The Time Mirror Part 5

"I thought so." Professor Duchard sighed. "That being the case, there is little use in my wasting energy trying to give you any real understanding of it.

"However, I can tell you this: time is not the immutable thing most people presume it to be. Actually, it is only another dimension. As a research physicist, I have for many years been convinced of this."

"You mean that time travel really is possible? That men can be transported into the future or the past--"

The other held up a restraining hand.

"Yes. Time travel _is_ possible, if men could break through into that other dimension." A pause. "Yet up until tonight, I never believed that man had found a way to pa.s.s that barrier."

"But professor! Think what you're saying! You're telling me that I could go back and murder my own grandfather. That I could prevent myself from being born--"

Again the elder man sighed.

"I was afraid of this," he said. "I knew you could not understand." He hesitated. Then: "At any rate, take my word for it that time travel is possible. Also, I a.s.sure you that there are any number of perfectly sound theoretical and practical reasons why you never could hope to murder your grandparents."

The other brushed the words aside.

"What about Elaine? What's all this got to do with her?"

"Everything. You see, my boy, it is _not_ possible for us to transport our material bodies across time. They cannot bridge the gap. They must remain in the period in which they are born--"

"But Elaine--"

Never had Mark seen the white-haired savant so solemn. His aged face was drawn with worry. Yet there was terrifying self-confidence in his words.

"Elaine," he said quietly, "at this moment is trapped in time!"

There was a moment of stunned silence, then. Mark's brain was spinning.

He stared at Professor Duchard through narrowed eyes, half-convinced that the man was mad. And yet--

"I am not insane," the scientist declared, as if answering an unspoken question. "Believe me, my boy, I am not."

"Go on."

"That mirror which Adrian Vance sent to my daughter actually is a crude time machine. A device for transporting a human soul to another period.

Who devised it I cannot say. I believe it is old, and that Vance came upon it only by chance."

"But it isn't a machine. It's just a mirror--"

"Yet it is the gate through which a mind may be reflected into past or future. All that is needed is a focal point. A person to receive that mind. In this case, Adrian Vance made the focal point one of my ancestors, the first Elaine Duchard."

"The first Elaine Duchard!"

"Yes. She was the woman in the picture. And the woman whose image we now find imprinted in that devil's mirror."

"But how--"

"You remember how Adrian Vance swore vengeance when Elaine refused to marry him." The aged savant's voice choked with anger. "This must be what he planned. He bought the picture Gustav Jerbette painted of my ancestor. Then, by some process, imprinted her portrait in the center of this mirror, whose secret he somehow discovered. Apparently the picture does not show except at a certain angle. Perhaps only my daughter's coloring or facial configuration would ordinarily bring it out." He shrugged. "That I do not know."

Mark nodded slowly. He was breathing hard, his eyes dark with anger.

"At any rate," the other continued, "Elaine tonight looked into the mirror. By some accident--an accident Vance had counted on taking place eventually, of course--, she happened to get exactly the right angle.

She saw her ancestor. Her mind flashed back through time, into that other Elaine Duchard's brain--"

And then, all at once, the old man's iron will cracked.

"She is trapped!" he cried in a voice like the wail of a north wind through the pines. "She is trapped in the body of that first Elaine Duchard, while her own lies here, a useless, unconscious husk! She will die, as our ancestor died--"

"What do you mean? How did the first Elaine Duchard die?" Mark was on his feet, fists clenched.

Professor Duchard sat slumped forward, his face buried in his hands, white hair awry.

"She was a tragic figure," he mumbled. "You saw her picture. You know how beautiful she was.

"She came from a minor family of the French n.o.bility, but she loved a young Jacobin--a man such as those who, a few years later, overthrew the monarchy and founded the French republic.

"She had another suitor, however. A Baron Morriere. When he learned that she was going to marry another, he kidnapped her the night before her wedding. Her lover was present at the time, and was nearly killed trying to protect her. Later he returned to help her escape from the Chateau Morriere. They succeeded in getting away.

"But the baron's guards tracked them down and murdered them both two days later. And Gustav Jerbette gained his first renown--he was then but a young student--when he immortalized them by painting his famous picture, 'Elaine Duchard's Escape'."

"And now Elaine--"

The old man straightened wearily.

"Our Elaine will die," he said. "Her mind will be wiped out when the Morriere pikes stab through my ancestor's body."

"There must be some way of calling her back--"

"If there is, I do not know it." He shook his head. "No. There is nothing we can do."

"We can try!"

Mark's voice rang out like the clang of a great iron bell, echoing with grim resolve. His tanned jaw jutted hard with determination. His eyes flashed brown fire.

Elaine's father let his hands fall in a hopeless gesture.

"What is there to try, my boy? Elaine's mind is gone, back a hundred and fifty years into the past. Her body lies unconscious in a hospital. What can we do?"

A savage, humorless smile played over the other's lips.

"Earlier this evening you said I was a man of action," he told the savant tautly. "You said I knew how to handle things I knew about. Well, I think it's time for action. Real action!"

"But what action can we take? What can--"