CONTENTS
HOT—it sure was stacking up to be a hot one today. He’d better check on the spring in the brakes before the sun really boiled up the country ahead. That was the only water in this whole frying pan of baking rock—or was it?
Travis Fox hitched forward in his saddle to study the pinkish yellow of the bare desert strip between him and that faint, distant line of green juniper against the buff of sagebrush which marked the cuts of the brakes. This was a barren land, forbidding to anyone not native to its harshness.
It was also a land in which time was frozen into one color-streaked mold of unchanging rock and earth, and in that it was probably now unique upon the rider’s planet. Elsewhere around the world deserts had been flooded, through man’s efforts, with sea water freed of its burden of salt. Ordered farms beat ancient sand dunes into dim memories. Mankind was fast becoming no longer subject to the whim of weather or climate. Yet here the free desert remained unaltered because the nation within which it lay was still rich enough not to need all of its soil under cultivation.
Someday this, too, would be swept away, taking with it the heritage of such as Travis Fox. For five hundred years, or perhaps close to a thousand now—no one could rightly say when the first Apache clan had come questing into this territory—these canyons and sand wastes, valleys and mesas had been dominated by a tough, desert-born breed who could travel and fight, and live off bleakness no other race dared face without supplies laboriously transported. His ancestors had waged war which lasted almost four centuries across this country. And now the survivors wrested a living from the same region with a like determination.
That spring in the brakes . . . Travis’ brown fingers began to count off seasons in taps on his saddle horn. Nineteen . . . twenty . . . This was the twentieth year after the last big dry, and if Chato was right, that meant the water which should be there was due for a periodical failure. And the old man had been correct in his prediction of an unusually arid summer this year.
If Travis rode straight there to find the spring dry, he’d lose most of the day, and time was important. They had to move the breeding stock to a sure water supply. On the other hand if he cut back into the Canyon of the Hohokam on just a hunch and was wrong— then Whelan would have every right to lay into him for being a fool. Whelan stubbornly refused to follow the Old Ones’ knowledge. And in that his brother was himself a fool.
Travis laughed softy. The White-eyes— deliberately he used the old warrior’s term for a traditional enemy, saying it aloud, “Pinda-lick-o-yi”— the White-eyes didn’t know everything. And a few of them were willing to admit it once in a while.
Then he laughed again, this time at himself and his own thoughts. Scratch the rancher— and the Apache was right under the surface of his sun-dried hide. Only there was a bitter note in that second laugh and Travis booted his pinto into a lope with more force than was necessary. He didn’t care to follow the trail of those particular thoughts. He’d make for the place of the Hohokam and he’d be Apache for today; there was nothing to spoil that as his other dreams had been spoiled.
Whelan thought that if an Apache lived like the White-eyes, and set aside all the old things, then he would gain all their advantages. To Whelan there was nothing good in the past, and even to consider the Old Ones, what they did and why they did it, was a foolish waste of time. Travis bit again on disappointment, to find it as fresh and bad-tasting as it had been a year earlier.
The pinto threaded a way between boulders along the course of a dried stream bed. Odd that a land now so arid could carry so many signs of past water. There were miles of irrigation ditches used by the Old Ones, marking the sun-baked pans of open land which had not known the touch of moisture for centuries. Travis urged his mount up a sharp slope and headed west, feeling the heat bore into his straight back through the single layer of faded shirt fabric.
He doubted if Whelan knew of the Canyon of the Hohokam. That was one of the things from the old days, a story preserved by such as Chato. And there were now two kinds of Apache— Chato and Whelan. Chato denied the existence of the White-eyes, living his own life behind a shutter which he dropped between him and the outside world, the world of the whites. And Whelan denied the existence of the Apache, being all white with an effort.
Once Travis had seen a third way, that of bending the white man’s learning to blend with Apache lore. He thought he had discovered those who agreed with him. But it had all gone, as quickly as a drop of water poured upon rock surface here would vanish. Now he tended to agree with Chato — and, knowing that, Chato had freely given him information Whelan did not have, facts concerning Whelan’s own range land.
Chato’s father— again Travis counted, fingertip against saddle horn— why, Chato’s father would be a hundred and twenty years old if he were alive today! And he had been born in the Hohokam’s valley while his family were hiding out from the blue-coated soldiers.
Chato had known of the lost canyon, had guided Travis to it -when he was so small he could barely grip a horse’s barrel with his short legs. And he had returned there again and again through the years. The houses of the Hohokam had intrigued him, and the spring there never failed. There were pinons with a rich harvest of nuts to be gathered in season, and some stunted fruit trees still yielding a measure of fruit. Once it had been a garden; now it was a hidden oasis.
Travis was working his way into the maze of canyons which held the forgotten trail of the Old Ones when he heard that hum. Out of instinct he drew rein, knowing that he was in the concealing shadow of a cliff wall, and glanced skyward.
“ ‘Copter!” He said it aloud in sheer surprise. The ageless desert country had claimed him so thoroughly during the past few hours that sighting that very modern mode of travel came almost as a shock.
Could it be Whelan, checking up on him? Travis’ mouth tightened. But when he had left the ranch house at sunup, Bill Redhorse, Chato’s grandson, had been working on the engine of the ranch bus. Anyway, Whelan couldn’t waste fuel on desert coasting. With the big war scare on again, rationing had tightened up and a man kept his copter for emergencies, working horses again for daily work.
The war scare . . . Travis thought about it as he watched the strange machine out of sight. Ever since he could remember there had been snapping and snarling in the newspapers, on the radio, on the TV screen. Little scrimmages bursting out, smoldering, talk and more talk. Then, some months back, something queer had happened in Europe—a big blast set off in the north. Though the Reds had not explained what had happened and clamped down tight all their screen of secrecy, rumor had it that some kind of a new bomb had gone wrong. All this might be only preliminary to an out-and-out break between East and West.
And the VIPs chose to believe that was true. There was a tightening up of regulations all along the line, a whispering of trouble to come. New fuel rationing slapped on, a tenseness in the air... Out here it was easy enough to shove all that stuff out of one’s mind. The desert dried out to nothing the bickering of men. These cliffs had stood the same before the brown-skinned men of his race had trickled down from the north. They would probably be standing, though perhaps radioactive, when the White-eyes blasted both white and brown men out of it again.
The sight of the ‘copter had triggered memories Travis did not like. He continued to wonder, as the machine disappeared in the direction he himself was following, what its mission was here.
He did not sight it again, which strengthened his belief that the machine carried no local rancher. If the pilot had been hunting herd strays, he would circle. Prospectors? But there had been no news of a government expedition, and during the past five years prospecting had been rigidly controlled.
Travis located the concealed turn-off into the hidden canyon. As the pinto picked a careful way, his rider studied the ground. There was no sign that any man had passed that way for a long time. He clicked his tongue and the horse quickened pace. They had gone perhaps two miles along that snake’s path when Travis brought his mount to a halt.
The warning had been borne by a puff of breeze tickling his nose. This was no desert wind laden with heat and grit, for it carried the scent of juniper. The pinto nickered and mouthed its bit—water ahead. But also the land before them was not empty of men.
Travis swung out of the saddle, taking his rifle with him. Unless the past year had seen some changes in the terrain ahead, there was a good cover on the lip of the hidden canyon’s entrance. Without being visible himself, he would be able to survey the camp therein. For camp smells reached him now—wood smoke, coffee, frying bacon.
The ascent to his chosen spy post was easy. From below came the pine scent, heavier now, drawn out by the sun’s rays, and the small, busy twittering of birds about their own concerns. There was a cup of green lying there, about a spring-fed pool which mirrored the hot blue of the sky. Between that water and the vast shallow cave which held the block city of the Old Ones, stood the ‘copter. And tending a cooking fire was a man. A second had gone to the pool for water.
Travis did not believe they were ranchers. But they wore the sturdy clothing of outdoor men and moved about the business of making camp with assurance. He began to inventory what he could see of their supplies and equipment.
The ‘copter was of the latest model. And in the shade offered by a small stand of trees he could make out bedrolls. But he did not sight any digging tools, any indication that this was a prospecting team. Then the man walked back from the pool, set his filled bucket down by the fire, and dropped cross-legged before a big package which he proceeded to free from a canvas covering. Travis watched him uncover what could only be a portable communicator of advanced design.
The operator was patiently inching the antenna rod up into the air, when Travis heard the pinto nicker. Age-old instinct he was not conscious of brought him around, still on his knees, with rifle ready. But it was only to front another weapon with a deadly promise in the open mouth of the barrel aimed directly and mercilessly at his middle.
Above that unwavering gunsight, gray eyes watched him with a chill detachment worse than any vocal threat. Travis Fox considered himself a worthy descendant of generations of the toughest warriors this stretch of country had ever seen. Yet he knew that neither he nor any of his kind had ever before faced a man quite like this one. And this man was young, no older than himself, so that that subtle menace did not altogether fit with the lithe, slender body or that calm, boyish face.
“Drop it!” The man delivered his order with the authority of one expecting no resistance. Travis did just that, allowing the rifle to slip from his hands and slide across his leg to the gravel of the hillside.
“On your feet. Make it snappy. Down there. . . .” The stream of orders issued in a gentle voice and even tone, both of which oddly increased the menace Travis sensed.
He stood up, turned downslope and walked forward, his hands up, palms out, at shoulder level. What he had stumbled on here he did not know, but that it was important—and dangerous—Travis did not doubt.
The man who was cooking and the man at the com set both sat back on their heels to survey him calmly as he advanced, the high heels of his boots acting as brakes on the slope. To his eyes they were little different from the white ranchers he knew in the district. Yet the cook . . .?
Travis studied him, puzzled, certain that he had seen the man or his likeness before under very different circumstances.
“Where did you flush this one, Ross?” asked the man at the com.
“Lying up on the ridge, getting an eyeful,” Travis’ captor replied with his usual economy of words.
The cook stood up, wiped his hands on a cloth, and started toward them. He was the eldest of the three strangers, his skin deeply tanned, his eyes a startlingly bright blue against that brown. He carried with him an authority which did not suit his present employment but which marked him, for Travis, as the leader of the party. The Apache guessed his own reception would depend upon this man’s reaction. Only why did some faint twist of memory persist in outlining the cook’s head with a black square?
Since the stranger seemed to be in no hurry to ask questions, Travis met him eye to eye, drawing on his own brand of patience. There was danger in this man, too, the same controlled force which had moved the youngster when he trapped the Apache on the heights.
“Apache.” It was a statement, rather than a question. And it added a bit to Travis’ estimation of the stranger. There were few men nowadays who took the trouble, or had the real knowledge necessary, to distinguish Apache from Hopi, Navajo, or Ute in one brief glance.
“Rancher?” That was a question this time and Travis gave it a truthful answer. He had a growing conviction that to use any evasive tactics with this particular White-eye would not lead to anything but his own disadvantage.
“Rider for the Double A.”
The man by the com unit had unrolled a map. Now he ran a forefinger along an uneven marking and nodded, not at Travis, but to the interrogator.
“Nearest range to the east. But he can’t be hunting strays this far into the desert.”
“Good water.” The other nodded at the pool. “The Old Ones used it.”
Obliquely that was another inquiry. And somehow Travis found himself replying to it.
“The Old Ones knew. Not those only.” With his chin he pointed to the ruins in the great shallow cave. “But the People in turn. Never dry, even in bad years.”
“And this is a bad year.” The stranger rubbed his hand along his jaw, his blue eyes still holding Travis’. “A complication we didn’t foresee. So Double A runs a herd in here in dry years, son?”
Again Travis found himself, against his will replying with the exact truth. “Not yet. Few of the riders know of it now. Not many care to listen to the stories of the old men.” He was still puzzling over the teasing memory of seeing this man’s lean face before. That black border about it—a frame! A picture frame! And the picture had hung over Dr. Morgan’s desk at the university.
“But you do. . . .” There came another of those measuring stares like the one which had stripped the rancher’s clothing from him to display the Apache underneath. Now those eyes might be trying to sort out the thoughts in his head. Dr. Morgan’s study—this man’s picture—but with a stepped pyramid behind him.
“It is so.” Absently he used another speech pattern as he tried to remember more.
“The problem is, buster”—the man by the com unit stood up, spoke lazily— “just what are we going to do with you now? How about it, Ashe? Does he go in cold storage—maybe up there?” He jerked a thumb at the ruins.
Ashe! Dr. Gordon Ashe! He’d put a name to the stranger at last. And with the name he had a reason for the man’s presence there. Ashe was an archaeologist. Only Travis did not have to look at the com unit or at the camp to guess that this was no expedition to hunt relics of ancient man. He had had firsthand knowledge of those. What were Dr. Ashe and his companions doing in the Canyon of the Dead?
“You can put down your hands, son,” Dr. Ashe said. “And you can make it easy for yourself if you agree to stay here peaceably for a time.”
“For how long?” countered Travis.
“That depends,” Ashe hedged.
“I left my horse up there. He needs water.”
“Bring the horse down, Ross.”
Travis turned his head. The young man bolstered his odd-looking weapon and climbed upslope, to reappear shortly leading the pinto. Travis freed his mount of saddle and turned the animal loose. He came back to the camp site to find Ashe awaiting him.
“So not many people know of this place?”
Travis shrugged. “One other man on the Double A—he is very old. His father was born here, long ago when the Apaches were fighting the army. Nobody else is interested any more.”
“Then there was never any digging done in the ruins?”
“A little—once.”
“By whom?”
Travis pushed back his hat. “Me.” His answer was short, antagonistic.
“Oh?” Ashe produced a package of cigarettes, offered them. Travis took one without thinking.
“You came here for a dig?” he counter-questioned.
“In a manner of speaking.” But when Ashe glanced at the cliff house, Travis thought it was as if he saw something far more interesting behind or beyond those crumbling blocks of sun-dried brick.
“I thought your main interest was pre-Mayan, Dr. Ashe.” Travis squatted on his heels, brought out a smoldering twig from the fire to light his smoke, and was inwardly satisfied to note that he had at last startled the archaeologist with that observation.
“You know me!” He made a challenge of the words.
Travis shook his head. “I know Doctor Prentiss Morgan.”
“So that’s it! You’re one of his bright boys!”
“No.” That was short, a bitten-off warning not to probe. And the other man must have been sensitive enough to understand at once, for he asked no other question.
“Chow ready, Ashe?” asked the man with the com. Behind him the youngster Ashe had called “Ross” came to the fire, reached out for the frying pan. Travis stared at his hand. The flesh was seamed with scars and once before the Apache had seen healed wounds like those— from a deep and painful burn. He looked away hurriedly as the other apportioned food onto plates, and he got his own lunch from his saddlebags.
They ate in silence, an oddly companionable silence. The tension of the first minutes of their meeting eased from the range rider. His interest in these men, his desire to know more about them and what they were doing here, dampened his annoyance at the way he had been captured. That young Ross was a slick tracker. He must have had experience at such games to trap Travis so neatly. The Apache longed for a closer look at the other’s weapon. He was certain it was not a conventional revolver. And die very fact that Ross wore it ready for use argued that he was on guard against expected attack.
There was a difference between Ashe and Ross, and the man operating the com, which became plainer the longer Travis studied the three covertly. Ashe and Ross might be of a different breed from the third man. Their alikeness went deeper than just their heavy tans, their silent walk, their watchfulness and complete awareness of their surroundings. The more Travis watched them absorbed as they were in the very natural business of eating and then policing camp, the more sure he was that they had not come to this place to explore cliff ruins, that they were engaged in some more serious and perhaps deadly action.
He asked no questions, content to let the others now make the first move. It was the com unit which broke the peace of the small camp. A warning cackle brought its tender on the run. He snapped on earphones and then relayed a message.
“Procedure has to be stepped up. They’ll start bringing the stuff in tonight!”
“WELL?” Ross’s glance swept over Travis, settled on Ashe.
“Anybody know you were coming here?” the older man asked the range rider.
“I came out to check all the springs. If I don’t return to the ranch within a reasonable time, they’ll hunt me up, yes.” Travis saw no reason to enlarge upon that with two other bits of information. One, that Whelan would not be unduly alarmed if he did not return within twenty-four hours, and the other that he was supposed to be in the brakes to the south.
“You say that you know Prentiss Morgan—how well?” “I was in one of his classes at the U—for a while.” “Your name?” “Fox. Travis Fox.”
The com operator cut in, again consulting his map. “The Double A belongs to a Fox—“
“My brother. But I work for him, that’s all.”
“Grant”—Ashe turned now to the com man—“mark this top priority and send it to Kelgarries. Ask him to check Fox-all the way.”
“We can ship him out when the first load comes in, chief. They will store him at headquarters as long as you want,” Ross offered, as if Travis had ceased to be a person and was now only an annoying problem.
Ashe shook his head. “Look here, Fox, we don’t want to make it hard for you. It’s pure bad luck that you trailed in here today. Frankly, we can’t afford to attract any attention to our activities at present. But if you’ll give me your word not to try and go over the hill, well leave it at that for the present.” The last thing Travis wanted to do was leave. His curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and he had no intention of going unless they removed him bodily. And that, he promised himself silently, would take a lot of doing. “It’s a deal.”
But Ashe was already on another track. “You say you did some digging over there. What did you uncover?”
“The usual stuff—pottery, a few arrowheads. The site is probably pre-Columbian. These mountains are filled with such ruins.”
“What did you expect, chief?” Ross asked.
“Well, there was a slim chance,” the other returned ambiguously. “This climate preserves. We’ve found baskets, fabrics, fragile things lasting—“
“I’ll take the bones and baskets—in place of some other things.” Ross held his scarred hand against his chest and rubbed its seamed flesh with the other, as if soothing a wound which still ached. “Better get out the lights if the boys are going to drop in tonight.”
The pinto continued to graze in the center of the meadow while Ross and Ashe paced out two lines and spaced small plastic canisters at intervals. Travis, -watching, guessed they were marking a landing site. But it was twice the size needed by a ‘copter such as the one now standing beyond. Then Ashe settled with his back against a tree, reading the leaves of a bulging notebook, while Ross brought out a roll of felt and opened it.
What he uncovered was a set of five stone points, beautifully fashioned, too long to be arrowheads. And Travis recognized their distinctive shape, the pattern of those flaked edges! Far better workmanship than the later productions of his own people, yet much older. He had held their like in his hands, admired the artistry of the forgotten weapon maker who had patiently chipped them into being. Folsom points! They were intended to head the throwing spears of men who went up so equipped against mammoth, giant bison, cave bear, and Alaskan lion.
“Folsom man here?” He saw Ross glance toward him, Ashe’s attention lift from the notebook.
Ross picked up the last point in that row, held it out to Travis. He took it carefully. The head was perfect, fine. He turned it over between his fingers and then paused—not sure of what he knew, or why.
“Fake.”
Yet was it? He had handled Folsom points and some, in spite of their great age, had been as perfectly preserved as this one. Only—this did not feel right. He could give no better reason for his judgment than that.
“What makes you think so?” Ashe wanted to know. “That one was certified by Stefferds.” Ross took up the second point from the line. But Travis, instead of being confounded by that certification from the authority on prehistoric American remains, remained sure of his own appraisal. “Not the right feel to it.”
Ashe nodded to Ross, who picked up a third stone head, offering it in exchange for the one Travis still held. The new point was, to all examination by eye, a copy of the first. Yet, as he ran a forefinger along the fine serrations of the flaked edge, Travis knew that this was the real thing, and he said so.
“Well, well.” Ross studied his store of points. “Something new had been added,” he informed the empty space before him.
“It’s been done before,” Ashe said. “Give him your gun.” For a moment it seemed as if Ross might refuse, and he frowned as he drew the weapon. The Apache, putting down the Folsom point with care, took the weapon and examined it closely. Though its general shape was that of a revolver, there were enough differences to make it totally new to Travis. He sighted it at a tree trunk and found that when it was held correctly for firing, the grip was not altogether comfortable, as if the hand for which it had been fashioned was not quite like his own.
There was another difference growing in his mind the longer he held the weapon. He did not like that odd sensation.
Travis laid the gun down beside the flint point, regarding them both with wide and astonished eyes. From them he had gained a common impression of age—a wade expanse of time separating him from the makers of those two very dissimilar weapons. For the Folsom point that feeling was correct. But why did the gun give him that same answer? He had come to rely on that queer unnamed sense of his—its apparent failure now was disconcerting. “How old is the gun?” asked Ashe.
“It can’t be—“ Travis protested against the verdict of his sense. “I won’t believe that it is as old—or older—than the spearhead!”
“Brother”—Ross regarded him with an odd expression— “you can call 'em!” He reholstered the gun. “So now we have a time guesser, chief.”
“Such a gift is not too uncommon,” Ashe commented absently. “I’ve seen it in operation before.”
“But a gun can’t be that old!” Travis still objected. Ross’s left eyebrow raised in a sardonic arc as he gave a half-smile.
“That’s all you know about it, brother,” he observed. “New recruit?” That was addressed to Ashe. The latter was frowning, but at Ross’s inquiry he smiled with a warmth which for a second or two made Travis uncomfortable. It so patently advertised that those two were a long-established team, shutting him outside.
“Don’t rush things, boy.” Ashe stood up and went over to the com unit. “Any news from the front?”
“Cackle-cackle, yacketty-yak,” snorted the operator. “Soon as I tune out one band interference, we hit another. Someday maybe they’ll make these walkie-talkies so they’ll really operate without overloading a guy’s eardrums. No, nothing for us yet.”
Travis wanted to ask questions, a lot of them. But he was also sure that most would receive evasive answers. He tried to fit the gun into the rest of his jigsaw of surmises, hints, and guesses, and found it wouldn’t. But he forgot that when Ashe sat down once more and began to talk archaeologist’s shop. At first Travis only listened, then he realized he was being drawn more and more into answering, into giving opinions and once or twice daring to contradict the other. Apache lore, cliff ruins, Folsom man—Ashe’s conversation ranged widely. It was only after Travis had been led to talking freely with the pent-up eagerness of one who has been denied expression for too long, that he understood the other man must have been testing his knowledge in the field.
“Sounds rugged, the way they lived then,” Ross observed at the conclusion of Travis’ story of the use of their present camp site by Apache holdouts in the old days.
“That, from you, is good,” Grant said, laughing, and then snapped on his earphones once more as the com came to life.
With one hand he steadied a pad on his knee and wrote in quick dashes.
Travis studied the shadows on the cliffs. It wasn’t far from sundown now, and he was growing impatient. This was like being in a theater waiting for the curtain to go up—or lying in wait for trouble to come pounding around some bend when you had a rifle in hand.
Ashe took the scribbled page from Grant, checked it against more scribbles in his notebook. Ross was chewing on a long stem of grass, relaxed, outwardly almost sleepy. Yet Travis suspected that if he were to make a wrong move, Ross would come very wide awake in an instant.
“You know this country must have been popping once,” Ross commented lazily. “That looks like a regular apartment house over there—with maybe a hundred, two hundred people living in it. How did they live, anyway? This is a small valley.” “There’s another valley to the northwest with irrigation ditches still marked,” Travis replied. “And they hunted— turkey, deer, antelope, even buffalo—if they were lucky.”
“Now if a man had some way to look back into history he could learn a lot—“
“You mean by using an infra-red Vis-Tex?” Travis asked with careful casualness, and had the satisfaction of seeing the other’s cairn crack. Then he laughed, with an edge on his humor. “We Indians don’t wear blankets or feathers in our hair any more, and some of us read and watch TV, and actually go to school. But the Vis-Tex I saw in action wasn’t too successful.” He decided on a guess. “Planning to test a new model here?”
“In a way—yes.”
Travis had not expected a serious answer like that. And it was Ashe who had made it, plainly to the surprise of Ross. But the possibilities opened up by that assent were startling.
Photographing the past, beginning with a few hours past, by the infra-red waves, had succeeded in experimentation as far back as twenty years previously—during the late fifties. The process had been perfected to a point where objects would appear on films exposed a week after the disappearance of those objects from a given point. And Travis had been present on one occasion when an experimental Vis-Tex had been demonstrated by Dr. Morgan. But if they did have a new model which could produce a real reach back into history—! He drew a deep breath and stared at the cave-enclosed ruins before him. What would it mean to bring the past to visual life again! Then he grinned.
“A lot of history will have to be rewritten in a hurry if you have one that works.”
“Not history as we know it.” Ashe drew out cigarettes and passed them. “Son, you’re a part of this now, whether or no. We can’t afford to let you go, the situation is too critical. So— you’ll be offered a chance to enlist.”
“In what?” countered Travis warily.
“In Project Folsom One.” Ashe lit his cigarette. “Headquarters checked you out all along the line. I’m inclined to think that providence had a hand in your turning up here today. It all fits.”
“Too -well?” There was a frown Line between Ross’s brows.
“No,” Ashe replied. “He’s just what he said he is. Our man reported from the Double A and from Morgan. He can’t be a plant.”
What kind of a plant? wondered Travis. Apparently he was being drafted, but he wanted to know more about why and for what. He said so with determination and then believed he wasn’t hearing correctly when Ashe answered. “We’re here to see the Folsom hunters’ world.” “That’s a tall order, Doctor Ashe. You’ve a super Vis-Tex if you can take a peek ten thousand years back.”
“More likely farther than that,” Ashe corrected him. “We aren’t sure yet.”
“Why the hush-hush? A look at some roaming primitive tribe should bring out the TV and the newsmen—“
“We’re more interested in other things than primitive tribesmen.”
“Such as where that gun came from,” agreed Ross. He was again rubbing his scarred hand, and there was that in the bleakness of his eyes which Travis recognized from their first meeting on the rim of the canyon. It was the look of a fighter moving in to give battle.
“You’ll have to take us on faith for a while,” Ashe cut in. “This is a queer business and a necessarily top-secret one, to use the patter of our times.”
They ate supper and Travis moved the pinto to the narrow lower end of the canyon, well away from the improvised landing field. Dusk had hardly closed in before the first of the cargo ‘copters touched down. Soon he found himself making one of a line of men passing packages and boxes from the machine back to the shelter of the small grove of trees. They worked without any waste motion at a speed which suggested that time was of the highest importance, and Travis found that he had caught that need for haste from them. The first machine was stripped of its load, rose, and was gone only minutes before a second one came in to take its place. Again an unloading chain formed, this time for heavier boxes which required two men to handle them.
Travis’ back ached, his hands were raw by the time the fourth ‘copter was freed and left. Four more men had joined their party, one coming in with each load, but there was little talk. All were concentrating on the unloading and storing of the material. In a period of lull after the departure of the fourth machine, Ashe came up to Travis accompanied by another man.
“Here he is.” Ashe’s hand closed on Travis’ shoulder, drawing him out to face the newcomer.
He was taller than Dr. Ashe, and there was no mistaking the air of command, or the power of those eyes which looked Straight into the Apache. But after a long moment the big man smiled briefly.
“You’re quite a problem for us, Fox.”
“Or the missing ingredient,” corrected Ashe. “Fox, this is Major Kelgarries, at present our commanding officer.”
“Well have a talk later,” Kelgarries promised. “Tonight’s rather busy.”
“Clear the field!” called someone from the flare line. “Setting down.”
They plunged out of the path of the fifth ‘copter and work started again. The Major, Travis noted, was right in line with the others when it came to tossing boxes around, nor was there any more time for talking.
Seven or eight loads, which was it? Travis tried to count them up, wriggling stiff fingers. It was still night but the flares had been extinguished. The men who had worked together now sat around the fire drinking coffee and wolfing sandwiches which had been delivered with the last cargo. They did not talk much and Travis knew they were as tired as he was.
“Bedtime, brother. And am I glad to hit the sack!” Ross said between yawns. “Need the makings—blankets—anything?”
Half stupid •with fatigue, Travis shook his head. “Got my bedroll with m’saddle.” And he was asleep almost before he was fully stretched out on that limited comfort.
In the day light of morning the camp looked disorganized.
But men were already at work sorting out the material, working as if this was a task they had often done before. Travis, helping to shift a large crate, looked up to see the Major.
“Spare me a moment, Fox.” He led the way from the scene of activity.
“You’ve got yourself—and us—in a muddle, young man. Frankly, we can’t turn you loose—for your own sake, as well as ours. This project has to be kept under wraps and there are some very tough boys who would like to pick you up and learn what they could from you. So, we either take you all the way in—or put you on ice. It’s up to you which it is going to be. You’ve been vouched for by Doctor Morgan.”
Travis tensed. What had they raked up now? Memories pinched as might a too-tight cinch about the belly. But if they’d been asking questions of Prentiss Morgan, they must know what happened last year—and why. Apparently they did, for Kelgarries continued:
“Fox, the time when anyone can afford prejudices is past-way past. I know about Hewitt’s offer to the University and what happened when he pressured to have you fired from the expedition staff. But prejudices can stretch both ways—you didn’t stand up to him very long, did you?”
Travis shrugged. “Maybe you’ve heard the term ‘second-class citizen,’ Major. How do you suppose Indians rate with some people in this country? To that crowd we are and well always be dirt}’, ignorant savages. You can’t fight when the other fellow has all the weapons himself. Hewitt gave that grant to the University to do some important work. When he wanted me off, that was that. If I’d let Doctor Morgan fight to keep me on his staff, Hewitt would have snatched his check away again so fast the friction would have burnt the paper. I know Hewitt and what makes him tick. And Doctor Morgan’s work was more important—“ Travis stopped short. Why in the world had he told the Major all that? It was none of Kelgarries’ business why he had quit and come back to the ranch. “There aren’t many like Hewitt left—fortunately. And I assure you we do not follow his methods. If you choose to join us after Ashe briefs you, you’re one of a team. Lord, man” —the Major slapped his hand vigorously against his dusty breeches—“I don’t care if a man is a blue Martian with two heads and four mouths—if he can keep those mouths shut and do his job! It’s the job which counts here, and, according to Morgan, you have something useful to contribute. Make up your mind and let me know. If you don’t want to play—well ship you out tonight, tell your brother that you’re on government work, and keep you quiet for a while. Sorry, but that’s the way it will have to be.”
Travis smiled at that promise. He thought he could get out of here safely on his own if he really wanted to. But now he prodded the Major a little.
“Expedition back to catch a Folsom man—“ But Kelgarries might not have heard, for he had already turned away. Travis followed, to come upon Ashe.
The latter was engaged in assembling a tripod of slender rods with the care of one handling brittle and precious objects. He glanced up as Travis’ shadow fell across his work.
“Decided to join us for a look-see into the past?”
“Do you really mean you can do that?”
“We’ve done more than look.” Ashe adjusted a screw delicately. “We’ve been there.”
Travis stared. He could accept the fact of a new and greatly improved Vis-Tex to provide a peephole into history and prehistory. But time travel was something else.
“It’s perfectly true,” Ashe finished with the screw. His attention passed from the tripod to Travis. And there was that in his manner which carried conviction.
“And we’re going back again.”
“After a Folsom man?” demanded the Apache incredulously.
“After a spaceship.”
THIS was no dream, not even a very realistic one. There was Ashe, his fingers busy, his brown face outlined against the red and yellow walls of the cliff and the crumbling ruins they enclosed. This was here and now—yet what Ashe was saying, soberly, and in detail, was the wildest fantasy.
“. . . so we discovered the Reds had time travel and were prospecting back into the past. What they dredged up there couldn’t be explained by any logic based on the history we knew and the prehistory we had pieced out. What we didn’t know then was that they had found the remains—badly smashed—of a spaceship. It was encased in the ice of Siberia, along with preserved mammoth bodies and a few other pertinent clues to suggest the proper era for them to explore. They muddied the trail as well as they could by establishing way stations in other periods of time. Then we chanced on one of those middle points. And the Reds themselves, by capturing our time agents, showed us the ship they were plundering some thousands of years earlier.”
The story made sense—in a crazy kind of way. Travis mechanically handed Ashe the small tool he was groping for in the tangled grass.
“But how did the ship get there?” he asked. “Was there an early civilization on earth which had space travel?”
“That was what we thought—until we found the ship. No, it was from the outside—a cargo freighter lost from some galactic run. Either this world was an astrogation menace of the same type as a reef at sea, or there was some other reason to cause forced landings here. We brought film from the Red time station pinpointing about a dozen such wrecks. And some of those were on this side of the Atlantic.”
“You’re planning to dig for one of those here?”
Ashe laughed. “What d’you think we’d find after about fifteen thousand years and a lot of land upheaval, even local volcanic activity? We want our ship in as good condition as possible.”
“To study?”
“With caution. If you’d check with Ross Murdock he’d give you a good reason for the caution. He was one of our agents who was actually aboard the ship the Reds were plundering. When they cornered him in the control cabin, he accidentally activated the com system and called in the real owners. They weren’t too pleased with the Reds—came down and destroyed their time base on that level and then followed them through the other way stations, destroying each. Remember that hush-hush bang in the Baltic early this year? That was the ‘space patrol,’ or whatever they call themselves, putting finis to the Red project. So far as we know they didn’t discover that we were and are interested in the same thing. So if we find our ship here, we walk softly along its corridors.”
“You want the cargo?”
“In part. But mostly we want the knowledge—what its designers had—the key to space.”
The thrill of that touched Travis. Mankind had reached for the stars for almost two generations. Men had had small successes, many searing failures. Now—what was a satisfactory flight to the barren moon compared to star flight and what lay far out?
Ashe, reading his expression, smiled. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
The Apache nodded absently, gazing down the canyon, trying to believe that somewhere about here, trapped in the solid wall of time, there lay a wrecked star ship waiting for them. But he could not even visualize this country as it must have been in pluvial times. When rain fell most of the year, it must have made a morass of the lands outside the encroaching arms of the shrinking glaciers lying not too far northward. “But why the Folsom points?” Out of the welter of facts and half facts he picked that as a starting point.
“We’ve sent back agents disguised as pre-Celts, as Tartars— or their remoter ancestors—as Bronze Age Beaker Traders, and in half a hundred other character parts. Now there’s a chance we may have to produce a few Folsom spearmen. One of the first and most important rules of this game, Fox, is that one does not interfere with time by introducing any modernisms. There must be no hint of our agents’ real identity. We have no idea •what might happen if one meddled with the stream of history as we know it, and we trust we’ll never have to find out the hard way.”
“Hunters,” Travis said slowly, hardly aware at that moment that he spoke at all. “Mammoth—mastodon—camels—the dire wolf—sabertooth—“
“Why do all those interest you?”
“Why?” Travis echoed and then stopped to examine his reasons. Why had his reaction to Ashe’s picture of the drifting prehistoric hunters in disguise been his own quick inner vision of a land peopled with strange beasts his own race had never hunted? Or had they? Had the Folsom hunters been his remote ancestors, as the pre-Celt and Beaker Trader Ashe mentioned been the other’s fore-fathers? He only knew that he had experienced a sudden thrust of excitement which lingered with him. There built up in him a desire to see that world which his own. age knew only by the dim and often contradictory evidence of rocks, a handful of flint points,-broken bones, the ancient smears of vanished cooking fires.
“My people were hunters—long after yours followed another way of life,” he said, making the best answer he could.
“Right.” Ashe’s tone held a note of satisfaction. “Now-just reach me that rod.” He went back to the job at hand and Travis settled down as his somewhat bewildered assistant. The Apache knew that he had made the choice Kelgarries wanted—that he was going to be a part of this whole unbelievable adventure.
The one thing he was sure of during the next two crowded days was that they were indeed working under pressure and against time. Whether the unexplained threat which seemed to overhang the whole project came from outside the country or from fear of a policy change here at home, no one bothered to make clear. But Travis was willing not to inquire about that. It was far more interesting and absorbing to work with Ross Murdock. They set the proper kind of shafts to the pseudo-Folsom spear points and then experimented with the spear thrower. This made the efficient weapons they finally turned out twice as powerful. A seven-foot javelin could be hurled a good hundred and fifty yards or more by the use of that two-foot shaft of the thrower, and Travis knew that in close infighting it would add tremendous thrusting power. No wonder a party of hunters so armed dared to go against the mammoth and the other giant mammals of the period.
In addition to the spears they had flint knives, the counterparts of those found in the debris of Folsom camp sites across most of western America. Travis did not know why he was so sure that he was actually going to use knife and spears and play the role of a wandering prehistoric hunter. Still, he was sure. He learned from Ross that the rest of the time agents’ equipment would not be assembled at the base until the experts had taped film reports out of the past to use as samples.
On the third day Kelgarries and Ashe took a three-man expedition, loading one ‘copter to its limit, out of the canyon. They were gone for almost a week, and upon their return some reels of film were sent out in a hurry. Ashe joined Travis and Ross that same night and lay down beside the fire with a sigh of weary pleasure.
“Hit pay dirt?” Ross wanted to know.
His chief nodded. There were dark smudges under his eyes, a fine, drawn look to his features. “The wreck is there, all right. And we located hunters on the fringe of the territory. But I think we can follow Plan One. The tribe is small and there doesn’t appear to be more than one. Our guess that the district was thinly populated must be correct. It won’t be necessary to really establish our scouts with the tribe— just let them keep track of wandering hunters.”
“And the transfer?”
Ashe glanced at the watch on his wrist. “Harvey and Logwood are assembling the new one. I give them about forty-eight hours. H.Q. will fly in the extra power packs tonight. Then our men go through. We haven’t the time to spend on finer points now. A working crew follows as soon as the scouts give the ‘all clear.’ H.Q. is analyzing the film reports. They’ll have the rest of the equipment to us as soon as possible.”
Travis stirred. Who was going to be part of that scouting team into the far past? He wanted to ask that— to hope that he might be one. But what had happened a year ago to smash other plans, kept him tongue-tied now. Ross voiced that all-important question.
“Who makes the first jump, chief?”
“You— me— we’re on the spot. Our friend here, if he wants to.”
“You mean that?” Travis asked slowly.
Ashe reached for the waiting coffeepot. “Fox, as long as you don’t go loping off on your own to test that flint-tipped armory you’ve been constructing on the first available mammoth, you can come along. Mainly because you look the part, or will when we get through with you. And maybe you can adapt better than we can. Briefing for a time run used to take weeks. Ask Ross here; he can tell you what a cram course in our work is like. But today we haven’t weeks to spare. We’ve only days and they grow fewer with each sunrise. So we’re gambling on you, on Ross, on me. But get this—I’m your section leader, the orders come from me. And the main rule is —the job comes first! We keep away from the natives, we don’t get involved in any happenings back there. Our only reason for going through is to make as sure as we can that the technical boys are not going to be disturbed while they work on that wreck. And that may not be an easy job.”
“Why?” Ross asked.
“Because this ship didn’t make as good a landing as the one you saw the Reds stripping. According to the films we took through the peeper there was a bad smash when it hit dirt. We may have to let it go altogether and track down Number Two on our list. Only, if we can come up with just one good find on board this one, we can stave off the objections of the Committee and get the appropriation for future exploration.”
“Might do to run one of the Committee through,” Ross remarked.
Ashe grinned. “Want to lose your job, boy? Give ‘em a good look around in some of the spots we’ve prospected and they’d turn up their toes—quick.”
Just three days later a bright shaft of sunlight illuminated a small side pocket of the canyon spotlighting the three as they worked. They were under the highly critical eyes of a small, neat man who regarded them intently through the upper half of his bifocals and made terse suggestions in a dry, precise voice. Stripping, they rubbed into their skins inch by inch the cream their instructor had provided. And under that oiling their tanned, or naturally dark, skins took on the leathery, uniform brownness of men who wore very little clothing in any kind of weather.
Ashe and Ross had been provided with contact lenses so that their eyes were now as dark brown as Travis’. And their closely cropped hair was hidden under finely made wigs of straggling, coarse black locks which fell shoulder-length at the sides and descended as a pony’s mane between their shoulder blades.
Then each took his turn flat on his back while the makeup artist, working from film charts, proceeded to supply his victims with elaborate patterns of simulated tattoos, marking chests, upper arms, chins, and upper cheekbones. Travis, undergoing the process, studied Ashe, who now represented the finished product. Had he not seen all the steps in that transformation, he would not have guessed that under that savage shell now existed Dr. Gordon Ashe.
“Glad we’re allowed sandals,” the same savage commented as he tightened the thongs which held about him a combination loincloth-kilt of crudely dressed hide.
Ross had just thrust his bare feet into a pair of such primitive footwear. “Let’s hope they’ll stay on if we have to scramble, chief,” he said, eying them dubiously.
Finished at last, the three stood in line to be checked by the make-up man and Kelgarries. The Major carried some furred skins over his arm, and now he tossed one to each of the disguised men.
“Better hold on to those. It gets cold where you’re going. All right—the ‘copter’s waiting.”
Travis slung a hide pouch over his shoulder and gathered up the three spears he had headed with pseudo-Folsom points. All the men were armed with the same weapons and there was a supply bag for each man.
The ‘copter took them up and out, swinging away from the Canyon of the Hohokam into a wide sweep of desert land, bringing them down again before a carefully camouflaged installation. Kelgarries gave Ashe his last instructions. “Take a day—two if you have to. Make a circle about five miles out, if you can. The rest is up to you.”
Ashe nodded. “Can do. We’ll signal in as soon as we can give an ‘all clear.’ “
The concealed structure housed a pile of material and an inner erection of four walls, one floor, no roof. Together the three agents crowded into that, watched the panel slide to behind them, while a radiance streamed up around their bodies. Travis felt a tingling through bone and muscle, and then a stab which was half panic as the breath ‘was squeezed from his lungs by a weird wrenching that twisted his insides. But he kept his feet, held on to his spears. There was a second or two of blackness. Then once again he gulped air, shook himself as he might have done climbing out of strong river current. Ross’s dot-bordered lips curved in a smile and he signaled “thumbs up” with his scarred hand.
“End of run—here we go. . . .”
As far as Travis could see they were still in the box. But when Ashe pushed open the door panel, they looked out not on the piled boxes which had lain there before but upon an untidy heap of rocks. And clambering over those in the wake of his companions, the Apache did find a very different world before him.
Gone was the desert with its burden of sun-heated rock. A plain of coarse grass, thigh-, even waist-high, rolled away to some hills. And that grassy plain was cut by the end of a lake which stretched northward beyond the horizon. Travis saw brush and small trees dotting in clumps. And, too distant for him to distinguish their species, he could make out .slowly moving lumps which could only be grazing animals.
There was a sun overhead, but a cold, harassing wind whipped with an ice-tipped lash around Travis’ three-quarters-bare body. He pulled the hide robe about his shoulders, and saw that his companions had copied that move. The air was not only chilly, it was dank with a wealth of moisture.
And there were new, rank smells, which his nostrils could not identify, carried by each puff of breeze. This world was as harsh and grim as his own, but in a very different fashion.
Ashe stooped and rolled aside one of the nearby rocks to disclose a small box. From his supply bag he produced three small buttons, giving one to each of the younger men.
“Plant that in your left ear,” he ordered, and did so with his own. Then he pushed a key on the side of the box. Instantly a low chirruping sound was audible. “This is our homing signal. It acts as radar to bring you back here.”
“What’s that?”
A plume of smoke, whipped by the wind into a long trail of gray-white vapor, bannered to the north. From the shape Travis could not believe that it marked a forest fire, yet it surely signalized a conflagration of some size.
Ashe glanced up casually. “Volcano,” he returned. “This part of the world hasn’t settled down too stably yet. We head northwest, around the lake tip, and we should strike the wreck.” He started off at a steady lope which told Travis that this was not the first time the time agent had played the role of primitive hunter.
The grass brushed against them, leaving drops of cold moisture on their bare legs and thighs. Travis concluded that there must have been rain very shortly before their arrival. , And from the look of the massing clouds to the east, a second storm might catch them soon.
As they came away from the hill whose foot sheltered the time transfer, that chirruping in his ear grew fainter, varying in intensity as Ashe twisted and turned about the hooked end of the lake. The wide reach of lush grass continued and this was truly game country. As yet, though they had not passed close enough to any of the grazers to see what type of animals they were.
About a half mile from the curving shore of the lake rested an object which was not natural. Pushed deep into the earth, its rounded side showing two jagged rents, lay a half globe of metallic material. Around it was a wide patch of blackened earth only raggedly striped with new grass. But what impressed Travis chiefly was the object’s size. He deduced that perhaps only half of the thing was visible—if its form had originally been a true globe. Yet that half now above the earth was at least six stories tall. The complete vessel must have been a veritable monster, more equal to an ocean liner than the largest sky transport he knew of in his own time.
“She certainly got it!” observed Ross. “Bad crack up at landing—“
“Or else she had it before landing.” Ashe leaned on a spear to survey the hulk.
“What-?”
“Those holes might have been caused by shell fire. We’ll leave that to the experts to determine. But this could be a wreck from a space battle. That storm’s coming fast. I say we’d better circle west ahead of it and find some shelter in the hills. If the first reports are correct, we’ll be caught in a kind of rain we know nothing about!”
Ashe’s lope lengthened into a trot, and the trot into a space-covering run. He was heading away from the wrecked ship to the distant hills, and to reach them they had to round the narrow end of the lake.
They were carefully threading their way through the edge of a marshy spot when a scream halted them. Travis knew that it was a death cry, but the sound was followed by an appalling, yowling squall which could come from no throat, animal or human, of his own time. It sounded from directly before them. The squall was answered in turn by a grunting, such a grunting as might have issued from the deep chest of a giant pig. And that grunting was echoed on a higher note almost directly behind them!
“Down!” Travis obeyed the order from Ashe, throwing himself flat on the muddy ground, wriggling to the left. A moment later all three scouts huddled in a growth of tough brush. They paid no attention to the torment inflicted by its brambles on their arms and shoulders, for they had front-row seats on a wild drama which held them enthralled.
Crumpled on the ground was a mound of heaving flesh, plainly in the death throes, its long, shaggy yellow hair sodden with blood. Crouched at bay behind that body was another animal. Travis could classify it when he caught sight of those long, curved fangs: sabertooth. It was slightly shorter than a lion of Travis’ own day, and its muscular legs and powerful shoulders displayed a threat of force which would daunt a larger beast. But now it was facing a giant. . . .
The opponent, whose cub had been killed, was a mountain of flesh, rearing almost eighteen feet above the ground. Balanced on large-boned kind feet and thick tail, it fronted sabertooth with powerful forearms, each tipped with a gigantic single claw. The narrow head twisted and turned above the slender forebody, the thick brown hair covering it in constant movement.
There was a rank smell of animal blown to the men in the brush as a second monstrous ground sloth moved in to give battle. And the sabertooth spat like the enraged cat it was.
A HAND closed on Travis’ arm, jerking his attention from the shaping battle. Ashe pointed westward and pulled again. Ross was already creeping in that direction. The wind was at their back so that they caught the fetor of the beasts without danger of their being scented in turn.
“Get to it!” Ashe ordered. “We don’t want that cat on our trail. It can’t take on two adult sloths and it’ll be one mighty disappointed diner—out looking for another meal pretty soon now.”
They wormed their way forward, trying to gauge from the squalls of the cat, the grunting of the sloths, whether battle had yet reached the stage of actual blows. If the cat was smart, Travis knew, it •would let itself be driven off. And knowing the tactics of mountain lions of his southwest, he believed that that was what would happen.
“Okay—run!” Ashe scrambled to his feet and set a good pace across the open lands, the other two thudding behind him. The sun had completely disappeared now, and the gray-ness under those lowering clouds approached twilight. The thin chirrup of their homing device sounded very lonely and far away.
Brown-gray lumps swung up heads with -wide stretches of horns. Save that those horns were straight and not curved, the animals might have been the bison of the historic plains. Catching the scent of the scouts, they tossed those horned heads, set off northward down the open land at a lumbering gallop. Among them ran with speed and far more grace large-headed horses equipped with the spectacularly striped coats of zebras. This was plainly a hunter’s paradise.
The rain came from behind the men, making a visible curtain of water. When that enfolded them, Travis gasped, choked, fought for breath under the flood which beat and pounded him. But his legs kept the striding pace Ashe had set, and the three continued to head for the hills which were now only vaguely visible through the downpour.
A rising slope slowed them, and twice they had to leap runnels of streams carrying away the excess of water being dumped on the heights above them. Lightning cracked with a lashing viciousness, bringing a scrap of illumination with it.
A hand caught at Travis to the left, and so into partial shelter from the storm.
He was crowded together with Ashe and Ross, half crouching in the lee of some rocks. It was not quite a cave, but the crevice was better than the open slope.
“How long will this last?” Ross growled.
Ashe returned without much hope, “Anywhere from an hour to a couple of days. Let’s hope we’re lucky.”
They squatted, drawing their hide robes about them, pressing together for the warmth of body contact in the midst of that damp cold. Perhaps they dozed, for Travis became aware of his surroundings with a jerk of his head which hurt neck and shoulder. He knew that the rain had stopped, though there was night outside their inadequate shelter. He asked:
“Do we move on?”’
But the reply to that came from the world outside their hiding place, with a roar loud enough to split eardrums. Travis, his nails digging into the wooden shaft of his spear, could not control the shudder which shook him at that menacing blast.
“We do if we want to provide a midnight snack for our friend out there,” Ashe commented. “The rain probably spoiled hunting for somebody. Hereabouts we have sabertooth, the Alaskan lion, the cave bear, and a few other assorted carnivores I don’t want to meet without, say, a tank in reserve support.”
“Cheery spot,” Ross remarked. “I’d say our playmate up-ridge hasn’t had much luck tonight. Any chance of his coming down to scoop us out—or try for taste?”
“If he, she or it does, he’ll get a pawful of spear points.” Ashe replied. “One advantage of this hole, nothing can get in if we’re firm in saying No!”
There was a second roar, from farther away, Travis noted with relief. Whatever meat hunter on the hoof prowled the hills, it would not have followed their trail. The rain must have cleansed their scent from grass and earth. But they continued to huddle there, stiff and cold, endeavoring now and then to change position of arms or legs so that morning would not find them too cramped to move. They remained until the sky did lighten with the first sign of dawn.
Travis crawled out, straightened up painfully, and bit back a stinging word or two, as a morning breeze with the crisp-ness of about three below zero cut in under the flap of his cloak blanket. He decided that to be properly prepared to roam the Pleistocene world in the garb of its rightful inhabitants, one should practice beforehand by spending a month or so in a deep freeze stripped to one’s shorts. And he was pleased to see that neither Ashe nor Ross was any more agile when he emerged from the hole of refuge.
They mouthed food-concentrate tablets from their storage bags. Travis, though knowing the energy-building uses of those small pellets, longed for real meat, hot, yet still juicy, taken straight from the searing of the fire. There was no taste to these pill things.
“Up we go.” Ashe wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and slung his bag over his shoulder. He studied the way before them to pick out the best ascent. But Travis had already started, winding in and out between boulders which marked the debris of a landslide.
When the scouts at last reached the summit, they turned to look back into the valley of the lake. That smooth sheet of water occupied perhaps half of the basin. And it seemed to Travis that the mirror surface reached closer to the wrecked ship today than it had when they passed it the afternoon before. He said as much, and Ashe agreed.
“Water has to go somewhere and these rains feed all the streams heading down there. Another reason why we must make this a fast job. So—let’s get moving.”
But when they turned again to follow the line of the heights,
Travis halted. A very thin and watery sunlight broke through the clouds, carrying with it little or no warmth as yet, but providing more light. And— he peered intently westward and downslope on the other side of the hills. . . . No, he had not been mistaken! That sunlight, feeble as it was, reflected from some point in the second valley. From water? He doubted that, the answering spark was too brilliant.
Ashe and Ross, following his direction, saw it too. “Second ship?” Ross suggested.
“If so, it is not marked on our charts. But we’ll take a look. I agree that’s too bright to be sun on water.”
Had there been survivors from the other crash? Travis wondered. If so, had they established a camp down there? He had heard enough during the past few days to judge that any contact with the original owners of the galactic ships could be highly dangerous. Ross had been pursued by one of their patrols across miles of wilderness, and had escaped from a form of mind compulsion they exerted only by deliberately burning his hand in a fire and using pain to counter their mental demand for surrender. They were not human, those ship people, and what powers or weapons they did possess were so alien as to defy Terran understanding so far.
So the three took to cover, making expert use of every bit of brush, every boulder, as they advanced to locate that source of reflection. Again Travis was amazed by the skill of his companions. He had hunted lion, and lion in the beast’s native mountains is very wary game. And he could read trail with all the skill imparted to him by Chato who knew the ways of the old raiding warriors. But these two were equal to him at what he always considered a red man’s rather than a white man’s game.
They came at last to lie in a fringe of trees, parting the grass cautiously to look out on an expanse of open land. In the middle of it rested another globe ship, but this one was entirely above ground and it was small, a pygmy com- pared to the giant in the other valley. At first superficial examination it looked to have been landed normally, not crashed. Halfway up, the curve facing them showed the dark hole of an open entrance port, and from it dangled a ladder. Someone had survived this landing, come to earth here!
“Lifeboat?” Ashe’s voice was the slightest of whispers.
“It is not shaped like the one I saw before,” Ross hissed. “That was like a rocket.”
Wind sang across the clearing. Under its push the ladder clanged against the side of the globe. And from the foot of the strange ship some birds tried to rise. But they moved sluggishly, flopping their wings with an awkward heaviness. And the wind brought to the three in hiding that sweetish, stomach-turning odor which could never be mistaken by those who had ever smelled it. Something lay dead there, very dead.
Ashe stood up, watching those birds narrowly. Then he walked forward. A snarl came from close to ground level. Travis’ spear came up. It sang through the air and a brown-coated, four-footed beast yelped, leaped pawing in the air, to crash back into the grass. More of the gorged carrion birds fluttered and hopped away from their feast.
What lay about the foot of that ladder was not a pretty sight. Nor could the scouts tell at first glance how many bodies there had been. Ashe attempted to make a closer examination and came away, white-faced and gagging. Ross picked up a tatter of blue-green material.
“Baldies” uniforms, all right,” he identified it. “This is one thing I’ll never forget. What happened here? A fight?”
“What ever it was, it happened some time ago,” Ashe, livid under tan and skin stain, got out the words carefully. “Since there was no burial, I’d say the crew must all have been finished.”
“Do we go in?” Travis laid a hand on the ladder.
“Yes. But don’t touch anything. Especially any of the instruments or installations.”
Ross laughed on a slightly hysterical high note. “That you do not need to underline for me, chief. After you, sir, after you.”
Thus, Ashe leading the way, they climbed- the ladder, entered the gaping hole of the port. There was a second door a short distance inside, doubly thick and with heavy braces, but it, too, was ajar. Ashe pushed it back and then they •were in a well from which another ladder-like stair arose.
Somehow Travis had expected darkness, since there were no windows or wall outlets in the outer skin of the globe. But a blue light seeped from the walls about them, and not only light, but a warmth which was comforting.
“The ship’s still alive,” Ross commented. “And if she is intact—“
“Then,” Ashe finished softly for him, “we’ve made the big find, boys. We never hoped for luck like this.” He started to climb the inner ladder.
They came to a landing, or rather a platform from which opened three oval doors, all closed. Ross pushed against each, but they all held.
“Locked?” Travis asked.
“Might be-or else we don’t know how to turn the right buttons. Going on up, chief? If this follows the pattern of that other one. the control cabin is on top.”
“We’ll take a look. But no experiments, remember?”
Ross stroked his scarred hand. “I’m not forgetting that.”
A second ladder section brought them through a manhole in the floor of a hemisphere chamber occupying the whole top of the ship. And, before they were through that entrance, they knew that death had come that way before them.
There was one body only, crumpled forward against the straps of a seat which hung on springs and cords from the roof. In front of that rigid corpse, which was clad in the blue- green material, was a board crowded with dials, buttons, levers. “Pilot—died at his post.” Ashe walked forward, stooped over the body. “I don’t see any sign of a wound. Could be an epidemic which attacked all the crew. Well let the doctors figure it out.”
They did not linger to explore farther, for this find was too important. It was too necessary that the news of this second ship be relayed to Kelgarries and his superiors. But Ashe took the precaution of drawing the ladder into the globe’s port after his two younger companions had descended. He made his way down by rope. “Who do you think is going to snoop?” Ross wanted to know.
“Just a little insurance. We know there are primitives in the northern end of this country. They may be the type to whom everything strange is taboo. Or they may be inquisitive enough to explore. And I don’t fancy someone touching off a com again and calling in the galactic patrol or whoever those chaps wearing blue are. Now, let’s get to the transfer on the double!”
The weak sunlight of the early morning had increased in strength. The air was growing noticeably warmer, and danker, too, as the moisture-laden grass about them gave up its burden of last night’s rain. The process of travel resembled running through a river choked with slimy, slapping reeds, save that the ground underfoot was firm. The men panted up the heights, down past their refuge of the stormy night, to the plain of the lake, skirting the glade where scavengers were busy with the remains of the sabertooth’s kill.
As they came out into the open Ashe broke astride and swept one hand down in an emphatic order to take cover. That herd of mixed bison and horses which they had startled the night before was in movement once more, cutting diagonally across their path. And the animals were plainly in flight from some menace. Sabertooth again? The bison, though, tons of heavy bone and meat not to be faced down with ease, appeared able to take care of themselves with those sweeping horns.
Only when the wind bore to Travis those high, far-off sounds which his ears translated into shouts from what must be human throats, did he understand that the hunters were out in force. The primitive tribesmen had in some manner stampeded the herd in order to cut down the weaker stragglers.
The scouts were pinned down, as an ever-thickening stream of animals cut across the road they must take in order to reach the time transport. Before they had reached their present position, the main body of the herd had caught up, headed by the fleeter horses which whirled ahead of the heavier bison in skimming flight. Now the men caught sight of other harriers, using the general disturbance to their own advantage. Five dark shapes broke cover a hundred yards or so away, weaving in to cut around a lumbering, half-grown calf on the edge of the running bison herd.
“Dire wolves,” Ashe identified.
They were stocky, large-headed animals, running -without giving tongue, but with a •workmanlike weaving -which displayed their familiarity with this game. Two darted in to snap at the calf’s head, while the others rushed to try to deliver that crippling tendon slash of the hind legs which would make the bison easy prey.
“Oooooo-yahhh!”
That small drama so near to them had absorbed Travis almost to the point of his forgetting what must lie beyond. There was no chance yet of sighting those who called and made the stragglers their targets. But at that moment a horse staggered on past the bison which was fighting off the attentions of the wolves. Its large head had sunk close to knee level and a rope of bloody foam hung from muzzle to trampled grass. Driven deeply into its barrel was a spear. And even as the animal came fully into sight it tried to lift its head, faltered, and crashed to earth.
One of the wolves straightway turned attention to this new prey. It trotted away from the battle with the calf to sniff inquiringly at the still-breathing horse and then, with a growl, to launch itself at the animal’s throat. The wolf was feeding when the hunter of that loll made a swift answer to such brazen theft.
Another spear, lighter, but as deadly and well aimed, sped through the air, caught the dire wolf behind the right shoulder. The wolf gave a convulsive leap and collapsed just beyond the body of the horse. At the same time other spears flashed, bringing down its pack mates and, last of all, the young bison they had been worrying.
Most of the fleeing herd had passed by now. There were other animals lying on the flattened grass of the back trail. The three scouts crouched low, unable to withdraw lest they attract the notice of the hunters now coming in to collect their booty.
There were twenty or more males, medium-sized brown-skinned men with ragged heads of black hair like the wigs provided the scouts. Their clothing consisted of the same hide loincloth-kilts fastened about their sweating bodies with string belts and lacings of thongs. Travis, studying them, could see how well their own make-up matched the general appearance of the Folsom hunters.
Behind the men trudged the women and children, stopping to butcher the kill. And there were more of these than of the hunters. Whether those they saw represented the full strength of a small tribe, there was no telling. The men shouted to each other hoarsely, and the two who had accounted for the wolves seemed especially pleased. One of them squatted on his heels, pried open the mouth of the wolf which had killed the horse, and inspected its fangs with a critical eye. Since a necklace of just such trophies strung on a thong thumped across his broad chest with every movement of his body, it was plain he was considering a new addition to his adornment.
Ashe’s hand fell on Travis’ shoulder. “Back,” he breathed into the Apache’s ear. They retreated, wriggling out of the grass into the edge of the morass at the end of the lake. Here with the muck covering their bodies, and flies and other stinging insects greeting them with avid appetites, they made their way on. They moved away from the scene of the hunt with every bit of stalker’s skill they possessed, glad there was a wealth of meat to occupy the tribesmen.
Clumps of willow-like trees began to offer better screening, and behind these they achieved a hunched run until Ashe subsided, panting, into a convenient pile of brush. Travis, his chest an arch of hot pain which cut with every stabbing breath, threw himself face down, and Ross collapsed between the two.
“That was nearly it,” Ross got out between rasping intakes of air. “Never a dull moment in this business. . . .”
Travis raised his head from his bent arm and tried to locate landmarks. They had been headed for the rock-masked time transport when the hunt cut across their path. But they had had to swing north to avoid the butchering parties. So their goal must now lie southeast.
Ashe was on his knees, peering northward to where the bulk of wrecked ship was embedded in the plain.
“Look!”
They drew up beside him to watch a party of the hunters patter around the •wreckage. One of them raised a spear and clanged it against the side of the spaceship.
“They didn’t avoid it.” Travis got the significance of the casual assault.
“Which means—we’ll have to move fast with the smaller one! If they discover it, they may try to explore. Time’s growing shorter.”
“Only open country between us and the transfer now.” Travis pointed out the obvious. To cut directly across to that distant cluster of masking rocks would put them in the open, to be instantly sighted by any tribesman looking in the right direction.
Ashe gazed at him thoughtfully. “Do you think you could make it without being spotted?”
Travis measured distances, tried to pick out any scrap of cover lying along the shortest route. “I can try,” was all he could say in return.
HE MADE for the rise at the southern point of which stood the pile of rocks masking the installation. A brindled shape slunk out of his path, showing fangs. Then the dire wolf trotted on to the nearest carcass, where the women had stripped only the choicest meat, to investigate food for which it would not have to fight.
Travis worked his way along the foot of the rise. The main path of the stampede was to the west and he believed himself in the clear, when there was a snorting before him. A bulk heaved through small bushes and he found himself fronting a bison cow. Too high on her shoulder to cause a disabling wound, a broken spear shaft protruded. And the pain had enraged her to a dangerous state.
In such a situation even a range cow would be perilous for a man on foot, and the bison was a third again as big as the animals he knew. Only the bushes around them saved Travis from death at that first meeting. The cow bellowed and charged, bearing down on him at a speed which he would have believed impossible for her weight. He hurled himself to the left in a wild scramble to escape and found himself in a thorny tangle. The cow, meanwhile, burst past him close enough for the coarse mat of her hair to rasp against one out-flung arm.
Travis’ head rang with the sound of her bellowing as he squirmed around in the bush to bring up his heaviest spear. The cow had skidded to a stop, tearing up matted grass and turf with her hoofs as she wheeled. Then the spear haft in her shoulder caught in one of the springy half-trees. She bellowed again, lurching forward to fight that drag until the broken spear ripped loose and a great gout of blood broke, to be sopped up in the heavy tangle of shoulder hair.
That slowed her. Travis had time to get on his feet, ready his spear. There was no good target in that wide head confronting him. He jerked off his supply bag, swung it by its carrying thong, and flung it at the cow’s dripping muzzle. His trick worked. The bison charged, not for him, but after the thing which had teased her. And Travis thrust home behind the shoulder with all the force he had.
The weight of the bison and the impetus of the animal’s charge tore the shaft from his hold. Then the cow went to her knees, coughing, and the big body rolled on one side. He hurdled the mount of her hindquarters, fearing that the noise of battle might attract the hunters.
Forcing a way through the brush, he made most of the remainder of his journey on hands and knees. At last he crouched in the shelter of the rock pile, his ribs heaving, careless of the bleeding scratches which laced his arms and shoulders, stung on cheek and chin.
Watching his back trail, his body pressed to earth, Travis saw that he had been wise to leave the scene of battle quickly. Three of the hunters were running across the plain toward the brush, trailing spears. But they went with caution enough to suggest that this was not the first time they had had to deal with wounded stragglers from a stampeded herd. Having scouted the bush, the brown men ventured into its cover. And seconds later a surprised shout informed Travis his kill had been located. Then that shout was answered by a long eerie wail from some point up the hill above the rocks. Travis stirred uneasily.
The spear he had been forced to leave in the body of the cow resembled their own—but did it look enough like theirs for them to believe the kill had been made by a tribesman? Had these people some system of individual markings for personal weapons, such as his own race had developed in their roving days? Would they try to track him down?
He snaked his way into the crevice of the rocks. The alerting signal was there, a second box set in beside the radar guide which now hummed its signal in his ear. He plunged down the lever set in its lid, then moved the tiny bit of metal rapidly up and down in the pattern he had been drilled in using only the day before. In the desert of the late twentieth century that call would register on another recording device, relaying to Kelgarries the need for a hasty conference.
Travis edged out from the rocks and looked about him warily. He flattened against a boulder taller than his wiry body and listened, not only with his ears but with every wilderness-trained sense he possessed. His flint knife was in his fist as he caught that click of warning. And his other hand went out to grab at an upraised forearm as brown and well muscled as his own. The smell of blood and grease hit his nostrils as they came together breast to breast, and the stranger spat a torrent of unintelligible words at him. Travis brought up the fist with the knife, not to strike into the other’s flesh, but in a sharp blow against a thick jawbone. It was a blow that rocked the round black head back on the slightly hunched shoulders.
Pain scored along his own ribs as the two men broke apart. He aimed another blow at the jaw, brought up his knee as the native sprang in, knife ready. It was dirty fighting ac- cording to the rules of civilization, but Travis wanted a quick knockout with no knife work. He staggered the hunter, and was going in for a last telling blow when another figure darted around the rocks and struck at the back of the tribesman’s head, sending him limp and unconscious to the ground.
Ross Murdock wasted no time in explanations. “Come on. Help me get him under cover!”
Somehow they crowded into the shelter of the transfer, the Folsom man between them. And Ross, with quick efficiency, tied the wrists and ankles of their captive and inserted a strip of hide for a gag between his slack jaws.
Travis inspected a dripping cut across his own ribs, decided it was relatively unimportant, and then faced about as Ashe joined them.
“Looks as if you’ve been elected target for today.” Ashe pushed aside Travis’ hands to inspect the cut critically. “You’ll live,” he added, as he rummaged in his supply bag for a small box of pills. One he crushed on his palm, to smear the resulting powder along the bloody scratch, the other he ordered his patient to swallow. “What did you do to touch this off?”
Travis sketched his adventure with the bison cow.
Ashe shrugged. “Just one of those unlucky foul-ups we have to expect now and then. Now we have this fellow to worry about.” He surveyed the captive bleakly.
“What do we do?” Ross’s nose wrinkled. “Start a zoo with this exhibit one?”
“You got the message through?” Ashe asked.
Travis nodded.
“Then we’ll sit it out. As soon as it gets dark we’ll carry him out, cut the cords, and leave him near one of their camps. That’s the best we can do. Unfortunately the tribe seems to be heading west—“
“West!” Travis thought of that other ship.
“What if they try to board that spacer?” Ross seemed to share his concern. “I’ve a feeling this isn’t going to be a lucky run. We’ve had trouble breathing down our necks right from the start. But we should keep watch on that other ship—“
“And what could we do to prevent their exploring it?” Travis wanted to know. He was in a deflated mood, willing to agree with any forebodings.
“We’ll hope that they will follow the herd,” Ashe answered. “Food is a major preoccupation with such a tribe and they’ll keep near to a good supply as long as they can. But it does make sense to watch the ship. I’ll have to wait here to report to Kelgarries. Suppose you two take our friend here for his walk and then keep on going to that ridge between the valleys. Then you can let us know in time to keep our men under cover if the tribe drifts that way.”
Ross sighed. “All right, chief. When do we start?”
“At dusk. No use courting trouble. There will be prowlers out there after nightfall.”
“Prowlers!” Ross grinned without much humor. “That’s a mild way of putting it. I don’t intend to meet up with any eleven-foot lion in the dark!”
“Moon tonight,” corrected Travis mildly, and settled himself for what rest he could get before they ventured to leave.
Not only the moon gave light that night. The dusky sky was riven by the distant sullen fire of the volcano—or volcanoes. Travis now believed that there was more than one burning mountain to the north. And there was a distinct metallic taste in the air, which Ashe ascribed to an active eruption miles away.
Somehow, between them they got their captive on his feet and marched him along. He seemed to be in a dazed state, slumping again to the ground •while Travis went ahead to scout out a group about a fire.
The Folsom men—and women—were gorging on meat lightly seared by the flames of the fire. The odor of it reached Travis and filled him with an urge to dart into that company and seize a sizzling rib or two for himself. Concentrates might provide the scientific balance of energy and nourishment which his body needed, but they were no substitute, as far as his personal tastes were concerned, for the materials of the feast he was watching.
Fearing to linger lest his appetite over power his caution, he flitted back to Ross and reported that there were no sentries out to spoil their simple plan. So they hauled their charge to the edge of the firelight, removed his bonds and gag, and gave him a light push. Then they took to their heels in a spurt of speed designed to carry them out of range.
If any natives did follow, they did not find the right trail, and the two made the ridge without any more bad luck.
“We’re the stupid ones,” Ross observed as they drew up the last incline and found a reasonably sheltered spot under an overhand. It was not quite a cave, but had only one open side to defend. “Nobody in his right senses is going to gallop around in the dark.”
“Dark?” protested Travis, clasping his arms about the knees pulled tightly to his chest, and staring northward. His suspicions about the volcanic activity there was borne out now by the redness of the sky, the presence of fumes in the wind. It was a spectacular display, but one which did not give confidence to the viewer. His only satisfaction lay in the miles which must stretch between that angry mountain and the ridge on which he was not stationed.
Ross made no answer. Since Travis had the first watch, his companion had rolled in his hide cloak and was already asleep.
It was a broken night and when Travis arose in the dawn he discovered a thin skim of gray dust on his skin and the rocks about. At the same time a sulphuric blast in his face made him cough raggedly.
“Anything doing below?” he croaked.
Ross shook his head and offered the gourd water bottle.
The small spaceship rested peacefully below and the only change in the picture from the day previous was that there was not so much activity among the scavengers below the open port.
“What are they like—those men from space?” Travis asked suddenly.
To his surprise Ross, whom he had come to regard as close to nerveless, shivered.
“Pure poison, fella, and don’t you ever forget it! I saw two kinds—the baldies who wear the blue suits, and a furry-faced one with pointed ears. They may look like men—but they aren’t. And believe me, anyone who tangles with those boys in blue is asking to be chopped up fine in a grinder!”
“I wonder where they came from.” Travis raised his head. There were a few stars, still dim pinpoints of light in the dawn sky. To think of those as suns nourishing other worlds such as the solid earth now under him—where men, or at least creatures fashioned something like men, carried on lives of their own—was a spread of imagination requiring some effort of mind.
Ross -waved a hand skyward. “Take your pick, Fox. The big brains running this show of ours believe there was a whole confederation of different worlds tied together in a United Something-or-other then—“ He blinked and then laughed. “Me—saying ‘then’ when I mean ‘now!’ This jumping back and forth in time mixes a guy’s thinking.”
“And if someone were to take off in that ship down there, he’d run into them outside?”
“If he did, he’d regret it!”
“But if he took off in our time—would he still find them waiting?”
Ross played with the thongs fastening the supply bag. “That’s one of the big questions. And nobody’11 have the right answer until we do go and see. Twelve—fifteen thousand years is a long time. Do you know any civilization here that’s lasted even a fraction of that? From painted hunters to the atom here. Out there it could be the atom back to painted hunters—or to nothing—by now.”
“Would you like to go and see?”
Ross smiled. “I’ve had one brush with the blue boys. If I could be sure they weren’t still on some star map, I might say yes. I wouldn’t care to meet them on their home ground— and I’m no trained space man. But the idea does eat into a fella. . . . Ha—company!”
There was movement down in the valley—to the north. But those objects issuing out of the trees at a leisurely and ponderous pace were not Folsom hunters. Ross whistled very softly between his teeth, watching that advance eagerly, and Travis shared his excitement.
The bison herd, the striped horses, the frustrated sabertooth confronting the giant ground sloths, none had been as thrilling a sight as this. Even the elephant of their own time could generate a measure of awe in the human onlooker by the sheer majesty of its movement, its aura of strength and fearlessness. And these larger and earlier members of the same tribe produced an almost paralyzing sense of wonder in the two scouts. “Mammoths!”
Tall, thick-haired giants, their backbones sloping from the huge dome of the skull, the hump of shoulder, to the shorter hindquarters dwarfed tree and landscape as they moved. Three of them towered close to fourteen feet at the shoulder. They bore the weight of the tremendous curled tusks proudly, their trunks swaying in time to their unhurried steps. They were the most formidable living things Travis had ever seen. And, watching them, he could not believe that the hunters he had spied upon in the other valley had ever brought down such game with spears. Yet the evidence that they had, had been discovered over and over again—scattered bones with a flint point between the giant ribs or splitting a massive spine.
“One—two—three—“ Ross was counting, half under his breath. “And a small one—“
“Calf,” Travis identified. But even that baby was nothing to face without a modern shotgun to hand.
“Four—five—Family party?” Ross speculated.
“Maybe. Or do they travel in herds?”
“Ask the big brains. Ohhh—look at that tree go!”
The leader in the dignified parade set its massive head against a tree bole, gave a small push, and the tree crashed. With a squeal audible to the scouts, the mammoth calf hustled forward and started harvesting the leaves with a busy trunk, while its elders appeared to watch it with adult indulgence.
Ross pushed the wind-blown tails of wig hair out of his eyes. “We may have a problem here. What if they don’t move on? I can’t see a crew working down there with those tons of tusks skipping about in the background.”
“If you want to haze ‘em on,” Travis observed, “don’t let me stop you. I’ve drag-herded stubborn cows—but I’m not going down there and swing a rope at any of those rumps!”
“They might take a fancy to bump over the ship.”
“So they might,” agreed Travis. “And what could we do to stop ‘em?”
But for the moment the mammoth family seemed content at their own end of the valley, which was at least a quarter of a mile from the ship. After an hour’s watch Ross tightened the thongs of his sandals and gathered up his spears.
“I’ll report in. Maybe those walking mountains will keep hunters away—“
“Or draw them here,” corrected Travis pessimistically. “Think you can find your way back?”
Ross grinned. “This trail is getting to be a regular freeway. All we need is a traffic cop or two. Be seeing you. . . .” He disappeared from their perch with that swift and silent ability to vanish into the surrounding landscape which Travis still found unusual in a white man. As Travis continued to lie there, chin supported on forearm, idly watching the mammoths, he tried again to figure out what made Ashe and Ross Murdock so different from the other members of their race he knew. Of course he had in a measure felt the same lack of self-consciousness with Dr. Morgan. To Prentiss Morgan a man’s race and the color of his skin were nothing—a shared enthusiasm was all that really mattered. Morgan had cracked Travis Fox’s shell and let him into a larger world. And then—like all soft and de-shelled creatures—he had been the more deeply hurt when that new world had turned hostile. He had then fled back into the old, leaving everything—even friendship—behind.
Now he waited for the old smoldering flame of anger to bite. It was there, but dulled, as the night fire of the volcano was now only a lazy smoke plume under the rising sun. The desert over which he had ridden to find water a week ago was indeed time buried. What—?
The mammoths had moved, with the largest bull facing about. Trunk up, the beast shrilled a challenge that tore at Travis’ ears. This was beyond the squall of the sabertooth, the grunting roar of a sloth prepared to do battle. It was the most frightening sound he had ever heard.
A second time the bull trumpeted. Sabertooth on the hunt? The Alaskan lion? What animal was large enough, or desperate enough, to stalk that walking mountain? Man?
But if there -was a Folsom hunter in hiding, he did not linger. The bull paced along the edge of the wood and then butted over another tree, to tear loose leaved branches and crunch them greedily. The crisis was past.
An hour later a party guided by Ross climbed up to join him. Kelgarries, and four others, wearing dull green and brown coveralls which faded into the general background, spread themselves on the ground to share the lookout.
“That’s our baby!” The Major’s face was alight with enthusiasm as he sighted the derelict. “What can you do about her, boys?”
But one of the crew focused glasses in another direction. “Hey—those things are mammoths!” he shouted. As one, his fellows turned to follow his directing finger.
“Sure,” snapped the Major. “Look at the ship, Wilson. If she is intact, can we possibly swing a direct transfer?”
Reluctantly the other man abandoned the mammoth family for business. He studied the derelict through his lenses. “Some job. Biggest transfer we ever did was the sub frame—“
“I know that! But that was two years ago, and Crawford’s experiments have proved that the grid can be expanded without losing power. If we can take this one straight through without any dismantling, we’ve put the schedule ahead maybe five years! And you know what that will mean.”
“And who’s going to go down there to set up a grid with those outsize elephants watching him? We have to have a clear field to work in and no interruptions. A lot of the material won’t stand any rough handling.”
“Yeah,” echoed one of his subordinates. Again the lenses swung to the north. “Just how are you going to shoo the mammoths out?”
“Scout job, I suppose.” That resigned comment came from Ashe as he joined the party. “Well, I’m admitting right here and now that I have no ideas, bright or otherwise, on how to make a mammoth decide to take a long walk. But we’re open for suggestions.”
They watched the browsing beasts in silence. Nobody volunteered any ideas. It appeared that this particular problem was not yet covered by any rule on or off the book.
“WHAT WE need is a mine field—like the one planted around H.Q.,” Ross said at last.
“Mine field?” repeated the man Kelgarries had called Wilson. Then he said again. “Mine field!”
“Got something?” demanded the Major.
“Not a mine field,” Wilson corrected. “We could fix it for those brutes to blow themselves up, all right, but they’d take the ship with them. However, a sonic barrier now—“
“Run it around the ship outside your work field—yes!” The Major was eager again. “Would it take long to get it in?”
“We’d have to bring a lot of equipment through. Say a day—maybe more. But it is the only thing I can think of now which might work.”
“All right. You’ll get all the material you need—on the double!” promised Kelgarries.
Wilson chuckled. “Just like that, eh? No howls about expense? Remember, I’m not going to sign any orders I have to defend with my lifeblood about two years from now before some half-baked investigating committee.”
“If we pull this off,” Kelgarries returned with convincing force, “We’ll never have to defend anything before anyone! Man—you get that ship through intact and our whole project will have paid for itself from the day it was nothing but a few wishful sentences on the back of an old envelope. This is it— the big pay-off!”
That was the beginning of a hectic period in Travis’ life which he was never able to sort out neatly in his head afterward. With Ashe and Ross he patrolled a wide area of hill and valley, keeping watch upon the camps of the wandering hunters, marking down the drifting herds of animals.
For two days men shuttled back and forth and then erected a second time transfer within the valley of the smaller ship.
Wilson’s sonic barrier—an invisible yet nerve-shattering wall of high-frequency impulses—was in place around the ship. And while its signals did not affect human ears, the tension it produced did reach any man who strayed into its influence. The mammoth family withdrew into the small woodland from which they had come. The men working on the globe did not know whether that retreat was the result of the vibrations or not—but at least the beasts were gone.
Meanwhile more sonic broadcasters were set up on every path in and out of the valley, sealing it from invasion. Kelgarries and his superiors were throwing every resource of the project into this one job.
About the ship arose a framework of bars as fast as the men could fit one to another. Travis, watching the careful deliberation of the fitting, understood that delicate and demanding work was in progress. He learned from overheard comments that a new type of time transfer was in the process of being assembled here, and that one so large had never been attempted before. If the job •was successful, the globe would be carried intact through to his own era for detailed study.
In the meantime another small crew of experts not only explored the ship, taking care not to activate any of its machines, but also made a detailed study of the remains of the crew. Medical men did what they could to discover the cause for the mass death of the space men. And their final verdict -was a sudden attack of disease or food poisoning, for there were no wounds.
Three days—four—Travis, weary to his very bones, dragged back from a scouting trip southward and hunched down by the fire in the small camp the three field men kept on the heights above the crucial valley. The metallic taste in the air rasped throat and lungs when he breathed deeply.
For the past two days the volcanic activity in the north had become more intense. Once the night before they had all been awakened by a display—luckily miles away—during •which half a mountain must have blown skyward. Twice torrents of rain had hit, but it was warm rain and the sultriness of the air made conditions now almost tropical. He would be very glad when that fretwork of bars was in place and they could leave this muggy hotbox.
“See anything?” Ross Murdock tossed aside the hide blanket he had pulled about head and shoulders and coughed raspingly as one of the sulphur-tinged breezes curled about them. “Migration—I think,” Travis qualified his report. “The big bison herd is already well south and the hunters are following it.”
“Don’t like the fireworks, I suppose.” Ross nodded to the north. “And I don’t blame them. There’s a forest burning up there today.”
“Seen anything more of the mammoths?” “Not around here, I was northeast anyway.” “How long before they’ll be through down there?” Travis went to look down at the ship. There was a murky haze gathering about the valley and it was spoiling the clearness of view. But men were still aloft on the scaffolding of rods-hurrying to the final capping of the skeleton enclosure about the sphere.
“Ask one of the brains. The other crew—the medics-finished their poking this afternoon. They went through transfer an hour ago. I’d say tomorrow they’ll be ready to throw the switch on that gadget. About time. I have a feeling about this place. . . .”
“Maybe rightly.” Ashe loomed out of the growing murk. “There’s trouble popping to the north.” He coughed, and Travis suddenly noted that the mat of wig was missing from the older man’s head. He saw that there was a long red mark which could only mark a burn down Ashe’s shoulder, crossing the white seam of an earlier scar. Ross, seeing it too, jumped to his feet and turned Ashe toward the light of the fire to inspect that burn closer.
“What did you do—try to play boy on the burning deck?” His voice held an undernote of concern.
“I miscalculated how fast a stand of green timber can burn —when conditions are right. The top of a mountain did blow off last night, and that may have an encore soon. We’re moving down nearer to the transfer. And we may have visitors—“
“Hunters? I saw them moving south—“
But Ashe was shaking his head in answer to Travis.
“No, but we may have been too clever about rigging that sonic screen. Those mammoths have been holed up in a small sub-valley to the north. If the hell I’m expecting now breaks loose, sonics won’t hold them back, but breaking through such a barrier will make them really wild. They might just charge straight down through here. Kelgarries will have to try his big transfer and quick if that happens.”
The scouts reached the floor of the valley in time to see the technicians dropping from the grillwork and hurrying to the time transfer. But they had not come up to the grill when the world went mad. Flame, noise, a thunder in the north, a great up-leap of fire to scorch the underside of lowering clouds. Travis was thrown off his feet as the ground crawled sickeningly. He saw the grid sway about the globe, heard cries and shouts.
“—quake!” A word out of the general clamor made sense of a sort. The volcanic outburst was being matched by earthquake. Travis stared up at the grid fascinated, expecting every moment to see the rods fly apart, come crashing down upon the dome of the ship. But, strangely enough, though the framework swayed, it did not fall.
In the thickening murk Kelgarries drove his men to the personnel transfer. Travis knew that he should join that line, but he was simply too amazed by the scene to stir. The fog- smoke was denser and out of it arose a shout in a voice he recognized. Getting to his feet, he ran to answer that plea for help.
Ashe lay on the ground. Ross was bending over him, trying to get him to his feet. As Travis blundered up, his spears thrown away, the smoke closed in and set them to a strangled coughing. Travis’ sense of direction faltered. Which way was the time transfer? Light ashes drifting through the air blurred air and ground alike—they might have been caught in a snowstorm.
He heard a scream of sheer terror, scaling up. A black shape, larger than the fruit of any nightmare, pounded into sight. The mammoths were charging down-valley as Ashe had feared.
“—get out!” Ross pulled Ashe to the right. Now the older man was between them, stumbling dazedly along.
They skirted the wall of rods about the globe, squeezed through to the ball. A mammoth trumpeted behind them. There was little hope now of reaching the personnel transfer in time and Ashe must have realized that. For he pulled free of the other two and began to move around the ship, one hand on its surface for guide.
Travis guessed his reason—Ashe wanted to find the ladder which led to the open port, use the ship as a refuge. He heard Ashe call, and slipped around behind him to discover that the other held the ladder.
Ross gave his officer a boost, then followed on his heels, while Travis steadied the dangling ladder as best he could. He started to ascend when he saw Ashe, only a dark blot, claw through the port above. He heard again the screeching trumpet of a mammoth and wondered that the beasts had not already smashed into the framework about the ship. Then he in turn was able to scramble through the port, and lay gasping and coughing, the irritation carried in the fog biting into nose and throat tissues.
“Shut it!” Travis was jerked roughly away from the door as someone pushed past him. The outer covering closed with a clang. Now the fog was only a wisp or two, and utter silence took the place of the bedlam outside.
Travis drew a long breath, one which did not this time rasp in his throat. The bluish light from the walls of the ship was subdued, but it was not so dim that he could not see Ashe clearly. The older man lay with his head and shoulders supported by the wall. A bruise was beginning to discolor on his forehead, which was no longer shadowed by any wig. Ross came back from the outer hatch.
“Kind of close quarters here,” he commented. “We might as well spread out some.”
They went out the inner door of the lock, and Murdock swung that shut behind them, a move which was perhaps to save their lives.
“In here—“ Murdock indicated the nearest door. Those barriers which had been tightly closed on their first visit to the ship had been opened by the technicians. And the cabin beyond contained a furnishing which was a cross between a bunk and a hammock, being both fastened to the wall and swung on straps from the ceiling. Together they guided Ashe to it and got him down, still dazed. Travis had time for no more than a quick glance about when a voice rang down the well of the stair.
“Hey! Who’s down there? What’s going on?” They climbed to the control cabin. In front of them stood a wiry young man wearing technician’s coveralls, who stared at them wide-eyed.
“Who are you?” he demanded, as he backed away, his fists up to repel an attack.
Travis was completely bewildered until he caught sight of a reflection on the shining surface of the control board—a dirty, three-quarters naked savage. And Ross was his counterpart—the two of them must certainly look like savages to the stranger. Murdock’s hands went to his ash-encrusted wig and he peeled it off, a gesture Travis copied. The technician relaxed.
“You’re time agents.” He made that recognition sound close to an accusation. “What’s going on, anyway?”
“General blowup.” Ross sat down suddenly and heavily in one of the swinging chairs. Travis leaned against the wall. Here in this silent cabin it was difficult to believe in the disaster and confusion without. “There’s a volcanic eruption in progress,” Murdock continued. “And the mammoths charged— just before we made it in here—“
The technician started for the stairwell. “We’ve got to get to the transfer.”
Travis caught his arm. “No getting out of the ship now. You can’t even see—ash too thick in the air.”
“How close were they to taking this ship through?” Ross wanted to know.
“All ready, as far as I know,” the technician began, and then added quickly, “d’you mean they’ll try to warp her through now—with us inside?”
“It’s a chance, just a chance. If the grid survived the quake and the mammoths.” Ross’s voice was a thin thread, overlaid with a crust of fatigue. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
“We can see—a little.” The technician stepped to one of the side panels his hand going to a button there.
Ross moved, coming out of his seat in a spring which rivaled a sabertooth’s for speed and deadly purpose. He struck out at the other, sent him sprawling on the floor. But not before the button was pressed home. A plate arose from the board, glowed. Then, over the head of the bewildered and angry technician still on his hands and knees, they caught sight of swirling ash-filled vapor, as if they were looking through a window into the valley.
“You fool!” Ross stood over the technician, and the cold threat Travis had seen in him at their first meeting was very much alive. “Don’t touch anything in here!”
“Wise guy, eh?” The technician, his face flushed and hard, was getting up, his fists ready. “I know what I’m doing—“
“Look—out there!” Travis’ cry broke them apart before they tangled.
The fogged picture still held. But there was something else to see there now. It •was a build up, bar by bar, square by open square of yellow-green lines of light, possessing the brutal force of lightning but with none of its jagged freedom. The pattern grew fast, dominated the gray of the drifting ash.
“The grid!” The technician broke away from Ross. With his hands on the back of one of the swinging seats, he leaned forward eagerly to watch the vision plate. “They’ve turned the power on. They’re going to try to pull us through!”
The grid continued to glow—to scream with light. They could not watch it now because of its eye-searing brilliance. Then the ship rocked. Another earth quake—or something else? Before Travis could think clearly he was caught up in a fury of sensation for which there had surely never been any name, or any description possible. It was as if his flesh and his mind were at war with each other. He gasped, writhed. The momentary discomfort he had felt when he used the personnel transfer was nothing compared to this wrenching. He tried to find some stability in a dissolving world.
Now he was on the floor. Above him was the window on the outside. He lifted his head slowly, his body felt as if he had been beaten. But that window display—there was no gray now—no ashes falling as snow. All was blue, bright, metallic blue—a blue he knew and that he wanted above him in safety. He staggered up, one hand going out to that promise of blue. But about him still was that feeling of instability. “Wait!” The technician’s fingers caught his wrist in a hard, compelling grasp. He dragged Travis away from the vision plate, tried to push him down in one of the chairs. Ross was beyond, his scarred hand clenched on the edge of a control panel until the seams in the flesh stood out in ugly ridges. His face had lost that expression of cold rage, his expression Was intent, wary.
“What’s going on?” Ross asked harshly.
It was the technician who gave a sharp order. “Get in that seat! Strap down! If it’s what I think, fella—“ He shoved Ross back into the nearest chair, and the other obeyed tamely as if he had not been at blows with the man only moments earlier.
“We’re through time, aren’t we?” Travis still watched that wonderful, peaceful patch of blue sky.
“Sure—we’re through. Only how long we’re going to stay here . . .” The technician wavered to the third chair, that in which they had discovered the dead pilot days earlier. He sat down with a suddenness close to collapse.
“What do you mean?” Ross’s eyes narrowed, his dangerous look was coming back.
“Dragging us through by the energy of the grid did something to the engines here. Don’t you feel that vibration, man? I’d say this ship was preparing for a take-off!”
“What?” Travis was half out of his seat. The technician leaned forward, sent him back into the full embrace of the swinging chair with a quick shove. “Don’t get any bright ideas about a quick scram out of here, boy. Just look!”
Travis followed the other’s pointing ringer. The stairwell through which they had climbed to the cabin was now closed.
“Power’s on,” the other continued. “I’d say we’re going out pretty soon.”
“We can’t!” Travis began and then shivered, knowing the futility of that protest even as he shaped it.
“Anything you can do?” Ross asked, his control once more complete.
The technician laughed, choked, and then waved his hand at the array on the control board. “Just what?” he asked grimly. “I know the use of exactly three little buttons here. We never dared experiment with the rest without dismantling all the installations and tracing them through. I can’t stop or start anything. So we’re off to the moon and points up, whether we like it or not.”
“Anything they can do out there?” Travis turned back to that patch of blue. He knew nothing about the machines, even about the science of mechanics. He could only hope that somewhere, somehow, someone would put an end to this horror which they faced.
The technician looked at him and then laughed again. “They can clear out in a hurry. If there’s a backwash when we blast off, a lot of good guys may get theirs.”
That vibration, which Travis had sensed on his revival from the strain of the time transport, was growing stronger. It came not only from the walls and flooring of the cabin, but seemingly from the very air he was gulping in quick, shallow breaths. The panic of utter helplessness made him sick, dried his mouth, gripped in twisting pain at his middle.
“How long—?” he heard Ross ask, and saw the technician shake his head.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“But why? How?” Travis asked hoarsely.
“That pilot, the one they found sitting here . . .” The technician rapped the edge of the control board with his fingers. “Maybe he set automatic controls before he crashed. Then the time transfer—that energy triggered action somewhere. . . . But I’m only guessing.”
“Set automatic controls for where?” Ross’s tongue swept over his lips as if they were dry.
“Home, maybe. This is it, boys—strap in!”
Travis fumbled with the straps of the seat, pulled them across his body clumsily. He, too, felt that last quiver of addition to the vibration.
Then a hand, an invisible hand as large, as powerful as a mammoth’s foot, crushed down upon him. Under his body the seat straightened out into a swaying bed. He was fastened on it, unable to breathe, to think, to do more than feel, endure somehow the pain of flesh and bone under the pressure of that take-off. The blue square was one moment before his aching eyes—and then there was only blackness.
TRAVIS came back to consciousness slowly, painfully, aware of a kind of inner bruising before he could assemble his thoughts coherently. He tasted the stale flatness of blood when he tried to swallow and found it hard to focus his eyes. That vision plate which had last been blue was now a dull black. As he moved the slung seat-bed under him swung violently, though the effort he had made was small. Slowly, with caution, he raised his body, pushing up with both hands.
On another swinging cot lay Ross Murdock, the lower part of his face caked with blood, his eyes closed, his skin a greenish white under the heavy tan and stain. The technician seemed to be in no better state. But under them, around them, the cabin was now quite, devoid of either sound or vibration. Recognizing that, Travis fumbled with the strap across his middle, tried to get up.
This attempt brought disastrous results. His efforts drove him away from his support, right enough. But his feet did not touch the floor. Instead he plunged out, weightless, to bring up against the edge of the main control board with force enough to raise a little yelp of pain. Panic-stricken, he held on to the board, pulling himself along until he could reach the technician. He tried to rouse the other, his methods growing rougher when they did not appear to be answered by any signs of returning consciousness.
Finally the man groaned, turned his head, and opened his eyes. As awareness grew in their depths, so did surprise and fear.
“What-what happened?” The words were slurred. “You hurt?”
Travis drew the back of his hand across mouth and chin, brought it away clotted with blood. He must look as bad as Ross.
“Can’t walk.” He introduced the foremost problem of the moment. “Just—float. . . .”
“Float?” repeated the technician, then he struggled up, unfastened his belt. “Then we are through—out of gravity! We’re in space!”
Jumbled fragments of articles he had read arose out of Travis’ memory. Free of gravity—no up, down—no weight-He was nauseated, his head spinning badly, but keeping hold of the board he worked his way past the technician to Ross. Murdock was already stirring, and as Travis laid hand on his seat he moaned, his fingers sweeping aimlessly across his chest as if to soothe some hurt there. Travis gently caught the other’s bloody chin, shaking his head slowly from side to side upon the gray eyes opened.
“. . . and that’s it, we’re out!” Case Renfry, the technician, shook his head at the flood of questions from the time scouts. “Listen, fellas, I was loaned to this project to help with the breakdown appraisal. I can’t fly any ship, let alone this one— so it must be on automatic controls.”
“Set by the dead pilot. Then it should go back to his base,” Travis suggested gloomily.
“You are forgetting one thing.” Ross sat up with care, keeping firm hold on his mooring with both hands. “That pilot’s base is twelve thousand years or so in the past. They warped us through time before we took off—“
“And we can’t go home?” Travis demanded again of the technician.
“I wouldn’t try meddling with any key on that board,” Renfry said, shaking his head. “If we’re flying on automatic controls, the best thing is to keep on to the destination and then see what we can do.”
“Only there are a few other things to consider—such as food, water, air supplies,” Travis pointed out.
“Yes-air,” Ross underlined with chilling soberness. “How long might we be on the way?”
Renfry grinned weakly. “Your guess is as good as mine. The air supply is all right—I think. They had a going plant in the ship and Stefferds said it was in perfect working order. Keep it fresh by some species of algae in a sealed section. You can look in at it but you can’t contaminate the place. And they breathed about the same mixture as we do. But as to food and water—we’d better look around. Three of us to feed . . .”
“Four! There’s Ashe!” Ross, forgetting where he was, tried to jump free of his seat and swam forward in a tangle of flailing legs and arms until Renfry drew him down.
“Take it easy, mighty easy, fella. Hit the wrong button while you’re putting on a dive act that way and we could be worse off than we are. Who’s Ashe?”
“Our section chief. We stowed him in a cabin down below, he had had a bad knock on the head.”
Travis aimed for the well leading to the center section of the globe. He overshot, bounced back, and was thankful when his fingers closed on the bar of its cover. They got it open and made their way clumsily in a direction Travis still thought of—in spite of the evidence of his eyes—as “down.”
To descend into the heart of the ship required an agility which was a torment to their bruised and aching bodies. But when they at last reached the cabin they found Ashe still safely stowed in the bunk, far better tended against the force of the take-off than they had been. For only his peaceful face showed above a thick mass of a jelly substance which filled the interior of the bunk-hammock.
“He’ll be all right. That’s the stuff they keep in their lifeboats to patch up the injured—saved my life once,” Ross identified. “A regular cure for anything.”
“How do you know so much?” Renfry began, and then, his eyes wonderingly on Ross, he added, “why—you must be the guy who was with the Reds on that ship they were stripping!”
“Yes. But I’d like to know a little more about this one. Food —•water. ...”
They went exploring in Renfry’s wake, discovering adaption to weightlessness a hard job, but determined to learn what they could of the best, and the worst, of their predicament. The technician had been all through the ship and now he displayed to them the air-renewal unit, the engine room, and the crew’s quarters. They made a detailed examination of what could only be a mess cabin combined with kitchen. It was a cramped space in which no more than four men—or man-like beings—could fit at one time.
Travis frowned at the rows of sealed containers racked in the cupboards. He extracted one, shook it near his ear, and was rewarded by a gurgle which made him run a dry tongue over his blood-stained lips. There must be liquid of a sort inside, and he could not remember now when he had had a really satisfying drink.
“This is water—if you want a drink.” Renfry brought a Terran canteen out of a corner. “We had four of these on board, used ‘em while we were working.”
Travis reached for the metal bottle, but did not uncap it after all. “Still have all four?” Perhaps more than any of the rest on board he knew the value of water, the disaster of not having it.
Renfry brought them out, shaking each. “Three sound full. This one’s about half—maybe a little less.”
“We’ll have to go on rations.”
“Sure,” the technician agreed. “Think there’re some concentrate food tablets here, too. You fellas have any of those?”
“Ashe still had his supply bag with him, didn’t he?” Travis asked Ross.
“Yes. And we’d better see how many of the tablets we can find.”
Travis looked at the alien container which had gurgled. At the moment he would have given a great deal to be able to force the lid, to drink its contents and ease both thirst and hunger.
“We may have to come to trying these.” Renfry took the container from the scout, fitted it back into the holder space.
“I’d guess we’ll have to try a lot of things before this trip is over—if it ever is. Right now I’d like to try a bath, or at least a wash.” Ross surveyed his own scratched, half-naked, and very dirty body with marked disfavor.
“That you can have. Come on.”
Again Renfry played guide, bringing them to a small cubbyhole beyond the mess cabin. “You stand on that—maybe you can hold yourself in place with those.” He pointed to some rods set in the wall. “But get your feet down on that round plate and then press the circle in the wall.”
“Then what happens? You roast or broil?” Travis inquired with suspicion.
“No—this really works. We tried it on a guinea pig yesterday. Then Harvey Bush used it after he upset a can of oil all over him. It’s rather like a shower.”
Ross jerked at the ties of his disreputable kilt and kicked off his sandals, his movements sending him skidding from wall to wall. “All right. I’m willing to try.” He got his feet on the plate, holding himself in position by the rods, and then pressed the circle. Mist curled from under the edge of the floor plate, enveloped his legs, rose steadily. Renfry pushed shut the door.
“Hey!” protested Travis, “he’s being gassed!”
“It’s okay!” Ross’s voice, disembodied, came from beyond. “In fact—it’s better than okay!”
When he came out of the fogged cubby a few minutes later, the grime and much of the stain were gone from his body. Moreover, scratches which had been raw and red were now only faint pinkish lines. Ross was smiling.
“All the comforts of home. I don’t know what that stuff is, but it peals you right down to your second layer of hide and makes you like it. The first good thing we’ve found in this mousetrap.”
Travis shucked his kilt a little more slowly. He didn’t relish being shut into that gassy box, but neither did he enjoy the present state of his person. Gingerly he stepped, or skipped, onto the floor disk, got his feet flattened on its surface, and pressed the circle, holding his breath as the gassy substance puffed up to enfold him.
The stuff was not altogether a gas, he discovered, for it had more body than any vapor. Rather, it was as if he were immersed in a flood of frothy bubbles which rubbed and slicked across his skin with the even pressure of a vigorous toweling. Grinning, he relaxed and, closing his eyes, ducked his head under the surface. He felt the smooth swish across his face, drawing the sting out of scratches and the ache out of his bruises and bumps.
When the bubbles ebbed and Travis stepped out of the cubby, he was met by a changed Ross. The latter was just hitching up over his broad shoulders the upper part of a tight, blue-green suit which clung to his body, modeling every muscle as he moved. One piece, its stocking covering for legs and feet were soled with a thick sponge which cushioned each step. Ross picked another bundle of blue-green from the floor and tossed it to the Apache.
“Compliments of the house,” he said. “I certainly never thought I’d want to wear one of these again.”
“Their uniforms?” Travis remembered the dead pilot.
“What is this—silk?” He rubbed his hand over the sleek surface of a fabric he could not identify, and was attracted by the play of color—blue, green, lavender. It rippled from one shade to another as the material moved.
“Yes. It has its good points, all right—insulated against cold and heat, for one thing. For another, it can be traced.”
Travis paused, his arm half through the right sleeve. Traced?”
“Well, I was trailed over about fifty miles of pretty rugged territory because I •was wearing one like this. And they tried to get at me mentally, too, when I had it on. Went to sleep one night and woke up heading right back to the boys who wanted to collect me.”
Travis stared, but it was plain Ross meant every word he said. Then the Apache glanced clown again at the silky stuff he was. wearing, with an impulse to strip it off. Yet Murdock in spite of his story, was fastening the studs which ran from one shoulder to the other hip of his own garment.
“If we were in the right time, I wouldn’t touch this with a fifty-foot pole,” Ross continued, smiling wryly. “But, seeing as how we are some thousands of years removed from the rightful owners, I’ll take the chance. As I said, these suits do have some points in their favor.”
Travis snapped his own studs together. The material felt good, smooth, a little warm, almost as soothing as the foam bubbles which had scoured and energized his tired body. He was willing to chance wearing the uniform; it was infinitely better than the hide garment he had discarded.
They were learning to navigate through weightlessness. The usual form of progress approached swimming, and they found convenient handholds to draw them along. If Travis could forget that the ship was boring on into the unknown, their present lodging had a lot to recommend it. But .when the four of them gathered in the control cabin an hour or so later, they prepared to consider the major problem with what objectivity they could summon. Ashe, alertly himself again, fresh from the healing of the aliens’ treatment, held the leadership by unspoken consent. Only it was to Renfry that the three time scouts looked for hope. The technician had little to offer.
“The pilot must have set the ship’s controls on some type of homing device just before he died. I’m just guessing at this, you understand, but it is the only explanation to make sense now. When we explored here, my chief, working from what he knew of the tape records from the Russian headquarters, traced three installations: the one giving outside vision,” he began, tapping lightly on the plate which had been blue for those few precious moments before their involuntary take-off. “Another which is the inside com system connecting speakers all over the ship. And a third—this.” He pressed a lever to its head in a slot. Three winks of light showed on the board and out of the air above their heads came a sound which might have been a word in an unknown tongue.”
“And what is that?” Ashe watched the lights with interest.
“Guns! We have four ports open now, and a weapon in each ready to fire. It was the chiefs guess that this was—is— a small military scout, or police patrol ship.” He clicked the lever back into place and the lights were gone.
“Not very helpful now,” Ross commented. “What about the chances for getting back home?”
Renfry shrugged. “Not a chance that I can see so far. Frankly, I’m afraid to do any poking around these controls while we’re in space. There is too good a chance of stopping and not getting started again—either forward or back.”
“That makes sense. So we’ll just have to keep on going to whatever port for which your controls are now set?”
Renfry nodded. “Not my controls, though, sir. This—all of this—is far advanced, and different—beyond our planes. Maybe, if I had time, and we were safely on ground, I could discover how the engines tick, but what makes them do so would still be another problem.”
“Atomic fuel?”
“Even that I can’t say. The engines are completely sealed. That sealing may be atomic shielding, we didn’t dare pry too far.”
“And home port may be anywhere in the universe,” mused Ashe. “They had some type of distance-time jump—voyages couldn’t have lasted centuries.”
Renfry was studying the banks of buttons and levers with an expression of complete exasperation. “They could have every gadget in a fiction writer’s imagination, sir, and we wouldn’t know it—until the thing did or didn’t work!”
“Quite a prospect.” Ashe got up with the careful motions of a novice in no-weight. “I think a detailed exploration of the rest of our present home is now in order.”
There were three of the small living cabins, each equipped with two bunk-hammocks. And by experimenting with the wall panels they discovered clothing, personal effects of the crew. Travis did not like to empty those shallow cupboards and handle those possessions of dead men. But he did his share during the hunt for some clue which might mean the difference between life and death for the present passengers. He had opened a last small cavity in one locker when he caught a promising glitter. He picked up the object and found himself holding a rectangle of some slick material with the texture of glass. It was milky white, blank when he picked it up. But the chill of the first touch faded as he turned it over curiously. The rim was bordered in a band of tiny flashing bits of yellow which might be gem stones—framing blank-ness instead of a picture.
A picture! If he could hold a picture of a far place—what sort would it be? Family—home—friends? He watched the plain surface within the border. Plain—? There was something there! Color was seeping up to the surface, spreading; outlines were becoming solid. Bewildered, almost frightened, Travis studied that changing scene.
He did have a picture now. And one he knew. It was an entirely familiar scene—a stretch of desert and mountains. Why, he might be standing on the cliffs looking toward Red Horse Canyon! He wanted to throw the thing from him. How could an alien who lived twelve thousand years ago carry among his belongings a picture of the country Travis knew as home? It was unbelievable—unreal!
“What is it, son?” Ashe’s hand was real on his arm, Ashe’s voice warm through the chill congealing inside him as he continued to stare at the thing he held, the thing which, in spite of its familiar beauty, was wrong, terrible. . . .
“Picture . . .” he mumbled. “Picture of my home—here.”
“What?” Ashe stopped closer and gave an exclamation, took the block out of Travis’ hands. The younger man wiped his sweating palms down his thighs, trying to wipe away the touch of that weird picture.
But, as he watched the desert scene, he cried out. For it was fading away, the colors were absorbed in the original white. The outlines of cliffs and mountains were gone. Ashe held the plaque up in both of his hands. And now there was a new stirring in the depths, a murky flowing as again a scene grew into sharp brilliance.
Only this was not the desert, but a stand of tall, green trees Travis recognized as pines. Below them was a strand of gray-white sand, and beyond the pound of waves lashing high in foam against fanged rocks. Above that restless water white birds hung.
“Safeharbor!” Ashe sat down suddenly on the bunk and the picture shook as his hands trembled. “That’s the beach by my home in Maine—in Maine, I tell you! Safeharbor, Maine! But how did this get here?” His expression was one of dazed bewilderment.
“To me it showed my home also,” Travis said slowly. “And now to you another scene. Perhaps to the man who once lived in this cabin it also showed his home. This is a magic thing, I think. Not of the magic which your people have harnessed to do their will, nor of the magic of my Old Ones either.” Somehow the thought that this object bewildered the white man as much as it did him took away a little of the fear. Ashe raised his eyes from the scene of shore and sea to meet Travis’. Slowly he nodded.
“You may be guessing, but I’ll stake a lot on your guess being right. What they knew, these people—what wonders they knew! We must learn all we can, follow them.”
Travis laughed shakily. “Follow them we are, Doctor Ashe. About the learning—well, we shall see.”
A FIGUBE edged along the narrow corridor, his cushioned feet barely touching the floor. In the timeless interior of the spaceship where there was no change between day and night, Travis had had to wait a long time for this particular moment. His brown hands, too thin nowadays, played with the fastening of his belt. Under that was a gnawing ache which never left him now.
They had stretched their water supply with strict rationing, and the concentrate tablets the same way. But tomorrow —or in the next waking period they would arbitrarily label “tomorrow”—they would have only four of those small squares. And Travis was keenly aware of not only that indisputable fact but of something which Ross had said that day when they had argued out the need for experiment with alien food supplies. “Case Renfry,” the younger time agent had pointed out the obvious, “is certainly not going to be your tester. If we are ever going to be able to find out what makes this bus tick and get it started home again, he’s the one to do it. And, chief-he had then turned upon Ashe—“you’ve the best brain—it’s up to you to help him. Maybe somewhere in this loot we’ve found you can locate a manual, or a do-it-yourself tape that’ll give us a fair break.”
They had been pulling over the material they had found in the cabins. Objects such as the disappearing picture were set aside on the hope that Ashe, with his archaeologist’s training in the penetration of age-old mysteries, might understand them through study.
“Which,” Ross had continued,” leaves the food problem up to a volunteer—me.”
Travis had remained quiet, but he had also made plans. He had already followed Ross’s reasoning to a logical end, but his conclusion differed from Murdock’s. Of the four men on board he, not Murdock, was certainly the most expendable. And the history of his people testified to the fact that Apaches possessed the toughest of digestive apparatus. They had been able to live off the natural products of a land where other races starved. So—he was now engaged in his own private project.
Last sleep period he had tackled the first container chosen from the supply cupboard, the one which had sloshed when shaken. He had swallowed two large mouthfuls of a sickly sweet substance with the consistency of stew. And, while the taste had not been pleasant, Travis had suffered no discomfort afterward. Now he chose a small round can, prying off the lid quickly while listening for any warning from the corridor.
He had left Ross asleep in the small cabin they shared, had looked in upon Renfry and Ashe before he made this trek.
There was so little time and he had to wait a reasonable period between each tasting.
Travis wanted a drink, but he knew better than to take one. He had palmed his concentrate tablet at the last “meal,” held the canteen to his mouth but not drunk, keeping his stomach empty. Now he studied his new selection with disgust.
A brown jelly, it quivered slightly with the movement of the cylinder in his hand, its surface reflecting the light. Using the edge of the lid as an improvised spoon, Travis ladled a portion into his mouth. Unlike the stew the stuff had little flavor, though he did not relish the greasy feel on his tongue. He swallowed, took a second helping. Then he chose a third sample—a square box. He •would wait. If there were no ill effects from the jelly—then this. If he could prove four or five of these different containers held food the Terrans could stomach, they might have enough to outlast the voyage.
He did not return to his bunk. The magnetic bottoms of each container clung to the surface of the table, just as the thick soles of his suit feet clung to the walking surfaces in the ship when he planted them firmly. They had all adapted in a measure to the lack of gravity and the actual conditions of space flight. But Travis had a struggle to conceal his dislike of the ship itself, of the confinement forced upon them. And now, to sit alone brought him a fraction of comfort, for he dared to relax that strict control.
He had enjoyed the venture into time. The prehistoric world had been an open wilderness he could understand. But the ship was different. It seemed to him that the taint of death still clung to its small cabins, the narrow corridors and ladders, that the very alienness of it was a menace far more acute than a sabertooth or a mammoth in a rocking charge.
Once he had believed that he wanted to know more about the Old Ones. He had wanted to probe the mysteries which could be deduced from bits of broken pottery or an arrowhead pried from a dust-filled crevice in a cave. But those Old Ones had been distantly akin to him—those who had built this ship were not. For a moment or two his claustrophobia welled up, shaking his control, making him want to batter the walls about him with his fists, to beat his way out of this shell into the light, the air—freedom.
But outside these walls there was no light, no air, and only the freedom of vacuum—or of the mysterious hyperspace which canceled the distance between the stars. Travis fought his imagination. He could not face that picture of the ship hanging in an emptiness where perhaps there were not even the frigid points of light to mark the stars—where there was nothing solid and stable.
The travelers could only hope that sometime they would reach the home port for which the dying alien pilot had set the controls. But that course had been set twelve thousand perhaps more—years ago. What port would they find waiting beyond the wall of time? Twelve—fifteen thousand years. . . . These were figures too great for the normal comprehension of ordinary man. At that time on earth, the first mud-walled villages had not yet been built, nor the first patch of grain sown to turn man from a wandering hunter to the householder, the landowner. What had the Apache been then and the white man? Roving hunters with skill in spear and knife and the running down of game. Yet it was at that time that these aliens had produced this ship, voyaged space, not only between the planets of a single system, but from star to star!
Travis tried to think of their future, but his thoughts kept sliding back to the pressing urge to be in the open. He yearned to stand under the sun with wind—yes, even a desert wind hot and laden with grit—blowing against him. That longing was as acute as a pain—a pain!
His hands went to his middle. A sudden thrust of pure agony had rent him and it was not born out of any homesickness. The cramping was physical and very real. He bent half double, trying to ease that hot clawing in his insides as the cabin misted before his eyes. Then the stab was gone, and he straightened—until it caught him again. This was it. His luck at his second attempt with the alien food was bad.
Somehow he got to his feet, lurched against the table as a third bout of cramps caught him. The torture ebbed, leaving his hands and face wet. And in the few moments before the next pang he made it halfway along the corridor, reaching the haven he sought just as his outraged stomach finally revolted.
Travis would not have believed that two mouthfuls of a greasy jelly could so weaken a man. He pulled his spent body back to the mess cabin, dropping limply into a chair. More than anything now he wanted water, to cleanse the foulness from his mouth, to slake the burning in his throat. The canteens mocked him for he dare not take one up, knowing just how little of the precious liquid still remained.
For a while he hunched over the table, weakly glad of his freedom from pain. Then he drew the can of jelly to him. This must be marked poisonous. Only two containers had been tested—and how many more would prove impossible?
Only five concentrate tablets were left, counting the one he had hidden that day. Nothing was going to multiply that five into ten—or into two hundred. If they were to survive the voyage of unknown duration, they must use some of this other food. But Travis could not control the shaking of his hands as he worked to free the lid of the square box. Maybe he was rushing things, taking another sample so soon after the disastrous effects of the other. But he knew that if he did not, right here and now, he might not be able to force himself to the third attempt later.
The lid came free and he saw inside dry squares of red. To his questing finger these had the texture of something between bread and a harder biscuit. He raised the can to sniff. For the first time the odor was faintly familiar. Tortillas paper-thin and crisp from the baking had an aroma not unlike this. And because the cakes did arouse pleasant memories, Travis bit into one with more eagerness than he would have believed possible moments earlier.
The stuff crumbled between his teeth like corn bread, and he thought the flavor was much the same, in spite of the unusual color. He chewed and swallowed. And the mouthful, dry as it was, appeared to erase the burning left by the jelly. The taste was so good that he ventured to take more than a few bites, finishing the first cake and then a second. Finally, still holding the box in one hand, he slumped lower in his seat, his eyes closing as his worn body demanded rest.
He was riding. There was the entrance to Red Horse Dan-yon, and the scent of juniper was in the air. A bird flew up— his eyes followed that free flight. An eagle! The bird of power, ascending far up into a cloudless sky. But suddenly the sky was no longer blue, but black with a blackness not born of normal night. It was black, and caught in it were stars. The stars grew swiftly larger—because he was being drawn up into the blackness where there were only stars. . . .
Travis opened heavy-lidded eyes, looked up foggily at a blue figure. Looming over him was a thin, drawn face, slight hollows marking the cheeks, dark smudges under cold gray eyes.
“Ross!” The Apache lifted his head from his arm, wincing at the painful crick in his back.
The other sat down across the table, glanced from the array of supply containers to Travis and back again.
“So this is what you’ve been doing!” There was accusation in his tone, almost a note of outrage.
“You said yourself it was a job for the most expendable.”
“Trying to be a hero on the quiet!” Now the accusation was plain and hot.
“Not much of a one.” Travis rested his chin on his fist and considered the containers lined up before him. “I’ve sampled three so far—exactly three.”
Ross’s eyelids flickered down. His usual control was back in place, though Travis did not doubt the antagonism was still eating at him.
“With what results?”
“Number one”—Travis indicated the proper can—“too sweet, kind of a stew—but it stays with you in spite of the taste. This is number two.” He tapped the tin of brown jelly. “I’d say its only use was to get rid of wolves. This”—he cradled the can of red cakes—“is really good.”
“How long have you been at it?”
“I tried one last sleep period, two this.”
“Poison, eh?” Ross picked up the tin of jelly, inspecting its contents.
“If it isn’t poison, it puts up a good bluff,” Travis shot back a little heatedly, stung by the suggestion of skepticism.
Ross set it down. “I’ll take your word for it,” he conceded. “What about this little number?” He had arisen to stand before the cupboard, and now he turned, holding a shallow, round container. The secret of its fastening was harder to solve, but when it was open at last they looked at some small balls in yellow sauce.
“D’you know, those might just be beans,” Ross observed. “I’ve yet to see any service ship where beans in some form or other didn’t turn up on the menu. Let’s see if they eat like beans.” He scooped up a good mouthful and chewed thoughtfully. “Beans—no—I’d say they taste more like cabbage— which had been spiced up a bit. But not bad, not bad at all!”
Travis found himself nursing a small wicked desire to have the cabbage-beans do their worst to Ross, not with as devastating results as the jelly—he wouldn’t wish that on anyone! But if they would just make themselves felt enough to prove to Murdock that food testing was not as easy as all that. . . .
“Waiting for them to turn me inside out?” Ross grinned.
Travis flushed and then the stain spread and deepened on his cheeks as he realized how he had given himself away. He pushed the cracker-bread to one side and got up to select with inward—if not outward—defiance a tall cylinder which sloshed as he pried at its cap.
“Misery loves company,” Ross continued. “What does that smell like?”
Travis had been encouraged by his discovery of the bread. He sniffed hopefully at the cone opening and then snatched the holder away from his nose as a white froth began to puff out.
“Maybe you have the push-button soap,” Ross commented unhelpfully.- “Give the stuff a lick, fella, you have only one stomach to lose for your country.”
Travis, so goaded, licked—suspicious and expecting something entirely unpalatable. But, to his surprise, though it was sweet, the froth was not so sickly as the stew had been. Rather, the result on the tongue was refreshing, carrying satisfaction for his craving for water. He gulped a bigger mouthful and sat waiting, a little tensely, for fireworks to begin inside him.
“Good?” Ross inquired. “Well, your luck can’t be rotten all the time.”
“This luck is mixed.” Travis capped the foam which had continued to boil wastefully from the bottle. “We’re alive— and we’re still traveling.”
“Traveling is right. A little more information as to our destination would be useful and comforting—or the reverse.”
“The world the builders of this ship owned can’t be too different from ours,” Travis repeated observations made earlier by Ashe. “We can breathe their air without discomfort, and maybe cat some of their food.”
“Twelve thousand years. . . . D’you know. I can say that but I can’t make it mean anything real.” Ross’s hostility had either vanished or been submerged. “You say the words but you can’t stretch your imagination to make them picture something for you—or do you know what I mean?” he challenged.
Travis, rasped on an ancient raw spot, schooled down some heat before he replied. “A little. I did four years at State U. We don’t wear our blankets and feathers all the time.”
Ross glanced up, a flicker of puzzlement in those cold gray eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that—for what it’s worth.” Then he smiled and for the first time there was nothing superior or sardonic in that expression. “Want the whole truth, fella? I picked up what education I had before I went into the Project the hard way—no State U. But you studied the chief’s racket —archaeology—didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So—what does twelve thousand years mean to you? You deal with time in big doses, don’t you?”
“That’s a long span on our world, jumps one clear back to the cave period.”
“Yeah—before they put up the pyramids of Egypt—before they learned to read and write. Well, twelve thousand years ago, these blue boys had the stars for theirs. But I’m betting they haven’t kept them! There hasn’t been a single country on our world, not even China, that has had a form of civilization lasting that long. Up they climb and then—“ he snapped his fingers. “It’s kaput for them, and another top dog takes over the power. So maybe when we get to this port Renfry believes we’re homing for, well find nothing, or else someone else waiting for us there. You can bet one way or another and have a good chance of winning on either count. Only, if we do find nothing—then maybe our number’s up for sure.”
Travis had to accept the logic of that. Suppose they did come into a port which had ceased to exist, set down on a strange world from which they could not lift again because they had not the skill to pilot the ship. They would be exiles for the rest of their lives in a space uncharted by their kind.
“We’re not dead yet,” Travis said.
Ross laughed. “In spite of all our efforts? No—that’s our private battle cry, I think. As long as a man’s alive he’s going to keep kicking. But it would be good to know just how long we’re going to be shut up in this ship.” His usual half flippancy of tone thinned over that last as if his carefully cultivated self-sufficiency was beginning to show the slimmest of cracks.
In the end their experiments with the food were partially successful. The crackers Travis continued to label “corn”; the foam and Ross’s cabbage-beans could be digested by the interior apparatus of a human being without difficulty. And they added to that list a sticky paste with the consistency of jam and a flavor approaching bacon, and another cake-like object which, though it had a sour tang that puckered the mouth, was still edible. Greatly daring, Travis tapped the aliens’ water supply and drank. Though the liquid had a metallic aftertaste which the drinker could not relish, it was not harmful.
In addition the younger members of the involuntary crew made themselves useful in the cautious investigations carried on by Ashe and Renfry. The technician was in an almost constant state of frustration during the hours he spent in the control cabin trying to study machines he dared not activate or dismantle for the fuller examination he longed to make. Travis was seated behind him one morning—at least it was ten o’clock by Renfry’s watch, their only method of time-keeping —when there was a change to report, to report and take action on.
A shrill buzz pierced the usual silence, beeping what must be a warning. Renfry grabbed at the small mike of the ship’s com circuit.
“Strap down!” He rasped the order with rising excitement. “There’s an alert sounding here—we may be coming in to land. Strap down!”
Travis grabbed at the protecting bands on his chair. Below they must be scrambling for the bunks. There was vibration again—he was sure he could not mistake that. The ship no longer felt inert and drifting—she was coming alive.
What followed was again beyond his powers of description. The action came in two parts, the first a queasy whirl of sensation not far removed from what they had experienced when the ship had been whirled through the time transfer. Limp from that, Travis lay back, watching the vision plate which had been blank for so long. And when his eyes caught what was not appearing there, he gave a cry of recognition.
“That’s the sun!”
A point of blazing yellow set a beacon in the black of space.
“A sun,” Renfry corrected. “We’ve made the big hop. Now it’s the homestretch—into the system. . . .”
That blaze of yellow-red was already sliding away from the plate. Travis had an impression that the ship must be slowly rotating. Now that the brighter glare of the sun was gone he could pick up a smaller dot, far smaller than the star which nurtured it. That held steady on the plate.
“Something tells me, boy,” Renfry said in a small and hesitant voice, “that’s where we’re going.”
“Earth?” A warm surge of hope spread through Travis.
“An earth maybe—but not ours.”
“WE’RE down.” Renfry’s voice, thin, harsh, broke the silence of the control cabin. His hands moved to the edge of the panel of levers and buttons before him, fell helplessly on it. Though he had had nothing to do with that landing, he seemed drained by some great effort.
“Home port?” Travis got the words out between dry lips. The descent had not been as nerve- and body-wracking as their take-off from his native world, but it had been bad enough. Either the aliens’ bodies were better attuned to the tempo of their ships, or else one acquired, through painful experience, a conditioning to such wrenching.
“How would I know?” Renfry flared, plainly eaten by his own frustration.
Their window on the outside world, the vision plate, did mirror sky again. But not the normal Terran sky with its blue blaze which Travis knew and longed to see again. This was a blue closer to green, assuming the hue of the turquoise mined in the hills. There was something cold, inimical in that sky.
Cutting up into the open space was a structure which gave off a metallic glint. But the smooth sweep of those dull red surfaces ended in a jagged splinter, raw against the blue-green, plainly marking a ruin.
Travis unfastened his seat straps and stumbled to his feet, his body once more adjusting clumsily to the return of gravity. As much as he had come to dislike the ship, to want his freedom from it, at this moment he had no desire to emerge under that turquoise sky and examine the ruin pictured on the plate. And just because he did have that reluctance, he fought against it by going.
In the end they all gathered at the space lock while Renfry mastered the fastening, then -went on to the outer door. The technician glanced back over his shoulder.
“Helmets fastened?” His voice boomed hollowly inside the sphere now resting on Travis’ shoulders and made a part of him by a close-fitting harness. Ashe had discovered those and had tested them, preparing for this time when they had to dare a foray into the unknown. The bubble was equipped with no cumbersome oxygen tanks. It worked on no principle Renfry was able to discover, but the aliens had used these and the Terrans must trust to their efficiency now.
The outer port swung back into the skin of the ship. Renfry kicked out the landing ladder, turned to back down it. But each of them, as he emerged from the globe, glanced quickly around.
What lay below was a wide sweep of hard white surface which must cover miles of territory. This was broken at intervals by a series of structures of the dull red, metallic material set in triangles and squares. In the center of each of those was a space marked with black rings. None of the red structures was whole, and the landing field—if that was what it was—had the sterile atmosphere of a place long abandoned.
“Another ship. . . .” Ashe’s arm swung up, his voice came to Travis through the helmet com.
There was a second of the globes, right enough, reposing in one of the building-cornered squares perhaps a quarter of a mile away. And beyond that Travis spotted a third. But nowhere was there any sign of life. He felt wind, soft, almost caressing, against his bare hands.
They descended the ladder and stood in a group at the foot of their own ship, a little uncertain as to what to do next.
“Wait!” Renfry caught at Ashe. “Something moved—over there!”
They had found weapons in the ship; now they drew those odd guns, twin to the one Ross had had when Travis had first met him. The wind blew, a fragment of long-dread vegetation balled before it, caught against the globe and then was whirled away in a dreary dance.
But out of an opening at the foot of the red tower nearest to them something was issuing. And Travis, watching that coil snapping straight for them, froze. A snake? A snake unwinding to such a length that its reaching head was approaching their stand while the end of its tail still lay within the ruin where it denned?
He took aim at that swaying coil. Then Renfry’s hand struck his wrist pads, knocking up the barrel of the blaster. • And in that moment the Apache saw what the other had noticed first, that the snake was not a thing of flesh, skin, supple bones, but of some manufactured material.
More movement was continuing to issue in a mechanical writhing from the door through which that snake had crawled. This newcomer strode forward by jerks, paused, came on, as if compelled to advance against the dictates of ancient fabric and long wear. The thing was vaguely manlike in form, in that it advanced on stilt legs. But it had four upper appendages now folded against its central bulk, and where the head should have been there was a nodding stalk resembling the antennae of a com unit.
Its jerky walk with the many pauses conveyed more and more a sense of internal discord, of rust and wear, and the deterioration of time. How much time? The four Terrans stepped away from the ship, giving free passage to the strange partners from the tower.
“Robots!” Ross said suddenly. “They’re robots! But what axe they going to do?”
“Refuel, I think.” Ashe rather than Renfry answered that.
“You’ve hit it!” The technician pushed forward. “But do they have fuel—now?”
“We’d better hope there is some left.” Ashe sounded bleak. “I’d say we aren’t supposed to stay here—better get back on board.”
The threat of being trapped here, of locked controls raising the ship and leaving them marooned, induced a wave of something close to panic in all three hearers. They raced to the ladder, began to climb. But when they reached the air lock, Renfry remained at the open door, retailing the movements of the robots.
“I think that animated pipeline’s been connected—underneath. Can’t see what the walker’s doing—maybe he just stands by in case of trouble. And there’s something coming through the hose—you can see it swell! We’re taking on whatever we’re supposed to have!”
“A fueling station.” Ashe looked out over the wide stretch of crumbling towers and checkerboard landing spaces. “But see the size of this place. It must have been constructed to handle hundreds, even thousands, of ships. And since they couldn’t all be in to refuel at the same time, that predisposes a fleet”—he drew a deep breath of wonder—“a fleet almost beyond comprehension. We •were right—this civilization was galaxy-wide. Maybe it spread to the next galaxy.”
But Travis’ eyes rested on the splintered cap of the tower from which the robots had come. “By the looks no one has been here for some time,” he observed.
“Machines,” Renfry answered, “will go on working until they run down. I’d say that •walking one down there is close to its final stop. We triggered some impulse when we landed on the right spot. The robots were activated to do their job-maybe their last job. How long since they worked the last time? This may have kept going for a long part of that twelve thousand years you’re always talking about—an empire dying slowly. But I wouldn’t try to measure the time. These aliens knew machinery, and their alloys are better than our best.”
“I’d like to see the interior of one of those towers,” Ashe said wistfully. “Maybe they kept records, had something we could understand to explain it all.”
Renfry shook his head. “Wouldn’t dare try it. We might raise before you got inside the door. Ahh—the walker is going back now. I’d say get ready for take-off.”
They made tight the open port, the inner door of the space lock. Renfry, out of habit, went on up to the control cabin. But the other three took to their bunks. There was a waiting period and then once more the blast into space. This time they did not lose consciousness and endured until they were once more in space.
“Now what?” Hours later they squeezed into the mess cabin to hold a rather aimless conference concerning the future. Since no one had anything more than guesses to offer, none of them answered Renfry’s question.
“I read a book once,” Ross said suddenly with the slightly embarrassed air of one admitting to a minor social error, “that had a story in it about some Dutch sea captain who swore he’d get around the horn in one of those old-time sailing ships. He called up the Devil to help him and he never got home-just went on sailing through the centuries.”
“The Flying Dutchman,” Ashe identified.
“Well, we haven’t called up any Devil,” Renfry remarked.
“Haven’t we?” Travis had spoken his thoughts, without realizing until they all stared at him that he had done so aloud.
“Your Devil being?” Ashe prompted.
“We were trying to get knowledge out of this ship— and it wasn’t our kind of knowledge,” he floundered a little, attempting to put into words what he now believed.
Scavengers getting their just deserts?” Ashe summed up. “If you follow that line of reasoning, yes, you have a point. The forbidden fruit of knowledge. That was an idea planted so long ago in mankind’s conscience that it lingers today as guilt.”
“Planted,” Ross repeated the word thoughtfully, “planted.
“Planted!” Travis echoed, his mind making one of those odd jumps in sudden understanding of which he had only recently become conscious. “By whom?”
Then glancing around at the alien ship which was both their transport and their prison, he added softly, “By these people?”
“They didn’t want us to know about them.” Boss’s words came in a rush. “Remember what they did to that Red time base—traced it all the way forward and destroyed it in every era. Suppose they did have contacts with primitive man on our world—planted ideas—or gave them such a terrifying lesson at one time or other that the memory of it was buried in all their descendants?”
“There are other tales beside your Flying Dutchman, Ross,” Ashe squirmed a little in his seat. None of the chairs in the ship was exactly fitted to the human frame or provided comfort for the modern passengers. “Prometheus and the fire-the man who dared to steal the knowledge of the gods for the use of mankind and suffered eternally thereafter for his audacity, though his fellows benefited. Yes, there are clues to back such a theory, faint ones.” His eagerness grew as he spoke. “Maybe—just maybe—we’ll find out!”
“The supply port was long deserted,” Travis pointed out. “There may be nothing left of their empire anywhere.”
“Well, we’ve not found the home port yet.” Renfry got to his feet. “Once we set down there—I hadn’t intended to say this, but if we ever get to the end of this trip, there’s a chance we may get back, providing—“ He drummed his fingers against the door casing. “Providing we have more than our share of luck.”
“How?” demanded Ashe.
“The controls must now be set with some sort of a guide-perhaps a tape. Once we are grounded and I can get to work, that might just be reversed. But there are a hundred ‘ifs’ between us and earth, and we can’t count on anything.”
“There’s this, too,” Ashe added thoughtfully to that faintest of hopes. “I’ve been studying the material we have found. If we can crack their language tapes—some of the records we have discovered here must deal with the maintenance and operation of the ship.”
“And where in space are you going to find a Rosetta Stone?” returned Travis. He did not dare to believe that either of the two discoveries might be possible. “No common word heritage.”
“Aren’t mathematics supposed to be the same, no matter •what language? Two and two always add to four, and sums such as that?” puzzled Ross.
“Please find me some symbols on any of those tapes you’ve been running through the reader that have the smallest resemblance to any numbers seen on earth.” Renfry had swung back to the pessimistic side of the balance. “Anyway—I’m not meddling with the machines in that control cabin while we’re still in space.”
Still in space—how long were they going to keep on voyaging? And somehow they found this second lap of their journey into nowhere worse than the first had been. All of them had been secretly convinced that there was only one goal, that their first star port would be their last. But the short pause to refuel now promised a much longer trip. Their only way of telling time -was by the hours marked on the dial of Renfry’s watch. Days—Ashe made a record of those by counting hours. It was one week since they had left the fuel port—two days more.
Out of the sheer necessity for keeping their minds occupied, they pried at the puzzles offered them in the ship. Ashe had already mastered the operation of a small projector which “read” the wire-kept records, and so opened up not a new world but worlds. The singsong speech which went with the pictures meant nothing to the Terrans. But the pictures— and such pictures! Three-dimensional, colored, they allowed one a window on the incomprehensible life of a complex civilization stretching from star to star.
Races, cultures, and only a third of them humanoid— were these actually factual records? Or were they fiction meant to divert and amuse during the long hours of space travel? Or reports of some service action? They could guess at any answer to what they saw unrolled on the screen of the small machine. “If this was a police ship and those are authentic reports of past cases,” commented Ross, “they sure had their little problems.” He had watched with rapt attention a very lurid battle through a jungle which appeared to be largely waterlogged. The enemy there was represented by white amphibious things with a distracting ability to elongate parts of their bodies at “will—to the discomfiture of opponents they were so able to ensnare. “On the other hand,” he went on, “these may be just cheer-for-the-brave-boys-in-blue story writing to amuse the idle hour. Who are we to know?”
“There’s one which I discovered this morning—of more interest to us personally.” Ashe sorted through the plate-shaped containers of record wire. “Take a look at this now.” He drew out the coil of the jungle battle and inserted the new spool.
They watched the minute screen expectantly. Travis tried to guess the meaning of the high-pitched cackle of explanation which rang through the cabin, its tone shrill enough to rasp human ears.
Then they saw a sky, gray, lowering with thick clouds. Below it stretched a waste of what could only be snow such as they knew on their own world. A small party moved into the range of the picture, and the familiar blue suits of those in it were easy to distinguish against the gray-white of the monotonous background.
“Suggest anything to you?” Ashe asked of Ross.
Murdock was leaning forward, studying the picture with a new intentness that argued an unusual interest in so simple a scene.
There were four blue-suited, bald-headed humanoids. They wore no outer clothing and Travis remembered Ross’s remarks concerning the insulating qualities of the strange material. Over their heads they did have the bubble helmets, and they were traveling at a pace which suggested the need for caution in footing. The tape blinked in one of those quick changes to which the viewers had become accustomed. Now they must be surveying the same country from the angle of one of the four blue-clad travelers. There was a sudden, breath-taking drop; the camera must have skimmed at top speed down into a valley. Before them lay a second descent—and the perspectives were out of proportion.
They were not distorted enough, however, to hide what the photographer wanted to record. The viewers were gazing down onto a wide, level space and in that, half buried in banks of drifted snow, was one of the large alien freighters.
“It can’t be!” Ross’s expression was one of startled surprise.
“Keep watching,” Ashe bade.
At a distance, around the stranded half globe, black dots moved. They trailed off on a line marked clearly in the beaten snow as a path which had been worn by a good amount of traffic. There was another disconcerting click and again they saw ice—a huge, murky wall of it, rearing into the gray sky. And directly to that wall of ice led the beaten path.
“The Red time post! It must be! And this ship”—Ross was almost sputtering—“this ship must have been mixed up in that raid on the Reds!”
There was a last click and the screen went blank.
“Where’s the rest?” Ross demanded.
“You’ve seen all there is. If they recorded any more, it’s not on this spool.” Ashe fingered the colored tag fastened to the container from which he had taken the coil. “Nothing else with a label matching this, either.”
“I wonder if the Reds got back at them some way. If that was what killed off the crew later. Germ warfare. . . .” Ross jiggled the switch of the projector back and forth. “I suppose we’ll never know.”
Then, over their heads, blasting the usual quiet of the ship, came the warning from the control cabin where Renfry kept his self-imposed watch.
“She’s triggering for another break-through, fellas. Strap down! I’d say we’re due for the big snap very soon!”
They hurried to the bunks. Travis pulled at his protecting webbing. What would they find this time? Another robot-inhabited way stop—or the home port they were longing to reach? He set himself to endure the wrench of the breakthrough from distance-defeating hyper-space to normal time, hoping that familiarity would render the ordeal easier.
Once more the ship and the men in it were racked by that turnover which defied natural laws and paid in discomfort of mind and body.
“Sun ahead.” Travis, opening his eyes, heard Renfry’s voice, a little sharpened, through the ship-wide com. “One—two-four planets. We seem to be bound for the second.”
More waiting time. Then once more descent into atmosphere, the return of weight, the vibration singing through walls and floors about them. Then the set-down, this time with a slight grating bump, as if the landing had not been so well controlled as it had at the fueling port.
“This is different. . . .” Renfry’s report trailed into silence, as if what he saw in the plate had shocked him into speechlessness.
They climbed to the control cabin, crowded below that window on the new world. It must be night—but a night which was alive with reddish light, as if some giant fire filled the sky with the reflection of its fury. And that light rippled even as flames would ripple in their leaping.
“Home?” This time Ross asked the question.
Renfry, entranced as he still watched that display of fiery light, made a usual cautious answer.
“I don’t know—I just don’t know.”
“We’ll try a look-see from the port.” Ashe took up his planet-side command.
“Might be a volcano,” Travis hazarded from his experience in the prehistoric world.
“No, I don't think so. I’ve only seen one thing like that—“ “I know -what you mean.” Ross was already on the ladder.
“The Northern Lights!”