Time Traders tw-1

by Andre Norton

  The technician started for the stairwell. “We’ve got to get to the transfer.”

  Travis caught his arm. “No getting out of the ship now. You can’t even see—ash too thick in the air.”

  “How close were they to taking this ship through?” Ross wanted to know.

  “All ready, as far as I know,” the technician began, and then added quickly, “d’you mean they’ll try to warp her through now—with us inside?”

  “It’s a chance, just a chance. If the grid survived the quake and the mammoths.” Ross’s voice thinned. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “We can see—a little.” The technician stepped to one of the side panels his hand going to a button there.

  Ross moved, leaping from his seat in a spring which rivaled a sabertooth’s for quickness. He struck the other, sending him sprawling on the floor. But not before the button was pressed home. A flat screen rose from the board, glowing. Then, over the head of the angry technician who was still on his knees, they beheld swirling ash-filled vapor, as if they were looking through a window into the valley.

  “You fool!” Ross stood over the technician, and the menace Travis had seen in him at their first meeting was very much alive. “Don’t touch anything in here!”

  “Wise guy, eh?” The technician, his face flushed and hard, was getting up, his fists ready. “I know what I’m doing—”

  “Look—out there!” Travis’ cry broke them apart before they tangled.

  The fogged picture still held. But there was something else to see there now. Yellow-green lines of light built up, bar by bar, square by square, bright and brutal as lightning. The pattern grew fast, superimposed on the gray of the drifting ash.

  “The grid!” The technician broke away from Ross. Grasping the back of one of the swinging seats, he leaned forward eagerly to watch the screen. “They’ve turned the power on. They’re going to try to pull us through!”

  The grid continued to glow—to scream with light. They could not watch it now because of its eye-searing brilliance. Then the ship rocked. Another earthquake—or something else? Before Travis could think clearly he was caught up in a fury of sensation for which no name was possible. It was as if his flesh and his mind were at war with each other. He gasped and writhed. The brief discomfort he had felt when he used the personnel transfer was nothing compared to this wrenching. He groped for some stability in a dissolving world.

  Now he was on the floor. Above him was the window on the outside. He lifted his head slowly because his body felt as if he had been beaten. But that window display—there was no gray now—no ashes falling as snow. All was blue, bright, metallic blue—a blue he knew and that he wanted above him in safety. He staggered up, one hand stretching toward that promise of blue. But that feeling of instability remained.

  “Wait!” The technician’s fingers caught his wrist in a hard, compelling grasp. He dragged Travis away from the screen, tried to push him down in one of the chairs. Ross was beyond, his scarred hand clenched on the edge of a control panel until the seams in the flesh stood out in ugly ridges. Losing that look of cold rage, his expression grew wary.

  “What’s going on?” Ross asked harshly.

  It was the technician who gave a sharp order. “Get in that seat! Strap down! If it’s what I think, fella—” He shoved Ross back into the nearest chair. The other obeyed tamely as if he had not been at blows with the man only moments earlier.

  “We’re through time, aren’t we?” Travis still watched that wonderful, peaceful patch of blue sky.

  “Sure—we’re through. Only how long we’re going to stay here . . .” The technician stumbled to the third chair, that in which they had discovered the dead pilot days earlier. He sat down with a suddenness close to collapse.

  “What do you mean?” Ross’s eyes narrowed. His dangerous look was coming back.

  “Dragging us through by the energy of the grid did something to the engines here. Don’t you feel that vibration, man? I’d say this ship was preparing for a take-off!”

  “What?” Travis was half out of his seat. The technician leaned forward and shoved him back into the full embrace of the swinging chair. “Don’t get any bright ideas about a quick scram out of here, boy. Just look!”

  Travis followed the other’s pointing finger. The stairwell through which they had climbed to the cabin was now closed.

  “Power’s on,” the other continued. “I’d say we’re going out pretty soon.”

  “We can’t!” Travis began and then shivered, knowing the futility of that protest even as he shaped it.

  “Anything you can do?” Ross asked, his control once more complete.

  The technician laughed, choked, and then waved his hand at the array on the control board. “Just what?” he asked grimly. “I know the use of exactly three little buttons here. We never dared experiment with the rest without dismantling all the installations and tracing them through. I can’t stop or start anything. So we’re off to the moon and points up, whether we like it or not.”

  “Anything they can do out there?” Travis turned back to that patch of blue. He knew nothing about the machines, even about the science of mechanics. He could only hope that somewhere, somehow, someone would end this horror they faced.

  The technician looked at him and then laughed again. “They can clear out in a hurry. If there’s a backwash when we blast off, a lot of good guys may get theirs.”

  That vibration, which Travis had sensed on his revival from the strain of the time transport, was growing stronger. It came not only from the walls and floor of the cabin, but seemingly from the very air he was gulping in quick, shallow breaths. The panic of utter helplessness sickened him, dried his mouth and gripped his middle with twisting pain.

  “How long—?” he heard Ross ask, and saw the technician shake his head.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “But why? How?” Travis asked hoarsely.

  “That pilot, the one they found sitting here . . .” The technician rapped the edge of the control board with his fingers. “Maybe he set automatic controls before he crashed. Then the time transfer—that energy triggered action somewhere . . . But I’m only guessing.”

  “Set automatic controls for where?” Ross’s tongue swept over his lips as if they were dry.

  “Home, maybe. This is it, boys—strap in!”

  Travis fumbled with the straps of the seat and pulled them across his body clumsily. He, too, felt that last quiver of extra vibration.

  Then a hand, an invisible force as large, as powerful as a mammoth’s foot, crushed down upon him. Under his body the seat straightened out into a swaying bed. He was fastened on it, unable to breathe, to think, to do more than feel, endure somehow the pain of flesh and bone under the pressure of that take-off. The blue square was one moment before his aching eyes—and then there was only blackness.

  7

  Travis came back to consciousness slowly, painfully aware of inner bruising. He tasted stale blood when he tried to swallow and found it hard to focus his eyes. That screen which had last been blue was now a dull black. As he moved the seat-bed under him swung violently, though the effort he had made was small. He raised his body, more cautiously pushing up with both hands.

  On another swinging cot lay Ross Murdock. The lower part of his face was caked with blood, his eyes closed, his skin greenish white under the heavy tan and stain. The technician seemed to be in no better state. But under them, around them, the cabin was now quiet, devoid of either sound or vibration. Recognizing that, Travis fumbled with the strap across his middle and tried to get up.

  This attempt brought disaster. His efforts drove him away from his support, right enough. But his feet did not touch the floor. Instead, he plunged out, weightless, to strike the edge of the main control board with force enough to raise a little yelp of pain. Panic-stricken, he held on to the board, pulling himself along until he could reach the technician. He tried to rouse the other, his methods growin
g rougher when they did not rouse signs of returning consciousness.

  Finally the man groaned, turned his head, and opened his eyes. As awareness grew in their depths, so did surprise and fear.

  “What—what happened?” The words were slurred. “You hurt?”

  Travis drew the back of his hand across mouth and chin, brought it away clotted with blood. He must look as bad as Ross.

  “Can’t walk.” He introduced the foremost problem of the moment. “Just—float . . .”

  “Float?” repeated the technician, then he struggled up, unfastened his belt. “Then we are through—out of earth’s gravity! We’re in space!”

  Jumbled fragments of articles he had read arose out of Travis’ memory. Free of gravity—no up, down—no weight— He was nauseated, his head spinning badly, but keeping hold of the board he worked his way past the technician to Ross. Murdock was already stirring, and as Travis laid his hand on his seat he moaned, his fingers sweeping aimlessly across his chest as if to soothe some hurt there. Travis gently caught the other’s bloody chin, shaking his head slowly from side to side as the gray eyes opened.

  “ . . . and that’s it, we’re out!” Case Renfry, the technician, shook his head at the flood of questions from the time scouts. “Listen, fellas, I was loaned to this project to help with the breakdown appraisal. I can’t fly any ship, let alone this one—so it must be on automatic controls.”

  “Set by the dead pilot. Then it should go back to his base,” Travis suggested gloomily.

  “You are forgetting one thing.” Ross sat up with care, keeping firm hold on his mooring with both hands. “That pilot’s base is twelve thousand years or so in the past. They warped us through time before we took off—”

  “And we can’t go home?” Travis demanded again of the technician.

  “I wouldn’t try meddling with any key on that board,” Renfry said, shaking his head. “If we’re flying on automatic controls, the best thing is to keep on to the destination and then see what we can do.”

  “Only there are a few other things to consider—such as food, water, air supplies,” Travis pointed out.

  “Yes—air,” Ross underlined with chilling soberness. “How long might we be on the way?”

  Renfry grinned weakly. “Your guess is as good as mine. The air supply is all right—I think. They had a recycling plant in the ship and Stefferds said it was in perfect working order. Something like algae in a sealed section keeps it fresh. You can look in at it but you can’t contaminate the place. And they breathed about the same mixture as we do. But as to food and water—we’d better look around. Three of us to feed . . .”

  “Four! There’s Ashe!” Ross, forgetting where he was, tried to jump free of his seat. He swam forward in a tangle of flailing legs and arms until Renfry drew him down.

  “Take it easy, mighty easy, fella. Hit the wrong button while you’re thrashing that way and we could be worse off than we are. Who’s Ashe?”

  “Our section chief. We stowed him in a cabin down below, he had had a bad knock on the head.”

  Travis aimed for the well leading to the center section of the globe. He overshot, bounced back, and was thankful when his fingers closed on the bar of its cover. They got it open and made their way clumsily in a direction Travis still thought of—in spite of the evidence of his eyes—as “down.”

  To descend into the heart of the ship required an agility that tormented their bruised and aching bodies. But when they at last reached the cabin they found Ashe still safely stowed in the bunk, far better tended against the force of the take-off than they had been. For only his peaceful face showed above a thick mass of a jelly substance which filled the interior of the bunk-hammock.

  “He’ll be all right. That’s the stuff they keep in their lifeboats to patch up the injured—saved my life once,” Ross identified. “A regular cure for anything.”

  “How do you know so much?” Renfry began, and then, he eyes wonderingly on Ross, he added, “why—you must be the guy who was with the Russians on that ship they were stripping!”

  “Yes. But I’d like to know a little more about this one. Food—water . . .”

  They went exploring in Renfry’s wake, discovering adaptation to weightlessness a hard job, but determined to learn what they could about the best, and the worst, of their predicament. The technician had been all through the ship and now he displayed to them the air-renewal unit, the engine room, and the crew’s quarters. They made a detailed examination of what could only be a mess cabin combined with kitchen. It was a cramped space in which no more than four men—or man-like beings—could fit at one time.

  Travis frowned at the rows of sealed containers racked in the cupboards. He extracted one, shook it near his ear, and was rewarded by a gurgle which made him run a dry tongue over his blood-stained lips. There must be liquid of a sort inside, and he could not remember now when he had had a really satisfying drink.

  “This is water—if you want a drink.” Renfry brought a Terran canteen out of a corner. “We had four of these on board, used ’em while we were working.”

  Travis reached for the metal bottle, but did not uncap it after all. “Still have all four?” Perhaps more than any of the rest on board he knew the value of water, the disaster of not having it.

  Renfry brought them out, shaking each. “Three sound full. This one’s about half—maybe a little less.”

  “We’ll have to go on rations.”

  “Sure,” the technician agreed. “Think there’re some concentrate food bars here, too. You fellas have any of those?”

  “Ashe still had his supply bag with him, didn’t he?” Travis asked Ross.

  “Yes. And we’d better see how many of the bars we can find.”

  Travis looked at the alien container which had gurgled. At the moment he would have given a great deal to be able to force the lid, to drink its contents and ease both thirst and hunger.

  “We may have to come to trying these.” Renfry took the container from the scout, fitted it back into the holder space.

  “I’d guess we’ll have to try a lot of things before this trip is over—if it ever is. Right now I’d like to try a bath, or at least a wash.” Ross surveyed his own scratched, half-naked, and very dirty body with disfavor.

  “That you can have. Come on.”

  Again Renfry played guide, bringing them to a small cubbyhole beyond the mess cabin. “You stand on that—maybe you can hold yourself in place with those.” He pointed to some rods set in the wall. “But get your feet down on that round plate and then press the circle in the wall.”

  “Then what happens? You roast or broil?” Travis inquired suspiciously.

  “No—this really works. We tried it on a guinea pig yesterday. Then Harvey Bush used it after he upset a can of oil all over him. It’s rather like a shower.”

  Ross jerked at the ties of his disreputable kilt and kicked off his sandals, his movements sending him skidding from wall to wall. “All right. I’m willing to try.” He got his feet on the plate, holding himself in position by the rods, and then pressed the circle. Mist curled from under the edge of the floor plate, enveloped his legs, rose steadily. Renfry pushed shut the door.

  “Hey!” protested Travis, “he’s being gassed!”

  “It’s okay!” Ross’s disembodied voice came from beyond. “In fact—it’s better than okay!”

  When he came out of the fogged cubby a few minutes later, the grime and much of the stain were gone from his body. Moreover, scratches that had been raw and red were now only faint pinkish lines. Ross was smiling.

  “All the comforts of home. I don’t know what that stuff is, but it peels you right down to your second layer of hide and makes you like it. The first good thing we’ve found in this mousetrap.”

  Travis shucked his kilt a little more slowly. He didn’t relish being shut into that box, but neither did he enjoy the present state of his person. Gingerly he stepped onto the floor disk, got his feet flattened on its surface, a
nd pressed the circle. He held his breath as the gassy substance puffed up to enfold him.

  The stuff was not altogether a gas, he discovered, for it was thicker than any vapor. It was as if he were immersed in a flood of frothy bubbles that rubbed and slicked across his skin with the effect of vigorous toweling. Grinning, he relaxed and, closing his eyes, ducked his head under the surface. He felt the smooth swish across his face, drawing the sting out of scratches and the ache out of his bruises and bumps.

  When the bubbles ebbed and Travis stepped out of the cubby, he was met by a changed Ross. The latter was just hitching up over his broad shoulders the upper part of a tight, blue-green suit. It clung to his body, modeling every muscle as he moved. Made all in one piece, its feet were soled with a thick sponge that cushioned each step. Ross picked another bundle of blue-green from the floor and tossed it to the Apache.

  “Compliments of the house,” he said. “I certainly never thought I’d want to wear one of these again.”

  “Their uniforms?” Travis remembered the dead pilot. “What is this—silk?” He rubbed his hand over the sleek surface of a fabric he could not identify and was attracted by the play of color—blue, green, lavender—rippling from one shade to another as the material moved.

  “Yes. It has its good points, all right—insulated against cold and heat, for one thing. For another, it can be traced.”

  Travis paused, his arm half through the right sleeve. “Traced?”

  “Well, I was trailed over about fifty miles of pretty rugged territory because I was wearing one like this. And they tried to get at me mentally, too, when I had it on. Went to sleep one night and woke up heading right back to the boys who wanted to collect me.”

  Travis stared, but it was plain Ross meant every word he said. Then the Apache glanced down again at the silky stuff he was wearing, with an impulse to strip it off. Yet Murdock in spite of his story, was fastening the studs which ran from one shoulder to the other hip of his own garment.