Conrad Starguard - Conrad's Time Machine Part 31

"But . . ."

"You should have thought of that before you insisted on marrying the girl."

"But . . ."

Barb and her friends brushed by me, and I had no choice but to step in after them.

The interior of the canister had been redesigned with the storage area nearest the door, where the dirty work of digging up to the surface could go on without messing up the living quarters in the back. The pile of supplies and machinery was bigger than it had been last time. There was so much stuff that I had to duck my head and go sideways through the storage area.

The pa.s.senger area resembled the first-cla.s.s section of a modern airliner, with wide, tilt-back seats, a small kitchen, and two rest rooms. There were eight more seats than there had been before, and feminine-looking suitcases were strapped to three walls and the ceiling. d.a.m.n. I'd been had, again.I managed to sit in a chair next to Barb without getting my long sword tangled up in the armrest. "Extra supplies, two johns and eight extra seats. You had the canister redesigned for this expedition."

"Not really, darling. I merely wrote a note to the design team that was working on this canister, and made a few suggestions."

"It would seem that a suggestion from the boss's wife has a lot in common with an order."

"So it would seem."

"I trust that you arranged for extra compressed air for breathing, as well?"

"They said that it wouldn't be necessary. They're using tanks of liquid air, now, since they discovered that the field that surrounds the canister is a perfect reflector of heat. Ian used the same sort of field to surround the liquid air tanks. It's safer, and holds a lot more air in the same s.p.a.ce."

So she'd done more than just write a note. She'd had a hand in the design! But, there was nothing I could do but take the Chinaman's advice, and let the adventure we'd been looking forward to for years get turned into a family outing. s.h.i.+t.

"So you and Ming Po just had to come along. Okay. But what are the other six women for?" I asked.

"Somebody has to take care of the two of you and keep you neat and clean, or you'd fall back on your old slovenly habits. Also, from a management standpoint, your men might get frustrated if they had to stay celibate when their bosses didn't."

"Yeah, sure. Anything for the troops' morale."

It was shaping up to be a dull trip, and as it turned out, I wasn't disapointed. For a while, anyway.

We arrived precisely on schedule, and the construction crew dug us up to the surface in about five hours.

When Ian opened the second, huge, air-tight door, we found ourselves facing a solid granite wall. The first machine to go out was the tunneler, a st.u.r.dy tracked vehicle that cut a hole eight feet wide and eight feet tall. The square front of the thing was one big "shovel" that made dirt and rock go away. Behind it was a gadget that cut down on the air we would otherwise send elsewhen with the rock, followed by a st.u.r.dy, air-tight cage that protected the operator in the event of a cave-in.

In normal operation, the shovels took a quarter-inch bite, and the click-click-click of the thing made it too loud to talk in the enclosed s.p.a.ce, but our crew was equipt with earphones, throat mikes, and CB radios.

The tunneler went forward fifty feet with the operator stopping every two feet to check his leveling gauges, to open a hatch in the front to make sure that he was still going through solid rock, and to peek through a rear facing periscope to make sure he was going straight. Then he backed out, and a crew bolted on two "wings," "shovels" that pivoted outward to make the hole he cut thirty-two feet wide. Again, he went forward and then backed out. A third pivoting wing was then bolted to the top of the tunneler. Finally, the operator drove forward two hundred feet, leaving behind an arched tunnel with polished walls that was thirty-two feet wide and twenty-four feet high at the center. Thiswas our staging area, where we could get the rest of our stuff unpacked and a.s.sembled.

The pivoting wings were removed and a smaller semicircular shovel was bolted to the top, to give the stairway up an arched ceiling. A step-cutting gadget was set up to be towed behind the tunneler. It left a narrow ramp on each side for a special cart to roll on.

Most of the construction crew spent their time setting up the electric generator, and installing lights and handrails, using our temporal version of a half-inch drill, while our guards spent their time unloading the canister.

In an emergency, the tunneling machine could go faster than a man could run. h.e.l.l, in an emergency the d.a.m.n thing could fly right out of the ground and keep on going, using the same flight mechanism as the escape harness and the fighter plane that was still under construction. Since there were no springs or shocks in the suspension system, and forward visibility was nonexistent, this procedure was not encouraged.

The tank tracks were used to get the tunneler into position, but in operation they did not drive it forward. Air pressure behind the machine did that. The tracks and their electric drive motors dynamically braked the forward motion, to keep the machine from slamming into the tunnel face. On long runs, you actually had to stop on occasion to discharge the batteries.

Since we were in no big hurry, we followed the safe procedure of going forward for two feet, stopping to see if the roof wanted to collapse, checking the instruments, opening the front window to make sure that we were still in solid rock, and then going ahead two more feet, stopping, and et cetera. Actually, when we got to the dirt a few feet from the surface, the roof did collapse, but that was no big thing. The top and sides of the tunneler also had "shovel" surfaces that the operator could switch on. The dirt was cleaned away in moments.

Ian handled what little supervising was necesary, so I went back to the pa.s.senger section, tilted my seat back and downed a dozen or so cold beers.

The girls who pulled waitressing duty felt obligated to strip out of their eighteenth- century finery to do the job in their traditional attire. It got a bit chilly towards the end, what with all the liquid air boiling off to replace what our "shovels" were sending elsewhen, but it never got cold enough for my waitresses to ask to put some clothes on.

Finally, word came that they were through to the surface, and your intrepid adventurer picked up his beer and wandered out. The new tunnel slanted upward at a thirty-degree angle through solid rock for a few hundred yards or so. It was nicely equiped with electric lights, hand rails, and steps that a building inspector would have approved of. So much for adventure.

The last twenty feet of the tunnel pa.s.sed through loose rock, sand and dirt, and so was lined with prefabricated, interlocking steel arches that I had been pretty proud of when I thought them up.

I stepped up into the suns.h.i.+ne of an eighteenth-century morning, feeling very anticlimactic. It was the same old island, only now it seemed completely empty except for the abundant plant life.

Ian was waiting for me a few feet away. Our guards had set up a perimeter defense against nothing in particular, and the construction crew had gone down to rig up the freight cart cables and start bringing up equipment and supplies. In a small valley with anice view of the ocean, the girls were already laying out a campsite.

As luck would have it, the tunnel mouth came out at the top of a low hill, which looked to be the highest point on the island.

I said to Ian, "Pretty good shooting. A few yards either way, and you would have had to stop tunneling sooner."

"And shorten the scenic walk up here? For shame! Anyhow, this way we eliminate the drainage problems. Are you ready to join us working slobs?"

"There was something useful for me to do?"

"There's a town to design and build. If I'm going to get the definitive history of mankind written, we ought to start here and now."

We had long ago decided that if you put a secret installation in the middle of the wilderness, somebody is sure to notice all the people coming and going. But if you put it in the middle of a town, or better still a city, where strangers are wandering in and out all the time, your chances of going unnoticed are much better.

Since we could not be sure of the exact layout of the land back in this century, we had deferred the design of the town and its defenses until we actually got here. Our plan was to make this island the base for our exploration of the Western Hemisphere. In time, we figured to have three thousand people living here, with about ninety percent of them being locals who didn't have any idea of what was really going on.

The obvious first step was to map the island and select a site for the town. A group of three Smoothie surveyors was getting itself together, to be accompanied by three Killer guards. I decided to tag along, for lack of anything better to do.

The surveyors planned to walk around the island, surveying as they went, staying near the beach so we wouldn't have to clear much vegetation out of their way. Tomorrow, they would walk across the island a few times, to get an idea of the interior.

Despite the fact that I'd been living a sedentary life for the past few years, my new body took to a day's brisk walk without difficulty. It's remarkable what a little biological reengineering can do for you.

It was mid-afternoon when we came on the cannibals' campsite. What had happened here was pretty obvious. The roasted and chewed bones of three people were scattered on the sand, skulls and everything. One of the broken open skulls was pretty small. It must have been a child.

The Smoothie surveyors just freaked out, shaking, breaking into cold sweats, or vomiting on the ground. I was more than a little queasy, myself.

Sergeant Kuhn was in charge of the Killer squad. "This happened last night, sir, judging from the bones and the campfire," he said.

"You've seen something like this before?" I asked.

"Yeah. This was probably the work of Caribe Indians. They made a point of hunting the Arawaks on these islands. Or, it could have been the Arawaks. They were canibals, too. Whoever it was, they could still be around here. We'd better call the base and warn them to be on their guard."

"Good idea. Do it."

Our little hundred-milliwatt CB radios carried a long way in this century, with itsclean, empty airways.

The other two guards had followed a trail into the brush. One of them gave a shout, and I went in to see what they wanted.

They'd found a fourth victim, a naked woman. She was unconsious, but still alive, barely, and dangling upside down from a tree.

"Well, cut her down!" I said.

"Are you sure we should get involved, sir?" a private said.

"What? Of course I'm sure! What are you worried about?"

"Causality, sir."

"Causality be d.a.m.ned! We can't just let a woman die without trying to help her!"

"Yes, sir."

His "Brown Bess" had a temporal sword built in it, and with it he quickly cut the rope a foot above her feet while his partner caught her and laid her on the ground. She was filthy, and wouldn't have been pretty if she'd been cleaned up, but she was human, cannibal or not, and she needed help. I took out my leather canteen and got a bit of water into her. She revived enough to drink the canteen dry, and then she fell asleep again.

"You want us to rig up a stretcher for her, sir?"

"It might come to that, but let's give her a while to see if she comes around. I'll stay with her. You two go farther up this trail and see what you can find."

"We'll be back in half an hour, sir."

There was a fallen tree a few yards away. I sat down on it and lit up a cigar, waiting.

I was halfway through my stogie when this Indian with a big steel lumberman's axe broke out of the brush not twenty feet from me. He ran right past me while I was too startled to move, and planted his axe in the woman's head. Then he noticed me, pulled out his axe, and started to run toward me. He was yelling something that I couldn't understand with his b.l.o.o.d.y weapon held high above his head.

By that time, I had my temporal sword out. It never even occured to me to draw the steel one. When he was six feet from me, I slashed him across the middle, cutting him in half, but he kept on coming.

Both halves. .h.i.t me hard enough to knock me down.

I heaved the pieces off me and got up, shaking. I looked down at what I'd done to the man.

"Why?" I said, knowing that he couldn't understand me. "Why did you kill her? Why did you try to kill me?"

He looked back at me. He blinked, and then he died.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Building a Small City

I was covered with blood and s.h.i.+t. My hands were shaking so bad that it was a few minutes before I could get the radio working to call back the troops.

All six of the people on the surveying team got to me at about the same time. The Smoothies got sick all over again, while Sergeant Kuhn led me away from the carnage.

"First time you ever killed anybody, sir?"

"Yeah. Richards told me we shouldn't get involved, but I figured I had to help the woman. Now she's dead and the other Indian's dead, too. I feel sick."

"Look, sir. A man's got to do what a man's got to do. As to causality, well, we're still here, aren't we? Before long, all of the Indians on these islands will be dead and gone, be it from European diseases, slavers, or their fellow cannibals. And don't feel ashamed of being shook up at your first kill. Most of us go through the same thing. You want me to send one of the men back to camp with you?"

"No. No, I'll be all right. We've got a job to do."

"That's the spirit, sir. Richards! Take that axe back with us. Leave everything else as it is. We're moving out!"

"What do you want with the axe?" I asked.

"Nothing. But it's a very valuable tool in this time and place. That Indian's friends would think it very weird if we left it."

That evening, I changed outfits as soon as we got back. Barb took one look at my dirty clothes and threw them into the campfire. Even the boots. I had to rescue the sword, sheath, and baldric from the fire, since I didn't have any spares with me.

There were three Canadian geese roasting over that fire. Lieutenant McMahon had bagged them that afternoon in a small nearby stream.

"I didn't know that Canadian geese lived in these islands," I said.

"Neither did I," Ian said. "It's the sort of information we came here to find out. You want to talk about what happened this afternoon?"

"Not just yet."

The women and the Smoothies turned in early, talking about tomorrow being a longday. Two Killers stood guard duty, but the rest gathered around the fire, pa.s.sing around cold beer, whiskey and ice cubes. After a few beers, I found that I needed the whiskey.

Before long, Sergeant Kuhn was talking about the first man he'd ever killed.

"I was on point, going down a forest trail in what is now southern England, with the whole Ninth Roman Legion strung out behind me. Suddenly, this tall guy wearing nothing but blue paint and a scowl jumps out from behind a tree, swinging a big, two- handed sword. I took it on my s.h.i.+eld, just like in training, and got him in the gut with my gladius. That was the way the Romans fought. Big s.h.i.+eld, short sword. He went down, but I had to stab him three more times before he quit moving. It was strange, everything seemed to be moving so slowly, but somehow I was still faster than the other guy, which is why I'm still here, I guess. They gave me a triple ration of wine that night, and I needed it."

Three of the other guards told stories of their own, before I was ready to talk about what had happened to me.

Much later, with a lot of empty bottles lying around, the lieutenant explained, "We call it debriefing, sir. When you're in a fight, and it's kill or get killed, you have to do things that are contrary to everything they taught you about morality and decency, ever since you were old enough to walk. After something like that, a man has to talk it out, among friends if possible. You have to settle it all out in your mind. And maybe it's a little like confession. But not doing it makes a man crazy, and old before his time."

It turned out that there wasn't a better site for a town than the place we'd come up at.

The island didn't have a natural harbor, and since we wanted this to be a base for further exploration, we would have to build one ourselves. Our tunnel entrance had to be hidden and protected, and the eighteenth century being a rather violent time, we planned to build a fort covering it. The fact that it had come up at the island's high point didn't hurt a bit.

One of the construction crew, Jolsen, was an architect who had spent years studying the construction techniques of this century. Not that we planned to use those techniques, but for obvious reasons, it was important that when we got finished with construction, it had to look period.

Jolsen looked rather sheepish when he unrolled his plans for the town. It took me a while to find out why.

They showed a town that could hold three thousand people by the cramped standards of the eighteenth century. It was built around an irregularly shaped deep-water harbor that was big enough to hold two of the largest s.h.i.+ps of this century and a dozen smaller ones.

There were eight big stone piers and a largish dry dock. The main road of the town followed the sh.o.r.e. Most of this was to be cut from solid rock.

The town's defenses looked like something the Spanish would have done in this century, with two small forts guarding the harbor entrance, a thirty-foot wall with fourteen towers and three gates surrounding the town, and a powerful castle on the hill.

Where these defenses couldn't be cut from bedrock, they were to be built of cut stones weighing two tons each, the limit of what our lift truck could handle.