The Fury Out of Time

by Biggle Jr. , Lloyd

  Karvel had taken the encounter with the crocodile in stride, but this creature unnerved him completely. It was unquestionably a seagoing dinosaur, and his first clue as to how far into the future and the past he had traveled.

  “Back to the ship,” he said, and again attempted to hoist the fish to his shoulder. Two of the Hras helped him carry it. He walked warily, and kept to the center of the path quite as conscientiously as did the Hras.

  Karvel cleaned his fish, gave it a thick coating of mud, of which there was ample available, and baked it for the remainder of the morning in a long fire that consumed much of the brush pile the Hras had accumulated from their manufacture of T poles. The result was a delicious, tender, flaky meat. The Hras politely refused to share it with him, but until he had eaten his fill and wrapped the remainder of the huge carcass in leaves in the hope that it would keep longer, ten of them stood poised between Karvel and the swamp, their T poles held alertly. He doubted that it was necessary, but when they said “Many dangers!” he was no longer disposed to argue with them.

  The spokesman of the previous day, Hras Drawa, joined Karvel on the ramp when he had finished eating. Karvel was beginning to recognize subtle differences between individual Hras, in coloring, in stature, even, in a few cases, in mannerisms. Hras Drawa had two distinctively shaped spots on the breathing band, and an amusing habit of crisscrossing the four upper limbs.

  “Have you had many casualties?” Karvel asked.

  “Many. It is a horrible world.”

  “You must have had some experience with horrible worlds. Why didn’t you bring weapons with you?”

  “Our weapons were lost in the explosion.”

  “I could show you how to make some, but what you really want to do is to go home, where I presume that you don’t need weapons.”

  Hras Drawa wheezed softly, but said nothing.

  “Could you make your own fuel if you had uranium?”

  “Yes. We are fully equipped for this, because we could not carry enough fuel for the distance we intended to travel.”

  “Uranium,” Karvel mused. “Pitchblende ore. Have you tried to find it?”

  “We have tried. There is none within two days’ traveling time. The dangers are many, the world is impossibly large for those who must walk, and nowhere have we ever found uranium to be plentiful. The chance of success seemed so slight that we did not look further.”

  “If you had some kind of flying machine—”

  “We did.” Hras Drawa wheezed an enormous sigh. “A special machine for locating uranium. It was destroyed in the explosion. We used what remained of it in the repairs to the spaceship.”

  “I see.”

  “All in that part of the ship was destroyed except the U.O., which is difficult to damage.”

  “Fuel reserve, armory, aircraft—everything you needed for survival went up in that one blast. When you get home you should put in a recommendation that the ship’s layout be redesigned.”

  “Such a thing has never happened before.”

  Karvel nodded sympathetically. If creatures brilliant enough to build a U.O. couldn’t solve their problem, there wasn’t much point in Bowden Karvel working at it. He changed the subject. “There’s something I wanted to ask you about the U.O. What instrument setting did your messenger use?”

  “The ultimate—the maximum. We did not know how long it would be before intelligent life developed on this planet.”

  “The maximum,” Karvel repeated. He took a deep breath, and said slowly, “That means that it went as far as its fuel would take it. Then it arrived in my time with the instruments set—”

  “We also removed one instrument. It is a…a limiter. It prevents the U.O. from going farther than there is fuel to return it to the starting point.”

  “That accounts for the empty hole in the instrument panel, but it doesn’t help with my time paradox. If the U.O. arrived with its instruments set at the maximum, the French couldn’t possibly have known how far to send it into the future if it hadn’t already returned from the future.”

  “The U.O. did not arrive with its instruments at the maximum. It has…what would you call it? A clock? A measuring device? If the progress is stopped for any reason—in this case, by running out of fuel—the instruments set themselves to show how far the U.O. has traveled.”

  “Ah!”

  “Does that reconcile your paradox?”

  “No, but it makes it a bit less drastic. I’ve also been wondering what I would have done if the thing had landed in the ocean.”

  “It will not. It will…land…only on land. I know very little about the U.O. myself. It is a new device, and unfortunately its inventor died in the swamp shortly after we landed. We had used it on other worlds for traveling much smaller distances, and even then the operators proceeded in many short steps. They were studying evolution and the ultimate of mysteries, the origin of life. We knew nothing of the pressure, and of the Force X, because these things are not noticeable when the U.O. travels small distances.”

  “Then your messenger would not have been killed, and there would have been no Force X, if the trip had been made in a series of short time leaps. Why wasn’t it?”

  “We had too little fuel. It is the starting up, the beginning, that requires the most fuel. The U.O. would need an enormous extra supply to reach your time with the short leaps.”

  “A larger extra supply than I brought?”

  “A much, much larger supply,” Hras Drawa wheezed firmly.

  “I see. Which brings us back to the important question: Where is there some uranium?”

  “We have thought about this since you arrived,” Hras Drawa said. “It is your world. Do you not know where uranium is to be found?”

  “I have a general idea where the principal deposits are. Rather, I know where they will be in a hundred million years or so. I don’t know how to go about locating them in this time because I don’t know where we are. The landmarks I would need probably aren’t in existence yet. How can I look for a uranium deposit in mountains that haven’t been formed? Even if I did stumble onto one of those locations—and it might require a trek of hundreds or even thousands of miles—the uranium could be miles deep and inaccessible until millions of years of erosion have uncovered it. Or it could be at the bottom of the ocean. I don’t know enough about geology to know if the uranium deposits of my time existed this long ago.”

  “We had not thought of those problems.”

  “I think it would be foolish to try to find the deposits of my time.”

  “I agree.” The pause was much longer than usual. “It was our final hope. Then we must remain here.”

  “Not necessarily,” Karvel said. “Do you have instruments to detect the presence of pitchblende deposits? Something like a Geiger counter?”

  “Uranium detectors. Yes.”

  “Then why not use them? Two days doesn’t represent much of a search. Make it a week, or a month, or even a year. What more important things do you have to do, except sit around and hope you’ll live long enough to die of old age?”

  “You do not fully understand the difficulties.”

  “Perhaps not,” Karvel admitted. “But I fully understand the problem. You haven’t really tried to find uranium. You’ve been waiting for it to come to you—waiting for the U.O. to bring it to you. Now you know that it won’t, but you’re satisfied to go on waiting. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Haven’t I said it plainly enough?”

  “Would you accompany such an expedition?”

  “I?” Karvel exclaimed. “I wouldn’t know how to begin to look for uranium. Don’t you have geologists? Or mineralogists?”

  “No,” Hras Drawa said. “We had such specialists, but they were all killed—looking for uranium.”

  It seemed like an excellent time to change the subject again, and to Karvel’s intense relief Hras Drawa did so. “You are not comfortable with us?”

  “No
,” Karvel said. “I prefer not to live in a swamp.”

  “It is safe here.”

  “It is safe in your ship. I should have to leave it frequently to find food, and the swamp provides too many places for ambush. Also, your ship is not comfortable for me.”

  “Surely the U.O. would be less comfortable than our ship.”

  “I was just thinking of sleeping there,” Karvel said. “I can look after myself when I’m awake. I’ll build a cabin with those fallen trees, and put some kind of stockade around it, and if I can’t cope with a dinosaur before it gets past those obstacles I’ll take refuge in the U.O. I might not be absolutely safe, but perfect safety doesn’t exist anywhere.”

  “You have made your decision?” Hras Drawa asked politely.

  “I have made my decision. I would appreciate the loan of tools, if you have any.”

  “We will offer our assistance in the building of this cabin. There may yet be time to do it today.”

  The Hras built the cabin. They were amazingly strong, their tools produced phenomenal results, and Karvel, once he had given them a general idea of what he wanted, had little to do other than keep out of their way.

  They built the cabin around the U.O., and further reduced its living space with an elaborate network of braces. They fitted logs together with artful precision, and covered them with a transparent adhesive that in a few hours’ time became as hard as rock. When they finished Karvel had a weather-tight dwelling that no force less than that of a bomb could have disturbed. He asked for firing slots, rather than windows, and the only real problem was posed by the door—for which they had cut a neat circle before Karvel found out what they were doing. He spent an hour in trying to think of a way to cope with the circular opening, and then they installed one of the dilating doors from the spaceship.

  There were not enough logs for a full stockade. Karvel suggested an abatis instead, and the Hras brought great armfuls of the saplings from which they made their T poles, and surrounded the cabin with a circle of sharpened stakes pointed outward. Karvel was convinced that even a tyrannosaur, if there were any about, would think twice before attempting to get past that obstacle.

  “We did not envision such an arrangement,” Hras Drawa admitted. “We agree that you will be almost safe here as long as you do not go outside this abatis, and as long as you remain alert. I caution you that not all of the dangerous things are large.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be safe enough as long as the water holds out,” Karvel said. The country was obviously suffering a prolonged drought, and the stream at the foot of the hill was a narrow ribbon of water threaded between wide banks.

  The Hras hurried off as sunset approached, promising to visit him the next day. Karvel did not blame them for wanting to return to the ship before dark. He stood watching until their long file reached the swamp, and then he seated himself on a log before his circular door, and gazed at the distant, smooth surface of the sea.

  It was, he thought sardonically, the first permanent home he’d ever had. His mind lingered on the word permanent. He was marooned here just as irrevocably as were the Hras, but that fact did not depress him. He would have sung fervent hosannas, if he’d known any, for his mission was accomplished. There was only one U.O., and it had made its final journey.

  He had no worries, and no responsibilities, and—as long as he stayed out of the swamp—a restful primeval world for a residence.

  A world without mountains.

  He slipped his four-toed, flat right foot from its moccasin and scratched idly at the missing toe.

  “How the devil would they go about finding uranium?” he asked himself.

  Chapter 3

  They set out three days later. The unhuman castaways out of space and the human vagrant from time joined forces to attempt that which all of them knew to be impossible.

  The longer Karvel thought about the expedition, the sillier it seemed. The Hras were certain it had no chance of success, and said so.

  Nevertheless, the expedition left. It was one of the only two alternatives left to the Hras. They could search, and keep searching; or not search, and resign themselves to remaining where they were. They chose to search.

  The entire company came to the edge of the swamp to see the expedition off. Karvel, eager to avoid an orgy of leave-taking, gave a last wave to Hras Drawa and marched away with a firm, steady pace. Not until they had topped the first low hill did he step aside to inspect and count the Hras following him.

  There were twenty of them.

  Karvel swore fervently. He had asked for six; Hras Drawa wanted to bring all of the Hras. Karvel vetoed that notion emphatically, and also refused to take Hras Drawa. Anyone whose skill was essential in operating the spaceship, he said, or for the production of the fuel, should remain in a safe place and wait. For what would be the point of a hazardous expedition to locate pitchblende if the only Hras who knew what to do with it were lost? And why produce fuel, if no one survived who could navigate the ship?

  Eventually Hras Drawa agreed; but six, he said, was an impossibly small number.

  “As few as possible, then,” Karvel said.

  There were twenty. They plodded past in single file, T poles erect, strange tools and instruments tucked casually under spare arms. If they took pride in the fact that each of them had been carefully selected for this expedition, they were keeping it to themselves. Already the procession looked uncomfortably like a death march.

  Karvel had left their selection to Hras Drawa. He asked only that they be properly equipped, and have better than average dexterity in the use of the T pole.

  Properly equipped. Karvel’s bellow of indignation halted them in their tracks. “Where are your supplies?” he demanded. “Your food and water—where are they?”

  The Hras bringing up the rear wheezed politely. “We do not need any.”

  “Of course you do! We may be gone for many days. You can’t do without food and water indefinitely!”

  But perhaps they could. Perhaps, like the camel, they had extra stomachs filled with water, and their barrellike bodies concealed sustaining humps of food reserve.

  And yet he hesitated to accept this miraculous solution to a worrisome problem. Even a camel would have to have food and water eventually.

  He shrugged, and strode to the head of the column. Already the expedition was shaping up as a nightmare, and nightmares, he told himself grimly, should be for sleeping, and not for marching into in the company of twenty unhuman beings.

  “Where’s the direction finder?” he asked.

  His second-in-command, Hras Klaa—or Klaaa, or Klaaaa, for the name ended in a gargle of indeterminate duration—stepped forward, saluted, and handed the instrument to him. The salute so startled Karvel that he nearly dropped it.

  “Where’d you get that idea?” he demanded.

  Hras Klaa stood politely at attention, and did not answer.

  Karvel studied the direction finder. Its complicated symbols were vaguely reminiscent of those on the U.O. instruments, but the device was absurdly simple to use. A line of red light widened in the direction of the base, in this case the spaceship. The accuracy diminished with the distance, Hras Drawa had told Karvel, but he did not think that they would travel far enough to be bothered by that Karvel found some consolation in the assurance that he would have no difficulty finding his way back. He had uncertainties enough without having to worry about getting lost.

  He selected a course, picked out prominent terrain features for the map he intended to sketch in his notebook as they traveled, and said, “Let’s go.”

  At midday they were pushing their way through a forest of giant ferns. The lowlying ground had once been under water, but now the mud of the forest floor had hardened beyond recollection of moisture. A dry stream bed wound through it, and the ferns, too, were drying up.

  The Hras wielded their T poles in a frenzied slashing at the enormous, drooping fronds. Karvel shouted a protest as a pole narrowly missed his head a
nd another thumped him in the back.

  “This ruckus will attract all the Carnivora for miles around,” he told them.

  They continued their terrified flailing until finally they broke out into the open. Karvel stood counting them as they emerged from the forest, and two of the Hras slumped into their sitting-dog positions at his feet.

  “What’s the matter?” Karvel asked.

  Hras Klaa gave him the inevitable salute. “It is the heat.”

  “Heat?” Karvel echoed blankly. The day was warm, but not insufferably so. His own clothing was soaked with perspiration, but that was from the weight of his knapsack and the exertion of dodging T poles. The Hras did not perspire, and if they were being felled by the heat on a day such as this one it could mean only one thing.

  “You must be accustomed to a cooler climate,” Karvel said.

  “Much cooler,” Hras Klaa agreed.

  “So that’s why you don’t wear clothing. The Earth should have a cooler climate somewhere, but we aren’t likely to find it by walking. All of the plant life I’ve seen looks subtropical.”

  The Hras gathered about their stricken comrades, and Karvel, with an anxious look at the ferns, asked, “Can’t we get them away from here?”

  Impulsively he dumped water on them from his canteen. Some of it got into their breathing bands, and they scrambled to their feet, sputtering indignantly. The other Hras wheezed in amazement.

  “What’s the matter?” Karvel asked. “Didn’t you ever try that before?”

  They had not.

  “Water is nice stuff to have around. I told you to carry some.”

  For a time he walked beside the heat victims, but they were apparently unaffected by their experience. Even so, the incident seemed ominous to Karvel. He envisioned himself facing a crisis with half of his company prostrate.

  The Hras became increasingly listless as the afternoon wore on. Their pace, which had pushed Karvel uncomfortably when they started out, taxed him more severely when it lagged to a crawl. He knew that they were capable of sudden bursts of startling speed and activity, but evidently sustained effort over a period of time wilted them.