Impelled by a needling sense of urgency, Peace jumped to his feet, and in that instant the humming noise ceased and the light in the room steadied to a normal glow from above. He turned and looked thoughtfully at the rickety toilet seat, then dismissed the notion that it might contain a pressure switch which activated the time machine when anybody sat down.
His world had gone haywire recently, but there had to be a limit somewhere. Anxious to get out of the device’s sphere of influence, he strode out on to the landing and looked around. The building was quiet, but it now had a lived-in atmosphere which, together with the improved conditions of its fabric, suggested to Peace that he had journeyed into the past. The question was—how far?
Bemused and still trembling from his exertions, he opened a door to his left, listened to make sure there were no sounds of occupancy, and went into a large room which seemed to be equipped for some kind of scientific research. Peace, who had half-expected to see rows of sewing machines, paid little attention to the scattering of instrument cabinets, cables and electrical chassis. He went to a business calendar on a wall nearby, looked at it and felt a sudden weakness in his knees. The date it quoted was 2292, which—if he accepted the figure—meant he had gone back 94 years into history.
Peace placed a hand on his brow and tried to make a new assessment of his situation. How was he going to regain knowledge of his past when that past was now in the future? What chance had he of, say, ever being reunited with his father and mother when they had yet to be born?
He glanced around wildly and spotted a newspaper lying on a workbench. It was covered with fragments of what appeared to be a pork pie, which he shook off on to the floor. The date at the top was: 3 June 2292—confirming the information he had gleaned from the calendar.
He was gazing at the numerals in utter despondency when he heard the door to the laboratory being thrown open.
“Put your hands in the air,” a man’s voice told him. “And don’t try anything funny because I’ve got a gun pointing straight at your fourth vertebra.”
Peace raised his hands resignedly. “Look, I’m not a thief.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” the man said. “It seems to me you’re acting like a thief thief.”
“Stealing a lousy newspaper!” Peace cried, irritated by the fresh injustice that fate was heaping on him, and by his unseen captor’s nervous tendency to repeat the last words of sentences. “Big deal!”
“I might have jotted down some valuable formulae on that paper paper.”
“Had you?”
“No, but you weren’t to know that. Turn around and let me see your face.”
Peace gave a loud sigh and turned round. The small, rotund, red-and-ginger man who was covering him with a pistol gave a visible start of sur-nrise.
“It’s you you,” he whispered.
“Of course.” Peace was no less surprised, but he retained enough presence of mind to seize the initiative. “Who am I?”
“Don’t you know?” the little man said, seizing the initiative back again.
“Of course I do—I just wanted to see if you knew.”
“How would I know? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“But when you saw my face just now you said, ‘It’s you’.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, actually you said, ‘It’s you you’.”
“Mock another person’s afflictions, would you?” A look of contempt appeared on the little man’s florid countenance. “I thought that sort of callousness died out in the nineteenth century.”
“I’m not mocking,” Peace said impatiently. “I’m just telling you what happened happened.”
“At it again, are you?” The little man brandished the pistol under Peace’s nose. “I’m not afraid to use this, you know know. Who are you, anyway?”
“You should know if you’ve met me before.”
“I’ve never met you—you just look a bit like somebody I once knew. Now, what’s your name?”
“Warren Peace.”
“That doesn’t sound like a real name to me,” the little man yelped angrily, growing even redder. “I’m warning you—cut out the funny stuff.”
“It’s my name—at least, I think it is.” Peace tried to keep a tremor of self-pity out of his voice.
“You see, I’ve lost my memory.”
“A likely story!”
“It’s true.”
“More likely you’re a spy, trying to steal my ideas. You know who I am, don’t you? Professor Armand Legge, the inventor.”
“How can I know who you are if I don’t even know who I am?”Peace said with some asperity.
“I tell you, I’ve no memory of my past life.”
Legge stared at him for a moment, and gradually the look of hostility on his face was replaced by one of intemperate delight. “I know what to do,” he said, beaming. “Why didn’t I think of it before? I’ll put you into my truth machine. This is an ideal chance to try it out.”
“Truth machine? Try it out?” Peace stared back at Legge with a slow-dawning fear that he had strayed into the clutches of a mad scientist. Legge looked like a jovial monk, with his tomato cheeks and fringe of saffron hair, but appearances could be deceptive, and for all Peace knew his captor was a maniacal experimenter who took out people’s brains and popped them into jars of formaldehyde as casually as a farmer’s wife pickling onions. His curious speech defect, which made him sound like a robot whose voice mechanism was slipping a cog, could very well be an indication that he was totally inhuman.
“You can’t put me into any machine,” Peace answered firmly. “There’s a law against that sort of thing.”
“But who’s going to find out?”
“The Oscars will…” Peace lapsed into silence, realizing the futility of threatening Legge with the attentions of creatures who would not come into existence for almost a century.
“Don’t worry—it will be quite painless. Just take off your clothes and sit down over there.”
Legge used his revolver to point into a corner of the room at a machine which Peace had not previously noticed, but which bore a disquieting resemblance to an electric chair.
Prodded by the gun muzzle, he stripped off the remnants of his clothes, sat down on the wooden seat and allowed his forearms and ankles to be encircled by heavy straps. Legge then produced a chromium helmet which was connected by wires to a small console, and placed it on Peace’s head. Whistling cheerfully, he opened a drawer in a workbench and took out a lacy pink brassiere, the lefthand cup of which had been filled with miniature electronic components. He fastened the brassiere around Peace’s chest and spent some time carefully positioning the equipment it contained. Peace’s apprehension increased as Legge set up around the chair a portable framework to which were attached six small gas cylinders whose nozzles were pointed straight at him, and which could be operated by a single lever.
“Let me go,” Peace pleaded, abandoning his pride. “I’ll never trouble you again if you let me go.”
“My dear boy, this is no trouble. In fact, I’m quite enjoying myself.”
“I’m not,” Peace said.
“Hardly the point, is it? Anybody who sneaks into a research laboratory deserves all that’s coming to him.”
“But I thought this was a raincoat factory. It says so outside.”
“Everybody knows I bought this place when Acme folded up a couple of years ago, so I’m not much impressed by that excuse.” A fanatical gleam had appeared in Legge’s eyes as he made some final adjustments to his equipment. “Enough of this shilly-shallying! It’s time to prove that the Legge truth machine is another invention worthy to take its place alongside the Legge mem…” The little man broke off and clapped a hand over his mouth as though he had almost committed a serious indiscretion.