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- Herausgeber: iOnlineShopping.com
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Classic Science Fiction Novel George Dolan had four immediate problems: the time-translator, a beautiful, out-of-this-world girl named Moirta, the gun runners and his life. A situation in which he finally triumphed.... But what can you do with a victory that lies at the other end of a bridge 10,000 years long?
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The Gun Runners
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The Gun Runners
BY RALPH WILLIAMS
George Dolan had four immediate problems: the time-translator, a beautiful, out-of-this-world girl named Moirta, the gun runners and his life. A situation in which he finally triumphed.... But what can you do with a victory that lies at the other end of a bridge 10,000 years long?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The gun runners were professionals, and except for one minor detail the operation had been very well planned.
The middle twentieth century was chosen as a source of supply after a careful survey of all factors pro and con. The gun runners did not want the mass weapons of their own day, they wanted selective weapons which could be used for private murder. In the mid-twentieth century, the level of technology was such that well-made and reliable weapons were available; and at the same time, social control was still sketchy enough to permit quiet procurement of such merchandise, if one knew how to go about it and was suitably financed.
The gun runners, two men and a woman, knew how to go about it, and they were suitably financed. The profits in their business were commensurate with the risks—which were not small.
In their world unauthorized time travel was highly illegal, because of certain possible undesirable effects on the total space-time continuum, and was severely punished. Moreover, it was personally uncomfortable and dangerous.
They came from an old ingrowing world which had never reached the stars, where there were only men and their works, no blade of grass or micro-organism or sparrow which did not directly serve men. In their time, hereditary traits which had meant untimely and certain death in earlier times had persisted and multiplied. Immunities and instincts which had fitted men to live with tigers and streptococci, and seek their food in the wilderness, had atrophied.
The twentieth century was a dangerous environment for these people, more so perhaps than the Eocene would have been for homo sapiens. In preparation for their venture, it had been necessary for them to undergo a drastic and painful series of tests, inoculations, conditionings and plastic surgery.
Unfortunately, it had not occurred to them that their time machine might need similar protection. The equipment was basically electronic, and the power leads were encased in a new insulation, a synthetic protein which in very thin films afforded a near perfect dielectric. It was also, as it happened, an almost perfect culture medium for certain bacilli, non-existent in the sterile future, but healthy and thriving and full of appetite in the twentieth century.
When the gun runners prepared to return to their own time with their cargo of contraband there were small flashes of fire, and smoke curled briefly from various parts of the equipment. Their temporal environment remained unchanged.
The gun runners were not technicians, they were specialists in other fields. They pulled and prodded uncertainly here and there, pushed the buttons again.
Nothing happened.
The senior gun runner, a man who wore in this century the appearance of a quiet, gray-haired professional man, and who wore in any century the habit of command, came to a decision. He spoke in their own language, a language time had pruned to telegraphic brevity:
"If tamper, make worse. Electronics technicians this era. Use."
The second man raised an eyebrow. "Knowledge adequate? Time travel not simple."
The older man shrugged. "Theory not simple, machine simple. Savages clever fingers. Adequate stimulus, can solve."
"And after? Disposition?"
"Displacement effect. Or—" the senior gun runner sketched a quick gesture of pulling a trigger.
The younger man nodded slowly, still dubious—which was proper, it was his function to be suspicious and questioning, as it was the other's to command. "Stimulus?"
"Profit. Curiosity. And ... Moirta."
Both men turned and looked appraisingly at the woman, who had not yet entered the discussion. She was a very narrow specialist, within the wider specialty of gun running and murder. Now she moved her shoulders uneasily. "Displacement effect," she suggested, "near limit. If caught—" she made an unpleasantly suggestive spastic gesture.
The chief gun runner shrugged again. "If caught," he repeated the gesture she had made, "in any case. No choice. Find technician now."
George Dolan studied his visitors thoughtfully.
"Well, actually," he said, "our work is design, not repair. I suppose I could send a man out to look over your job and recommend a firm to handle it. Is that what you want?"
"Mr. Dolan," the gray-haired man said earnestly, "I am afraid you still misunderstand me. The work we wish done is small in scale, but very intricate and delicate, and highly confidential. We have investigated your qualifications, and you are the man we want to handle it, you personally. We do not want you to mention this work to any other person—not even your wife."
"I don't have a wife," Dolan said. "That's no problem." He hesitated. "Do I need security clearance? That'll take time."
"No security clearance. This is private work."
Dolan frowned. Private work, money no object, very secret—there were implications to this offer which he did not like.
On the other hand—
His eye strayed to the young woman who sat quietly beside the man, silently exercising her specialty. The plastic surgeons of her era had done a beautiful and nearly perfect job on her body; but bone-deep, in ways an observant man could sense, she was still not a twentieth century woman. In a city full of women who made a profession of being young and handsome, she too was young and handsome, but different.
Dolan was an observant man, and a curious one.
He looked back at Brown. "If you could just give me some idea—" he said tentatively.
"The equipment, as I have said, is very intricate, and we are not technicians. We prefer that you make your own diagnosis."
Dolan pursed his lips uncertainly. He glanced again at the girl.
"OK," he said at last, "I'll look at it. I can't promise anything."
He punched a button on the desk intercom. "Betty, I'm going out to look at a job with Mr. Brown and Miss—uh—" he glanced at the girl.
"Jones," the gray-haired man said. "Miss Jones."
"Oh, yes, excuse me." Dolan smiled at the girl and drew a brief quirk of the lips in response. "—with Mr. Brown and Miss Jones," he continued. "Be back some time this afternoon."
"OK," he said to his clients. "Let's go see this intricate and delicate problem."
For reasons compatible with the profession of gun running and the nature of time travel, the time translator had been located outside of urban limits—the city was to be rather systematically bombed in the near future—on a secluded and stable granite dike, within the shell of a frame cottage. Dolan observed all this without comment.
They were met outside the cottage by a man about Dolan's age.
"This is my colleague, Mr. Smith," Brown introduced him.
Mr. Smith offered his hand. As he turned to lead them inside, Dolan noticed that the light summer jacket Smith wore did not drape well over the right hip pocket. He filed this fact also for future reference.
"And here," Brown said, "is the machine we wish repaired."
In the center of the room was an orderly jumble of shiny black geometric solids, laced together with wires and bars of silver, the whole mounted on a polished ebony platform. It was handsome, in a bizarre sort of way; but certainly it did not look like any electronic gear Dolan had ever seen, and he had seen almost all there was, at one time or another.
He studied it carefully, turning it this way and that in his mind, trying to find some familiar feature to grasp it by. There was none.
"Well," he asked skeptically, "what is it? What does it do?"
Brown shook his head. "The purpose of the machine must remain secret," he said firmly. "We think the trouble may be superficial, some minor thing an expert could quickly repair; and we wish you to work on it from that viewpoint, without inquiring into its purpose."
"I see," Dolan said noncommittally. The whole business was screwy. For two cents, he thought—
