The Man Of One Million Years by Edward Chilvers Page A

an end, had ended in an ignominious dishonourable discharge and he had narrowly escaped prison. He had been unlucky. Nobody who truly knew what had happened could doubt that and yet he had been in charge when the disaster had happened and the buck now stopped squarely with him. He could not stand to be inactive and yet with his record none but the most menial of occupations would have him. Certainly the army was not willing to take him back. It was galling. It was strange. It was as though his memories had suddenly been transplanted, overnight, into a completely different body. It was as though he had been lobotomised. All his life Benjamin Rutherford had craved the thrills of the great outdoors. He had hiked and flown. He had tunnelled and climbed. Above all he had led, a true leader who had inspired loyalty by the very tone of his voice. Now, with the great betrayal that had led to his disgrace, all this was at an end. Benjamin Rutherford no longer wanted to go out. He no longer sought out the company of others; in fact he now ran from both of these things and rarely left the four walls of his self-imposed prison. From his nondescript one bedroom flat on the outskirts of an industrial estate just outside, Ipswich Benjamin Rutherford stared out at the driving rain, sighed and got ready to go out and claim his benefit cheque.
     
    Everything was in place. Dr Harley Huxtable almost allowed himself a little smile. The great metal box was ensconced snugly into the mountainside and the diggers were packing the rock around it. The box could be accessed only by a narrow passageway and even this would be closed up in time. Harley turned to leave.
    “Did we succeed?” Asked one of the research assistants as he passed her on his way to his car. Harley glanced at her and paused. “Succeed?” He asked in puzzlement.
    “With the experiment, Professor. Was the experiment a success?”
    Harley licked his thin lips and treated her to a penet rating stare. “You are a doctor yourself are you not?”
    “I am, P rofessor,” she replied.
    “Then you tell me whether the experiment was a success,” said the professor simply, and he walked away. The research assistant shrugged in bemusement.
     
    A few months later Harley published a paper on the experiments he had apparently been conducting in the Highland rock. The paper was well received, as all of the great man’s papers were well received, but there was a general consensus amongst his peers that this was by no means the professor’s best work. Many commented that it was in part a rehashing of old ideas, confirming what they already knew with only a slight angle to advance the scientific knowledge of gas particles. Some of his harshest critics pointed to the paper as yet more evidence of Harley’s laziness. But the professor, as usual, seemed not to care at all. The paper was duly noted and forgotten about.
     
    Harley Huxtable returned to his Oxfordshire farmhouse and looked thoughtfully at the large empty space in his barn which had once housed the culmination of all his dreams. For the first time in his life the professor was uncertain. He was not quite sure how to proceed. “I must find myself the vital cog,” he muttered to himself as he paced up and down in the early hours of the morning. “I must find the perfect specimen. The man to help me realise my life’s work. The man of one million years. ”
     
    “Now you have been a silly boy, haven’t you?” Said the nurse patronisingly. “It won’t be a very quick death if you swallow the pills down with water, just destroy your liver and cause you all kinds of problems. But the point is it won’t kill you outright, that’s all just nonsense.”
    “So did I do any damage?”
    “Not this time. You were lucky you chickened out and called us. But still; silly, silly boy.”
    Benjamin Rutherford sighed and sat back heavily against the fluffed up cushion of his hospital bed. It was all going wrong for him. Even his death