CHAPTER 3

Betty returns

Towards the end of April 2020 he had used his natural intelligence and industry to promote himself from the job of builders’ labourer to that of construction foreman. Few liked him. He was hard-mouthed and ruthless. The life he had led and the beating he had taken had about destroyed whatever sentiment he had once possessed. He had a home of sorts that he had built for himself and here, when at last he could relax a little, he spent his time brooding over the formula which Whittaker had copied in Atlantis thousands of years before.

Several times he thought of seeking the aid of some scientist who might better interpret the formula; then each time he set his face against it. He even preferred to remain in ignorance of the formula’s real power rather than bring in a second person who might cheat or even kill him. Thus deep was the measure of his suspicion of the human race in general.

So he went on working and experimenting. He bought some white mice and tried the formula in different strengths on each one of them. They all died at different times during 2023; so in 2024 he bought another batch and tried again tirelessly, working when he could in the little room at the back of his home.

In his ordinary work he was progressing. From construction boss he was promoted to a directorship in the British Rehabilitation Company, and at the end of 2024 he was managing director, his hair turning grey and his face inflexible. He now had under his control practically all the reconstruction of Britain—a position that elevated him to national importance.

He began to discover the few men who were trying to restore order to the shattered country. It was not a government in the accepted sense—rather a group of six men who, by their cornering of indispensable raw materials, had the country in their pockets.

Jeffrey still had his white mice to attend to—and one mouse in particular. It had been given the latest variation of the formula in January 2024, and now it was August, with the white mouse still scampering merrily around its cage. The time had come to make the final test. If the drug had worked at last, then by this time the mouse must have built up an anabolistic reaction to all substances likely to destroy it. Especially poisons. Suppose, then—?

So Jeffrey gave the white mouse pure cyanide of potassium and then spent a whole evening watching for the result. With increasing amazement he found that the white mouse was quite unaffected. In fact, it ate a meal an hour after taking the poison and seemed to be none the worse. Perhaps there might be a sudden reaction later?

There was none. For a week Jeffrey kept watch over it, and by this time was fully decided that he had at last found the correct application of the formula. Irvin Whittaker had been too confident and too hurried, had not tested the stuff on another organism approaching the human in sensitivity. And, as too much of some drug can kill in one instance, and yet in an immeasurably slighter amount bring untold benefit, so there was a hairline also in the amounts needed to create the age-destroying drug...

And now? Jeffrey weighed the position very carefully, and few men had ever been faced with such an incredible choice. On the one hand he was quite convinced that if he marketed his product he could net a tremendous fortune, but if he kept the secret to himself he could outlive every living person, become eternal through thousands of years, until—

The Mind? Could it be that circumstances was to make him the Mind? That shadowy, impersonal being whom he had never seen? Had it been more than just chance that he had not been able to glimpse the Mind during his visit to the future? Had there instead been some complex Time barrier that had made it mathematically impossible for him to see his own self?

But in spite of the tempest of argument raging within him he knew what he was going to do. Cheated of using the time machine to journey again into the future and meet Mira Sandos, there was this other way of doing it. Living through the thousands of years until he caught up with the period when she must appear.

This decision reached, he informed his secretary that he would be absent for the next day or so and, that evening, he mixed exactly the right quantity of potion and then stood for a moment with it in his hand.

He knew now how the unfortunate Irwin Whittaker must have felt when he had performed similar actions. Silent, alone in his small laboratory, Jeffrey surveyed the emerald-coloured liquid, hesitated as he looked at the still-happy white mouse that had taken poison—and then he drank. With a gesture of finality he flung the emptied glass down and watched it splinter on the floor.

He had destroyed old age. He could live on and on, in this ruin of a world. And since it was a ruin there was only one course for a man in his position—take control in the quickest way possible.

For two days he was ill as the potion found a balance in his system; then he became aware of remarkably increased strength and mental agility. The formula stolen from Atlantis was the elixir of the gods indeed.

In his capacity as head of British Rehabilitation he exerted his authority to the full—so much so that the men above him, netting fortunes from the materials they were supplying, began to object. Brookings of the Steel Combine was the first to say so openly.

“It’s got to stop, Collins,” he said, one morning. “You’re taking too much on yourself.”

“Am I?” Jeffrey smiled coldly. “As head of this firm I’m entitled to act as I please, and I shall continue to do so.”

“Not with our sanction!” Brookings snapped.

“No, without it,” Jeffrey said calmly.

Brookings got to his feet in sudden anger: “Look here, Collins, what do you think you’re doing? You can’t override the government that I and my colleagues represent. You have given instructions for the most far-reaching building programmes and never even consulted us. You can’t do it!”

“But I have, and I shall not rescind a single order. It is not that which is worrying you, Brookings. It is the fact that this new building programme doesn’t take you or your friends into account financially. I have found several smaller firms willing and able to turn out the steel and building materials we need without recourse to your massive combine. In the same way I have cut out your colleagues who usually supply timber, wiring, piping, stone, and so forth.”

“Which is rank betrayal!” Brookings shouted. “We men at the top have got to work together.”

“I think differently, Brookings. You and your compatriots are a monopoly, and a monopoly should be broken.”

“But why? If we don’t sell we’re ruined.”

“I know.” Jeffrey sat back in his chair calmly. “That’s the general idea. If you cannot be productive you must perish.”

“But damn it, it’s preposterous! Why should we perish when we’re the backbone of the country?”

“I disagree. You are a bunch of self-righteous humbugs intent only on your own enrichment at the expense of the masses. I have decided I have no further use for you.”

Brookings stared. “You, only a managing director, are daring to dictate to the government?”

“Don’t waste my time with that nonsense, Brookings.” Jeffrey waved a hand impatiently. “You do not constitute a government. You and your friends are self-elected and not the choice of the people. You just cashed in on the aftermath of war and had grand notions about soaking the war-survivors. We have before us a planet which has to be built anew, and I know how to model it on the right lines.”

“So now you’re a visionary?” Brookings sneered.

“Perhaps.” Jeffrey looked at him absently. “At least I know what this city can look like five thousand years from now.”

“You can’t get away with this, Collins,” Brookings snapped. “As long as you played the game our way we were willing to give you every chance—but now your head has swollen you need stripping of all authority. And you will be! Remember, you’re an ex-jailbird.”

“I was falsely accused by a government which has been blasted out of existence. That affair is dead.”

“Some people have long memories. You haven’t heard the last of this. As for that remark about having seen how London will look in five thousand years, I assume you were being facetious?”

“I was never more serious in my life.”

Which was too much for Brookings. He clenched his fists, then without saying any more he stormed out of the office and slammed the door. Jeffrey smiled faintly to himself and continued with his work.

In ten minutes Brookings had reached his own headquarters in the city centre with his five colleagues. In an hour they were in conference with him.

“The man’s crazy!” Brookings insisted. “Instead of working through us he fools about with piffling little firms who haven’t a tenth of our productive capacity. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I think it does,” said the Timber King morosely. “I’ve a\always had a feeling that Jeffrey Collins would prove a rod in pickle for us one day—and now I’m sure of it. It’s perfectly obvious that if he is in control of rebuilding Britain, as he is, and refuses to use our materials, we automatically take a terrific hiding. We can sell abroad, of course, bur Collins may stop that too, in time.”

“But he can’t! He isn’t the government! We are!”

The men glanced at each other and then the Timber King spoke for them.

“Purely an arbitrary term, Brookings. You’ve overlooked the fact that in this day and age power goes not to a self-elected body like us but to the man with the greatest monopoly of materials—and in his position as head of British rehabilitation Collins has that monopoly. We got him into that high chair and to save ourselves we must unseat him.”

“Kill him?” Brookings asked, and nobody spoke for a moment.

“Millions have died in the war,” one of the men said. “I cannot see that one more can make much difference. But I think it must be done subtly because Collins definitely has a hold over the people.”

Brookings said: “I had thought of exposing his prison sentence. We know all the particulars.”

“It would carry no weight these days,” the Timber King decided. “There may be a better way. Tell me what you think of this…”

* * * *

In consequence of what he had to say, that same evening Betty Collins found herself in the office of Brookings. She had not the vaguest idea what was going on. All she knew was that two men had called upon her and, politely but firmly, had insisted that she go with them. Believing them police officers and that she had been mistaken for somebody who had committed a criminal offence, she had obeyed. Now, in her shabby coat, her hat awry, she stood looking at the famous Brookings across his big desk.

“My apologies, Mrs. Collins, for such unorthodox methods,” he smiled, rising and settling a chair for her. “Do be seated, please— All right,” he added to the two men, and they left the office.

Frowning, Betty waited, still trying to fathom why she had been brought to the headquarters of the most powerful man in the country.

“My agents located you quite promptly, Mrs. Collins,” Brookings continued, resuming his seat at the desk. “I feel that you are the kind of woman who would be willing to render the country a service—for a consideration of course.”

“Far as I can see I’ve no choice,” Betty answered sullenly. “You are supposed to be at the head of the government Mr. Brookings, so whatever you order I must do.”

“I am the nominal head of the government at the moment, yes, but I would prefer you to forget that. What I have to ask is more in the nature of—well, a personal favour.”

“Oh? But what in the world could you want with me? I’m just one of the millions of women who survived the war. I have to work to keep myself alive since my husband deserted me.”

“You are still the wife of Jeffrey Collins, and in that capacity you can be useful to me and the country as a whole —if you reunite with your husband.”

Betty laughed shortly. “Your intelligence department must be slipping, Mr. Brookings. Jeff is finished with me completely. He misunderstood the fact that a soldier was billeted in my home and—well, you can imagine how it looked when not explained.”

“I am not interested in personal details, Mrs. Collins. Your husband is becoming a menace to the peace and security of this country just when it is trying to get on its feet again. You must be aware of how much authority your husband is grasping.”

“Yes, I’m aware of it. Quite unusual for him, too. He never used to be the pushing sort even if he was a commercial.”

“He has control of certain raw materials,” Brookings continued. “If any stranger tried to learn the names of these various small companies your husband would become suspicious. But you could no doubt find out the names without difficulty if yon patched up your differences with him.”

“Possibly. But what good would a few names do you?”

“If I knew the firms he has set in competition against me I could destroy his hold over them. The point is: are you willing to help? You are the only one who can, and if you do not there will inevitably come a day when your husband will dominate the country and enforce his every wish upon it. More—he might dominate the world. That must be prevented at all costs.”

“I can’t see why. I’ve read what Jeff intends to do for the people and it all sounds pretty reasonable to me.”

Brookings said patiently: “You must allow me to decide what is right for the country—and I repeat that your husband is a menace. I even have doubts as to his sanity. Once, in conversation, he told me he knew exactly how London would look in five thousand years’ time. Well, I ask you!”

“He said that? Oh, he was probably referring to the trip into the future he made just before he was arrested.”

“Trip into the future?” Brookings gave a start. “What in the world do you mean?”

“I mean that Dr. Whittaker, the man Jeff was supposed to have killed—though I’m quite sure he did no such thing—found or invented a time machine. Jeff tried it, went five thousand years ahead, and then came back. I don’t know what happened to the machine but I think Jeff has the design of it. He buried it in the back garden before he went to prison, and dug it up again when he came out. I didn’t realize what he’d done until he did dig it up otherwise I’d have had a look for myself.”

“You actually mean to tell me that your husband has the secret of travelling Time?” Brookings demanded, incredulous.

“I’m convinced he has.”

Brookings got to his feet and stood thinking. “But what a difference this makes!” he muttered, half to himself. “No wonder he is so assured if he knows what future time holds. What could I not do with a secret like that! Make my investments after studying their future development…”

He looked again at Betty. “I am going to make a bargain with you, Mrs. Collins. A lot hinges on whether you still have any affection for your husband. If you have, you will never be able to accomplish your purpose, but on the other hand—”

“You can rest assured, Mr. Brookings, that I haven’t a spark of affection left for Jeff. How could I after the way he walked out on me?”

“I am remembering that women are sometimes strange in their affections. They 1ove even whilst pretending to hate. That, however, is a chance I must take. If you can obtain for me the secret of this time-travel, together with the names of the opposition firms I need, I will pay you fifty thousand pounds.”

“That’s not much for the risk I’d have to take, besides running contrary to my inclinations.”

Brookings looked surprised for a moment and then he grinned.

“I didn’t suspect you were a business woman, Mrs. Collins.”

“I’m not, but I know I’m the only one who can help. I’ll do it for a hundred thousand and not a cent less.”

“Very well.” Brookings compressed his lips.

“And before I make a single move I want everything in writing. I can’t trust you any more than you can trust me.”

“That can be arranged immediately.”

“And finally,” Betty added, “I wish to be dressed properly. I can hardly approach Jeff in clothes like these.”

Brookings eyed her and reached for the interphone…

* * * *

Jeffrey, following a conference with his own immediate colleagues, in which he outlined his plans and his intention of overriding the clique that called itself a government, worked late in his office that evening, drafting new plans for the reconstruction of Britain and making the first advances to other countries in an effort to make them fall in with his ideas. He was a man who had no need to take heed of time. If the anabolistic reaction within worked out normally he had thousands of years in which to achieve his objective. The one thing that still puzzled him was whether he was to be the Mind of the future, or had another factor still to come into the situation? And with the time machine destroyed there was no way of discovering the answer except by surviving generation after generation.

Then towards eight o’clock the night porter showed Betty into the office. Jeffrey, though advised by the interphone of her coming, still could not quite believe it. He stood beside his desk, gazing at the smartly-dressed woman on the edge of middle age who now walked towards him. Beauticians had done a good job for her.

“You can’t believe it, can you?” Betty asked.

Jeffrey motioned to a chair and contemplated her.

“Is this a social call?” he asked shortly.

“I’d prefer to call it a reunion between husband and wife.”

Jeffrey sat down. “To be quite frank, I want nothing further to do with you. I can’t understand why you’ve come looking for me.”

“Because you jumped to conclusions when you saw that soldier at home. He was billeted on me. That’s all.”

Despite the years which had passed Betty still had claims to being fairly good-looking, unless the beauty experts had done an exceptionally good job.

“Well, why did you come here?” Jeffrey asked.

“I want you to believe, Jeff, that I still love you.” Betty said quietly.

“I find that hard to believe. You stopped coming to see me when I was in prison: you had a strange man in the house when I came upon you unexpectedly, and now you’ve realized I have achieved a certain eminence, I suppose, so have decided to cash in on it. Very well, I’ll see you have a generous allowance. Let it go at that.”

Betty’s eyes never left Jeffrey’s face. “You do hate me, Jeff, don’t you?”

“Not hate you. Just disappointed in you. There was a time when—” Jeffrey made a restless movement. “Oh, why go into that now?”

“I stopped visiting you in prison because I was taken ill. I’d just got to my feet again when the war came, and I had to do my bit. I did it—driving an ambulance.”

Jeffrey looked astonished. “You, of all people, drove an ambulance?”

“Why not? I was willing to do my bit. When the war was over I found work of a different kind, thanks to that soldier who was billeted with me. You got the wrong idea about him. He was an angel. That we had to live together was one of the exigencies of war. Jeff, that is the truth.”

Jeffrey got to his feet and moved slowly towards Betty’s chair. She watched him, a far less flippant woman than she had been in her younger days.

“Life’s too short to quarrel, Jeff,” she said. “I came here tonight after a good deal of heart-searching. After all, I’m still your wife and knowing you I am sure you were never cut out to be a bachelor. Can’t we—can’t we patch things up?”

“I wish I could believe all this,” Jeffrey muttered; then his attitude suddenly changed. “I suppose I was pretty boorish at times. Like the evening when I went out and buried the—when I buried something in the garden. I remember I nearly bit your head off.”

Betty smiled a little. “I have been promised a hundred thousand pounds if I can wheedle out of you the secret you buried in the garden. Design of the time machine, wasn’t it?”

“What did you say? Been offered a hundred thousand? I’ll make one guess—Brookings!”

“Yes, Brookings. That’s why I’m dressed in this finery. He paid for it. All so I could make an impression on you. But I have been rather clever, Jeff. I made him pay me fifty thousand down, the other half to follow when I get the information he wants. So you see, I’m not so slow, am I? On the one hand I’m proving my loyalty to you, and on the other I’ve cleaned up fifty thousand.”

“Is this absolutely true?” Jeffrey asked seriously. “Did Brookings rope you in so you could betray me?”

“That was his idea, and he thinks I’m going to do it. But I never meant to. In spite of what you think there is no other man in my life except you. I want you back with all my heart. If I didn’t really still love you do you think I’d have told you as much as I have?”

“No. No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

The one thing that had been clouding Jeffrey’s relentless ascendancy so far had been the lack of a woman’s affection. He was the kind of man who could not exist without it—and the vision of an ineffably lovely creature some five thousand years hence was, at best, a remote objective. He had to think of now, and legally he was still Betty’s husband.

“I don’t see what more I can say to prove my feelings,” Betty murmured.

“There’s nothing more, Bet, and I’m satisfied. Let us say that misunderstanding forced us apart—that and war. Let’s forgive and forget. In any case, I need you. You’ll never be a brilliant woman, but at least you have balance. You can be the mainstay of the man who intends, in time, to rule the world.”

“Rule the world?” Betty repeated slowly. “Yes, that’s what Brookings said. And he means to stop you! He’s afraid of you, Jeff, which is why he set me—the person closest to you—to try and discover your secrets. He is particularly anxious to know the firms with which you’re dealing.”

“Yes, I daresay he is.” Jeffrey gave a taut smile. “And he also wants to know what I dug out of the garden, does he? Just how did he know about that?”

“I let the information slip unintentionally, and I’m afraid I made things worse by saying it was probably the design of the lost time machine.”

“Which Brookings wants?”

“More than anything else in the world. He said something about studying future investments and then cashing in on them.”

“Naturally he’d think of that,” Jeffrey said. “But he’s going to be unlucky. I have no design of the time machine, and the machine itself has been destroyed. Or I assume so.”

Betty frowned. “Then what did you bury in the back garden?”

For a long moment Jeffrey hesitated, then he came to a decision.

“You’ve been frank with me, Bet, so I’ll be frank with you,” Jeffrey replied, after a long pause. “It was the formula for neutralising old age.”

“That!” Betty looked disgusted. “Some use it proved to be when it killed Whittaker.”

“It killed him, yes, but not me. You’re looking on a man who has many thousands of years ahead of him.”

Betty was looking dazed, as she always did when faced with the improbable, especially a scientific issue.

“I hope to live five, or even seven thousand years,” Jeffrey continued. “Not that I expect you to believe it. I don’t even expect you to believe that I am virtually eternal. So I’ll prove it.”

He turned to a small safe and from it brought a bottle of deep purple colour labelled “Cyanide of Potassium”. Before Betty could grasp his intentions he had poured some of the poison into container from the water carafe and then swallowed it.

“Jeff, what have you done!” Betty jumped up and hurried over to him, clutching at his shoulders. There was genuine horror on her face.

“Your actions tell me a lot,” he said, tossing the cup away. “You really do care what happens to me, so I’m satisfied we can start again.”

“You mean it isn’t really poison in that bottle?”

“Certainly it is! Genuine cyanide, and it would kill any ordinary man immediately. But not me. Poisons have no effect upon me. I’ve built up a resistance. Possibly bullets and dagger wounds might pass me by, too. It’s a matter of adaptability. This is Whittaker’s elixir as it should have been before the poor devil killed himself.”

“Then…” Betty stopped, still half afraid.

“I cannot die,” Jeffrey said. “I have made myself virtually eternal because I wish to live long enough to see—” He hesitated, not wanting to admit he was also anxious to meet Mira Sandos again. “To see the world I intend building come to its full maturity, as it will in five thousand years.”

“Could I be made eternal, too?” Betty questioned, and this startled him. If Betty, too, lived through the thousands of years until the time when Mira Sandos must appear, what then?

“Possibly,” he answered evasively. “But you should give it careful thought. You can’t lightly accept the idea of almost eternal life. Think what it means—”

“I have. If you want me beside you I’ll have to live as long as you, shan’t I?”

Jeffrey turned. “I’d better take you home. And it’s in need of a woman’s touch, too. It’s a far better home than any we’ve had so far.”

So for the moment Betty said no more. Jeffrey led her from the office to the rear of the building where his car was standing. She sank into the soft upholstery and glanced about her at the fittings.

“You’ve come a long way, Jeff.”

“And I shall go a lot further.” He switched on the engine and the car glided out into the main street. “I am one man distinct in all the world, Bet. Compared to every other human being I am eternal. It sort of does something to you when you get used to it.”

“You’re not the Jeff I used to know. You’re—different.”

“Maybe ambition’s changed me,” he said, and dropped the subject. Betty did not bring it up again.

What neither she nor Jeffrey realized was that if you exact something from Nature she will claim repayment in some form or other. Always she must find a balance, and she was finding it in Jeffrey. In defeating normal law by prolonging his life indefinitely he had thrown himself out of focus with the scheme of things. Something was being exacted and its first signs were visible in his deep-rooted selfishness, the intensifying conviction that he was a god.

When Betty saw the home he had built for himself she was satisfied that she had made the right move in rejoining mm. To her credit, she really meant to be loyal to him but she also meant to be sure that she would have all the things she longed for.

She prepared a meal much in the fashion of earlier days and she and Jeffrey ate mainly in silence. Then he said:

“The people are behind me and have come to accept me as the new ruler of their destiny, chiefly because I have devised so many programmes for their comfort; but as long as there is opposition my activities are limited. I must remove that opposition. Between me and the complete domination of this country there stand half a dozen men who deliberately engineered themselves into positions of authority in the hope of making fortunes. They’re rotten right through, with Brookings the most rotten of all, Otherwise he would never have used you to try and get my secrets from me.”

“I suppose he thought any means legitimate,” Betty answered, musing.

“I shall kill him,” Jeffrey said, and Betty gave a start.

“Jeff, what on earth are you saying?”

“I am saying that Brookings must go, and after him the five other men who act as his satellites. No country can have two masters, and I have greater reason than anybody for being the master of this one.”

“Because you are eternal?”

“Isn’t that reason enough?”

“But Jeff, what you are contemplating is murder! Whatever you may call it, it’s still murder.”

“I prefer to call it elimination, in the same way as a general views a battle. He doesn’t ‘murder’ the enemy: he destroys him.”

“But there’s no comparison. Whatever else you may chose to call it, it’s still murder!”

Jeffrey was silent, his face expressionless. Betty studied him, her brow wrinkled.

“How changed you are, Jeff. It couldn’t be just prison that has made you like this, nor the injustice of the sentence you got. It’s something else. You’re inflexible—ruthless.”

“A man who is unique cannot afford to be anything else.”

“And an egotist as well,” Betty finished, at which Jeffrey made an irritated movement.

“I’m not a commercial traveller any more in a cheap suburban house. I have a destiny and I shall fulfill it.”

“Maybe, but you don’t expect me to condone murder, do you?”

“Elimination! And if you don’t approve of what I intend to do, Bet, you know the remedy. I don’t think you’ll take it, either, you’d lose too much. Now forgive me, Bet, but I have things to do. We’ll talk again later…”

Betty watched in moody silence as he left the room and, a few minutes later, drawing back the heavy drapes from the window, she saw the rear lights of his car vanishing down the driveway. For perhaps the first time in her life she realized that she had a tremendous responsibility. The days when she had taken Jeffrey for granted as a mild young man with a few argumentative tendencies had gone. She had reunited herself to a man who was evidently determined to smash down everything opposing him in an effort to fulfil what he regarded as his destiny. Perhaps he was mad—perhaps a lot of things. The fact remained that if she were to remain loyal she had a great deal to do.