The Second Time Travel Megapack: 23 Modern and Classic Stories Read online

  Clive recognized one of the motorcycles as his own, and mounting it he roared out of the building behind d’Artagnan. As they-approached the eastern entrance to Paris they found the road barricaded, and several of the cardinal’s guards stood before the barricade with muskets poised.

  “Quick!” cried d’Artagnan, “find cover,” And leading the way he pulled his motorcycle into the ditch, at the side of the road. Clive followed, and once under cover, the two men unslung their rifles, and carefully started picking off the guards who were well within rifle range, but were not near enough to do any effective shooting with their muskets.

  Seeing their companions fall the remaining guards quickly scattered for shelter, and as they scattered, Bazin, Mousqueton and Grimaud appeared from nowhere and proceeded to demolish the barricade, while the two fugitives covered them with their rifles. Waiting only until the lackeys had made good their escape after the road was clear, Clive and d’Artagnan hurriedly remounted, and were soon in open country.

  “Monsieur,” said Clive, when they were once out of danger, “I am dying of curiosity—tell me how you knew the cardinal was about to gather me in.”

  “It is very simple, Monsieur,” replied d’Artagnan. “The cardinal’s messenger stopped for a drink in a tavern in which our companions and I were having dinner. He was imprudent enough to provoke a quarrel with M. Porthos, or it was the other way around—but that is unimportant, and while Porthos was attending to him he lost, temporarily, His Eminence’s orders. When he recovered them they were no longer secret.”

  The seriousness of his situation was just beginning to make itself known as Clive sped over the beautiful French countryside. His ace in the hole, the cavern at Amiens, which he had always counted upon to pull him out of any situation had been closed to him, and now he was riding even farther away. A feeling of helplessness swept over him, but he was not one to dwell long upon any chance misfortune, and he was soon evolving a plan. The two rode on, Clive deep in thought, and d’Artagnan signing a light-hearted song of his native southland.

  As night was beginning to fall they arrived at the Swiss border. By this time Clive’s fame had spread over most of western Europe, and he was immediately recognized by the border guard who did not question his passage when Clive showed him the ring Louis XIII had given him.

  Once they were well within Switzerland they slackened their pace, and began searching for a suitable inn. This they found without much difficulty, and they welcomed the rest, for they had had a long hard journey, and had fasted since breakfast. The excitement of the day had not dulled their appetites in any way, and when the food was brought they fell to with all the enthusiasm of youth. They were fairly satiated before they even ventured conversation.

  “What are your plans now, Monsieur d’Artagnan?” asked Clive, finally.

  “Plans? I have no plans—except to stay with you until our comrades can arrange for our safe return to France,” replied d’Artagnan.

  “Well, I am in the process of giving birth to an idea,” said Clive, “and I will need your help, as well as the help of our friends back in Paris, to carry it out.”

  Clive proceeded to unfold his plan. They were to send a message back to the three musketeers, requesting them to send on the expedition that had been organized to search for oil in eastern Europe. They were also to gather up all the books, instruments etc., and to bring together all the men Clive had been training—or as many of them as possible—and to send them on. They would go to Bohemia, and continue their studies, and building over there. They would wait until His Eminence committed an act of treason against the king, as Clive knew he eventually would, and would then step in with superior fighting equipment and depose the minister. Clive also hoped some day to institute a democratic form of government in France, but he didn’t mention these plans to d’Artagnan.

  The latter approved of Clive’s plans, thinking that since they had to stay away from France anyhow, they might as well be occupied. They soon had located a messenger—a brother of one of the mechanics Clive was training, who for the opportunity of working for the great doctor was willing to risk his life. Clive wrote the message, and after giving the boy instructions on how to elude the cardinal’s men, sent him on to Paris in search of Athos.

  In due time the various components of the expedition converged upon Berne, where Clive and d’Artagnan had taken temporary residence. They arrived singly or in pairs, all having taken different routes out of France. When finally they stopped coming, Clive learned that those not present had been won over by the force, if not by the gold of the cardinal, and were now engaged in turning out firearms for His Eminence. The drilling equipment arrived in peasant carts, covered by hay or vegetables to hide it from the prying eyes of the cardinalists. Once they were all assembled, they loaded the motorcycles on the carts and the strange caravan set out for Bohemia.

  * * * *

  Richelieu lost no time getting the manufacture of arms and ammunition under way. These were limited, however, to revolvers and rifles, and to an awkward version of the modern French “75,” which he designed himself. Clive had never hinted that there was such a thing as a machine gun, a fact which the cardinal was soon to regret. In the months to follow he saw the king but little, and his persecutions of the queen, practically ceased. The king thought little of this lack of attention, in fact he was rather pleased to be free of the annoyances his minister was always causing. The queen, however, intuitively knew that this outward serenity was actually the calm before the storm, and she anticipated future developments with, a dread exceeded only by her loathing of the cardinal.

  Soon after his arrival in Bohemia, Clive established communication with the queen—carrier pigeon and messenger at firsthand short wave radio later on. Due to his absorption in his plans, the cardinal had relaxed. his internal spy system somewhat, and Clive found it fairly easy to send one of his technicians into Paris with a short wave transmitter, which he set up in the apartment of Athos. By this method the American was able to keep in constant communication not only with the musketeers, but with the queen, and in this way followed the daily developments on the Paris front.

  On his part, Clive had been welcomed into Bohemia practically with open arms, and when he, told the rulers of the Bohemians about the cardinal’s plans they immediately gave him all the resources of men and materials that he could wish for, and he soon had several machine shops in operation that were turning out guns and the machinery of war. Before long he was producing and refining oil, and his first gasoline motor was completed just about the same time that the first gasoline trickled out of the stills. He appropriated several ships of the navy, and set about refitting them, and equipping them with steam engines.

  About the time Clive was beginning to feel he had everything well in hand he got an urgent call from Paris. It was the queen, she had slipped out of the Louvre incognito, as she had done so many times in the past few months, to speak with Clive by radio. This time, however, her voice clearly showed anxiety.

  “I am worried about France and the king,” she said. “Monsieur le Cardinal is now openly insulting his majesty, and it is rumored that he has armed forces all over France ready to seize the kingdom as soon as His Eminence gives the command.”

  “And what is the king doing about it?” asked Clive.

  “Nothing, outwardly. He passes Richelieu’s insults off as jokes, when he is around, but when Louis is alone he flies into wild rages, and he seems to think you are the cause of his misfortunes—an obsession that the cardinal has encouraged.”

  “And you my dear, what kind of treatment have you been receiving?” asked Clive. For a moment Anne didn’t answer, and then:

  “The cardinal has been making demands of me,” she said.

  “Demands!” cried Clive. “What sort of demands?”

  “Demands which I could, not meet and continue to hold
my head up as a lady,” she replied, “and he threatens all the things that I have feared for France if I don’t comply.”

  “I have been afraid it would come to this,” said Clive. “We must get you out of France, at least until we can once again establish peace, and safety.”

  “I had hoped you would say that.” Anne spoke as though a great burden had been lifted from her mind. “When may I start for Bohemia?”

  “I am afraid Bohemia is out of the question,” said Clive, “as much as I would like to have you with me. But our preparations are nearly complete here, and we will be leaving for France within a week. There is but one thing for you to do, and that is to go through the caverns, and let my people take care of you until I can come for you. It will take a lot of courage, Anne dear, courage that I know you have. Now listen carefully, for this is what you must do, but first, is Athos there?”

  “He is guarding the front door,” she replied.

  “He must hear this too, for we will need his help.” Soon Athos’ voice came through the loud speaker.

  “I am ready, Monsieur Clive, to follow you and my queen anywhere,” he said.

  “Good, I knew I could count on you.

  “Now this is my plan: The queen is to slip out of the Louvre tomorrow at noon, she will meet you and the two of you will proceed to St. Cloud, and conceal yourselves in the chapel until I arrive.”

  “But Monsieur, are you not in Bohemia?” asked the musketeer.

  “Yes, but tomorrow I shall be in Paris,” answered Clive.

  “You say you shall be here, so I shall expect you, but Mordieu, I wouldn’t believe it of the devil himself, when it takes at least three days on a motorcycle with good dry roads, and now the roads are wet and muddy.” In spite of his professions of faith, Athos was still dubious.

  “But I shan’t need the roads,” said Clive, enjoying his friend’s confusion, “for I shall fly.”

  “Are you sure you feel perfectly well, Monsieur?” asked the queen.

  “Perfectly,” Clive laughed, “as you shall see tomorrow in the clearing behind the chapel at St. Cloud.” He was about to switch off when he had another thought. “You had better bring Porthos and Aramis along to help d’Artagnan with the guns I am bringing, and this will be a good opportunity to use the trailers I sent to you.” And then to Anne, he said: “You might leave a note for the king, and tell him that although I may be the cause of his present misfortunes, he shall see that I will be his salvation, politically. Until tomorrow then, good-by and good luck.”

  Clive had built a small plane as one of his first projects, and had gained the experience in flying necessary to pilot a larger craft. He held a private pilot’s license, and this experience was all that he needed. In the meantime he had supervised the construction, from plans he had brought with him, of a ponderous twin motored affair. He had taken it on a test flight the preceding day, and it had performed even better than he had expected. Fortunately he had established refueling bases along the route to France, and he was all ready to start the journey. He called d’Artagnan.

  “My friend, how would you like to fly to Paris with me tomorrow on a dangerous mission?” Clive asked him. D’Artagnan had been up with Clive enough to have aviation in his blood.

  “Monsieur Clive, there is nothing in the world I would rather do, and as you know, the more dangerous the better I shall like it.” A trip to the moon couldn’t have pleased d’Artagnan more.

  “I know, Monsieur, that is why I said it would be dangerous. We must get the big plane ready tonight for the journey. We will carry about ten of the new machine guns, and as much ammunition as we can safely get off the ground with, and we shall leave tomorrow at dawn.”

  * * * *

  The trip to Paris was uneventful for the fliers, but for the people on the ground it was somewhat of a major catastrophe. If the motorcycle trip from Amiens to Paris caused a turmoil, the flight of the giant “winged monster” caused an outright panic, in spite of the fact that Clive flew at a high altitude. His intention had been to cut his motors high over Paris and make a dead-stick landing so as to attract as little attention as possible, but by the time he had sighted the clearing in which he was going to land, the streets were filled with people who were gazing with awe upon the second visitation of Satan.

  “Our friends will have their motorcycles with them, as well as the small trailers that I sent to them some time ago,” Clive said to d’Artagnan. “As soon as we land we must load these guns and ammunition into two of the trailers. In the third we will set up one of the machine guns, and you will ride in that one and cover their rear as they proceed to the Louvre. You must barricade the Louvre, and protect the life of the king at any cost. I don’t think you will have much difficulty holding off any invaders with those machine guns but you must preserve your ammunition as long as possible. I will operate from our base in Switzerland, and keep you supplied with food and ammunition until reinforcements can reach you from Bohemia. As you know, the boats are leaving this morning, and will probably require more than a week to reach France. M. de Treville’s musketeers must meet the boats at Calais, and I shall support any of his advances from the air. Of course you must be with M. de Treville to explain to him the operation of our equipment.” D’Artagnan did not speak during this recital, and when Clive had finished he saw an odd expression cross the musketeer’s face, but as they were about to land he devoted the remainder of his attention to the job of bringing the big ship in.

  As they drew to a stop, three motorcycles pulled out on the field, each one pulling a trailer, and in one of the trailers crouched a fourth figure.

  “It is so, Monsieur Clive, again you have done the impossible.” Anne was radiant, Clive greeted his friends warmly, but hurriedly, and silently the five men loaded the machine guns into the trailers. They completed this task just as the first of the curious onlookers pushed cautiously into the clearing.

  Anne was already seated when Clive climbed in beside her at the controls. She smiled at him as he adjusted her safety belt, and he felt that never had a mortal been created so beautiful. His eyes lingered upon her features for a moment, but through the window he caught sight of the people who were beginning to mill out around the plane. He realized that soon he would be unable to take off, so he gunned his motors, which he had left idling, and at the sound of the roar the people scattered like leaves. With his lessened load Clive easily cleared the trees at the edge of the clearing. The musketeers slipped away unnoticed.

  The flight to Amiens seemed much too short to Clive, he barely had time to give the queen all the instructions she would need to find his friends in America, there was no time to tell her what he had in his heart. He nearly gave in to an impulse to go through the caverns with her, but realizing that this would surely mean the loss of his plane, and with it probably the loss of his “cause,” he brushed the idea aside. Later he was to regret not obeying this impulse, but he was doing what he thought was right.

  The scene at the cavern was touching. For a long moment Clive held Anne very close, to both of them it seemed goodbye forever, but they tried desperately to believe that soon they would be together again.

  “It will take courage, Anne dear, to go through there alone,” said Clive. “But I know that is one of your strongest virtues.” He released her from his embrace, and then guarded the entrance to the cavern while she quickly slipped on the twentieth-century bathing suit that he had brought with him. When she was ready to start, Clive strapped a small waterproof bag to her back.

  “Dry clothes for you when you reach the other end—American clothes,” he explained. He watched her step into the water and disappear into the darkness of the cavern, and again an overpowering impulse seized him and he started in to follow her, but then his mind flashed to his companions who were probably besieged in the Louvre, and depending upon him for their survival. He quickly
turned back to his plane, and none too soon for peasants armed with clubs and stones were courageously challenging the “monster.”

  * * * *

  “You arrived just in time d’Artagnan,” said Athos as the motorcycles sped toward the Louvre. “His Eminence is about to strike, and I fear the king’s life is in danger.” D’Artagnan remained silent. “I hope this new gun is as good as Monsieur Clive believes it is,” Athos continued. “We shall be greatly outnumbered.”

  “It is,” d’Artagnan said tersely.

  “What has come over you d’Artagnan?” asked Athos. “You act as though you aren’t at all pleased over the prospect of a good fight.”

  “I shall tell you later, my dear Athos, but at the present moment it appears as though the fight you just mentioned is at hand.”

  A small group of men armed with Richelieu’s new rifles had closed in behind them as they passed, and were in the process of leveling the weapons at the musketeers, when d’Artagnan removed this peril with a short burst from the machine gun he was manning.

  “Mordieu!” exclaimed Athos. “What an amazing weapon!”

  This occurrence was repeated twice before the musketeers reached the Louvre. To their relief they found that this palace was still being guarded by the king’s musketeers of their own company. This meant that the cardinal had not yet struck at the king, but their encounters in the streets had shown them that they were none too soon. They quickly gathered a group of musketeers around them, and d’Artagnan demonstrated the assembly and operation of the machine guns to them. He then stationed a crew with each machine gun at strategic positions about the Louvre, so that every entrance was guarded.

  D’Artagnan was just placing the last gun when the staccato of a machine gun was heard in the direction of the main entrance to the Louvre. This was punctuated by sporadic rifle fire, and as d’Artagnan listened there was a burst of rifle fire almost directly below him. At the same moment the crew manning this last gun went into action, and though they were rather awkward at first, their gun was horribly efficient. Soon all ten machine guns were pounding out their grim rhythm, and the would-be attackers were dropping like grain before the reaper.