Short Fiction · Chapter
IV explained
Kradzy Zago explains to General Zarvas Pol that Hradzka, a tyrant from a radioactive future, has been sent back in time to the First Century of the Atomic Era, where his radioactive body will be deadly to the non-immune population.
What happens
Kradzy Zago explains to General Zarvas Pol that Hradzka, a tyrant from a radioactive future, has been sent back in time to the First Century of the Atomic Era, where his radioactive body will be deadly to the non-immune population. Zago reveals that the time machine was sabotaged to strand Hradzka in the past. Meanwhile, Hradzka is attacked by aircraft and bombs, and is seemingly killed or incapacitated.
Themes in this chapter
Time Travel and Temporal Displacement
Hradzka is sent back ten thousand years into the past via a sabotaged time machine, stranding him in a primitive era.
Power and Corruption
Hradzka's ambition to enslave all of time and space is thwarted by sabotage, highlighting the corrupting influence of absolute power.
Survival and Resilience
The human race's adaptation to radioactivity over millennia demonstrates resilience, while Hradzka's survival in the past is uncertain.
Characters to notice
- Hradzka
Hradzka is attacked by aircraft and bombs after being sent back in time; he is knocked down by a tree and engulfed in a searing light.
- General Maith
General Zarvas Pol (likely a variant of General Maith) discusses the threat of Hradzka and the legends of deadly radiations with Kradzy Zago.
- Kradzy Zago
Kradzy Zago explains the nature of Hradzka's radioactivity, the sabotage of the time machine, and the historical context of atomic energy.
Key passages
“Hradzka has returned to a time when such immunity did not exist? But would that not be to his advantage?”
General Zarvas questions whether Hradzka's radioactivity would be beneficial in a non-immune era.
Zago explains that Hradzka's radioactivity will be deadly to the people of the past, not advantageous.
“I estimate that Hradzka will probably cause the death of a hundred or so people, before he is dealt with.”
Kradzy Zago predicts that Hradzka will kill about a hundred people before being stopped.
Zago acknowledges the tragic but limited impact of Hradzka's presence in the past.
“The machine will take him out of our space-time continuum, or back to a time when this planet was a swirling cloud of flaming gas?”
General Zarvas asks if the time machine will send Hradzka to a primordial era.
Zago clarifies that the machine will only send him ten thousand years into the past, not to the planet's formation.