Hostage of Tomorrow

Was Earth on the wrong time-track? Ray Manning
stared as nation smashed nation and humans
ran in yelping, slavering packs under a sky
pulsing with evil energy-and knew the answer
lay a hundred years back. Could he return?

It was the end of March, and the wreck of the Dritten Reich lay in colossal ruin across Europe, where people were only beginning to crawl out of their burrows to face the job of rebuilding a world for better or worse. In Germany itself, the Allied Armies, driving forward behind the iron spearheads of their aircraft and their armor, were closing in to smash the still-defiant nucleus of the old world that had been for worse.

One column consisted of two jeeps and a canvas-backed truck, bounding and swerving at reckless speed over a rutted road that wound upward and deeper into the fir-shadowed Schwarzwald.

"Reconnaissance," grunted Ray Manning, between lurches of the transport truck. "They might have called it treasure hunting."

"Huh?" said Eddie Dugan, planted solidly and insensitively beside Manning on the jolting wooden seat. He took his eyes off the knees of the soldier opposite and searched his buddy's face. "What's the treasure?"

"Brains," explained Manning succinctly. "While the rest of the Seventh goes on handing body blows to the enemy, we're going after his gray matter. Brains are about the only article of value left in this bombed-out country. And Dr. Pankraz Kahl has one of the best."

"What's he keeping it in these woods for?" Dugan glanced out at the receding park-like scenery, green now with spring.

"Unless the jerk they picked up back in Freiburg sold Intelligence a fairy story, the Herr Doktor had some kind of a hideout here, where he was doing experiments-something that impressed the Nazis enough they were willing to finance him and leave him alone."

Dugan looked properly impressed. Of course, he had learned to expect such knowledge from Manning, who had been at M.I.T. and had managed to stay a combat soldier only by the grace of God and a lot of blarney.... Dugan was still looking impressed when the truck scuffed tires to a halt. Then he was first man out, and the rest of the troops followed in seconds-they needed no telling to get out of a stationary vehicle.

"Road ends," somebody remarked. It did, in a loop that took it back the way they had come. The lieutenant in charge of the detachment swung out of the lead jeep and called them together under the trees.

"We'll have to spread out," declared the lieutenant. "Groups of three. That hideout ought to be within a mile of here. If you find it and there's resistance, keep shooting at intervals and wait for the rest. Remember, we've got to make captures this time, not kills."

The sergeant rattled off names and the groups formed swiftly and took off. Manning and Dugan, naturally, were two corners of one trio; its third was a corporal named White.

With Dugan as point, they advanced up a brush-grown ravine, using caution and cover, skirting the path that curved up the hill. They topped a saddle, and saw the house-a sprawling mountain lodge, built of logs by somebody with a passion for privacy, its roof well camouflaged now with synthetic greenery-not a hundred yards away up a slight slope rankly overgrown with grass. It looked deserted. Dugan had taken a few steps into the open before something-perhaps a far-away tinkle of breaking glass-warned him, and he went down smoothly in to the grass and rolled sidewise toward a clump of young evergreens.

From the house came a splitting crack and a bullet hit the ground where he had been. Behind him, Manning jumped behind a comfortably thick tree-trunk, unslinging the automatic rifle he carried. But White was a moment too slow. The second bullet caught him as he turned, and he stumbled to his knees; two more shots rolled echoes down the ravine, and White collapsed on his face.

Manning sighted his automatic and gave the window from which the fire had come a short but intensive burst. The house was silent. He fired again at a venture; in answer, a bullet snapped past, coming from a different spot. There was more than one marksman up there, or one was moving fast.

From ahead came Dugan's voice, low-pitched but carrying. "Cover me, Ray. I'm gonna crawl around to the back."

"You damn fool, you don't know how many there are. Our guys'll be along in a few minutes."

"Hell with them," said Dugan. "Just cover me." He didn't mention White. But there was a compressed fury in his voice.

Manning sighed. "All right."

Dugan crawled like a weasel. Manning lost sight of him. He waited with humming nerves, firing spaced shots into the enemy's log fortress.

Then he noticed he had stopped drawing any return fire. That might mean things had started happening inside the house, if it wasn't a trick-He discarded most of his caution and darted into the open, zigzagging from scanty cover to cover-something must have happened inside-and flattened against the rustic wall beside one shattered window, just in time to hear a voice beyond it exclaim hoarsely, "Gut!"

That was all he wanted to know. If anything was going gut in there, it was time Ray Manning got into the picture. He cleared the window-ledge with automatic level.

There was a big, raftered room, and in the middle of the floor Eddie Dugan was struggling groggily to get up, while behind him stood a white-goateed civilian with a wrench, and in front of him a tough-looking younger man was lifting a rifle.

The two Germans saw the gun in Manning's hands and made a tableau as they were. It was broken as the burly one's grip relaxed and his Mauser clattered on the floor.

Manning motioned toward the goatee. "Dr. Kahl? Better drop that," he advised in German.

The little physicist looked down at his wrench and let it fall with an expression of disgust. Then he glared at Manning and called him a couple of names culled from biology rather than physics. "If your man hadn't caught Wolfgang reloading-As it is, you have interrupted my work at the most crucial point imaginable-a work that might yet save the Reich-" He woke up to the nature of his audience, and finished lamely, "And which is in any case the greatest scientific advance of all time."

Dugan got shakily back to his feet, scooped up his dropped Browning, and trained it on Wolfgang. "Is that Kahl?" he inquired sourly. "If I'd known this guy wasn't the one we had to capture, I'd have let him have it when I first got the drop on him."

Manning didn't answer. His eyes roved rapidly about the interior, alert against another surprise entrance; but anybody else on the premises was lying pretty low. One, in fact, was doing it just under the window Manning had first fired at. He was no longer a factor.

One end of the room was storage space for the overflow of Kahl's electrical equipment. Manning recognized some of the articles there and read the labels on a couple of crates, but they gave him no clue to the Herr Doktor's world-shaking research. The door behind Kahl was ajar on a room that, from what showed, might be his laboratory....

They'd taken the required prisoner, and all duty called for now was a short wait until Intelligence took him off their hands. But Manning's curiosity was needled. Kahl wasn't modest about whatever he'd done-but his wrath at the "interruption" was genuine, and there might really be something here. The soldier in Manning fought a brief battle with the student, and lost.

"What is this work of yours?" He made his voice authoritatively crisp, over the automatic's steady muzzle.

Kahl glanced momentarily toward the open door, then glowered at the American for a long ten seconds. "It is not for barbarian eyes."

"So there's something worth seeing-or a booby trap, maybe?" said Manning to himself. Aloud he snapped, "Suppose you show us what's in that room. Ahead of me-no, let Wolfgang go first. Keep him covered, Eddie!"

Dugan hadn't been able to follow the conversation-his German was limited to "Komm heraus mit die Hand in die Luft!" and a few other useful expressions from the American Tourists' Phrase Book, 1945 edition-but he didn't question Manning's wisdom. He did a silent and highly efficient job of shepherding Wolfgang through the doorway, and stood well aside as Manning followed, preceded by a cowed-looking physicist.

Manning was all eyes for Kahl's invention; his first impression was that the room was disappointingly small and bare. There was nothing that looked like a rocket motor, a guided missile, or even an improved submarine periscope. But then the American's eyes narrowed as they took in what was there.

There were no windows, and walls, floor and ceiling were metal or sheathed with metal. Around them ran what looked like medium-thick pipes, without openings or discernible use. The only furniture was a table, supporting a rather fantastic electrical setup-stuff in the thousands of megacycles, judging by the heavy dielectric tubes and coils that were just a copper twist or two; that was what Manning had glimpsed from outside.

Then a movement jerked Manning's gaze back to the prisoners-and he almost shot the Herr Doktor. For Kahl had contrived to halt near the apparatus-laden table, had taken one quick step and thrown a switch.

The damage-if damage there was-was already done; that thought stayed Manning's trigger finger. But nothing seemed to have happened; only when the contacts had touched the light had flickered briefly, and something had made a deep humming sound that rose in pitch like an electric motor starting under load-rose and snapped off in an instant.

But something stayed wrong. The...