3 Science Fiction Stories by Lester del Ray - Lester del Rey

Summary

Classic Science Fiction Books: "3 Science Fiction Stories by Lester del Rey"

Podcast Host: solgoodmedia.com
Episode Date: August 11, 2026
Narrator: Phil Chenevert, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

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Episode Overview

This episode of Classic Science Fiction Books features a captivating journey through three classic short stories by Lester del Rey, each showcasing the hallmark themes of mid-20th-century SF: time travel, identity, immortality, and existential dilemmas. The episode offers complete dramatic readings of:

1. And It Comes Out Here
2. Dead Ringer
3. The Dwindling Years

These stories transport listeners to alternate realities and futures, prompting big questions about human progress and the self. The tone oscillates between playful, philosophical, and somber, offering food for thought for both devoted SF fans and newcomers.

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Story 1: And It Comes Out Here

(Begins at 01:15)

Key Points and Insights

• Time Travel & Identity Paradox:
  The protagonist is visited by an older version of himself, setting off a time loop where each version ensures the creation of atomic power—and his own future success.
• Self-Meeting Loops:
  The older self explains that the confusion with verb tenses and memory is inherent to the situation:

  "Verbs get all mixed up. We don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this." (01:15)

• Atomic Power & Society: The protagonist learns he becomes an engineer who brings atomic power to the world, paving the way for a democratic and peaceful future.
• The Future Museum:
  The protagonist travels to an interstellar, egalitarian future around 2150. He visits a science museum, marveling at new technologies and a more harmonious society.
• Paradox Fulfilled:
  By stealing his own invention from the future and bringing it back, he ensures that his name will always be associated with atomic power, perpetuating the paradox.

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Fate and Time Loops:
  "You think you're crazy, of course. But you'll find out you aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused." (01:30)
• On Atomic Discovery:
  "Jerome Bowell—just a plain engineer. The man who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but you'll want to go along." (04:34)
• On Unchanging Human Nature:
  "Well, people don't change much. You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might be papers on tapes." (10:39)
• On Paradoxes:
  "You pick up the atomic generator in the future and bring it back to the past, so that it can be put in the museum with you as the inventor, so you can steal it to be the inventor." (29:27)

Timestamps

• 01:15 – Story begins
• 04:34 – Time machine sequence
• 10:39 – Navigation through the future city
• 16:49 – Museum encounter
• 29:27 – The time loop closes

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Story 2: Dead Ringer

(Begins at 39:37)

Key Points and Insights

• Paranoia and Conspiracy:
  Dane Phillips, a war veteran, uncovers evidence that immortal, shapeshifting aliens have infiltrated society, masquerading as humans and returning from the dead.
• Failed Attempts to Convince Society:
  Dane's years of research are dismissed by editors and loved ones alike, who question his sanity.
• Themes of Sanity vs. Reality:
  The story oscillates between external skepticism and Dane’s internal certainty, blurring the lines between delusion and hidden truth:

  "If the facts he'd dug up in ten years of hunting wouldn't convince them, nothing would." (41:08)

• Sinister Psychiatry:
  Dane’s wife Sylvia and psychiatrist Dr. Buell conspire to commit him for his beliefs, suggesting a deeper alien plot against those who know their secret.
• Circular Horror and Despair:
  Dane's efforts culminate in a failed suicide attempt—his wound heals instantly, implying he himself may have become what he’s spent years hunting.

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the Alien Threat:
  "All men are mortal. Harding is not mortal. Therefore Harding is not a man. Nor was Harding alone..." (47:40)
• On Being Dismissed:
  “Jordan nodded again, and there was a faint look of fear in his expression. ‘You can pick up your pay on the way out. And make it quick before I change my mind and call the boys in white.’” (41:08)
• On Despair and Realization:
  "He watched horror creep up to replace the sickness while the bleeding stopped and the gash began closing. By the time he recognized his expression as the same one he'd seen on his father's face... the wound was completely healed." (47:40)

Timestamps

• 39:37 – Story begins, Dane’s tense wait
• 41:08 – Editorial rejection, identity reveal
• 47:40 – War memories, alien encounters
• ~50:00 – Suicide attempt and revelation

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Story 3: The Dwindling Years

(Begins at 48:32, after transitions and ads)

Key Points and Insights

• Immortality and Stagnation:
  In a future where rejuvenation grants near-eternal life, Arthur Giles discovers his latest treatment has failed—he is beginning to age and will die, like the generations before.
• Societal Shifts:
  The culture is marked by disconnection from family, endless routine, and an obsession with progress—yet a sense of existential malaise pervades:

  "Sentiment wore thin in half a century, which wasn't much time now, though it had once seemed long enough." (50:14)

• Medical Limits:
  The fear of aging and death once more becomes real, challenging the complacency of a society that has lost urgency and heroism.
• Generational Reflection:
  Giles is reminded of the value and fragility of life, as well as the importance of family legacy, despite a society that has largely cast it aside for progress.
• Acceptance and Agency:
  Facing mortality, Giles volunteers for a risky new mission, regaining a sense of purpose and presence by embracing the finiteness of existence:

  "Thirty years was a long time when he stopped to think of it." (End section)

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the Cost of Immortality:
  "It had put an end to most family ties. Sentiment wore thin in half a century, which wasn't much time now, though it had once seemed long enough." (50:14)
• On Facing Death:
  "An immortal man had suddenly found death hovering on his trail. The years had dwindled and gone, and only a few were left." (Story’s conclusion)
• On Agency and New Purpose:
  "Bill, he said, start getting the big ship into production. I've found a volunteer." (Final scene)

Timestamps

• 48:32 – Story opens, Giles’s failing rejuvenation
• 56:00 – Conversation with Dr. Cobb
• 01:02:00 – Giles’s acceptance, final mission

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Themes Across the Stories

• Paradoxes of Time and Identity:
  Looped causality and questions about the nature of self recur, from time-traveling inventions to immortals who lose touch with what makes them human.
• Dystopian and Utopian Futures:
  Each story projects different visions of society’s evolution—either towards cooperation and democracy or towards alienation and stagnation.
• Mortality, Meaning, and Agency:
  Whether cheating death or facing it anew, the protagonists confront the value of life, the hunger for legacy, and the dangers of complacency.

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Engaging or Striking Moments

• “It's a real wrench when a man meets himself for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two of the same people. You sense things. So I'll simply go ahead talking for half an hour or so until you get over it.” (02:10)
• Dane’s final, chilling realization that he, too, is now an "other," punctuating the story’s bleak conclusion.
• Giles’s epiphany as he chooses action in the face of death—a stirring end to the episode that transforms resignation into resolve.

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Conclusion

This episode highlights Lester del Rey’s enduring relevance: his stories balance speculative ideas with emotional depth. Each tale asks: What makes us human in an age of technological wonders? What do immortality, progress, and power cost us? And ultimately, what do we value, once the years dwindle down to a precious few?

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For Further Listening

Missed any of the mentioned segments?

• And It Comes Out Here: 01:15–39:37
• Dead Ringer: 39:37–47:40
• The Dwindling Years: 48:32–end

(Skip commercials and periods between 00:00-01:15, 16:19-17:49, 27:57-29:27, etc., for uninterrupted narrative flow.)

Transcript

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Story Number one of three Science Fiction stories by Lester Del Rey this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain from. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org, recording by Phil Shinnevair Baton Rouge, Louisiana three science fiction stories by Lester Del Rey story one and it comes out here no, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in. You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least you always have. Or do. Or will. I don't know. Verbs get all mixed up. We don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this. Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will. Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course. But you'll find out you aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the machine out there too long until you get used to it. You'll find it's hard on the eyestry to follow where the veins go. You'll get used to it, of course. But it will take about 30 years. You're wondering whether to give me a drink as I remember it. Why not? And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes. We're the same person. I'm you 30 years from now. Or you're me. I remember just how you feel. I felt the same way when he. That is, of course, I. Or we came back to tell you about it 30 years ago. Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date if you still doubt my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter. Right now you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two of the same people. You sense things. So I'll simply go ahead talking for half an hour or so until you get over it. After that, you'll come along with me.

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You.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

You know, I could try to change things around by telling what happens to me. But he. I told me what I was going to do, so I might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the same things in the same words, even if I tried. And I don't intend to try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this. So let's begin. When you get up in half an hour and come out with me, you'll take a closer look at the machine then. Yes, it'll be pretty obvious. It must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen it. Just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment and a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you. And you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes atomic power practical. Jerome Bowell, just a plain engineer. The man who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but you'll want to go along. I'll be tired of talking by then and in a hurry to get going. So I cut off your questions and you get inside. I snap on a green button and everything seems to cut off. Around us you can see a sort of foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit. It is probably the field that prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section isn't protected, though. You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there. In fact, there is no there. You are completely outside of time and space. As best you can guess how things are, you can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just turns over and pokes back at you. Does it hurt? And when you pull your arm back, you're still sound and uninjured, but it looks frightening and you don't try it again. Then it comes to you slowly, that you're actually traveling in time. You turn to me, getting used to the idea. So this is the fourth dimension? You ask. Then you feel silly because you'll remember that I said you'd ask that. Well, I asked it after I was told, and then I came back and told you. And I still can't help answering when you speak. Not exactly. I try to explain. Maybe it's no dimension. Or it might be the fifth. If you're going to skip over the so called fourth without traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent the machine and I don't understand it. But I let it go, and so do you if you don't. It's a good way of going crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have been a time when you did invent the machinethe atomic motor first, then the time machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier for us to imagine it when you spend 30 years thinking about it. Thinking about it as I did. And you will. You get further and further from an answer anyhow. You sit there watching, nothing all around you and no time. Apparently, though, there is a time effect. Back in the luggage space, you look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small increment of time from the main field. I don't know. And you won't think about that then either. I'm smoking and so are you and the air in the machine is getting a bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss. Where are we getting our air, you ask? Or why don't we lose it? No place for it to go, I explain. There isn't out. There is neither time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel gravity, but I can't explain that either. Maybe the machine has a gravity feel built in. Or maybe the time that makes your watch run is responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the idea that time is an effect of gravity and I sort of agree. Still. Then the machine stops at least the field around us cuts off. You feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air and you breathe easier, though we're in complete darkness except for the weak light in the machine which always burns and a few feet of rough dirty cement floor around. You take another cigarette from me and you get out of the machine just as I do. I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort of simple, short limbed, one piece affair I put on, but it feels comfortable. I'm staying here, I tell you. This is like the things they wear in this century, as near as I can remember it. And I should be able to pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune, the one you make on that atomic generator invested in such a way I can get it on using some identification I've got with me. So I'll do all right. I know they still use some kind of money. You'll see evidence of that. And it's a pretty easy going civilization from what I could see. We'll go up and I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here. So I won't be coming back with you. You nod, remembering I've told you about it. What sentry is this anyway? I've told you that too, but you've forgotten. As near as I can guess it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an interstellar civilization. You take another cigarette from me and follow me. I've got a small flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish out into a corridor. This is a sub sub sub basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open. What about the time machine, you ask, since nobody ever stole it. It's safe. We get in the elevator and I say first to gives out a coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's no feeling of acceleration, some kind of false gravity they use in the future. Then the door opens and the elevator says first back to us. It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor with nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. You go that way. Don't worry about getting lost. You never did, so you can't find the museum. Grab the motor and get out and good luck to you. You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream. You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later you see me going by mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward a restaurant or something like that that is just opening. I'm asking questions of a man who points and I turn and move off. You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall away from the restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at them, realizing for the first time that things have changed. Steringeri Fountain. Zergat Dispensarie. The signs are very quiet and dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains and the like. What a Zurgot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign that announces Travel Biro first class Travel Mars Vens and X Trojan planets. Special rights to all seasons within 60 light yearns. But there is only a single picture of a dull looking metal sphere with passengers moving up a ramp and the offices closed. You begin to get the hang of the spelling they use, though now there are people around you but nobody pays much attention to you. Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard skin suit. You'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well, people don't change much. You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might be papers on tapes. Where can I find the Museum of Science? Down the Riyan turn the left of the Seine Sturdle, Boss, he tells you, and around you you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated. I don't know. You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface of the Musumula Science. There is an arrow pointing and you turn left. Ahead of you, two blocks on you can see a pink building with faint aqua trimming bigger than most of the others. They are building lower than they used to, apparently. 20 stores up seems about the maximum. You head for it and find the sidewalk is marked with the information that it is the museum. You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You hesitate for a moment, then you're beginning to think the whole affair is complete nonsense and you should get back to the time machine and go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other guard. What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort of drawl with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather pleasant. Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in atoms and axioms. The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice. Thanks, you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce guards as polite as that. I I'm told I should investigate your display of atomic generators. He beams at that. Of course the gate is swung to behind you, but obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a lock. Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got the original of the first 13 models. Professor Jonas was using them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could not explain the principle either.

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[Grainger Commercial Narrator (Alternate)]

When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Grainger Commercial Narrator]

Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-Grainger click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Someone will someday, though. Lord, the genius of that 20th century inventor. It's quite a hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period. Oh, congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our oldest tapes. You get away from him. Finally, after some polite thanks, the building seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your right filled with something that proclaims itself the first Truly Plastic Diamond Farmer, and you go up to it as you come near, and it goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row of what seems to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny toward you. Souvenir, it announces in a well modulated voice. This is the typical gem of the 20th century, properly cut to 58 facets, known technically as a Jagger diamond and approximately 20 carats in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during morning hours for 1/10 credit. If you have more than one child, press the red button for the number of stones you desire. You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in in which models of spaceships, from the original thing that looks like a V2 and is labeled first lunar rocket to a 10 foot globe complete with miniature mannequins or sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then there is one labeled Weapons, filled with everything from a crossbow to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil, marked Final Hand Arm. Beyond is the end of the corridor and a big place that bears a sign models of atomic power sources. By that time you're almost convinced, and you've been doing a lot of thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it. You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order, and the Latest one marked 2147 rinks Dynapat is about the size of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier, but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically final form. You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor without giving his name. Either they don't know it or they take it for granted that everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation, and full patent application. They state that it has all major refinements operating on any fuel producing electricity at any desired voltage up to 5 million, any chosen cyclic rate from direct current to 1000 megacycles, and any amperage up to 1000, its maximum power output being 50 kilowatts, limited by the current carrying capacity of the outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being investigated and that only such refinements as better alloys and the addition of magnetic and nucleatric current outlets have been added since the original. So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box with a huge plug on each side and a set of vernier controls on top, plus a little hole marked in old style spelling DROP BBS or wire. Here. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on each side. Nice, the guard says over your shoulder. It finally wore out one of the cathode grids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly as the great inventor made it, and it still operates as well as ever. Like to have me tell you about it? Not particularly. You begin, and then realize bad manners might be conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls something out of his pocket and stares at it. Fine, fine. The mayor of Alta Cincarba, Centaurian, you know, is arriving, but I'll be back in about 10 minutes. He wants to examine some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared to 19th century man. You'll pardon me. You pardon him eagerly, and he wanders off happily. You go to the head of the line to that Rinks D. Dinapata, or whatever it transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it, but the darn thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge it either. You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you can get one with built in magnetic current terminals, ehrenhaft or some other principle, and nuclear binding force energy terminals, but they're all held down by the same whatchama column effect. And finally you're right back beside the original first model. It's probably bolted down too, but you try it tentatively and you find it moves. There's a little sign under it indicating you shouldn't touch it since the gravostatic plate is being renewed. Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing. You lift it. It only weighs about 50 pounds. Naturally it can be carried. You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact, if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a lot of what I say from now on and have to find out for yourself. But maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered after he told me, but I can't be sure, so I'll keep on talking. I probably can't help it anyhow. Preset, you might say. Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing happens, though. You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street. Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past people who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see. There's another yell behind you. Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front of your feet with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out about that either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you dart past. The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along with your arms seeming to come out of the sockets and that atomic generator getting heavier at every step. Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform, about 6ft tall and on the beefy side, appears, and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop. You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow, the cop says. There are laws against that without a yellow sticker. Here, let me grab you a taxi. Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake your head and come up for air. I. I left my money home, you begin. The cop nods. Oh, that explains it. Fine. I won't have to give you an appearance schedule. You should have come to me. He reaches out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. Sir, an emergency request. Would you help this gentleman? The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch and nods how far? You did notice the name of the building from which you came, and you mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him. Pedestrians begin to move aside and and you and the stranger jog down the street at a trot with a nice clear path while the cop stands beaming at both of you.

[Grainger Commercial Narrator (Alternate)]

When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get get what you need fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Grainger Commercial Narrator]

Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Grainger Commercial Narrator (Alternate)]

When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

That way it isn't so bad, and you begin to see why I decided I might like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there before you. And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building. As you reach it, the stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once. When you nod at him, not waiting for thanks, and the guard comes up holding some dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck. You forgot the prints, monographs, and patent applications, he said. They go with the generator. We don't like to have them separated. A good thing I knew the production office of Atoms and Axioms was in this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and we'll pick it up. You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before and take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction and heads back to the museum. You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator. There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there. You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were then. There's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It forms a perfect door, and the elevator stands there, waiting. You get in, gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at the original level. You get out and realize you don't have a light. You'll never know what you stumbled over, but somehow you move back in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering here and there and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then a shred of dim light appears. It's the weak light in the time machine. You've located it. You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers down beside it, and climb into the cockpit Sweating and mumbling, you reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one beside it, and you finally decide on that. Suddenly there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator and a beam of light strikes against your eyes with a shout, punctuating it. Your finger touches the red button. You'll never know what the shouting was about. Whether they finally doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around you, and the next button you touch, the one on the board that hasn't been used so far, sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of light. You can't hear a thing, and you're safe. It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons with some pencil marks over them. Press these to return to yourself. 30 years and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't, because there is only one of you this time. Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in your own backyard. You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub basement, land in your backyard, and then hop back 30 years to pick up yourself. Landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then, you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic generator and taking it inside. It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing. Just some plates of metal, some spiral coils and a few odds and ends. All things that can be made easily enough. All obviously of common metals. But when you put it together again about an hour later, you notice something. Everything in it is brand new, and there's one set of copper wires missing. It won't work. You put some 12 house wire in exactly like the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings and try it again. And with the controls set at 120v, 60 cycles and 15amperes, you get just. Just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't insulated from time effects by a field. So the motor has moved backward in time somehow and is back to its original youth, minus the replaced wires the guard mentioned, which probably wore out because of the makeshift job you've just done. But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and that the date of the patent application is 1951. It will begin to soak in. Then you pick up the atomic generator in the future and bring it back to the past, your presentation, so that it can be put in the museum with you as the inventor, so you can steal it to be the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to yourself who invented what and who built which. Before long your riches from the Generator are piling in. Little kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one after some of the worst times in history. For a few years your name eventually becomes as common as Ampere or Faraday or any other spelled without a capital letter. But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer. One day you come across an old poem, something about folks calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few provisions for the future and come back to climb into the time machine that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be knocking on your own door 30 years back or right now from your view, and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you. But now, well, the drinks are finished, you're woozy enough to go along with me without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there came looking for you and shouting before the time machine left. Let's go. And it comes out here. By lester del rey. Dead Ringer the second story of three science fiction stories by Lester Del Rey. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Dead Ringer There was nothing, especially on Earth, which could set him free. The truth least of all. Dane Phillips slouched in the window seat watching the morning crowds on their way to work, and carefully avoided any attempt to read Jordan's old face as the editor skimmed through the notes. He had learned to make his tall, bony body to seem all loose jointed relaxation no matter how he felt. But the oversized hands in his pockets were clenched so tightly that the nails were cutting into his palms. Every tick of the old fashioned clock sent a throb racing through his brain. Every rustle of the pages seemed to release a fresh shudder shot of adrenaline into his bloodstream. This time his mind was pleading. It has to be right this time. Jordan finished his reading and shoved the folder back. He reached for his pipe, sighed, and then nodded slowly. A nice job of researching Phillips, and it might make a good feature for the Sunday section, at that. It took a second to realize that the words meant acceptance, for Philip had prepared himself too thoroughly against another failure.

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[Narrator/Storyteller]

Now he felt the tautened muscles release so quickly that he would have fallen if he hadn't been braced against the the seat. He groped in his mind, hunting for words and finding none. There was only the hot, sudden flame of unbelieving hope, and then an almost blinding exultation. Jordan didn't seem to notice his silence. The editor made a neat pile of the notes, nodding again. Sure, I like it. We've been short of shock stuff lately, and the readers go for it when we can get a fresh angle, but naturally you'll have to leave out all that nonsense on Blanding. Hell, the man's just buried and his relatives and friends. But that's the proof. Philip stared at the editor, trying to penetrate through the haze of hope that had somehow grown chilled and unreal. His thoughts were abruptly disorganized and out of control. Only the urgency remained. It's the key evidence, and we've got to move fast. I don't know how long it takes, but even one more day may be too late. Jordan nearly dropped the pipe from his lips as he jerked upright to peer sharply at the younger man. Are you crazy? Do you seriously expect me to get an order to exhume him now? What would it get us, other than lawsuits, even if we could get the order without causewhich we can't? Then the pipe did fall as he gaped open mouthed. My God, you believe all that stuff? You expected us to publish it straight. No, dane said thickly. The hope was gone now, as if it had never existed, leaving a numb emptiness where nothing mattered. No, I guess I didn't really expect anything. But I believe the facts. Why shouldn't I? He reached for the papers, hands he could hardly control, and began stuffing them back into the folder. All the careful documentation, the fingerprints smudged perhaps in some cases, but still evidence enough for anyone but a fool. Phillips, jordan said questioningly to himself, and then his voice was taking on a new edge. Phillips, Wait a minute. I've got it now. Dane Phillips, not Arthur. Two years on the Trib, then you turned up on the register in Seattle. Philip Dean or some such name there. Yeah, dane agreed. There was no use in denying anything now. Yeah. Dane Arthur Phillips. So I suppose I'm through here. Jordan nodded again, and there was a faint look of fear in his expression. You can pick up your pay on the way out. And make it quick before I change my mind and call the boys in white. It could have been worse. It had been worse before, and there was enough in the pay envelope to buy what he needed, a flash camera, a little folding shovel from one of the surplus houses, and a bottle of good Scotch, it would be dark enough for him to taxi out to Oakhaven Cemetery, where Blanding had been buried. It wouldn't change the minds of the fools, of course. Even if he could drag back what he might find without the change being completed, they wouldn't accept the evidence. He'd been crazy to think anything could change their minds, and they called him a fanatic. If the facts he'd dug up in ten years of hunting wouldn't convince them, nothing would. And yet he had to see for himself before it was too late he picked a cheap hotel at random and checked in under an assumed name. He couldn't go back to his room. While there was a chance that Jordan still might try to turn him in. There wouldn't be time for Sylvia's detectives to bother him. Probably. But there was the ever present danger that one of the aliens might intercept the message. He shivered. He'd been risking that for 10 years, yet the likelihood was still a horror to him. The uncertainty made it harder to take than any human devised torture could be. There was no way of guessing what an alien might do to anyone who discovered that all men were not human, that some were zombies. There was the classic syllogism, all men are mortal. I am a man, therefore I am mortal. Hello, I'm here during the lunch rush with Janice, who owns her own food truck.

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[Narrator/Storyteller]

but not blanding or Corporal Harding. It was Harding's death that had started it all. During the fighting on Guadalcanal, a grenade had come flying into the foxhole where Dane and Harding had felt reasonably safe. The concussion had Knocked Dane out, possibly saving his life when the enemy thought he was dead. He'd come to in the daylight to see Harding lying there, mangled and twisted with his throat torn. There was blood on Dane's uniform, obviously spattered from the dead man. It hadn't been a mistake or delusion. Harding had been dead. It had taken Dane two days of crawling and hiding to get back to his group. Too exhausted to report Harding's death. He'd slept for 20 hours, and when he awoke, Harding had been standing beside him with a whole throat and a fresh uniform, grinning and kidding him for running off and leaving a stunned friend behind. It was no ringer but Harding himself, complete to the smallest personal memories and personality traits. The pressures of war probably saved Dane's sanity when he learned to face the facts. All men are mortal. Harding is not mortal. Therefore Harding is not a man. Nor was Harding alone. Dane found enough evidence to know there were others. The Tribune morgue yielded even more data. A man had faced seven firing squads and walked away. Another survived over a dozen attacks by professional killers. Fingerprints turned up mysteriously copied from those of men long dead. Some of the aliens seemed to heal almost instantly. Others took days. Some operated completely alone. Some seemed to have joined with others, but they were legion. Lack of a clearer pattern of attack made him consider the possibility of human mutation. But such tissue was too widely different, and the invasion had begun long before atomics or X rays. He gave up trying to understand their alien motivations. It was enough that they existed in secret, growing slowly in numbers while mankind was unaware of them. When his proof was complete and irrefutable, he took it to his editor to be fired politely but coldly. Other editors were less polite, but he went on doggedly trying and failing. What else could he do? Somehow he had to find the few people who could recognize facts and warn them. The aliens would get him, of course, when the story broke. But a warned humanity could cope with them. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Then he met Sylvia by accident after losing his fifth job. A woman who had inherited a fortune big enough to spread his message in paid ads across the country. They were married before he found she was hard headed about her money. She demanded a full explanation for every cent beyond his allowance. In the end she got the explanation. But while he was trying to cash the check she gave him, she visited Dr. Buell to come back with a squad of quiet, refined, strong arm boys who made sure Dane reached Buell's rest home safely. Hydrotherapy. Buell, as the kindly Firm father figure analysis. Hypnosis that stripped every secret from him, including his worst childhood nightmare. His father had committed a violent, bloody suicide after one of the many quarrels with Dane's mother. Dane had found the body two nights after the funeral. He had dreamed of his father's face, horror stricken at the window. He knew now that it was a normal nightmare caused by being forced to look at the face in the coffin. But the shock had lasted for years. It had bothered him again after his discovery of the aliens, until a thorough check had proved, proved without doubt, that his father had been fully human with a human, if tempestuous, childhood behind him. Dr. Bule was delighted. You see, Dane, you know it was a nightmare. But you don't really believe it even now. Your father was an alien monster to you. No adult is quite human to a child. And that literal mind itself, you, your subconscious, saw him after he died. So there are alien monsters who return from death. Then you came too. From a concussion. Harding is sprawled out unconscious, covered with blood. Probably your blood, since you say he wasn't wounded later. But after seeing your father, you can't associate blood with yourself. You see it as a horrible wound on Harding. When he turns out to be alive, you're still in partial shock with your subconscious dominant. And that has the answer already. There are monsters who come back from the dead. An exaggerated reaction, but nothing really abnormal. We'll have you out of here in no time. No non directive psychiatry for Buell. The man beamed paternally, chuckling as he added what he must have considered the clincher. Anyhow, even zombies can't stand fire, Dane, so you can stop worrying about Harding. I checked up on him. He was burned to a crisp in a hotel fire two months ago. It was logical enough to shake Dane's faith until he came across Milo Blanding's picture in a magazine article on Society in St. Louis. According to the item, Milo was a cousin of the Blanding's, whose father had vanished in Chile as a young man and who had just rejoined the family. The picture was of Harding. An alien could have gotten away by simply committing suicide and being carried from the rest home. But Dane had to do it the hard way, watching his chants and using commando tactics on a guard who had come to accept him as a harmless nut. In St. Louis he'd use the purloined letter technique to hide, going back to newspaper work and using almost his real name. It had seemed to work too, but he'd been less lucky about Harding Blanding. The man had been in Europe on Some kind of a tour until his return only this last week. Dane had seen him just once then, but long enough to be sure it was Harding before he died again. This time it was in a drunken auto accident that seemed to be none of his fault, but left his body a mangled wreck. It was almost dark when Dane dismissed the taxi at the false address a mile from the entrance to the cemetery. He watched it turn back down the road, then picked up the valise with his camera and folding shovel. He shivered as he moved reluctantly ahead. War had proved that he could never be a brave man, and the old fears of darkness and graveyards were still strong in him. But he had to know what the coffin contained now, if it wasn't already too late. It represented the missing link in his picture of the aliens. What happened to them during the period of regrowth? Did they revert to their natural form? Were they at all conscious while the body reshaped itself into wholeness? Dane had puzzled over it night after night with no answer. Nor could he figure out how they could escape from the grave. Perhaps a man could force his way out of some of the coffins he had inspected. The soil would still be soft and loose in the grave, and a lot of the coffins in the boxes around them were strong in appearance. Only a determined creature that could exist without much air for long enough might make it. But there were other caskets that could couldn't be cracked, at least without the aid of outside help. What happened when a creature that could survive even the poison of embalming fluids and the draining of all the blood woke up in such a coffin? Dane's mind skittered from it as always, and then came back to it reluctantly. There were still accounts of corpses turned up with the nails and hair grown long in the grave. Could normal tissue stand the current tricks of the morticians? To have life enough for such growth? The possibility was absurd. Those cases had to be aliens, ones who hadn't escaped even. They must die eventually in such case, after weeks and months. It took time for hair to grow, and there were stories of corpses that had apparently fought and twisted in their coffins. Still, what was it like for an alien then, going slowly mad while it waited for true death? How long did madness take? He shivered again, but went steadily on while the cemetery fence appeared in the distance. He'd seen Blanding's coffin and the big solid metal casket around it that couldn't be cracked by any amount of effort and strength. He was sure the creature was still there, unless it had A confederate, but that wouldn't matter. An empty coffin would also be proof. Dane avoided the main gate, unsure about whether there would be a watchman or not. A hundred feet away there was a tree near the ornamental spikes of the iron fence. He threw his bag over and began shinnying up. It was difficult, but he made it, finally dropping onto the soft grass beyond. There was the trace of the moon, at times through the clouds, but it hadn't betrayed him, and there was no alarm wire along the top of the fence. He moved from shadow to shadow, his hair prickling along the base of his neck. Locating the right grave in the darkness was harder than he had expected, even with an occasional brief use of the small flashlight, but at last he found the marker that was serving until the regular monument would arrive. His hands were sweating so much that it was hard to use the small shovel, but the digging of foxholes had given him experience, and the ground was still soft from the gravedigger's work. He stopped once as the moon came out briefly again. A sound in the darkness above left him hovering and sick in the hole, but it must have been only some animal. He uncovered the top of the casket with hands already blistering. Then he cursed as he realized the catches were near the bottom, making his work even harder. He reached them at last, fumbling them open. The metal top of the casket seemed to be a dome of solid lead, and he had no room to maneuver, but it began swinging up reluctantly until he could feel the polished wood of the coffin. Dane reached the lid with hands he could barely control. Fear was thick in his throat now. What could an alien do to a man who discovered it? Would it be Harding there, or some monstrous thing still changing? How long did it take a revived monster to go mad when it found no way to escape? He gripped the shovel in one hand, working at the lid with the other. Now, abruptly, his nerves steadied as they had done whenever he was in real battle. He swung the lid up and began groping for the camera. His hands went into the silk lined interior and found nothing. He was too late. Either Harding had gotten out somehow before the final ceremony, or a confederate had already been here. The coffin was empty. There were no warning sounds this time, only hands that slipped under his arms and across his mouth, lifting him easily from the grave. A match flared briefly, and he was looking into the face of Buell's chief strong arm man. Hello, Mr. Phillips. Promise to be quiet and we'll release you. Okay? At Dane's sickened nod, he gestured to the Others let him go, and Tom better get that filled in. We don't want any trouble from this. Surprise came from the grave a moment later. Hey, Burke, there's no corpse here. Burke's words killed any hopes Dane had at once. So what? Ever heard of cremation? Lots of people use a regular coffin for the ashes. He wasn't cremated, Dane told him. You can check up on that. But he knew it was useless. Sure, Mr. Phillips. We'll do that. The tone was one reserved for humoring madmen. Burke turned, gesturing. Better come along, Mr. Phillips. Your wife and Dr. Buell are waiting at the hotel. The gate was open now, but there was no sign of a watchman. If one worked here, Sylvia's money would have taken care of that. Of course. Dane went along quietly, sitting in the rubble of his hopes while the big car purred through the morning and on down Liddell Boulevard toward the hotel. Once he shivered and Burke dug out hot brandied coffee. They had thought of everything, including a coat to cover his dirt soiled clothes as they took him up the elevator to where Buell and Sylvia were waiting for him. She had been crying, obviously, but there were no tears or recriminations when she came over to kiss him. Funny, she must still love him. As he'd learned. To his surprise, he loved her under different circumstances. So you found me? He asked needlessly of Buell. He was operating on purely automatic habits now, the reaction from the night and his failure numbing him emotionally. Jordan got in touch with you. Buell smiled back at him. We knew where you were all along, Dane, but as long as you acted normal, we hoped it would be better than the home. Too bad we couldn't stop you before you got all mixed up in this. So I suppose I'm committed to your booby hatch. Again Buell nodded, refusing to resent the term. I'm afraid so, Dane. For a while, anyhow. You'll find your clothes in that room. Why don't you clean up a little? Take a hot bath. Maybe you'll feel better. Dane went in, surprised when no guards followed him, but they had thought of everything. What looked like a screen on the window had been recently installed, and it was strong enough to prevent his escape. Blessed are the poor, for they shall be poorly guarded. He was turning on the shower when he heard the sound of voices coming through the door. He left the water running and came back to listen. Sylvia was speaking. Seems so logical, so completely rational. It makes him a dangerous person, buell answered, and there was no false warmth in his voice. Now, Sylvia, you've got to admit it to yourself. All the reason and analysis in the world won't convince him he's wrong this time. We'll have to use shock treatment. Burn over those memories, fade them out. It's the only possible course. There was a pause and then a sigh. I suppose you're right. Dane didn't wait to hear more. He drew back while his mind fought to accept the hideous reality. Shock treatment, the works, if what he knew of psychiatry was correct, enough of it to erase his memories, a part of himself. It wasn't therapy Buell was considering. It couldn't be. It was the answer of an alien that had a human in its hands. One who knew too much, he might have guessed. What better place for an alien than in the guise of a psychiatrist? Where else was there the chance for all the refined modern torture needed to burn out a man's mind? Dane had spent ten years in fear of being discovered by them, and now Buell had him. Sylvia? He couldn't be sure. Probably she was human. It wouldn't make any difference. There was nothing he could do through her. Either she was part of the game or she really thought him mad. Dane tried the window again, but it was hopeless. There would be no escape this time. Buell couldn't risk it. The shock treatment, or whatever Buell would use under the name of shock treatment, would begin at once. It would be easy to slip, to use an overdose of something to make sure Dane was killed. Or there were ways of making sure it didn't matter. They could leave him alive but take his mind away in alien hands. Human psychiatry could do worse than all the medieval torture chambers. The sickness grew in his stomach as he considered the worst that could happen. Death he could accept if he had to. He could even face the chance of torture by itself, as he had accepted the danger while trying to have his facts published. But to have his mind taken from him a step at a time, to watch his personality, his ego, rotted away under him, and to know that he would wind up as a drooling idiot. He made his decision almost as quickly as he had come to realize what Buell must be. There was a razor in the medicine chest. It was a safety razor, of course, but the blade was sharp and it would be big enough. There was no time for careful planning. One of the guards might come in at any moment if they thought he was taking too long. Some fear came back as he leaned over the washbasin, staring at his throat, fingering the suddenly murderous blade. But the pain wouldn't last long. A lot less than there would be under shock treatment. And less pain. He'd read enough to feel sure of that. Twice he braced himself and failed. At the last second, his mind flashed out in wild schemes, fighting against what it knew had to be done. The world still had to be warned. If he could escape somehow, if he could still find a way. He couldn't quit, no matter how impossible things looked. But he knew better. There was nothing one man could do against the aliens in this world. They had taken over. He'd never had a chance. Men had been chained away by carefully developed ridicule against superstition, by carefully indoctrinated gobbledygook about insanity, persecution complexes, and all the rest. For a second Dane even considered the possibility that he was insane, but he knew it was only a blind effort to cling to life. There had been no insanity in him when he'd groped for evidence in the coffin and found it empty. He leaned over the washbasin, his eyes focused on his throat, and his hand came down and around, carrying the razor blade through a lethal semicircle. Dane Phillips watched fear give way to sickness on his face as the pain lanced through him and the blood spurted. He watched horror creep up to replace the sickness while the bleeding stopped and the gash began closing. By the time he recognized his expression as the same one he'd seen on his father's face at the window so long ago, the wound was completely healed. End of Dead Ringer By Lester Del Rey. Story 3of3 Science fiction stories by Lester Del Rey this Librivox recording is in the PUBLIC Domain. The dwindling years nearly 200 years of habit carried the chairman of Exodus Corporation through the morning ritual of crossing the executive floor. Giles made the expected comments, smiled the proper smiles, and greeted his staff with the right names, but it was purely automatic. Somehow, thinking had grown difficult in the mornings. Recently, inside his private office. He dropped all pretense and slumped against the padding of his chair, gasping for breath and feeling his heart hammering in his chest. He'd been a fool to come to work, he realized, but with the Procyon shuttle arriving yesterday, there was no telling what might turn up. Besides, that fool of a medicist had sworn the shot would cure any allergy or asthma. Giles heard his secretary come in, but it wasn't until the smell of the coffee reached his nose that he looked up. She handed him a filled cup and set the carafe down on the age polished surface of the big desk. She watched solicitously as he drank. That bad, Arthur? She asked. Just a little tired, he told her, refilling the cup. She'd made the coffee stronger than usual and it seemed to cut through some of the thickness in his head. I guess I'm getting old, Amanda. She smiled dutifully at the time. Worn joke, but he knew she wasn't fooled. She'd cycled to middle age four times in her job, and she probably knew him better than he knew himself. Which wouldn't be hard, he thought. He'd hardly recognize the stranger in the mirror as he tried to shave. His normal thinness had looked almost gaunt, and there were hollows in his face and circles under his eyes. Even his hair had seemed thinner, though that of course was impossible. Anything urgent on the Procyon shuttle? He asked as she continued staring at him with worried eyes. She jerked her gaze away guiltily and turned to the incoming basket. Mostly drugs for experimenting, A personal letter for you, relayed from some place I've never heard of, and one of the Super Light missiles. They found it drifting half a light year out and captured it. Jordan's got a report on it and he's going crazy. But if you don't feel well I'm all right, he told her sharply. Then he steadied himself and managed to smile. Thanks for the coffee, Amanda. She accepted dismissal reluctantly. When she was gone, he sat gazing at the report from Jordan, at research. For 80 years now they'd been sending out the little ships that vanished at greater than the speed of light, equipped with every conceivable device to make them return automatically after taking pictures of wherever they arrived. So far none had ever returned or been located. This was the first hope they'd found that the century long trips between stars in the ponderous shuttles might be ended. And he should have been filled with excitement at Jordan's hasty preliminary report. He leafed through it. The little ship apparently had been picked up by accident when it almost collided with a serious local ship. Scientists there had puzzled over it, reset it, and sent it back. The two white rats on it had still been alive. Giles dropped the report wearily and picked up the personal message that had come on the shuttle. He fingered the microstrip inside while he drank another coffee and finally pulled out the micro viewer. There were three frames to the message he saw with some surprise. He didn't need to see the signature on the first projection. Only his youngest son would have sent an elaborate tercentenary greeting, verse one that would arrive 90 years too late. Harry had been born just before Earth passed the Drastic Birth Limitation act, and his mother had spoiled him. He'd even tried to avoid the compulsory immigration draft and stay on with his mother. It had been the bitter quarrels over that which had finally broken Giles fifth marriage. Oddly enough, the message in the next frame showed none of that. Harry had nothing but praise for the solar system where he'd been sent. He barely mentioned being married on the way, or his dozen children, but filled most of the frame with glowing description and a plea for his father to join him there. Giles snorted and turned to the third frame, which showed a group picture of the family in some sort of vehicle against the background of an alien but attractive world. He had no desire to spend ninety years cooped up with a bunch of callow young immigrants, even in one of the improved Exodus shuttles. And even if Exodus ever got the super light drive working, there was no reason he should give up his work. The discovery that men could live practically forever had put an end to most family ties. Sentiment wore thin in half a century, which wasn't much time now, though it had once seemed long enough. Strange how the years seemed to get shorter as their number increased. There'd been a song once, something about the years dwindling down. He groped for the lines and couldn't remember. Drat it. Now he'd probably lie awake most of the night again, trying to recall them. The outside line buzzed musically, flashing researchist number. Giles grunted in irritation. He wasn't ready to face Jordan yet, but he shrugged and pressed the button. The intense face that looked from the screen was frowning as Jordan's eyes seemed to sweep around the room. He was still young, one of the few under a hundred who'd escaped deportation because of special ability, and patience was still foreign to him. Then the frown vanished as an expression of shock replaced it, and Giles felt a sinking sensation. If he looked that bad. But Jordan wasn't looking at him. The man's interest lay in the projected picture from Harry across the desk from the communicator. Anti gravity. His voice was unbelieving as he turned his head to face the older man. What world is that? Giles forced his attention on the picture again, and this time he noticed the vehicle shown. It was enough like an old model Earth conveyance to pass casual inspection, but it floated wheellessly above the ground. Faint blur lines indicated it had been moving when the picture was taken. One of my sons. Giles started to answer. I could find the star's designation. Jordan cursed harshly. So we can send a message on the shuttle begging for their secret in a couple of hundred years, when a hundred other worlds make a thousand major discoveries, they don't bother reporting. Can't the Council see anything? Giles had heard it all before. Earth was becoming a backwater world. No real progress had been made in two centuries. The young men were sent out as soon as their first 50 years of education were finished, and the older men were too conservative for really new thinking. There was a measure of truth in it. Unfortunately, they'll slow up when their populations fill. Giles repeated his old answers. We're still ahead in medicine, and we'll get the other discoveries eventually, without interrupting the work of making the Earth fit for our longevity. We can wait. We'll have to. The younger man stared at him with the strange puzzled look Giles had seen too often lately. Damn it, haven't you read my report? We know the super light drive works. That missile reached Sirius in less than ten days. We can have the secret of this antigravity in less than a year. We? Wait a minute. Giles felt a thickness pushing back at his mind and tried to fight it off. He'd only skimmed the report, but this made no sense. You mean you can calibrate your guiding devices accurately enough to get a missile where you want it and back? What? Jordan's voice rattled the speaker. Of course not. It took two accidents to get the thing back to us. And with a half light year miss that delayed it about 20 years before the Procyon shuttle heard its signal. Presetting a course may take centuries if we can ever master it. Even with Sirius expecting the missiles and ready to cooperate. I mean the big ship. We've had it drafted for building long enough now we can finish it in three months. We know the drive works. We know it's fast enough to reach Procyon in two weeks. We even know life can stand the trips. The rats were unharmed. Giles shook his head at what the other was proposing, only partly believing it. Rats don't have minds that can show any real damage, such as the loss of power to rejuvenate. We can't put human pilots into a ship with our drive until we've tested it more thoroughly, Bill, even if they could correct for errors on arrival. Maybe if we put in stronger signaling transmitters. Yeah, maybe in two centuries we'd have a through route chartered to Sirius, and we still wouldn't have proved it safe for human pilots. Mr. Giles, we've got to have the big ship. All we need is one volunteer. It occurred to Giles then that the man had been too fired with the idea to think. He leaned back, shaking his head again wearily. All right, Bill. Find me one volunteer. Or how about you? Do you really want to risk losing the rest of your life rather than waiting a couple more centuries until we know it's safe? If you do, I'll order the big ship. Jordan opened his mouth, and for a second Giles heart caught in a flux of emotions as the man's offer hovered on his lips. Then the engineer shut his mouth. Slowly the belligerents ran out of him. He looked sick, for he had no answer. No sane man would risk a chance for near eternity against such a relatively short wait. Heroism had belonged to those who knew their days were numbered anyhow. Forget it, Bill, giles advised. It may take longer, but eventually we'll find a way. With time enough, we're bound to. And when we do, the ship will be ready. The engineer nodded miserably and clicked off. Giles turned from the blank screen to stare out of the windows while his hand came up to twist at the lock of hair over his forehead. Eternity. They had to plan and build for it. They couldn't risk that plan for short term benefits. Usually it was too easy to realize that, and the sight of the solid time enduring buildings outside should have given him a sense of security. Today, though, nothing seemed to help. He felt choked, imprisoned, somehow lost. The city beyond the window blurred as he studied it, and he swung the chair back so violently that his hand jerked painfully on the forelock he'd been twisting. Then he was staring unbelievingly at the single white hair that was twisted with the dark ones between his fingers like an automaton. He bent forward, his other hand groping for the mirror that should be in one of the drawers. The dull pain in his chest sharpened and his breath was hoarse in his throat, but he hardly noticed as he found the mirror and brought it up. His eyes focused reluctantly. There were other white strands in his dark hair. The mirror crashed to the floor as he staggered out of the office. It was only two blocks to Giles residence club, but he had to stop twice to catch his breath and fight against the pain that clawed at his chest. When he reached the wood paneled lobby, he was barely able to stand. Dubbings was at his side almost at once with a hand under his arm to guide him toward his suite. Let me help you, sir, dubbins suggested in the tones Giles hadn't heard since the man had been his valet back when it was still possible to find personal servants. Now he managed the club on a level of quasi equality, with the members. For the moment, though, he'd slipped back into the old ways. Giles found himself lying on his couch, partially undressed, with the pillows just right and a long drink in his hand. The alcohol combined with the reaction from his panic to leave him almost himself again. After all, there was nothing to worry about. Earth's doctors could cure anything. I guess you'd better call Dr. Vincenti, he decided. Vincenti was a member and would probably be the quickest to get. Dubbings shook his head. Dr. Vincenti isn't with us, sir. He left a year ago to visit a son in the Centauri system. There's a Dr. Cobb whose reputation is very good, sir. Giles puzzled over it doubtfully. Vincenti had been an oddly morose man the last few times he'd seen him, but that could hardly explain his taking a 20 year shuttle trip for such a slim reason. It was no concern of his, though. Dr. Cobb then, he said. Giles heard the other man's voice on the study phone, too low for the words to be distinguishable. He finished the drink, feeling still better, and was sitting up when dubbings came back. Dr. Cobb wants you to come to his office at once, sir, he said, dropping to his knee to help Giles with his shoes. I'd be pleased to drive you there. Giles frowned. He'd expected Cobb to come to him then he grimaced at his own thoughts. Dubbins manners must have carried him back into the past. Doctors didn't go in for home visits now. They preferred to see their patients in the laboratories that housed their offices. If this kept on, he'd be missing the old days when he'd had a mansion and counted his wealth and possessions instead of the treasures he could build inside himself for the future ahead. He was getting positively childish, yet he relished the feeling of having Dubbins drive his car more than anything else. He loved being driven, even after chauffeurs were a thing of the past. Harry had driven him around. Now he'd taken to walking, as so many others had, for even with modern safety measures so strict, there was always a small chance of some accident, and nobody had any desire to spend the long future as a cripple. I'll wait for you, sir, dubbings offered as they stopped beside the low, massive medical building. It was almost too much consideration. Giles nodded, got out, and headed down the hall uncertainly. Just how bad did he look? Well, he'd find out soon. He located the directory and finally found the right office, its reception room wall covered with all the degrees Dr. Cobb had picked up in some 300 years of practice. Giles felt better, realizing it wouldn't be one of the younger men. Cobb appeared himself before the nurse could take over and led Giles into a room with an old fashioned desk and chairs that almost concealed the cabinets of equipment beyond. He listened as Giles stumbled out his story. Halfway through, the nurse took a blood sample with one of the little mosquito needles and and the machinery behind the doctor began working on it. Your friend told me about the gray hair, of course, cobb said at Giles. Look. He smiled faintly. Surely you didn't think people could miss that in this day and age. Let's see it. He inspected it and began making tests. Some were older than Giles could remember, knee reflex, blood pressure, pulse and fluoroscope. Others involved complicated little gadgets that ran over his body while meters bobbed and wiggled. The blood check came through and Cobb studied it to go back and make further inspections of his own. At last he nodded slowly. Hypercatabolism? Of course. I thought it might be how long since you had your last rejuvenation and who gave it? About 10 years ago, Giles answered. He found his identity card and passed it over while the doctor studied it. My 16th. It wasn't going right. He could feel it. Some of the panic symptoms were returning. The pulse in his neck was pounding and his breath was growing difficult. Sweat ran down his sides from his armpit and he wiped his palms against his coat. Any particular emotional strain when you were treated? Some major upset in your life? Cobb asked. Giles thought as carefully as he could, but he remembered nothing like that. You mean it didn't take? But I've never had any trouble, Doctor. I was one of the first million cases when a lot of people couldn't rejuvenate at all, and I had no trouble even then. Cobb considered it, hesitated, as if making up his mind to be frank, against his better judgment. I can't see any other explanation. You've got a slight case of angina. Nothing serious, but quite definite, as well as other signs of aging. I'm afraid the treatment didn't take fully. It might have been some unconscious block on your part, but some infection not diagnosed at the time, or even a fault in the treatment. That's pretty rare, but we can't neglect the possibility. He studied his charts again and then smiled. So we'll give you another treatment. Any reason you can't begin immediately? Giles remembered that dubbings was waiting for him, but this was more important. It hadn't been a joke about his growing old after all, but now, in a Few days he'd be his old. No, of course not. His young self again. They went down the hall to another office where Giles waited outside while Cobb conferred with another doctor and technician with much waving of charts he resented every second of was as if the almost forgotten specter of age stood beside him, counting the seconds. But at last they were through, and he was led into the quiet rejuvenation room where the clamps were adjusted about his head and the earpieces were fitted. The drugs were shot painlessly into his arm and the light pulser was adjusted to his brain wave pattern. It had been nothing like this, his first time. Then it had required months of mental training, followed by crude mechanical and drug hypnosis for other months. Somewhere in every human brain lay the memory of what his cells had been like when he was young. Or perhaps it lay in the cells themselves, with the brain as only a linkage to it, they'd discovered. That and the fact that the mind could effect physical changes in the body. Even such things as cancer could be willed out of existence, provided the brain could be reached far below the conscious level and. And forced to operate. There had been impossible faith cures for millennia, cataracts removed from blinded eyes within minutes even. But finding the mechanism in the brain that worked those miracles had taken an incredible amount of study. And finding a means of bringing it under control had taken even longer. Now they did it with dozens of mechanical aids in addition to the hypnotic instructions. And did it usually in a single sitting, with the full transformation of the body taking less than a week after the treatment. But with all the equipment, it wasn't possible for a mistake to happen. It had been no fault of his, he was sure of that. His mind was easy to reach. He could relax so easily. He came out of it without even a headache while they were removing the probes. But the fatigue on the operator's face told him it had been a long and difficult job. He stretched experimentally with the eternal unconscious expectation that he would find himself suddenly young again. But that, of course, was ridiculous. It took days for the mind to work on all the cells and to repair the damage of time. Cobb led him back to the first office, where he was given an injection of some kind. And another sample of his blood was taken while the earlier tests were repeated. But finally the doctor nodded. That's all for now, Mr. Giles. You might drop in tomorrow morning after I've had a chance to complete my study of all this. We'll know by then whether you'll need more treatment. 10:00 clock okay, but I'll be all right. Cobb smiled, the automatic reassurance of his profession. We haven't lost a patient in 200 years, to my knowledge. Thanks, said Giles. Ten o' clock is fine. Dubbins was still waiting, reading a paper whose headlined feature carried a glowing account of the discovery of the Super Light missile and what it might mean. He took a quick look at Giles and pointed to it. Great work, Mr. Giles. Maybe we'll all get to see some of those other worlds yet. Then he studied Giles more carefully. Everything's in good shape now, sir. The doctor says everything's going to be fine, giles answered. It was then he realized for the first time that Cobb had said no such thing. A statement that lightning had never struck a house was no guarantee that it never would. It was an evasion meant to give such an impression. The worry nagged at him all the way back. Word had already gone around the club that he'd had some kind of attack, and there were endless questions that kept it on his mind. And even when it had been covered and recovered, he could still sense the glances of the others, as if he were Vincenti in one of the man's more morose moods. He found a single table in the dining room and picked his way through the meal, listening to the conversation about him only when it was necessary, because someone called across to him. Ordinarily, he was quick to support the idea of clubs in place of private families. A man here could choose his group and grow into them. Yet he wasn't swallowed by them as he might be by a family. Giles had been living here for nearly a century now, and he'd never regretted it. But tonight his own group irritated him. He puzzled over it, finding no real reason. Certainly they weren't forcing themselves on him. He remembered once, when he'd had a cold before they finally licked, that Harry had been a complete nuisance, running around with various nostrums, giving him no peace, constant questions about how he felt, constant little looks of worry until he'd been ready to yell at the boy. In fact, he had. Funny, he couldn't picture really losing his temper here. Families did odd things to a man. He listened to a few of the discussions after dinner, but he'd heard them all before, except for one about the superspeed drive, and there he had no wish to talk until he could study the final report. He gave up at last and went to his own suite. What he needed was a good night's sleep. After a little relaxation, even that filled him, though he'd developed one of the finest chess collections in the world, but tonight it held no interest. And when he drew out his tools and tried working on the delicate, lovely jade for the set he was carving, his hands seemed to be all thumbs. None of the other interests he'd developed through the years helped to add to the richness of living. Now he gave it up and went to bed. To have the fragment of that song pop into his head now there was no escaping it. Something about the years. Or was it days dwindling down to something or other? Could they really dwindle down? Suppose he couldn't rejuvenate all the way. He knew that there were some people who didn't respond as well as others. Sol Graves, for instance. He'd been 50 when he finally learned how to work with the doctors, and they could only bring him back to about 30 instead of the normal early 20s. Would that reduce the slice of eternity that rejuvenation meant? And what had happened to Sol? Or suppose it wasn't rejuvenation after all. Suppose something had gone wrong with him permanently. He fought that off, but he couldn't escape the nagging doubts at the doctor's words. He got up once to stare at himself in the mirror. Ten hours had gone by and there should have been some signs of improvement. He couldn't be sure, though, whether there were or not, he looked no better the next morning when he finally dragged himself up from the little sleep he'd managed to get. The hollows were still there and the circles under his eyes. He searched for the gray in his hair, but the traitorous strands had been removed at the doctor's office and he could find no new ones. He looked into the dining room and then went by hastily. He wanted no solicitous glances this morning. Drat it, maybe he should move out. Maybe trying family life again would give him some new interests. Amanda probably would be willing to marry him. She'd hinted at a date once. He stopped, shocked by the awareness that he hadn't been out with a woman, for he couldn't remember how long it had been, nor why. In the spring. A young man's fancy, he quoted to himself, and then shuddered. It hadn't been that kind of spring for him, not this rejuvenation, nor the last, nor the one before that. Giles tried to stop scaring himself and partially succeeded until he reached the doctor's office. Then it was no longer necessary to frighten himself. The wrongness was too strong, no matter how professional Cobbs smile. He didn't hear the preliminary words. He watched the smile vanish as the stack of reports came out. There was no nurse here now. The machines were quiet and all the doors were shut. Giles shook his head, interrupting the doctor's technical jargon. Now that he knew there was reason for his fear, it seemed to vanish, leaving a coldness that numbed him. I'd rather know the whole truth, he said. His voice sounded dead in his ears. The worst first. The rejuvenation. Cobb sighed and yet seemed relieved. Failed. He stopped and his hands touched the reports on his desk. Completely, he added in a low, defeated tone. But I thought that was impossible. So did I. I wouldn't believe it even yet. But now I find it isn't the first case. I spent the night at Medical center, going up the ranks until I found men who really know about it. And now I wish I hadn't. His voice ran down and he gathered himself together by an effort. It's a shock to me, too, Mr. Giles. But, well, to simplify it, no memory is perfect. Even cellular memory. It loses a little each time, and the effect is cumulative. It's like an asymptotic curve. The further it goes, the steeper the curve, and, well, you've passed too far. He faced away from Giles, dropping the reports into a drawer and locking it. I wasn't supposed to tell you, of course. It's going to be tough enough when they're ready to let people know. But you aren't the first, and you won't be the last, if that's any consolation. We've got a longer time scale than we used to have, but it's in centuries, not in eons. For everybody, not just you. It was no consolation. Giles nodded mechanically. I won't talk, of course. How. How long? Cobb spread his hands unhappily. Thirty years, maybe. But we can make them better. Geriatric knowledge is still on record. We can fix the heart and all the rest. You'll be in good physical condition. Better than your grandfather. And then Giles couldn't pronounce the words. He'd grown old and he'd grow older, and eventually he'd die. An immortal man had suddenly found death hovering on his trail. The years had dwindled and gone, and only a few were left. He stood up, holding out his hand. Thank you, Doctor, he said, and was surprised to find he meant it. The man had done all he could and had at least saved him the suspense of growing doubt and horrible eventual discovery. Outside on the street, he looked up at the sun and then at the buildings built to last for thousands of years. Their eternity was no longer a part of him. Even his car would outlast him. He climbed into it, still partly numbed, and began driving mechanically, no longer wondering about the dangers that might possibly arise. Those wouldn't matter much now. For a man who had thought of living almost forever. Thirty years was too short a time to count. He was passing near the club and started to slow. Then he went on without stopping. He wanted no chance to have them asking questions he couldn't answer. It was none of their business. Dubbins had been kind, but now Giles wanted no kindness. The street led to the office and he drove on. What else was there for him there? At least he could still fill his time with work, work that might even be useful in the future. Men would need the Super Light Drive if they were to span much more of the universe than now, and he could speed up the work in some way. Still, even if he could never see its finish, it would be cold comfort. But it was something, and he might keep busy enough to forget sometimes that the years were gone for him. Automatic habit carried him through the office again to Amanda's desk, where her worry was still riding her. He managed a grin, and somehow the right words came to his lips. I saw the doctor, Amanda. So you can stop figuring out ways to get me there. She smiled back suddenly without feigning it. Then you're all right. As right as I'll ever be, he told her. They tell me I'm just growing old. This time her laugh was heartier. He caught himself before he could echo her mirth in a different voice, and went inside where she had the coffee waiting for him. Oddly, it still tasted good to him. The projection was off, he saw. Wondering whether he left it on or not, he snapped the switch and saw the screen light up with the people still in the odd wheelless vehicle on the alien planet. For a long moment he stared at the picture without thinking and then bent closer. Harry's face hadn't changed much. Giles had almost forgotten it, but there was still the same grin there, and his grandchildren had a touch of it, too, and their grandfather's nose, he thought. Funny. He'd never seen even pictures of his other grandchildren. Family ties melted away too fast for interstellar travel. Yet there seemed to be no slackening of them in Harry's case, and somehow it looked like a family rather than a mere group. A very pleasant family in a very pleasant world. He read Harry's note again, with its praise for the planet and its invitation. He wondered if Dr. Vincenti had received an invitation like that before he left. Or had he even been one of those to whom the same report had been delivered by the same doctor? It didn't matter, but it would explain things. At least 20 years to Centaurus while the years dwindled down. Then abruptly, the line finished itself. The years dwindled down to a precious few. Few, he remembered. A precious few. Those dwindling years had been precious. Once he unexpectedly recalled his own grandfather holding him on an old knee and slipping him candy. That was forbidden. The years seemed precious to the old man. Then Amanda's voice came abruptly over the intercom. Jordan wants to talk to you, she said, and the irritation was sharp in her voice. He won't take no Giles shrugged and reached for the projector to cut it off. Then, on impulse, he set it back to the picture, studying the group again as he switched on Jordan's wire. But he didn't wait for the hot words about whatever was the trouble. Bill, he said, start getting the big ship into production. I've found a volunteer. He'd been driven to it, he knew as he watched the man's amazed face snap from the screen from the first suspicion of his trouble. Something inside him had been forcing him to make this decision, and maybe it would do no good. Maybe the ship would fail. But think. 30 years was a number a man could risk. If he made it through, well, he'd see those grandchildren of his this year. And Harry. Maybe he'd even tell Harry the truth once they got done celebrating the reunion. And there'd be other grandchildren with the ship. He'd have time enough to look them up. Plenty of time. Thirty years was a long time when he stopped to think of it. Ebook of the Dwindling Years by Lester Del Rey End of three Science Fiction Stories by Lester Del Rey this story recorded by Phil Chenevair in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Thank you for listening.