Congressman Burley stopped talking and followed the gaze of all the others. He saw Henry and Martia standing by the fireside, holding hands and looking very impatient.
"All right!" he said. "You kids will have to clear out. We're having a conference."
"That," said Henry, "is somewhat obvious. But I—"
"Now look here! Don't you get sassy!" Burley glared at Henry impatiently, but Uncle Andy walked over to the boy and put an arm around his shoulders. He placed his other arm around Martia.
"Just a minute!" he interrupted. "I'm afraid you don't know Henry. He would never have intruded if he did not have something important to say."
"Always pampering the kid," commented Dr. Edwards to Captain Merman. "Thinks he's a genius and he's only a pest!"
"Your English allies have gotten themselves lost," said Henry. "Lady Dewitt, Sir Rollins, the Crispin sisters, Langham, Emily Duncan, several other women and three servicemen."
"Please!" Martia cried. "It's always daylight here. Can't a search party be sent right away?"
Some of the men looked at Captain Merman. He was a tall, lean man in his late thirties, still wearing the pants and shirts of his uniform, as well as the cap. His paleness and the redness of his eyelids, thought Henry, were probably due to a hyperthyroid condition.
"My orders," said Merman, "were that no explorations would be conducted without proper authorization. They went on their own, principally because of Lady Dewitt's refusal to use the river water and because our distilled water can't be rationed in her favor. I don't see why—"
"You are engaged here in an emergency conference," said Henry, "to determine what can be done about Tommy Weston's gang. If you're worried, why don't you stall for time by organizing the whole camp into a search party—including Weston's men? The physical action and the adventure of it will be tantamount to a psychological weapon against anarchy."
Martia beamed at Henry in pride and gratitude, but most of the men guffawed.
"Ye gods!" exclaimed one of the other congressmen. "That sounded like it was going to be a filibuster! Talk about lobbying! This kid is Capitol material!"
"But it isn't getting us anywhere," said Burley.
"Just a minute," said a small, dark-complexioned man wearing a black shirt, white slacks and dark glasses. "I've heard, second-handedly, some interesting ideas from this boy." Henry had learned that this was Dr. Jules Bauml, a noted astro-physicist attached to the Mount Palomar Observatory. "He thinks we have been transported through time and that it is futile to try contacting our own civilization unless we avail ourselves of a time machine. Of course that is a pessimistic view, but owing to observations of my own I should like to hear his reasons for arriving at such a conclusion."
"Oh hell!" ejaculated one of the businessmen present. "We're probably down in the Caribbean somewhere!"
"No, by God!" said another one. "That wouldn't explain the permanent daylight and no sun!"
"A freak of Nature," insisted the first one. "You've heard of the Land of the Midnight Sun. What's so different about this?"
"Everything!" said Henry.
They all looked at him, startled, including Uncle Andy.
Henry addressed Dr. Bauml. "As an astronomer you will understand the nature and importance of the ionosphere," he said, amidst raised eyebrows all around. "It is that layer of the atmosphere which protects us from the dangerous short radiations from the sun. These quanta, striking atoms of oxygen, create ionized oxygen and ozone, forming the ionosphere. Such atoms are necessarily in such rapid motion that they would be lost in space were it not for the magnitude of Earth's gravitation. That is why Earth bears—orbore—a high form of intelligent life whereas Mars must continue to lose its ionized oxygen into space and could therefore not support a high form of life."
"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Bauml, impressed. "But what has that to do with the present?"
"Venus does not have an ionosphere," continued Henry. "Otherwise it would have shown up in spectrographs. Its atmosphere is caused largely by violent volcanic action. Volcanoes, incredibly heated storms and no ionosphere, spells no oxygen and no life. Therefore, conclusion number one: We are still on Earth."
Several congressmen snorted. "Who said we weren't?"
"Go on!" encouraged Bauml, while Dr. Edwards began to listen in some surprise. "I agree so far! This is Earth, but where do we go from here?"
"Let us disregard, for the moment," said Henry, "that there is no night. Just concentrate on the fact that we can't see the sun atanytime, clouds or no clouds. Ergo, the ionosphere has changed its composition. It would take millions of years to do that, just as it took billions of years to build it up in the first place. I submit that the sun has cooled and the ionosphere is much thicker than it was before, thus acquiring different characteristics of refraction which reflect light back to Earth. It is almost like a mirror. Just as it once reflected radio waves back, it now shuts out the shorter wavelengths, including light, itself. I submit further, that if the sun were still bright we should notice a difference in relative brightness between day and night. Inasmuch as there is no difference, I say that the sun is now grown dim and feeble, and that we have traveled perhaps a billion years into the future."
"Hey!" cried out another civilian. "I thought there were only five psychos in camp! One billion years! What the—"
"Yes," put in Dr. Edwards, with an impatient scowl, "this business of extrapolating is next to nothing, as it leads nowhere. By the boy's own argument I could give the rebuttal that if a billion years have passed then Venus may have had time to finally develop an ionosphere and thus be able to support the higher forms of life. Behold! I submit that we are on Venus!" This was followed by sympathetic laughter all around.
"Wait now," insisted Dr. Bauml. "Give the boy a chance! Henry, youhavelet me down into mere hypothesis, but we might as well have all of it. Let me ask you a question. If the sun has cooled, why are we surrounded by all this evidence of lush, tropical life? We should be freezing!"
Henry replied immediately. "Either the ionosphere has developed a sustained reaction that provides us with heat and the regular, life sustaining quanta, while absorbing the hard radiations, or—" He paused, groping suddenly for words.
"Or what!" demanded Dr. Edwards.
"Orsomeonehas set up nuclear heating plants all over the planet, or their equivalents. Wait!" He held up his hand as Dr. Edwards joined half the others in derisive laughter. "Go back to that alien creature who stole the babies. Just before he disappeared, precipitating us into our present environment, he spoke to us in a gutteral language that was vaguely familiar. You were present, Doctor Bauml, when he spoke. I understand you recognized that language. What was it?"
Dr. Edwards sobered. He and Merman and Burley and the others stared at the diminutive astronomer. The latter looked embarrassed.
"I—am German, as you know," he said. "As such I was naturally familiar with Middle High German, owing to my educational background. That is what this alien spoke. I only caught a few words, which were to the effect that no harm would come to any of us if we did something or other."
"Why didn't you tell us this before?" queried Merman. "If that freak spoke German—"
"Wait!" interrupted Henry. "Middle High German is a dead language. It came into use in the dark ages before the Renaissance and it died out with Martin Luther in the Sixteenth Century of our own era. The fact that this alien spoke that language indicates that he is a time traveler. He has been in our era before and I'll tell you where, when and why!"
"Thatis a tall order," put in Dr. Edwards.
Uncle Andy turned to Valerie Roagland and the air hostess. "This is the tallest extrapolating I've ever heard from Henry."
By this time, many other people were gathering around to listen, including servicemen and a number of Tommy Weston's men.
"All right!" said Merman. "Let's have it! Where, when and why?"
"The place?" said Henry. "Westphalia, Germany. The time? Twelve eighty-four A.D. The reason? To kidnap children. Oh, I forgot to mention the town...."
"Hamelin!" exclaimed Dr. Bauml, astounded. "You mean—"
"Yes," said Henry. "The Pied Piper of Hamelin—no legend. An actual fact!"
"What is this?" asked one of Weston's construction stiffs. "A booby hatch? Let's get on with the meeting. Weston'll be here any minute!"
"Wait!" said Henry again. "Analyze it for yourselves. What doespiedmean?"
"Mottled color," someone offered.
"Exactly!" Henry exclaimed. "But it was no clown suit worn in a fairytale. Our alien's skin was definitely mottled. And he was a piper, too!"
"What do you mean?" asked Dr. Edwards.
"I heard it, Martia heard it, and the two children who were kidnapped heard it. I believe only younger ears can hear it owing to a greater sensitivity of the hair cells in the spiral cochlea. The sound, of course, has nothing to do with flutes. It was a phenomenon produced by his equipment."
"Hold on, screwball!" said another one of Weston's gang. "I know all about that Pied Piper yarn. What about the rats in Hamelin? How did he get rid of those?"
"Legends," said Henry, "are twisted from the truth because people who inherit such stories must always reduce the Unknown to the level of their own understanding, just as the people of our own time insisted that the flying saucers were everything from beer bottle tops to weather balloons. People in following generations could not accept the original story, so it degenerated gradually into a nice little bedtime story. But the fact remains, this Pied Piper is a time traveler who needs children for some purpose of his own. He represents a very advanced science. It is possible that he is here, somewhere, andifhe is, we might have a chance of getting him to send us all back to where we came from!"
Suddenly, the Indian Prince broke into their midst. His turban was slightly awry, his eyes were large with anxiety, and he was sweating. "Please!" he exclaimed, in a thick accent, wringing his fat hands in supplication before Henry. "You are an older soul! You have a vision beyond us all! I believe only you can save us! If you can bring me back to my own world I will pay you anything! I am rich! My fortune is yours if you will do it!"
This led to general confusion, but it also led to something else. One of Weston's men separated himself from the crowd and went to find his leader. Weston and Sceranka were back in camp, eating supper and licking their wounds. But they were gratified by one salient fact. Scarface was conspicuous by his absence. There would be no interference from him tonight....
When the meeting took place, Weston and Sceranka came to it alone. The rest of the gang, numbering about thirteen, were nowhere in sight. Merman and Burley told him about the missing people and suggested a postponement.
"To hell with that!" he told them. His mouth, though bruised by Scarface's fists, grinned at them in a way that was not at all reassuring, and his tawny eyes met theirs with a new confidence born of secret knowledge. "We can send a search party later. Right now we're concerned with—"
"In other words," Burley broke in, unsmilingly, "you insist on having the meeting?" About fifteen officers and servicemen silently closed in around the periphery of the group, but this did not appear to bother Weston, although Sceranka kept looking at them nervously.
"Yes," Weston answered. "Let's have the meeting!"
"Then you are out of order!" snapped Burley. "We will follow those rules of order which are befitting to a deliberative assembly. Captain Merman is our Chairman. We have an agenda for discussion, which will be introduced in proper sequence. Anyone wishing to speak will first recognize the Chair."
"Oh can it!" fumed Weston. "That's why I'm here—to tell you we're going to cut all the red tape and get down to facts—"
At a sign from Merman, two M.P.s stepped forward and tapped Weston on the shoulder. Each carried a club. They smiled through their teeth.
"We are the Sergeants at Arms," said the largest of the two, who was at least within twenty pounds of Weston's brawny mass. "Do you want to be nice or be made to stand in a corner?"
Weston appeared to swell like a toad. When his eyes met Sceranka's, over the M.P.'s shoulder, he nodded almost imperceptibly. Whereupon Sceranka threw his hat into the air.
Within three seconds, six G.I.s on the outside of the circle yelled in pain and fell to the ground. Protruding from their backs were crude but sturdy arrows. Standing on the beach sand just outside the jungle were twelve bowmen, all from Weston's gang. Two were Spaniards. One was a Filipino law student who had flunked out of Oxford. One was a pale, continental type, a non-descript foreigner traveling on a French passport whom Merman had suspected of being a Communist spy. The rest were American construction stiffs—not the ordinary kind who signed up on a year's contract to save up and come home again, but the camp drifters who had roamed the world since adolescence, men actually without a country, uneducated, but capable of running heavy equipment for American tax dollars. It was strictly a "cost-plus" crew, thought Burley.
Women screamed. Men cursed. And there were cries of "Murderers!" "Assassins!"
Weston and Sceranka ran to a position in front of their men, who handed them the only two axes in camp.
"All right!" Weston shouted. "I thought this party would turn out this way. From now on,I'llrun this show! You're going to shut your traps and listen tome!"
The remaining officers and servicemen, plus many of the older male civilian members of the camp, were gathering swiftly into a sullen crowd, facing Weston's bowmen.
"When we charge 'em," whispered one officer, "throw sand in their eyes and let 'em have it!"
"Just a minute," said Uncle Andy to all the members of his own group. "All this happened because we failed to recognize the man's ignorance. Let him talk! Talk is cheaper than human lives. Let's hear what he has to say!"
"Well, Dearden," shouted Weston, "You're getting smart!—even if you are insulting. But I'll take care of you later!"
"All right!" agreed Burley. "Let him jabber!"
"Spill it, Weston!" shouted Merman. "We've got plenty of time around here. All our lives!"
"No we ain't!" Weston answered. "We ain't got no time at all. We think there's a way of gettin' back to where we came from! Hey, Mohammed!" he yelled at the Indian Prince. "You willing to come on my side and pay off like you said if I get you back home?"
The Indian Prince, though frightened, separated himself from the crowd. He stood there, hesitantly, looking first at Weston, then back at Henry. "I will go with anyone," he said, "even assassins, if they lead me home! And I will pay! But young Henry here—he's the one who—"
"Sure!" grinned Weston. "Henry's the boy with the answers! You didn't think we were going to leavehimout, did you? He's going to help us find that big, bad bogeyman who stole the babies. And then when we find him we're going to sort of talk him into sending us back—that is, those who are on my side!"
"What's the matter with you, Weston!" shouted Burley. "We all have the same goal. If you had taken time to listen—"
"Pipe down! We been listening to you government guys all our lives and never got nowhere. We don't want this party to turn into another Korean truce talk. We want action!"
In that moment, Weston saw action, but of a totally unimagined kind.
Very suddenly, the world about them changed. Geologically, it was the same. The same, eternal daylight sky was above them. Before them lay the same, mysterious ocean with its plethora of unknown life forms. The low hills, the jungles, the flowers, the colorful birds—almost all the same.
But the jungle had been cleared away for several miles, and in its place stood a modern city with tall, well-designed buildings, electric power facilities, and motorized traffic. On the sea lay a fleet of gray battleships and cruisers. In the sky were at least a hundred jet aircraft, of strangely futuristic design, black and delta-shaped. The latter were attacking the warships with bombs and rocket fire, and their ears were assailed by the staccato reports of guns answering from the ships—and from the land.
The city defenses were aimed also at the strange, black aircraft. Ack-ack was all over the sky. Bombs and planes screamed through the air, and the ground shook with the shock of explosions.
The castaways, including Weston's gang, stood on a great pier before the sprawling city—a pier which lay half demolished around them, smouldering from several recent hits. Nearby, out in the water, lay a commuter vessel, semi-capsized, its crew and uniformed personnel leaping overboard and attempting to swim back to shore.
Armed troops were all around the castaways, rushing to set up new defenses on the pier, to repair loading derricks and put out fires with portable equipment.
"Hey!" shouted one of the castaways. "It's just like back home!"
"Civilization!" shouted another. "That screwy Garden of Eden was all a bad dream! We're back—thank God!"
Henry reasoned it was not the scene of battle they were welcoming. It was rather the transition from an unknown situation to a comprehensible one that they hailed with such relief.
"What is it?" queried Martia, close beside him. "What's happening? Where are we?"
"We'renotback home," he said. "Still in the future—but an alternate one. Keep your eyes open and we'll know very soon."
This was a pointed remark, inasmuch as an officered detail of troops had turned its amazed attention on the heterogeneous group. Weston's gang, especially, looked like a bunch of anachronisms with their crude bows and arrows and their stupidly gaping mouths.
"Look!" cried Doctor Bauml, pointing over the heads of the approaching soldiers. "On that distant hill!"
When everybody looked, they saw, unmistakably, a towering space ship, its slender nose pointing skyward. Men swarmed over it like ants, removing scaffolding. Some of the attacking planes were concentrating on this point and were being met with the most determined counter-fire observable in any part of the city.
"That rocket ship," said Uncle Andy, "seems to be the main issue of the battle."
"Andy!" exclaimed Valerie Roagland. "Are all of us insane?"
"I say there!" cried the officer in charge of the detail surrounding them. His accent was unmistakably British. "Who are you and whence came you?"
"That would be a better question ifweasked it," replied Burley. "What the devilisthis!" He waved his hand in an all-inclusive gesture.
The officer's eyes narrowed. "Why do you evade the question?" he almost growled. "You are certainly not of New Bretania. Therefore, you are Texanian spies! You are under arrest!"
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Henry, turning pale. "Oh no!"
"What, Henry? What is it?" insisted Martia. Uncle Andy, Valerie, Miss Hollenbeck and Pee Bee crowded close, listening to the two and watching their captors at the same time.
Burley drew himself up and addressed the officer. "I am an official representative of the government of the United States of America," he said. "I demand—"
"My dear sir," flamed the officer. "You are not in a position to make demands. You will follow me promptly and obey orders under penalty of death! Can you not understand that we are under martial law here?"
"Git on wi' ye!" said one soldier nearby, prodding Weston and Sceranka with a double-barreled, automatic rifle. "Or ye'll git a puck in the lug!"
"Let's go, everybody," said Colonel Rogers. "Inasmuch as this is a military situation I'll take charge of our group and be the spokesman. When we're presented to the authorities for questioning we'll have time enough to tell our story."
"And who would believe it?" asked Dr. Edwards, pessimistically.
"Who would believethis!" retorted Colonel Rogers.
They all marched along with their captors, including Weston and company, simply because there was no alternative.
In a subterranean staff headquarters somewhere in the center of the city, they faced an impatient Major in the service of Her Majesty, Helena III, Empress of New Bretania.
"What is all this!" he complained, over an unprocessed pile of urgent communiques, even as two visiphones on his desk glowed red call signals simultaneously. "Who are you? I can't be bothered at a time like this—"
"We don't wish to bother you," interrupted Colonel Rogers. He could appreciate the indescribable urgency of war and knew it would be best not to antagonize the officer with too much verbage. "Our presence here is not of our choosing and it would take too long to explain, although we are perfectly wiling to do so at your convenience. Suffice it to say, we are neither New Bretanians nor Texanians. So I suggest you place us in protective custody for the time being, and if you need volunteers for some of the manual work in the city you may call upon us to help."
The Major ignored the visiphones and glared at Colonel Rogers. "I said—who are you?"
"I am Colonel Rogers, attached to the Infantry of the United States Army, and these are—"
"United States!" exclaimed the Major. "That's a myth! What in the devil are you trying to say?"
Henry shook his head sadly, but with a grim expression of conviction on his aquiline face.
Martia's eyes were wide as she drew closer to him. "Henry!" she whispered. "I think Iknow!" Tears came to her eyes, and she said, "Mother! I'll never see her again."
For answer, Henry pressed her hand, wordlessly, and continued looking at the Major.
"Please!" said Dr. Bauml, pressing forward. "What is this battle all about? What is that space ship for?"
The Major sprang to his feet, motioning to the guard detail that had brought them in. "These strangers are some type of Fifth Column!" he exclaimed. "They are obviously attempting to camouflage their true identities and their purpose under a blanket of innocence! But no one could bethatinnocent of the facts!" He leaned forward, addressing Dr. Bauml. "My dear sir, in case you have been reposing under a rock somewhere, I'll bring you up to date! Earth is dying! The ionosphere is shifting toward critical mass. Our race—the human race—is becoming sterile under the hardening radiations. It is imperative that we transport some of our kind to another world—Venus, to be specific! Or hadn't you heard that Hardesty and Williams discovered an atmosphere there under the upper dust strata? The Texanians could not build an ark such as ours—so they want it!" His dark eyes blazed angrily. "Youwant it! You are Texanians and you want our ship, but you're not going to get it! Take them away! They are spies!"
"Irons, sir?" asked the officer in charge of the detail.
"Irons be damned! Execute them! This is war!"
They stood in a bleak prison yard, sixty-nine passengers of MATS flight 702, London to New York. But where they were just now did not matter. A ganged battery of machine guns faced them, with one operator seated apathetically at a bank of controls.
"Ready—!" cried the officer in charge.
Some of the women screamed, while others prayed. Uncle Andy had an arm around Valerie Roagland, as well as Henry and Martia. Sceranka was swearing in Polish. Pee Bee was hiding behind as many people as he could find, shivering.
"Aim—!"
Henry thought: This is all impossible! I can't let it happen! But who am I to—
Something began to happen inside his head. It felt like he had had a cold and his ears were clearing up. But it was purely a mental sensation. Suddenly, he saw everything with a new clarity. And in the same instant he began to utilize that new faculty.
But before the word, "Fire!" could be given, a new change occurred with the abruptness of an explosion....
They were back again at the old campsite on that timeless shore, with the jungle all around them. The city was gone, as were the warships and the planes and the soldiers—and the space ship. There stood Weston and Sceranka as before, in front of their calloused bowmen.
And Weston was saying, "We want action!"
Both Henry and Martia looked at their companions in growing amazement,because the others acted exactly as if there had been no interlude whatsoever! Yet Henry and Martia, when they looked into each other's eyes, knew thattheyremembered!
"Wait!" cried Henry. Everyone looked at him, including Weston and his gang. "Something has happened! Doesn't anybody remember?"
"Rememberwhat!" exclaimed Weston, impatiently.
"The city! All those warships and planes!"
They all looked at him, blankly, and he and Martia returned their stares, anxiously.
"The Major who called us Texanian spies! The space ship! The firing squad—I mean, those machine guns!"
Again, the blank, uncomprehending looks.
"The kid's cracking up!" said Weston. "Let's get on with this! Now I'm running things and I'll tell you what we're going to do!"
Just then Martia and Henry grasped each other's hands, their eyes wide with consternation.
"Henry, do you—"
"Yes!" he hissed, cautioning her to silence. "I hear it!"
The ringing was in their heads.
"Henry," said Uncle Andy, "what in the world were you saying about a city?—and about this—er—space ship?"
Henry grasped his uncle's arm and signalled to Valerie, and Peggy Hollenbeck. "Follow me quickly!" he said.
The two young women looked at Uncle Andy and he studied Henry and Martia gravely. Then he turned to them and nodded. They all followed. Henry and Martia both put their fingers to their lips, admonishing them to silence.
They were about fifty feet away from the group when Weston yelled at them. "Hey! Where you think you're going?"
Henry grabbed Martia's arm and told her to scream and flail about, which she did instantly.
"The girl's out of her head!" answered Uncle Andy, catching on. "Psycho! We'll be back in a minute!"
"Well—hurry it up!"
When they gained a clump of verdure that cut off their view of the others, Henry motioned them into the woods. They all ran in to hide, only to be overtaken by Pee Bee.
"What done happened to dat girl?" he asked, panting.
"Nothing," said Henry.
"Then why are we here?" asked Peggy, the air hostess.
Henry looked at them squarely. "It's that alien," he said. "He is close by."
"The alien!" exclaimed Valerie. "How do you know?"
Pee Bee went bug-eyed again. "You mean dat Missing Link is back? Man, where's mah feet!"
"Stay here!" said Henry. "I believe he is searching for the main group. We can go back through the jungle and watch from hiding."
"Oh no!" exclaimed Pee Bee. "Dis am de point of no return! Ah just lost mah reversin' equipment and can only head straight for the no'th pole!"
But they all went back and looked.
Just as they arrived at their hidden point of observation, a bedlam of sound smote their ears. Screams, yells, swearing—the sound of running feet.
"Wait a minute!" they heard Weston shouting. "Hold on, all of you! I'll handle this!"
The sound of running stopped. The bedlam subsided.
They saw Weston making gestures at his bowmen to take up a new position. With tense motions and sober faces, the men obeyed, fixing arrows to their bowstrings while the rest of the camp watched them—and something else that stood just on the edge of the jungle.
There, towering a head above the tallest man, was the alien, staring at all of them with his one, baleful eye. Across his chest, near the breathing orifice in the middle, he wore several patches of something that looked like plasters, or bandages, where Scarface had shot him. He looked weak. His shoulders slumped, and his arms dragged almost to the ground.
"What's the matter, Merman?" yelled Weston.
Merman had been one of the first to run. Now he stood at a considerable distance from the group, looking back.
"You were willing to have a small bunch of guys tackle this freak in the lounge on board the plane," Weston shouted. "But now when you're face to face with him you run! Don't go yellow, Merman! I said I was taking charge, and Iam!"
Weston looked at the crowd of castaways and grinned, contemptuously. "This was our 'common goal,' wasn't it? Now I've got it my way! If it was up to you guys, you'd all put on your best ties and sit down to have a conference. Not me! I say—gethim!"
Whereupon, he led his men toward the alien, axe in hand.
"No, wait!" cried Dr. Bauml. "Don't harm him or we'll never know!"
When the alien saw Weston and his gang approach, he did nothing. He only stood there and watched them come. He still wore the same pack of apparatus on his back and the controls at his waist. The tendrils around his double wrists flicked nervously. And many there were who wondered what had become of Scarface—the man with the gun.
Weston stopped in front of the alien, about five feet from him, which was approximately just beyond the other's reach.
"Now talk, damn you!" he said. "You got us into this and you're going to get us out of it!"
But the alien gave no answer. Nor did his single, multi-faceted eye move from its fixed focus upon the man who addressed him. It glared in its concentration, indefinably.
Weston turned to his men. "He's dead beat," he said. "Those bullet wounds made him weak. We gotta capture him, but don't mess him up too much. We'll just get him down and tie him up. Somebody get some rope!"
Confidently, Weston dropped his axe temporarily and hitched up his trousers. As he did so, his arms and chest bulged and glistened massively in the eternal light of the sky. Sceranka hulked ponderously behind him, his ham-like paws ready for action. Five more of Weston's best huskies closed the semi-circle before the alien.
Henry could feel the pulse in his arteries, and he saw a pink spider making a web in front of him, in the timeless, geometrical design that all such spiders made. Beside him, he could feel Martia's tenseness. Down by the beach, the waves rolled peacefully across the sands, sighing with the eternal voice of the sea. The jungle smelled of damp rot and sickly sweet flowers. And he sweated.
Weston, grinning somewhat tensely now, slowly lifted up his axe again, with the blunt end toward the alien. He took one swift step forward, but that was all. The alien emitted a blood-curdling, monstrous roar and waded into the gang, just as Weston reversed his axe and struck him a blow in the neck. It was an interrupted blow, because the alien's great arms flew up and sent Weston sailing unconscious through the air. He then grabbed Sceranka, oblivious to three arrows in his side and four men climbing onto him, striking, punching and tearing at him. Sceranka's rib case popped audibly as he was instantly crushed and mangled. Then the alien turned and tore one man's arm off and sent another of his attackers flying after Weston, headless. The others turned and ran.
But they did not get far.
He paralyzed them with some invisible force controlling it from his waist. Others did not need this treatment, because they had fainted.
Then he released them from the paralysis sufficiently for them to walk, but not to run. He motioned to all of them, making it quite plain that they were his prisoners and were to follow him into the jungle.
Without a murmur, they obeyed like somnambulists. The alien leaned over the ones who had fainted and did something else with the controls at his waist. These also revived, in a state of trance, and obeyed his silent commands. In single file they went—Merman, Nelson, the navigator, the commissary steward, Congressman Burley, Dr. Bauml, Dr. Edwards, Dr. Singer, Colonel Rogers, the women, the servicemen—all of them blindly following a trail into the Unknown.
Henry and Martia turned to look at their companions. There were Uncle Andy and Valerie and Peggy. But Pee Bee had gone. His trail of sudden departure was marked cleanly through the otherwise impenetrable underbrush on their right. Sizeable branches looked as though they had been shorn clean.
Silently, these five watched their friends and enemies depart—all of those who had not been killed—and excepting Weston, who seemed also to be dead. He lay face down in the sand, arms pointing toward the jungle, feet awash in the surf. He had been thrown thirty feet.
Henry felt Martia shudder.
It was decided that to trek aimlessly through the jungle unaware of what they were looking for would be futile. Instead, they chose to follow the well delineated trail of the captives in order to determine where the alien was taking them.
Uncle Andy and Henry provided the two women with bows and arrows which had fallen from the hands of some of the alien's attackers.
"Do you know how to use them?" he asked.
"Yes," said Valerie Roagland, "but I hope it will not be necessary." The arrow heads were tipped with sharpened pieces of aluminum rod taken from the plane. In fact, some of the arrows were made entirely of aluminum rod.
"We don't know what may be in that jungle," said Uncle Andy, picking up Weston's axe for himself. He carefully examined the blade of the axe. There were traces of very dark blood on it. "Our Pied Piper was wounded in the neck by Weston's blow. I wonder if he'll survive. After all, bullet wounds, arrow wounds—and a chomp in the neck with an axe!"
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Peggy Hollenbeck. "That ought to spell curtains even for Superman!"
"But—" Martia started to express herself, then her eyes widened in alarm as the full implication of her thought struck her. "He is the only one who knows what this is all about!" she exclaimed. "He's the conductor, the engineer and the crew! He knows how we got here and how to get us back to where we came from—if that is possible. If he dies now—!"
They all looked at each other in shocked silence, except for Henry. He merely experimented with one of the bows.
"She's right," he said. "Whether friend or enemy, we've got to make sure that creature does not die until we learn what we need to know. But I'll tell you one thing that may be encouraging...."
Peggy Hollenbeck's chin began to tremble and her eyes misted suddenly. "Henry, if you can sayanythingencouraging about this whole business, for the love of God let's have it before I crack up!" Valerie put her arms around her and the other burst into a fit of crying, which was a delayed reaction from what she had witnessed fifteen minutes before.
Martia might have joined her, but the secret knowledge she shared with Henry helped to sustain her.
"Somewhere in that jungle," said Henry, "is a time machine...."
He calculated that the shock of that statement would bring Peggy out of her semi-hysteria, and it did. She looked at him over Valerie's shoulder, her tearful eyes suddenly wide with surprise and wonderment. Valerie and Uncle Andy both turned slowly to stare incredulously at the two adolescents, both of whom appeared to share the same conviction.
And Uncle Andy thought:What incredible thing is it these two children share in common?
But he asked, "What makes you think so?"
It was then that both Henry and Martia launched themselves into a detailed and vivid account of that strange interlude in time which they, alone, remembered. The other three listened, with both mixed emotions and mixed opinions relative to the youngsters' sanity.
"The reason we're giving you such a wealth of details," Henry concluded, "is because therein lies the proof that there is a time machine in the jungle."
Uncle Andy shook his head, bewildered. "I'm afraid I'm hopelessly lost," he said. "I can't see where it fits in. And if it happened, why wouldn't the rest of us remember it? You say we were there, too."
Henry cast a covert glance at Martia, and only she could understand what that look meant. Impulsively, she grasped his hand and held on to it.
"Let's skip your lack of memory for a minute," Henry answered. "Instead, try to remember the fact that certain people were missing in this camp before the meeting took place."
"That's right!" said Valerie. "The English people—" She looked at Martia. "Your mother, Lady Dewitt! She went away and got lost!"
"And Sir Rollins!" put in Peggy.
"Now it comes back," said Uncle Andy. "They had gone out to look for springwater and had not returned."
"To make a long story short," said Henry, "there were two separate groups. First, the English group, consisting of Lady Dewitt, Cyril Rollins, the Crispin sisters, the two mothers who lost their babies, and Mr. Langham. The second group consisted of Mania's governess, Emily, three WAACs, and the three Texas GIs.
"Now as I see it, here's what happened. The first group found the time machine and entered it, possibly without knowing what they were doing. They were transported back in time perhaps several thousands of years. Stranded there and with no other recourse but to survive, they set up their own type of colony, and their descendants established the Empire of New Bretania."
Peggy looked at Valerie, and both found a common conviction in their eyes. They were sadly understanding and patient as they looked back at Henry and Martia. Uncle Andy only refilled his pipe with the last of his tobacco and watched Henry intently.
"Now wait a minute!" put in Martia. "Henry's not as crazy as you think! Let him continue!"
"We're listening," replied Uncle Andy.
"Having benefitted by some knowledge of modern technology on the part of their original ancestors, this race soon attained a degree of civilization equivalent to our own, though with fewer numbers. Their science enabled them to detect the unbalanced nature of the ionosphere, so they knew they had to get off the planet in order to survive. By some means unknown to us, they were able to make observations through the ionosphere and detect livable conditions on Venus, after all. In other words, after a billion years beyond our time, Venus must have had sufficient time to build up an atmosphere containing a life-sustaining percentage of oxygen. This discovery spurred the building of their space ark, which was to take a representative number of their kind to the new world.
"Now in the meantime let's go back to the second group that was lost—Emily, the WAACs and the Texans. They, too, went through the time machine and built up a civilization contemporaneous with that of New Bretania. Hence the origin of the country, Texania. These latter people were trying to get the ark of space from the New Bretanians.
"Don't you see how it all fits in? When those two groups went through the time machine, we found ourselves in an alternate time, a world changed by their effects on two or three thousand years of the immediate past."
"Then how did everything get back to where it was originally?" asked Uncle Andy. "What got rid of that alternate time so abruptly?"
"The alien," Henry replied. "I think we arrived here, in the first place, by accident and without his knowledge. As a time-traveler, he was no doubt gone from this world for long stretches of time. Perhaps a gap of several thousands of years means nothing to him. But somewhere along that alternate time he returned. He probably proceeded at once to trace down the sources of New Bretania and Texania. This could have led him not only back to Lady Dewitt and the Texans but forward, again, to this present time, to the moment when they were about to go into the time machine in the first place. Taking them prisoner thus prevented that alternate time from occurring. So it was all a lost interlude and Weston went right on talking at the meeting as though nothing had happened. Yet all the while the alien was now aware of our presence, and so he came to take us into custody."
"That is the most astounding tale I have ever listened to," said Uncle Andy. "Now tell me, Henry, why is it that only you and Martia remember that alternate time experience and we do not?"
Again—that strange, knowing look between Henry and Martia.
"Look!" cried Peggy, pointing toward the beach.
When they all turned and looked they saw the same, eternal sea as before, its lazy surf glistening in the forever light of the sky. But there was one, subtle difference. Weston lay there no longer. The whole beach was a scene of desolation—deceivingly peaceful, ominously deserted.
"Cone on!" said Uncle Andy, with sudden sternness. "We can talk about all this later. Just now we'd better try to keep one step ahead of Weston."
They tookallof the available weapons with them....
The trail of the captives led them gradually upward toward the summit of the low range of hills. They soon discovered that the nature of the jungle near the seashore was much less spectacular than the aspect of it inland. It began to appear as though Nature had dumped all her experiments into one bottle and mixed them together.
They passed through "groves" of trees that were mostly roots, all intertwined like some giant vine. Their bark was like shaggy hair and their fine, web-like branches sprouted foliage that looked like feathers. Among these feathered branches crawled brilliant orange and red land crabs, some of them as much as two feet in diameter.
In a swampier region just at the base of the hills they observed flat, leathery looking discs oozing along over the swamp mud, some of them reaching three feet in diameter. They could not imagine what they were until they saw one of them uncover a six foot, scaly worm. The latter fought ferociously, but the leathery disc wrapped itself around its body and the worm's mouth very much like that of a snapping turtle, was incapable of penetrating that leathery hide.
"Those are gigantic leeches," observed Uncle Andy.
And so they went on, following the trail upward, beyond the swamp. They discovered carnivorous plants, huge insects, gigantic birds, but always any mammalian species they saw was small and in the minority.
Finally, they came to an abrupt halt, because the trail ended. There were no more footprints, no more tell-tale marks such as trampled weeds and underbrush or broken branches. No matter where they searched, they could not find a further continuation of the trail. It ended in the center of a meadow, half way up in the jungle clad hills.
"You don't suppose they could have been taken away in some kind of an airship, do you?" asked Uncle Andy.
"No," said Henry. "There are no marks here showing that any such vessel has been sitting here. Moreover, if the alien had come in an aircraft, why would he land it here and walk so far?"
"Hey! Get yo'selves off'n dat place!"
When they all looked, startled, behind them, they saw Pee Bee standing on the edge of the meadow.
"Pee Bee!" exclaimed Valerie, relieved to see something that was both familiar and harmless in this place. "How did you get here?"
"Get off'n dat place you're standin' on!" shouted Pee Bee. "It goes down into de ground where all dose other folks's went!" His eyes were wide with superstitious terror. "Man, ah had mah suspicions dat Missin' Link was de debbil, an' ah don't need no further convincin'! He'sit! He done took dem folks t'hisplace! Dat's where dey are!" he yelled, hysterically. "Dey's done gone to de hot place! Get off'n dat ground!"
"Poor Pee Bee!" said Peggy. "Now he's going crazy on us!"
Pee Bee ran back and forth at one edge of the meadow, helplessly wringing his hands but not daring to approach his friends.
"Look at this," said Martia. "It's a cairn!"
They had not noticed it before, because it was small and half concealed by weeds.
"Who could have put that there?" asked Peggy.
"Perhaps one of our captured friends," said Uncle Andy, squatting down to examine it.
"Get off'n dat ground!" shouted Pee Bee, at the top of his voice.
Uncle Andy removed the top rock from the cairn and uncovered a metal pipe with a screw cap on it. "Oh, oh!" he said. "Booby trap!"
"Unscrew it!" Henry urged him.
"Do you think you'd better?" asked Valerie.
"What else can we do?" put in Martia. "We can't just sit down here and form a colony of our own!"
Uncle Andy looked at the two women and their faces colored. "You asked for it!" he said, abruptly, and unscrewed the cap.
Beneath the cap were two tiny light bulbs embedded in a small panel, in addition to a red button. One of the lights glowed red.
"Well! Civilization at last! Shall I press the button?"
"I think Pee Bee may be right," said Henry. "They probably all went down under the ground and this is the control operating the hidden opening."
Uncle Andy looked up at him. "But if we go rushing in we're liable to end up captives too...."
In that moment, however, the decision was made for them. They discovered that the cairn marked the exact center of an area that was about fifty feet in diameter. This area suddenly sank downward.
"Run!" shouted Uncle Andy, springing to his feet.
But it was too late.
The walls of the pit into which they descended were twenty feet high before they could reach the edge of the circular area. As they continued their descent, the walls grew higher—fifty feet, seventy-five, a hundred....
Pee Bee threw himself on the trampled jangle grass and beat at his head in blind frustration.
"Ah told 'em!" he cried out. "Ah done told 'em t'stay off'n dat debbil ground! Now dey done gone 'n left me all alone—'n where am I?"
He sat up, abruptly, more bug-eyed than ever before. He listened.
The still, hot air brought him only the sound—and the smell—of the pristine jungle surrounding him. A giant bird with a black back and brilliant yellow belly soared over-head and squawked at him hostilely. Somewhere down the hill something small and warm-blooded squealed in terror. He heard a tremendous threshing about in the underbrush and remembered the vines that made a net for their prey—then clutched it inescapably and mashed it into pulp before devouring it. The eternal sky that never turned dark and cool, that sky up there that beat its itchy heat down on him and was making a rash creep up on his skin—it wasn't God's blue sky.
But it washissky—Pee Bee's! All Pee Bee's world now.
He sprang to his feet and screamed, "Dey can't leave me alone in dis place!"
But when he looked at the big, round, gaping hole in the center of the meadow he had to admit the reality of the situation. Hewasalone!
So he threw himself down on the musty smelling grass again and sobbed uncontrollably. How had he gotten himself into this? By being in the Army in the first place. He didn't make the wars and all the trouble in the world, but they dragged him off to Europe to hold a bayonet in the people's faces—at a boundary line. He didn't make those boundaries! God made the world, but he didn't make no boundary lines. Man made the boundaries. Man made shoes for me to shine.
Shine,shine?
All God's chillun got shoes....
"Pee Bee!"
Was that somebody calling him? Sure! Hank Thomas, standing there by his newspaper stand at 12th and Central. The traffic light was red.Wasred.Wasred.
When? Abillionyears ago! That's what Henry said.
"Pee Bee!"
That wasHenrycalling!
Pee Bee sat up again and looked out onto the meadow. The hole was gone, all filled in. In the middle of it stood Henry, alone, beckoning to him.
"Come on, Pee Bee! It's all right!"
Pee Bee jumped to his feet and started to run. Then he stopped, abruptly.
"Oh no!" he said. "Ah done heard aboutmy-rages before! Sometimes it's a lake in de middle of de desert or one of dem oh-wayseses, but you ain't gonna fool Pee Bee! Ah's stayin' right here an' if Gabriel's still got wind left after all dis time t'blow dat beat-up ol' horn o' his he's gonna have t'play a solo fo' jist little ol' me—'cause I ain't leavin' dis spot! No debbil's gonna git me. No animulated bush is gonna git me! An' nomy-rage is gonna git me! Ah's jist gonna sit here an' wait fo' me, only kind of pick-up dat pays off—when Gabriel blows dat horn!"
Henry approached him and took him by the arm. "It's all right, Pee Bee. It's me in the flesh. Now come on! There's no time to lose."
As the circular slab of meadowland lowered itself once more into the ground, Pee Bee remained on his knees, clutching Henry to him for dear life. At the bottom of the pit he fell into Uncle Andy's and Valerie's arms, sobbing. They patted him and consumed several minutes in reassuring him.
All the while, the others shared one thought in common that they felt it would be inopportune to express to Pee Bee. The place they had reached appeared to be empty. Yet someone had operated controls to let them in—those button controls right there in the passageway.
The question was:Who?
They were in a subterranean city, or palace, or laboratory. It was difficult to determine the purpose of everything they saw. Light apparently without a source followed them automatically wherever they went. The walls, ceiling and floor seemed to be made of a translucent substance that was as soft as rubber yet tougher than steel. Now Henry's billion year theory made more sense to the others. In all that time some high form of civilization had to evolve. And this was indisputable evidence that it had.
But why was it hidden so cleverly under the ground? This fact allowed them to presuppose the existence of an enemy. What, in the outer world, could oppose the race that had built this?
Or more logical still—what, in outer space?
"Perhaps," said Uncle Andy, "it's the ionosphere. This is another answer to the danger of hard radiations."
"But not for long," said Henry. "When the critical moment comes there'll be no more atmosphere. What will they do without air?"
"The place is empty," observed Peggy. "Where did the others go?"
That was the principal question.
Twenty minutes later, they stood in a circular room which was roughly forty feet in diameter. In one wall was a mirror, ten feet high. It shimmered like molten silver. They had been in the room twice already.
"What do we do now?" asked Valerie. "Go back to some of those control rooms and start pulling levers?"
"Wait!" exclaimed Martia. "Listen!"
In another moment they could hear the sound of their own breathing. Then—unmistakably—they heard slow, hesitant footsteps.
Valerie and Peggy paled, remembering only too vividly the one-eyed towering creature that had thrown Weston thirty feet through the air. Henry appropriated Valerie's bow and arrow. Uncle Andy, his jaws clamped on a pipe that had long since burned out, took a firm grip on his axe. Pee Bee stood rooted to the floor, unable to do anything but stare in the direction of the curving passageway from which the sounds of the footsteps emanated.
"Weston tried violence against him," whispered Martia to Henry. "Maybe if we—"
"Shh!" From Uncle Andy. He raised his axe and braced himself.
The automatic, progressive light of this place advanced into view and blended with their own light aura as the owner of the footsteps approached.
Once more, Henry's mind began to awaken into that strange condition of ultimate clarity, as it had in alternate time, in New Bretania, before the machine guns.
"Hold up!" he said, lowering his bow.
"Yes!" exclaimed Martia. "It's a friend!"
At that moment, Scarface stepped into view, gun in hand. And Peggy almost swooned with relief.
Pee Bee wiped his forearm across his moist brow and said, "Man! Dat's de finest lookin'my-rage ah seen today!"
Uncle Andy could not refrain from studying the two adolescents again in amazement. They had definitely known beforehand that Scarface would appear instead of the alien.
"I've been doing some checking," said Scarface, without smiling, and without preamble. "There's only one place they could have gone."
"Did you let us in here?" asked Uncle Andy, irrelevantly.
"Yes. There's some kind of viewer that shows who's upstairs. When I saw you out there I pressed the entrance button. But I've been busy since. I think I know the next step."
"Where have you been all this time?" asked Henry.
Scarface glanced at Martia, then at the shimmering mirror behind her. "Trying to trace down missing persons," he answered. "I was topside in the jungle when One Eye brought in his prisoners. So I came down here to pick up the trail, and it ends in front of that mirror."
As all of them turned to look at the shimmering mirror, Scarface advanced toward it to show them something that had, until now, escaped their notice. He mounted two steps of a raised dais on which the mirror stood. Then he halted before it and pointed at its base.
"Look at that!" he said.
Protruding from the strange substance of the mirror was a small branch. He kicked it outward with his foot, and more of the branch emerged into view.
"One of the bunch that was captured dropped that as he went through. Look!" He shoved his hand into the mirror up to his elbow, then pulled it out again. "No pain at all," he said.
"A teletransporter!" exclaimed Henry.
Scarface looked at him quizzically. "I knewyou'dhave a name for it," he said. "But come again?"
"A teletransporter. I get more of the picture now," said Henry. "Underground stations like this may be scattered all over the planet. Transportation between them is accomplished instantaneously by this means. Perhaps, with the proper setting of controls, one could walk around the world, through various stations, in a few minutes!"
"Whoa!" said Uncle Andy. "When did you ever see a teletransporter?"
"I didn't, but their possibility may be extrapolated from a set of known facts in our own era of time. One premise is that energy may be propagated at the speed of light through the ether, in various pulsation patterns that can be used for the reintegration of sound or light in receivers. Another premise is that matter is energy. Therefore, it lies within the realm of possibility to reduce matter to its basic energy components, broadcast the energy in a representative pattern sequence—perhaps on multiple wavebands—and reintegrate the same form of matter at the other end. On the other hand, new principles may have been discovered after our own time, such as the manipulation or use of hyper-space or ether warp of some kind. But I'm sure this is a bonafide teletransporter. We have only to step through it, the way it is adjusted now, and be where our friends are. Since Scarface is armed, I think we need not fear being surprised by the alien."
Scarface raised his brows and looked at the others. "It's simple when you know how," he said, wryly. "But there's an easier way of analyzing this contraption. I'll walk through it. If I don't come back, you can decide for yourselves if you want to follow or take up camping in that jungle outside for the rest of your lives. Here goes!"
"Wait!" cried Uncle Andy.
But Scarface walked into the mirror and disappeared.
They waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes. And Scarface did not return. Finally, Pee Bee offered a solution.
"Ah sees it like this," he said, breaking an oppressive silence. "Ah feels safe when ah's on de right side of dat gun. Now if we goes through dat mirror an' finds Scahface, we's better off than we is here. If we goes into dat mirror an' gets snuffed into nothin'—then dat means Scahface an' all de rest is probably big, flattened out blobs of nothin', too. So we might as well join 'em instead of hangin' around here. Ah's sick of it, an' ah's ready!" Before they could stop him, he hurled himself into the mirror and disappeared.
The remaining castaways looked at each other in silence for almost thirty seconds.
Then Uncle Andy said, "I think we'd better try it."
Valerie grasped his hand and Martia's. "Let's all go through together," she suggested, quietly.
They drew close to each other, held hands, and formed a straight line of five as they walked through the mirror together—just as the corridor behind them filled with light again and a pair of bloodshot eyes noted their departure....
This was definitely a tremendous, subterranean city, or the beginning of one. But its only inhabitants, other than the alien, seemed to be the survivors of MATS flight 702. They were still in a state of hypnosis, standing there on the pillared mezzanine that overlooked the vast room below and beyond them. Other mezzanines were visible on the far side of that tremendous chamber, and beneath them a dozen or so tunnel entrances indicated that there was much to be seen further on.
Among the people who stood out there on the mezzanine were Pee Bee and Scarface, also in a trance, as well as the Texas GIs, the missing WAACs, Martia's governess, Emily, the two mothers, Mr. Langham, Sir Rollins—and Lady Dewitt.
Martia might have cried out and run to her mother were it not for the fact that the alien, himself, confronted them.
They stood in an alcove that was half filled with banks of controls and instruments. The alien stood before these controls and glared at them purposefully as they came through the teletransmitter. His neck was dark with dried blood, and the three arrows still protruded from his side. His stooping posture gave more evidence than before that he was growing weaker.
As they came through and caught sight of him and the others, one of his hands moved on the control panel, then paused.
Don't do that!—came a sharp command into his mind.
He straightened up suddenly, his single eye brightening in shocked surprise as he looked first at Henry, then at Martia.
Valerie, Peggy and Uncle Andy watched the alien, white-faced, uncomprehendingly, as he slowly turned to face them squarely, his eye fairly glittering with inner lights of its own. Then—without warning—he uttered a few unintelligible words, groaned, and fell on his face.
"Quick!" said Uncle Andy. "The gun!" He ran, himself, to pluck it out of Scarface's nerveless fingers.
"But what happened!" exclaimed Valerie. "Is he dead?" She and Peggy did not follow Henry and Martia as they went over to look at the alien.
"Henry," whispered Martia. "Whatarewe? I know what you did!"
Henry paused to look at her. "Martia, Lady Dewitt is not really your mother—isshe?"
Martia colored.
"You know there are no secrets between us," he insisted.
"No," she answered. "I am an orphan, like you."
"An orphan equipped with photographic memory and extra-sensory perception," he said, rapidly. "Also, other things, like extended perception in time. You have lately come to sense that your mind was 'fixed,' long ago, to keep you from using your full powers and to prevent you from knowing who orwhatyou were, but these recent experiences have started an awakening process—"
"Yes!" she agreed. "Henry, what—"
His eyes bored into hers, his nostrils flaring in his tense excitement. "Shall I tell you where you were really born?" He turned his head and looked down. "Wait! He's beginning to stir!Hecan give us the final answer!"
As the alien stirred, one of the tendrils on his wrist twirled a control on the panel at his waist. Martia swayed, but Henry stood his ground, blocking that telepathic signal and showing Martia how to do it at the same time. But Valerie and Peggy and Uncle Andy dropped to the floor, unconscious.
The alien rose slowly to his feet, and Henry turned, instinctively, to get the gun that Uncle Andy had dropped. Then he and Martia, as well as the alien, stiffened in surprise as Scarface smilingly picked up the gun and leveled it.
"Everything is going to be all right," he said, confidently. "I think I have all the answers now. It was not the impossible coincidence I imagined it to be, his coming upon all three of us on board that plane. I think that he—"
"Look out!" screamed Martia.
Out of the mirror had come an unexpected figure, hurling itself upon Scarface's back. Scarface went down and the gun was torn from his fingers, even as the alien reached for his controls on the instrument panel behind him.
"No you don't!" yelled Tommy Weston.
He stood there, his clothes half torn off, supporting himself on one good leg and painfully trying not to bring pressure to bear on the other, which appeared to be sprained.
"I'mstillrunning the show!" he yelled, hysterically.
Quick!—came a thought from Scarface to the two adolescents.Through the teleporter!
As they literally threw themselves into the silvery mirror in back of them, they heard Weston firing shot after shot into the alien....
Back in the subterranean chamber where they had come upon their first teleporter, Scarface reached behind the mirror and adjusted something, whereupon the sheet of silvery substance took on a bluish sheen.
"You see, I knew all along what this was," he said. "But if I had told you that it would probably lead you right into Mlargn's hands you would not have dared follow. You needed one more shock to bring you out, and I waited there for you, waiting for my final proof." He smiled. "In his weakened condition, it was toomuchof a shock to Mlargn. I didn't quite expect him to pass out like that—the poor beast! Well, anyway, Weston has taken care of him, and this adjustment will keep him from following us."
"Wait, please!" interrupted Henry. "You're assuming too much knowledge on our part. We—"
"Just one more detail," said Scarface, as he made a last adjustment behind the mirror. By now it was a shimmering pink. "Follow me," he directed. And without further explanation he steppedbackthrough the teleporter.
Under ordinary circumstances, Henry and Martia would have reacted emotionally to this new development, and fear would have restrained them. But this was a very special circumstance because they had had an awakening. A calm logic told them that Scarface would not have directed them to follow him if it would do them any harm. One of the premises of that logic was that they had "read" at least his attitude. He was definitely an ally—and the ultimate answer to their mutual enigma.
So they followed him.
They found themselves in a great, domed citadel which covered the entire top of a small island. Some miles away was a long stretch of jungle-covered land and low hills easily recognizable as the country where they had first camped. They could even make out the silvery glitter of the wrecked plane.
They remembered having seen this island from the shore, but it had looked like a flat-topped, barren rock protruding from the sea. Then it came to them that the citadel on top was invisible from the land.
Scarface sat at the console of a tremendous instrument panel. On his head was an elaborate headpiece equipped with silvery anodes that clamped against his skull. His eyes were closed. His fingers made delicate adjustments on the console while strange, almost ultra-sonic tones emanated from a battery of glowing tubes on the wall.
Martia and Henry sensed that they were not to disturb him. So they walked around inside the dome and looked at the sea, and the old, old land. Their minds were awakening to new perspectives and powers, and slowly they caught glimpses of a billion year pattern of destiny that dazzled their thoughts. So they barred these perspectives, holding them breathlessly at the threshold of soaring consciousness—waiting for experienced guidance.
At length, Scarface finished his task and came over to them. "While I am waiting for results," he said, "I will tell you what you want to know...."
He told them that somewhere in the era of time in which they had been raised, a cataclysm had occurred which had destroyed all life on Earth. Oceans had come over the land and the whole, slow, geo-biological process of regeneration had begun once more. Evolution through hundreds of millions of years had at last arrived at a dominant, intelligent species of which Mlargn, the "alien," was the last survivor.
He told them the story of Xlarn, of the cooling of the sun, of the reaction sphere, and of the Chronotron. And he described the developments which finally led to Mlargn's time journey in search of life before the Beginning.
"Actually, Mlargn made two trips into Earth time. On his first trip he must have arrived somewhere in an earlier century than the one you knew—"
"The thirteenth century," interrupted Henry.
Scarface looked at him in wonderment. So both Henry and Martia told him the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
For almost a minute, the other was silent. Then he said, "So that's where the ancestors of Galactic Civilization came from...."
"Galactic Civilization!" Martia exclaimed.