Scrambled World

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The sun was dying. About its sullen shadow-streaked red globe thousands of miniature artificial worlds clustered like a swarm of night-chilled midges. So thickly did they hug the great globe of dulling flame that it seemed Sol had acquired an outer husk of interlocked asteroids and moonlets.

Of all the planets and their satellites only Earth remained--a shrunken and changed planet. And Earth too had shifted its orbit until it now swung but a few million miles from its molten primary.

In the huge ovoid of metal that was the Time Bubble the three men making up its crew had by now grown accustomed to the changes that three million years had brought to the solar system. They had expected great changes--and found them. This was to be their first stop in their time quest for an efficient shield against the deadly radiations of atomic disintegration's side effects.

Devin Orth, the lean, dark-haired young scientist sharing the control blister with his employer and friend, Norris Horn, studied the expanding green wilderness of what had once been northern Ohio. He turned to the big bald man in whose brain the plans for the time spanner had been born.

"The continents are there," he said unbelieving, "almost exactly as we left them. And yet Earth is smaller. Its diameter has dwindled more than a thousand miles!"

Horn's broad thick body quivered as he loosed a volcanic chuckle.

"I know," he said. "And the oceans, big though they are, are probably very shallow. A thousand feet at the most. Water will be growing precious."

"But," puzzled Orth, "why are there no cities and why have the continents changed so little? Surely three million years...."

"I'd say the inhabitants of those small globes near the sun," suggested Horn, "are descendants of Earthmen. They have used their superb command of science to make of Earth a beautiful park or preserve as it was in our own primitive age.

"Surely, if they have such knowledge, they can give us the secret of atomic control that will overcome the sterility threatening mankind. We cannot return now to the limited culture afforded by the lesser power-sources of coal or gas without great damage to civilization--perhaps its utter downfall."

"They have it all right," said Orth, scowling down at the open parklike meadow toward which Horn was blasting, "but I'm worried about getting back. So far this time travel is simply negation--outside the Time Bubble three million years pass and to us it seems less than two hours."

Horn thrummed the landing jets smoothly and laughed his deep booming bellow. The grassy glade came up to meet them.

"A minor detail," he said as he cut the jets and the ship jolted abruptly to an uneven grounding. The deck was slightly tilted and from below there sounded a muffled explosion.

"You all right, Neilson?" shouted Orth into the intercom.

The third member of their crew sounded breathless as he answered from the power compartment.

"Thought the mixer was going for a bit," he gasped. "A forward jet went kafoo. Boulder maybe blocking off that last blast."

Orth told Horn what Neilson had said. The big man unzipped his safety harness and came over to his side, his big capable hand on Orth's shoulder.

"Don't worry about getting home," he said, taking up the thread of conversation the explosion had disrupted. "In three million years all the secrets of time and matter will have been discovered. We'll return with the shield."

He released the young scientist's bruised shoulder and slapped a great paw of a hand on his back, pushing him down toward the airlock.

"Better replace that jet tip, Devin," he said. "Can't tell but we may have to take off in a hurry. This future civilization might be unfriendly and," he paused thoughtfully, "even non-humanoid."

Orth checked the gauges at the lock and found the outer atmosphere to be a heady oxygen-rich mixture. Horn had gone down to help Neilson in the power compartment and he was alone. He stuffed the jet tip into his bag of tools and pushed through the inner port into the airlock. There he snapped on the invisible, but oddly tingling, radiations that would destroy any alien spores of deadly growth that might find their way into the ship.

He swung open the thick oval outer door and dropped the short grounding ladder to the blast-blackened turf. Down the eight rigid metal rungs of the ladder he went to the ground. He stumbled awkwardly and almost fell. The unaccustomed gravity, after the past twelve days in space--twelve days that had actually been thirty thousand centuries--had tricked him.

A moment later his muscles had quickly remedied this unbalance and he found the fused jet that had blown back. As Neilson had guessed, the Time Bubble had grazed a boulder in landing and the expanding rocket gases' escape had been blocked off.

It was good to feel the spring of turf underfoot. Even the feeble warmth of the ancient sun was pleasant on his bared flesh. He had not realized how homesick he had grown for Earth until now.

He put down his tools and headed toward a clump of oddly-shaped trees near the forest's rim. As he neared them he whistled. The temperature of the Lakes region must have changed. They were palms!

It was only then that he turned to look back at the Time Bubble. He was thinking that Horn would be interested in his discovery of this tropical growth so far north.

His eyes blinked stupidly. He blinked again.

The Time Bubble's ugly ovoid of space-scarred metal was gone!