Dictator of Time

In Short

A twentieth-century civil engineer and a museum assistant are ripped from a Philadelphia train station and deposited in 25,983 A.D. There, Earth is ruled by Harg, a cold-hearted, bulbous-headed scientist who treats human history as his private menagerie. To escape his tyrannical grasp, the displaced duo joins forces with the Underlings, a suppressed, muscular strain of humanity forced to labor beneath a protected city dome. By staging a sprawling revolution fueled by improvised sound weapons and historical warriors summoned across time, they fight to destroy Harg’s rule, liberate mankind, and secure a route back to their home era.

The Story

Larry Wilson and Sandra Day are yanked from a Philadelphia railway staircase in 1940 and dropped onto a grassy field thousands of years in the future. They are confronted by Harg-Ofortu, a diminutive, hairless, bulbous-headed scientist from the year 25,983 A.D. Wearing telescopic lenses and possessing cartilage ridges instead of teeth, Harg explains that he is the Chief Archeologist of the Planetary Museum. He views the twentieth-century humans as primitive specimens, stripping them of their modern attire, forcing them into future leather harnesses, and locking them in a cell alongside prehistoric and alien beasts.

Harg subjects Sandra to agonizing telepathic experiments, forcing her consciousness back through historical eras until her mind nearly shatters. Meanwhile, Larry establishes contact with Sert, a giant, silver-haired leader of the Underlings. The Underlings are a physically powerful mutant strain of humanity forced into serfdom by the diminutive, hyper-intelligent Masters. sert reveals that the Masters control the domed city-state using an impenetrable golden force-field and a lethal heat ray.

Larry uses his engineering background to devise a countermeasure. Knowing the Masters possess hyper-sensitive hearing protected only by special helmets called menaudos, Larry designs an electrosonic wave-length howler that turns their protective force-fields against them using counter electromotive force. With the device completed, Sert and Larry incite a full-scale Underling uprising.

To break the resulting stalemate, Larry and Sandra infiltrate the central control turret to manipulate Harg’s vanity. They trick the tyrant into showing them the city's dome control chamber and his prized Time-warp machine. After Larry briefly opens the dome to signal Sert's army, Sandra takes charge of the Time-warp mechanism. She recruits warriors from various historical eras—including French riflemen, Persian horsemen, and Carthaginians—to overwhelm the Master forces.

Defeated on the plaza, Harg flees to the dome control turret and threatens to pull the main lever to shatter the protective city dome and destroy all life. A team of time-displaced soldiers shoots Harg, but his falling body hits the lever anyway. The central dome shatters under a blast of energy, burying Harg beneath sixty feet of debris. Though the dome is compromised, returning Underling prisoners reveal that the outside atmosphere has finally healed from lethal radiation, leaving Earth fit for human life once more. Their mission complete, Larry and Sandra use the Time-warp machine to return to 1940 Philadelphia, arriving at the exact second they left, ready to start a life together.

How It Unfolds

The temporal leap Running to catch a New York train in 1940 Philadelphia, Larry Wilson stumbles on a staircase into a disorienting gray void and lands on open turf. He meets Sandra Day, an assistant curator who fell with him, and the two are confronted by Harg, a dwarfish future scientist who claims they are in the twenty-sixth century.

Captivity and revelation Harg confines the pair to a cell, subjects Sandra to painful temporal memory probing, and parades them past his lab specimens. Larry makes contact through a hidden wall with Sert, a giant rebel from the enslaved Underling sub-race, learning that humanity has diverged into brutish laborers and brilliant, heartless Masters.

Engineered resistance Working in a clandestine machine shop, Larry uses his engineering expertise to invent an electrosonic howler that converts the Masters' force-fields into agonizing sound waves. Sert gathers a rebel force armed with crude metal weapons and Larry’s acoustic device to launch an assault on their captors.

Strategic infiltration To bypass the Masters' superior numbers and central defenses, Larry and Sandra play on Harg's vanity to gain entry to the dome control room and the Time-warp machine. Larry briefly opens the city's protective shield to signal the Underling army before being separated from Sandra.

The temporal army Facing a deadly stalemate in the central plaza against the Masters' heat rays, Sandra operates the Time-warp apparatus to summon historical soldiers from across time. French francs-tireurs, Persian cavalry, and ancient warriors join the fray, wearing mind-translating headgear to defeat the Master forces.

The final sacrifice and return A cornered Harg retreats to the control turret and activates the self-destruct lever as he dies from a gunshot, shattering the city's dome under falling debris. With the outside air proven safe for the Underlings and their new allies, Sert sends Larry and Sandra back to 1940, where they materialise at the exact minute they vanished.

The People

• Larry Wilson is a twentieth-century civil engineer who relies on his practical intellect, physical strength, and military-style tactical thinking when thrust into the far future. He wants to protect Sandra, escape captivity, and help the oppressed Underlings win their freedom, ultimately succeeding through his acoustic invention and strategic leadership.
• Sandra Day is an assistant museum curator whose historical knowledge and quiet resolve prove vital to surviving the future. Though she endures Harg's painful psychic experiments, she takes initiative at a critical moment by operating the Time-warp machine to recruit historical armies, shifting the tide of battle.
• Harg-Ofortu is the Chief Archeologist of the Planetary Museum, a vain, diminutive master intellect with bulging eyes, a hairless head, and double ridges of cartilage instead of teeth. He views all non-intellectual humans as subjects for dissection or display, driven by a desire for complete control that leads him to attempt planetary destruction when defeated.
• Sert is the towering, silver-haired leader of the Underlings, representing the physically strong but technologically suppressed class of future humans. He seeks liberation for his people from the Masters' tyranny, showing deep honor and humility as he accepts Larry's assistance and leads his fellow serfs into battle.

In Its Own Voice

"Then," said the girl solemnly, "somehow or other you and I have experienced a temporal shift outside the ken of Earthly physics."

Sandra realizes the true nature of their displacement immediately after landing on the turf.

"Modesty!" he said in a tone of enchantment. "Sex shame! Imagine! And we had believed that it died out long before the Machine Era."

Harg taunts his captives after forcing them to swap their twentieth-century clothes for future leather garments.

"There is no other way. Sandy?"

Larry prepares to execute their dangerous final plan to gain control of the city dome.

What It's Really About

The story contrasts raw human empathy and physical vitality against cold, unfeeling intellect. Harg represents a future where scientific progress has stripped humanity of emotion, ethics, and mercy, reducing living creatures to mere museum specimens and experimental subjects. Conversely, the Underlings and the modern protagonists embody the enduring human desire for liberty, solidarity, and passion. By uniting historical figures from ancient Egypt, Persia, and modern times with the oppressed laborers of the future, the narrative argues that human freedom relies on shared emotional connections and historical memory rather than pure, detached logic. Technical intellect only achieves true value when directed by moral purpose.

Why Read It Today

This work offers a brisk, uncomplicated example of early American magazine science fiction. Written with high-tempo energy and classic pulp sensibilities, it moves swiftly from simple time-travel setup to grand battle sequences. Readers who enjoy mid-century space opera, retro-futuristic technology, and high-concept temporal warfare will appreciate its inventive set pieces—particularly the tactical use of counter electromotive force and historical armies summoned to fight alongside future mutants.

The narrative reflects the straightforward storytelling conventions of its original era. Modern readers will easily navigate the text, though they should expect dramatic melodrama, swift romance, and simplified character motivations typical of 1940s pulp fiction. The dialogue relies heavily on earnest action-hero tropes and period phrasing, but the story's earnest momentum, vivid creature designs, and wild blend of ancient history with far-future science make for an entertaining, fast-paced read.