by Andre Norton
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
_Key Out of Time_
ANDRE NORTON
Published by The World Publishing Company 2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio
Published simultaneously in Canada by Nelson, Foster & Scott Ltd.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-10861 SECOND PRINTING 2WP164
Copyright (C) 1963 by Andre Norton
[Transcribers note: This is a Rule 6 Clearance. A copyright renewal has not been found.]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, except for brief passages included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine. Printed in the United States of America.
_Contents_
1. Lotus World
2. Lair of Mano-Nui
3. The Ancient Mariners
4. Storm Menace
5. Time Wrecked
6. Loketh the Useless
7. Witches' Meat
8. The Free Rovers
9. Battle Test
10. Death at Kyn Add
11. Weapon from the Depths
12. Baldies
13. The Sea Gate of the Foanna
14. The Foanna
15. Return to the Battle
16. The Opening of the Great Door
17. Shades Against Shadow
18. World in Doubt
KEY OUT OF TIME
1
Lotus World
There was a shading of rose in the pearl arch of sky, deepening at thehorizon meeting of sea and air in a rainbow tint of cloud. The lazyswells of the ocean held the same soft color, darkened with crimsonveins where spirals of weed drifted. A rose world bathed in softsunlight, knowing only gentle winds, peace, and--sloth.
Ross Murdock leaned forward over the edge of the rock ledge to peer downat a beach of fine sand, pale pink sand with here and there a glitter ofa crystalline "shell"--or were those delicate, fluted ovals shells? Eventhe waves came in languidly. And the breeze which ruffled his hair,smoothed about his sun-browned, half-bare body, caressed it, did notbuffet on its way inland to stir the growths which the Terran settlerscalled "trees" but which possessed long lacy fronds instead of truebranches.
Hawaika--named for the old Polynesian paradise--a world seeminglywithout flaw except the subtle one of being too perfect, too welcoming,too wooing. Its long, uneventful, unchanging days enticed forgetfulness,offered a life without effort. Except for the mystery....
Because this world was not the one pictured on the tape which hadbrought the Terran settlement team here. A map, a directing guide, adescription all in one, that was the ancient voyage tape. Ross himselfhad helped to loot a storehouse on an unknown planet for a cargo of suchtapes. Once they had been the space-navigation guides for a race orraces who had ruled the star lanes ten thousand years in his own world'spast, a civilization which had long since sunk again into the dust ofits beginning.
Those tapes returned to Terra after their chance discovery, werestudied, probed, deciphered by the best brains of his time, shared outby lot between already suspicious Terran powers, bringing into theexploration of space bitter rivalries and old hatreds.
Such a tape had landed their ship on Hawaika, a world of shallow seasand archipelagoes instead of true continents. The settlement team hadhad all the knowledge contained on that tape crowded into them, only todiscover that much they had learned from it was false!
Of course, none of them had expected to discover here still the cities,the civilization the tape had projected as existing in that long-agoperiod. But no present island string they had visited approximated thoseon the maps they had seen, and so far they had not found any trace thatany intelligent beings had walked, built, lived, on these beautiful,slumberous atolls. So, what had happened to the Hawaika of the tape?
Ross's right hand rubbed across the ridged scars which disfigured hisleft one, to be carried for the rest of his life as a mark of hismeeting with the star voyagers in the past of his own world. He haddeliberately seared his own flesh to break the mental control they hadasserted. Then the battle had gone to him. But from it he had broughtanother scar--the unease of that old terror when Ross Murdock, fighter,rebel, outlaw by the conventions of his own era, Ross Murdock whoconsidered himself an exceedingly tough individual, that toughnesssteeled by the training for Time Agent sorties, had come up against apower he did not understand, instinctively hated and feared.
Now he breathed deeply of the wind--the smell of the sea, the scents ofthe land growths, strange but pleasant. So easy to relax, to drop intothe soft, lulling swing of this world in which they had found no fault,no danger, no irritant. Yet, once those others had been here--theblue-suited, hairless ones he called "Baldies." And what had happenedthen ... or afterward?
A black head, brown shoulders, slender body, broke the sleepy slip ofthe waves. A shimmering mask covered the face, catching glitter-fire inthe sun. Two hands freed a chin curved yet firmly set, a mouth made morefor laughter than sternness, wide dark eyes. Karara Trehern of the Alii,the one-time Hawaiian god-chieftain line, was an exceedingly prettygirl.
But Ross regarded her aloofly, with a coldness which bordered onhostility, as she flipped her mask into its pocket on top of thegill-pack. Below his rocky perch she came to a halt, her feet slightlyapart in the sand, an impish twist to her lips as she called mockingly:
"Why not come in? The water's fine."
"Perfect, like all the rest of this." Some of his impatience came out inthe sour tone. "No luck, as usual?"
"As usual," Karara conceded. "If there ever was a civilization here,it's been gone so long we'll probably never find any traces. Why don'tyou just pick out a good place to set up that time-probe and try itblind?"
Ross scowled. "Because"--his patience was exaggerated to the point ofinsult--"we have only one peep-probe. Once it's set we can't tear itdown easily for transport somewhere else, so we want to be sure there'ssomething to look at beyond."
She began to wring the water out of her long hair. "Well, as far aswe've explored ... nothing. Come yourself next time. Tino-rau and Tauaaren't particular; they like company."
Putting two fingers to her mouth, Karara whistled. Twin heads popped outof the water, facing the shore and her. Projecting noses, mouths withupturned corners so they curved in a lasting pleasant grin at themammals on the shore--the dolphin pair, mammals whose ancestors hadchosen the sea, whistled back in such close counterfeit of the girl'ssignal that they could be an echo of her call. Years earlier theirspecies' intelligence had surprised, almost shocked, men. Experiments,training, co-operation, had developed a tie which gave the water-limitedrace of mankind new eyes, ears, minds, to see, evaluate, and reportconcerning an element in which the bipeds were not free.
Hand in hand with that co-operation had gone other experiments. Just asthe clumsy armored diving suits of the early twentieth century hadallowed man to begin penetration into a weird new world, so had thefrog-man equipment made him still freer in the sea. And now thegill-pack which separated the needed oxygen from the water made eventhat lighter burden of tanks obsolete. But there remained depths intowhich man could not descend, whose secrets were closed to him. There thedolphins operated, in a partnership of minds, equal minds--though thatlast fact had been difficult for man to accept.
Ross's irritation, unjustified as he knew it to be, did not rest onTino-rau or Taua. He enjoyed the hours when he buckled on gill-pack andtook to the sea with those two ten-foot, black-and-silver escortssharing the action. But Karara ... Karara's presence was a differentmatter altogether.
The Agents' teams had always been strictly masculine. Two men partneredfor an interlocking of abilities and temperaments, going throughtraining together, becoming two halves of a strong and efficient whole.Before being summarily recruited into the Project, Ross had been aloner--living on the ragged edges of the law, an indigestible bit forthe civilization which had become too ordered and "adjusted" to absorbhis kind. But in the Project he had discovered others like himself--menborn out of time, too ruthless, too individualistic for their own age,but able to operate with ease in the dangerous paths of the Time Agents.
And when the time search for the wrecked alien ships had succeeded andthe first intact ship found, used, duplicated, the Agents had come fromforays into the past to be trained anew for travel to the stars. Firstthere had been Ross Murdock, criminal. Then there had been Ross Murdockand Gordon Ashe, Time Agents. Now there was still Ross and Gordon and aquest as perilous as any they had known. Yet this time they had todepend upon Karara and the dolphins.
"Tomorrow"--Ross was still not sorting out his thoughts, truly aware ofthe feeling which worked upon him as a thorn in the finger--"I willcome."
"Good!" If she recognized his hostility for what it was, that did notbother her. Once more she whistled to the dolphins, waved a casualfarewell with one hand, and headed up the beach toward the base camp.Ross chose a more rugged path over the cliff.
Suppose they did not find what they sought near here? Yet the old tapedmap suggested that this was approximately the site starred upon it.Marking a city? A star port?
Ashe had volunteered for Hawaika, demanded this job after the disastrousTopaz affair when the team of Apache volunteers had been sent out toosoon to counter what might have been a Red sneak settlement. Ross wasstill unhappy over the ensuing months when only Major Kelgarries andmaybe, in a lesser part, Ross had kept Gordon Ashe in the Project atall. That Topaz had been a failure was accepted when the settlement shipdid not return. And that had added to Ashe's sense of guilt for havingrecruited and partially trained the lost team.
Among those dispatched over Ashe's vehement protests had been Travis Foxwho had shared with Ashe and Ross the first galactic flight in anage-old derelict spaceship. Travis Fox--the Apache archaeologist--had heever reached Topaz? Or would he and his team wander forever betweenworlds? Did they set down on a planet where some inimical form of nativelife or a Red settlement had awaited them? The very uncertainty of theirfate continued to ride Ashe.
So he insisted on coming out with the second settlement team, thevolunteers of Samoan and Hawaiian descent, to carry on a yet moreexciting and hazardous exploration. Just as the Project had probed intothe past of Terra, so would Ashe and Ross now attempt to discover whatlay in the past of Hawaika, to see this world as it had been at theheight of the galactic civilization, and so to learn what they couldabout their fore-runners into space. And the mystery they had droppedinto upon landing added to the necessity for that discovery ordiscoveries.
Their probe, if fortune favored them, might become a gate through time.The installation was a vast improvement over these passage points theyhad first devised. Technical information had taken a vast leap forwardafter Terran engineers and scientists had had access to the tapes of thestellar empire. Adaptations and shortcuts developed, so that a newhybrid technology came into use, woven from the knowledge andexperimentation of two civilizations thousands of years apart in time.
If and when he or Ashe--or Karara and her dolphins--discovered theproper site, the two Agents could set up their own equipment. Both Rossand Ashe had had enough drill in the process. All they needed was thebrick of discovery; then they could build their wall. But they must findsome remainder of the past, the smallest trace of ancient ruin uponwhich to center their peep-probe. And since landing here the long dayshad flowed into weeks with no such discovery made.
Ross crossed the ridge of rock which formed a cocks-comb rise on theisland's spine and descended to the village. As they had been trained,the Polynesian settlers adapted native products to their own heritage ofbuilding and tools. It was necessary that they live off the land, fortheir transport ship had had storage space only for a limited number ofsupplies and tools. After it took off to return home they would bewholly on their own for several years. Their ship, a silvery ball,rested on a rock ledge, its pilot and crew having lingered to learn theresults of Ashe's search. Four days more and they would have to lift forhome even if the Agents still had only negative results to report.
That disappointment was driving Ashe, the way that six months earlierhis outrage and guilt feelings over the Topaz affair had driven him.Karara's suggestion carried weight the longer Ross thought about it.With more swimmers hunting, there was just that much increased chance ofturning up some clue. So far the dolphins had not reported any dangerousnative sea life or any perils except the natural ones any diver alwayshad at his shoulder under the waves.
There were extra gill-packs, and all of the settlers were good swimmers.An organized hunt ought to shake the Polynesians out of their presentdo-it-tomorrow attitude. As long as they had had definite work beforethem--the unloading of the ship, the building of the village, all thelabors incidental to the establishing of this base--they had shownenergy and enthusiasm. It was only during the last couple of weeks thatthe languor which appeared part of the atmosphere here had crept up onthem, so that now they were content to live at a slower and lazier pace.Ross remembered Ashe's comparison made the evening before, likeningHawaika to a legendary Terran island where the inhabitants lived adrugged existence, feeding upon the seeds of a native plant. Hawaika wasfast becoming a lotus land for Terrans.
"Through here, then westward...." Ashe hunched over the crate table inthe mat-walled house. He did not look up as Ross entered. Karara's stilldamp head was bowed until those black locks, now sleeked to her roundskull, almost touched the man's close-cropped brown hair. They were bothstudying a map as if they saw not lines on paper but the actual inletsand lagoons which that drawing represented.
"You are sure, Gordon, that this _is_ the modern point to match the siteon the tape?" The girl brushed back straying hair.
Ashe shrugged. There were tight brackets about his mouth which had notbeen there six months ago. He moved jerkily, not with the fluid grace ofthose old days when he had faced the vast distance of time travel withunruffled calm and a self-confidence to steady and support the noviceRoss.
"The general outline of these two islands could stand for the capes onthis--" He pulled a second map, this on transparent plastic, to fit overthe first. The capes marked on the much larger body of land did slipover the modern islands with a surprising fit. The once large island,shattered and broken, could have produced the groups of atolls andislets they now prospected.
"How long--" Karara mused aloud, "and why?"
Ashe shrugged. "Ten thousand years, five, two." He shook his head. "Wehave no idea. It's apparent that there must have been some world-widecataclysm here to change the contours of the land masses so much. We mayhave to wait on a return space flight to bring a 'copter or a hydroplaneto explore farther." His hand swept beyond the boundaries of the map toindicate the whole of Hawaika.
"A year, maybe two, before we could hope for that," Ross cut in. "Thenwe'll have to depend on whether the Council believes this importantenough." The contrariness which spiked his tongue whenever Karara waspresent made him say that without thinking. Then the twitch of Ashe'slip brought home Ross's error. Gordon needed reassurance now, not arecitation of the various ways their mission could be doomed.
"Look here!" Ross came to the table, his hand sweeping past Karara, ashe used his forefinger for a pointer. "We know that what we want couldbe easily overlooked, even with the dolphins helping us to check. Thiswhole area's too big. And you know that it is certain that whatevermight be down there would be hidden with sea growths. Suppose ten of usstart out in a semi-circle from about here and go as far as this point,heading inland. Video-cameras here and here ... comb the whole sectorinch by inch if we have to. After all, we h
ave plenty of time andmanpower."
Karara laughed softly. "Manpower--always manpower, Ross? But there iswoman-power, too. And we have perhaps even sharper sight. But this is agood idea, Gordon. Let me see--" she began to tell off names on herfingers, "PaKeeKee, Vaeoha, Hori, Liliha, Taema, Ui, Hono'ura--they arethe best in the water. Me ... you, Gordon, Ross. That makes ten withkeen eyes to look, and always there are Tino-rau and Taua. We will takesupplies and camp here on this island which looks so much like a fingercrooked to beckon. Yes, somehow that beckoning finger seems to me topromise better fortune. Shall we plan it so?"
Some of the tight look was gone from Ashe's face, and Ross relaxed. Thiswas what Gordon needed--not to be sitting in here going over maps,reports, reworking over and over their scant leads. Ashe had always beena field man; and the settlement work had been stultifying, a laboriouschore for him.
When Karara had gone Ross dropped down on the bunk against the sidewall.
"What _did_ happen here, do you think?" Half was real interest in themystery they had mulled over and over since they had landed on a Hawaikawhich diverged so greatly from the maps; the other half, a desire tokeep Ashe thinking on a subject removed from immediate worries. "Anatomic war?"
"Could be. There are old radiation traces. But these aliens had, I'msure, progressed beyond atomics. Suppose, just suppose, they couldtamper with the weather, with the balance of the planet's crust? Wedon't know the extent of their powers, how they would use them. They hada colony here once, or there would have been no guide tape. And that isall we are sure of."
"Suppose"--Ross rolled over on his stomach, pillowed his head on hisarms--"we could uncover some of that knowledge--"
The twitch was back at Ashe's lips. "That's the risk we have to runnow."
"Risk?"
"Would you give a child one of those hand weapons we found in thederelict?"
"Naturally not!" Ross snapped and then saw the point. "You mean--_we_aren't to be trusted?"
The answer was plain to read in Ashe's expression.
"Then why this whole setup, this hunt for what might mean trouble?"
"The old pinch, the bad one. What if the Reds discover something first?They drew some planets in the tape lottery, remember. It's a seesawbetween us--we advance here, they there. We have to keep up the race orlose it. They must be combing their stellar colonies for a few answersjust as furiously as we are."
"So, we go into the past to hunt if we have to. Well, I think I could dowithout answers such as the Baldies would know. But I will admit that Iwould like to know what did happen here--two, five, ten thousand yearsago."
Ashe stood up and stretched. For the first time he smiled. "Do you know,I rather like the idea of fishing off Karara's beckoning finger. Maybeshe's right about that changing our luck."
Ross kept his face carefully expressionless as he got up to preparetheir evening meal.
