They stepped out and swept the horizon. Hull's voice rose in a shout of glee. “People!”
There was a small town beyond the river, near the site of old Hudson. Beyond it lay fields of ripening grain and clumps of trees. There was no sign of a highway. Maybe surface transportation was obsolete now.
The town looked—odd. It must have been there a long time, the houses were weathered. There were tall peak-roofed buildings, crowding narrow streets. A flashing metal tower reared some five hundred feet into the lowering sky, near the center of town.
Somehow, it didn't look the way Saunders had visualized communities of the future. It had an oddly stunted appearance, despite the high buildings and—sinister? He couldn't say. Maybe it was only his depression.
Something rose from the center of the town, a black ovoid that whipped into the sky and lined out across the river. Reception committee, thought Saunders. His hand fell on his pistol butt.
It was an airjet, he saw as it neared, an egg-shaped machine with stubby wings and a flaring tail. It was flying slowly now, gliding groundward toward them.
“Hallo, there!” bawled Hull. He stood erect with the savage wind tossing his flame-red hair, waving. “Hallo, people!”
The machine dove at them. Something stabbed from its nose, a line of smoke—tracers!
Conditioned reflexes flung Saunders to the ground. The bullets whined over his head, exploding with a vicious crash behind him. He saw Hull blown apart.
The jet rushed overhead and banked for another assault. Saunders got up and ran, crouching low, weaving back and forth. The line of bullets spanged past him again, throwing up gouts of dirt where they hit. He threw himself down again.
Another try … Saunders was knocked off his feet by the burst ing of a shell. He rolled over and hugged the ground, hoping the grass would hide him. Dimly, he thought that the jet was too fast for strafing a single man; it overshot its mark.
He heard it whine overhead, without daring to look up. It circled vulture like, seeking him. He had time for a rising tide of bitter hate.
Sam—they'd killed him, shot him without provocation—Sam, redhaired Sam with his laughter and his comradeship. Sam was dead and they had killed him.
He risked turning over. The jet was settling to Earth; they'd hunt him from the ground. He got up and ran again.
A shot wailed past his ear. He spun around, the pistol in his hand, and snapped a return shot. There were men in black uniforms coming out of the jet. It was long range, but his gun was a heavy war model; it carried. He fired again and felt a savage joy at seeing one of the black-clad figures spin on its heels and lurch to the ground.
The time machine lay before him. No time for heroics; he had to get away—fast! Bullets were singing around him.
He burst through the door and slammed it shut. A slug whanged through the metal wall. Thank God the tubes were still warm!
He threw the main switch. As vision wavered, he saw the pur suers almost on him. One of them was aiming something like a bazooka.
They faded into grayness. He lay back, shuddering. Slowly, he grew aware that his clothes were torn and that a metal fragment had scratched his hand.
And Sam was dead. Sam was dead.
He watched the dial creep upward. Let it be 3000 A.D. Five hundred years was not too much to put between himself and the men in black.
He chose night time. A cautious look outside revealed that he was among tall buildings with little if any light. Good!
He spent a few moments bandaging his injury and changing into the extra clothes Eve had insisted on providing—a heavy wool shirt and breeches, boots, and a raincoat that should help make him relatively inconspicuous. The holstered pistol went along, of course, with plenty of extra cartridges. He'd have to leave the machine while he reconnoitered and chance its discovery. At least he could lock the door.
Outside, he found himself standing in a small cobbled courtyard between high houses with shuttered and darkened windows. Overhead was utter night, the stars must be clouded, but he saw a vague red glow to the north, pulsing and flickering. After a moment, he squared his shoulders and started down an alley that was like a cavern of blackness.
Briefly, the incredible situation rose in his mind. In less than an hour he had leaped a thousand years past his own age, had seen his friend murdered, and now stood in an alien city more alone than man had ever been. And Eve, will I see you again?
A noiseless shadow, blacker than the night, slipped past him. The dim light shone greenly from its eyes—an alley cat! At least man still had pets. But he could have wished for a more reassuring one.
Noise came from ahead, a bobbing light flashing around at the doors of houses. He dropped a hand through the slit in his coat to grasp the pistol butt.
Black against the narrowed skyline four men came abreast, filling the street. The rhythm of their footfall was military. A guard of some kind. He looked around for shelter; he didn't want to be taken prisoner by unknowns.
No alleys to the side—he sidled backward. The flashlight beam darted ahead, crossed his body, and came back. A voice shouted something, harsh and peremptory.
Saunders turned and ran. The voice cried again behind him. He heard the slam of boots after him. Someone blew a horn, raising echoes that hooted between the high dark walls.
A black form grew out of the night. Fingers like steel wires closed on his arm, yanking him to one side. He opened his mouth, and a hand slipped across it. Before he could recover balance, he was pulled down a flight of stairs in the street.
“In heah.” The hissing whisper was taut in his ear. “Quickly.” A door slid open just a crack. They burst through, and the other man closed it behind them. An automatic lock clicked shut.
“Ih don'tink dey vised use,” said the man grimly. “Dey better not ha’!” Saunders stared at him. The other man was of medium height, with a lithe, slender build shown by the skin-tight gray clothes under his black cape. There was a gun at one hip, a pouch at the other. His face was sallow, with a yellowish tinge, and the hair was shaven. It was a lean, strong face, with high cheek bones and narrow jaw, straight nose with flaring nostrils, dark, slant eyes under Mephistophelean brows. The mouth, wide and self-indulgent, was drawn into a reckless grin that showed sharp white teeth. Some sort of white-Mongoloid half-breed, Saunders guessed.
“Who are you?” he asked roughly.
The stranger surveyed him shrewdly. “Belgotai of Syrtis,” he said at last. “But yuh don’ belong heah.”
“I'll say I don't.” Wry humor rose in Saunders. “Why did you snatch me that way?”
“Yuh didn’ wanna fall into de Watch's hands, did yuh?” asked Belgotai. “Don’ ask mih why Ih ressued a stranger. Ih happened to come out, see yuh running, figgered anybody running fro de Watch desuhved help, an’ pulled yuh back in.” He shrugged. “Of course, if yuh don’ wanna be helped, go back upstaiahs.”
“I'll stay here, of course,” Saunder. said. “And—thanks for rescuing me.”
“De nada,” said Belgotai. “Come, le's ha’ a drink.”
It was a smoky, low-ceilinged room, with a few scarred wooden tables crowded about a small charcoal fire and big barrels in the rear—a tavern of some sort, an underworld hangout. Saunders reflected that he might have done worse. Crooks wouldn't be as finicky about his antecedents as officialdom might be. He could ask his way around, learn.
“I'm afraid I haven't any money,” he said. “Unless—” He pulled a handful of coins from his pocket.
Belgotai looked sharply at them and drew a whistling breath between his teeth. Then his face smoothed into blankness. “Ih'll buy,” he said genially. “Come Hennaly, gi’ us whissey.”
Belgotai drew Saunders into a dark corner seat, away from the others in the room. The landlord brought tumblers of rotgut remotely akin to whiskey, and Saunders gulped his with a feeling of need.
“Who’ name do yuh go by?” asked Belgotai.
“Saunders. Martin Saunders.”
/> “Glad to see yuh. Now—” Belgotai leaned closer, and his voice dropped to a whisper—“Now, Saunders, when ‘re yuh from?”
Saunders started. Belgotai smiled thinly “Be frank,” he said. “Dese're mih frien's heah. Dey'd think nawting of slitting yuh troat and dumping yuh in de alley. But Ih mean well.”
With a sudden great weariness, Saunders relaxed. What the hell, it had to come out sometime. “Nineteen hundred seventy-three,” he said.
“Eh? De future?”
“No—the past.”
“Oh. Diff'ent chronning, den. How far back?”
“One thousand and twenty-seven years.”
Belgotai whistled. “Long ways! But Ih were sure yuh mus’ be from de past. Nobody eve’ came fro’ de future.”
Sickly: “You mean—it's impossible?”
“Ih do’ know.” Belgotai's grin was wolfish. “Who'd visit dis era fro’ de future, if dey could? But wha's yuh story?”
Saunders bristled. The whiskey was coursing hot in his veins now. “I'll trade information,” he said coldly. “I won't give it.”
“Faiah enawff. Blast away, Mahtin Saundahs.”
Saunders told his story in a few words. At the end, Belgotai nodded gravely. “Yuh ran into de Fanatics, five hundred yeahs ago,” he said. “Dey was deat’ on time travelers. Or on most people, for dat matter.”
“But what's happened? What sort of world is this, anyway?”
Belgotai's slurring accents were getting easier to follow. Pro nunciation had changed a little, vowels sounded different, the “r” had shifted to something like that in twentieth-century French or Danish, other consonants were modified. Foreign words, especially Spanish, had crept in. But it was still intelligible. Saunders listened. Belgotai was not too well versed in history, but his shrewd brain had a grasp of the more important facts.
The time of troubles had begun in the twenty-third century with the revolt of the Martian colonists against the increasingly corrupt and tyrannical Terrestrial Directorate. A century later the folk of Earth were on the move, driven by famine, pestilence, and civil war, a chaos out of which rose the religious enthusiasm of the Armageddonists—the Fanatics, as they were called later. Fifty years after the massacres on Luna, Huntry was the military dictator of Earth, and the rule of the Armageddonists endured for nearly three hundred years. It was a nominal sort of rule, vast territories were always in revolt and the planetary colonists were building up a power which kept the Fanatics out of space, but wherever they did have control they ruled with utter ruthlessness.
Among other things they forbade was time travel. But it had never been popular with anyone since the Time War, when a defeated Directorate army had leaped from the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth century and wrought havoc before their attempt at conquest was smashed. Time travelers were few anyway, the future was too precarious—they were apt to be killed or enslaved in one of the more turbulent periods.
In the late twenty-seventh century, the Planetary League and the African Dissenters had finally ended Fanatic rule. Out of the postwar confusion rose the Pax Africana, and for two hundred years man had enjoyed an era of comparative peace and progress that was wistfully looked back on as a golden age; indeed, modern chronology dated from, the ascension of John Mteza I. Breakdown came through internal decay and the onslaughts of barbarians from the outer planets, the solar system split into a multitude of small states and even independent cities. It was a hard, brawling period, not without a brilliance of its own, but it was drawing to a close now.
“Dis is one of de city-states,” said Belgotai. “Liung-Wei, it's named—founded by Sinese invaders about three centuries ago. It's under de dictatorship of Krausmann now, a stubborn old buzzard who'll no surrender dough de armies of de Atlantic Master're at ouah very gates now. Yuh see de red glow? Dat's deir projectors working on our energy screen. When dey break it down, dey'll take de city and punish it for holding out so long. Nobody looks happily to dat day.”
He added a few remarks about himself. Belgotai was of a dying age, the past era of small states who employed mercenaries to fight their battles. Born on Mars, Belgotai had hired out over the whole solar system. But the little mercenary companies were helpless be fore the organized levies of the rising nations, and after annihilation of his band Belgotai had fled to Earth where he dragged out a weary existence as thief and assassin. He had little to look forward to.
“Nobody wants a free comrade now,” he said ruefully. “If de Watch don't catch me first, Ih'll hang when de Atlantics take de city.”
Saunders nodded with a certain sympathy.
Belgotai leaned close with a gleam in his slant eyes. “But yuh can help me, Mahtin Saundahs,” he hissed. “And help yuhself too.”
“Eh?” Saunders blinked warily at him.
“Sure, sure. Take me wid yuh, out of dis damned time. Dey can't help yuh here, dey know no more about time travel dan yuh do—most likely dey'll throw yuh in de calabozo and smash yuh machine. Yuh have to go on. Take me!”
Saunders hesitated, warily. What did he really know? How much truth was in Belgotai's story? How far could he trust—
“Set me off in some time when a free comrade can fight again. Meanwhile I'll help. Ih'm a good man wid gun or vibrodagger. Yuh can't go batting alone into de future.”
Saunders wondered. But what the hell—it was plain enough that this period was of no use to him. And Belgotai had saved him, even if the Watch wasn't as bad as he claimed. And—well—he needed someone to talk to, if nothing else. Someone to help him forget Sam Hull and the gulf of centuries separating him from Eve.
Decision came. “Okay.”
“Wonnaful! Yuh'll no be sorry, Mahtin.” Belgotai stood up. “Come, le's be blasting off.”
“Now?”
“De sooner de better. Someone may find yuh machine. Den it's too late.”
“But—you'll want to make ready—say goodbye—”
Belgotai slapped his pouch. “All Ih own is heah.” Bitterness underlay his reckless laugh. “Ih've none to say goodbye to, except mih creditors. Come!”
Half dazed, Saunders followed him out of the tavern. This time-hopping was going too fast for him, he didn't have a chance to adjust.
For instance, if he ever got back to his own time he'd have descendants in this age. At the rate at which lines of descent spread, there would be men in each army who had his own and Eve's blood, warring on each other without thought of the tenderness which had wrought their very beings. But then, he remembered wearily, he had never considered the common ancestors he must have with men he'd shot out of the sky in the war he once had fought.
Men lived in their own times, a brief flash of light ringed with an enormous dark, and it was not in their nature to think beyond that little span of years. He began to realize why time travel had never been common.
“Hist!” Belgotai drew him into the tunnel of an alley. They crouched there while four black-caged men of the Watch strode past. In the wan red light, Saunders had a glimpse of high cheek bones, half-Asian features, the metallic gleam of guns slung over their shoulders.
They made their way to the machine where it lay between lower ing houses crouched in a night of fear and waiting. Belgotai laughed again, a soft, joyous ring in the dark. “Freedom!” he whispered.
They crawled into it and Saunders set the controls for a hundred years ahead. Belgotai scowled. “Most like de world'll be very tame and quiet den,” he said.
“If I get a way to return,” said Saunders, “I'll carry you on whenever you want to go.”
“Or yuh could carry me back a hundred years from now,” said the warrior. “Blast away, den!”
3100 A.D. A waste of blackened, fused rock. Saunders switched on the Geiger counter and it clattered crazily. Radioactive! Some hellish atomic bomb had wiped Liung-Wei from existence. He leaped another century, shaking.
3200 A.D. The radioactivity was gone, but the desolation re mained, a vast vitrified crater under a hot, still sky, dead a
nd lifeless. There was little prospect of walking across it in search of man, nor did Saunders want to get far from the machine. If he should be cut off from it …
By 3500, soil had drifted back over the ruined land and a forest was growing. They stood in a drizzling rain and looked around them.
“Big trees,” said Saunders. “This forest has stood for a long time without human interference.”
“Maybe man went back to de caves?” suggested Belgotai.
“I doubt it. Civilization was just too widespread for a lapse into total savagery. But it may be a long ways to a settlement.”
“Let's go ahead, den!” Belgotai's eyes gleamed with interest.
The forest still stood for centuries thereafter. Saunders scowled in worry. He didn't like this business of going farther and farther from his time, he was already too far ahead ever to get back without help. Surely, in all ages of human history—
4100 A.D. They flashed into materialization on a broad grassy sward where low, rounded buildings of something that looked like tinted plastic stood between fountains, statues, and bowers. A small aircraft whispered noiselessly overhead, no sign of motive power on its exterior.
There were humans around, young men and women who wore long colorful capes over light tunics. They crowded forward with a shout. Saunders and Belgotai stepped out, raising hands in a gesture of friendship. But the warrior kept his hands close to his gun.
The language was a flowing, musical tongue with only a baffling hint of familiarity. Had times changed that much?
They were taken to one of the buildings. Within its cool, spacious interior, a grave, bearded man in ornate red robes stood up to greet them. Someone else brought in a small machine reminiscent of an oscilloscope with microphone attachments. The man set it on the table and adjusted its dials.
He spoke again, his own unknown language rippling from his lips. But words came out of the machine—English!
“Welcome, travelers, to this branch of the American College. Please be seated.”
Saunders and Belgotai gaped. The man smiled. “I see the psycho-phone is new to you. It is a receiver of encephalic emissions from the speech centers. When one speaks, the corresponding thoughts are taken by the machine, greatly amplified, and beamed to the brain of the listener, who interprets them in terms of his own language.
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