"Police Raid Hideout. A surprise raid by local police led to the discovery here today of a secret gangland fortress. Chief Chesters of the Mayport Police stated that the raid came as an aftermath of the arrival in the city yesterday of a notorious northern gang member. A number of firearms, including army-type machine guns, were seized in the raid on a house 9 miles from Mayport on the Fernandina road. The raid was said by Chief Chesters to be the culmination of a lengthy investigation. C. R. Foster, 50, owner of the property, is missing and feared dead. Police are seeking an ex-convict who visited the house last night. Chief Chesters stated that Foster may have been the victim of a gangland murder."
"Police Raid Hideout. A surprise raid by local police led to the discovery here today of a secret gangland fortress. Chief Chesters of the Mayport Police stated that the raid came as an aftermath of the arrival in the city yesterday of a notorious northern gang member. A number of firearms, including army-type machine guns, were seized in the raid on a house 9 miles from Mayport on the Fernandina road. The raid was said by Chief Chesters to be the culmination of a lengthy investigation. C. R. Foster, 50, owner of the property, is missing and feared dead. Police are seeking an ex-convict who visited the house last night. Chief Chesters stated that Foster may have been the victim of a gangland murder."
I banged through the door to the darkened room and stopped short. In the gloom I could see Foster sitting on the edge of my bed, looking my way.
"Look at this," I yelped, flapping the paper in his face. "Now the cops are dragging the state for me—and on a murder rap at that! Get on the phone and get this thing straightened out—if you can. You and your little green men! The cops think they've stumbled on Al Capone's arsenal. You'll have fun explaining that one...."
Foster looked at me interestedly. He smiled.
"What's funny about it, Foster?" I yelled. "Your dough may buy you out, but what about me?"
"Forgive me for asking," Foster said pleasantly. "But—who are you?"
There are times when I'm slow on the uptake, but this wasn't one of them; the implications of what Foster had said hit me hard enough to make my knees go weak.
"Oh, no, Mr. Foster," I said. "You can't lose your memory again—not right now, not with the police looking for me. You're my alibi; you're the one that has to explain all the business about the guns and the ad in the paper. I just came to see about a job, remember?"
My voice was getting a little shrill. Foster sat looking at me, wearing an expression between a frown and a smile, like a credit manager turning down an application.
He shook his head slightly. "My name is not Foster."
"Look," I said. "Your name was Foster yesterday—that's all I care about. You're the one that owns the house the cops are all upset about. And you're the corpse I'm supposed to have knocked off. You've got to go to the cops with me—right now—and tell them I'm just an innocent bystander."
I went to the window and raised the shades to let some light into the room, turned back to Foster.
"I'll explain to the cops about you thinking the little men were after you—" I stopped talking and stared at Foster. For a wild moment I thought I'd made a mistake—that I'd wandered into the wrong room. I knew Foster's face, all right; the light was bright enough now to see clearly; but the man I was talking to couldn't have been a day over twenty years old.
I went close to him, staring hard. There were the same cool blue eyes, but the lines around them were gone. The black hair grew lower and thicker than I remembered it, and the skin was clear and vibrant.
I sat down hard on my bed. "Mama mia," I said.
"¿Que es la dificultad?" Foster said.
"Shut up," I moaned. "I'm confused enough in one language." I was trying hard to think but I couldn't seem to get started. A few minutes earlier I'd had the world by the tail—just before it turned around and bit me. Cold sweat popped out on my forehead when I thought about how close I had come to driving off in Foster's car; every cop in the state would be looking for it by now—and if they found me in it, the jury wouldn't be ten minutes reaching a verdict of guilty.
Then another thought hit me—the kind that brings you bolt upright with your teeth clenched and your heart hammering. It wouldn't be long before the local hick cops would notice the car out front. They'd come in after me, and I'd tell them it belonged to Foster. They'd take a look at him and say, nuts, the bird we want is fifty years old, and where did you hide the body?
I got up and started pacing. Foster had already told me there was nothing to connect him with his house in Mayport; the locals there had seen enough of him to know he was pushing middle age, at least. I could kick and scream and tell them this twenty year-old kid was Foster, but I'd never make it stick. There was no way to prove my story; they'd figure Foster was dead and that I'd killed him—and anybody who thinks you need acorpusto prove murder better read his Perry Mason again.
I glanced out of the window and did a double-take. Two cops were standing by Foster's car. One of them went around to the back and got out a pad and took down the license number, then said something over his shoulder and started across the street. The second cop planted himself by the car, his eye on the front of the hotel.
I whirled on Foster. "Get your shoes on," I croaked. "Let's get the hell out of here."
We went down the stairs quietly and found a back door opening on an alley. Nobody saw us go.
An hour later, I sagged in a grimy coach seat and studied Foster, sitting across from me—a middle-aged nut with the face of a young kid and a mind like a blank slate. I had no choice but to drag him with me; my only chance was to stick close and hope he got back enough of his memory to get me off the hook.
It was time for me to be figuring my next move. I thought about the fifty thousand dollars I had left behind in the car, and groaned. Foster looked concerned.
"Are you in pain?" he said.
"And how I'm in pain," I said. "Before I met you I was a homeless bum, broke and hungry. Now I can add a couple more items: the cops are after me, and I've got a mental case to nursemaid."
"What law have you broken?" Foster said.
"None, damn it," I barked. "As a crook, I'm a washout. I've planned three larcenies in the last twelve hours, and flunked out on all of them. And now I'm wanted for murder."
"Whom did you kill?" Foster enquired courteously.
I leaned across so I could snarl in his face: "You!" Then, "Get this through your head, Foster. The only crime I'm guilty of is stupidity. I listened to your crazy story; because of you I'm in a mess I'll never get straightened out." I leaned back. "And then there's the question of old men that take a nap and wake up in their late teens; we'll go into that later, after I've had my nervous breakdown."
"I'm sorry if I've been the cause of difficulty," Foster said. "I wish that I could recall the things you've spoken of. Is there anything I can do to assist you now?"
"And you were the one who wanted help," I said. "There is one thing; let me have the money you've got on you; we'll need it."
Foster got out his wallet, after I told him where it was, and handed it to me. I looked through it; there was nothing in it with a photo or fingerprints. When Foster said he had arranged matters so that he could disappear without a trace, he hadn't been kidding.
"We'll go to Miami," I said. "I know a place in the Cuban section where we can lie low, cheap. Maybe if we wait a while, you'll start remembering things."
"Yes," Foster said. "That would be pleasant."
"You haven't forgotten how to talk, at least," I said. "I wonder what else you can do. Do you remember how you made all that money?"
"I can remember nothing of your economic system," Foster said. He looked around. "This is a very primitive world, in many respects. It should not be difficult to amass wealth here."
"I never had much luck at it," I said. "I haven't even been able to amass the price of a meal."
"Food is exchanged for money?" Foster asked.
"Everything is exchanged for money," I said. "Including most of the human virtues."
"This is a strange world," Foster said. "It will take me a long while to become accustomed to it."
"Yeah, me, too," I said. "Maybe things would be better on Mars."
Foster nodded. "Perhaps," he said. "Perhaps we should go there."
I groaned, then caught myself. "No, I'm not in pain," I said. "But don't take me so literally, Foster."
We rode along in silence for a while.
"Say, Foster," I said. "Have you still got that notebook of yours?"
Foster tried several pockets, came up with the book. He looked at it, turned it over, frowning.
"You remember it?" I said, watching him.
He shook his head slowly, then ran his finger around the circles embossed on the cover.
"This pattern," he said. "It signifies...."
"Go on, Foster," I said. "Signifies what?"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't remember."
I took the book and sat looking at it. It wouldn't do any good to turn myself in and tell them the whole story; they wouldn't believe me, and I wouldn't blame them. I didn't really believe it myself, and I'd lived through it. But then, maybe I was just imagining that Foster looked younger. After all, a good night's rest—
I looked at Foster, and almost groaned again. Twenty was stretching it; eighteen was more like it. I was willing to swear he'd never shaved in his life.
"Foster," I said. "It's got to be in this book. Who you are, where you came from—It's the only hope I've got."
"I suggest we read it, then," Foster said.
"A bright idea," I said, "Why didn't I think of that?" I thumbed through the book to the section in English and read for an hour. Starting with the entry dated January 19, 1710, the writer had scribbled a few lines every few months. He seemed to be some kind of pioneer in the Virginia Colony. He bitched about prices, and the Indians, and the ignorance of the other settlers, and every now and then threw in a remark about the Enemy. He often took long trips, and when he got home, he bitched about those, too.
"It's a funny thing, Foster," I said. "This is supposed to have been written over a period of a couple of hundred years, but it's all in the same hand. That's kind of odd, isn't it?"
"Why should a man's handwriting change?" Foster said.
"Well, it might get a little shaky there toward the last, don't you agree?"
"Why is that?"
"I'll spell it out, Foster," I said. "Most people don't live that long. A hundred years is stretching it, to say nothing of two."
"This must be a very violent world, then," Foster said.
"Skip it," I said. "You talk like you're just visiting. By the way; do you remember how to write?"
Foster looked thoughtful. "Yes," he said. "I can write."
I handed him the book and the stylus. "Try it," I said. Foster opened to a blank page, wrote, and handed the book back to me.
"Always and always and always," I read.
I looked at Foster. "What does that mean?" I looked at the words again, then quickly flipped to the pages written in English. I was no expert on penmanship, but this came up and cracked me right in the eye.
The book was written in Foster's hand.
"It doesn't make sense," I was saying for the fortieth time. Foster nodded sympathetic agreement.
"Why would you write this yourself, and then spend all that time and money trying to have it deciphered? You said experts worked on it and couldn't break it. But," I went on, "you must have known you wrote it; you knew your own handwriting. But on the other hand, you had amnesia before; you had the idea you might have told something about yourself in the book...."
I sighed, leaned back and tossed the book over to Foster. "Here, you read awhile," I said. "I'm arguing with myself and I can't tell who's winning."
Foster looked the book over carefully.
"This is odd," he said.
"What's odd?"
"The book is made of khaff. It is a permanent material—and yet it shows damage."
I sat perfectly still and waited.
"Here on the back cover," Foster said. "A scuffed area. Since this is khaff, it cannot be an actual scar. It must have been placed there."
I grabbed the book and looked. There was a faint mark across the back cover, as though the book had been scraped on something sharp. I remembered how much luck I had had with a knife. The mark had been put here, disguised as a casual nick in the finish. It had to mean something.
"How do you know what the material is?" I asked.
Foster looked surprised. "In the same way that I know the window is of glass," he said. "I simply know."
"Speaking of glass," I said, "wait till I get my hands on a microscope. Then maybe we'll begin to get some answers."
CHAPTER IV
The two-hundred pound señorita put a pot of black Cuban coffee and a pitcher of salted milk down beside the two chipped cups, leered at me in a way that might have been appealing thirty years before, and waddled back to the kitchen. I poured a cup, gulped half of it, and shuddered. In the street outside the cafe a guitar criedEstrellita.
"Okay, Foster," I said. "Here's what I've got: The first half of the book is in pot-hooks—I can't read that. But this middle section: the part coded in regular letters—it's actually encrypted English. It's a sort of resumé of what happened." I picked up the sheets of paper on which I had transcribed my deciphering of the coded section of the book, using the key that had been micro-engraved in the fake scratch on the back cover.
I read:
"For the first time, I am afraid. My attempt to construct the communicator called down the Hunters upon me. I made such a shield as I could contrive, and sought their nesting place."I came there and it was in that place that I knew of old, and it was no hive, but a pit in the ground, built by men of the Two Worlds. And I would have come into it, but the Hunters swarmed in their multitudes. I fought them and killed many, but at the last I fled away. I came to the western shore, and there I hired bold sailors and a poor craft, and set forth."In forty-nine days we came to shore in this wilderness, and here were men as from the dawn of time, and I fought them, and when they had learned fear, I lived among them in peace, and the Hunters have not found this place. Now it may be that my saga ends here, but I will do what I am able."The Change may soon come upon me; I must prepare for the stranger who will come after me. All that he must know is in these pages. And I say to him:"Have patience, for the time of this race draws close. Venture not again on the Eastern continent, but wait, for soon the Northern sailors must come in numbers into this wilderness. Seek out their cleverest metal-workers, and when it may be, devise a shield, and only then return to the pit of the Hunters. It lies in the plain, 50/10,000-parts of the girth of this (?) to the west of the Great Chalk Face, and 1470 parts north from the median line, as I reckon. The stones mark it well with the sign of the Two Worlds."
"For the first time, I am afraid. My attempt to construct the communicator called down the Hunters upon me. I made such a shield as I could contrive, and sought their nesting place.
"I came there and it was in that place that I knew of old, and it was no hive, but a pit in the ground, built by men of the Two Worlds. And I would have come into it, but the Hunters swarmed in their multitudes. I fought them and killed many, but at the last I fled away. I came to the western shore, and there I hired bold sailors and a poor craft, and set forth.
"In forty-nine days we came to shore in this wilderness, and here were men as from the dawn of time, and I fought them, and when they had learned fear, I lived among them in peace, and the Hunters have not found this place. Now it may be that my saga ends here, but I will do what I am able.
"The Change may soon come upon me; I must prepare for the stranger who will come after me. All that he must know is in these pages. And I say to him:
"Have patience, for the time of this race draws close. Venture not again on the Eastern continent, but wait, for soon the Northern sailors must come in numbers into this wilderness. Seek out their cleverest metal-workers, and when it may be, devise a shield, and only then return to the pit of the Hunters. It lies in the plain, 50/10,000-parts of the girth of this (?) to the west of the Great Chalk Face, and 1470 parts north from the median line, as I reckon. The stones mark it well with the sign of the Two Worlds."
I looked across at Foster. "It goes on then with a blow-by-blow account of dealings with aborigines. He was trying to get them civilized in a hurry. They figured he was a god and he set them to work building roads and cutting stone and learning mathematics and so on. He was doing all he could to set things up so this stranger who was to follow him would know the score, and carry on the good work."
Foster's eyes were on my face. "What is the nature of the Change he speaks of?"
"He never says—but I suppose he's talking about death," I said. "I don't know where the stranger is supposed to come from."
"Listen to me, Legion," Foster said. There was a hint of the old anxious look in his eyes. "I think I know what the Change was. I think he knew he would forget—"
"You've got amnesia on the brain, old buddy," I said.
"—and the stranger is—himself. A man without a memory."
I sat frowning at Foster. "Yeah, maybe," I said. "Go on."
"And he says that all that the stranger needs to know is there—in the book."
"Not in the part I decoded." I said. "He describes how they're coming along with the road-building job, and how the new mine panned out—but there's nothing about what the Hunters are, or what had gone on before he tangled with them the first time."
"It must be there, Legion; but in the first section, the part written in alien symbols."
"Maybe," I said. "But why the hell didn't he give us a key to that part?"
"I think he assumed that the stranger—himself—would remember the old writing," Foster said. "How could he know that it would be forgotten with the rest?"
"Your guess is as good as any," I said. "Maybe better; you know how it feels to lose your memory."
"But we've learned a few things," Foster said. "The pit of the Hunters—we have the location."
"If you call this 'ten-thousand parts to the west of the chalk face' a location," I said.
"We know more than that," Foster said. "He mentions a plain; and it must lie on a continent to the east—"
"If you assume that he sailed from Europe to America, then the continent to the east would be Europe," I said. "But maybe he went from Africa to South America, or—"
"The mention of Northern sailors—that suggests the Vikings—"
"You seem to know a little history, Foster," I said. "You've got a lot of odd facts tucked away."
"We need maps," Foster said. "We'll look for a plain near the sea—"
"Not necessarily."
"—and with a formation called a chalk face to the east."
"What's this 'median line' business mean?" I said. "And the bit about ten thousand parts of something?"
"I don't know," Foster said. "But we must have maps."
"I bought some this afternoon," I said. "I also got a dime-store globe. I thought we might need them. What the hell! let's get out of this and back to the room, where we can spread out. I know it's a grim prospect, but...." I got to my feet, dropped some coins on the table, and led the way out.
It was a short half block to the flea trap we called home. The roaches scurried as we passed up the dark stairway to our not much brighter room. I crossed to the bureau and opened a drawer.
"The globe," Foster said, taking it in his hands. "I wonder if perhaps he meant a ten-thousandth part of the circumference of the earth?"
"What would he know about—"
"Disregard the anachronistic aspect of it," Foster said. "The man who wrote the book knew many things. We'll have to start with some assumptions. Let's make the obvious ones: that we're looking for a plain on the west coast of Europe, lying—" He pulled a chair up to the scabrous table and riffled through to one of my scribbled sheets: "50/10,000s of the circumference of the earth—that would be about 125 miles—west of a chalk formation, and 3675 miles north of a median line...."
"Maybe," I said, "he means the Equator."
"Certainly," Foster said. "Why not? That would mean our plain lies on a line through—" he studied the small globe. "Warsaw, and south of Amsterdam."
"But this bit about a rock out-cropping," I said. "How do we find out if there's any conspicuous chalk formation there?"
"We can consult a geology text," Foster said. "There may be a library nearby."
"The only chalk deposits I ever heard about," I said, "are the white cliffs of Dover."
"White cliffs...."
We both reached for the globe at once.
"125 miles west of the chalk cliffs," Foster said. He ran a finger over the globe. "North of London, but south of Birmingham. That puts us reasonably near the sea—"
"Where's that atlas?" I said. I rummaged, came up with a cheap tourists' edition, flipped the pages.
"Here's England," I said. "Now we look for a plain."
Foster put a finger on the map. "Here," he said. "A large plain—called Salisbury."
"Large is right," I said. "It would take years to find a stone cairn on that. We're getting excited about nothing. We're looking for a hole in the ground, hundreds of years old—if this lousy notebook means anything—maybe marked with a few stones—in the middle of miles of plain. And it's all guesswork anyway...." I took the atlas, turned the page.
"I don't know what I expected to get out of decoding those pages," I said. "But I was hoping for more than this."
"I think we should try, Legion," Foster said. "We can go there, search over the ground. It would be costly, but not impossible. We can start by gathering capital—"
"Wait a minute, Foster," I said. I was staring at a larger-scale map showing southern England. Suddenly my heart was thudding. I put a finger on a tiny dot in the center of Salisbury Plain.
"Six, two and even," I said. "There's your Pit of the Hunters...."
Foster leaned over, read the fine print.
"Stonehenge."
I read from the encyclopedia page:
"—this great stone structure, lying on the Plain of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, is pre-eminent among megalithic monuments of the ancient world.
"Within a circular ditch 300' in diameter, stones up to 22' in height are arranged in concentric circles. The central altar stone, over 16' long, is approached from the north-east by a broad roadway called the Avenue—"
"It is not an altar," Foster said.
"How do you know?"
"Because—" Foster frowned. "I know, that's all."
"The journal said the stones were arranged in the sign of the Two Worlds," I said. "That means the concentric circles, I suppose; the same thing that's stamped on the cover of the notebook."
"And the ring," Foster said.
"Let me read the rest," I said.
"A great sarsen stone stands upright in the Avenue; the axis through the two stones, when erected, pointed directly to the rising of the sun on Midsummer day. Calculations based on this observation indicate a date of approximately 1600 B.C."
Foster took the book and I sat on the window sill and looked out at a big Florida moon. I lit a cigarette, dragged on it, and thought about a man who long ago had crossed the North Atlantic in a dragon boat to be a god among the Indians. I wondered where he came from, and what it was he was looking for, and what kept him going in spite of the hell that showed in the spare lines of the journal he kept. If, I reminded myself, he had ever existed....
Foster was poring over the book. "Look," I said. "Let's get back to earth. We have things to think about, plans to make. The fairy tales can wait until later."
"What do you suggest?" Foster said. "That we forget the things you've told me, and the things we've read here, discard the journal, and abandon the attempt to find the answers?"
"No," I said. "I'm no sorehead. Sure, there's some things here that somebody ought to look into—some day. But right now what I want is the cops off my neck. And I've been thinking. I'll dictate a letter; you write it—your lawyers know your handwriting. Tell them you were on the thin edge of a nervous breakdown—that's why all the artillery around your house—and you made up your mind suddenly to get away from it all. Tell them you don't want to be bothered, that's why you're travelling incognito, and that the northern mobster that came to see you was just stupid, not a killer. That ought to at least cool off the cops—"
Foster looked thoughtful. "That's an excellent suggestion," he said. "Then we need merely to arrange for passage to England, and proceed with the investigation."
"You don't get the idea," I said. "You can arrange things by mail so we get our hands on that dough of yours—"
"Any such attempt would merely bring the police down on us," Foster said. "You've already pointed out the unwisdom of attempting to pass myself off as—myself."
"There ought to be a way...." I said.
"We have only one avenue of inquiry," Foster said. "We have no choice but to explore it. We'll take passage on a ship to England—"
"What'll we use for money—and papers? It would cost hundreds. Unless—" I added, "—we worked our way. But that's no good. We'd still need passports—plus union cards and seamen's tickets."
"Your friend," Foster said. "The one who prepares passports. Can't he produce the other papers as well?"
"Yeah," I said. "I guess so. But it will cost us."
"I'm sure we can find a way to pay," Foster said. "Will you see him—early in the morning?"
I looked around the blowsy room. Hot night air stirred a geranium wilting in a tin can on the window sill. An odor of bad cooking and worse plumbing floated up from the street.
"At least," I said, "it would mean getting out of here."
CHAPTER V
It was almost sundown when Foster and I pushed through the door to the saloon bar at the Ancient Sinner and found a corner table. I ordered a pint of mild-and-bitter and watched Foster spread out his maps and papers. Behind us, there was a murmur of conversation, and the thump of darts against a board.
"When are you going to give up and admit we're wasting our time?" I said. "Two weeks of tramping over the same ground, and we end up in the same place; sitting in a country pub drinking warm beer."
"We've hardly begun our investigation," Foster said mildly.
"You keep saying that," I said. "But if there ever was anything in that rock-pile, it's long gone. The archaeologists have been digging over the site for years, and they haven't come up with anything."
"They didn't know what to look for," Foster said. "They were searching for indications of religious significance, human sacrifice—that sort of thing."
"We don't know what we're looking for either," I said. "Unless you think maybe we'll meet the Hunters hiding under a loose stone."
"You say that sardonically," Foster said. "But I don't consider it impossible."
"I know," I said. "You've convinced yourself that the Hunters were after us back at Mayport when we ran off like a pair of idiots."
"From what you've told me of the circumstances—" Foster began.
"I know; you don't consider it impossible. That's the trouble with you; you don't consider anything impossible. It would make life a lot easier for me if you'd let me rule out a few items—like leprechauns who hang out at Stonehenge."
Foster looked at me, half-smiling. It had only been a few weeks since he woke up from a nap looking like a senior class president who hadn't made up his mind whether to be a preacher or a movie star but he had already lost that mild, innocent air. He learned fast, and day by day I had seen his old personality re-emerge and—in spite of my attempts to hold onto the ascendency—dominate our partnership.
"It's a failing of your culture," Foster said, "that hypothesis becomes dogma almost overnight. You're too close to your neolithic, when the blind acceptance of tribal lore had survival value. Having learned to evoke the fire god from sticks, by rote, you tend to extend the principle to all 'established facts'."
"Here's an established fact for you," I said. "We've got fifteen pounds left—that's about forty dollars. It's time we figured out where to go from here, before somebody starts checking up on those phoney papers of ours."
Foster shook his head. "I'm not satisfied that we've exhausted the possibilities here. I've been studying the geometric relationships between the various structures; I have some ideas I want to check. I think it might be a good idea to go out at night, when we can work without the usual crowd of tourists observing every move. We'll have a bite to eat here and wait until dark to start out."
The publican brought us plates of cold meat and potato salad. I worked on a thin but durable slice of ham and thought about all the people, somewhere, who were sitting down now to gracious meals in the glitter of crystal and silver. I was getting farther from my island all the time—And it was nobody's fault but mine.
"The Ancient Sinner," I said. "That's me."
Foster looked up. "Curious names these old pubs have," he said. "I suppose in some cases the origins are lost in antiquity."
"Why don't they think up something cheery," I said. "Like 'The Paradise Bar and Grill' or 'The Happy Hour Cafe'. Did you notice the sign hanging outside?"
"No."
"A picture of a skeleton. He's holding one hand up like a Yankee evangelist prophesying doom. You can see it through the window there."
Foster turned and looked out at the weathered sign creaking in the evening wind. He looked at it for a long time. There was a strange look around his eyes.
"What's the matter—?" I started.
Foster ignored me, waved to the proprietor, a short fat countryman. He came over to the table, wiping his hands on his apron.
"A very interesting old building," Foster said. "We've been admiring it. When was it built?"
"Well, sir," the publican said. "This here house is a many a hundred year old. It were built by the monks, they say, from the monastery what used to stand nearby here. It were tore down by the king's men, Henry, that was, what time he drove the papists out."
"That would be Henry the Eighth, I suppose?"
"Aye, it would that. And this house is all that were spared, it being the brewing-house, as the king said were a worthwhile institution, and he laid on a tithe, that two kegs of stout was to be laid by for the king's use each brewing time."
"Very interesting," Foster said. "Is the custom still continued?"
The publican shook his head. "It were ended in my granfer's time, it being that the queen were a tee-totaller."
"How did it acquire the curious name—'the Ancient Sinner'?"
"The tale is," the publican said, "that one day a lay brother of the order were digging about yonder on the plain by the great stones, in search of the Druid's treasure, albeit the Abbott had forbid him to go nigh the heathen ground, and he come on the bones of a man, and being of a kindly turn, he had the thought to give them Christian burial. Now, knowing the Abbott would nae permit it, he set to work to dig a grave by moonlight in holy ground, under the monastery walls. But the Abbott, being wakeful, were abroad and come on the brother a-digging, and when he asked the why of it, the lay brother having visions of penances to burden him for many a day, he ups and tells the Abbott it were a ale cellar he were about digging, and the Abbott, not being without wisdom, clapped him on the back, and went on his way. And so it was the ale-house got built, and blessed by the Abbott, and with it the bones that was laid away under the floor beneath the ale-casks."
"So the ancient sinner is buried under the floor?"
"Aye, so the tale goes, though I've not dug for him meself. But the house has been knowed by the name these four hundred year."
"Where was it you said the lay brother was digging?"
"On the plain yonder, by the Druid's stones, what they call Stonehenge," the publican said. He picked up the empty glasses. "What about another, gentlemen?"
"Certainly," Foster said. He sat quietly across from me, his features composed—but I could see there was tension under the surface calm.
"What's this all about?" I asked softly. "When did you get so interested in local history?"
"Later," Foster murmured. "Keep looking bored."
"That'll be easy," I said. The publican came back, placed heavy glass mugs before us.
"You were telling us about the lay brother finding the bones," Foster said. "You say they were buried in Stonehenge?"
The publican cleared his throat, glanced sideways at Foster.
"The gentlemen wouldna be from the University now, I suppose?" he said.
"Let's just say," Foster said easily, smiling, "that we have a great interest in these bits of lore—an interest supported by modest funds, of course."
The publican made a show of wiping at the rings on the table top.
"A costly business, I wager," he said. "Digging about in odd places and all. Now, knowing where to dig; that's important, I'll be bound."
"Very important," Foster said. "Worth five pounds, easily."
"Twere my granfer told me of the spot; took me out by moonlight, he did, and showed me where his granfer had showed him. Told me it were a fine great secret, the likes of which a simple man could well take pride in."
"And an additional five pounds as a token of my personal esteem," Foster said.
The publican eyed me. "Well, a secret as was handed down father to son...."
"And, of course, my associate wishes to express his esteem, too," Foster said. "Another five pounds worth."
"That's all the esteem the budget will bear, Mr. Foster," I said. I got out the fifteen pounds and passed the money across to him. "I hope you haven't forgotten those people back home who wanted to talk to us. They'll be getting in touch with us any time now, I'll bet."
Foster rolled up the bills and held them in his hand. "That's true, Mr. Legion," he said. "Perhaps we shouldn't take the time...."
"But being it's for the advancement of science," the publican said, "I'm willing to make the sacrifice."
"We'll want to go out tonight," Foster said. "We have a very tight schedule."
The landlord dickered with Foster for another five minutes before he agreed to guide us to the spot where the skeleton had been found, as soon as the pub was closed for the night. He took the money and went back to the bar.
"Now tell me," I began.
"Look at the sign-board again," Foster said. I looked. The skull smiled, holding up a hand.
"I see it," I said. "But it doesn't explain why you handed over our last buck—"
"Look at the hand," Foster said. "Look at the ring on the finger."
I looked again. A heavy ring was painted on the bony index finger, with a pattern of concentric circles. It was a duplicate of the one on Foster's finger.
"Don't drink too much," Foster said. "You may need your wits about you tonight."
The publican pulled the battered Morris Minor to the side of the highway and set the brake.
"This is as close as we best take the machine," he said. We got out, looked across the rolling plain where the megaliths of Stonehenge loomed against the last glow of sunset.
The publican rummaged in the boot, produced a ragged blanket and two long four-cell flashlights, gave one to Foster and the other to me. "Do nae use the electric torches until I tell ye," he said, "lest the whole county see there's folks abroad here." We watched as he draped the blanket over a barbed-wire fence, clambered over, and started across the barren field. Foster and I followed, not talking.
The plain was deserted. A lonely light showed on a distant slope. It was a dark night with no moon. I could hardly see the ground ahead. A car moved along a distant road, its headlights bobbing.
We moved past the outer ring of stones, skirting fallen slabs twenty feet long.
"We'll break our necks," I said. "Let's have one of the flashlights."
"Not yet," Foster whispered.
Our guide paused; we came up to him.
"It were a mortal long time since I were last hereabouts," he said. "I best take me bearings off the Friar's Heel...."
"What's that?"
"Yon great stone, standing alone in the Avenue." We squinted; it was barely visible as a dark shape against the sky.
"The bones were buried there?" Foster asked.
"Nay; all by theirself, they was. Now it were twenty paces, granfer said, him bein fifteen stone and long in the leg...." The publican muttered.
"What's to keep him from just pointing to a spot after awhile," I said to Foster, "and saying 'This is it'?"
"We'll wait and see," Foster said.
"They were a hollow, as it were, in the earth," the publican said, "with a bit of stone by it. I reckon it were fifty paces from here—" he pointed, "—yonder."
"I don't see anything," I said.
"Let's take a closer look." Foster started off and I followed, the publican trailing behind. I made out a dim shape, with a deep depression in the earth before it.
"This could be the spot," Foster said. "Old graves often sink—"
Suddenly he grabbed my arm. "Look...!"
The surface of the ground before us seemed to tremble, then heave. Foster snapped on his flashlight. The earth at the bottom of the hollow rose, cracked open. A boiling mass of lumi-self, rose, bumbling along the face of the weathered stone.
"Saints preserve us," the publican said in a choked voice. Foster and I stood, rooted to the spot, watching. The lone globe rose higher—and abruptly shot straight toward us. Foster threw up an arm and ducked. The ball of light veered, struck him a glancing blow and darted off a few yards, hovered. In an instant, the air was alive with the spheres, boiling up from the ground, and hurtling toward us, buzzing like a hive of yellow-jackets. Foster's flashlight lanced out toward the swarm.
"Use your light, Legion!" he shouted hoarsely. I was still standing, frozen. The globes rushed straight at Foster, ignoring me. Behind me, I heard the publican turn and run. I fumbled with the flashlight switch, snapped it on, swung the beam of white light on Foster. The globe at his head vanished as the light touched it. More globes swarmed to Foster—and popped like soap bubbles in the flashlight's glare—but more swarmed to take their place. Foster reeled, fighting at them. He swung the light—and I heard it smash against the stone behind him. In the instant darkness, the globes clustered thick around his head.
"Foster," I yelled, "run!"
He got no more than five yards before he staggered, went to his knees. "Cover," he croaked. He fell on his face. I rushed the mass of darting globes, took up a stance straddling his body. A sulphurous reek hung around me. I coughed, concentrated on beaming the lights around Foster's head. No more were rising from the crack in the earth now. A suffocating cloud pressed around both of us, but it was Foster they went for. I thought of the slab; if I could get my back to it, I might have a chance. I stooped, got a grip on Foster's coat, and started back, dragging him. The lights boiled around me. I swept the beam of light and kept going until my back slammed against the stone. I crouched against it. Now they could only come from the front.
I glanced at the cleft the lights had come from. It looked big enough to get Foster into. That would give him some protection. I tumbled him over the edge, then flattened my back against the slab and settled down to fight in earnest.
I worked in a pattern, sweeping vertically, then horizontally. The globes ignored me, drove toward the cleft, fighting to get at Foster, and I swept them away as they came. The cloud around me was smaller now, the attack less ravenous. I picked out individual globes, snuffed them out. The hum became ragged, faltered. Then there were only a few globes around me, milling wildly, disorganized. The last half dozen fled, bumbling away across the plain.
I slumped against the rock, sweat running down into my eyes, my lungs burning with the sulphur.
"Foster," I gasped. "Are you all right?"
He didn't answer. I flashed the light onto the cleft. It showed me damp clay, a few pebbles.
Foster was gone.
CHAPTER VI
I scrambled to the edge of the pit, played the light around inside. It shelved back at one side, and a dark mouth showed, sloping down into the earth: the hiding place the globes had swarmed from.
Foster was wedged in the opening. I scrambled down beside him, tugged him back to level ground. He was still breathing; that was something.
I wondered if the pub owner would come back, now that the lights were gone—or if he'd tell someone what had happened, bring out a search party. Somehow, I doubted it. He didn't seem like the type to ask for trouble with the ghosts of ancient sinners.
Foster groaned, opened his eyes. "Where are ... they?" he muttered.
"Take it easy, Foster," I said. "You're OK now."
"Legion," Foster said. He tried to sit up. "The Hunters...."
"I worked them over with the flashlights. They're gone."
"That means...."
"Let's not worry about what it means. Let's just get out of here."
"The Hunters—they burst out of the ground—from a cleft in the earth."
"That's right. You were half-way into the hole. I guess that's where they were hiding."
"The Pit of the Hunters," Foster said.
"If you say so," I said. "Lucky you didn't go down it."
"Legion, give me the flashlight."
"I feel something coming on that I'm not going to like," I said. I handed him the light and he flashed it into the tunnel mouth. I saw a polished roof of black glass arching four feet over the rubble-strewn bottom of the shaft. A stone, dislodged by my movement, clattered away down the 30° slope.
"That tunnel's man-made," I said. "And I don't mean neolithic man."
"Legion, we'll have to see what's down there," Foster said.
"We could come back later, with ropes and big insurance policies," I said.
"But we won't," said Foster. "We've found what we were looking for—"
"Sure," I said, "and it serves us right. Are you sure you feel good enough to make like Alice and the White Rabbit?"
"I'm sure. Let's go."
Foster thrust his legs into the opening, slid over the edge, disappeared. I followed him. I eased down a few feet, glanced back for a last look at the night sky, then lost my grip and slid. I hit bottom hard enough to knock the wind out of me, and found myself lying on a level floor.
"What is this place?" I dug the flashlight out of the rubble, flashed it around. We were in a low-ceilinged room ten yards square. I saw smooth walls, the dark bulks of massive shapes that made me think of sarcophagi in Egyptian burial vaults—except that these threw back highlights from dials and levers.
"For a couple of guys who get shy in the company of cops," I said, "we've got a talent for doing the wrong thing. This is some kind of Top Secret military installation."
"Impossible," Foster replied. "This couldn't be a modern structure, at the bottom of a rubble-filled shaft—"
"Let's get out of here, fast," I said. "We've probably set off an alarm already."
As if in answer, a low chime cut across our talk. Pearly light sprang up on a square panel. I got to my feet, moved over to stare at it. Foster came to my side.
"What do you make of it?" he said.
"I'm no expert on stone-age relics," I said. "But if that's not a radar screen, I'll eat it."
I sat down in the single chair before the dusty control console, and watched a red blip creep across the screen. Foster stood behind me.
"We owe a debt to that Ancient Sinner," he said. "Who would have dreamed he'd lead us here?"
"Ancient Sinner, Hell," I said. "This place is as modernistic as next year's juke box."
"Look at the symbols on the machines," Foster said. "They're identical with those in the first section of the Journal."
"All pot-hooks look alike to me," I said. "It's this screen that's got me worried. If I've got it doped out correctly, that blip is either a mighty slow airplane—or it's at one hell of an altitude."
"Modern aircraft operate at great heights," Foster said.
"Not at this height," I said. "Give me a few more minutes to study these scales...."
"There are a number of controls here," Foster said. "Obviously intended to activate mechanisms—"
"Don't touch 'em," I said. "Unless you want to start World War III."
"I hardly think the results would be so drastic," Foster said. "Surely this installation has a simple purpose, unconnected with modern wars—but very possibly connected with the mystery of the Journal—and of my own past."
"The less we know about this, the better," I said. "At least, if we don't mess with anything, we can always claim we just stepped in here to get out of the rain—"
"You're forgetting the Hunters," Foster said.
"Some new anti-personnel gimmick," I said.
"They came out of this shaft, Legion. It was opened by the pressure of the Hunters, bursting out."
"Why did they pick that precise moment—just as we arrived?" I asked.
"I think they were aroused," Foster said. "I think they sensed the presence of their ancient foe."
I swung around to look at him.
"I see the way your thoughts are running," I said. "You're their Ancient Foe, now, huh? Just let me get this straight: that means that umpteen hundred years ago, you personally, had a fight with the Hunters—here at Stonehenge. You killed a batch of them and ran. You hired some kind of Viking ship and crossed the Atlantic. Later on, you lost your memory, and started being a guy named Foster. A few weeks ago you lost it again. Is that the picture?"
"More or less."
"And now we're a couple of hundred feet under Stonehenge—after a brush with a crowd of luminous stinkbombs—and you're telling me you'll be nine hundred on your next birthday."
"Remember the entry in the journal, Legion? 'I came to the place of the Hunters, and it was a place I knew of old, and there was no hive, but a Pit built by men of the Two worlds....'"
"Okay," I said. "So you're pushing a thousand."
I glanced at the screen, got out a scrap of paper, and scribbled a rapid calculation. "Here's another big number for you. That object on the screen is at an altitude—give or take a few percent—of thirty thousand miles."
I tossed the pencil aside, swung around to frown at Foster. "What are we mixed up in, Foster? Not that I really want to know. I'm ready to go to a nice clean jail now, and pay my debt to society—"
"Calm down, Legion," Foster said. "You're raving."
"OK," I said, turning back to the screen. "You're the boss. Do what you like. It's just my reflexes wanting to run. I've got no place to run to. At least with you I've always got the wild hope that maybe you're not completely nuts, and that somehow—"
I sat upright, eyes on the screen. "Look at this, Foster," I snapped. A pattern of dots flashed across the screen, faded, flashed again....
"Some kind of IFF," I said. "A recognition signal. I wonder what we're supposed to do now."
Foster watched the screen, saying nothing.
"I don't like that thing blinking at us," I said. "It makes me feel conspicuous." I looked at the big red button beside the screen. "Maybe if I pushed that...." Without waiting to think it over, I jabbed at it.
A yellow light blinked on the control panel. On the screen, the pattern of dots vanished. The red blip separated, a smaller blip moving off at right angles to the main mass.
"I'm not sure you should have done that," Foster said.
"Thereisroom for doubt," I said in a strained voice. "It looks like I've launched a bomb from the ship overhead."
The climb back up the tunnel took three hours, and every foot of the way I was listening to a refrain in my head: This may be it; this may be it; this may be it....
I crawled out of the tunnel mouth and lay on my back, breathing hard. Foster groped his way out beside me.
"We'll have to get to the highway," I said, untying the ten-foot rope of ripped garments that had linked us during the climb. "There's a telephone at the pub; we'll notify the authorities...." I glanced up.
"Hold it," I said. I grabbed Foster's arm and pointed overhead. "What's that?"
Foster looked up. A brilliant point of blue light, brighter than a star, grew perceptibly as we watched.
"Maybe we won't get to notify anybody after all," I said. "I think that's our bomb—coming home to roost."
"That's illogical," Foster said. "The installation would hardly be arranged merely to destroy itself in so complex a manner."
"Let's get out of here," I yelled.
"It's approaching us very rapidly," Foster said. "The distance we could run in the next few minutes would be trivial by comparison with the killing radius of a modern bomb. We'll be safer sheltered in the cleft than in the open."
"We could slide back down the tunnel," I said.
"And be buried?"
"You're right; I'd rather fry on the surface."
We crouched, watching the blue glare directly overhead, growing larger, brighter. I could see Foster's face by its light now.
"That's no bomb," Foster said. "It's not falling; it's coming down slowly ... like a—"
"Like a slowly falling bomb," I said. "And it's coming right down on top of us. Goodbye, Foster. I can't claim it's been fun knowing you, but it's been different. We'll feel the heat any second now. I hope it's fast."
The glaring disc was the size of the full moon now, unbearably bright. It lit the plain like a pale blue sun. There was no sound. As it dropped lower, the disc fore-shortened and I could see a dark shape above it, dimly lit by the glare thrown back from the ground.
"The thing is the size of a ferry boat," I said.
"It's going to miss us," Foster said. "It will come to ground to the east of us."
We watched the slender shape float down with dreamlike slowness, now five hundred feet above, now three hundred, then hovering just above the giant stones.
"It's coming down smack on top of Stonehenge," I yelled.
We watched as the vessel settled into place dead center on the ancient ring of stones. For a moment they were vividly silhouetted against the flood of blue radiance; then abruptly, the glare faded and died.
"Foster," I said. "Do you think it's barely possible—"
A slit of yellow light appeared on the side of the hull, widened to a square. A ladder extended itself, dropping down to touch the ground.
"If somebody with tentacles starts down that ladder," I said, in an unnaturally shrill voice, "I'm getting out of here."
"No one will emerge," Foster said quietly. "I think we'll find, Legion, that this ship of space is at our disposal."
"I'm not going aboard that thing," I said. "I'm not sure of much in this world, but I'm sure of that."
"Legion," Foster said, "this is no twentieth century military vessel. It obviously homed on the transmitter in the underground station, which appears to be directly under the old monument—which is several thousand years old—"
"And I'm supposed to believe the ship has been orbiting the Earth for the last few thousand years, waiting for someone to push the red button? You call that logical?"
"Given permanent materials—such as those the notebook is made of—it's not impossible—or even difficult."
"We got out of the tunnel alive," I said. "Let's settle for that."
"We're on the verge of solving a mystery that goes back through the centuries," Foster said. "A mystery that I've pursued, if I understand the Journal, through many lifetimes—"
"One thing about losing your memory," I said. "You don't have any fixed ideas to get in the way of your theories."
Foster smiled grimly. "The trail has brought us here. I must follow it—wherever it leads."
I lay on the ground, staring up at the unbelievable shape, and the beckoning square of light. "This ship—or whatever it is," I said: "It drops down out of nowhere, and opens its doors—and you want to walk right into the cosy interior—"
"Listen!" Foster cut in.
I heard a low rumbling then, a sound that rolled ominously, like distant guns.
"More ships—" I started.
"Jet aircraft," Foster said. "From the bases in East Anglia probably. Of course, they'll have tracked our ship in—"
"That's all for me!" I yelled, getting to my feet. "The secret's out—"
"Get down, Legion," Foster shouted. The engines were a blanketing roar now.
"What for? They—"
Two long lines of fire traced themselves across the sky, curving down—
I hit the dirt behind the stone in the same instant the rockets struck. The shock wave slammed at the earth like a monster thunderclap, and I saw the tunnel mouth collapse. I twisted, saw the red interior of the jet tail-pipe as the fighter hurtled past, rolling into a climbing turn.
"They're crazy," I yelled. "Firing on—"
A second barrage blasted across my indignation. I hugged the muck and waited while nine salvoes shook the earth. Then the rumble died, reluctantly. The air reeked of high explosives.
"We'd have been dead now if we'd tried the tunnel," I gasped, spitting dirt. "It caved at the first rocket. And if the ship was what you thought, Foster, they've destroyed something—"
The sentence died unnoticed. The dust was settling and through it the shape of the ship reared up, unchanged except that the square of light was gone. As I watched, the door opened again and the ladder ran out once more, invitingly.
"They'll try next time with atomics," I said. "That may be too much for the ship's defenses—and it will sure as hell be too much for us—"
"Listen," Foster cut in. A deeper rumble was building in the distance.
"To the ship!" Foster called. He was up and running, and I hesitated just long enough to think about trying for the highway and being caught in the open—and then I was running, too. Ahead, Foster stumbled crossing the ground that had been ripped up by the rocket bursts, made it to the ladder, and went up it fast. The growl of the approaching bombers grew, a snarl of deadly hatred. I leaped a still-smoking stone fragment, took the ladder in two jumps, plunged into the yellow-lit interior. Behind me, the door smacked shut.
I was standing in a luxuriously fitted circular room. There was a pedestal in the center of the floor, from which a polished bar projected. The bones of a man lay beside it. While I stared, Foster sprang forward, seized the bar, and pulled. It slid back easily. The lights flickered, and I had a moment of vertigo. Nothing else happened.