Time Traders Part 15

He was taller than Dr. Ashe, and there was no mistaking the air of command, or the power of those eyes which bored 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."

"We'll 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. There was no 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 their 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.

In the day light of morning the camp looked disorganized. But men were already sorting out the material, working as if this was a task they had often done before. As Travis was helping to s.h.i.+ft a large crate, he 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 cramped his 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-cla.s.s citizen,' Major. How do you suppose Indians rate with some people in this country? To that crowd we are and we'll always be dirty, ignorant savages. You can't fight when the other fellow has all the weapons. 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 a.s.sure 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-we'll s.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sembling a tripod of slender rods. His care proclaimed the objects as brittle and precious. 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 can do that?" 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 pa.s.sed from the tripod to Travis. His manner carried conviction.

"And we're going back again."

"After a Folsom man?" demanded the Apache incredulously.

"After a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p."

3.

This was no dream, not even a 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 Russians 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 s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. 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 establis.h.i.+ng way stations in other periods of time. Then we chanced on one of those middle points. And the Russians themselves, by capturing our time agents, showed us the s.h.i.+p 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 gra.s.s.

"But how did the s.h.i.+p get there?" he asked. "Was there an early civilization on earth which had s.p.a.ce travel?"

"That was what we thought-until we found the s.h.i.+p. 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 Russian 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 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p the Russians 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 Russians-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 's.p.a.ce patrol,' or whatever they call themselves, putting finis to the Russian 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.p.a.ce."

The thrill of that touched Travis. Mankind had reached for the stars for three generations. Men had had small successes, many searing failures. Now-what were missions 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. He tried to believe that somewhere around here, trapped in time, a wrecked star s.h.i.+p lay 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 mora.s.s of these lands. The retreating arms of shrinking glaciers lay 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 remote 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 ident.i.ty. 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 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 forefathers? He only knew that he had experienced a sudden thrust of excitement that lingered. He longed to see that world 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. 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 forefathers? He only knew that he had experienced a sudden thrust of excitement that lingered. He longed to see that world 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 told 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 a.s.sistant. The Apache knew that he had made the choice Kelgarries wanted-that he was going to be a part of this whole incredible adventure.

The one thing he was sure of during the next two crowded days was that they were indeed working under pressure and against deadlines. 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 to let it go at 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. Travis knew that in close infighting it would add tremendous thrusting power. No wonder a party of hunters so armed dared to go against mammoth and 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 a.s.sembled 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 out of the canyon in one 'copter loaded to its limit. They were gone almost a week, and upon their return they hurriedly sent off tapes.

Ashe joined Travis and Ross that same night. He lay down beside their fire with a sigh of weary pleasure.

"Hit pay dirt?" Ross wanted to know.

His chief nodded. There were dark smudges under his eyes and 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 a.s.sembling the new one. I give them about forty-eight hours. Headquarters 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 a.n.a.lyzing 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 s.h.i.+p didn't make as good a landing as the one you saw the Russians 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 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." 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 pierced a small side pocket of the canyon to spotlight the three as they worked under the critical eyes of a small, neat man. He regarded them intently through the upper half of his bifocals and made terse suggestions in a dry, precise voice. Stripping, they meticulously rubbed their skins with the cream their instructor had provided. That treatment turned their tanned, or naturally dark, skins into 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 wigs of straggling, coa.r.s.e black locks which fell shoulder-length at the sides and descended like a pony's mane between their shoulder blades.

Then each took his turn flat on his back while the make-up artist, working from film charts, proceeded to supply his victims with elaborate patterns of simulated tattoos on 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 exterior now existed Dr. Gordon Ashe.

"Glad we're allowed sandals," the same savage commented as he tightened the thongs which held about him a 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, eyeing 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 compartment of four walls, one floor, no roof. Together the three agents crowded into it. They watched the panel slide shut behind them while radiance streamed around their bodies. Travis felt a tingling through bone and muscle, and then a stab of 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 a 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, the stacked boxes which had lain there before had been replaced by an untidy heap of rocks. And clambering over those in the wake of his companions, the Apache did find a very strange world before him.

Gone was the desert with its burden of sun-heated rock. A plain of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, thigh- or even waist-high, rolled away to some hills. And that gra.s.sy plain was cut by the end of a lake which stretched northward beyond the horizon. Travis saw brush and clumps of small trees. Although too distant for him to distinguish their species, he could make out slowly moving lumps which had to be grazing animals.

There was a sun overhead, but an icy wind lashed 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 each puff of breeze carried new, rank smells, which his nostrils could not identify. This world was as harsh and grim as his own, but in an entirely different fas.h.i.+on.

Ashe stooped and rolled aside one of the nearby rocks to disclose a small box. From his supply bag he produced three small b.u.t.tons and gave 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. A low chirruping sound was instantly audible. "This is our homing signal. It acts as radar to bring you back here."

"What's that?"

A plume of wind-whipped smoke bannered to the north. Travis could not believe that the long trail of grayish vapor 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 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 gra.s.s brushed against them, leaving drops of cold moisture on their bare legs and thighs. Travis concluded that there must have been rain just before their arrival. And from the look of the ma.s.sing clouds to the east, a second storm might catch them soon.

As they came away from the hill marking the time transfer, the 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 gra.s.s continued. This was truly game country although they had not yet pa.s.sed close enough to any of the grazers to identify them.

About a half mile from the curving sh.o.r.e of the lake rested an object that Nature never made. Half a globe of metallic material had been rammed into the ground. Two jagged rents gaped in its side. The blackened earth around it bore random clumps of new gra.s.s. But what impressed Travis chiefly was the object's size. He deduced that 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, far larger than the largest aircraft of 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 sh.e.l.l fire. We'll leave that to the experts to determine. This could be a wreck from a s.p.a.ce battle. But look! 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 rain worse than we've ever known!"

Ashe's lope lengthened into a trot, and the trot into a run. He was heading away from the wrecked s.h.i.+p to the distant hills. To reach them they had to round the narrow end of the lake.

They were carefully threading their way through a marshy spot when a scream halted them. Travis knew that it was a death cry, but the sound ahead was followed by a yowling squall which could come from no throat, animal or human, of his own time. The squall was answered in turn by grunts that might have issued from the deep chest of a grand pig. And that grunting was echoed on a higher note almost directly behind them!

"Down!" Obeying the order from Ashe, Travis threw 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 bramble scratches 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. It was plainly in the death throes for its long, s.h.a.ggy yellow hair was sodden with blood. Crouched at bay behind that body was another animal. Travis identified 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 had the power to daunt a larger beast. But now it was facing a giant . . .