Short Story
Seeker of To-Morrow
- by Eric Frank Russell and Leslie J. Johnson
- Astounding, July 1937
Explorer Urnas Karin and his crew of twenty return to Venus from abandoned Earth along with the body of a man who appears to have traveled from the ancient past—and then they revive him, whereupon he tells of his invention of time travel (to the future only) and subsequent journey from 1998 to the present day.
I had set up my laboratory in the wilds of the Peak District in Derbyshire, in England, where work could be carried on with the minimum of interference. From this laboratory I had dispatched into the unknown, presumably the future, a multitude of objects, including several live creatures such as rats, mice, pigeons and domestic fowl. In no case could I bring back anything I had made to vanish. Once gone, the subject was gone forever. There was no way of discovering exactly where it had gone. There was nothing but to take a risk and go myself.