Key Out of Time

by Andre Norton

  3

  The Ancient Mariners

  Another map spread out and this time pinned down with small stones onbeach gravel.

  "Here, here, and here--" Ashe's finger indicated the points marked in apattern which flared out from three sides of Finger Island. Each markeda set of three undersea depressions in perfect alliance with the landwhich, according to the galactic map, had once been a cape on a muchlarger land mass. Though the Terrans had found the ruins, if thosesaucers in the sea could be so termed, the remains had no meaning forthe explorers.

  "Do we set up here?" Ross asked. "If we could just get a report to sendback...." That might mean the difference between awakening theco-operation of the Project policy makers so that a flood of suppliesand personnel would begin to head their way.

  "We set up here," Ashe decided.

  He had selected a point between two of the lines where a reef wouldprovide them with a secure base. And once that decision was made, theTerrans went into action.

  Two days to go, to install the peep-probe and take some shots before theship had to clear with or without their evidence. Together Ross and Ashefloated the installation out to the reef, Ui and Karara helping to towthe equipment and parts, the dolphins lending pushing noses on occasion.The aquatic mammals were as interested as the human beings they aided.And in water their help was invaluable. Had dolphins developed hands,Ross wondered fleetingly, would they have long ago wrested control oftheir native world--or at least of its seas--from the human kind?

  All the human beings worked with practiced ease, even while masked andsubmerged, to set the probe in place, aiming it landward at the checkpoint of the Finger's protruding nail of rock. After Ashe made the finaladjustments, tested each and every part of the assembly, he gesturedthem in.

  Karara's swift hand movement asked a question, and Ashe's soniccode-clicked in reply: "At twilight."

  Yes, dusk was the proper time for using a peep-probe. To see withoutrisk of being sighted in return was their safeguard. Here Ashe had nohistorical data to guide him. Their search for the former inhabitantsmight be a long drawn-out process skipping across centuries as themachine was adjusted to Terran time eras.

  "When were they here?" Back on shore Karara shook out her hair, spreadit over her shoulders to dry. "How many hundred years back will theprobe return?"

  "More likely thousands," Ross commented. "Where will you start, Gordon?"

  Ashe brushed sand from the page of the notebook he had steadied againstone bent knee and gazed out at the reef where they had set the probe.

  "Ten thousand years--"

  "Why?" Karara wanted to know. "Why that exact figure?"

  "We know that galactic ships crashed on Terra then. So their commerceand empire--if it was an empire--was far-flung at that time. Perhapsthey were at the zenith of their civilization; perhaps they were alreadyon the down slope. I do not think they were near the beginning. So thatdate is as good a starting place as any. If we don't hit what we'reafter, then we can move forward until we do."

  "Do you think that there ever was a native population here?"

  "Might have been."

  "But without any large land animals, no modern traces of any," sheprotested.

  "Of people?" Ashe shrugged. "Good answers for both. Suppose there was aworld-wide epidemic of proportions to wipe out a species. Or a war inwhich they used forces beyond our comprehension to alter the whole faceof this planet, which did happen--the alteration, I mean. Several thingscould have removed intelligent life. Then such species as the burrowerscould have developed or evolved from smaller, more primitive types."

  "Those ape-things we found on the desert planet." Ross thought back totheir first voyage on the homing derelict. "Maybe they had once been menand were degenerating. And the winged people, they could have been lessthan men on their way up----"

  "Ape-things ... winged people?" Karara interrupted. "Tell me!"

  There was something imperious in her demand, but Ross found himselfdescribing in detail their past adventures, first on the world of sandand sealed structures where the derelict had rested for a purpose itsinvoluntary passengers had never understood, and then of the Terrans'limited exploration of that other planet which might have been thecapital world of a far-flung stellar empire. There they had made a pactwith a winged people living in the huge buildings of a jungle-chokedcity.

  "But you see"--the Polynesian girl turned to Ashe when Ross hadfinished--"you did find them--these ape-things and the winged people.But here there are only the dragons and the burrowers. Are they thestart or the finish? I want to know--"

  "Why?" Ashe asked.

  "Not just because I am curious, though I am that also, but because we,too, must have a beginning and an end. Did we come up from the seas,rise to know and feel and think, just to return to such beginning at ourend? If your winged people were climbing and your ape-thingsdescending"--she shook her head--"it would be frightening to hold a cordof life, both ends in your hands. Is it good for us to see such things,Gordon?"

  "Men have asked that question all their thinking lives, Karara. Therehave been those who have said no, who have turned aside and tried tohalt the growth of knowledge here or there, attempted to make men standstill on one tread of a stairway. Only there is that in us which willnot stop, ill-fitted as we may be for the climbing. Perhaps we shall besafe and untroubled here on Hawaika if I do not go out to that reeftonight. By that action I may bring real danger down on all of us. Yet Ican not hold back for that. Could you?"

  "No, I do not believe that I could," she agreed.

  "We are here because we are of those who must know--volunteers. Andbeing of that temperament, it is in us always to take the next step."

  "Even if it leads to a fall," she added in a low tone.

  Ashe gazed at her, though her own eyes were on the sea where a lace ofwaves marked the reef. Her words were ordinary enough, but Rossstraightened to match Ashe's stare. Why had he felt that odd instant ofuneasiness as if his heart had fluttered instead of beating true?

  "I know of you Time Agents," Karara continued. "There were plenty ofstories about you told while we were in training."

  "Tall tales, I can imagine, most of them." Ashe laughed, but hisamusement sounded forced to Ross.

  "Perhaps. Though I do not believe that many could be any taller than thetruth. And so also I have heard of that strict rule you follow, that youmust do nothing which might alter the course of history. But suppose,suppose here that the course of history could be altered, that whatevercatastrophe occurred might be averted? If that was done, what wouldhappen to our settlement in the here and now?"

  "I don't know. That is an experiment which we have never dared to try,which we won't try--"

  "Not even if it would mean a chance of life for a whole native race?"she persisted.

  "Alternate worlds then, maybe." Ross's imagination caught up that idea."Two worlds from a change point in history," he elaborated, noting herlook of puzzlement. "One stemming from one decision, another from thealternate."

  "I've heard of that! But, Gordon, if you could return to the time ofdecision here and you had it in your power to say, 'Yes--live!' or'No--die!' to the alien natives, what would you do?"

  "I don't know. But neither do I think I shall ever be placed in thatposition. Why do you ask?"

  She was twisting her still damp hair into a pony tail and tying it sowith a cord. "Because ... because I feel.... No, I can not really put itinto words, Gordon. It is that feeling one has on the eve of someimportant event--anticipation, fear, excitement. You'll let me go withyou tonight, please! I want to see it--not the Hawaika that is, but thatother world with another name, the one they saw and knew!"

  An instant protest was hot in Ross's throat, but he had no time to voiceit. For Ashe was already nodding.

  "All right. But we may have no luck at all. Fishing in time is a chancything, so don't be disappointed if we don't turn you up that otherworld. Now, I'm going to pamper these old bones for an hour or two.Amuse
yourselves, children." He lay back and closed his eyes.

  The past two days had wiped half the shadows from his lean, tanned face.He had dropped two years, three, Ross thought thankfully. Let them belucky tonight, and Ashe's cure could be nearly complete.

  "What do you think happened here?" Karara had moved so that her back wasnow to the wash of waves, her face more in the shadow.

  "How do I know? Could be any of ten different things."

  "And will I please shut up and leave you alone?" she countered swiftly."Do you wish to savor the excitement then, explore a world upon world,or am I saying it right? We have Hawaika One which is a new world forus; now there is Hawaika Two which is removed in time, not distance. Andto explore that--"

  "We won't be exploring it really," Ross protested.

  "Why? Did your agents not spend days, weeks, even months of time in thepast on Terra? What is to prevent your doing the same here?"

  "Training. We have no way of learning the drill."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, it wasn't as easy as you seem to think it was back on Terra," hebegan scornfully. "We didn't just stroll through one of those gates andset up business, say, in Nero's Rome or Montezuma's Mexico. An Agent wasphysically and psychologically fitted to the era he was to explore. Thenhe trained, and how he trained!" Ross remembered the weary hours spentlearning how to use a bronze sword, the technique of Beaker trading, thehypnotic instruction in a language which was already dead centuriesbefore his own country existed. "You learned the language, the customs,everything you could about your time and your cover. You were letterperfect before you took even a trial run!"

  "And here you would have no guides," Karara said, nodding. "Yes, I cansee the difficulty. Then you will just use the peep-probe?"

  "Probably. Oh, maybe later on we can scout through a gate. We have thematerial to set one up. But it would be a strictly limited project,allowing no chance of being caught. Maybe the big brains back home cantake peep-data and work out some basis of infiltration for us from it."

  "But that would take years!"

  "I suppose so. Only you begin to swim in the shallows, don't you--not byjumping off a cliff!"

  She laughed. "True enough! However, even a look into the past mightsolve part of the big mystery."

  Ross grunted and stretched out to follow Ashe's example. But behind hisclosed eyes his brain was busy, and he did not cultivate the patience heneeded. Peep-probes were all right, but Karara had a point. You wantedmore than a small window into a mystery, you wanted a part in solvingit.

  The setting of the sun deepened rose to red, made a dripping wine-huedbanner of most of the sky, so that under it they moved in a crimson sea,looked back at an island where shadows were embers instead of ashes.Three humans, two dolphins, and a machine mounted on a reef which mightnot even have existed in the time they sought. Ashe made his finaladjustments, and then his finger pressed a button and they watched thevista-plate no larger than the palms of two hands.

  Nothing, a dull gray nothing! Something must have gone wrong with theirassembly work. Ross touched Ashe's shoulder. But now there were shadowsgathering on the plate, thickening, to sharpen into a distinct picture.

  It was still the sunset hour they watched. But somehow the colors werepaler, less red and sullen than the ones about them in the here and now.And they were not seeing the isle toward which the probe had been aimed;they were looking at a rugged coastline where cliffs lifted well abovethe beach-strand. While on those cliffs--! Ross had not realized Kararahad reached out to grasp his arm until her nails bit into his flesh. Andeven then he was hardly aware of the pain. Because there was a buildingon the cliff!

  Massive walls of native rock reared in outward defenses, culminating intowers. And from the high point of one tower the pointed tail of abanner cracked in the wind. There was a headland of rock reaching out,not toward them but to the north, and rounding that....

  "War canoe!" Karara exclaimed, but Ross had another identification:

  "Longboat!"

  In reality, the vessel was neither one nor the other, not the doublecanoe of the Pacific which had transported warriors on raid from oneisland to another, or the shield-hung warship of the Vikings. But theTerrans were right in its purpose: That rakish, sharp-prowed ship hadbeen fashioned for swift passage of the seas, for maneuverability as aweapon.

  Behind the first nosed another and a third. Their sails were dyed by thesun, but there were devices painted on them, and the lines of thosedesigns glittered as if they had been drawn with a metallic fluid.

  "The castle!" Ashe's cry pulled their attention back to land.

  There was movement along those walls. Then came a flash, a splash in thewater close enough to the lead ship to wet her deck with spray.

  "They're fighting!" Karara shouldered against Ross for a better look.

  The ships were altering course, swinging away from land, out to sea.

  "Moving too fast for sails alone, and I don't see any oars." Ross waspuzzled. "How do you suppose...."

  The bombardment from the castle continued but did not score any hits.Already the ships were out of range, the lead vessel off the screen ofthe peep as well. Then there was just the castle in the sunset. Ashestraightened up.

  "Rocks!" he repeated wonderingly. "They were throwing rocks!"

  "But those ships, they must have had engines. They weren't justdepending on sails when they retreated." Ross added his own cause forbewilderment.

  Karara looked from one to the other. "There is something here you do notunderstand. What is wrong?"

  "Catapults, yes," Ashe said with a nod. "Those would fit periodscorresponding from the Roman Empire into the Middle Ages. But you'reright, Ross, those ships had power of some kind to take them offshorethat quickly."

  "A technically advanced race coming up against a more backward one?"hazarded the younger man.

  "Could be. Let's go forward some." The incoming tide was washing well upon the reef. Ashe had to don his mask as he plunged head and shouldersunder water to make the necessary adjustment.

  Once more he pressed the button. And Ross's gasp was echoed by one fromthe girl. The cliff again, but there was no castle dominating it, only aruin, hardly more than rubble. Now, above the sites of the saucerdepressions great pylons of silvery metal, warmed into fire brillianceby the sunset, raked into the sky like gaunt, skeleton fingers. Therewere no ships, no signs of any life. Even the vegetation which hadshowed on shore had vanished. There was an atmosphere of starkabandonment and death which struck the Terrans forcibly.

  Those pylons, Ross studied them. Something familiar in theirconstruction teased his memory. That refuel planet where the derelictship had set down twice, on the voyage out and on their return. That hadbeen a world of metal structures, and he believed he could trace akinship between his memory of those and these pylons. Surely they had noconnection with the earlier castle on the cliff.

  Once more Ashe ducked to reset the probe. And in the fast-fading lightthey watched a third and last picture. But now they might have beenlooking at the island of the present, save that it bore no vegetationand there was a rawness about it, a sharpness of rock outline nowvanished.

  Those pylons, were they the key to the change which had come upon thisworld? What were they? Who had set them there? For the last Ross thoughthe had an answer. They were certainly the product of the galacticempire. And the castle ... the ships ... natives ... settlers? Twowidely different eras, and the mystery still, lay between them. Wouldthey ever be able to bring the key to it out of time?

  They swam for the shore where Ui had a fire blazing and their supperprepared.

  "How many years lying between those probes?" Ross pulled broiled fishapart with his fingers.

  "That first was ten thousand years ago, the second," Ashe paused, "onlytwo hundred years later."

  "But"--Ross stared at his superior--"that means----"

  "That there was a war or some drastic form of invasion, yes."

  "You mean that
the star people arrived and just took over this wholeplanet?" Karara asked. "But why? And those pylons, what were they for?How much later was that last picture?"

  "Five hundred years."

  "The pylons were gone, too, then," Ross commented. "But why--?" heechoed Karara's question.

  Ashe had taken up his notebook, but he did not open it. "I think"--therewas a sharp, grim note in his voice--"we had better find out."

  "Put up a gate?"

  Ashe broke all the previous rules of their service with his answer:

  "Yes, a gate."