screwball happening onto the same combination would be more than astronomical.
“
“Not ‘all.’ Only a little, and I will be wise enough to forget that little the moment I have a chance.”
“How come some of those flashes start fires and some don’t?”
“They come from different weapons. Different kinds of lenses, arranged differently, produce different effects.” Brock was wondering whether the weapons had a shutter arrangement that could store temporal energy, something comparable to a Q-switched laser, so they could release controlled bursts. That might explain some of the strangenesses. He wished he had examined Arne’s weapon more closely. He also was glad that he hadn’t.
He desperately wanted to talk with Egarn again, but he had a sinking feeling of certitude the old man was dead. This hot potato was his to handle—his and Arne’s, and he couldn’t even ask Arne a question. He picked up the phone and found it dead. The invaders from the primitive future had finally grasped the importance of telephone wires. He sent Jeff through the house looking for flashlights just in case the electrical wires were cut next. Then he ordered all lights turned off inside the mansion. The outside lights were turned on, though they weren’t needed. Bright flashes continued to bathe the entire house in light.
Suddenly the Lantiff charged. Glass was broken. Every figure that attempted to climb through a window, or that approached a door, got a blast of chemicals in the face. As he crumpled, hands over his eyes, another took his place and received the same treatment. It went on, and on, until there was a pile of moaning men around each window and door.
The attack stopped as abruptly as it had started. The figures that were still uninjured drew back. The flashes of light stopped. Night closed in abruptly on the shallow areas illuminated by the outside lights. At the foot of the drive, reinforcements were arriving again. The circle around the house began to reform.
Brock went from window to window checking the fire extinguishers by gently shaking them. They were almost empty.
“This can’t continue,” he said to Jeff. “The extinguishers don’t have enough of a charge left to beat off another attack.
Jeff said nothing.
“All the wisdom I am capable of seems unequal to this,” Brock went on, “but since the decision is mine, I will say this—if we have to sacrifice ourselves to make a better world, so be it. Take a couple of your friends. Get the plans and lenses from DuRosche’s workroom. Smash the lenses with a hammer. Burn the plans. Destroy the ashes and glass fragments as thoroughly as you can. You must work quickly, or they may try to snatch them with a temporal vacuum cleaner. We will continue to resist as long as possible.”
“Will do,” Jeff said.
The professor went to the front door and opened it. Distant sirens could be heard. Fires seemed to be burning out of control on East Avenue. The ring of dark figures stood motionless. All of the Lantiff had been brain- damaged by the lens, Egarn had said. They were trained to fight and die; they would do whatever they were told.
Suddenly the ring parted. A different figure stepped forward. This one was a woman in a striking silver and black uniform. Her long, blonde hair tumbled carelessly onto her shoulders. She was the Queen of Darkness— poised, fearless, terrible.
She held a tube in her hand. She pointed it at a huge oak tree that stood near the house. With a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, the tree toppled. It fell across the circle of waiting Lantiff. They scattered, but several were crushed. The others paid no attention. They reformed the circle. Watching, Brock shuddered.
She aimed again. Thunder crashed as the lightning ripped through the house. He heard fire extinguishers working behind him. “Anyone hurt?” he called over his shoulder.
Someone answered cheerfully, “Not yet.”
The woman aimed at the house again, but this time nothing happened. She stood motionless, tube pointed menacingly. Her meaning was clear enough: Surrender, give us what we want, or all of you will die.
Arne stepped from the shadows and walked slowly toward her. His shabby department store clothing contrasted starkly with her flashing military apparel. He might have been a beggar about to ask alms of a queen except that his manner and poise were fully as regal as hers.
She turned her weapon on him as he approached; but he already held his weapon pointed directly at her. He halted a mere ten paces from her, and they stood facing each other.
The professor had seen one stirring encounter that night— when Arne confronted Gevis. He knew instinctively that another emotion-wracked drama was taking place and he probably would never understand it, either. The two continued to face each other. Brock held his breath and waited to see which would fire first.
Suddenly they vanished.
The ring of black-cloaked figures vanished.
At the same instant, a hellish racket sounded somewhere in the house. Brock turned and ran. In the kitchen, Mrs. Jefferson was bent over the sink. Jeff and Alida stood beside her; the Kernleys and Mrs. Calding were watching.
Jeff shouted over the noise. “We burned the plans and smashed the lenses. Now we’re feeding the ashes and the glass particles into the garbage disposal. You said to destroy them completely, and this was the most effective thing we could think of.”
Mrs. Jefferson laughed gleefully. “The man who sold us this thing said it would grind glass, and it sure does!”
Brock nodded. “It sure does.”
“Is it over?” Alida asked.
“It is completely over. It is finished. They have gone. Vanished.”
Mrs. Jefferson turned off the disposal. Alida shouted, “Hey gang—the war is over!”
Ten minutes later, with traffic beginning to move haltingly on East Avenue and firemen finally able to get to the fires, Sergeant Ulling arrived at what he knew would be the focal point of the destruction and leaped from his police car.
Off to one side, a tree had toppled. Something had blasted a hole in the wall of the house. Windows were broken. Otherwise, the scene was peaceful. Some college students had gathered on the lawn, and they were singing.
“Where is the professor?” the sergeant demanded.
“He went to find a telephone,” one of the students said.
Brock had gone next door to see if the telephone line there was still intact. He dialed the number of Egarn’s motel and spoke briefly to Colonel Lobert. It was an enormous relief to him to hear that everything was all right. Egarn was in bed and sound asleep, and Lobert thought he shouldn’t be disturbed. “When the old man wakes up, I’ll bring him to DuRosche Court,” the colonel said. “Mind you, I’ll be expecting that full explanation.”
“There are a few things I would like to have explained myself,” Brock said. “I’m sure Egarn will tell us everything he can that isn’t classified.”
He strolled back to the DuRosch mansion, reflecting along the way on what Egarn had already told him. Roszt and Kaynor, the emissaries from the future, had prowled around the DuRosche mansion at night. There was one cellar window from which they could have looked into DuRosche’s secret workroom when the wardrobe was swung out of the way. Probably they saw Hy at work there and noticed the plans and the finished lenses. Did they suspect Hy was the Johnson they were seeking and kill him deliberately?
“We will never know,” Brock mused. “Certainly they did their best to carry out their mission.”
As for Hy, if the course of history hadn’t been interrupted, no doubt he would have committed a series of forgeries, patented the lens, and ended up owning the mansion and much of DuRosche’s fortune as well. That was implied in Egarn’s discovery of a future H. H. Johnson who owned a manufacturing company and who lived at 1 DuRosche Court.
Some mysteries couldn’t be resolved so easily. There was that strange duel at the end between Arne and the Amazon warrior. The tension between them had almost crackled with electricity. It would have been worth delaying the destruction of the lenses and plans for another minute or two, Brock thought, just to see how that conflict would turn out.
More sirens cut through the neighborhood. As Brock headed back up the drive from DuRosche Court, an
