"I should say so," Smith said. "Martian bongo stones, eh? Fourteen of them. Largest and most perfect collection in the entire Solar System."
"That's it," said Clark. "The old man almost busted a blood vessel when that story came in an hour ago. Wanted to scoop the city."
Clark chuckled.
"We did," he said.
Andy Smith folded the paper carefully. "Steve," he said, "what are the Centaurians? Nobody seems to know."
"They're super-crooks for one thing," Clark said, "and when you've said that, you've said about all that anyone knows about them for sure. They've laughed at the best brains in the police business for the last five hundred years. And I figure they'll still be laughing five hundred years from now if they live that long and there's no reason to think they won't. Unless they're keeping it a secret, the flatfeet don't even know where their hideout is located. They've made monkeys out of everyone. Hell, didn't they steal a gold shipment out from under the nose of the Interplanetary Police, and keep it, too, in spite of the fact that every damn IP man in the System was turned loose on the case?"
"You figure, then," asked Smith, "that the Centaurians are real? That they are something that isn't human. A super-gang of unearthly bandits?"
"You know," Clark replied, "a newspaperman doesn't take to fables very easy. He breaks more myths than any other kind of critter I know. But, as a newspaperman, I'm telling you that these Centaurians aren't human. Probably a lot of jobs have been blamed on them that they never had a thing to do with. But there are cases on record of eye-witnesses who saw them. Only two or three such instances in the last five hundred years, but they check up well.
"All agree on vital points. They got tails and they're covered with scales and instead of feet they have hoofs. Whatever they are, they don't go in for penny-ante stuff. When they make a haul, it's one that's worthwhile. Those bongo stones. They were worth ten billion if they were worth a dime. And the shipload of IP gold."
Smith whistled.
"Then you figure they came from Alpha Centauri?" he asked.
"Either Alpha Centauri or some other place outside the System. Nothing like them been found on any of the planets here. I always sort of figured they were fugitives from their own System. Maybe things got too hot for them, wherever they were, and they had to take it on the lam. Whatever they are or wherever they come from they sure have easy pickings here. They walk off with just about whatever they want to and nobody's even come close to catching up with them.
"I read some place, long time ago, that it is believed they came to Earth in some sort of a crazy space ship. Wrecked when it struck. The ship was smashed up and two or three of its occupants were killed—but I guess they never did find out much about them from that. The ship was all in pieces and the things in it were crushed to pulp. Maybe it was something or somebody else, not the Centaurians at all."
Steve Clark lighted a Venus-weed cigar and puffed.
"Whatever they are," he said, "they make damn good news copy."
Smith glanced at his watch.
"I'll be off in a few minutes," he said. "What say we hop over to Paris and buy us a round of drinks?" "Sounds all right," agreed Clark.
Smith rose from his chair, stuffing the paper into his pocket. And standing there, beside the desk, he froze in astonishment.
The office door was open and inside it stood a group of black-shrouded figures that seemed to blend with the darkness. Something gleamed in the light reflected from the polished table-top.
A voice spoke out of the darkness, a voice that spoke the English tongue with slurred accent.
"You will please resume your seat," it suggested.
Smith sat down again and Clark, dropping his feet from the desk, jerked his chair around.
"You also, sir," said the voice.
Clark obeyed. There was some metallic menace in those short, clipped, incredibly accented words which held a definite note of threat.
Slowly, majestically, one of the black-shrouded figures strode forward, leaving his companions by the door. He stopped before the desk, still in the darkness, but better defined now in the reflections from the desk-top. The man wore dark glasses and he was shrouded in a dark cape, the edge of which trailed to the floor, covering his feet. A black cowl, a part of the cape, covered his head and draped over his face, hiding most of his features.
Steve Clark felt the hair crawl at the back of his neck as he studied the visitor.
Smith made his voice pleasant.
"Anything I can do for you?" he asked.
"Yes, there is," said the strange, black-draped figure and in the faint light Smith saw the quick, smooth flash of white teeth in the shadowed face. He couldn't make out the face. Couldn't see anything, in fact, except the flash of teeth when he spoke and the occasional dull shine of reflected light from the man's eyes.
The teeth flashed again.
"I want a time-condensor," he said.
Andy Smith managed to choke back a gasp of astonishment, but his face was blank when he answered. "We don't sell parts," he said.
"No," said the black-robed one, and the single word sounded more like a challenge than a question.
'There is no call for them," Smith explained. "Time Travel has the only time-machines in existence. They operate under strict governmental supervision. No one else owns a time-machine. Naturally, the only ones who would have use for spare parts would be our own company."
"But you have an extra condensor?"
"Several of them," Smith admitted. "We have need of replacements frequently. It's dangerous to go into time with a faulty condensor."
"I know that," the other replied. "Contrary to what you may believe, there is at least one time-machine in existence other than the ones you own. I have one."
Something like a chuckle sounded from his lips.
"Strangely enough I obtained it from your company. Many years ago. I came here to get a condensor," said the man. The ugly muzzle of some sort of a weapon poked from the folds of his cape. "I can take it by force if need be. I would prefer not to. On the other hand, if you would cooperate, I would be willing to pay."
He leaned closer to the desk. A hand flashed out of the cape, was visible for only an instant and then disappeared inside the cape again. But the hand had tossed several small round objects on the desk-top, objects that seemed to spin in a blaze of color under the lamp-light.
"Bongo stones," said the white teeth. "Not the ones stolen this afternoon. No way to identify them. But bongo stones. Worth a fortune."
Steve Clark stared at the stones, his mind spinning.
Bongo stones! He counted them. Ten of them! In a flash he knew who this visitor was, knew that the myth of the Centaurians was true. For he had glimpsed that hand during the swift instant it had tossed the stones on the desk-top. A scaly hand, like the paw of a reptile. And the clicking of the thing's feet when it walked was like the sound of cloven hoofs.
Through his buzzing mind came the voice. "And now suppose I take a condensor under my arm and walk out. Leaving the stones behind." Smith hesitated.
The muzzle of the weapon gestured imperiously, impatiently.
"Otherwise," said the cold voice, "I shall kill you and take the condensor in any event."
Smith rose and walked mechanically to a locker. Steve Clark heard the rasp of a key as his friend opened the door to take out a condensor.
But he still stared at the bongo stones.
Now he knew why the police had never found the Cen-taurians' hiding place. They had no hiding place! They were bandits in time! The whole scope of space and time for their operations! They could sack the Queen of Sheba's mines one day and the next day move on to snatch treasures out of the remote future, treasures yet undreamed of!
"Clever," he said. "Damn clever."
Andy Smith was standing beside him, looking at the stones. They were alone in the room.
"You gave them the condensor?" Clark asked.
Smith nodded, dry-lipped.
>
"There wasn't anything else I could do, Steve."
Clark motioned toward the stones.
"What about these, Andy?"
"I was thinking," Smith said. "We couldn't sell them here —or anywhere else. They'd ask us how we got them. They'd lock us up. Probably before they got through with it, they'd prove we stole them and send us to the Moon-mines."
"There's a way," Clark suggested. He nodded toward the hangar where the time-machines were ranged.
Smith wet his lips.
"I thought of that," he said. "After all, those fellows stole a time-machine from the company once. Probably the company never reported the loss. Afraid of what the government might do."
Silence hung like a breathing menace over the room. "Those were the Centaurians, weren't they?" Andy Smith asked.
Clark nodded. Then waited.
"The company will throw me out for this," said Smith bitterly. "After ten years of working with them."
Pounding feet sounded in the corridor outside.
Clark's hand shot out and scooped up the stones.
"Can't let anyone find us with these on us," he whispered huskily. "Let's duck into the hangar."
Swiftly the two leaped through the doorway into the darkened room. Crouched under the wing of one of the timefliers they saw figures come into the room they had just quitted. Figures in police uniforms.
The police stood stock-still in the center of the room, staring.
"What's going on here?" shouted one of them. Silence fell more heavily.
"What do you think that fellow meant, telling us he saw some funny looking birds coming out of here?" one of them asked the other two.
"Let's look in the hangar," one of the policemen said. He leveled a flash and a spear of light cut the deep gloom, just missing the two men crouched under the wing of the time-flier.
Clark felt Smith tugging at him.
"We got to get out of here," Smith hissed in his ear.
Clark nodded in the darkness. And he knew there was only one way to get out of there.
Together they tumbled through the door of the time-flier.
"Here we go," said Smith. "We're criminals now, Steve."
The machine lurched out through the suddenly opened lock.
The time mechanism hummed and two men, one with ten bongo stones in his pocket, fled through time.
Chapter III—Anachronic Treasure
Old One-Eye was fighting his last battle. His great stone-ax lay out of reach, its handle broken, swept from his hand by a blow aimed at him by the mighty cat. His body was mauled and across one shoulder was a deep wound from which a stream of crimson trickled down his hairy chest.
To flee was useless. One-Eye knew that he could not outdistance Saber-Tooth. There was only one thing to do— Stand and fight. So with shoulders hunched, with his hands poised and ready for action, with his one eye gleaming bale-fully, the Neanderthal man faced the cat.
The animal snarled and spat, its tail twitching, crouched for a leap. Its long, curved fangs slashed angrily at the air.
One-Eye had no delusions about what was going to happen. He had killed many saber-tooths in his life. In company with others of his kind, he had faced the charge of the great cave-bear. He had trailed and brought down the mighty mammoth. In his day One-Eye had been a great hunter, an invincible warrior. But now he had reached the end of life. A man's two hands were no weapon against the tooth and claw of a saber-toothed tiger. One-Eye knew he was going to be killed.
Dry brush crackled back of the cat and the saber-tooth pivoted swiftly at this threat of new danger from the rear. One-Eye straightened and froze in his tracks.
Conrad Yancey, standing at the edge of the brush, slowly raised his rifle.
"I reckon this has gone about far enough," he said. "A man's got to stick by his own kind."
Startled, the great cat's snarls rose into a siren of hate and fear.
Yancey lined the sights on the ugly head and squeezed the trigger. The saber-tooth leaped into the air, screaming in rage and terror. Again the rifle blazed and the cat straightened, reared on its hind legs, fell backward to the ground, coughing great streams of blood.
Across the body of the beast One-Eye and Yancey exchanged glances.
"You put up a swell battle," Yancey told the Neanderthaler. "I watched you for quite a spell. Glad I was around to help."
Petrified by terror, One-Eye stood stock-still, staring. His nostrils twitched as he sniffed the strange smells which had come with the stranger and his shining spear. The spear, when it spoke in a voice of thunder, had a smell all its own, a smell that stung One-Eye's sensitive nostrils and his throat and made him want to cough.
Yancey took a slow, tentative step toward the Neanderthaler. But when the sub-man stirred as if to flee, he stopped short and stood almost breathless.
Yancey saw that the Neanderthaler's left eye at some time had been scooped out of his head by the vicious blow of a cruelly taloned paw. Deep scratches and a tortuous malformation of the region above the cheek-bone told a story of some terrible battle of the wilderness.
Short of stature and slightly stooping of posture, the Neanderthaler was a model of awkward power. His head was thrust forward at an angle between his shoulders. His neck was thick as a tree boll. The long arms hung almost to the knees of the bowed legs and the body was completely covered with hair. The heavy bristle of hair on his enormously projecting eyebrows was snowy white and throughout the heavy coat of hair which covered the man were other streaks and sprinklings of gray and white.
"An old buck," said Yancey, half to himself. "Slowing down. Someday he won't move quite fast enough and a cat will have him."
Conrad Yancey took another slow step forward and this time the Neanderthaler, bristling with terror, wheeled about with a strange, strangled cry of fear and ran, shuffling awkwardly, down the hill to plunge straight into a dense thicket.
Back at the time-tractor camp Yancey told the story of the battle between the caveman and the cat, of how he watched and had finally stepped in to save the man's life.
But the others had stories, too. Cabot and Cameron, hunting together a few miles to the east, had been charged by an angry mammoth bull, had stopped him only after they had placed four well aimed heavy-caliber bullets into him. Pascal, remaining at the tractor, had scared off a cave bear and reported that a pack of five vicious, slinking wolves had patrolled the camp throughout the afternoon. He had shot two of them and then the rest had scattered.
For here was a land that was teeming with game; a land where the law of claw and fang ruled and was the only law; where big animals preyed on smaller animals and in turn were preyed upon by still bigger ones. Here was a land without human habitation, with the few Neanderthalers who did live here hiding in dark, dank caves. Here was a land that had no human tenets, no softening hand of civilization.
But here, in this primeval wilderness of what later was to become the British Isles, was the greatest hunting ground Cabot and Yancey had ever seen. They shot in self-defense as often as they shot to bring down marked game. They found that a cave bear would carry more lead than a elephant, that the saber-tooth was not so hard to kill as might be thought, that only superb marksmanship and the heaviest bullets would bring the mammoth to his knees.
The flickering campfire, lighting up the gray, shadowy bulk of the time-tractor, was the only evidence of civilized life upon the darkening world as a blood-red moon climbed over the eastern horizon and lighted a land that growled and snarled, shivered and whimpered, hunted and was hunted.
Yancey saw Old One-Eye lurking on the edge of the camp when he arose in the morning. He had just a glimpse of the old fellow, squatting in a clump of bushes, looking over the camp with his one good eye. He disappeared so quickly, so soundlessly that Yancey blinked and rubbed his eyes, hardly believing he had left
In the field that day Yancey and Cabot caught sight of him several times, lurking in their wake, spying upon them.
"Maybe,"
Cabot suggested, "he is trying to get up enough courage to thank you for saving his life."
Yancey grunted.
"Hell, I had to do that, Jack," he said. "He isn't more than an ainimal, but he's still a man. We got to play along with our own kind in a place like this. He was such a brave old cuss. Standing there, ready to go to bat with that cat with his bare hands."
Back at the camp, Pascal looked at it in a scientific light.
"Just natural curiosity," he said. "The first glimmering of intelligence. Trying to figure things out. With what limited brain power he has that old fellow is doing some heavy thinking right now."
"Maybe he recognizes you as one of his descendants. Great-grandson to the hundredth generation, maybe," Cameron jibed at Yancey.
"The Neanderthal race is not the ancestor of man," Pascal protested. "They died out or were killed off by the Cro-Magnons, who'll be moving in within another ten or twenty thousand years. The Neanderthaloids were just a sort of blind alley. An experiment that didn't go quite right."
"Seems damn human, though," protested Yancey.
One-Eye became a camp fixture. He lurked around the tractor, trailed Yancey when he went afield. Degree by degree he became bolder. Meat was left where he could find it and he carried it off into the brush. Later he didn't bother to drag it off. In plain view of the hunters he squatted on his haunches, ripping and rending it, snarling softly, gulping great, bloody mouthfuls of raw flesh.
He haunted the campfire like a dog, apparently pleased with the easy living he had found. He came farther away from the encircling brush, squatted and jabbered just outside the circle of firelight, waiting for the bits of food tossed to him.
At last, seemingly convinced he had nothing to fear from these strange creatures, he joined the campfire circle, sat with the men, blinking at the campfire, jabbering away excitedly.
"Maybe he has a language," said Pascal, "but if he has it's very primitive. Not more than a dozen words at most."
He liked to have his back scratched, grunting like a contented hog. He begged for cubes of sugar.
"Makes a nice pet," Cameron declared.
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