slumped from the seat of the compartment, his left arm dangling. On the wrist was a curiously fashioned gleaming watch pointing to 11:03. He was attired in a check overcoat, which had fallen away to reveal a dress suit and bow tie beneath.
“I’ll be damned!” he exclaimed blankly. “That my death scene?”
“Yes,” Royd agreed quietly.
“So I’ll pass out on a train going to Rugby, shall I?”
“At eleven-three, according to that watch. Post meridian, to judge from the darkness outside the window. From the bright light from the carriage, I’d say it might be a train smash with flames lighting the carriage.”
Gordon gave a little shiver. “At least I seem to have passed out before getting burned up or anything. One must be thankful for small mercies, I suppose.”
“I suppose so, yes.”
Long silence. Royd brooded over the