User:DoctorWho42/Flight into Super-Time

"Flight into Super-Time" (or "The Letter from Mohaun Los") is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith. It was first published as "Flight into Super-Time" in the August 1932 of Wonder Stories.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Letter from Mohaun Los" was first published in the August 1932 issue of Wonder Stories as "Flight into Super-Time". It was included in the Spring 1942 issue of Tales of Wonder and the book Lost Worlds (1944).

Plot
An eccentric millionaire Domitian Malgraff builds a time machine shaped like a transparent sphere. Accompanied by his Chinese servant Li Wong, they depart for the future in 1940. He sends back a letter in a similar machine which is received by his ex-fiance Sylvia Talbot in 1941. The letter explains the circumstances of his departure and his journey. As the time-sphere proceeds towards the future, Malgraff finds it travels through space as well when they became weightless momentarily. Arriving on a future world, they find carnivorous flowers who feed on humanoids. One of the humanoids finds the time-sphere and Malgraff offers him refuge. However, a flying discoid machine populated by like humanoids appears overhead and begins an attack on them. Proceeding further into the future, they arrive in the middle of a battle between two alien races. One appears technologically more advanced and wins the battle despite the appearance of the time machine. Loading it onto a chariot, they deliver the machine to one of their cities. Deposited on a giant dais with many flowered tables for humanoids, the time-sphere is attacked by a giant robot. A polyhedron appears and battles the robot. The polyhedron is piloted by the same humanoids as the one who attacked them earlier. While a battle ensues, the time-sphere is left intact. Later, they find the robot that fought them arrived from beyond and proved tyrannical in its rule. The polyhedron also followed them to exact justice but was destroyed in the battle. Malgraff, Li Wong, and Tuoquon find the society they land on agreeable and decide to stay. Malgraff sends a letter back to recount the story.

Reception
In the 1998 book Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years, E. F. Bleiler commended "an imaginative story. The robot fight machine is brilliantly described."