The Coils of Time

by A Bertram Chandler

  He heard Claire whisper, “Who dropped that damn crossbow?”

  Cautiously, he disengaged himself from Vanessa, turning over and around. He parted the fronds of moss, and could see, midway between the copse in which they were hiding and the next one, something that glittered metallically on the short growth, something relatively small that still was glaringly obvious.

  “They’ll see it,” went on Claire, “and they’ll burn every clump of clover for a mile around.”

  “It was mine …” muttered the little man.

  “Then go and get it, William. And if they spot you, lead them away from us.”

  “But … They’re getting close.”

  “Not as close as they will be.” Her voice was low and vicious. “If you don’t do as I say, and if by some miracle they don’t see it and start burning off, I promise you that I’ll make a full report to Hardcastle and Moira. And you know what that means.”

  He replied, his voice thick with emotion, stating rather than asking, “You’ll tell Suzie …”

  “Yes” Claire was amazingly gentle. “Yes. I’ll tell her. And now — go.”

  Wilkinson watched the little man running out across the short moss, watched him as he stooped to pick up the dropped weapon. And then, suddenly, the drumming thunder from the sky was deafening and something was sweeping overhead, a black arrow that trailed a shaft of vivid flame. William straightened up and started to run again — away from his hidden companions. The rocket turned in a wide arc and then came screaming back. Ahead of it there was a brief, almost luminous flicker in the air, and behind the running man there was a burst of white flame, a billowing of smoke and steam. Again the flicker, and again the fire and smoke — this time ahead of the runner.

  William stopped then, and did something utterly futile, and yet something that Wilkinson would never forget. He drew himself to his full, insignificant height and raised the stock of his arbalest to his shoulder, calmly sighted on the downdriving rocket plane. Whether or not he had time to pull his trigger Wilkinson never knew — not that it could have made any difference to the end result. For the third and last time there was that flickering of the air, and the taut figure of the naked bowman flashed into intolerable brilliance.

  When Wilkinson opened his eyes again, all that was there was a charred, black huddle in the center of a circle of bare, blackened earth, a sooty mound that was only vaguely human, that smoked greasily.

  Claire broke the silence. “He was a good man,” she said grimly. “He made his mistake, and that was the end of him, but he was a good man….” She went on, “They will have thought that he was a solitary hunter. I hope.”

  The screaming roar of the rocket plane was now only a distant drumming — a drumming that faded to the merest vibration of the still air, and then was gone.

  XI

  THEY WAITED in their shelter until, at last, it seemed obvious that the rocket plane would not be returning. Wilkinson thought that they would be giving the dead man some kind of burial, and was shocked when, after he had mentioned this, Claire said bitterly, “What for? He’s already been cremated. And if they think that he was just a solitary hunter, so much the better.”

  As before, the tall blonde led the way, at a pace that Wilkinson, at the least, found punishing. But he could still observe; he was still not too tired to take an intelligent interest in the country through which they were passing.

  The way was uphill now, and the slope, gentle at first, was becoming steeper. Great, craggy boulders were pushing up through the green moss carpet and were, themselves, crowned with moss. They came to another river bed, but this one was not dry, neither was it the channel for a torrent of mud. The others knelt by the clear stream and splashed water over their faces and bodies, drinking from their cupped hands. The spaceman followed their example. The stream was surprisingly cool, and its water held a tart flavor, a slight acidity, that made it all the more refreshing. Then the party rested for a few minutes, and Wilkinson smoked another of his precious cigarettes. He thought, I’ll have to go easy on these. He had assumed that this was one minor human vice that would be found anywhere and anywhen, but it seemed that he had been in error. Perhaps he would be able to find some local weed that would be a fair substitute — if he lived that long. Or if Henshaw didn’t snatch him back to his own Space and Time before the need arose. He thought that he felt the bracelet on his wrist prickling, then decided that it was only imagination. Even so, it would be as well to have all in readiness.

  He fumbled in his trouser pocket and brought out the twin to the little Moebius strip that he was wearing. He said to Vanessa, “I brought this for you, please put it on.”

  But it was Claire who took it from his hand, examining it curiously. She said at last, “I think it’s safe. But …”

  “It’s safe,” he assured her.

  “I thought,” she said slowly, “that it might be some sort of radio signaling device. But even the smallest vacuum tubes are relatively bulky.”

  Don’t you have transistors? thought Wilkinson, but said nothing.

  “Can I have it, Claire?” asked Vanessa softly.

  “Give it to her,” said Malcolm gruffly. “It’s a pretty thing — and God knows that there’s not much prettiness in our lives.”

  Claire tossed it in her long, capable hand. She remarked, “I suppose that I should boil and sterilize it. But if they have some sort of biological warfare in mind, this is an odd sort of vector …” She turned to Wilkinson. “In fact, Buster, everything about you is damned odd.”

  “I know,” he said. “And when I get a chance to tell my story properly, you’ll know why.”

  “All right.” The blonde practically threw the bracelet at Vanessa. “You can have it. But, knowing Hardcastle and Moira, I advise you to wear it as an anklet. The strap of your sandal will hide it.”

  Then, after Wilkinson had passed the metallic circle up over the girl’s slender foot, settling it about her slim ankle, the party pressed on.

  • • •

  The dusk was falling as they reached the encampment, a blue, shadowy sea washing in from the west, flooding the no-longer-golden sky, slowly submerging the peaks of the low mountain range towards which they were climbing. As they trudged on through the gathering darkness, Wilkinson wondered where Claire was leading them; ahead there was a sheer cliff face, curtained with luxuriant vines, with no sign of any sort of path to the higher levels. The spaceman wondered if they would have to climb the natural scramblenet and doubted if he could make it. He had been too many years in Deep Space, and even though there were excellent gymnasiums aboard all the ships, only keep-fit fanatics made full use of them.

  The tall blonde paused and whistled. It was like the song of a Terran bird, but it was too complicated. Then, as the party waited at the foot of the cliff, the vine curtain parted. Beyond it was a cave, or tunnel. There were lights there, dim, that seemed only to intensify the darkness. There was a menacing shape that Wilkinson assumed to be one of the laser projectors of which Claire had already spoken. It was big, clumsy — but this culture had not stumbled upon the transistor.

  “Come in,” ordered a man’s voice.

  When the last of them was in the cave, the curtain dropped. Somebody switched on brighter lights. Wilkinson stared at the men and women standing there. They were all of them naked, and all of them possessed the wolfish quality so evident in Claire, and all of them were armed. But here were no arbalests. Here were automatic pistols not unlike his own, here were machine rifles — and every muzzle was pointed at him.

  One of the men chuckled. “It’s a good job Suzie warned us, Wilkinson, else we’d have taken you for a ghost.”

  “He may qualify for one yet,” remarked Claire.

  “Don’t!” cried Vanessa.

  “And so might we all,” the tall blonde continued.

  Somebody was scrambling from the rear of the cave. It was Suzie. “Will!” she called. Then, “What have you done to Will?”

 
Claire put both her hands on the girl’s shoulders. She said, with surprising gentleness, “He’s dead, my dear. But he went out well, like the man that he was.”

  She waited until the girl’s sobbing was under control, then continued, “Come and see me in my hut. I’ll give you something to make you sleep.”

  “I’m afraid that that will have to wait,” said the graybearded man who had ordered them to enter. “You are all to come before the Council. At once.”

  • • •

  Beyond the cave was a deep ravine, through which water flowed. Where it vanished into the ground there was a low hut, and from the hut came the whine of machinery. Their power supply, thought Wilkinson. There were other huts — sprawling, irregular, vine and moss-covered, all of them in darkness. And yet there was an air of wakefulness, of uneasiness.

  They came to a large building standing aloof by the stream. They were pushed into an unlighted hallway, and the door was shut behind them. Another door opened and they stood there blinking, dazzled by the sudden brilliant light.

  They were in a huge room, carpeted with living moss. At its far end was a platform, and on the platform was a table. Seated at it — four along one side, one at either end — were two men and four women. They stared at Wilkinson, neither friendly nor overtly hostile, but suspicious, and he stared back at them. The man and the three women along the side of the table were nonentities — useful organizers, no doubt, but lacking in real driving force. After his first glance Wilkinson ignored them. He looked at the man at the head of the table, the little man, almost a dwarf, with the thin, twisted face of the self-torturing introvert. He looked from him to the mountainous woman at the other end. With that build she should have been the opposite to her male partner, psychologically as well as physically — but she was not. Yet she was different. Hardcastle was consumed by a bitter, internal flame but she was cold, cold. Of the two, thought Wilkinson, he would prefer Hardcastle. Not that he would be offered any choice in the matter.

  “It’s Wilkinson,” said one of the Councillors.

  “It’s Wilkinson,” agreed Hardcastle, his voice amazingly deep and resonant. “What do you say, Moira?”

  “It could be Wilkinson,” squeaked the fat woman. “It could be. On the other hand …” She glared at the spaceman from glacial blue eyes. “Strip.”

  After a second’s hesitation, the spaceman complied. In spite of the fact that, until now, he had been the only clothed person in the room he felt absurdly embarrassed. He stooped to unfasten his boots, kicked them off. He stepped out of his trousers. Almost as an afterthought he loosened the fastenings of his knapsack, dropping it to the moss floor.

  “He’s pale,” observed one of the Councilwomen.

  “So would you be, if you’d spent a few months in a Committee jail,” Moira Simmons told her. Then, “Turn around, Wilkinson. Slowly.”

  Burning with resentment, he pivoted on his bare feet. Sullenly he obeyed the sharp order, “Stop!”

  “Where did you get that scar, Wilkinson?” demanded the hateful, squeaky voice.

  “I’ll try to explain …” he mumbled.

  “No doubt you will try. But it’s obviously an old laser burn. You’re the nearest we have to a doctor, Claire. What do you make of it?”

  “A burn,” said the blonde, not without defiance. “But not necessarily made by a laser beam.”

  “How else? We all know that the Committee’s inquisitors can be very unsubtle at times.”

  Wilkinson turned to face his questioner, and briefly looked into Vanessa’s eyes. He did not like what he saw there — the pain and the sick fear. He tried to grin reassuringly at her. And then, firmly, to Moira Simmons, “I can explain.”

  “You can try. We’ve all evening ahead of us. And if you’re ever at a loss for words, we can help you find some, even if they’re only ‘Stop! Please stop!’ ”

  Wilkinson tried to ignore the ghastly humor. He said quietly, “That scar on my left buttock is not a laser burn. It’s an old scar. I had to go outside of my ship to make a hull inspection, and the insulation of my suit was faulty …”

  “The last ship that you were ever in,” said Moira Simmons flatly, “was Venus Girl when she tried to make her getaway from Port Hesperus when the Committee was taking over. You might have been injured when the ship was fired upon and destroyed by the Committee’s cruisers — but you were not. You might have been injured when the lifeboat that you were piloting crashed in Mud Gully — but you were not. And then, when the rags of your pretty uniform were more indecent than honest nudity, you went naked like the rest of us — and nobody saw any scars on your pretty backside.”

  “But I don’t belong on this world,” he said desperately.

  “He doesn’t!” cried Vanessa. “I should know. Please believe him.”

  “He has some odd evidence to prove his point,” said Claire quietly. “I suggest that you examine his gear, Moira.”

  “Not so fast, young woman.” The obese monster turned again to the spaceman. “All right. So you don’t belong to this world. Are you a spy who’s dropped in from Earth or from Mars to see how things are going? Did somebody go to all the trouble to find an exact double of our late — or not so late — Chris Wilkinson?” Her voice was more of a snarl than a squeak. “What do you take us for?”

  “I come,” he said, trying to keep his voice firm, “from another Universe, another Time.”

  “Henshaw,” said one of the Councillors, a slight, scholarly looking man. “Henshaw.”

  “What are you babbling about?” demanded Moira Simmons rudely. “Pipe down, Duval, and let me get on with the business.”

  Hardcastle was on his feet, his face angry. “You pipe down, Moira. I knew Henshaw myself, and there were times when he almost convinced me when he discussed his theories. Pass up the prisoner’s bag, Malcolm, and that belt you’re wearing, and we’ll see what he’s brought with him.”

  “It might be as well,” suggested Claire, “to soak that knapsack in a bucket of water first. If he is our Chris Wilkinson, and if he has been brainwashed, that bag could well be booby trapped.”

  Wilkinson, seeking comfort in trivial worries, hoped that the wrappings of his precious packets of cigarettes would be watertight.

  XII

  WHILE WILKINSON’S knapsack was soaking in the bucket of water there was a slight relaxation. It was Hardcastle who broke the silence by asking Duval, “What was that about Henshaw?”

  “He was a physicist,” replied the scholarly man. “He was as apolitical as anyone can be, yet he still contrived to fall foul of the Committee.”

  “So you had a Henshaw too,” broke in Wilkinson. “It stands to reason …”

  “Be quiet!” snapped Moira Simmons.

  “Henshaw,” continued Duval, “had some peculiar ideas about Time. He believed that Time Travel was possible, and at the time of his — his disappearance he was working on a device that, he said, would be capable of sending a person into the Past or the Future.”

  A slight smile flickered over his thin features. “Of course, the idea made no appeal to our lords and masters. It would have been far too easy for one of us to make a brief excursion into the Past and to commit one or two murders just to nip the Committee in the bud, as it were …”

  “And I,” Wilkinson broke in, “let the Dr. Henshaw of my world send me into the past so that I could save my girl from being killed in a space disaster.”

  “I never gave you credit for much imagination, Chris Wilkinson,” sneered the fat woman, “but I see, now, that I was wrong.”

  “Hear him out, Moira,” protested Duval.

  “Ay. I’ll hear him out when we start him singing. We may not possess the fancy apparatus of the Committee’s interrogation squads, but we made do very nicely with what we have. After all, once a man has talked he’s not much further use to anybody and may as well die.”

  “Moira!” Harcastle’s deep voice had a crack to it like the snap of a whip. “We interrogate when we have
to, not, like the Committee, for the sheer love of it.”

  “Speak for yourself, Hardcastle,” she replied sullenly.

  The little man turned to the prisoner. “Well, Wilkinson, you can’t say that you don’t know the score. We can’t afford to take risks. Whatever story you tell us, we must know whether or not it is true. Moira is a trained and qualified psychiatrist, so we should be able to get the truth from you without too much physical damage.” He paused. “Of course, if you are an agent of the Committee the physical damage will be rather more extensive.”

  “But I am a Time Traveler!” protested Wilkinson. “When you examine the contents of my knapsack you will find that every article has its origin in a culture widely different from yours …”

  “Such things can be faked,” remarked the fat woman contemptuously.

  “These weren’t.” Wilkinson turned to Duval. “Furthermore, I can describe Dr. Henshaw to you. Appearance, mannerisms …”

  “Our friends of the Committee,” said Moira Simmons slowly, “must have had ample time to observe Henshaw before they disposed of him. No doubt you have studied films and listened to recordings.”

  “Can’t I convince you?” he implored.

  “No. You cannot.”

  “But, Moira …” It was Vanessa, standing beside Wilkinson to face the Council. “I should know, if anybody does. This is Chris Wilkinson — but not the Chris Wilkinson who was captured. He’s … changed.”

  Moira Simmons laughed. “So would anybody be changed after a few months of the Committee’s brainwashing.”

  “Yes, I know. But there’s all the rest of it. The odd apparitions, always occurring just at the place where the lifeboat crashed. The cat, and the white rats, and the book, and the helpless armored giant …”