Hostage of Tomorrow
By ROBERT ABERNATHY
Was Earth on the wrong time-track? Ray Manning
stared as nation smashed nation and humans
ran in yelping, slavering packs under a sky
pulsing with evil energy—and knew the answer
lay a hundred years back. Could he return?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was the end of March, and the wreck of the Dritten Reich lay incolossal ruin across Europe, where people were only beginning to crawlout of their burrows to face the job of rebuilding a world for betteror worse. In Germany itself, the Allied Armies, driving forward behindthe iron spearheads of their aircraft and their armor, were closing into smash the still-defiant nucleus of the old world that had been forworse.
One column consisted of two jeeps and a canvas-backed truck, boundingand swerving at reckless speed over a rutted road that wound upwardand deeper into the fir-shadowed Schwarzwald.
"Reconnaissance," grunted Ray Manning, between lurches of the transporttruck. "They might have called it treasure hunting."
"Huh?" said Eddie Dugan, planted solidly and insensitively besideManning on the jolting wooden seat. He took his eyes off the kneesof the soldier opposite and searched his buddy's face. "What's thetreasure?"
"Brains," explained Manning succinctly. "While the rest of the Seventhgoes on handing body blows to the enemy, we're going after his graymatter. Brains are about the only article of value left in thisbombed-out country. And Dr. Pankraz Kahl has one of the best."
"What's he keeping it in these woods for?" Dugan glanced out at thereceding park-like scenery, green now with spring.
"Unless the jerk they picked up back in Freiburg sold Intelligence afairy story, the Herr Doktor had some kind of a hideout here, where hewas doing experiments—something that impressed the Nazis enough theywere willing to finance him and leave him alone."
Dugan looked properly impressed. Of course, he had learned to expectsuch knowledge from Manning, who had been at M.I.T. and had managed tostay a combat soldier only by the grace of God and a lot of blarney....Dugan was still looking impressed when the truck scuffed tires to ahalt. Then he was first man out, and the rest of the troops followed inseconds—they needed no telling to get out of a stationary vehicle.
"Road ends," somebody remarked. It did, in a loop that took it back theway they had come. The lieutenant in charge of the detachment swung outof the lead jeep and called them together under the trees.
"We'll have to spread out," declared the lieutenant. "Groups of three.That hideout ought to be within a mile of here. If you find it andthere's resistance, keep shooting at intervals and wait for the rest.Remember, we've got to make captures this time, not kills."
The sergeant rattled off names and the groups formed swiftly and tookoff. Manning and Dugan, naturally, were two corners of one trio; itsthird was a corporal named White.
With Dugan as point, they advanced up a brush-grown ravine, usingcaution and cover, skirting the path that curved up the hill. Theytopped a saddle, and saw the house—a sprawling mountain lodge,built of logs by somebody with a passion for privacy, its roof wellcamouflaged now with synthetic greenery—not a hundred yards away up aslight slope rankly overgrown with grass. It looked deserted. Dugan hadtaken a few steps into the open before something—perhaps a far-awaytinkle of breaking glass—warned him, and he went down smoothly in tothe grass and rolled sidewise to