The Fury Out of Time

by Biggle Jr. , Lloyd

  Karvel was already beginning to suspect that his brilliant idea would fade to absurdity in the light of day, but he said stubbornly, “You said there wasn’t enough fuel to get away from the Earth. Is there enough to go to the moon?”

  “No.” The answer was immediate, emphatic, and unarguable.

  “It’s a good thing I wasn’t able to wake you up. Still— what about the fuel in the U.O.? If the rate of consumption decreases with the distance, there should be more than half a tank left. Would you have enough fuel if you used that?”

  “I do not know. It would have to be calculated with care. Why do you wish to go to the moon?”

  “I know where the mines are located. Where they will be located, I mean.”

  “What kind of mines?”

  “That I don’t know. By the time I got there they were exhausted. But the moon had been a very important source of minerals.”

  “Uranium?” Hras Drawa asked, after a long pause.

  “ ‘Wrought of Mother Earth, fired with the strength of Luna.’ I don’t know if that referred to men, or spaceships, or whatever, but it was quoted to me as a legend. I didn’t think to investigate at the time, but last night the thought struck me that ‘fired’ could refer to fuel, which would mean that man reached the stars with uranium found on the moon. There must have been an enormous deposit there if the source was important enough to be remembered long after the uranium was exhausted.”

  “It is a possible interpretation,” Hras Drawa wheezed ruminatively. “And you know where these uranium deposits are located?”

  “Just a moment—I don’t even know that they are uranium deposits. I can pinpoint several important mines, and give you a general idea as to the locations of quite a few more, and because of the legend I think it certain that one or more of them are uranium mines—will be uranium mines. I’m not claiming that all of them are, and I don’t know that any of them are.”

  The other Hras seemed to have lost interest. They left the cabin, and after a meditative silence Hras Drawa followed them, and sat down by the door.

  “Even if there is enough fuel to take us to the moon, there will not be enough to take us away again. There will not be enough to change our location once we land. Either we find uranium—or we remain there.”

  “It would be a gamble,” Karvel admitted. “I’m well aware of that.”

  “I have paid very little attention to your moon, but I feel that an expedition there would encounter difficulties much more severe than those you have just experienced. There are no dinosaurs, but neither is there an atmosphere. There would be no food, no water, no air to breathe. How far apart are these mines?”

  “A considerable distance, I’m afraid. If we landed at the wrong one, we’d be stuck there. I agree. The terrain would be hopelessly rugged, the temperature extremes impossible, and we’d have to carry all of our air and food and water with us. We couldn’t go trekking about from mine to mine hoping to find the right one.”

  “And yet—you favor this idea?”

  “I sat here all night considering the odds. Against finding uranium here on Earth, several thousand to one at best. Against finding it on the moon, twenty or thirty to one at worst. I don’t favor the idea—I have no right to gamble with your lives. I only think that you should consider it. The decision must be yours.”

  “Thank you. We will consider it.”

  “While you’re considering it, consider this: The Earth is a living planet. It is constantly changing. I haven’t the vaguest idea where I am, or how to go about finding minerals or anything else. The moon is dead. What we would find there now is almost exactly what I saw in the remote future—damn that paradox!—with the exception of the few trivial changes made by man. You can land your ship on top of a major mining site, and after that it’s only a matter of odds. One chance in twenty or thirty. Think about it.”

  “You would accompany us to your moon?”

  “Of course. How else could I show you where to land?”

  “To us this gamble looks attractive. Your odds indicate that we would fail here on Earth. If we fail on your moon we should only die sooner, and we die on a strange world in either case. For yourself it is different. Why should you share this gamble with us?”

  “No special reason. Just say I have a weakness for gambling.”

  “That does not say enough.” Hras Drawa got to his feet and stood there for a moment, looking at Karvel or at the far horizon, depending on which of his vision spots were in focus. “We shall take the U.O. fuel and measure its weight carefully. If it is sufficient to take us to the moon, we shall talk again of this gamble.”

  Karvel walked with the Hras as far as the edge of the swamp, shrugging off their protests. He had reached the conclusion that an armed human was reasonably safe in this world of dinosaurs, as long as he bathed with care and avoided ambushes near water. He felt confident that he could maneuver a tyrannosaur dizzy, if necessary, and certain that if he remained in the open he wouldn’t need to let one get close enough to put him to the test.

  It seemed to him that the great dinosaurs were vastly overrated beasts. He recalled reading touching descriptions of the mammals’ diminutive ancestors—of which he had seen no traces at all—hiding in terror while waiting for the dinosaurs to become extinct. Karvel doubted that the mammals were waiting for anything. Because they evolved from reptilian ancestors they were merely late in arriving on the scene. It was only an accident of Earth’s evolution that the dinosaurs died out before man arrived, and thus spared him the task of finishing them off. Tyrannosaurus’s bloodthirsty lunges were effective against the placid herbivores, but Tyrannosaurus could be lord of all it surveyed only as long as it surveyed nothing with the intelligence to fight back.

  Before returning to the cabin Karvel stopped at the stream to fill his canteen. He had to scoop a hole to make the trickle of water deep enough to dip the canteen into, and he made a mental note to ask the Hras for some kind of container to store water in. If it did not rain soon he would have to bring his water from the swamp.

  The Hras did not come again that day, nor the next. Karvel shot a small dinosaur under the mistaken assumption that its steaks would be more tender, and cut thin slices for an experiment in drying meat. He sat on the log by the cabin, scratching the lizard’s back and feeding it tidbits while he waved insects away from a crudely fashioned meat rack and waited for a steak to cook. “Robinson Crusoe Karvel,” he told himself. “And what a shock I’d have if I found a strange human footprint!”

  It should have been a relaxing interlude, but it was not. “What does it matter to me,” he asked himself, “whether these distinctively unhuman beings find uranium or not?”

  Somehow it mattered. It mattered very much.

  The Hras sent a delegation. One of its members was a pale Hras Klaa, and Karvel inquired as to the health of the exploration party, reminisced about their adventures, and offered small talk concerning neighboring dinosaurs. The Hras maintained an aloof formality, and, when Karvel gave them an opportunity, informed him that Hras Drawa invited him to the ship.

  He had already formulated his own plans. He unpacked all of the emergency rations from the U.O. and passed them to the Hras to carry. If he returned from the moon he could bring them back; if he did not return he could at least enjoy a balanced diet while their air lasted.

  He also removed all of the controls from the U.O. A lucky archaeologist might chance to excavate it in some future time when it could be supplied with fuel, and in Karvel’s opinion human history already owned more time paradoxes than it could cope with.

  He left the cabin without a backward glance. Its view had quickly grown monotonous, and he was not overly fond of his reptilian neighbors—though there were already signs that the dinosaurs were leaving. One species still wallowed thickly in the swamp, the weirdly-shaped heads plumbing the muck for food, but the others had exhausted the meager food supply of the plain and were moving on.

  They crossed the swamp w
ithout difficulty and found Hras Drawa waiting on the ship’s ramp with a reception committee.

  “We have obtained a…a photograph of your moon,” Hras Drawa said, and offered it to Karvel.

  Karvel was too startled to accept it. It was a hollow hemisphere some three feet in diameter, and its surface was a perfect relief map, with every elevation precise and crisply formed, and every crater of pinpoint size or larger clearly shown. Karvel ran his hand over it and exclaimed, “I thought the moon couldn’t be photographed when it’s full!”

  “Why is that?” Hras Drawa asked.

  “No shadows.”

  “That is the best time to…to photograph. Shadows would obscure many of the surface features. Are you able to locate the mines that you mentioned?”

  “Of course. Easily.”

  So realistic was the reproduction that he could imagine himself descending over it in the Overseer’s Shuttle. He touched the jagged ring of Plato, ran a finger over the queer-looking crater-with-the-eye, and then pointed confidently at the widening bay where the slash of the Alpine Valley debouched onto the Mare Imbrium.

  “There. One of the mines was located there, perhaps the most important one, and it was—will be—the site of the most important base on this side of the moon.”

  “And…the others?”

  “Let’s see. One about here, a rather small one, in this mountain wilderness southeast of Tycho. One just out of sight around the western rim, straight west of Kepler. Here. And another between this alleged Sea of Tranquillity and this small sea whose name I can’t recall. And another…”

  They watched silently as his finger touched the hemisphere’s serrated surface. Here, and here, and approximately here. He stepped back while the Hras silently studied the map.

  “It is as we expected,” Hras Drawa announced. “They are much too far apart.”

  “I remember a few on the other side, which of course you can’t photograph from here. But don’t forget this—the ones I’ve mentioned are only the mines important enough to justify the establishment of elaborate permanent bases. There may have been many lesser mining sites that were worked and abandoned.”

  “In choosing a landing place, we can consider only those mines known to you. Which do you recommend?”

  Karvel did not answer immediately. Then he said slowly, “I feel certain that there’s uranium on the moon, but I have no reason at all to say that you’d be more likely to find it in one place than another.”

  “You called this the most important mine,” Hras Drawa persisted. “Do you think we should land there?”

  “Your guess is probably as good as mine, and might even be better. But—yes. I think so. It was the largest base, and I’m sure I heard it referred to as the most important mine. And at the stage of human technology at which the base was built, uranium was by far the most important mineral.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What about the fuel situation?”

  “If we achieve a high initial acceleration and precise-enough navigation to drive—coast—most of the way, we might have enough fuel left for the landing.”

  “A near thing, in other words. Risky.”

  “Risky, yes.”

  “A gamble trying to get there, and then another gamble on the landing place. That alters the odds.”

  “Then you think we should not attempt this?”

  “I wouldn’t presume to make the decision for you. If I were in your place, and there was only myself to consider, I think I’d go. If I were the head of an expedition, I’d take a vote—and perhaps leave behind anyone who preferred life here to a gamble with death on the moon.”

  “None of us has that preference,” Hras Drawa said. “We have decided to go.”

  “When?”

  “Today. Before darkness. The exact time is already calculated, and we have been storing air and water. The air requires much time because we cannot spare the fuel to operate our machines, but we will be ready at the chosen hour. We wish now only to give you our thanks and our farewell.”

  “Nonsense,” Karvel said. “If you’re going, then I’m going with you.”

  The onlookers stirred uneasily. Hras Drawa wheezed several times, and explosively demanded, “Why? You have shown us where to land. What further help could you give to us?”

  Karvel did not answer.

  “We cannot permit it,” Hras Drawa said. “We have wrenched you out of your own time, and you have already risked your life for us. There is no good reason for you to share in this gamble.”

  “The best of reasons. It’s my idea, so I’m going to see you through it—or as far through it as we’re able to go. Do you think I’d be in your way?”

  “No—”

  “Then there’s no good reason why I shouldn’t come along.”

  “You have firmly decided. Very well. You will be welcome, but we do not understand why you wish to come.”

  Karvel smiled wistfully. “Call it another mountain that I’m compelled to climb.”

  It was possibly Karvel’s last meal on Earth, and he wanted to consummate it with more ceremony than would be entailed in the opening of a military field ration. He asked the Hras to support him in the dangerous venture of catching a fish, and he baked it well and ate it slowly, savoring the sights and sounds and smells about him. Even the foul decay of the swamp had a vitality that he would recall nostalgically when entrapped in the alien atmosphere of the spaceship.

  It was late afternoon when they came for him. Hesitantly they asked if he were ready to go, as though they fully expected him to change his mind. Karvel entered the ship without a backward glance and took his place on the hammock in the same cylindrical room he had occupied before. He would have given much to be able to watch this take-off from the control room, but he did not ask. They might have felt obliged to consent, and a control room on a touchy, fuel-conserving take-off was no place for spectators.

  There was a rumble and a lurch. Karvel’s hammock shifted smoothly as the ship rose to the vertical, and then gravity tore at him. For a few crushing seconds he fought the illusion that he was again in the throes of the U.O.’s pressure, and then the rumble ceased, the acceleration eased, and he was able to breathe freely. He lay panting on the hammock, and waited for his stomach to catch up with him.

  Suddenly he realized that he was weightless. He caught himself drifting away from the hammock, and learned for the first time the purpose of the three indentations on either side. They were for hanging onto. Karvel hooked a finger into one of them and turned to watch the open diaphragm of the door.

  The minutes passed tediously, and no Hras appeared. Puzzled, Karvel launched himself with a floating leap and looked out into the dim red light of the deserted corridor. He drifted through the door and propelled himself forward with a firm push. He reached the distant end, explored another corridor in increasing perplexity, and finally turned back.

  Near his own quarters he noticed a dilating door that had not been completely closed. He glanced through it and was able to make out the figure of a Hras seated doglike on a hammock, clinging firmly with four of its six limbs but otherwise comatose.

  A queasy sensation of panic smote him—the same sensation he’d had the first night out with the expedition, but of paralyzing intensity. The Hras had taken off just in time to get the ship safely on course before The Sleep, and Karvel was undoubtedly the only conscious individual aboard. If anything happened…

  He banished his misgivings and returned to his quarters. The Hras were veteran space travelers. In spite of The Sleep they had reached Earth from a far galaxy, and they should be capable of planning a trip to the moon. Nothing could happen while the ship was coasting through space, and the Hras would be awake in time for the moon landing.

  If they weren’t there was nothing that Karvel could do about it. He wouldn’t know how to cope with an emergency, and he knew that he couldn’t arouse the Hras. He floated back to his hammock and tried to sleep.

  He was still trying
when the first Hras appeared. Karvel had passed the red-hued alien night in tense vigilance, and he greeted the red-hued alien dawn with the acute discomfort of exhaustion blended with the nausea of weightlessness.

  “Landing soon,” the Hras said, and disappeared.

  Karvel tensed himself on his hammock, and a short time later the engines caught with a jar that slammed him into it The Hras had waited for the last possible moment, when they had to brake their descent or crash, and the sudden, crushing change from no gravity to full deceleration was far worse than the pressure he had suffered on the take-off.

  Just as abruptly the pressure stopped. The engines were silent, and up and down had meaning again. Karvel dropped to the floor and looked into the corridor.

  Hras Klaa came bustling past, almost inarticulate with excitement. “We’re sending out the first party. Would you like to watch?”

  “Watch?” Karvel exclaimed. “I’d like to go along!”

  “There is no clothing to fit you.”

  “Clothing? You mean a space suit. Yes, I suppose I’d better have one of those if I go outside.”

  “Ours would not fit you.”

  “True. I couldn’t begin to get into one of them. Where do I go to watch?”

  In a bulge at the top of the ship they found a group of Hras surrounded by a circular vision screen. Karvel looked dazedly this way and that, from the jagged, sun-flooded mountain peaks to bleak Mare Imbrium’s shallow horizon, and back again. The Hras silently contemplated all of it with their circular vision.

  The ship lay where Karvel had placed his finger on the map, its nose pointing into the valley. “Perfect!” Karvel exclaimed. “How did we do on fuel?”

  “There is a little left,” Hras Drawa said. “Not enough to leave this place, but enough to operate some of our machines when—if—we find the uranium.”

  A group of spacesuited Hras came into view, their gleaming suits grotesquely magnifying their grotesqueness. The air tank was a bulging sausage that encircled them in the region of their breathing rings; the vision ring was a lesser bulge. The six slender limbs terminated in large disks, making them look like many-armed tennis players.