by Anthology
And, without transition, he lay on a gentle slope, still curled in a seated position, and the air that was cold was warm the night that was dark was suddenly a new day.
He sat up, still dressed in gray conservative suit, snap-brim hat, buttoned topcoat. His trembling hands rested against the grass. Or was it grass? It was not a proper green, having a bluish cast mixed with it.
Seventy feet away a fairytale forest cast a heavy shadow—mammoth trunks, roots like broken fingers, crowns as high as redwoods, reaching up toward a sky that was too blue. It was a purple blue. The disk of the sun was wide and in its yellow-glare was a tinge of blood.
Breathing hard, he scrambled to his feet, turning, looking around him, seeing nothing but the expanse of grass, a ragged outcropping of rock that glinted silver, the side of a hill that restricted his horizon.
There was no sign of car, bridge or tracks. And, after the first few seconds, he did not look for any. This was alien, this world. The air was thin, as on a high mountain and to have seen in this place his car or any fragment of the world he knew would have been as grotesque an anachronism as his own presence.
He listened and heard the distant sound of birds. The air was sweet with the scent of sun-warmed grasses.
Howard Loomis dropped to his knees.
His hat rolled away, unheeded. He ran thin fingers through his thinning hair and thought about delirium, Valhalla and death.
He took off his topcoat and threw it aside. He fingered the fabric of his familiar suit, hoping to gain from the touch of the smooth weave a surer grasp on reality. He looked at his sleeve, saw the place where the weaver had fixed the cigarette burn in Baltimore.
He spun to his feet as she coughed.
She was a tall girl in a wine evening dress. Her blue eyes were wide with fear and she stood, her hands at her throat. She looked at something in the air in front of her which did not exist.
“Rick!” she gasped.
Howard Loomis began to laugh. He couldn’t control it. He fell onto his hands and knees and laughed until the tears dripped ridiculously from the end of his sharp nose.
“Too—too much,” he gasped. “Now bring on the—the golden harps.”
“Who are you calling a harp?” the girl snapped.
The sound of her angry voice snapped him out of it. He stared at her in silence. “Where is this place? Who are you?”
“Those are my lines, mister.”
“I car’t tell you where we are, but I’m Howard Loomis. I sell Briskies. I skidded off a railroad bridge but I don’t remember hitting the bottom. I ended up right here.”
“You don’t belong here?” she asked. “Do I look it? In this decorator’s nightmare am I part of the decor?”
“No,” she said. “You’re the Junior Chamber of Commerce type. You and blue trees don’t mix. I’m Mary Callahan. I was starting my strip when a hoppie named Rick walked up and shot me right between the eyes. At least that was where he was aiming. I saw him pull the trigger but I didn’t feel it hit.”
She reached an unsteady hand up and touched her smooth forehead between her eyebrows with her fingertips.
He took out his cigarettes. She came over and sat down beside him. They smoked in silence.
“Oh, great!” Mary Callahan said. “Meaning that it’s tougher on you than on the common people? Let’s take a hike around this glamour pasture and see where we are?”
“In these?” she asked, holding out a slim foot encased in a silver sandal with a four inch heel. “You walk. I’ll wait.” He shrugged. When he was forty feet from her, walking toward the hill, she said, “Hey! Howie! Don’t look now but there’s something floating over you.” He looked up quickly and his mouth sagged open. It was a little metal box about the size of a cigar box. A fat lense protruded from the bottom of it. It had no visible means of support. Howard stepped quickly to one side. So did the box.
In sudden anger he picked up a rock and threw it at the box.
The rock sailed up, passed through the space where the box had been and continued on.
He turned and looked with exasperation at Mary Callahan. He cocked his head on one side, said, “Hmmm. You have one too.”
Fear of the unknown drove them together. Mary Callahan, in her high heels, topped him by two inches, yet she clung to his arm as she stared upward. The two boxes were twenty feet over their heads, drifting quietly side by side.
“They—they’re watching us!” said Mary Callahan.
And he knew that she was right. The lenses were cool observant eyes.
“This I’m not going to like,” she said grimly. “In spite of my profession I’m a girl who rather likes her privacy. I don’t want to be watched, even by floating cameras.”
She waited while he went down the slope, struggled up the steep hill. Tough brush aided him as did the outcroppings or rock. At last he gained the summit. He looked out over wild county. There were more forests, a wide river in the distance and several semiflat expanses which he judged to be covered by grass at least ten feet high. He saw no sign of human habitation.
He turned and looked back. The wine dress was brilliant against the blue-green grass. He saw her wave up at him. He started down the hill. She met him at the foot of the hill.
“Howie, did you bring any of those Briskies? They sound as if you eat them. Or are they whiskbrooms? About this time of night—or is it day—I yonk on a steak sandwich.”
They both turned as a heavy weight crashed into the top of a small tree. The branches writhed and cracked and a powerful young man dressed in working clothes plummeted down, hitting on the slope, rolling almost to their feet.
He sat up, looked straight up in the air, said, “Heavenly Mary Jane! Where’s the building?”
“You lose a building?” Mary Callahan asked sweetly. “I lost a night club and Howie, my pal here, he lost a car and a railroad bridge.”
Joe Gresham stared at her, got slowly to his feet, testing arms and legs. He looked around at the landscape, glared at Howard Loomis, looked up again, recoiled as he saw the silver box with lense floating over his head.
“Whassat?” he gasped.
“Oh, we all wear them here. De riguer, you know,” Mary answered. “I assume that you fell off a building. You want the pitch?”
“Pitch? You mean you can tell me what happened?” Joe asked.
“Oh, it’s very simple,” Mary said. “The fall killed you.”
Joe Gresham sat down. He tilted his head on one side and peered at Howard. “Where’d you get this crazy dame?”
“Her name is Mary Callahan and I’m Howard Loomis and we both got here almost the same way you did. If she’s crazy, so am I. I haven’t said it out loud before but we’re all dead. Mary was shot through the head. I went off a bridge. What floor did you fall from?”
“About the forty-first. And my name is Joe Gresham.”
“Joe, how many people do you know that fell from the forty-first floor and didn’t break even a finger.”
Joe took out a bandanna and wiped his sunburned brow. He said softly, “Al Brunert fell off the top of the tool house and busted his arm and a pint of drinking liquor. You win, pal.”
“And what do I win? Joe, is this any part of earth you ever heard about?” Joe took another look around. He stood up and said, “They got the wrong colors here. And that sun is too big and I never seen rocks that look like they’re all metal. I don’t want to sound like a dope, folks, but is this heaven?”
Mary said, “A—I haven’t been a very good girl. B—I don’t think you get hungry in heaven. C—This isn’t exactly a heavenly dress I’ve got on.”
“Then it’s hell,” Joe said firmly. “Don’t be so dogmatic,” Mary said briskly. “Maybe they’ve got three deals.” As she spoke Joe took hold of her arm so hard that she gasped. He spun her around and pointed with a big calloused hand. And he whistled softly. “Heaven it might be,” he said.
The girl was on the grass twenty feet away, gasping and choking. She was a s
lightly sallow blonde with a honey tan—all over. Her hair was soaked.
“She represents the ultimate in my profession,” Mary said.
The girl sat up, hugged herself and glared at them out of streaming eyes. “Well—do something!” she rasped between coughs.
Howard ran and got his discarded topcoat. Keeping his eyes carefully averted, he held it for the blonde. Mary watched her as she slipped into the coat, buttoned it around her. Mary said, appreciatively, “Sister, you ever want to change your line of work, I can give you the address of my agent.”
The blonde stamped her foot on the grass. As it was a bare foot and as she managed to stamp it on a pebble, the gesture was ineffectual. She yelped with pain and hopped on one foot, holding the other.
The three stood and watched her. Stacey Murdock said, “Get in touch with my father immediately. He’s T. Winton Murdock. I’m Stacey Murdock. The Stacey Murdock. He’ll be worried about me.”
They still stared.
She raised her foot to stamp it again, thought better of it. “Didn’t you cretins hear me? I insist that you get in touch with my father. He’ll be worried. He’ll pay you thugs whatever you ask.”
Mary nodded, said in an aside to Howard, “You ask me, I think she drowned. Swimming raw too.”
“This is no time for silly jokes,” Stacey said. “I passed out and you pulled me out of the water and brought me here. Daddy has the note you wrote him.” Howard said tiredly, “I gather that you think we’ve kidnapped you. Look around, Miss Murdock. Take a good look.”
Stacey took a long look and swallowed hard. “This is—a funny place,” she said weakly.
“Ha, ha!” said Mary Callahan. “Funny.”
“I detest oversized women,” Stacey said briskly. She smiled at Joe. “Now you look like a good earthy type. Tell me where I can find a phone.”
Joe pointed at his tree. “Lady, I just fell outa the topa that tree. I don’t know my way around.”
Stacey gave him a dazzling smile. “Now I get it,” she said. “They rescued me and I’m still delirious from the shock. You are all figments of my shocked imagination.”
Mary grinned tightly. “Figments, eh. Then we can’t hurt you a bit?”
“Of course not,” Stacey said.
Mary straightarmed Stacey in the forehead with the heel of her hand. Stacey sat down. “Just a love pat from an oversized woman, dearie.”
Howard and Joe had to combine forces to pry them apart.
When they had calmed Stacey down they pointed out the floating boxes; She made a tiny bubbling sound. Howard caught her as she fell. He carried her over to the shade of a tree. She was wonderfully light in his arms.
Mary said bleakly, “I’m still starving.”
“Could eat something myself,” Joe admitted.
Howard shaded his eyes and looked at the sun. “If that sun moves as fast as the one we’re used to, kids, we’ve got two hours to find food, water and a place to sleep.”
Mary took off her shoes and hurled them off into the brush. “Better sore feet than a busted ankle. Wake up your dreamboat and we’ll trudge.”
Ten years after the death of Glish it was O’Dey, expanding the group of basic materials subject to the Baedlik Enigma, who first managed to test the formulae propounded by Glish. His experiments attracted the attention of the original Planet Foundation, which assigned the Third Integrated Research Team to the task.
Forty-one years after the Third Integrated Research Team took over the task, a method was perfected whereby recording apparatus could be sent to any specific segment of the past after the exact position of the planet in question had been computed.
During the period when the histories of the planets were being rewritten the first basic rules of time travel were being determined, largely by trial and error.
The first truth to come to light was that no specific alteration can be made in the past. By alteration is meant any specific action ivhich, by itself, will cause reactions and interactions that, like a pebble dropped in a pool, might cause alterations in the f uture.
The second truth to be exposed was that, as the future pre-exists in the variabilities of the present, no travel into the future for prognostic purposes cam, be made.
Ibid
Chapter III
Harvest of Bones
Mary Callahan sat Oil the river bank at dawn and smiled beatifically as she held her bruised feet in the cold water.
She half turned, then relaxed as Howard Loomis came up and sat beside her. In four days Howard had changed a great deal. He had grown more nervous and his hands shook uncontrollably.
“We need food,” he snapped, “and rather than sitting here, crooning to your feet, you could be fishing. Stacey found more grubs last night.”
“You bore me, Howie,” she said, yawning. She looked ruefully at the insect bites on her bare arms. She had torn off the wine dress at knee level. She wondered if she could make crude sleeves from the extra portion of fabric.
“You don’t seem to care what happens to us,” Howie snapped.
“Kid, you’re losing your sense of humor. I haven’t had a rest like this in four years. I’m enjoying it. Besides, who was it found out those berries were good to eat?”
“They might have killed you.”
She looked at him. “Again?” she asked softly.
Howard shuddered, glanced up at the two silver boxes. At least they went away at nightfall. “I don’t feel dead,” he said.
“Where’s Joe?”
“Puttering around with that fire of his. Trying to burn rocks.”
“And the princess?”
“She’s still sleeping. And since you brought it up, Mary, I think you could be nicer to her.” He waved his hand aimlessly at the surroundings. “She’s delicate. All of this is a shock to her. She can’t stand the environment the way we can.”
Mary smiled without warmth. “The way we men can? Don’t be a sucker, Howie. She’s as tough as nails. She’s just lazy. No work, no eat, I always say.”
Howard snorted in disbelief and wandered away.
By concerted effort, they had three fish by lunch time. They were cleaned with Joe’s pocket knife, spitted on green twigs and cooked over the flames.
And it was at lunch that Joe showed them the arrowheads he had made.
“For vampires,” he said.
When they looked puzzled he said, “Those shiny rocks are silver, I think. Anyway I melted these into a stone mold. I’m cutting a slice off my belt for a bowstring. Find me a dead bird’s feathers and boom—I got something to use so maybe I can kill one of those little antelopes—the ones that hide out in that big grass.”
“You’re okay, Joe,” Mary said.
Stacey sniffed and Howard reached over and patted her shoulder. It was then that he propounded his theory of heading for a low line of hills in the distance. He said he thought he saw sun glint on rock and, if so, there might be some nice dry caves there, out of the rain that came each night to make them miserable. They had found, according to Howard’s watch, that it was only seven hours from dawn to dusk, that the night was not quite six hours long. Thus it might take two or maybe three days to get to the hills.
Stacey cast the only negative vote.
It took five days to reach the hills. And two more days to find the caves.
Four footsore and weary people stood at the base of the cliff and looked up. Joe Gresham had the haunch of a deer, wrapped in bluish leaves, slung over his shoulder.
He carried a sturdy bow and three notched arrows in his hand.
Stacey, using thorns and a patience that had elicited Mary’s first speck of admiration for her, had made a rather neat costume, shorts and a halter, of the hide of the tiny antelope-like beast. Howie had made a crude knapsack from the topcoat and, when Stacey discovered that her new costume was beginning to smell rather high, it was too late.
Mary noticed with amusement that Howard did not stay as close to Stacey a3 usual.
&nb
sp; Joe had begun to develop an almost animal awareness of his surroundings. And thus it was Joe who saw the length of whitened bone protruding from the thorn brush at the base of the cliff.
Stacey refused to look. Mary, Howard and Joe stared down at the skeleton. It had worn a hide garment. An axe with a stone blade lay under the skeletal arm.
Joe bent over, picked it up, hefted it. “This we can use,” he said.
“But don’t you see?” Mary exclaimed. “There are people in this screwy world. Honest-to-God people!”
“You missed something,” Howard said in a flat voice.
She gave him a quick glance. He was pale. She looked back at the body, saw the glint of metal. It was a fifty-cent piece, tarnished. A hole had been bored through it and it was on a greasy thong around what had been a neck.
She shut her teeth hard, bent over and looked closely at it. Then she straightened up, screamed and fell back against Joe. He steadied her.
Howard looked closely and said, “Joe, it’s a U.S. coin all right. But it has a head on it I don’t recognize. And the date is nineteen hundred seventy-one.”
Joe gave him a puzzled smile. “But nineteen-hundred seventy-one don’t come along, pal, for another—lemme see—twenty-one years.”
“What killed him, Joe?” Mary said.
Joe took a long look. Then he turned and looked up at the cliff. He shook his head. “Thought first he fell. But he’s too far out. No, something give him a bash over the ear, caved his head In.”
They found three more before nightfall. And one wore a shirt of chain mail, badly rusted.
The fire was in the mouth of the big cave. Howard was the spokesman. They sat back inside the cave, on stones that they had found there, arranged in a half circle, as though they had been used before in just that manner.
“Howard said, “We’ve got to get our heads together. We’ve been here four days now and we’ve found—how many bodies, Joe?”
“Seventeen. Fourteen old ones and three fresh ones. Fairly fresh ones.”
Mary shivered.
Howard continued. “I’m no historian, folks, but I’ve been looking at the stuff those people had. Clothes, for example. Now they either came fresh out of a costume play or else they landed here right out of their own world. Understand, I’m just thinking out loud. We’ve seen only a little part of this country. At the rate we found bodies here they must be all over the place.
