Two in Time

by Wilson Tucker

  There--_that_ was it.

  The tape went dead when the recorder was turned off. There were no after-sounds of activity about the bench, no final message--there was nothing to indicate William had ever touched the recorder again. He had shut off the radio and the recorder in one-two order and quit the room. The tape should have ended there, stopped there. It did not. Saltus looked at his watch, squinting at the sweep hand. He ran the tape forward yet another time, from the point when William had shut it off to the point when he turned it on again and said: "Mark."

  The elapsed time was one minute, forty-four seconds. Someone _after_ William had done that. Someone else had opened the shelter, pilfered the stores, donned winter clothing, and listened to the taped report. Someone else had let the machine run on another minute and forty-four seconds before shutting it off and taking his leave. The visitor may have returned, but William never did.

  Arthur Saltus felt that fair warning. He closed the corridor door and thumbed a manual switch to keep the shelter lights on. An Army-issue automatic was taken from the stores and strapped around his waist.

  Another mouth-filling pull from the bottle, and he rolled the tape back to his "Mark."

  "Saltus checking in. That was my mark and this is my birthday, 23 November, in the nice round number year of 2000. I am fifty years old but I don't look a day over twenty-five--chalk it up to clean living. Hello, Katrina. Hello, Chaney. And hello to you, Mr. Gilbert Seabrooke. Is that nosey little man from Washington still knocking around back there?

  "I arrived at 10:55 or 11:02 something, depending on which timepiece you read. I say something because I don't yet know if it's ack-emma or the other--I haven't put my nose outside to test the wind. I have lost all faith in engineers and mercury protons, but they'd better not cheat _me_ out of my full birthday. When I walk out that door I want to see bright sunshine on the greensward--morning sunshine. I want birds singing and rabbits rabbiting and all that jazz.

  "Katrina, the housekeeping is awfully sloppy around here: it's poor ship. Dust on the furniture, the floors, lights burned out, empty boxes littering the place--it's a mess. Strangers have been wandering in and out, helping themselves to the drygoods and pinching the groceries. I guess somebody found a key to the place.

  "Everything you heard before my mark was William's report. He didn't come back to finish it, and he _didn't_ go up to Chicago or anywhere near there--you can rely on that." The bantering tone was dropped. "He's outside."

  Arthur Saltus began a straightforward recital of all that he'd found. He ticked off the missing items from the stores, the number of empty boxes stacked haphazardly along the wall, the used water cans, the two lanterns which had seen but little service--William may have tested the one found on the bench--the debris on the floor, the insignia, and the peculiarity of the tape being rolled forward. He invited his listeners to make the same timedelay test he'd made and then offer a better explanation if they didn't care for his.

  He said: "And when you come up here, civilian, just double-check the stores; count the empties again to see if our visitor has been back. And hey--arm yourself, mister. You'd damned well better shoot straight if you have to shoot at all. Remember _something_ we taught you."

  Saltus flicked off the machine to prevent the tape from listening to him take a drink--as difficult as that might be--and then flicked it on again.

  "I'm going topside to search for Wffliam--I'm going to try tailing him. Lord only knows what I'll find after sixteen months but I'm going to try. It's likely he did one of two things: either he'd go for Joliet to find out what he could about that Chicago thing, or he'd jump into the squabble if it was alongside.

  "If the squabble was here--on the station--I think he'd run for the northwest corner to help the Corporal; he'd _have_ to get into the fight." Short pause. "I'm going up to take a look at that corner, but if I don't find anything I'll run into Joliet. I'm in the same boat now with old William--I've got to know what happened to Chicago." He stared solemnly at the. empty space in his bottle and added: "Katrina, this sure knocks hell out of your survey. All that studying for nothing."

  Saltus stopped talking but let the machine run on.

  He plugged in a radio and connected the leads to the outside antenna. After a period of band searching, he reported back to the tape recorder.

  "Radio negative. Nothing at all on the GI channels." Another slow sweep of the bands. "That's damned funny, isn't it? Nobody's playing the top ten platters."

  Saltus switched over to the civilian wavelengths and monitored them carefully. "The forty- and eighty-meter bands are likewise negative. Everybody is keeping their mouths shut. What do you suppose they're scared of?" He went back to a military channel and turned up the gain to peak, hearing nothing but an airy whisper. The lack of communications nettled him.

  The _send_ button was depressed.

  "Navy boot, come in. Come in, boot, you know me-- I caddied for the Admiral at Shoreacres. Saltus calling Navy boot. Over."

  He reported himself two or three times on several channels.

  The radio crackled a sudden command. "Get off the air, you idiot! They'll get a fix on you!" It went silent.

  Saltus was so startled he turned off the radio.

  To the tape recorder: "Chaney, did you hear that? There _is_ somebody out there! They don't have much going for them--the power was weak, or they were a long ways off--but there _is_ somebody out there. Scared spitless, too. The ramjets must have them on the run." He stopped to consider that. "Katrina, try to find out what a ramjet is. Our Chinese friends _can't_ be here; they don't have the transport, and they couldn't get through the Pacific minefields if they did. And keep _that_ under your hat, civilian--it's top secret stuff."

  Arthur Saltus equipped himself for the target, always remembering to keep an eye on the door.

  He helped himself to a parka and pulled the hood over his head; he removed the light shoes he'd been wearing the summer he left and found a pair of hiking boots the proper size. Mittens were tucked into a pocket. Saltus slung a canteen of water over one shoulder and a pack of rations on his back. He picked out a rifle, loaded it, and emptied two boxes of cartridges into his pockets. The map was of little interest--he knew the road to Joliet, he'd been there only last Thursday to look into a little matter for the President. The President had thanked him. He loaded a camera and found room to pack away a fresh supply of nylon film.

  Saltus decided against taking a radio or recorder, not wanting to be further encumbered; it would be awkward enough as it was and all signs clearly indicated the survey was sunk without a trace. Chicago was lost, forbidden, and Joliet might be a problem. But there was something he could do with the recorder and William's brief message--something to insure its return to home base. A last searching examination of the room gave him no other thing he thought he would need. The lights were turned off.

  Saltus took a long pull on his dwindling supply of bourbon and quit the shelter. The corridor was dusty and vacant, and he fancied he could see his own footprints.

  He carried the tape recorder with its dangling cord back to the operations room where the vehicle waited in its polywater tank. A thorough search of the room failed to reveal an electric outlet; even the service for the clock and the calendar came through the wall behind the encased instruments, wholly concealed.

  "Damn it!" Saltus spun around to stare up at the two glass eyes. "Why can't you guys do something right? Even your lousy proton gyroscope is--is sheeg!"

  He strode out of the room, marched along the dusty corridor to the adjoining laboratory door, and gave it a resounding kick to advertise his annoyance. _That_ ought to shake up the engineers.

  His jaw dropped when the door swung open under the blow. Nobody slammed it shut again. Saltus edged closer and peered inside. Nobody shoved him back. The lab was empty. He walked in and stared around: it was his first sight of the working side of the project and the impression was a poor one.

  Here too some of the ceiling light
s had burned out, without being replaced. A bank of three monitoring sets occupied a wall bench at his left hand; one of them was blanked out but the remaining two gave him a blurred and unsatisfactory image of the room he had just quit. The vehicle was recognizable only because of its shape and its supporting tank. The two images lacked quality, as though the tubes were aged beyond caring. He turned slowly on the ball of his foot and scanned the room but found nothing to suggest recent occupancy. The tools and equipment were there--and still functioning--but the lab personnel had vanished, leaving nothing but dust and marks in the dust. A yellow bull's eye on a computer panel stared at him for an intruder.

  Saltus put down the recorder and plugged it in.

  He said without preamble: "Chaney, the treasure house is empty, deserted--the engineers are gone. Don't ask me why or where--there's no sign, no clue, and they didn't leave notes. I'm in the lab now but there's nobody here except the mice and me. The door was open, sort of, and I wandered in." He sipped whiskey, but this time didn't bother to conceal it from the tape.

  "I'm going topside to look for William. Wait for me, Katrina, you lovely wench! Happy birthday, people."

  Saltus pulled the plug from the receptacle, wrapped the cord around the recorder and walked back to the other room to drop the machine into the TDV. To compensate for the added weight, he pulled loose the heavy camera in the nose bubble and threw it overboard after first salvaging the film magazine. He hoped the liaison agent from Washington would cry over the loss. Saltus slammed shut the hatch and left the room.

  The corridor ended and a flight of stairs led upward to the operations exit. The painted sign prohibiting the carrying of arms beyond the door had been defaced: a large slash of black paint was smeared from the first sentence to the last, half obliterating the words and voiding the warning.

  Saltus noted the time on his watch and fitted the keys into the locks. A bell rang behind him as he pushed open the door. The day was bright with sunshine and snow.

  It was five minutes before twelve in the morning. His birthday was only just begun.

  An automobile waited for him in the parking lot.

  FOURTEEN

  Arthur Saltus stepped out warily into the snow. The station appeared to be deserted: nothing moved on any street as far as the eye could see.

  His gaze came back to the parked automobile.

  It was a small one resembling the German beetle and olive drab in color, but he tardily recognized it as an American make by the name stamped on each hubcap. The car had been there since before the snow: there were no tracks of movement, of betrayal. A thinner coating of snow lay over the hood and roof of the vehicle and one window was open a crack, allowing moisture to seep inside.

  Saltus scanned the parking lot, the adjoining flower garden and the frigid empty spaces before him but discovered no moving thing. He held himself rigid, alert, intently watching, listening, and sniffing the wind for signs of life. No one and nothing had left tell-tale prints in the snow, nor sounds nor smells on the wind. When he was satisfied of that, he stepped away from the operations door and eased it shut behind him, making sure it was locked. Rifle up, he inched toward a corner of the lab building and peered around. The company street was trackless and deserted, as were the walks and lawns of the structures across the street. Shrubbery was bent under the weight of snow. His foot struck a covered object when he took a single step away from the protective corner.

  He looked down, bent, and picked a radio out of the snow. It had been taken from the stores below.

  Saltus turned it over looking for damage but saw none; the instrument bore no marks to suggest it had been struck by gunfire, and after a hesitation he concluded that Moresby had simply dropped it there to be rid of the extra weight. Saltus resumed his patrol, intent on circling the building to make certain he was alone. The sun-bright snow was unmarred all the way around. He was relieved, and paused again to sample the bourbon.

  The automobile claimed his attention.

  The dash puzzled him: it had an off-on switch instead of the usual key, and but one idiot light; there were no gauges to give useful information on fuel, oil, water temperature, or tire pressures, nor was there a speedometer. Propelled by a sudden exciting idea, Saltus climbed out of the little car and raised the hood. Three large silver-colored storage batteries were lined up against a motor so compact and simple it didn't appear capable of moving anything, much less an automobile. He dropped the hood and got back into the seat. The switch was flipped to the on position. There was no sound but the idiot light briefly winked at him. Saltus very gently pulled the selector lever to drive position and the car obediently crept forward through the snow toward the empty street. He pushed down on the accelerator with growing exhilaration and deliberately threw the car into a skid on the snow-packed street. It lurched and swung in a giddy manner, then came back under control when Saltus touched the steering wheel. The little automobile was fun.

  He followed a familiar route to the barracks where he'd lived with William and the civilian, swinging and dancing from side to side on the slippery surface because the car seemed to obey his every whim. It would spin in a complete circle and come to rest with the nose pointing in the proper direction, it would slide sideways without threatening to topple, it would bite into the snow and leap forward with a minimum of slippage if just one wheel had a decent purchase. He thought that four-wheel-drive electric cars should have been invented a century ago.

  Saltus stopped in dismay at the barracks--at the place where the barracks had been. He very nearly missed the site. All the antiquated buildings had burned to their concrete foundations, nearly hiding them from sight. He got out of the car to stare at the remains and at the lonely shadows cast by the winter sun.

  Feeling depressed, Saltus drove over to E Street and turned north toward the recreation area.

  He parked the car outside the fence surrounding the patio and prowled cautiously through the entranceway to scan the interior. The unmarked snow was reassuring but it did not lull him into a false sense of security. Rifle ready, pausing every few steps to look and listen and smell the wind, Saltus advanced to the tiled rim of the pool and looked down. It was nearly empty, drained of water, and the diving board taken away.

  _Nearly_ empty: a half dozen long lumps huddled under the blanket of snow at the bottom, lumps the shape of men. Two GI helmet liners lay nearby, recognizable by their shapes despite the covering snow. A naked, frozen foot protruded through the blanket into the cold sunshine.

  Saltus turned away, expelling a breath of bitter disappointment; he wasn't sure what he had expected after so long a time, but certainly not that--not the bodies of station personnel dumped into an uncovered grave. The GI liners suggested their identities and suggested they had been dumped there by outsiders--by ramjets. Survivors on station would have buried the bodies.

  He remembered the beautiful image of Katrina in that pool--Katrina, nearly naked, scantily clad in that lovely, sexy swim suit--and himself chasing after her, wanting the feel of that wet and splendid body under his hands again and again. She had teased him, run away from him, knowing what he was doing but pretending not to be aware: _that_ added to the excitement. And Chaney! The poor out-gunned civilian sat up on the deck and burned with a green, suiphurous envy, wanting to but not daring to. Damn, but that was a day to be remembered!

  Arthur Saltus scanned the street and then climbed back into the car.

  There were two large holes in the fence surrounding the station at the northwest corner. Action from outside had caused both penetrations. The shell of a burnedout truck had caused one of them, and that rusted shell still occupied the hole. A mortar had torn through the other. There was a shallow cavity in the earth directly beneath the second hole, a cavity scooped out by another exploding mortar round. Snow-covered objects that might be the remains of men dotted the slope on both sides of the fence. There was the recognizable hulk of a thoroughly demolished automobile.

  Saltus probed the wr
eckage of the car, turning over wheels with shredded tires, poking among the jumble of machined parts, picking up to examine with mild wonder a windshield fashioned of transparent plastic so sturdy it had popped out of place and fallen undamaged several feet away from the hulk. He compared it to the windshield of his own car, and found it to be identicaL The batteries had been carried away--or were entirely demolished; the little motor was a mass of fused metal.

  As best he could, Saltus scraped snow from the ground in search of something to indicate that William Moresby had died here. He thought it likely that William had found his car in the parking lot--a twin to his own vehicle--and drove it north to the scene of the skirmish. To here. It would be a hell of a note if the man had died before he got out of the car. Old William deserved a better break than that.

  He found nothing--not even a scrap of uniform in the debris, and for the moment that was encouraging.

  Down the slope a cluster of tree stumps and a sagging billboard were visible. Saltus went down to see them. A snow-blanketed body lay smashed against a stump but that was all; there was no weapon with it. The blown remains of one mortar lay around in front of the billboard and from the appearance of the piece, he would guess that a faulty shell had exploded within the tube, destroying the usefulness of the weapon and probably killing the operator. There was no corpse here to back up that guess, unless it was the one hurled against the tree stump. The second of the two mortars mentioned on the tape was missing--taken away. The winners of _this_ skirmish had to be the ramjets; they had picked up their remaining mortar and retired--or had penetrated the hole to invade the station.

  Saltus picked his way back up the slope and walked through the hole in the fence. The snow pattern dipped gracefully, following the rounded rough-bottomed contour of the cavity. His foot turned on something unseen at the bottom of the hole and he struggled to save his balance. A cold wind blew across the face of the slope, numbing his fingers and stinging his face.