Oop stood out on the floor, beyond one of the tumbled standards that had held the velvet cord, his legs more bowed than ever, as if he’d started to sink into a crouch and had frozen there, with his hamlike hands hanging at his side, his fingers hooked like claws, while he stared upward at the terror and the wonder on the pedestal. In front of him, Sylvester crouched close against the floor, knotted muscles standing out along his furry legs, his great mouth agape, with the fangs exposed and ready for attack.
Maxwell felt a hand upon his shoulder and twisted around.
“A dragon?” Carol asked.
Her words were strange, as if she had been afraid to ask them, as if she’d forced them from her throat. She was not looking at him, but upward at the dragon, which now seemed to be complete.
The dragon switched its tail, which was long and sinuous. Out on the floor Oop tumbled down ungracefully to duck the sweep of it.
Sylvester squalled in anger and crept forward a foot or so.
“Cut it out, Sylvester,” Maxwell said sharply to the cat.
Oop scrambled forward hastily on his hands and knees and grabbed Sylvester by one of his hind legs.
Talk to him,” Maxwell said to Carol. “If that damn fool cat tackles him, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“Oop, you mean? He wouldn’t tackle Oop.”
“Not Oop,” said Maxwell. “The dragon. If he takes off on the dragon—”
A bellow of rage came thundering out of the darkness, and the thump of running feet.
“What is going on in here?” howled the watchman, charging from the shadows.
The dragon spun upon the pedestal and came swiftly off it, switching around to face the running watchman.
XXVI
“Look out,” Oop yelled, still with a tight grip upon Sylvester’s leg.
The dragon moved forward carefully, almost mincingly, its head canted at a questioning angle. It flourished its tail. The tail swept across the top of a display table, brushing off a half dozen bowls and jugs. The pottery thudded and gleaming shards went skating across the floor.
“Hey, cut that out!” the watchman yelped. Then, apparently for the first time, he saw the dragon. The yelp turned into a howl of fear. The watchman turned and fled. The dragon trotted after him, not in any hurry, but very interested. His progress was marked by a series of thudding and splintering crashes.
“If we don’t get him out of here,” said Maxwell, “there’ll be nothing left At the rate he’s going, there won’t be a thing intact in less than fifteen minutes. He’ll have the place wiped out. And, Oop, for the love of God, hang onto that cat. We don’t want a full-fledged brawl breaking out in here.”
Maxwell got to his feet, grabbed the interpreter off his head and stuffed it in his pocket.
“I could open the doors,” Carol offered. “We could shoo him out of here. The big doors, I mean. I think that I know how.”
“How are you, Oop,” Maxwell asked, “at dragon-herding?”
The dragon had blundered to the rear of the building and now had turned around and was coming back.
“Oop,” said Carol, “help me with these doors. I need a man with muscle.”
“What about this oat?”
“Leave him to me,” said Maxwell. “He may behave himself. Maybe he’ll mind me.”
A long chain of crashes marked the progress of the dragon. Listening to them, Maxwell moaned. Sharp would have his scalp for this. Friend or not, he would be plenty sore. The whole damn museum wrecked and the Artifact transformed into rampaging tons of flesh.
He took a few tentative steps across the floor toward the crashing sounds. Sylvester slunk close against his heels. In the dimness, Maxwell could make out the dim outlines of the floundering dragon.
“Nice dragon,” Maxwell said. “Take it easy, fellow.”
It sounded rather silly and somehow inadequate. How in the world should one talk to a dragon?
Sylvester let out a hacking growl.
“You stay out of it,” said Maxwell, sharply. “Things are bad enough without you messing in.”
He wondered what had happened to the watchman. More than likely phoning the police and building up a storm.
Behind him he heard the creaking of the doors as they came open. If the dragon would only wait until those doors were open, then he could be shagged outdoors. And once the dragon had been gotten out, what would happen then? Maxwell shuddered, thinking of it—of the great beast blundering down the streets and across the malls. Maybe it would be better, after all, to keep him penned in here.
He stood indecisively for a moment, weighing the disadvantages of a dragon caged with a dragon on the loose. The museum was more or less wrecked already. Perhaps the complete wrecking of it would be preferable to turning this creature loose.
The doors still were creaking, slowly opening. The dragon had been ambling along, but now he burst into a gallop, heading for the opening portal.
Maxwell spun around. “Close those doors!” he shouted, then ducked quickly to one side as the galloping dragon came charging down upon him.
The doors were partly open, and they stayed partly open. Oop and Carol were racing off in different directions, intent on leaving plenty of room for the lumbering tons of flesh that were heading for the open.
Sylvester’s thunderous roars boomed and echoed in the museum as he took off in pursuit of the running creature.
Off to one side, Carol was shrieking at him. “Cut it out, Sylvester! No, Sylvester, no!”
The dragon’s sinuous tail flicked nervously from side to side as it ran. Cabinets and tables crashed, statues were sent spinning. A path of destruction marked the dragon’s flight for freedom.
Groaning, Maxwell ran after Sylvester and the dragon, although, for the life of him, he didn’t know exactly why. He was certain he didn’t want to catch the dragon.
The dragon reached the opening and went through it in a single leap, high into the air, and as it leaped, the wings unfolded and swept downward in a thrumming beat.
At the doorway Maxwell skidded to a stop. On the steps below the entrance, Sylvester also had spun to a sliding halt and now was straining upward, raging loudly at the flying dragon.
It was a sight to make one catch his breath. Moonlight on the beating wings, reflecting off the burnished scales of red and gold and blue, made a flashing rainbow that quivered in the sky.
Oop and Carol burst out of the door and stopped to stare into the sky.
“Beautiful!” said Carol.
“Yes, isn’t it,” said Maxwell.
And now, for the first time, he realized in full exactly what had happened here. There was no longer any Artifact. The Wheeler deal was dead. And so was any deal that he could make in behalf of the crystal planet. The chain of events which had been started with the copying of his wave pattern when he had been launched for Coonskin had been canceled out. Now, except for that flashing rainbow in the sky, it was as if nothing at all had happened.
The dragon was higher now, wheeling in the sky, no longer anything more than the flashing of the rainbow colors.
“This tears it,” Oop declared. “What do we do now?”
“It was my fault,” said Carol.
“It was no one’s fault,” said Oop. “It’s just the way things happen.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Maxwell, “we loused up Harlow’s deal.”
“I’ll say you did,” a voice said behind them. “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
They turned around.
Harlow Sharp stood in the doorway. Someone had turned on all the museum lights, and He stood out sharply against the lighted oblong of the doors.
“The museum is wrecked,” he said, “and the Artifact is gone and here are the two of you. I might have known. Miss Hampton, I’m astonished. I thought you had better sense than to become entangled in such low company. Although that crazy cat of yours—”
“You leave Sylvester out of this,” she said. “He never ha
d a thing to do with it.”
“Well, Pete?” asked Sharp. Maxwell shook his head. “I find it a bit hard to explain.”
“I would think so,” said Sharp. “Did you have all this in mind when you talked with me this evening?”
“No,” said Maxwell. “It was a sort of accident.”
“An expensive accident,” said Sharp. “It might interest you to know that you’ve set Time’s work back a century or more. Unless, of course, you somehow moved the Artifact and have it hidden out somewhere. In which case, my friend, I give you a flat five seconds to hand it back to me.” Maxwell gulped. “I didn’t move it, Harlow. In fact, I barely touched it. I’m not sure what happened, but—Well, it turned into a dragon.”
“It turned into a what?”
“A dragon.”
“I remember now,” said Sharp. “You always were blathering around about a dragon. You started out for Coonskin to find yourself a dragon. And now it seems you’ve found one. I hope that it’s a good one.”
“It’s a pretty one,” said Carol. “All gold and shimmery.”
“Oh, fine,” said Sharp. “Isn’t that just bully? We can probably make a fortune, taking it around on exhibition. We can whomp up a circus.”
“But it isn’t here,” said Carol. “It up and flew away.”
“Oop,” said Sharp, “you haven’t said a word, and you are ordinarily fairly mouthy. What is going on?”
“I’m mortified,” said Oop. Sharp turned away from him and looked at Maxwell.
“Pete,” he said, “you probably realize what you have done. The watchman phoned me and wanted to call the police. But I told him to hold up on calling the police, and I’d come right down. I had no idea it would turn out as bad as it did turn out to be. The Artifact is gone and I can’t deliver it, and that means I’ll have to hand back all that cash. And a lot of the exhibits have been smashed to smithereens. . . .”
Maxwell said, “The dragon did that before we let him out.”
“So you let him out? He didn’t actually get away. You just let him out.”
“Well, he was smashing all that stuff. I guess we weren’t thinking.”
“Tell me honest, Pete. Was there actually a dragon? Or are you going crazy?”
“Yes, there was one. He was immobilized inside the Artifact. Perhaps he was the Artifact. Don’t ask me How he got there. Enchantment, I would guess.”
Slowly, lowering himself one section at a time, Sharp sat down on the top step and looked slowly from one to the other of them.
“Not a thing,” he said. “You didn’t miss a thing when you started out to ruin Harlow Sharp. You made a job of it.”
“We didn’t start out to ruin you,” said Oop. “We never had a thing against you. Somehow it seemed that things started going wrong, and they never stopped.”
“By rights,” said Sharp, “I should sue every one of you for every cent you have. I should ask a judgment—and don’t fool yourself, I’d get it—that would keep all of you working for Time the rest of your natural lives. But the three of you together couldn’t offset by a fraction, during your collective lifetimes, what you cost Time tonight. So there’s no sense in doing it. Although I suppose the police will have to get into the ruckus. I don’t see how they can be kept out of it. The three of you, I’m afraid, will have to answer a lot of questions.”
“If someone would only listen to me,” said Maxwell, “I could explain it all. That’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since I got back—to find someone who would listen to me. I tried to talk to you this afternoon. . . .”
“Then,” said Sharp, “suppose you start right now by explaining it to me. I’ll own to a slight curiosity. Let’s go across tike street to my office, where we can settle down and have a talk. Or might that inconvenience you? There’s probably a thing or two you still have to do to finish up the job of bankrupting Time.”
“No, I guess there isn’t,” said Oop. “I’d say offhand that we’ve done about everything we can.”
XXVII
Inspector Drayton rose heavily from the chair in which he had been sitting in Sharp’s outer office.
“I’m glad you finally arrived, Dr. Sharp,” he said. “Something has arisen—”
The inspector cut short his speech when he caught sight of Maxwell. “So it’s you,” said the inspector. “I am glad to see you. You’ve led me a long, hard chase.”
Maxwell made a face. “I’m not sure, Inspector, that I can reciprocate your gladness.”
If there was anyone he could get along without right now, he told himself, it was Inspector Drayton.
“And who might you be?” Sharp asked, shortly. “What do you mean by busting in here?”
“I’m Inspector Drayton, of Security. I had a short talk with Professor Maxwell the other day, on the occasion of his return to Earth, but I’m afraid that there are still some questions.”
“In that case,” said Sharp, “please take your place in line. I have business with Dr. Maxwell, and I’m afraid that mine takes precedence over yours.”
“You don’t understand,” said Drayton. “I have not come here to apprehend your friend. His turning up with you is a piece of good fortune I had not expected. There is another matter in which I thought you might be helpful, a matter which came up rather unexpectedly. You see, I had heard that Professor Maxwell had been a guest at Miss Clayton’s recent party, and so I went to see her.”
“Talk sense, man,” said Sharp. “What has Nancy Clayton got to do with all of this?”
“I don’t know, Harlow,” said Nancy Clayton, appearing at the doorway of the inner office. “I never intended to get involved in anything. All I ever try to do is entertain my friends and I can’t see how there’s anything so wrong in that.”
“Nancy, please,” said Sharp. “First tell me what is going on.”
“It’s Lambert,” Nancy said. “You mean the man who painted the picture that you have.”
“I have three of them,” said Nancy, proudly.
“But Lambert has been dead more than five hundred years.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” said Nancy, “but he turned up tonight. He said that he was lost.” A man stepped from the inner room, urging Nancy to one side—a tall and rugged man with sandy hair and deep lines in his face.
“It appears, gentlemen,” he said, “that you are discussing me. Would you mind if I spoke up for myself?”
There was a strange twang to the way he spoke his words. He stood beaming at them in a good-natured manner, and there was not much that one could find in him to make one dislike the man.
“You are Albert Lambert?” Maxwell asked.
“Indeed I am,” said Lambert. “I hope I don’t intrude, but I have a problem.”
“And you’re the only one?” asked Sharp.
“I’m sure that I don’t know,” said Lambert. “I suppose there are many other persons who are faced with problems. When you have a problem, however, the question is where to go to have it solved.”
“Mister,” said Sharp, “I am in the same position. I am seeking answers the same as you.”
“But don’t you see,” Maxwell said to Sharp, “that Lambert has the right idea? He has come to the one place where his problems can be solved.”
“If I were you, young fellow,” Drayton said, “I wouldn’t be so sure. You were pretty foxy the other day, but now I’m onto you. There are a lot of things—”
“Inspector, will you please keep out of this?” said Sharp. “Things are bad enough without you complicating them. The Artifact is gone, and the museum is wrecked, and Shakespeare Has disappeared.”
“But all I want,” said Lambert, reasonably, “is to get back home again. Back to 2023.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Sharp commanded. “You are out of line.”
Maxwell said, “Harlow, I explained it all to you just this afternoon. I asked you about Simonson. Surely you recall.”
“Simonson? Yes, I remember now.” Sharp looked at
Lambert. “You are the man who painted the canvas that shows the Artifact.”
“Artifact? What do you mean?”
“A big block of black stone set atop a hill.”
Lambert shook his head. “No, I haven’t painted it. Although I suppose I will. In fact, it seems I must, for Miss Clayton showed it to me and it’s undeniably something that I would have done. And I must say, who shouldn’t, that it is not so bad.”
“Then you actually saw the Artifact back in Jurassic days?”
“Jurassic?”
“Two hundred million years ago.”
Lambert looked surprised. “So it was that long ago. I knew it was pretty far. There were dinosaurs.”
“But you must have known. You were traveling in time.”
“The trouble is,” said Lambert, “the time has gone haywire. I never seem to be able to go to the time I want.”
Sharp put up his hands and held his head between them. Then he took them away and said: “Now, let’s go at this slowly. One thing at a time. First one step and then another, till we get to the bottom of it.”
“I explained to you,” said Lambert, “that there’s just one thing that I want. It’s very simple really. All I want is to get home again.”
“Where is your time machine?” asked Sharp. “Where did you leave it? We can have a look at it.”
“I didn’t leave it anywhere. There’s no place I could leave it. It goes everywhere with me. It’s inside my head.”
“In your head!” yelled Sharp. “A time unit in your head. But that’s impossible.”
Maxwell grinned at Sharp. “When we were talking this afternoon,” he said, “you told me that Simonson revealed very little about his time machine. Now it appears—”
“I did tell you that,” Sharp agreed. “But who in their right mind would suspect that a time unit could be installed in a subject’s brain? It must be a new principle. Something that we missed entirely.” He said to Lambert, “Do you have any idea how it works?”
“Not the slightest,” Lambert said. “The only thing I know is that when it was put into my head—a rather major surgical operation, I can assure you—I gained the ability to travel in time. I simply have to think of where I want to go, using certain rather simple co-ordinates, and I am there. But something has gone wrong. No matter what I think, I go banging back and forth like a yoyo from one time to yet another. None of them are the times I want to be.”
The Complete Serials Page 116
