THE TIME TRADERS

BY ANDRE NORTON

_Science Fiction_

THE STARS ARE OURS!

STAR BORN

THE TIME TRADERS

_Historical Fiction_

YANKEE PRIVATEER

_Edited by Andre Norton_

BULLARD OF THE SPACE PATROL

SPACE SERVICE

SPACE PIONEERS

SPACE POLICE

_Andre Norton_

THE TIME

TRADERS

CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK

THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY

_Published by_ The World Publishing Company 2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio

_Published simultaneously in Canada by_ Nelson, Foster & Scott Ltd. 

_Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-11154_

SECOND PRINTING

2WP759

Copyright (c) 1958 by The World Publishing Company All rights reserved. Nopart of this book may be reproduced in any form without writtenpermission from the publisher, except for brief passages included in areview appearing in a newspaper or magazine. Printed in the UnitedStates of America. 

Transcriber's note:Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright onthis publication was renewed. 

THE TIME TRADERS

CHAPTER 1

To anyone who glanced casually inside the detention room the young mansitting there did not seem very formidable. In height he might have beena little above average, but not enough to make him noticeable. His brownhair was cropped conservatively; his unlined boy's face was not one tobe remembered--unless one was observant enough to note those light-grayeyes and catch a chilling, measuring expression showing now and then foran instant in their depths. 

Neatly and inconspicuously dressed, in this last quarter of thetwentieth century his like was to be found on any street of the city tenfloors below--to all outward appearances. But that other person underthe protective coloring so assiduously cultivated could touch heights ofencased and controlled fury which Murdock himself did not understand andwas only just learning to use as a weapon against a world he had alwaysfound hostile. 

He was aware, though he gave no sign of it, that a guard was watchinghim. The cop on duty was an old hand--he probably expected some reactionother than passive acceptance from the prisoner. But he was not goingto get it. The law had Ross sewed up tight this time. Why didn't theyget about the business of shipping him off? Why had he had thatafternoon session with the skull thumper? Ross had been on the defensivethen, and he had not liked it. He had given to the other's questions allthe attention his shrewd mind could muster, but a faint, very faint, apprehension still clung to the memory of that meeting. 

The door of the detention room opened. Ross did not turn his head, butthe guard cleared his throat as if their hour of mutual silence haddried his vocal cords. "On your feet, Murdock! The judge wants to seeyou. "

Ross rose smoothly, with every muscle under fluid control. It never paidto talk back, to allow any sign of defiance to show. He would go throughthe motions as if he were a bad little boy who had realized his errors. It was a meek-and-mild act that had paid off more than once in Ross'scheckered past. So he faced the man seated behind the desk in the otherroom with an uncertain, diffident smile, standing with boyishawkwardness, respectfully waiting for the other to speak first. 

Judge Ord Rawle. It was his rotten luck to pull old Eagle Beak on hiscase. Well, he would simply have to take it when the old boy dished itout. Not that he had to remain stuck with it later. .. . 

"You have a bad record, young man. "

Ross allowed his smile to fade; his shoulders slumped. But underconcealing lids his eyes showed an instant of cold defiance. 

"Yes, sir, " he agreed in a voice carefully cultivated to shakeconvincingly about the edges. Then suddenly all Ross's pleasure in theskill of his act was wiped away. Judge Rawle was not alone; that blastedskull thumper was sitting there, watching the prisoner with the samekeenness he had shown the other day. 

"A very bad record for the few years you have had to make it. " EagleBeak was staring at him, too, but without the same look of penetration, luckily for Ross. "By rights, you should be turned over to the newRehabilitation Service. .. . "

Ross froze inside. That was the "treatment, " icy rumors of which hadspread throughout his particular world. For the second time since he hadentered the room his self-confidence was jarred. Then he clung with adegree of hope to the phrasing of that last sentence. 

"Instead, I have been authorized to offer you a choice, Murdock. Onewhich I shall state--and on record--I do not in the least approve. "

Ross's twinge of fear faded. If the judge didn't like it, there must besomething in it to the advantage of Ross Murdock. He'd grab it for sure!

"There is a government project in need of volunteers. It seems that youhave tested out as possible material for this assignment. If you signfor it, the law will consider the time spent on it as part of yoursentence. Thus you may aid the country which you have heretoforedisgraced----"

"And if I refuse, I go to this rehabilitation. Is that right, sir?"

"I certainly consider you a fit candidate for rehabilitation. Yourrecord--" He shuffled through the papers on his desk. 

"I choose to volunteer for the project, sir. "

The judge snorted and pushed all the papers into a folder. He spoke to aman waiting in the shadows. "Here then is your volunteer, Major. "

Ross bottled in his relief. He was over the first hump. And since hisluck had held so far, he might be about to win all the way. .. . 

The man Judge Rawle called "Major" moved into the light. At the firstglance Ross, to his hidden annoyance, found himself uneasy. To face upto Eagle Beak was all part of the game. But somehow he sensed one didnot play such games with this man. 

"Thank you, your honor. We will be on our way at once. This weather isnot very promising. "

Before he realized what was happening, Ross found himself walking meeklyto the door. He considered trying to give the major the slip when theyleft the building, losing himself in a storm-darkened city. But they didnot take the elevator downstairs. Instead, they climbed two or threeflights up the emergency stairs. And to his humiliation Ross foundhimself panting and slowing, while the other man, who must have been agood dozen years his senior, showed no signs of discomfort. 

They came out into the snow on the roof, and the major flashed a torchskyward, guiding in a dark shadow which touched down before them. Ahelicopter! For the first time Ross began to doubt the wisdom of hischoice. 

"On your way, Murdock!" The voice was impersonal enough, but that veryimpersonality got under one's skin. 

Bundled into the machine between the silent major and an equally quietpilot in uniform, Ross was lifted over the city, whose ways he knew aswell as he knew the lines on his own palm, into the unknown he wasalready beginning to regard dubiously. The lighted streets andbuildings, their outlines softened by the soft wet snow, fell out ofsight. Now they could mark the outer highways. Ross refused to ask anyquestions. He could take this silent treatment; he _had_ taken a lot oftougher things in the past. 

The patches of light disappeared, and the country opened out. The planebanked. Ross, with all the familiar landmarks of his world gone, couldnot have said if they were headed north or south. But moments later noteven the thick curtain of snowflakes could blot out the pattern of redlights on the ground, and the helicopter settled down. 

"Come on!"

For the second time Ross obeyed. He stood shivering, engulfed in aminiature blizzard. His clothing, protection enough in the city, didlittle good against the push of the wind. A hand gripped his upper arm, and he was drawn forward to a low building. A door banged and Ross andhis companion came into a region of light and very welcome heat. 

"Sit down--over there!"

Too bewildered to resent orders, Ross sat. There were other men in theroom. One, wearing a queer suit of padded clothing, a bulbous headgearhooked over his arm, was reading a paper. The major crossed to speak tohim and after they conferred for a moment, the major beckoned Ross witha crooked finger. Ross trailed the officer into an inner room lined withlockers. 

From one of the lockers the major pulled a suit like the pilot's, andbegan to measure it against Ross. "All right, " he snapped. "Climb intothis! We haven't all night. "

Ross climbed into the suit. As soon as he fastened the last zipper hiscompanion jammed one of the domed helmets on his head. The pilot lookedin the door. "We'd better scramble, Kelgarries, or we may be groundedfor the duration!"

They hurried back to the flying field. If the helicopter had been asurprising mode of travel, this new machine was something straight outof the future--a needle-slim ship poised on fins, its sharp nose liftingvertically into the heavens. There was a scaffolding along one side, which the pilot scaled to enter the ship. 

Unwillingly, Ross climbed the same ladder and found that he must wedgehimself in on his back, his knees hunched up almost under his chin. Tomake it worse, cramped as those quarters were, he had to share them withthe major. A transparent hood snapped down and was secured, sealing themin. 

During his short lifetime Ross had often been afraid, bitterly afraid. He had fought to toughen his mind and body against such fears. But whathe experienced now was no ordinary fear; it was panic so strong that itmade him feel sick. To be shut in this small place with the knowledgethat he had no control over his immediate future brought him face toface with every terror he had ever known, all of them combined into onehorrible whole. 

How long does a nightmare last? A moment? An hour? Ross could not timehis. But at last the weight of a giant hand clamped down on his chest, and he fought for breath until the world exploded about him. 

He came back to consciousness slowly. For a second he thought he wasblind. Then he began to sort out one shade of grayish light fromanother. Finally, Ross became aware that he no longer rested on hisback, but was slumped in a seat. The world about him was wrung with avibration that beat in turn through his body. 

Ross Murdock had remained at liberty as long as he had because he wasable to analyze a situation quickly. Seldom in the past five years hadhe been at a loss to deal with any challenging person or action. Now hewas aware that he was on the defensive and was being kept there. Hestared into the dark and thought hard and furiously. He was convincedthat everything that was happening to him this day was designed withonly one end in view--to shake his self-confidence and make him pliable. Why?

Ross had an enduring belief in his own abilities and he also possesseda kind of shrewd understanding seldom granted to one so young. He knewthat while Murdock was important to Murdock, he was none too importantin the scheme of things as a whole. He had a record--a record so badthat Rawle might easily have thrown the book at him. But it differed inone important way from that of many of his fellows; until now he hadbeen able to beat most of the raps. Ross believed this was largelybecause he had always worked alone and taken pains to plan a job inadvance. 

Why now had Ross Murdock become so important to someone that they woulddo all this to shake him? He was a volunteer--for what? To be a guineapig for some bug they wanted to learn how to kill cheaply and easily?They'd been in a big hurry to push him off base. Using the silenttreatment, this rushing around in planes, they were really working tokeep him groggy. So, all right, he'd give them a groggy boy all set upfor their job, whatever it was. Only, was his act good enough to foolthe major? Ross had a hunch that it might not be, and that really hurt. 

It was deep night now. Either they had flown out of the path of thestorm or were above it. There were stars shining through the cover ofthe cockpit, but no moon. 

Ross's formal education was sketchy, but in his own fashion he hadacquired a range of knowledge which would have surprised many of theauthorities who had had to deal with him. All the wealth of a big citylibrary had been his to explore, and he had spent much time there, soaking up facts in many odd branches of learning. Facts were veryuseful things. On at least three occasions assorted scraps of knowledgehad preserved Ross's freedom, once, perhaps his life. 

Now he tried to fit together the scattered facts he knew about hispresent situation into some proper pattern. He was inside some new typeof super-super atomjet, a machine so advanced in design that it wouldnot have been used for anything that was not an important mission. Whichmeant that Ross Murdock had become necessary to someone, somewhere. Knowing that fact should give him a slight edge in the future, and hemight well need such an edge. He'd just have to wait, play dumb, and usehis eyes and ears. 

At the rate they were shooting along they ought to be out of the countryin a couple of hours. Didn't the Government have bases half over theworld to keep the "cold peace"? Well, there was nothing for it. To beplanted abroad someplace might interfere with plans for escape, but he'dhandle that detail when he was forced to face it. 

Then suddenly Ross was on his back once more, the giant hand digginginto his chest and middle. This time there were no lights on the groundto guide them in. Ross had no intimation that they had reached theirdestination until they set down with a jar which snapped his teethtogether. 

The major wriggled out, and Ross was able to stretch his cramped body. But the other's hand was already on his shoulder, urging him along. Rosscrawled free and clung dizzily to a ladderlike disembarking structure. 

Below there were no lights, only an expanse of open snow. Men weremoving across that blank area, gathering at the foot of the ladder. Rosswas hungry and very tired. If the major wanted to play games, he hopedthat such action could wait until the next morning. 

In the meantime he must learn where "here" was. If he had a chance torun, he wanted to know the surrounding territory. But that hand was onhis arm, drawing him along toward a door that stood half-open. As far asRoss could see, it led to the interior of a hillock of snow. Either thestorm or men had done a very good cover-up job, and somehow Ross knewthe camouflage was intentional. 

That was Ross's introduction to the base, and after his arrival his viewof the installation was extremely limited. One day was spent inundergoing the most searching physical he had ever experienced. Andafter the doctors had poked and pried he was faced by a series of othertests no one bothered to explain. Thereafter he was introduced tosolitary, that is, confined to his own company in a cell-like room witha bunk that was more comfortable than it looked and an announcer in acorner of the ceiling. So far he had been told exactly nothing. And sofar he had asked no questions, stubbornly keeping up his end of what hebelieved to be a tug of wills. At the moment, safely alone and lyingflat on his bunk he eyed the announcer, a very dangerous young man andone who refused to yield an inch. 

"Now hear this. .. . " The voice transmitted through that grill wasmetallic, but its rasp held overtones of Kelgarries' voice. Ross's lipstightened. He had explored every inch of the walls and knew that therewas no trace of the door which had admitted him. With only his barehands to work with he could not break out, and his only clothes were theshirt, sturdy slacks, and a pair of soft-soled moccasins that they hadgiven him. 

". .. To identify . .. " droned the voice. Ross realized that he must havemissed something, not that it mattered. He was almost determined not toplay along any more. 

There was a click, signifying that Kelgarries was through braying. Butthe customary silence did not close in again. Instead, Ross heard aclear, sweet trilling which he vaguely associated with a bird. Hisacquaintance with all feathered life was limited to city sparrows andplump park pigeons, neither of which raised their voices in song, butsurely those sounds were bird notes. Ross glanced from the mike in theceiling to the opposite wall and what he saw there made him sit up, withthe instant response of an alerted fighter. 

For the wall was no longer there! Instead, there was a sharp slope ofground cutting down from peaks where the dark green of fir trees ranclose to the snow line. Patches of snow clung to the earth in shelteredplaces, and the scent of those pines was in Ross's nostrils, real as thewind touching him with its chill. 

He shivered as a howl sounded loudly and echoed, bearing the age-oldwarning of a wolf pack, hungry and a-hunt. Ross had never heard thatsound before, but his human heritage subconsciously recognized it forwhat it was--death on four feet. Similarly, he was able to identify thegray shadows slinking about the nearest trees, and his hands balled intofists as he looked wildly about him for some weapon. 

The bunk was under him and three of the four walls of the room enclosedhim like a cave. But one of those gray skulkers had raised its head andwas looking directly at him, its reddish eyes alight. Ross ripped thetop blanket off the bunk with a half-formed idea of snapping it at theanimal when it sprang. 

Stiff-legged, the beast advanced, a guttural growl sounding deep in itsthroat. To Ross the animal, larger than any dog he had even seen andtwice as vicious, was a monster. He had the blanket ready before herealized that the wolf was not watching him after all, and that itsattention was focused on a point out of his line of vision. 

The wolfs muzzle wrinkled in a snarl, revealing long yellow-white teeth. There was a singing twang, and the animal leaped into the air, fellback, and rolled on the ground, biting despairingly at a shaftprotruding from just behind its ribs. It howled again, and blood brokefrom its mouth. 

Ross was beyond surprise now. He pulled himself together and got up, towalk steadily toward the dying wolf. And he wasn't in the least amazedwhen his outstretched hands flattened against an unseen barrier. Slowly, he swept his hands right and left, sure that he was touching the wall ofhis cell. Yet his eyes told him he was on a mountain side, and everysight, sound, and smell was making it real to him. 

Puzzled, he thought a moment and then, finding an explanation thatsatisfied him, he nodded once and went back to sit at ease on his bunk. This must be some superior form of TV that included odors, the illusionof wind, and other fancy touches to make it more vivid. The total effectwas so convincing that Ross had to keep reminding himself that it wasall just a picture. 

The wolf was dead. Its pack mates had fled into the brush, but since thepicture remained, Ross decided that the show was not yet over. He couldstill hear a click of sound, and he waited for the next bit of action. But the reason for his viewing it still eluded him. 

A man came into view, crossing before Ross. He stooped to examine thedead wolf, catching it by the tail and hoisting its hindquarters off theground. Comparing the beast's size with the hunter's, Ross saw that hehad not been wrong in his estimation of the animal's unusually largedimensions. The man shouted over his shoulder, his words distinctenough, but unintelligible to Ross. 

The stranger was oddly dressed--too lightly dressed if one judged theclimate by the frequent snow patches and the biting cold. A strip ofcoarse cloth, extending from his armpit to about four inches above theknee, was wound about his body and pulled in at the waist by a belt. Thebelt, far more ornate than the cumbersome wrapping, was made of manysmall chains linking metal plates and supported a long dagger whichhung straight in front. The man also wore a round blue cloak, now sweptback on his shoulders to free his bare arms, which was fastened by alarge pin under his chin. His footgear, which extended above his calves, was made of animal hide, still bearing patches of shaggy hair. His facewas beardless, though a shadowy line along his chin suggested that hehad not shaved that particular day. A fur cap concealed most of hisdark-brown hair. 

Was he an Indian? No, for although his skin was tanned, it was as fairas Ross's under that weathering. And his clothing did not resemble anyIndian apparel Ross had ever seen. Yet, in spite of his primitivetrappings, the man had such an aura of authority, of self-confidence, and competence that it was clear he was top dog in his own section ofthe world. 

Soon another man, dressed much like the first, but with a rust-browncloak, came along, pulling behind him two very reluctant donkeys, whoseeyes rolled fearfully at sight of the dead wolf. Both animals wore packslashed on their backs by ropes of twisted hide. Then another man camealong, with another brace of donkeys. Finally, a fourth man, wearingskins for covering and with a mat of beard on his cheeks and chin, appeared. His uncovered head, a bush of uncombed flaxen hair, shonewhitish as he knelt beside the dead beast, a knife with a dull-grayblade in his hand, and set to work skinning the wolf with appreciableskill. Three more pairs of donkeys, all heavily laden, were led past thescene before he finished his task. Finally, he rolled the bloody skininto a bundle and gave the flayed body a kick before he ran lightlyafter the disappearing train of pack animals. 

CHAPTER 2

Ross, absorbed in the scene before him, was not prepared for the suddenand complete darkness which blotted out not only the action but thelight in his own room as well. 

"What--?" His startled voice rang loudly in his ears, too loudly, forall sound had been wiped out with the light. The faint swish of theventilating system, of which he had not been actively aware until it haddisappeared, was also missing. A trace of the same panic he had known inthe cockpit of the atomjet tingled along his nerves. But this time hecould meet the unknown with action. 

Ross slowly moved through the dark, his hands outstretched before him toward off contact with the wall. He was determined that somehow he woulddiscover the hidden door, escape from this dark cell. .. . 

There! His palm struck flat against a smooth surface. He swept out hishand--and suddenly it passed over emptiness. Ross explored by touch. There _was_ a door and now it was open. For a moment he hesitated, upsetby a nagging little fear that if he stepped through he would be out onthe hillside with the wolves. 

"That's stupid!" Again he spoke aloud. And, just because he did feeluneasy, he moved. All the frustrations of the past hours built up in hima raging desire to do something--anything--just so long as it was what_he_ wanted to do and not at another's orders. 

Nevertheless, Ross continued to move slowly, for the space beyond thatopen door was as deep and dark a pit as the room he left. To squeezealong one wall, using an outstretched arm as a guide, was the bestprocedure, he decided. 

A few feet farther on, his shoulder slipped from the surface and he halftumbled into another open door. But there was the wall again, and heclung to it thankfully. Another door . .. Ross paused, trying to catchsome faint sound, the slightest hint that he was not alone in thisblindman's maze. But without even air currents to stir it, the blacknessitself took on a thick solidity which encased him as a congealing jelly. 

The wall ended. Ross kept his left hand on it, flailed out with hisright, and felt his nails scrape across another surface. The spaceseparating the two surfaces was wider than any doorway. Was it across-corridor? He was about to make a wider arm sweep when he heard asound. He was not alone. 

Ross went back to the wall, flattening himself against it, trying tocontrol the volume of his own breathing in order to catch the slightestwhisper of the other noise. He discovered that lack of sight can confusethe ear. He could not identify those clicks, the wisp of flutteringsound that might be air displaced by the opening of another door. 

Finally, he detected something moving at floor level. Someone orsomething must be creeping, not walking, toward him. Ross pushed backaround the corner. It never occurred to him to challenge that crawler. There was an element of danger in this strange encounter in the dark; itwas not meant to be a meeting between fellow explorers. 

The sound of crawling was not steady. There were long pauses, and Rossbecame convinced that each rest was punctuated by heavy breathing as ifthe crawler was finding progress a great and exhausting effort. Hefought the picture that persisted in his imagination--that of a wolfsnuffling along the blacked-out hall. Caution suggested a quick retreat, but Ross's urge to rebellion held him where he was, crouching, strainingto see what crept toward him. 

Suddenly there was a blinding flare of light, and Ross's hands went tocover his dazzled eyes. And he heard a despairing, choked exclamationfrom near to floor level. The same steady light that normally filledhall and room was bright again. Ross found himself standing at thejuncture of two corridors--momentarily, he was absurdly pleased that hehad deduced that correctly--and the crawler--?

A man--at least the figure was a two-legged, two-armed body reasonablyhuman in outline--was lying several yards away. But the body was sowrapped in bandages and the head so totally muffled, that it lacked allidentity. For that reason it was the more startling. 

One of the mittened hands moved slightly, raising the body from theground so it could squirm forward an inch or so. Before Ross could move, a man came running into the corridor from the far end. Murdockrecognized Major Kelgarries. He wet his lips as the major went down onhis knees beside the creature on the floor. 

"Hardy! Hardy!" That voice, which carried the snap of command wheneverit was addressed to Ross, was now warmly human. "Hardy, man!" Themajor's hands were on the bandaged body, lifting it, easing the head andshoulders back against his arm. "It's all right, Hardy. You'reback--safe. This is the base, Hardy. " He spoke slowly, soothingly, withthe steadiness one would use to comfort a frightened child. 

Those mittened paws which had beat feebly into the air fell onto thebandage-wreathed chest. "Back--safe--" The voice from behind the facemask was a rusty croak. 

"Back, safe, " the major assured him. 

"Dark--dark all around again--" protested the croak. 

"Just a power failure, man. Everything's all right now. We'll get youinto bed. "

The mitten pawed again until it touched Kelgarries' arm; then it flexeda little as if the hand under it was trying to grip. 

"Safe--?"

"You bet you are!" The major's tone carried firm reassurance. NowKelgarries looked up at Ross as if he knew the other had been there allthe time. 

"Murdock, get down to the end room. Call Dr. Farrell!"

"Yes, sir!" The "sir" came so automatically that Ross had alreadyreached the end room before he realized he had used it. 

Nobody explained matters to Ross Murdock. The bandaged Hardy was claimedby the doctor and two attendants and carried away, the major walkingbeside the stretcher, still holding one of the mittened hands in his. Ross hesitated, sure he was not supposed to follow, but not ready eitherto explore farther or return to his own room. The sight of Hardy, whoever he might be, had radically changed Ross's conception of theproject he had too speedily volunteered to join. 

That what they did here was important, Ross had never doubted. That itwas dangerous, he had early suspected. But his awareness had been anabstract concept of danger, not connected with such concrete evidence asHardy crawling through the dark. From the first, Ross had nursed vagueplans for escape; now he knew he must get out of this place lest he endup a twin for Hardy. 

"Murdock?"

Having heard no warning sound from behind, Ross whirled, ready to usehis fists, his only weapons. But he did not face the major, or any ofthe other taciturn men he knew held positions of authority. Thenewcomer's brown skin was startling against the neutral shade of thewalls. His hair and brows were only a few shades darker; but the generalsameness of color was relieved by the vivid blue of his eyes. 

Expressionless, the dark stranger stood quietly, his arms hangingloosely by his sides, studying Ross, as if the younger man was someproblem he had been assigned to solve. When he spoke, his voice was amonotone lacking any modulation of feeling. 

"I am Ashe. " He introduced himself baldly; he might have been saying"This is a table and that is a chair. "

Ross's quick temper took spark from the other's indifference. "Allright--so you're Ashe!" He strove to make a challenge of it. "And whatis that supposed to mean?"

But the other did not rise to the bait. He shrugged. "For the time beingwe have been partnered----"

"Partnered for what?" demanded Ross, controlling his temper. 

"We work in pairs here. The machine sorts us . .. " he answered brieflyand consulted his wrist watch. "Mess call soon. "

Ashe had already turned away, and Ross could not stand the other's lackof interest. While Murdock refused to ask questions of the major or anyothers on that side of the fence, surely he could get some informationfrom a fellow "volunteer. "

"What is this place, anyway?" he asked. 

The other glanced back over his shoulder. "Operation Retrograde. "

Ross swallowed his anger. "Okay, but what do they do here? Listen, Ijust saw a fellow who'd been banged up as if he'd been in a concretemixer, creeping along this hall. What sort of work do they do here? Andwhat do we have to do?"

To his amazement Ashe smiled, at least his lips quirked faintly. "Hardygot under your skin, eh? Well, we have our percentage of failures. Theyare as few as it's humanly possible to make, and they give us everyadvantage that can be worked out for us----"

"Failures at what?"

"Operation Retrograde. "

Somewhere down the hall a buzzer gave a muted whirr. 

"That's mess call. And I'm hungry, even if you're not. " Ashe walked awayas if Ross Murdock had ceased to exist. 

But Ross Murdock did exist, and to him that was an important fact. As hetrailed along behind Ashe he determined that he was going to continue toexist, in one piece and unharmed, Operation Retrograde or no OperationRetrograde. And he was going to pry a few enlightening answers out ofsomebody very soon. 

To his surprise he found Ashe waiting for him at the door of a room fromwhich came the sound of voices and a subdued clatter of trays andtableware. 

"Not many in tonight, " Ashe commented in a take-it-or-leave-it tone. "It's been a busy week. "

The room was rather sparsely occupied. Five tables were empty, while themen gathered at the remaining two. Ross counted ten men, either alreadyeating or coming back from a serving hatch with well-filled trays. Allof them were dressed in slacks, shirt, and moccasins like himself--theoutfit seemed to be a sort of undress uniform--and six of them wereordinary in physical appearance. The other four differed so radicallythat Ross could barely conceal his amazement. 

Since their fellows accepted them without comment, Ross silently stoleglances at them as he waited behind Ashe for a tray. One pair wereclearly Oriental; they were small, lean men with thin brackets of longblack mustache on either side of their mobile mouths. Yet he had caughta word or two of their conversation, and they spoke his own languagewith the facility of the native born. In addition to the mustaches, eachwore a blue tattoo mark on the forehead and others of the same design onthe backs of their agile hands. 

The second duo were even more fantastic. The color of their flaxen hairwas normal, but they wore it in braids long enough to swing across theirpowerful shoulders, a fashion unlike any Ross had ever seen. Yet anysuggestion of effeminacy certainly did not survive beyond the firstglance at their ruggedly masculine features. 

"Gordon!" One of the braided giants swung halfway around from the tableto halt Ashe as he came down the aisle with his tray. "When did you getback? And where is Sanford?"

One of the Orientals laid down the spoon with which he had beenvigorously stirring his coffee and asked with real concern, "Anotherloss?"

Ashe shook his head. "Just reassignment. Sandy's holding down OutpostGog and doing well. " He grinned and his face came to life with anexpression of impish humor Ross would not have believed possible. "He'llend up with a million or two if he doesn't watch out. He takes to tradeas if he were born with a beaker in his fist. "

The Oriental laughed and then glanced at Ross. "Your new partner, Ashe?"

Some of the animation disappeared from Ashe's brown face; he wasnoncommittal again. "Temporary assignment. This is Murdock. " Theintroduction was flat enough to daunt Ross. "Hodaki, Feng, " heindicated the two Easterners with a nod as he put down his tray. "Jansen, Van Wyke. " That accounted for the blonds. 

"Ashe!" A man arose at the other table and came to stand beside theirs. Thin, with a dark, narrow face and restless eyes, he was much youngerthan the others, younger and not so well controlled. He might answerquestions if there was something in it for him, Ross decided, and filedthe thought away. 

"Well, Kurt?" Ashe's recognition was as dampening as it could be, andRoss's estimation of the younger man went up a fraction when the snubappeared to have no effect upon him. 

"Did you hear about Hardy?"

Feng looked as if he were about to speak, and Van Wyke frowned. Ashemade a deliberate process of chewing and swallowing before he replied. "Naturally. " His tone reduced whatever had happened to Hardy to amatter-of-fact proceeding far removed from Kurt's implied melodrama. 

"He's smashed up . .. Kaput. .. . " Kurt's accent, slight in the beginning, was thickening. "Tortured. .. . "

Ashe regarded him levelly. "You aren't on Hardy's run, are you?"

Still Kurt refused to be quashed. "Of course, I'm not! You know the runI am in training for. But that is not saying that such can not happen aswell on my run, or yours, or yours!" He pointed a stabbing finger atFeng and then at the blond men. 

"You can fall out of bed and break your neck, too, if your number comesup that way, " observed Jansen. "Go cry on Millaird's shoulder if ithurts you that much. You were told the score at your briefing. You knowwhy you were picked. .. . "

Ross caught a faint glance aimed at him by Ashe. He was still totally inthe dark, but he would not try to pry any information from this crowd. Maybe part of their training was this hush-hush business. He would waitand see, until he could get Kurt aside and do a little pumping. Meanwhile he ate stolidly and tried to cover up his interest in theconversation. 

"Then you are going to keep on saying 'Yes, sir, ' 'No, sir, ' to everyorder here----?"

Hodaki slammed his tattooed hand on the table. "Why this foolishness, Kurt? You well know how and why we are picked for runs. Hardy had thedeck stacked against him through no fault of the project. That hashappened before; it will happen again----"

"Which is what I have been saying! Do you wish it to happen to you?Pretty games those tribesmen on your run play with their prisoners, dothey not?"

"Oh, shut up!" Jansen got to his feet. Since he loomed at least fiveinches above Kurt and probably could have broken him in two over onemassive knee, his order was one to be considered. "If you have anycomplaints, go make them to Millaird. And, little man"--he poked amassive forefinger into Kurt's chest--"wait until you make that firstrun of yours before you sound off so loudly. No one is sent out withoutevery ounce of preparation he can take. But we can't set up luck inadvance, and Hardy was unlucky. That's that. We got him back, and thatwas lucky for him. He'd be the first to tell you so. " He stretched. "I'mfor a game--Ashe? Hodaki?"

"Always so energetic, " murmured Ashe, but he nodded as did the smallOriental. 

Feng smiled at Ross. "Always these three try to beat each other, and sofar all the contests are draws. But we hope . .. Yes, we have hopes. .. . "

So Ross had no chance to speak to Kurt. Instead, he was drawn into theknot of men who, having finished their meal, entered a small arena witha half circle of spectator seats at one side and a space for contestantsat the other. What followed absorbed Ross as completely as the earlierscene of the wolf killing. This too was a fight, but not a physicalstruggle. All three contenders were not only unlike in body, but as Rossspeedily came to understand, they were also unlike in their mentalapproach to any problem. 

They seated themselves crosslegged at the three points of a triangle. Then Ashe looked from the tall blond to the small Oriental. "Territory?"he asked crisply. 

"Inland plains!" That came almost in chorus, and each man, looking athis opponent, began to laugh. 

Ashe himself chuckled. "Trying to be smart tonight, boys?" he inquired. "All right, plains it is. "

He brought his hand down on the floor before him, and to Ross'sastonishment the area around the players darkened and the floor became astretch of miniature countryside. Grassy plains rippled under the windof a fair day. 

"Red!"

"Blue!"

"Yellow!"

The choices came quickly from the dusk masking the players. And uponthose orders points of the designated color came into being as smalllights. 

"Red--caravan!" Ross recognized Jansen's boom. 

"Blue--raiders!" Hodaki's choice was only an instant behind. 

"Yellow--unknown factor. "

Ross was sure that sigh came from Jansen. "Is the unknown factor anatural phenomenon?"

"No--tribe on the march. "

"Ah!" Hodaki was considering that. Ross could picture his shrug. 

The game began. Ross had heard of chess, of war games played withminiature armies or ships, of games on paper which demand from theplayers a quick wit and a trained memory. This game, however, was allthose combined, and more. As his imagination came to life the movingpoints of light were transformed into the raiders, the merchants'caravan, the tribe on the march. There was ingenious deployment, abattle, a retreat, a small victory here, to be followed by a biggerdefeat there. The game might have gone on for hours. The men about himmuttered, taking sides and arguing heatedly in voices low enough not todrown out the moves called by the players. Ross was thrilled when thered traders avoided a very cleverly laid ambush, and indignant when thetribe was forced to withdraw or the caravan lost points. It was the mostfascinating game he had ever seen, and he realized that the three menordering those moves were all masters of strategy. Their respectiveskills checkmated each other so equally that an outright win was faraway. 

Then Jansen laughed, and the red line of the caravan gathered in a tightknot. "Camped at a spring, " he announced, "but with plenty of sentriesout. " Red sparks showed briefly beyond that center core. "And they'llhave to stay there for all of me. We could keep this up till doomsday, and nobody would crack. "

"No"--Hodaki contradicted him--"someday one of you will make a littlemistake and then----"

"And then whatever bully boys you're running will clobber us?" askedJansen. "That'll be the day! Anyway, truce for now. "

"Granted!"

The lights of the arena went on and the plains vanished into a dark, tiled floor. "Any time you want a return engagement it'll be fine withme, " said Ashe, getting up. 

Jansen grinned. "Put that off for a month or so, Gordon. We push intotime tomorrow. Take care of yourselves, you two. I don't want to have tobreak in another set of players when I come back. "

Ross, finding it difficult to shake off the illusion which had held himentranced, felt a slight touch on his shoulder and glanced up. Kurtstood behind him, apparently intent upon Jansen and Hodaki as theyargued over some point of the game. 

"See you tonight. " The boy's lips hardly moved, a trick Ross knew fromhis own past. Yes, he _would_ see Kurt tonight, or whenever he could. Hewas going to learn what it was this odd company seemed determined tokeep as their own private secret. 

CHAPTER 3

Ross stood cautiously against the wall of his darkened room, his headturned toward the slightly open door. A slight shuffling sound hadawakened him, and he was now as ready as a cat before her spring. But hedid not hurl himself at the figure now easing the door farther open. Hewaited until the visitor was approaching the bunk before he slid alongthe wall, closing the door and putting his shoulders against it. 

"What's the pitch?" Ross demanded in a whisper. 

There was a ragged breath, maybe two, then a little laugh out of thedark. "You are ready?" The visitor's accent left no doubt as to hisidentity. Kurt was paying him the promised visit. 

"Did you think that I wouldn't be?"

"No. " The dim figure sat without invitation on the edge of the bunk. "Iwould not be here otherwise, Murdock. You are plenty . .. Have plenty onthe ball. You see, I have heard things about you. Like me, you weretricked into this game. Tell me, is it not true that you saw Hardytonight. "

"You hear a lot, don't you?" Ross was noncommittal. 

"I hear, I see, I learn more than these big mouths, like the major withall his do's and don'ts. That I can tell you! You saw Hardy. Do _you_want to be a Hardy?"

"Is there any danger of that?"

"Danger!" Kurt snorted. "Danger--you have not yet known the meaning ofdanger, little man. Not until now. I ask you again, do you want to endlike Hardy? They have not yet looped you in with all their big talk. That is why I came here tonight. If you know what is good for you, Murdock, you will make a break before they tape you----"

"Tape me?"

Kurt's laugh was full of anger, not amusement. "Oh, yes. They have manytricks here. They are big brains, eggheads, all of them with theirfavorite gadgets. They put you through a machine to get you registeredon a tape. Then, my boy, you cannot get outside the base without ringingall the alarms! Neat, eh? So if you want to make a break, you must tryit before they tape you. "

Ross did not trust Kurt, but he was listening to him attentively. Theother's argument sounded convincing to one whose general ignorance ofscience led him to be as fearful of the whole field as his ancestors hadbeen of black magic. As all his generation, he was conditioned tobelieve that all kinds of weird inventions were entirely possible andprobable--usually to be produced in some dim future, but perhaps today. 

"They must have you taped, " Ross pointed out. 

Kurt laughed again, but this time he was amused. "They believe that theyhave. Only they are not as smart as they believe, the major and therest, including Millaird! No, I have a fighting chance to get out ofthis place, only I cannot do it alone. That is why I have been waitingfor them to bring in a new guy I could get to before they had him pinneddown for good. You are tough, Murdock. I saw your record, and I'mbetting that you did not come here with the intention of staying. So--here is your chance to go along with one who knows the ropes. Youwill not have such a good one again. "

The longer Kurt talked, the more convincing he was. Ross lost a few ofhis suspicions. It was true that he had come prepared to run at thefirst possible opportunity, and if Kurt had everything planned, so muchthe better. Of course, it was possible that Kurt was a stool pigeon, leading him on as a test. But that was a chance Ross would have to take. 

"Look here, Murdock, maybe you think it's easy to break out of here. Doyou know where we are, boy? We're near enough to the North Pole as makesno difference! Are you going to leg it back some hundreds of milesthrough thick ice and snow? A nice jaunt if you make it. I do not thinkthat you can--not without plans and a partner who knows what he isabout. "

"And how _do_ we go? Steal one of those atomjets? I'm no pilot--areyou?"

"They have other things besides a-j's here. This place is strictlyhush-hush. Even the a-j's do not set down too often for fear they willbe tracked by radar. Where have you been, boy? Don't you know the Redsare circling around up here? These fellows watch for Red activity, andthe Reds watch them. They play it under the table on both sides. We getour supplies overland by cats----"

"Cats?"

"Snow sleds, like tractors, " the other answered impatiently. "Our stuffis dumped miles to the south, and the cats go down once a month to bringit back. There's no trick to driving a cat, and they tear off themiles----"

"How many miles to the south?" inquired Ross skeptically. Granted Kurtwas speaking the truth, travel over an arctic wilderness in a stolenmachine was risky, to say the least. Ross had only a very vague idea ofthe polar regions, but he was sure that they could easily swallow up theunwary forever. 

"Maybe only a hundred or so, boy. But I have more than one plan, and I'mwilling to risk _my_ neck. Do you think I intend to start out blind?"

There was that, of course. Ross had early sized up his visitor as onewho was first of all interested in his own welfare. He wouldn't risk hisneck without a definite plan in mind. 

"Well, what do you say, Murdock? Are you with me or not?"

"I'll take some time to chew it over----"

"Time is what you do not have, boy. Tomorrow they will tape you. Then--no over the wall for you. "

"Suppose you tell me your trick for fooling the tape, " Ross countered. 

"That I cannot do, seeing as how it lies in the way my brain is puttogether. Do you think I can break open my skull and hand you a piece ofwhat is inside? No, you jump with me tonight or else I must wait to grabthe next one who lands here. "

Kurt stood up. His last words were spoken matter-of-factly, and Rossbelieved he meant exactly what he said. But Ross hesitated. He wanted totry for freedom, a desire fed by his suspicions of what was going onhere. He neither liked nor trusted Kurt, but he thought he understoodhim--better than he understood Ashe or the others. Also, with Kurt hewas sure he could hold his own; it would be the kind of struggle he hadexperienced before. 

"Tonight. .. . " he repeated slowly. 

"Yes, tonight!" There was new eagerness in Kurt's voice, for he sensedthat the other was wavering. "I have been preparing for a long time, butthere must be two of us. We have to take turns driving the cat. Therecan be no rest until we are far to the south. I tell you it will beeasy. There are food caches arranged along the route for emergencies. Ihave a map marked to show where they are. Are you coming?"

When Ross did not answer at once the other moved closer to him. 

"Remember Hardy? He was not the first, and he will not be the last. Theyuse us up fast here. That is why they brought you so quickly. I tellyou, it is better to take your chance with me than on a run. "

"And what is a run?"

"So they have not yet briefed you? Well, a run is a little jaunt backinto history--not nice comfortable history such as you learned out of abook when you were a little kid. No, you are dropped back into somesavage time before history----"

"That's impossible!"

"Yes? You saw those two big blond boys tonight, did you not? Why do yousuppose they sport those braids? Because they are taking a little tripinto the time when he-men wore braids, and carried axes big enough tocrack a man open! And Hodaki and his partner. .. . Ever hear of theTartars? Maybe you have not, but once they nearly overran most ofEurope. "

Ross swallowed. He now knew where he had seen braids pictured onwarriors--the Vikings! And Tartars, yes, that movie about someone namedKhan, Genghis Khan! But to return into the past was impossible. 

Yet, he remembered the picture he had watched today with the wolf slayerand the shaggy-haired man who wore skins. Neither of these was of hisown world! Could Kurt be telling the truth? Ross's vivid memory of thescene he had witnessed made Kurt's story more convincing. 

"Suppose you get sent back to a time where they do not like strangers, "Kurt continued. "Then you are in for it. That is what happened to Hardy. And it is not good--not good at all!"

"But why?"

Kurt snorted. "_That_ they do not tell you until just before you takeyour first run. I do not want to know why. But I do know that I am notgoing to be sent into any wilderness where a savage may run a spearthrough me just to prove something or other for Major John Kelgarries, or for Millaird either. I will try my plan first. "

The urgency in Kurt's protest carried Ross past the wavering point. He, too, would try the cat. He was only familiar with this time and world;he had no desire to be sent into another one. 

Once Ross had made his decision, Kurt hurried him into action. Kurt'sknowledge of the secret procedures at the base proved excellent. Twicethey were halted by locked doors, but only momentarily, for Kurt had atiny gadget, concealed in the palm of his hand, which had only to beheld over a latch to open a recalcitrant door. 

There was enough light in the corridors to give them easy passage, butthe rooms were dark, and twice Kurt had to lead Ross by the hand, avoiding furniture or installations with the surety of one who hadpracticed that same route often. Murdock's opinion of his companion'sability underwent several upward revisions during that tour, and hebegan to believe that he was really in luck to have found such apartner. 

In the last room, Ross willingly followed Kurt's orders to put on thefur clothing Kurt passed to him. The fit was not exact, but he surmisedthat Kurt had chosen as well as possible. A final door opened, and theystepped out into the polar night of winter. Kurt's mittened hand graspedRoss's, pulling him along. Together, they pushed back the door of ahangar shed to get at their escape vehicle. 

The cat was a strange machine, but Ross was given no time to study it. He was shoved into the cockpit, a bubble covering settled down overthem, closing them in, and the engine came to life under Kurt's urging. The cat must be traveling at its best pace, Ross thought. Yet the crawlwhich took them away from the mounded snow covering the base seemedhardly better than a man could make afoot. 

For a short time Kurt headed straight away from the starting point, butRoss soon heard him counting slowly to himself as if he were timingsomething. At the count of twenty the cat swung to the right and made awide half circle which was copied at the next count of twenty by asimilar sweep in the opposite direction. After this pattern had beenrepeated for six turns, Ross found it difficult to guess whether theyhad ever returned to their first course. When Kurt stopped counting heasked, "Why the dance pattern?"

"Would you rather be scattered in little pieces all over the landscape?"the other snapped. "The base doesn't need fences two miles high to keepus in, or others out; they take other precautions. You should thankfortune we got through that first mine field without blowing. .. . "

Ross swallowed, but he refused to let Kurt know that he was rattled. "Soit isn't as easy to get away as you said?"

"Shut up!" Kurt began counting again, and Ross had some coldapprehensive moments in which to reflect upon the folly of quickdecisions and wonder bleakly why he had not thought things throughbefore he leaped. 

Again they sketched a weaving pattern in the snow, but this time thearcs formed acute angles. Ross glanced now and then at the intent man atthe wheel. How had Kurt managed to memorize this route? His urge toescape the base must certainly be a strong one. 

Back and forth they crawled, gaining only a few yards in each of thoseangled strikes to right or left. 

"Good thing these cats are atomic powered, " Kurt commented during one ofthe intervals between mine fields. "We'd run out of fuel otherwise. "

Ross fought down the impulse to move his feet away from any possiblecontact point with the engine. These machines must be safe to ride in, but the bogy of radiation was frightening. Luckily, Kurt was now back toa straight track, with no more weaving. 

"We are out!" Kurt said with exultation. But he added no more than justthe reassurance of their escape. 

The cat crawled on. To Ross's eyes there was no trail to follow, noguideposts, yet Kurt steered ahead with confidence. A little later hepulled to a stop and said to Ross, "We have to drive turn and turnabout--your turn. "

Ross was dubious. "Well, I can drive a car--but this----"

"Is fool proof. " Kurt caught him up. "The worst was getting through themine fields, and we are out of that now. See here--" his hand made ashadow on the lighted instrument panel, "this will keep you straight. Ifyou can steer a car, you can steer this. Watch!" He started up again andonce more swung the cat to the left. 

A light on the panel began to blink at a rate which increased rapidly asthey veered farther away from their original course. 

"See? You keep that light steady, and you are on course. If it begins toblink, you cast about until it steadies again. Simple enough for a baby. Take over and see. "

It was hard to change places in the sealed cabin of the cat, but theywere successful, and Ross took the wheel gingerly. Following Kurt'sdirections, he started ahead, his eyes focused on the light rather thanthe white expanse before him. And after a few minutes of strain hecaught the hang of it. As Kurt had promised, it was very simple. Afterwatching him for a while, his instructor gave a grunt of satisfactionand settled down for a nap. 

Once the first excitement of driving the cat wore off, the operationtended to become monotonous. Ross caught himself yawning, but he kept athis post with dogged stubbornness. This had been Kurt's game all the waythrough--so far--and he was certainly not going to resign his firstchance to show that he could be of use also. If there had only been somebreak in the eternal snow, some passing light or goal to be seen ahead, it would not have been so bad. Finally, every now and then, Ross had tojiggle off course just enough so that the warning blink of light wouldalert him and keep him from falling asleep. He was unaware that Kurt hadawakened during one of those maneuvers until the other spoke. "Your ownprivate alarm clock, Murdock? Okay, I do not quarrel with anyone whouses his head. But you had better get some shut-eye, or we will not keeprolling. "

Ross was too tired to protest. They changed places, and he curled up asbest he could on his small share of seat. Only now that he was free tosleep, he realized he no longer wanted to. Kurt must have thought Rosshad fallen asleep, for after perhaps two miles of steady grinding along, he moved cautiously behind the wheel. Ross saw by the trace of lightfrom the instrument panel that his companion was digging into the breastof his parka to bring out a small object which he held against the wheelof the cat with one hand, while with the other he tapped out anirregular rhythm. 

To Ross the action made no sense. But he did not miss the other's sighof relief as he restored his treasure to hiding once more, as if somedifficult task was now behind him. Shortly afterward the cat ground toa stop, and Ross sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What's the matter? Enginetrouble?"

Kurt had folded his arms across the wheel. "No. It is just that we areto wait here----"

"Wait? For what? Kelgarries to come along and pick us up?"

Kurt laughed. "The major? How I wish that he _would_ arrive presently. What a surprise he would receive! Not two little mice to be put backinto their cages, but the tiger cat, all claws and fangs!"

Ross sat up straighter. This now had the bad smell of a frame, a framewith himself planted right in the middle. He figured out thepossibilities and came up with an answer which would smear Ross Murdockall over any map. If Kurt were waiting to meet friends out here, theycould only be of one brand. 

For most of his short life Ross had been engaged in a private waragainst the restrictions imposed upon him by a set of legal rules towhich something within him would not conform. And he had, during thosesame years filled with attacks, retreats, and strategic maneuvering, formulated a code of rules by which to play his dangerous game. He hadnot murdered, and he would never follow the path Kurt took. To one whowas supremely impatient of restraint, the methods and aims of Kurt'semployers were not only impossibly fantastic and illogical--they were tobe opposed to the last ounce of any man's energy. 

"Your friends late?" He tried to sound casual. 

"Not yet, and if you now plan to play the hero, Murdock, think better ofit!" Kurt's tone held the crack of an order--that note Ross had so muchdisliked in the major's voice. "This is an operation which has been mostcarefully planned and upon which a great deal depends. No one shallspoil it for us now----"

"The Reds planted you on the project, eh?" Ross wanted to keep the othertalking to give himself a chance to think. And this was one time he hadto think, clearly and with speed. 

"There is no need for me to tell you the sad tale of my life, Murdock. And you would doubtless find much of it boring. If you wish to continueto live--for a while, at least--you will remain quiet and do as you aretold. "

Kurt must be armed, for he would not be so confident unless he had aweapon he could now turn on Ross. On the other hand, if what Rossguessed were true, this _was_ the time to play the hero--when there wasonly Kurt to handle. Better to be a dead hero than a live captive in thehands of Kurt's dear friends across the pole. 

Without warning, Ross threw his body to the left, striving to pin Kurtagainst the driver's side of the cabin, his hands clawing at the furruff bordering the other's hood, trying for a throat hold. Perhaps itwas Kurt's over-confidence which betrayed him and left him open to asurprise attack. He struggled hard to bring up his arm, but both hisweight and Ross's held him tight. Ross caught at his wrist, noticing agleam of metal. 

They threshed about, the bulkiness of the fur clothing hampering them. Ross wondered fleetingly why the other had not made sure of him earlier. As it was he fought with all his vigor to keep Kurt immobile, to try andknock him out with a lucky blow. 

In the end Kurt aided in his own defeat. When Ross relaxed somewhat, theother pushed against him, only to have Ross flinch to one side. Kurtcould not stop himself, and his head cracked against the wheel of thecat. He went limp. 

Ross made the most of the next few moments. He brought his belt fromunder his parka, twisting it around Kurt's wrists with no gentleness. Then he wriggled about, changing places with the unconscious man. 

He had no idea of where to go, but he was sure he was going to getaway--at the cat's top speed--from that point. And with that in mind andonly a limited knowledge of how to manage the machine, Ross started upand turned in a wide circle until he was sure the cat was headed in theopposite direction. 

The light which had guided them was still on. Would reversing itsprocess take him back to the base? Lost in the immensity of the coldwilderness, he made the only choice possible and gunned the cat again. 

CHAPTER 4

Once again Ross sat waiting for others to decide his future. He was asoutwardly composed as he had been in Judge Rawle's chambers, butinwardly he was far more apprehensive. Out in the wilderness of thepolar night he had had no chance for escape. Heading away from Kurt'srendezvous, Ross had run straight into the search party from the base, had seen in action that mechanical hound that Kurt had said they wouldput on the fugitives' trail--the thing which would have gone on huntingthem until its metal rusted into powder. Kurt's boasted immunity to thattracker had not been as good as he had believed, though it had won thema start. 

Ross did not know just how much it might count in his favor that he hadbeen on his way back, with Kurt a prisoner in the cat. As his waitinghours wore on he began to think it might mean very little indeed. Thistime there was no show on the wall of his cell, nothing but time tothink--too much of that--and no pleasant things to think about. 

But he had learned one valuable lesson on that cold expedition. Kelgarries and the others at the base were the most formidableopponents he had ever met, and all the balance of luck and equipment layon their side of the scales. Ross was now convinced that there could beno escape from this base. He had been impressed by Kurt's preparations, knowing that some of them were far beyond anything he himself could havedevised. He did not doubt that Kurt had come here fully prepared withevery ingenious device the Reds could supply. 

At least Kurt's friends had had a rude welcome when they did arrive atthe meeting place. Kelgarries had heard Ross out and then had sent aheada team. Before Ross's party had reached the base there had been a blastwhich split the arctic night wide open. And Kurt, conscious by then, hadshown his only sign of emotion when he realized what it meant. 

The door to Ross's cell room clicked, and he swung his feet to thefloor, sitting up on his bunk to face his future. This time he made noattempt to put on an act. He was not in the least sorry he had tried toget away. Had Kurt been on the level, it would have been a bright play. That Kurt was not, was just plain bad luck. 

Kelgarries and Ashe entered, and at the sight of Ashe the taut feelingin Ross's middle loosened a bit. The major might come by himself to passsentence, but he would not bring Ashe along if the sentence was a reallyharsh one. 

"You got off to a bad start here, Murdock. " The major sat down on theedge of the wall shelf which doubled as a table. "You're going to have asecond chance, so consider yourself lucky. We know you aren't anotherplant of our enemies, a fact that saves your neck. Do you have anythingto add to your story?"

"No, sir. " He was not adding that "sir" to curry any favor; it camenaturally when one answered Kelgarries. 

"But you have some questions?"

Ross met that with the truth. "A lot of them. "

"Why don't you ask them?"

Ross smiled thinly, an expression far removed and years older than hisbashful boy's grin of the shy act. "A wise guy doesn't spill hisignorance. He uses his eyes and ears and keeps his trap shut----"

"And goes off half cocked as a result. .. " the major added. "I don'tthink you would have enjoyed the company of Kurt's paymaster. "

"I didn't know about him then--not when I left here. "

"Yes, and when you discovered the truth, you took steps. Why?" For thefirst time there was a trace of feeling in the major's voice. 

"Because I don't like the line-up on his side of the fence. "'

"That single fact has saved your neck this time, Murdock. Step out ofline once more, and nothing will help you. But just so we won't have toworry about that, suppose you ask a few of those questions. "

"How much of what Kurt fed me is the truth?" Ross blurted out. "I meanall that stuff about shooting back in time. "

"All of it. " The major said it so quietly that it carried completeconviction. 

"But why--how--?"

"You have us on a spot, Murdock. Because of your little expedition, wehave to tell you more now than we tell any of our men before the finalbriefing. Listen, and then forget all of it except what applies to thejob at hand. 

"The Reds shot up Sputnik and then Muttnik. .. . When--? Twenty-five yearsago. We got up our answers a little later. There were a couple ofspectacular crashes on the moon, then that space station that didn'tstay in orbit, after that--stalemate. In the past quarter century we'vehad no voyages into space, nothing that was prophesied. Too many bugs, too many costly failures. Finally we began to get hints of somethingbig, bigger than any football roaming the heavens. 

"Any discovery in science comes about by steps. It can be traced backthrough those steps by another scientist. But suppose you wereconfronted by a result which apparently had been produced without anypreliminaries. What would be your guess concerning it?"

Ross stared at the major. Although he didn't see what all this had to dowith time-jumping, he sensed that Kelgarries was waiting for a seriousanswer, that somehow Ross would be judged by his reply. 

"Either that the steps were kept strictly secret, " he said slowly, "orthat the result didn't rightfully belong to the man who said hediscovered it. "

For the first time the major regarded him with approval. "Suppose thisdiscovery was vital to your life--what would you do?"

"Try to find the source!"

"There you have it! Within the past five years our friends across theway have come up with three such discoveries. One we were able to trace, duplicate, and use, with a few refinements of our own. The other tworemain rootless; yet they are linked with the first. We are nowattempting to solve that problem, and the time grows late. For somereason, though the Reds now have their super, super gadgets, they arenot yet ready to use them. Sometimes the things work, and sometimes theyfail. Everything points to the fact that the Reds are now experimentingwith discoveries which are not basically their own----"

"Where did they get them? From another world?" Ross's imagination cameto life. Had a successful space voyage been kept secret? Had there beencontact made with another intelligent race?

"In a way it's another world, but the world of time--not space. Sevenyears ago we got a man out of East Berlin. He was almost dead, but helived long enough to record on tape some amazing data, so wild it wasalmost dismissed as the ravings of delirium. But that was after Sputnik, and we didn't dare disregard any hints from the other side of the IronCurtain. So the recording was turned over to our scientists, who provedit had a core of truth. 

"Time travel has been written up in fiction; it has been discussedotherwise as an impossibility. Then we discover that the Reds have itworking----"

"You mean, they go into the future and bring back machines to use now. "

The major shook his head. "Not the future, the past. "

Was this an elaborate joke? Somewhat heatedly Ross snapped out theanswer to that. "Look here, I know I haven't the education of your bigbrains, but I do know that the farther back you go into history thesimpler things are. We ride in cars; only a hundred years ago men drovehorses. We have guns; go back a little and you'll find them wavingswords and shooting guys with bows and arrows--those that don't wear tinplate on them to stop being punctured----"

"Only they were, after all, " commented Ashe. "Look at Agincourt, m'lad, and remember what arrows did to the French knights in armor. "

Ross disregarded the interruption. "Anyway"--he stuck doggedly to hispoint--"the farther back you go, the simpler things are. How are theReds going to find anything in history we can't beat today?"

"That is a point which has baffled us for several years now, " the majorreturned. "Only it is not _how_ they are going to find it, but _where_. Because somewhere in the past of this world they have contacted acivilization able to produce weapons and ideas so advanced as to baffleour experts. We have to find that source and either mine it ourselves orclose it off. As yet we're still trying to find it. "

Ross shook his head. "It must be a long way back. Those guys whodiscover tombs and dig up old cities--couldn't they give you some hints?Wouldn't a civilization like that have left something we could findtoday?"

"It depends, " Ashe remarked, "upon the type of civilization. TheEgyptians built in stone, grandly. They used tools and weapons ofcopper, bronze, and stone, and they were considerate enough to operatein a dry climate which preserved relics well. The cities of the FertileCrescent built in mud brick and used stone, copper, and bronze tools. They also chose a portion of the world where climate was a factor inkeeping their memory green. 

"The Greeks built in stone, wrote their books, kept their history tobequeath it to their successors, and so did the Romans. And on this sideof the ocean the Incas, the Mayas, the unknown races before them, andthe Aztecs of Mexico all built in stone and worked in metal. And stoneand metal survive. But what if there had been an early people who usedplastics and brittle alloys, who had no desire to build permanentbuildings, whose tools and artifacts were meant to wear out quickly, perhaps for economic reasons? What would they leave us--considering, perhaps, that an ice age had intervened between their time and ours, with glaciers to grind into dust what little they did possess?

"There is evidence that the poles of our world have changed and thatthis northern region was once close to being tropical. Any catastropheviolent enough to bring about a switch in the poles of this planet mightwell have wiped out all traces of a civilization, no matter howsuperior. We have good reason to believe that such a people must haveexisted, but we must find them. 

"And Ashe is a convert from the skeptics--" the major slipped down fromhis perch on the wall shelf--"he is an archaeologist, one of your tombdiscoverers, and knows what he is talking about. We must do our huntingin time earlier than the first pyramid, earlier than the first group offarmers who settled by the Tigris River. But we have to let the enemyguide us to it. That's where you come in. "

"Why me?"

"That is a question to which our psychologists are still trying to findthe answer, my young friend. It seems that the majority of the people ofthe several nations linked together in this project have become toocivilized. The reactions of most men to given sets of circumstances havebecome set in regular patterns and they cannot break that conditioning, or if personal danger forces them to change those patterns, they areafterward so adrift they cannot function at their highest potential. Teach a man to kill, as in war, and then you have to recondition himlater. 

"But during these same wars we also develop another type. He is the borncommando, the secret agent, the expendable man who lives on action. There are not many of this kind, and they are potent weapons. Inpeacetime that particular collection of emotions, nerve, and skillsbecomes a menace to the very society he has fought to preserve during awar. He is pressured by the peaceful environment into becoming acriminal or a misfit. 

"The men we send out from here to explore the past are not only giventhe best training we can possibly supply for them, but they are all ofthe type once heralded as the frontiersman. History is sentimental aboutthat type--when he is safely dead--but the present finds him difficultto live with. Our time agents are misfits in the modern world becausetheir inherited abilities are born out of season now. They must be youngenough and possess a certain brand of intelligence to take the stifftraining and to adapt, and they must pass our tests. Do you understand?"

Ross nodded. "You want crooks because they are crooks----"

"No, not because they are crooks, but because they are misfits in theirtime and place. Don't, I beg of you, Murdock, think that we areoperating a penal institution here. You would never have been recruitedif you hadn't tested out to suit us. But the man who may be labeledmurderer in his own period might rank as a hero in another, an extremeexample, but true. When we train a man he not only can survive in theperiod to which he is sent, but he can also pass as a native born inthat era----"

"What about Hardy?"

The major gazed into space. "There is no operation which is foolproof. We have never said that we don't run into trouble or that there is nodanger in this. We have to deal with both natives of different times, and if we are lucky and hit a hot run, with the Reds. They suspect thatwe are casting about, hunting their trail. They managed to plant KurtVogel on us. He had an almost perfect cover and conditioning. Now youhave it straight, Murdock. You satisfy our tests, and you'll be given achance to say yes or no before your first run. If you say no and refuseduty, it means you must become an exile and stay here. No man who hasgone through our training can return to normal life; there is too muchchance of his being picked up and sweated by the opposition. "

"Never?"

The major shrugged. "This may be a long-term operation. We hope not, butthere is no way of telling now. You will be in exile until we eitherfind what we want or fail entirely. That is the last card I have to layon the table. " He stretched. "You're slated for training tomorrow. Thinkit over and then let us know your answer when the time comes. Meanwhile, you are to be teamed with Ashe, who will see to putting you through thecourse. "

It was a big hunk to swallow, but once down, Ross found it digestible. The training opened up a whole new world to him. Judo and wrestling wereeasy enough to absorb, and he thoroughly enjoyed the workouts. But thepatient hours of archery practice, the strict instruction in the use ofa long-bladed bronze dagger were more demanding. The mastering of onenew language and then another, the intensive drill in unfamiliar socialcustoms, the memorizing of strict taboos and ethics were difficult. Rosslearned to keep records in knots on hide thongs and was inducted intothe art of primitive bargaining and trade. He came to understand theworth of a cross-shaped tin ingot compared to a string of amber beadsand some well-cured white furs. He now understood why he had been showna traders' caravan during that first encounter with the purpose behindOperation Retrograde. 

During the training days his feeling toward Ashe changed materially. Aman could not work so closely with another and continue to resent hisattitude; either he blew up entirely, or he learned to adjust. His aweat Ashe's vast amount of practical knowledge, freely offered to servehis own blundering ignorance, created a respect for the man which mighthave become friendship, had Ashe ever relaxed his own shield ofimpersonal efficiency. Ross did not try to breach the barrier betweenthem mainly because he was sure that the reason for it was the factthat he was a "volunteer. " It gave him an odd new feeling he avoidedtrying to analyze. He had always had a kind of pride in his record; nowhe had begun to wish sometimes that it was a record of a different type. 

Men came and went. Hodaki and his partner disappeared, as did Jansen andhis. One lost track of time within that underground warren which was thebase. Ross gradually discovered that the whole establishment covered alarge area under an external crust of ice and snow. There werelaboratories, a well-appointed hospital, armories which stocked weaponsusually seen only in museums, but which here were free of any signs ofage, and ready for use. There were libraries with mile upon mile of taperecordings as well as films. Ross could not understand everything heheard and saw, but he soaked up all he could so that once or twice, whendrifting off to sleep at night, he thought of himself as a sponge whichhad nearly reached its total limit of absorption. 

He learned to wear naturally the clumsy kilt-tunic he had seen on thewolf slayer, to shave with practiced assurance, using a leaf-shapedbronze razor, to eat strange food until he relished the taste. Makinglesson time serve a double duty, he lay under sunlamps while listeningto tape recordings, until his skin darkened to a weathered hueresembling Ashe's. There was always talk to listen to, important talkwhich he was afraid to miss. 

"Bronze. " Ashe weighed a dagger in his hand one day. Its hilt, made ofdark horn studded with an intricate pattern of tiny golden nail heads, had a gleam not unlike that of the blade. "Do you know, Murdock, thatbronze can be tougher than steel? If it wasn't that iron is so much moreplentiful and easier to work, we might never have come out of the BronzeAge? Iron is cheaper and easier found, and when the first smith learnedto work it, an end came to one way of life, a beginning to another. 

"Yes, bronze is important to us here, and so are the men who worked it. Smiths were sacred in the old days. We know that they made a secret oftheir trade which overrode the bounds of district, tribe, and race. Asmith was welcome in any village, his person safe on the road. In fact, the roads themselves were under the protection of the gods; there waspeace on them for all wayfarers. The land was wide then, and it wasempty. The tribes were few and small, and there was plenty of room forthe hunter, the farmer, the trader. Life was not such a scramble of managainst man, but rather of man against nature----"

"No wars?" asked Ross. "Then why the bow-and-dagger drill?"

"Wars were small affairs, disputes between family clans or tribes. Asfor the bow, there were formidable things in the forests--giant animals, wolves, wild boars----"

"Cave bears?"

Ashe sighed with weary patience. "Get it through your head, Murdock, that history is much longer than you seem to think. Cave bears and theuse of bronze weapons do not overlap. No, you will have to go back maybeseveral thousand years earlier and then hunt your bear with aflint-tipped spear in your hand if you are fool enough to try it. "

"Or take a rifle with you. " Ross made a suggestion he had longed tovoice for some time. 

Ashe rounded on him swiftly, and Ross knew him well enough now torealize that he was seriously displeased. 

"That is just what you don't do, Murdock, not from this base, as youwell know by now. You take no weapon from here which is not designed forthe period in which your run lies. Just as you do not become embroiledwhile on that run in any action which might influence the course ofhistory. "

Ross went on polishing the blade he held. "What would happen if someonedid break that rule?"

Ashe put down the dagger he had been playing with. "We don't know--wejust don't know. So far we have operated in the fringe territory, keeping away from any district with a history which we can traceaccurately. Maybe some day--" his eyes were on a wall of weapon racks heplainly did not see--"maybe some day we can stand and watch the rise ofthe pyramids, witness the march of Alexander's armies. .. . But not yet. We stay away from history, and we are sure that the Reds are doing thesame. It has become the old problem once presented by the atom bomb. Nobody wants to upset the balance and take the consequences. Let us findtheir outpost and we'll withdraw our men from all the other runs atonce. "

"What makes everyone so sure that they have an outpost somewhere?Couldn't they be working right at the main source, sir?"

"They could, but for some reason they are not. As for how we know thatmuch, it's information received. " Ashe smiled thinly. "No, the source ismuch farther back in time than their halfway post. But if we find that, then we can trail them. So we plant men in suitable eras and hope forthe best. That's a good weapon you have there, Murdock. Are you willingto wear it in earnest?"

The inflection in that question caught Ross's full attention. His grayeyes met those blue ones. This was it--at long last. 

"Right away?"

Ashe picked up a belt of bronze plates strung together with chains, atwin to that Ross had seen worn by the wolf slayer. He held it out tothe younger man. "You can take your trial run any time--tomorrow. "

Ross drew a deeper breath. "Where--to when?"

"An island which will later be Britain. When? About two thousand B. C. Beaker traders were beginning to open their stations there. This is yourgraduation exercise, Murdock. "

Ross fitted the blade he had been polishing into the wooden sheath onthe belt. "If you say I can do it, I'm willing to try. "

He caught that glance Ashe shot at him, but he could not read itsmeaning. Annoyance? Impatience? He was still puzzling over it when theother turned abruptly and left him alone. 

CHAPTER 5

He might have said yes, but that didn't mean, Ross discovered, that hewas to be shipped off at once to early Britain. Ashe's "tomorrow" provedto be several days later. The cover was that of a Beaker trader, andRoss's impersonation was checked again and again by experts, making surethat the last detail was correct and that no suspicion of a tribesman, no mistake on Ross's part would betray him. 

The Beaker people were an excellent choice for infiltration. They werenot a closely knit clan, suspicious of strangers and alert to anydeviation from the norm, as more race-conscious tribes might be. Forthey lived by trade, leaving to Ross's own time the mark of theirfar-flung "empire" in the beakers found in graves scattered in clustersof a handful or so from the Rhineland to Spain, and from the Balkans toBritain. 

They did not depend only upon the taboo of the trade road for theirsafety, for the Beakermen were master bowmen. A roving people, theypushed into new territory to establish posts, living amicably amongpeoples with far different customs--the Downs farmers, horse herders, shore-side fisherfolk. 

With Ashe, Ross passed a last inspection. Their hair had not grown longenough to require braiding, but they did have enough to hold it backfrom their faces with hide headbands. The kilt-tunics of coarsematerial, duplicating samples brought from the past, were harsh to theskin and poorly fitting. But the workmanship of their link-and-platebronze belts, the sleek bow guards strapped to their wrists, and thebows themselves approached fine art. Ashe's round cloak was the blue ofa master trader, and he wore wealth in a necklace of polished wolf'steeth alternating with amber beads. Ross's more modest position in thetribe was indicated not only by his red-brown cloak, but by the factthat his personal jewelry consisted only of a copper bracelet and acloak pin with a jet head. 

He had no idea how the time transition was to be made, nor how one mightstep from the polar regions of the Western Hemisphere to the island ofBritain lying off the Eastern. And it was a complicated business as hediscovered. 

The transition itself was a fairly simple, though disturbing, process. One walked a short corridor and stood for an instant on a plate whilethe light centered there curled about in a solid core, shutting one offfrom floor and wall. Ross gasped for breath as the air was sucked out ofhis lungs. He experienced a moment of deathly sickness with thesensation of being lost in nothingness. Then he breathed again andlooked through the dying wall of light to where Ashe waited. 

Quick and easy as the trip through time had been, the journey to Britainwas something else. There could be only one transfer point if the secretwas to be preserved. But men from that point must be moved swiftly andsecretly to their appointed stations. Ross, knowing the strict rulesconcerning the transportation of objects from one time to another, wondered how that travel could be effected. After all, they could notspend months, or even years, getting across continents and seas. 

The answer was ingenious. Three days after they had stepped through thebarrier of time at the outpost, Ross and Ashe balanced on the roundedback of a whale. It was a whale which would deceive anyone who did nottest its hide with a harpoon, and whalers with harpoons large enough totrouble such a monster were yet well in the future. 

Ashe slid a dugout into the water, and Ross climbed into that unsteadycraft, holding it against the side of the disguised sub until hispartner joined him. The day, misty and drizzling, made the shore theyaimed for a half-seen line across the water. With a shiver born of morethan cold, Ross dipped his paddle and helped Ashe send their crude boattoward that half-hidden strip of land. 

There was no real dawn; the sky lightened somewhat, but the drizzlecontinued. Green patches showed among the winter-denuded trees back fromthe beach, but the countryside facing them gave an impression of untamedwilderness. Ross knew from his briefing that the whole of Britain was asyet only sparsely settled. The first wave of hunter-fishers to establishvillages had been joined by other invaders who built massive tombs andhad an elaborate religion. Small village-forts had been linked from hillto hill by trackways. There were "factories, " which turned out in bulksuch fine flint weapons and tools that a thriving industry was in fulloperation, not yet having been superseded by the metal imported by theBeaker merchants. Bronze was still so rare and costly that only the headman of a village could hope to own one of the long daggers. Even thearrowheads in Ross's quiver were chipped of flint. 

They drew the dugout well up onto the shore and ran it into a shallowdepression in the bank, heaping stones and brush about for itsconcealment. Then Ashe intently surveyed the surrounding country, seeking a landmark. 

"Inland from here. .. . " Ashe used the language of the Beakermen, and Rossknew that from now on he must not only live as a trader, but also thinkas one. All other memories must be buried under the false one he hadlearned; he must be interested in the present rate of exchange and thechance for profit. The two men were on their way to Outpost Gog, whereAshe's first partner, the redoubtable Sanford, was playing his role sowell. 

The rain squished in their hide boots, made sodden strings of theircloaks, plastered their woven caps to their thick mats of hair. Yet Ashebore steadily on across the land with the certainty of one following amarked trail. His self-confidence was rewarded within the first halfmile when they came out upon one of the link trackways, its beatensurface testifying to constant use. 

Here Ashe turned eastward, stepping up the pace to a ground-coveringtrot. The peace of the road held--at least by day. By night only themost hardened and desperate outlaws would brave the harmful spiritsroving in the dark. 

All the lore that had been pounded into him at the base began to makesome sense to Ross as he followed his guide, sniffing strange wet smellsfrom the brush, the trees, and the damp earth; piecing together in hismind what he had been taught and what he now saw for himself, until itmade a tight pattern. 

The track they were following sloped slightly upward, and a change inthe wind brought to them a sour odor, blanking out all normal scents. Ashe halted so suddenly that Ross almost plowed into him. But he wasalerted by the older man's attitude. 

Something had been burned! Ross drew in a deep lungful of the smell andthen wished that he had not. It was wood--burned wood--and somethingelse. Since this was not possibly normal, he was prepared for the wayAshe melted into cover in the brush. 

They worked their way, sometimes crawling on their bellies, through thewet stands of dead grass, taking full advantage of all cover. Theycrouched at the top of the hill while Ashe parted the prickly branchesof an evergreen bush to make them a window. 

The black patch left by the fire, which had come from a ruin above, hadspread downhill on the opposite side of the valley. Charred posts stillstood like lone teeth in a skull to mark what must have once been one ofthe stockade walls of a post. But all they now guarded was a desolationfrom which came that overpowering stench. 

"Our post?" Ross asked in a whisper. 

Ashe nodded. He was studying the scene with an intent absorption which, Ross knew, would impress every important detail upon his mind. That theplace had been burned was clear from the first. But why and by whom wasa problem vital to the two lurking in the brush. 

It took them almost an hour to cross the valley--an hour of hiding, casting about, searching. They had made a complete circle of thedestroyed post and Ashe stood in the shadow of a copse, rubbing clots ofmud from his hands and frowning up at the charred posts. 

"They weren't rushed. Or if they were, the attackers covered their trailafterward--" Ross ventured. 

The older man shook his head. "Tribesmen would not have muddled a trailif they had won. No, this was no regular attack. There have been nosigns of a war party coming or leaving. "

"Then what?" demanded Ross. 

"Lightning for one thing--and we'd better hope it was that. Or--"Ashe's blue eyes were very cold and bleak, as cold and bleak as thecountryside about them. 

"Or--?" Ross dared to prompt him. 

"Or we have made contact with the Reds in the wrong way!"

Ross's hand instinctively went to the dagger at his belt. Little help adagger would be in an unequal struggle like this! They were only two ina thin web of men strung out through centuries of time with orders toseek out that which did not fit properly into the pattern of the past:to locate the enemy wherever in history or prehistory he had gone toearth. Had the Reds been searching, too, and was this first disastertheir victory?

The time traders had their evidence when they at last ventured into whathad been the heart of Outpost Gog. Ross, inexperienced as he was in suchmatters, could not mistake the signs of the explosion. There was acrater on the crown of the hill, and Ashe stood apart from it, eying thefragments about them--scorched wood, blackened stone. 

"The Reds?"

"It must have been. This damage was done by explosives. "

It was clear why Outpost Gog could not report the disaster. The attackhad destroyed their one link with the post on this time level; theconcealed communicator had gone up with the blast. 

"Eleven--" Ashe's finger tapped on the ornate buckle of his wide belt. "We have about ten days to stick it out, " he added, "and it seems we maybe able to use them to better advantage than just letting you learn howit feels to walk about some four thousand years before you were born. Wehave to find out--if we can--what happened here and why!"

Ross gazed at the mess. "Dig?" he asked. 

"Some digging is indicated. "

So they dug. Finally, black with charcoal smudges and sick with theevidences of death they had chanced upon, they collapsed on the cleanestspot they could find. 

"They must have hit at night, " Ashe said slowly. "Only at that timewould they find everyone here. Men don't trust a night filled withghosts, and our agents conform to local custom as usual. All of the postpeople could be erased with one bomb at night. "

All except two of them had been true Beaker traders, including women andchildren. No Beaker trading post was large, and this one was unusuallysmall. The attacker had wiped out some twenty people, eighteen of theminnocent victims. 

"How long ago?" Ross wanted to know. 

"Maybe two days. And this attack came without any warning, or Sandywould have sent a message. He had no suspicions at all; his last reportswere all routine, which means that if they were on to him--and they musthave been, judging by the results--he was not even aware of it. "

"What do we do now?"

Ashe looked at him. "We wash--no--" he corrected himself--"we don't! Wego to Nodren's village. We are frightened, grief-stricken. We have foundour kinsmen dead under strange circumstances. We ask questions of one towhom I am known as an inhabitant of this post. "

So, covered with dirt, they walked along the trackway toward theneighboring village with a weariness they did not have to counterfeit. 

The dog sighted or perhaps scented them first. It was a rough-coatedbeast, showing its fangs with a wolflike ferocity. But it was smallerthan a wolf, and it barked between its warning snarls. Ashe brought hisbow from beneath the shelter of his cloak and held it ready. 

"Ho, one comes to speak with Nodren--Nodren of the Hill!"

Only the dog snapped and snarled. Ashe rubbed his forearm across hisface, the gesture of a weary and heartsick man, smearing the ash andgrime into an awesome mask. 

"Who speaks to Nodren--?" There was a different twist to thepronunciation of some words, but Ross was able to understand. 

"One who has hunted with him and feasted with him. The one who gave intohis hand the friendship gift of the ever-sharp knife. It is Assha of thetraders----"

"Go far from us, man of ill luck. You who are hunted by the evilspirits. " The last was a shrill cry. 

Ashe remained where he was, facing into the bushes which hid thetribesman. 

"Who speaks for Nodren yet not with the voice of Nodren?" he demanded. "This is Assha who asks. We have drunk blood together and faced thewhite wolf and the wild boar in their fury. Nodren lets not others speakfor him, for Nodren is a man and a chief!"

"And you are cursed!" A stone flew through the air, striking a rain pooland spattering mud on Ashe's boots. "Go and take your evil with you!"

"Is it from the hand of Nodren or Nodren's young men that doom came uponthose of my blood? Have war arrows passed between the place of thetraders and the town of Nodren? Is that why you hide in the shadows sothat I, Assha, cannot look upon the face of one who speaks boldly andthrows stones?"

"No war arrows between us, trader. _We_ do not provoke the spirits ofthe hills. No fire comes from the sky at night to eat us up with a noiseof many thunders. Lurgha speaks in such thunders; Lurgha's hand smiteswith such fire. You have the Wrath of Lurgha upon you, trader! Keepaway from us lest Lurgha's wrath fall upon us also. "

Lurgha was the local storm god, Ross recalled. The sound of thunder andfire coming out of the sky at night--the bomb! Perhaps the very methodof attack on the post would defeat Ashe's attempt to learn anything fromthese neighbors. The superstitions of the people would lead them to shunboth the site of the post and Ashe himself as cursed and taboo. 

"If the Wrath of Lurgha had struck at Assha, would Assha still live towalk upon this road?" Ashe prodded the ground with the tip of hisbowstave. "Yet Assha walks, as you see him; Assha talks, as you hearhim. It is ridiculous to answer him with the nonsense of littlechildren----"

"Spirits so walk and talk to unlucky men, " retorted the man in hiding. "It may be the spirit of Assha who does so now--"

Ashe made a sudden leap. There was a flurry of action behind the bushscreen and he reappeared, dragging into the gray light of the rainy daya wriggling captive, whom he bumped without ceremony onto the beatenearth of the road. 

The man was bearded, wearing his thick mop of black hair in a roundtopknot secured by a hide loop. He wore a skin tunic, now inconsiderable disarray, which was held in place with a woven, tasseledbelt. 

"Ho, so it is Lal of the Quick Tongue who speaks so loudly of spiritsand the Wrath of Lurgha!" Ashe studied his captive. "Now, Lal, since youspeak for Nodren--which I believe will greatly surprise him--you willcontinue to tell me of this Wrath of Lurgha from the night skies andwhat has happened to Sanfra, who was my brother, and those others of mykin. I am Assha, and you know of the wrath of Assha and how it ate upTwist-tooth, the outlaw, when he came in with his evil men. The Wrath ofLurgha is hot, but so too is the wrath of Assha. " Ashe contorted hisface in such a way that Lal squirmed and looked away. When the tribesmanspoke, all his former authority and bluster had gone. 

"Assha knows that I am as his dog. Let him not turn upon me hisswift-cutting big knife, nor the arrows from his lightning bow. It wasthe Wrath of Lurgha which smote the place on the hill, first the thunderof his fist meeting the earth, and then the fire which he breathed uponthose whom he would slay----"

"And this you saw with your own eyes, Lal?"

The shaggy head shook an emphatic negative. "Assha knows that Lal is nochief who can stand and look upon the wonders of Lurgha's might and keephis eyes in his head. Nodren himself saw this wonder----"

"And if Lurgha came in the night, when all men keep to their homes andleave the outer world to the restless spirits, how did Nodren see hiscoming?"

Lal crouched lower to the ground, his eyes darting to the bushes and thefreedom they promised, then back to Ashe's firmly planted boots. 

"I am not a chief, Assha. How could I know in what way or for whatreason Nodren saw the coming of Lurgha----?"

"Fool!" A second voice, that of a woman, spat the word from the brushwhich fringed the roadway. "Speak to Assha with a straight tongue. If heis a spirit, he will know that you do not tell him the truth. And if hehas been spared by Lurgha. .. . " She showed her wonderment with a hiss ofindrawn breath. 

So urged, Lal mumbled sullenly, "It is said that there came a messagefor one to witness the Wrath of Lurgha in its descent upon theoutlanders so that Nodren and the men of Nodren would truly know thatthe traders were cursed, and should be put to the spear should theycome here again----"

"This message--how was it brought? Did the voice of Lurgha sound inNodren's ear alone, or came it by the tongue of some man?"

"Ahee!" Lal lay flat on the ground, his hands over his ears. 

"Lal is a fool and fears his own shadow as it skips before him on asunny day!" Out of the bushes stepped a young woman, obviously of someimportance in her own group. Walking with a proud stride, her eyesboldly met Ashe's. A shining disk hung about her neck on a thong, andanother decorated the woven belt of her cloth tunic. Her hair was boundin a thread net fastened with jet pins. 

"I greet Cassca, who is the First Sower. " There was a formal note inAshe's voice. "But why should Cassca hide from Assha?"

"There has been death on your hill, Assha--" she sniffed--"you smell ofit now--Lurgha's death. Those who come from that hill may well be somewho no longer walk in their bodies. " Cassca placed her fingersmomentarily on Ashe's outstretched palm before she nodded. "No spiritare you, Assha, for all know that a spirit is solid to the eye, but notto the touch. So it would seem that you were not burned up by Lurgha, after all. "

"This matter of a message from Lurgha--" he prompted. 

"It came out of the empty air in the hearing not only of Nodren, butalso of Hangor, Effar, and myself, Cassca. For we stood at that timenear the Old Place. .. . " She made a curious gesture with the fingers ofher right hand. "It will soon be the time of sowing, and though Lurghabrings sun and rain to feed the grain, yet it is in the Great Motherthat the seed lies. Upon her business only women may go into the InnerCircle. " She gestured again. "But as we met to make the first sacrificethere came music out of the air such as we have never heard, voicessinging like birds in a strange tongue. " Her face assumed an awesomeexpression. "Afterward a voice said that Lurgha was angered with thehill of the men-from-afar and that in the night he would send his Wrathagainst them, and that Nodren must witness this thing so that he couldsee what Lurgha did to those he would punish. So it was done by Nodren. And there was a sound in the air----"

"What kind of a sound?" Ashe asked quietly. 

"Nodren said it was a hum and there was the dark shadow of Lurgha's birdbetween him and the stars. Then came the smiting of the hill withthunder and lightning, and Nodren fled, for the Wrath of Lurgha is afearsome thing. Now do the people come to the Great Mother's Place withmany fine offerings that she may stand between them and that Wrath. "

"Assha thanks Cassca, who is the handmaiden of the Great Mother. May thesowing prosper and the reaping be good this year!" Ashe said finally, ignoring Lal, who still groveled on the road. 

"You go from this place, Assha?" she asked. "For though I stand underthe protecting hand of the Mother and so do not fear, yet there areothers who will raise their spears against you for the honor of Lurgha. "

"We go, and again thanks be to you, Cassca. "

He turned back the way they had come, and Ross fell in beside him as thewoman watched them out of sight. 

CHAPTER 6

"That bird of Lurgha's--" said Ross, once they were out of sight ofCassca and Lal, "could it have been a plane?"

"Sounds like it, " snapped his companion. "If the Reds have done theirwork efficiently, and there's no reason to suppose otherwise, then thereis no use in contacting either Dorhta's town or Munga's. The sameannouncement concerning the Wrath of Lurgha was probably made there--totheir good purpose, not ours. "

"Cassca didn't seem to be overly impressed with Lurgha's curse, not asmuch as the man was. "

"She is the closest thing to a priestess that this tribe knows, and sheserves a goddess older and more powerful than Lurgha--the Mother Earth, the Great Mother, goddess of fertility and growth. Nodren's peoplebelieve that unless Cassca performs her mysteries and sows part of thefirst field in the spring there won't be any harvest. Consequently, sheis secure in her office and doesn't fear the Wrath of Lurgha too much. These people are now changing from one type of worship to another, butsome of Cassca's beliefs will persist clear down to our day, taking onthe coating of 'magic' and a lot of other enameling along the way. "

Ashe had been talking as a man talks to cover up furious thinking. Nowhe paused again and turned toward the sea. "We have to stick it outsomewhere until the sub comes to pick us up. We'll need shelter. "

"Will the tribesmen be after us?"

"They may well be. Let the right men get to talking up a holyextermination of those upon whom the Wrath of Lurgha has fallen and wecould be in for plenty of trouble. Some of those men are trained huntersand trackers, and the Reds may have planted an agent to report thereturn of anyone to our post. Just now we're about the most importanttime travelers out, for we know the Reds have appeared on this line. They must have a large post here, too, or they couldn't have sent aplane on that raid. You can't build a time transport large enough totake through a considerable amount of material. Everything used by us inthis age has to be assembled on this side, and the use of all machinesis limited to where they can not be seen by any natives. Luckily largesections of this world are mostly wilderness and unpopulated in theareas where we operate the base posts. So if the Reds have a plane, itwas put together here, and that means a big post somewhere. " Again Ashewas thinking aloud as he pushed ahead of Ross into the fringes of awood. "Sandy and I scouted this territory pretty well last spring. Thereis a cave about half a mile to the west; it will shelter us fortonight. "

Ashe's plans would probably have been easily accomplished if the cavehad been unoccupied. Without incident they came down into a hollowthrough which trickled a small stream, its banks laced with a thinedging of ice. Under Ashe's direction Ross collected an armload offirewood. He was no woodsman and his prolonged exposure to the chillingdrizzle made him eager for even the very rough shelter of a cave, soeager that he plunged forward carelessly. His foot came down on aslippery patch of mud, sending him sprawling on his face. There was agrowl, and a white bulk rushed him. The cloak, rucked up about histhroat and shoulders, then saved his life, for only stout cloth wascaught between those fangs. 

With a startled cry, Ross rolled as he might have to escape a man'sattack, struggling to unsheath his dagger. A white-hot flash of painscored his upper arm. The breath was driven out of him as a fight ragedover his prone body; he heard grunts, snarls, and was severely pommeled. Then he was free as the bodies broke away. Shaken, he got to his knees. A short distance away the fight was still in progress. He saw Ashestraddle the body of a huge white wolf, his legs clamped about theanimal's haunches, his hooked arm under the beast's head, forcing it upand back while his dagger rose and sank twice in the underparts of theheaving body. 

Ross held his own weapon ready. He leaped from a half crouch, and hisdagger sank cleanly home behind the short ribs. One of their blows musthave reached the animal's heart. With an almost human cry the wolfstiffened convulsively. Then it was still. Ashe squatted near it, methodically driving his dagger into the moist soil to clean the blade. 

A red rivulet trickled down his thigh where the lower edge of hiskilt-tunic had been ripped up to the link belt. He was breathing hard, but otherwise he was as composed as always. "These sometimes hunt inpairs at this season, " he observed. "Be ready with your bow--"

Ross strung his with the cord he had been keeping dry within the breastfolds of his tunic. He fitted an arrow to the string, grateful to be apassable marksman. The slash on his arm smarted in protest as he moved, and he noted that Ashe did not try to get up. 

"A bad one?" Ross indicated the blood now thickening into a stream alongAshe's thigh. 

Ashe pulled away the torn tunic and exposed a nasty looking gash on theoutside of his hip. He pressed his palm against the gaping wound andmotioned Ross to scout ahead. "See if the cave is clear. We can't doanything until we know that. "

Reluctantly Ross followed the stream until he found the cave, asnug-looking place with an overhang to keep it dry. The unpleasant smellof a lair hung about its mouth. He chose a stone from the stream, chucked it into the dark opening, and waited. The stone rattled as itstruck an inner wall, but there was no other sound. A second stone froma different angle followed the first, with the same results. Ross wasnow certain that the cave was unoccupied. Once they were inside with afire going at the entrance, they could hope to keep it free ofintruders. A little heartened, he cast about a bit upstream and thenturned back to where he had left Ashe. 

"No male?" the other greeted him. "This is a female, and she was closeto whelping--" He nudged the white wolf with his toe. His hands held apad of rags against his hip, and his face was shaded with pain. 

"Nothing in the cave anyway. Let's see about this. .. . " Ross laid asidethe bow and kneeled to examine Ashe's thigh wound. His own slash wasmore of a smarting graze, but this tear was deep and ugly. 

"Second plate--belt--" Ashe got the words out between set teeth, andRoss clicked open the hidden recess in the other's bronze belt to bringout a small packet. Ashe made a wry face as he swallowed three of thepills within. Ross mashed another pill onto the bandage he prepared, and when the last cumbersome fold was secure Ashe relaxed. 

"Let us hope that works, " he commented a little bleakly. "Now come herewhere I can get my hands on you and let me see your scratch. Animalbites can be a nasty business. "

Bandaged in turn, with the bitterness of the anti-septo pill on histongue, Ross helped Ashe limp upstream to the cave. He left the olderman outside while he cleaned up the floor of the cave and then made hiscompanion as comfortable as he could on a bed of bracken. The fire Rosshad longed for was built. They stripped off their sodden clothing andhung it to dry. Ross wrapped a bird he had shot in clay and tucked itunder the hot coals to be roasted. 

They had surely had bad luck, he thought, but they were now undercover, had a fire, and food of a sort. His arm ached, sharp pain shooting fromfingers to elbow when he moved it. Though Ashe made no complaint, Rossgauged that the older man's discomfort was far worse than his own, andhe carefully hid all signs of his own twinges. 

They ate the bird, saltless, and with their fingers. Ross savored eachgreasy bite, licking his hands clean afterward while Ashe lay back onthe improvised bed, his face gaunt in the half light of the fire. 

"We are about five miles from the sea here. There is no way of raisingour base now that Sandy's installation is gone. I'll have to lay up, since I can't risk any more loss of blood. And you're not too good inthe woods--"

Ross accepted that valuation with a new humbleness. He was only too wellaware that if it had not been for Ashe, he and not the white wolf wouldhave died down in the valley. Yet a strange shyness kept him from tryingto put his thanks into words. The only kind of amends he could make forthe other's hurt was to provide hands, feet, and strength for the manwho did know what to do and how to do it. 

"We'll have to hunt--" he ventured. 

"Deer, " Ashe caught him up. "But the marsh at the mouth of this streamprovides a better hunting ground than inland. If the wolf laired herevery long, she has already frightened away any large game. It isn't thematter of food which bothers me----"

"It is being tied up here, " Ross filled in for him with some daring. "But look here, I'll take orders. This is your territory, and I'm greenat the game. You tell me what to do, and I'll do it the best that Ican. " He glanced up to find Ashe surveying him intently, but as usualthere was no readable expression on the other's brown face. 

"The first thing to do is get the wolf's hide, " Ashe said briskly. "Thenbury the carcass. You'd better drag it up here to work on it. If hermate is hanging around, he might try to jump you. "

Why Ashe should think it necessary to acquire the wolf skin puzzledRoss, but he asked no questions. His skinning task took four times aslong and was far from being the neat job the shock-haired man of therecord tape had accomplished. Ross had to wash himself off in the streambefore piling stones over the corpse in temporary burial. When he pulledhis bloody burden back to the cave, Ashe lay with his eyes closed. Rossthankfully sat on his own pile of bracken and tried not to notice thethrobbing ache in his arm. 

He must have fallen asleep, for when he roused it was to see Ashe crawlover to mend the dying fire from their store of wood. Ross, angry athimself, beat the other to the task. 

"Get back, " he said roughly. "This is my job. I didn't mean to fail. "

Surprisingly, Ashe settled back without a word, leaving Ross to sit bythe fire, a fire he was very glad to have a moment or so later when awailing howl sounded down-wind. If this was not the white wolf's mate, then it was another of her kin who prowled the upper reaches of thesmall valley. 

The next day, having provided Ashe with a supply of firewood, Ross wentto try his luck in the marsh. The thick drizzle which had hung over theland the day before was gone, and he faced a clear, bright morning, though the breeze had an icy snap. But it was a good morning to be aliveand out in the open, and Ross's spirits rose. 

He tried to put to use all the woodlore he had learned at the base. Butit was one thing to learn something academically and another to put thatlearning into practice. He was uncomfortably certain that Ashe would nothave found his showing very good. 

The marsh was a series of pools between rank growths of leafless willowsand coarse tufts of grass, with hillocks of firmer soil rising likeislands. Ross, approaching with caution, was glad of it, for from one ofthose hillocks arose a trail of white smoke, and he saw a black blotwhich was probably a rude hut. Why one should choose to live in themidst of such country he could not guess, though it might be merely thetemporary camp of some hunter. 

Ross also saw thousands of birds feeding greedily on the dried seed ofthe marsh grasses, paddling in the pools, and setting up a clamor todrive a man mad. They did not seem in the least disturbed by thatdistant camper. 

Ross had reason to be proud of his marksmanship that morning. He had inhis quiver perhaps half a dozen of the lighter shafts made for shootingbirds. In place of the finely chipped and wickedly barbed flint pointsused for heavier game, these were tipped with needle-sharp, light boneheads. He had a string of four birds looped together by their feetwithin almost as many minutes. For the flocks rose in their first alarmonly to settle again to feast. 

Then he knocked over a hare--a fat giant of its race--that stared at himbrazenly from a tussock. The hare kicked back into a pool in its deathstruggle, however, and Ross was forced to leave cover to retrieve itsbody. But he was alert and he stood up, dagger out and ready, to greetthe man who parted the bushes to watch him. 

For a long minute gray eyes stared into brown ones, and then Ross notedthe other's bedraggled and tattered dress. The kilt-tunic smudged withmud, scorched and charred along one edge, was styled like his own. Thefellow wore his hair fastened back with a band, unlike the topknot ofthe local tribesman. 

Ross, his dagger still ready, broke the silence first. "I am a believerin the fire and the fashioned metal, the climbing sun, and the movingwater. " He repeated the recognition speech of the Beakermen. 

"The fire warms by the grace of Tulden, the metal is fashioned by themystery of the smith, the sun climbs without our aid, and who can stopthe water from running?" The stranger's voice was hoarse. Now that Rosshad time to examine him more closely he saw the dark bruise on hisexposed shoulder, the raw red mark of a burn running across the man'sbroad chest. He dared to test his surmise concerning the other. 

"I am of the kin of Assha. We returned to the hill----"

"Ashe!"

Not "Assha" but "Ashe!" Ross, though sure of that pronunciation, wasstill cautious. "You are from the hill place, where Lurgha smote withthunder and fire?"

The man slid his long legs across the log which had been his shelter. The burn across his chest was not his only brand, for Ross noticedanother red stripe, puffed and fiery looking, which swelled the calf ofone leg. The man studied Ross closely, and then his fingers moved in asign which to the uninitiated native might have been one for the wardingoff of evil, but which to Ross was the "thumbs up" of his own age. 

"Sanford?"

At that name the man shook his head. "McNeil, " he named himself. "Whereis Ashe?"

He might really be what he seemed, but on the other hand, he could be aRed spy. Ross had not forgotten Kurt. "What happened?" he parried onequestion with another. 

"Bomb. The Reds must have spotted us, and we didn't have a chance. Weweren't expecting any trouble. I'd been down to see about a missingburden donkey and was about halfway back up the hill when she hit. WhenI came to I was all the way down the hill with part of the fort on topof me. The rest. .. . Well, you saw the place, didn't you?"

Ross nodded. "What are you doing here?"

McNeil spread his hands in a tired little gesture. "I tried to talk toNodren, but they stoned me away. I knew that Ashe was coming through andhoped to reach him when he hit the beach, but I was too late. Then Ifigured he would pass here to make contact with the sub, so I waswaiting it out until I saw you. Where is Ashe?"

It all sounded logical enough. Still, with Ashe injured, Ross was takingno chances. He pushed his dagger back into its sheath and picked up thehare. "Stay here, " he told McNeil, "I'll be back----"

"But--wait! Where's Ashe, you young fool? We have to get together. "

Ross went on. He was sure that the stranger was in no shape to raceafter him, and he would lay a muddled trail before he returned to thecave valley. If this man was a Red plant, he would have to reckon withone who had already met Kurt Vogel. 

The laying of that muddled trail took time. It was past midday when Rosscame back to Ashe, who was sitting up by the mouth of the cave at thefire, using his dagger to fashion a crutch out of a length of sapling. He surveyed Ross's burden with approval, but lost interest in thepromise of food as soon as the other reported his meeting in the marsh. 

"McNeil--chap with brown hair, brown eyes, a right eyebrow which quirksup toward his hairline when he smiles?"

"Brown hair and eyes, okay--and he didn't smile any. "

"Chip broken off a front tooth--upper right?"

Ross shut his eyes to visualize the stranger. Yes, there had been asmall break on a front tooth. He nodded. 

"That's McNeil. Not that you didn't do right not to bring him herewithout being sure. What made you so watchful? Kurt?"

Again Ross nodded. "And what you said about the Reds' planting someonehere to wait for us. "

Ashe scratched the bristles on his chin. "Never underrate them--we don'tdare do that. But the man you met is McNeil, and we'd better get himhere. Can you bring him?"

"I think he's able to get about, in spite of that leg. From his storyhe's been stirring around. "

Ashe bit absent-mindedly into a piece of hare and swore mildly when heburned his tongue. "Odd that Cassca didn't tell us about him. Unless shethought there was no use causing trouble by admitting they had drivenhim away. You going now?"

Ross moved around the fire. "Might as well. He didn't look toocomfortable. And I'll bet he's hungry. "

He took the direct route back to the marsh, but this time no thread ofsmoke spiraled into the air. Ross hesitated. That shelter on the smallisland was surely the place where McNeil had holed up. Should he try towork his way out to it now? Or had something happened to the man whilehe was gone?

Again that sixth sense of impending disaster, which is perhaps bred intosome men, alerted Ross. Why he turned suddenly and backed against abushy willow, he could not have explained. However, because he did sothe loop of hide rope meant for his throat hit his shoulder harmlessly. It fell to the ground, and he stamped one boot down on it. Then it wasthe work of seconds to grasp it and give it a quick jerk. The surprisedman who held the other end was brought sprawling into the open. 

Ross had seen that round face before. "Lal of the town of Nodren. " Hefound words to greet the ropeman even as his knee came up against thefellow's jaw, jarring Lal so that he dropped a flint knife. Ross kickedit into the willows. "What do you hunt here, Lal?"

"Traders!" The voice was weak, but it held heat. 

The tribesman did not try to struggle against Ross's hold, and Ross, gripping him by the nape of the neck, moved through a screen of brush toa hollow. Luckily there was no water cupped there, for McNeil lay in thebottom of that dip, his arms tied tightly behind him and his ankleslashed together with no thought for the pain of his burned leg. 

CHAPTER 7

Ross whirled the rope which had been meant to bring him down around Lal. He lashed the tribesman's arms tight to his body before he knelt to cutloose his fellow time traveler. Lal now huddled against the far wall ofthe cup, fear in every line of his small body. So apparent was this fearthat Ross felt no satisfaction at turning the tables on him. Instead hefelt increasingly uneasy. 

"What is this all about?" he asked McNeil as he stripped off his bondsand helped him up. 

McNeil massaged his wrists, took a step or two, and grimaced with pain. "Our friend seeks to be an obedient servant of Lurgha. "

Ross picked up his bow. "The tribe is out to hunt us?"

"Lurgha has ordered--out of thin air again--that any traders who escapedare to be brought in and introduced to him personally at the sacrificefor the enrichment of the fields!"

The old, old gift of blood and life at the spring sowing. Ross recalledgrisly details from his cram lessons. Any wandering stranger or enemytribesman taken in a raid before that day would meet such a fate. Onunlucky years when people were not available a deer or wolf might serve. But the best sacrifice of all was a man. So Lurgha had decreed--from theair--that traders were his meat? What of Ashe? Let any hunter from thevillage track him down. 

"We have to move fast, " Ross told McNeil as he took up the rope whichmade a leading cord for Lal. Ashe would want to question the tribesmanabout this second order from Lurgha. 

Impatient as Ross was, he had to mend his pace to accommodate McNeil. The man from the hill post was close to the end of his strength. He hadstarted off bravely enough, but now he wavered. Ross sent Lal ahead witha sharp push, ordering him to stay there, while he went to McNeil's aid. It was well into the afternoon before they came up the stream and sawthe fire before the cave. 

"Macna!" Ashe hailed Ross's companion with the native version of hisname. "And Lal. But what do you here, Lal of Nodren's town?"

"Mischief. " Ross helped McNeil within the cave and to the pile of brushwhich was his own bed. "He was hunting traders as a present for Lurgha. "

"So--" Ashe turned upon the tribesman--"and by whose word did you gohunting my kinsman, Lal? Was it Nodren's? Has he forgotten the bloodbond between us? For it was in the name of Lurgha himself that that bondwas made----"

"Aaaah--" The tribesman squatted down against the wall where Ross hadshoved him. Unable to hide his head in his arms, he brought his facedown upon his knees so that only his shaggy topknot of hair was exposed. Ross realized, with stupefaction, that the little man was crying like achild, his hunched shoulders rising and falling with the force of hissobs. "Aaaah--" he wailed. 

Ashe allowed him a moment or two of noisy grief and then limped over tograsp his topknot and pull up his head. Lal's eyes were screwed tightlyshut, but there were tears on his cheeks, and his mouth twisted inanother wail. 

"Be quiet!" Ashe shook him, but not too harshly. "Have you yet felt thebite of my sharp knife? Has an arrow holed your skin? You are alive, andyou could be dead. Show that you are glad you live and continue tobreathe by telling us what you know, Lal. "

The woman Cassca had displayed a measure of intelligence and ease attheir meeting upon the road. But it was very plain that Lal was ofdifferent stuff, a simple man in whose head few ideas could find houseroom at one time. And to him the present was all black. Little by littlethey dragged the story out of him. 

Lal was poor, so poor that he had never dared dream of owning forhimself some of the precious things the hill traders displayed to thewealthy of Nodren's town. But he was also a follower of the GreatMother's, rather than one who made sacrifices to Lurgha. Lurgha was thegod for warriors and great men; he was too high to concern himself withsuch as Lal. 

So when Nodren reported the end of the hill post under the storm fist ofLurgha, Lal had been impressed only to a point. He was still convincedit was none of his concern, and instead he began thinking of thetreasures which might lie hidden in the destroyed buildings. It occurredto him that Lurgha's Wrath had been laid upon the men who had ownedthem, but perhaps it would not stretch to the fine things themselves. Sohe had gone secretly to the hill to explore. 

What he had seen there had utterly converted him to a belief in the furyof Lurgha and he had been frightened out of his simple wits, fleeingwithout making the search he had intended. But Lurgha had seen himthere, had read his impious thoughts. .. . 

At that point Ashe interrupted the stream of Lal's story. How had Lurghaseen Lal?

Because--Lal shuddered, began to cry again, and spoke the next fewsentences haltingly--that very morning when he had gone out to hunt wildfowl in the marshes Lurgha had spoken to _him_, to Lal, who was lessthan a flea creeping upon a worn-out fur rug. 

And how had Lurgha spoken? Ashe's voice was softer, gentle. 

Out of the air, even as he had spoken to Nodren, who was a chief. Hesaid that he had seen Lal in the hill post, and so Lal was his meat. Butnot yet would he eat him, not if Lal served him in other ways. And he, Lal, had lain flat on the ground before the bodiless voice of Lurgha andhad sworn that he would serve Lurgha to the end of his life. 

Then Lurgha had told him to hunt down one of the evil traders who washiding in the marshes, and bind him with ropes. Then he was to call themen of the village and together they would carry the prisoner to thehill where Lurgha had loosed his wrath, and there they would leave him. Later they might return and take what they found there and use it tobless the fields at sowing time, and all would be well with Nodren'svillage. And Lal had sworn that he would do as Lurgha bade, but now hecould not. So Lurgha would eat him up--he was a man without hope. 

"Yet, " Ashe said even more gently, "have you not served the Great Motherall these years, giving to her a portion of the first fruits even whenthe yield of your one field was small?"

Lal stared at him, his woebegone face still smeared with tears. It tooka second or two for the question to penetrate his fear-clouded mind. Then he nodded timidly. 

"Has she not dealt with you well in return, Lal? You are a poor man, that is true. But you are not gaunt of belly, even though this is thethin season when men fast before the coming of the new harvest. TheGreat Mother watches over her own. And it is she who has brought you tous now. For this I say to you, Lal, and I, Assha of the traders, speakwith a straight tongue. The Lurgha who struck our post, who spoke to youfrom the air, means you no good----"

"Aaaah!" wailed Lal. "So do I know, Assha. He is of the blackness andthe wandering spirits of the dark!"

"Just so. Thus he is no kin to the mother, for she is of the light andof good things, of the new grain, and the newborn lambs for your flocks, of the maids who wed with men and bring forth sons to lift theirfathers' spears, daughters to spin by the hearth and sow the yellowgrain in the furrows. Lurgha's quarrel lies with us, Lal, not withNodren nor with you. And we take upon us that quarrel. " He limped intothe outer air where the shadows of evening were beginning to creepacross the ground. 

"Hear me, Lurgha, " he called into the coming night, "I am Assha of thetraders, and upon myself I take your hate. Not upon Lal, nor uponNodren, nor upon the people who live in Nodren's town, shall your wrathlie. Thus do I say it!"

Ross, noticing that Ashe concealed from Lal a wave of his hand, wasprepared for some display meant to impress the tribesman. It came in aspectacular burst of green fire beyond the stream. Lal wailed again, butwhen that fire was followed by no other manifestation he ventured toraise his head once more. 

"You have seen how Lurgha answered me, Lal. Toward me only will hiswrath be turned. Now--" Ashe limped back and dragged out the white wolfskin, dropping it before Lal--"this you will give to Cassca that she maymake a curtain for the Mother's home. See, it is white and so rare thatthe Mother will be pleased with such a fine gift. And you will tell herall that has chanced and how you believe in her powers over the powersof Lurgha, and the Mother will be well pleased with you. But you shallsay nothing to the men of the village, for this quarrel is betweenLurgha and Assha now and not for the meddling of others. "

He unfastened the rope which bound Lal's arms. Lal reached out a hand tothe wolf skin, his eyes filled with wonderment. "This is a fine thingyou give me, Assha, and the Mother will be pleased, for in many yearsshe has not had such a curtain for her secret place. Also, I am but alittle man; the quarrels of great ones are not for me. Since Lurgha hasaccepted your words this is none of my affair. Yet I will not go back tothe village for a while--with your permission, Assha. For I am a man ofloose and wagging tongue and oftentimes I speak what I do not reallywish to say. So if I am asked questions, I answer. If I am not there tobe asked such questions, I cannot answer. "

McNeil laughed, and Ashe smiled. "Well enough, Lal. Perhaps you are awiser man than you think. But also I do not believe you should stayhere. "

The tribesman was already nodding. "That do I say, too, Assha. You arenow facing the Wrath of Lurgha, and with that I wish no part. Thus Ishall go into the marsh for a while. There are birds and hares to hunt, and I shall work upon this fine skin so that when I take it to theMother it shall indeed be a gift worth her smiles. Now, Assha, I wouldgo before the night comes if it pleases you. "

"Go with good fortune, Lal. " Ashe stood apart while the tribesman duckedhis head in a shy, awkward farewell to the others, pattering out intothe valley. 

"What if they pick him up?" McNeil asked wearily. 

"I don't think they can, " Ashe returned. "And what would you do--keephim here? If we tried that, he'd scheme to escape and try to turn thetables on us. Now he'll keep away from Nodren's village and out of sightfor the time being. Lal's not too bright in some ways, but he's a goodhunter. If he has reason for hiding out, it'll take a better hunter totrack him. At least we know now that the Reds are afraid they did notmake a clean sweep here. What happened, McNeil?"

While he was telling his story in more detail both Ashe and Ross workedon his burns, making him comfortable. Then Ashe sat back as Rossprepared food. 

"How did they spot the post?" Ashe rubbed his chin and frowned at thefire. 

"Only way I can guess is that they picked up our post signal andpinpointed the source. That means they must have been hunting us forsome time. "

"No strangers about lately?"

McNeil shook his head. "Our cover wasn't broken that way. Sanford was awonder. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn he was born one ofthe Beaker folk. He had a network of informants running all the way fromhere into Brittany. Amazing how he was able to work without arousing anysuspicions. I suppose his being a member of the smiths' guild was a bighelp. He could pick up a lot of news from any village where there wasone at work. And I tell you, " McNeil propped himself up on his elbow toexclaim more vehemently--"there wasn't a whisper of trouble from hereclear across the channel and pretty far to the north. We were alreadysure the south was clean before we ever took cover as Beakers, especially since their clans are thick in Spain. "

Ashe chewed a broiled wing reflectively. "Their permanent base with thetransport _has_ to be somewhere within the bounds of the territory theyhold in our own time. "

"They could plant it in Siberia and laugh at us, " McNeil exploded. "Nohope of our getting in there----"

"No. " Ashe threw the stripped bone into the fire and licked grease fromhis fingers. "Then they would be faced with the old problem of distance. If what they are exploiting lay within their modern boundaries, we wouldnever have tumbled to the thing in the first place. What the Reds wantmust lie outside their twentieth century holdings, a slender point inour favor. Therefore they will plant their shift point as close to it asthey can. Our transportation problem is more difficult than theirs willever be. 

"You know why we chose the arctic for our base; it lies in a section ofthe world never populated by other than roving hunters. But I'll wageranything you want to name that their point is somewhere in Europe wherethey have people to contend with. If they are using a plane, they can'trisk its being seen----"

"I don't see why not, " Ross broke in. "These people couldn't possiblyknow what it was--Lurgha's bird--magic--"

Ashe shook his head. "They must have the interference-with-history worryas much as we have. Anything of our own time has to be hidden ordisguised in such a way that the native who may stumble upon it willnever know it is man-made. Our sub is a whale to all appearances. Possibly their plane is a bird, but neither can bear too close anexamination. We don't know what could result from a leak of realknowledge in this or any primitive time . .. How it might changehistory----"

"But, " Ross advanced what he believed to be the best argument againstthat reasoning, "suppose I handed Lal a gun and taught him to use it. Hecouldn't duplicate the weapon--the technology required lies so farbeyond this age. These people couldn't reproduce such a thing. "

"True enough. On the other hand, don't belittle the ingenuity of thesmiths or the native intelligence of men in any era. These tribesmenmight not be able to reproduce your gun, but it would set them thinkingalong new lines. We might find that they would think our time right outof being. No, we dare not play tricks with the past. This is the samesituation we faced immediately after the discovery of the atom bomb. Everybody raced to produce that new weapon and then sat around andshivered for fear we'd be crazy enough to use it on each other. 

"The Reds have made new discoveries which we have to match, or we willgo under. But back in time we have to be careful, both of us, or perhapsdestroy the world we do live in. "

"What do we do now?" McNeil wanted to know. 

"Murdock and I came here only for a trial run. It's his test. The sub isto call for us about nine days from now. "

"So if we sit tight--if we _can_ sit tight--" McNeil lay downagain--"they will take us out. Meanwhile we have nine days. "

They spent three more days in the cave. McNeil was on his feet andimpatient to leave before Ashe was able to hobble well enough to travel. Though Ross and McNeil took turns at hunting and guard duty, they saw nosigns that the tribesmen were tracking them. Apparently Lal had done ashe promised, withdrawing to the marsh and hiding there apart from hispeople. 

In the gray of pre-dawn on the fourth day Ashe wakened Ross. Their firehad been buried with earth, and already the cave seemed bleak. They atevenison roasted the night before and went out into the chill of a fog. Alittle way down the valley McNeil joined them out of the mist from hisguard post. Keeping their pace to one which favored Ashe's healingwound, they made their way inland in the direction of the track linkingthe villages. 

Crossing that road they continued northward, the land beginning to riseunder them. Far away they heard the blatting of sheep, the bark of adog. In the fog, Ross stumbled in a shallow ditch beyond which lay astubbled field. Ashe paused to look about him, his nostrils expanding asif he were a hound smelling out their trail. 

The three went on, crossing a whole series of small, irregular fields. Ross was sure that the yield from any of these cleared strips must bescanty. The fog was thickening. Ashe pressed the pace, using hishandmade crutch carefully. He gave an audible sigh of relief when theywere faced at last by two stone monoliths rising like pillars. A thirdstone lay across them, forming a rude arch through which they saw anarrow valley running back into the hills. 

Through the fog Ross could sense the eerie strangeness of the valleybeyond the massive gate. He would have said that he was notsuperstitious, that he had merely studied these tribal beliefs aslessons; he had not accepted them. Yet now, if he had been alone, hewould have avoided that place and turned aside from the valley, for thatwhich waited within was not for him. To his secret relief Ashe paused bythe arch to wait. 

The older man gestured the other two into cover. Ross obeyed willingly, though the dank drops of condensing fog dripped on his cloak and wet hisface as he brushed against prickly-leafed shrubs. Here were walls ofevergreen plants and dwarfed pines almost as if this tunnel ofyear-round greenery had been planted with some purpose in mind. Once hiscompanions had concealed themselves, Ashe called, shrill but sweetly, with a bird's rising notes. Three times he made that sound before afigure moved in the fog, the rough gray-white of its long cloak meltingin the wisps of mist. 

Down that green tunnel, out of the heart of the valley, the other came, a loop of cloak concealing the entire figure. It halted right in back ofthe arch and Ashe, making a gesture to the others to stay where theywere, faced the muffled stranger. 

"Hands and feet of the Mother, she who sows what may be reaped----"

"Outland stranger who is under the Wrath of Lurgha, " the other mockedhim in the voice of Cassca. "What do you want, outlander, that you dareto come here where no man may enter?"

"That which you know. For on the night when Lurgha came you alsosaw----"

Ross heard the hiss of a sharply drawn breath. "How knew you that, outlander?"

"Because you serve the Mother and you are jealous for her and herservice. If Lurgha is a mighty god, you wanted to see his acts with yourown eyes. "

When she finally answered, there was anger as well as frustration in hervoice. "And you know of my shame then, Assha. For Lurgha came--on a birdhe came, and he did even as he said he would. So now the village willmake offerings to Lurgha and beg his favor, and the Mother will no morehave those to harken to her words and offer her the first fruits----"

"But from whence came this bird which was Lurgha, can you tell me that, she who waits upon the Mother?"

"What difference does it make from what direction Lurgha came? That doesnot add nor take from his power. " Cassca moved beneath the arch. "Ordoes it in some strange way, Assha?"

"Perhaps it does. Only tell me. "

She turned slowly and pointed over her right shoulder. "From that way hecame, Assha. Well did I watch, knowing that I was the Mother's and thateven Lurgha's thunderbolts could not eat me up. Does knowing that makeLurgha smaller in your eyes, Assha? When he has eaten up all that isyours and your kin with it?"

"Perhaps, " Assha repeated. "I do not think Lurgha will come so again. "

She shrugged, and the heavy cloak flapped. "That shall be as it shallbe, Assha. Now go, for it is not good that any man come hither. "

Cassca paced back into the heart of the green tunnel, and Ross andMcNeil came out of concealment. McNeil faced in the direction she hadpointed. "Northeast--" he commented thoughtfully, "the Baltic lies inthat quarter. "

CHAPTER 8

". .. And that is about all. " Ten days later Ashe, a dressing on his legand a few of the pain lines smoothed from his face, sat on a bunk in thearctic time post nursing a mug of coffee in his hands and smiling, alittle crookedly, at Nelson Millaird. 

Millaird, Kelgarries, Dr. Webb, all the top brass of the project had notonly come through the transfer point to meet the three from Britain butwere now crammed into the room, nearly pushing Ross and McNeil throughthe wall. Because this was it! What they had hunted formonths--years--now lay almost within their grasp. 

Only Millaird, the director, did not seem so confident. A big man with abushy thatch of coarse graying hair and a heavy, fleshy face, he did notlook like a brain. Yet Ross had been on the roster long enough to knowthat it was Millaird's thick and hairy hands that gathered together allthe loose threads of Operation Retrograde and deftly wove them into aworkable pattern. Now the director leaned back in a chair which was toosmall for his bulk, chewing thoughtfully on a toothpick. 

"So we have the first whiff of a trail, " he commented without elation. 

"A pretty strong lead!" Kelgarries broke in. Too excited to sit still, the major stood with his back against the door, as alert as if he wereabout to turn and face the enemy. "The Reds wouldn't have moved againstGog if they did not consider it a menace to them. Their big base must bein this time sector!"

"_A_ big base, " Millaird corrected. "The one we are after, no. And rightnow they may be switching times. Do you think they will sit here andwait for us to show up in force?" But Millaird's tone, intended todeflate, had no effect on the major. 

"And just how long would it take them to dismantle a big base?" thatofficer countered. "At least a month. If we shoot a team in there in ahurry--"

Millaird folded his huge hands over his barrel-shaped body and laughed, without a trace of humor. "Just where do we send that team, Kelgarries?Northeast of a coastal point in Britain is a rather vague direction, tosay the least. Not, " he spoke to Ashe now, "that you didn't do all youcould, Ashe. And you, McNeil, nothing to add?"

"No, sir. They jumped us out of the blue when Sandy thought he had everypossible line tapped, every safeguard working. I don't know how theycaught on to us, unless they located our beam to this post. If so, theymust have been deliberately hunting us for some time, because we onlyused the beam as scheduled----"

"The Reds have patience and brains and probably some more of theirsurprise gadgets to help them. We have the patience and the brains, butnot the gadgets. And time is against us. Get anything out of this, Webb?" Millaird asked the hitherto silent third member of his rulingcommittee. 

The quiet man adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, aflattish nose which did not support them very well. "Just another pointto add to our surmises. I would say that they are located somewhere nearthe Baltic Sea. There are old trade routes there, and in our own time itis a territory closed to us. We never did know too much about thatsection of Europe. Their installation may be close to the Finnishborder. They could disguise their modern station under half a dozencovers; that is strange country. "

Millaird's hands unfolded and he produced a notebook and pen from ashirt pocket. "Won't hurt to stir up some of the present-day agents ofthe M. I. And the rest. They might just come up with a useful hint. Soyou'd say the Baltic. But that is a big slice of country. "

Webb nodded. "We have one advantage--the old trade routes. In the Beakerperiod they are pretty well marked. The major one into that section wasestablished for the amber trade. The country is forested, but not soheavily as it was in an earlier period. The native tribes are mostlyroving hunters, and fishermen along the coast. But they have had contactwith traders. " He shoved his glasses back into place with a nervousgesture. "The Reds may run into trouble themselves there at thistime----"

"How?" Kelgarries demanded. 

"Invasion of the ax people. If they have not yet arrived, they are duevery soon. They formed one of the big waves of migratory people, whoflooded the country, settled there. Eventually they became the Norse orCeltic stock. We don't know whether they stamped out the native tribesthey found there or assimilated them. "

"That might be a nice point to have settled more definitely, " McNeilcommented. "It could mean the difference between getting your skullsplit and continuing to breathe. "

"I don't think they would tangle with the traders. Evidence found todaysuggests that the Beaker folk simply went on about their business inspite of a change in customers, " Webb returned. 

"Unless they were pushed into violence. " Ashe handed his empty mug toRoss. "Don't forget Lurgha's Wrath. From now on our enemies might take avery dim view of any Beaker trade posts near their property. "

Webb shook his head slowly. "A wholesale attack on Beaker establishmentswould constitute a shift in history. The Reds won't dare that, not juston general suspicion. Remember, they are not any more eager to tinkerwith history than we are. No, they will watch for us. We will have tostop communication by radio----"

"We can't!" snapped Millaird vehemently. "We can cut it down, but Iwon't send the boys out without some means of quick communication. Youlab boys put your brains to work and see what you can turn out in theway of talk boxes that they can't snoop. Time!" He drummed on his kneewith his thick fingers. "It all comes back to a question of time. "

"Which we do not have, " Ashe observed in his usual quiet voice. "If theReds are afraid they have been spotted, they must be dismantling theirpost right now, working around the clock. We'll never again have such agood chance to nail them. We must move now. "

Millaird's lids drooped almost shut; he might have been napping. Kelgarries stirred restlessly by the door, and Webb's round face hadsettled into what looked like permanent lines of disapproval. 

"Doc, " Millaird spoke over his shoulder to the fourth man of hisfollowing, "what is your report?"

"Ashe must be under treatment for at least five days. McNeil's burnsaren't too bad, and Murdock's slash is almost healed. "

"Five days--" Millaird droned, and then flashed a glance at the major. "Personnel. We're tied down without any useful personnel. Who inprocessing could be switched without tangling them up entirely?"

"No one. I can recall Jansen and Van Wyke. These ax people might be agood cover for them. " The momentary light in Kelgarries' eyes faded. "No, we have no proper briefing and can't get it until the tribe doesappear on the map. I won't send any men in cold. Their blunders wouldnot only endanger them but might menace the whole project. "

"So that leaves us with you three, " Millaird said. "We'll recall whatmen we can and brief them again as fast as possible. But you know howlong that will take. In the meantime----"

Ashe spoke directly to Webb. "You can't pinpoint the region closer thanjust the Baltic?"

"We can do this much, " the other answered him slowly, and with obviousreluctance. "We can send the sub cruising offshore there for the nextfive days. If there is any radio activity--any communication--we shouldbe able to trace the beams. It all depends upon whether the Reds haveany parties operating from their post. Flimsy----"

"But something!" Kelgarries seized upon it with the relief of one whoneeded action. 

"And they will be waiting for just such a move on our part, " Webbcontinued deliberately. 

"All right, so they'll be watching!" the major said, about to lose histemper, "but it is about the only move we can make to back up the boyswhen they do go in. "

He whipped around the door and was gone. Webb got up slowly. "I willwork over the maps again, " he told Ashe. "We haven't scouted that area, and we don't dare send a photo-plane over it now. Any trip in will be astab in the dark. "

"When you have only one road, you take it, " Ashe replied. "I'll be gladto see anything you can show me, Miles. "

If Ross had believed that his pre-trial-run cramming had been a rigorousbusiness, he was soon to laugh at that estimation. Since the burden ofthe next jump would rest on only three of them--Ashe, McNeil, andhimself--they were plunged into a whirlwind of instruction, until Ross, dazed and too tired to sleep on the third night, believed that he wasmore completely bewildered than indoctrinated. He said as much sourly toMcNeil. 

"Base has pulled back three other teams, " McNeil replied. "But the menhave to go to school again, and they won't be ready to come on for maybethree, four weeks. To change runs means unlearning stuff as well aslearning it----"

"What about new men?"

"Don't think Kelgarries isn't out now beating the bushes for some! Only, we have to be fitted to the physical type we are supposed to represent. For instance, set a small, dark-headed pugnose among your Norse searovers, and he's going to be noticed--maybe remembered too well. Wecan't afford to take that chance. So Kelgarries had to discover men whonot only look the part but are also temperamentally fitted for this job. You can't plant a fellow who thinks as a seaman--not a seaman, youunderstand, but one whose mind works in that pattern--among a wanderingtribe of cattle herders. The protection for the man and the project liesin his being fitted into the right spot at the right time. "

Ross had never really thought of that point before. Now he realized thathe and Ashe and McNeil were of a common mold. All about the sameheight, they shared brown hair and light eyes--Ashe's blue, his owngray, and McNeil's hazel--and they were of similar build, small-boned, lean, and quick-moving. He had not seen any of the true Beakermen excepton the films. But now, recalling those, he could see that the three timetraders were of the same general physical type as the far-roving peoplethey used as a cover. 

It was on the morning of the fifth day while the three were studying amap Webb had produced that Kelgarries, followed at his own weighty paceby Millaird, burst in upon them. 

"We have it! This time _we_ have the luck! The Reds slipped. Oh, howthey slipped!"

Webb watched the major, a thin little smile pulling at his pursed mouth. "Miracles sometimes do happen, " he remarked. "I suppose the sub has afix for us. "

Kelgarries passed over the flimsy strip of paper he had been waving as abanner of triumph. Webb read the notation on it and bent over the map, making a mark with one of those needle-sharp pencils which seemed togrow in his breast pocket, ready for use. Then he made a second mark. 

"Well, it narrows it a bit, " he conceded. Ashe looked in turn andlaughed. 

"I would like to hear your definition of 'narrow' sometime, Miles. Remember we have to cover this on foot, and a difference of twenty milescan mean a lot. "

"That mark is quite a bit in from the sea. " McNeil offered his ownprotest when he saw the marking. "We don't know that country--"

Webb shoved his glasses back for the hundredth time that morning. "Isuppose we could consider this critical, condition red, " he said in sucha dubious tone that he might have been begging someone to protest hisstatement. But no one did. Millaird was busy with the map. 

"I think we do, Miles!" He looked to Ashe. "You'll parachute in. Thepacks with which you will be equipped are special stuff. Once you havethem off sprinkle them with a powder Miles will provide and in tenminutes there won't be enough of them left for anyone to identify. Wehaven't but a dozen of these, and we can't throw them away except in acrisis. Find the base and rig up the detector. Your fix in this timewill be easy--but it is the other end of the line we must have. Untilyou locate that, stick to the job. Don't communicate with us until youhave it!"

"There is the possibility, " Ashe pointed out, "the Reds may have morethan one intermediate post. They probably have played it smart and setup a series of them to spoil a direct trace, as each would lead only toanother farther back in time----"

"All right. If that proves true, just get us the next one back, "Millaird returned. "From that we can trace them along if we must send insome of the boys wearing dinosaur skins later. We _have_ to find theirprimary base, and if that hunt goes the hard way, well, we do it thehard way. "

"How did you get the fix?" McNeil asked. 

"One of their field parties ran into trouble and yelled for help. "

"Did they get it?"

The major grinned. "What do you think? You know the rules--and the onesthe Reds play by are twice as tough on their own men. "

"What kind of trouble?" Ashe wanted to know. 

"Some kind of a local religious dispute. We do our best with their code, but we're not a hundred per cent perfect in reading it. I gather theywere playing with a local god and got their fingers burned. "

"Lurgha again, eh?" Ashe smiled. 

"Foolish, " Webb said impatiently. "That is a silly thing to do. You werealmost over the edge of prudence yourself, Gordon, with that Lurghabusiness. To use the Great Mother was a ticklish thing to try, and youwere lucky to get out of it so easily. "

"Once was enough, " Ashe agreed. "Though using it may have saved ourlives. But I assure you I am not starting a holy war or setting up as aprophet. "

Ross had been taught something of map reading, but mentally he could notmake what he saw on paper resemble the countryside. A few landmarks, ifthere were any outstanding ones, were all he could hope to impress uponhis memory until he was actually on the ground. 

Landing there according to Millaird's instruction was another experiencehe would not have chosen of his own accord. To jump was a matter oftiming, and in the dark with a measure of rain thrown in, the action wasanything but pleasant. Leaving the plane in a blind, follow-the-leaderfashion, Ross found the descent into darkness one of the worst trials hehad yet faced. But he did not make too bad a landing in the smallparklike expanse they had chosen for their target. 

Ross pulled loose his harness and chute, dragging them to what he judgedto be the center of the clearing. Hearing a plaintive bray from the air, he dodged as one of the two burden asses sent to join them landed andbegan to kick at its trappings. The animals they had chosen were themost docile available and they had been given sedation before the jumpso that now, feeling Ross's hands, the donkey stood quietly while Rossstripped it of its hanging straps. 

"Rossa--" The sound of his Beaker name called through the dark broughtRoss facing in the other direction. 

"Here, and I have one of the donkeys. "

"And I the other!" That was McNeil. 

Their eyes adjusted to a gloom which was not as thick as it would be inthe forest and they worked fast. Then they dragged the parachutestogether in a heap. The rain would, Webb had assured them, add to therapid destruction wrought by the chemical he had provided. Ashe shook itover the pile, and there was a faint greenish glow. Then they moved awayto the woodland and made camp for the balance of the night. 

So much of their whole exploit depended upon luck, and this small parthad been successful. Unless some agent had been stationed to watch fortheir arrival Ross believed they could not be spotted. 

The rest of their plan was elastic. Posing as traders who had come toopen a new station, they were to stay near a river which drained a lakeand then angled southward to the distant sea. They knew this section wasonly sparsely settled by small tribes, hardly larger than family clans. These people were generations behind the civilized level of thevillagers of Britain--roving hunters who followed the sweep of gamenorth or south with the seasons. 

Along the seashore the fishermen had established more permanent holdingswhich were slowly becoming towns. There were perhaps a few hardy pioneerfarmers on the southern fringes of the district, but the principlereason traders came to this region was to get amber and furs. The Beakerpeople dealt in both. 

Now as the three sheltered under the wide branches of a towering pineAshe fumbled with a pack and brought out the "beaker" which was theidentifying mark of his adopted people. He measured into it a portion ofthe sour, stimulating drink which the traders introduced wherever theywent. The cup passed from hand to hand, its taste unpleasant on thetongue, but comfortingly warm to one's middle. 

They took turns keeping the watch until the gray of false dawn becamethe clearer light of morning. After breakfasting on flat cakes of meal, they packed the donkeys, using the same knots and cross lashing whichwere the mark of real Beaker traders. Their bows protected from dampnessunder their cloaks, they set out to find the river and their pathsouthward. 

Ashe led, Ross towed the donkeys, and McNeil brought up the rear. In theabsence of a path they had to set a ragged course, keeping to the edgeof the clearing until they saw the end of the lake. 

"Woodsmoke, " Ashe commented when they had completed two thirds of theirjourney. Ross sniffed and was able to smell it too. Nodding to Ashe, McNeil oozed into nothingness between the trees with an ease Murdockenvied. As they waited for him to return, Ross became conscious ofanother life about them, one busy with its own concerns, which were inno way those of human beings, except that food and perhaps shelter wereto be reckoned among them. 

In Britain, Ross had known there were others of his kind about, but thiswas different. Here, he could have believed it if he had been told hewas the first man to walk this way. 

A squirrel ran out on a tree limb and surveyed the two men with curiousbeady eyes, then clung head down on the tree trunk to see them better. One of the donkeys tossed its head, and the squirrel was gone with aflirt of its tail. Although it was quiet, there was a hum underneath thesurface which Ross tried to analyze, to identify the many small soundswhich went into its making. 

Perhaps because he was trying so hard, he noted the faint noise. Hishand touched Ashe's arm and a slight movement of his head indicated thedirection of the sound. Then, as fluidly as he had melted into thewoods, McNeil returned. "Company, " he said in a soft voice. 

"What kind?"

"Tribesmen, but wilder than any I've seen, even on the tapes. We arecertainly out on the fringes now. These people look about cave level. Idon't think they've ever heard of traders. "

"How many?"

"Three, maybe four families. Most of the males must be out hunting, butthere're about ten children and six or seven women. I don't thinkthey've had good luck lately by the look of them. "

"Maybe their luck and ours are going to turn together, " Ashe said, motioning Ross forward with the donkeys. "We will circle about them tothe river and then try bartering later. But I do want to establishcontact. "

CHAPTER 9

"Not to be too hopeful--" McNeil rubbed his arm across his hot face--"sofar, so good. " After kicking from his path some of the branches Ross hadlopped from the trees they had been felling, he went to help hiscompanion roll another small log up to a shelter which was no longertemporary. If there had been any eyes other than the woodland hunters'to spy upon them, they would have seen only the usual procedure of theBeaker traders, busily constructing one of their posts. 

That they were being watched by the hunters, all three were certain. That there might be other spies in the forest, they had to assume fortheir own safety. They might prowl at night, but in the daytime all ofthe time agents kept within the bounds of the roles they were acting. 

Barter with the head men of the hunting clan had brought those shypeople into the camp of the strangers who had such wonders to exchangefor tanned deer hides and better furs. The news of the traders' arrivalspread quickly during the short time they had been here, so that twoother clans had sent men to watch the proceedings. 

With the trade came news which the agents sifted and studied. Each ofthem had a list of questions to insert into their conversations with thetribesmen if and when that was possible. Although they did not share acommon speech with the forest men, signs were informative and certainnouns could be quickly learned. In the meantime Ashe became friendlywith the nearest and first of the clan groups they discovered, goinghunting with the men as an excuse to penetrate the unknown section theymust quarter in their search for the Red base. 

Ross drank river water and mopped his own hot face. "If the Reds aren'ttraders, " he mused aloud, "what _is_ their cover?"

McNeil shrugged. "A hunting tribe--fishermen--"

"Where would they get the women and children?"

"The same way they get their men--recruit them in our own time. Or inthe way lots of tribes grew during periods of stress. "

Ross set down the water jug. "You mean, kill off the men, take overtheir families?" This was a cold-bloodedness he found sickening. Although he had always prided himself on his toughness, several timesduring his training at the project he had been confronted by thingswhich shook his belief in his own strong stomach and nerve. 

"It has been done, " McNeil remarked bleakly, "hundreds of times byinvaders. In this setup--small family clans, widely scattered--that movewould be very easy. "

"They would have to pose as farmers, not hunters, " Ross pointed out. "They couldn't move a base around with them. "

"All right, so they set up a farming village. Oh, I see what youmean--there isn't any village around here. Yet they are here, maybeunderground. "

How right their guesses were they learned that night when Ashe returned, a deer's haunch on his shoulder. Ross knew him well enough by now tosense his preoccupation. "You found something?"

"A new set of ghosts, " Ashe replied with a strange little smile. 

"Ghosts!" McNeil pounced upon that. "The Reds like to play thesupernatural angle, don't they? First the voice of Lurgha and nowghosts. What do these ghosts do?"

"They inhabit a bit of mountainous territory southeast of here, astretch strictly taboo for all hunters. We were following a bison trackuntil the beast headed for the ghost country. Then Ulffa called us offin a hurry. It seems that the hunter who goes in there after his quarrynever reappears, or if he does, it's in a damaged condition, blown uponby ghosts and burned to death! That's one point. "

He sat down by the fire and stretched his arms wearily. "The second is alittle more disturbing for us. A Beaker camp about twenty miles south ofhere, as far as I can judge, was exterminated just a week ago. Themessage was passed to me because I was thought to be a kinsman of theslain----"

McNeil sat up. "Done because they were hunting us?"

"Might well be. On the other hand, the affair may have been just one ofgeneral precaution. "

"The ghosts did it?" Ross wanted to know. 

"I asked that. No, it seems that strange tribesmen overran it at night. "

"At night?" McNeil whistled. 

"Just so. " Ashe's tone was dry. "The tribes do not fight that way. Either someone slipped up in his briefing, or the Reds are overconfidentand don't care about the rules. But it was the work of tribesmen, ortheir counterfeits. There is also a nasty rumor speeding about that theghosts do not relish traders and that they might protest intrusions ofsuch with penalties all around----"

"Like the Wrath of Lurgha, " supplied Ross. 

"There is a certain repetition in this which suggests a lot to thesuspicious mind, " Ashe agreed. 

"I'd say no more hunting expeditions for the present, " McNeil said. "Itis too easy to mistake a friend for a deer and weep over his graveafterward. "

"That is a thought which entered my mind several times this afternoon, "Ashe agreed. "These people are deceptively simple on the surface, buttheir minds do not work along the same patterns as ours. We try tooutwit them, but it takes only one slip to make it fatal. In themeantime, I think we'd better make this place a little more snug, and itmight be well to post sentries as unobtrusively as possible. "

"How about faking some signs of a ruined camp and heading into the blueourselves?" McNeil asked. "We could strike for the ghost mountains, traveling by night, and Ulffa's crowd would think we were finished off. "

"An idea to keep in mind. The point against it would be the missingbodies. It seems that the tribesmen who raided the Beaker camp left somevery distasteful evidence of what happened to the camp's personnel. Andthose we can't produce to cover our trail. "

McNeil was not yet convinced. "We might be able to fake something alongthat line, too----"

"We may have to fake nothing, " Ross cut in softly. He was standing closeto the edge of the clearing where they were building their hut, his handon one of the saplings in the palisade they had set up so laboriouslythat day. Ashe was beside him in an instant. 

"What is it?"

Ross's hours of listening to the sounds of the wilderness were hismeasuring gauge now. "That bird has never called from inland before. Itis the blue one we've seen fishing for frogs along the river. "

Ashe, not even glancing at the forest, went for the water jug. "Get yourtrail supplies, " he ordered. 

Their leather pouches which held enough iron rations to keep them goingwere always at hand. McNeil gathered them from behind the fur curtainfronting their half-finished cabin. Again the bird called, its crypiercing and covering a long distance. Ross could understand why acareless man would select it for the signal. He crossed the clearing tothe donkeys' shelter, slashing through their nose halters. Probably thepatient little beasts would swiftly fall victims to some forestprowlers, but at least they would have their chance to escape. 

McNeil, his cloak slung about him to conceal the ration bags, picked upthe leather bucket as if he were merely going down to the river forwater, and came to join Ross. They believed that they were carrying itoff well, that the camp must appear normal to any lurkers in the woods. But either they had made some slip or the enemy was impatient. An arrowsped out of the night to flash across the fire, and Ashe escaped deathonly because he had leaned forward to feed the flames. His arm swung outand sent the water in the jar hissing onto the blaze as he himselfrolled in the other direction. 

Ross plunged for the brush with McNeil. Lying flat on the half-frozenground, they started to work their way to the river bank where the openarea would make surprise less possible. 

"Ashe?" he whispered and felt McNeil's warm breath on his cheek as hereplied:

"He'll make it the other way! He's the best we have for this sort ofjob. "

They made a worm's progress, twice lying, with dagger in hand, whilethey listened to a faint rustle which betrayed the passing of one of theattackers. Both times Ross was tempted to rise and try to cut off thestranger, but he fought down the impulse. He had learned a control ofhimself that would have been impossible for him a few months earlier. 

The glimmer of the river was pale through the clumps of bushes whichsometimes grew into the flood. In this country winter still clungtenaciously in shadowy places with cups of leftover snow, and there wasa bite in the wind and water. Ross rose to his knees with an involuntarygasp as a scream cut through the night. He wrenched around toward thecamp, only to feel McNeil's hand clamp on his forearm. 

"That was a donkey, " whispered McNeil urgently. "Come on, let's go downto that ford we discovered!"

They turned south, daring now to trot, half bent to the ground. Theriver was swollen with spring floods which were only now beginning tosubside, but two days earlier they had noticed a sandbar at one spot. Bycrossing that shelf across the bed, they might hope to put water betweenthem and the unknown enemy tonight. It would give them a breathingspace, even though Ross privately shrank from the thought of plowinginto the stream. He had seen good-sized trees swirling along in thecurrent only yesterday. And to make such a dash in the dark. .. . 

From McNeil's throat burst a startling sound which Ross had last heardin Britain--the questing howl of a hunting wolf. The cry was answeredseconds later from downstream. 

"Ashe!"

They worked their way along the edge of the water with continued care, until they came upon Ashe at last, so much a part of his background thatRoss started when the lump he had taken for a bush hunched forward tojoin them. Together they made the river crossing and turned south againto head for the mountains. It was then that disaster struck. 

Ross heard no birdcall warning this time. Though he was on guard, henever sensed the approach of the man who struck him down from behind. One moment he had been trailing McNeil and Ashe; the next moment wasblack nothingness. 

He was aware of a throb of pain which carried throughout his body andthen localized in his head. Forcing open his eyes, the dazzle of lightwas like a spear point striking directly into his head, intensifying hispain to agony. He brought his hand up to his face and felt stickinessthere. 

"Assha--" He believed he called that aloud, but he did not even hear hisown voice. They were in a valley; a wolf had attacked him out of thebushes. Wolf? No, the wolf was dead, but then it came alive again tohowl on a river bank. 

Ross forced his eyes open once more, enduring the pain of beams herecognized as sunshine. He turned his head to avoid the glare. It washard to focus, but he fought to steady himself. There was some reasonwhy it was necessary to move, to get away. But away from what and where?When Ross tried to think he could only see muddled pictures which had noconnection. 

Then a moving object crossed his very narrow field of vision, passingbetween him and a thing he knew was a tree trunk. A four-footed creaturewith a red tongue hanging from its jaws. It came toward himstiff-legged, growling low in its throat, and sniffed at his body beforebarking in short excited bursts of sound. 

The noise hurt his head so much that Ross closed his eyes. Then a shockof icy liquid thrown into his face aroused him to make a feeble protestand he saw, hanging over him in a strange upside-down way, a beardedface which he knew from the past. 

Hands were laid on him and the roughness with which he was moved sentRoss spiraling back into the dark once again. When he aroused for thesecond time it was night and the pain in his head was dulled. He put outhis hands and discovered that he lay on a pile of fur robes, and wascovered by one. 

"Assha--" Again he tried that name. But it was not Assha who came inanswer to his feeble call. The woman who knelt beside him with a horncup in her hand had neatly braided hair in which gray strands showedsilver by firelight. Ross knew he had seen her before, but again whereand when eluded him. She slipped a sturdy arm under his head and raisedhim while the world whirled about. The edge of the horn cup was pressedto his lips, and he drank bitter stuff which burned in his throat andlit a fire in his insides. Then he was left to himself once again and inspite of his pain and bewilderment he slept. 

How many days he lay in the camp of Ulffa, tended by the chief's headwife, Ross found it hard to reckon. It was Frigga who had argued thetribe into caring for a man they believed almost dead when they foundhim, and who nursed Ross back to life with knowledge acquired throughhalf a hundred exchanges between those wise women who were the doctorsand priestesses of these roaming peoples. 

Why Frigga had bothered with the injured stranger at all Ross learnedwhen he was able to sit up and marshal his bewildered thoughts into somesort of order. The matriarch of the tribe thirsted for knowledge. Thatsame urge which had led her to certain experiments with herbs, had madeher consider Ross a challenge to her healing skill. When she knew thathe would live she determined to learn from him all he had to give. 

Ulffa and the men of the tribe might have eyed the metal weapons of thetraders with awe and avid desire, but Frigga wanted more than tradegoods. She wanted the secret of the making of such cloth as thestrangers wore, everything she could learn of their lives and the landsthrough which they had come. She plied Ross with endless questions whichhe answered as best he could, for he lay in an odd dreamy state whereonly the present had any reality. The past was dim and far away, andwhile he was now and then dimly aware that he had something to do, heforgot it easily. 

The chief and his men prowled the half-built station after the attackershad withdrawn, bringing back with them a handful of loot--a bronzerazor, two skinning knives, some fishhooks, a length of cloth whichFrigga appropriated. Ross eyed this spoil indifferently, making no claimupon it. His interest in everything about him was often blanked out byheadaches which kept him limp on his bed, uncaring and stupid for hoursor even full days. 

He gathered that the tribe had been living in fear of an attack from thesame raiders who had wiped out the trading post. But at last theirscouts returned with the information that the enemy had gone south. 

There was one change of which Ross was not aware but which might havestartled both Ashe and McNeil. Ross Murdock had indeed died under thatblow which had left him unconscious beside the river. The young man whomFrigga had drawn back to sense and a slow recovery was Rossa of theBeaker people. This same Rossa nursed a hot desire for vengeance againstthose who had struck him down and captured his kinsmen, a feeling whichthe family tribe who had rescued him could well understand. 

There was the same old urgency pushing him to try his strength now, tokeep to his feet even when they were unsteady. His bow was gone, butRoss spent hours fashioning another, and he traded his copper braceletfor the best dozen arrows in Ulffa's camp. The jet pin from his cloak hepresented to Frigga with all his gratitude. 

Now that his strength was coming back he could not rest easy in thecamp. He was ready to leave, even though the gashes on his head werestill tender to the touch. Ulffa indulgently planned a hunt southward, and Rossa took the trail with the tribesmen. 

He broke with the clan hunters when they turned aside at the beginningof the taboo land. Ross, his own mind submerged and taken over by hisBeaker cover, hesitated too. Yet he could not give up, and the othersleft him there, his eyes on the forbidden heights, unhappy and tormentedby more than the headaches which still came and went with painfulregularity. In the mountains lay what he sought--a hidden somethingwithin his brain told him that over and over--but the mountains weretaboo, and he should not venture into them. 

How long he might have hesitated there if he had not come upon thetrail, Ross did not know. But on the day after the hunters of Ulffa'sclan left, a glint of sunlight striking between two trees pointed out awoodsman's blaze on a third tree trunk. The two halves of Ross's memoryclicked together for an instant as he examined that cut. He knew that itmarked a trace and he pushed on, hunting a second cut and then a third. Convinced that these would lead him into the unknown territory, Ross'sdesire to explore overcame the grafted superstitions of his briefing. 

There were other signs that this was an often-traveled route: a springcleared of leaves and walled with stone, a couple of steps cut in theturf on a steep slope. Ross moved warily, alert to any sound. He mightnot be an expert woodsman, but he was learning fast, perhaps the fasterbecause his false memories now supplanted the real ones. 

That night he built no fire, crawling instead into the heart of a rottedlog to sleep, awakening once to the call of a wolf and another time atthe distant crash of a dead tree yielding to wind. 

In the morning he was about to climb back to the trail he had prudentlyleft the night before when he saw five bearded, fur-clad men lookingmuch the same as Ulffa's people. Ross hugged the earth and watched thempass out of sight before he followed. 

All that day he wove an up-and-down trail behind the small band, sometimes catching sight of them as they topped a rise well ahead orstopped to eat. It was late afternoon when he crept cautiously to thetop of a ridge and gazed down into a valley. 

There was a town in that valley, sturdy houses of logs behind astockade. He had seen towns vaguely like it before, yet it had adreamlike quality as if it were not as real as it appeared. 

Ross rested his chin on his arms and watched that town and the peoplemoving in it. Some were fur-clad hunters, but others dressed quitedifferently. He started up with a little cry at the sight of one of themen who had walked so swiftly from one house to the next; surely he wasa Beaker trader!

His unease grew stronger with every moment he watched, but it was theoddness he sensed in that town which bothered him and not any warningthat he, himself, was in danger. He had gotten to his knees to seebetter when out of nowhere a rope sang through the air, settling abouthis chest with a vicious jerk which not only drove the air from hislungs but pinioned his arms tight to his body. 

CHAPTER 10

Having been cuffed and battered into submission more quickly than wouldhave been possible three weeks earlier, Murdock now stood sullenlysurveying the man who, though he dressed like a Beaker trader, persistedin using a language Ross did not know. 

"We do not play as children here. " At last the man spoke words Rosscould understand. "You will answer me or else others shall ask thequestions, and less gently. I say to you now--who are you and from wheredo you come?"

For a moment Ross glowered across the table at him, his inbredantagonism to authority aroused by that contemptuous demand, but thencommon sense cautioned. His initial introduction to this village hadleft him bruised and with one of his headaches. There was no reason tolet them beat him until he was in no shape to make a break for freedomwhen and if there was an opportunity. 

"I am Rossa of the traders, " he returned, eying the man with a carefullymeasured stare. "I came into this land in search of my kinsmen who weretaken by raiders in the night. "

The man, who sat on a stool by the table, smiled slowly. Again he spokein the strange tongue, and Ross merely stared stolidly back. His wordswere short and explosive sounding, and the man's smile faded; hisannoyance grew as he continued to speak. 

One of Ross's two guards ventured to interrupt, using the Beakerlanguage. "From where did you come?" He was a quiet-faced, slender man, not like his companion, who had roped Murdock from behind and was of thebully breed, able to subdue Ross's wildcat resistance in a very shortstruggle. 

"I came to this land from the south, " Ross answered, "after the mannerof my people. This is a new land with furs and the golden tears of thesun to be gathered and bartered. The traders move in peace, and theirhands are raised against no man. Yet in the darkness there came thosewho would slay without profit, for what reason I have no knowing. "

The quiet man continued the questioning and Ross answered fully withdetails of the past of one Rossa, a Beaker merchant. Yes, he was fromthe south. His father was Gurdi, who had a trading post in the warmlands along the big river. This was Rossa's first trip to open newterritory. He had come with his father's blood brother, Assha, who was anoted far voyager, and it was an honor to be chosen as donkey-leader forsuch a one as Assha. With Assha had been Macna, one who was also a fartrader, though not as noted as Assha. 

Of a certainty, Assha was of his own race! Ross blinked at thatquestion. One need only to look upon him to know that he was of traderblood and no uncivilized woodsrunner. How long had he known Assha? Rossshrugged. Assha had come to his father's post the winter before and hadstayed with them through the cold season. Gurdi and Assha had mingledblood after he pulled Gurdi free from the river in flood. Assha hadlost his boat and trade goods in that rescue, so Gurdi had made good hisloss this year. Detail by detail he gave the story. In spite of the factthat he provided these details glibly, sure that they were true, Rosscontinued to be haunted by an odd feeling that he was indeed reciting atale of adventure which had happened long ago and to someone else. Perhaps that pain in his head made him think of these events as verycolorless and far away. 

"It would seem"--the quiet man turned to the one behind the table--"thatthis is indeed one Rossa, a Beaker trader. "

But the man looked impatient, angry. He made a sign to the other guard, who turned Ross around roughly and sent him toward the door with ashove. Once again the leader gave an order in his own language, adding afew words more with a stinging snap that might have been a threat or awarning. 

Ross was thrust into a small room with a hard floor and not even a skinrug to serve as a bed. Since the quiet man had ordered the removal ofthe ropes from Ross's arms, he leaned against the wall, rubbing the painof returning circulation away from his wrists and trying to understandwhat had happened to him and where he was. Having spied upon it from theheights, he knew it wasn't an ordinary trading station, and he wanted toknow what they did here. Also, somewhere in this village he hoped tofind Assha and Macna. 

At the end of the day his captors opened the door only long enough topush inside a bowl and a small jug. He felt for those in the dusk, dipping his fingers into a lukewarm mush of meal and drinking the waterfrom the jug avidly. His headache dulled, and from experience Ross knewthat this bout was almost over. If he slept, he would waken with aclearer mind and no pain. Knowing he was very tired, he took theprecaution of curling up directly in front of the door so that no onecould enter without arousing him. 

It was still dark when he awoke with a curious urgency remaining from adream he could not remember. Ross sat up, flexing his arms and shouldersto combat the stiffness which had come with his cramped sleep. He couldnot rid himself of a feeling that there was something to be done andthat time was his enemy. 

Assha! Gratefully he seized on that. He must find Assha and Macna, forthe three of them could surely discover a way to get out of thisvillage. That was what was so important!

He had been handled none too gently, and they were holding him aprisoner. But Ross believed that this was not the worst which couldhappen to him here, and he must be free before the worst did come. Thequestion was, How could he escape? His bow and dagger were gone, and hedid not even have his long cloak pin for a weapon, since he had giventhat to Frigga. 

Running his hands over his body, Ross inventoried what remained of hisclothing and possessions. He unfastened the bronze chain-belt stillbuckled in his kilt tunic, swinging the length speculatively in onehand. A masterpiece of craftsmanship, it consisted of patterned plateslinked together with a series of five finely wrought chains and a frontbuckle in the form of a lion's head, its protruding tongue serving as ahook to support a dagger sheath. Its weight promised a weapon of sorts, which when added to the element of surprise might free him. 

By rights they would be expecting him to produce some opposition, however. It was well known that only the best fighters, the shrewdestminds, followed the traders' roads. It was a proud thing to be a traderin the wilderness, a thought that warmed Ross now as he waited in thedark for what luck and Ba-Bal of the Bright Horns would send. Were heever to return to Gurdi's post, Ba-Bal, whose boat rode across the skyfrom dawn to dusk, would have a fine ox, jars of the first brewing, andsweet-smelling amber laid upon his altar. 

Ross had patience which he had learned from the mixed heritage of histwo pasts, the real and the false graft. He could wait as he had waitedmany times before--quiet, and with outward ease--for the right moment tocome. It came now with footsteps ringing sharply, halting before hiscell door. 

With the noiseless speed of a hunting cat, Ross flung himself frombehind the door to a wall, where he would be hidden from the newcomerfor that necessary instant or two. If his attack was to be successful, it must occur inside the room. He heard the sound of a bar being slidout of its brackets, and he poised himself, the belt rippling from hisright hand. 

The door was opening inward, and a man stood silhouetted against theouter light. He muttered, looking toward the corner where Ross hadthrown his single garment in a roll which might just resemble, for theneeded second or two, a man curled in slumber. The man in the doorwaytook the bait, coming forward far enough for Ross to send the doorslamming shut as he himself sprang with the belt aimed for the other'shead. 

There was a startled cry, cut off in the middle as the belt plates metflesh and bone in a crushing force. Luck was with him! Ross caught uphis kilt and belted it around him after he had made a hurriedexamination of the body now lying at his feet. He was not sure that theman was dead, but at any rate he was completely unconscious. Rossstripped off the man's cloak, located his dagger, freed it from the belthook, and snapped it on his own. 

Then inch by inch Ross edged open the door, peering through the crack. As far as he could see, the hall was empty, so he jerked the portalopen, and dagger in hand, sprang out, ready for attack. He closed thedoor, slipping the bar back into its brackets. If the man inside revivedand pounded for attention, his own friends might think it was Ross anddelay investigating. 

But the escape from the cell was the easiest part of what he planned todo, as Ross well knew. To find Assha and Macna in this maze of roomsoccupied by the enemy was far more difficult. Although he had no idea inwhich of the village buildings they might be confined, this one was thelargest and seemed to be the headquarters of the chief men, which meantit could also serve as their prison. 

Light came from a torch in a bracket halfway down the hall. The woodburned smokily, giving off a resinous odor, and to Ross the glow wassufficient illumination. He slipped along as close to the wall as hecould, ready to freeze at the slightest sound. But this portion of thebuilding might well have been deserted, for he saw or heard no one. Hetried the only two doors opening out of the hall, but they were securedon the other side. Then he came to a bend in the corridor, and stoppedshort, hearing a murmur of low voices. 

If he had used a hunter's tricks of silent tread and vigilant warinessbefore, Ross was doubly on guard now as he wriggled to a point fromwhich he could see beyond that turn. Mere luck prevented him from givinghimself away a moment later. 

Assha! Assha, alive, well, apparently under no restraint, was justturning away from the same quiet man who had had a part in Ross'sinterrogation. That was surely Assha's brown hair, his slender wiry bodydraped with a Beaker's kilt. A familiar tilt of the head convinced Ross, though he could not see the man's face. The quiet man went down thehall, leaving Assha before a door. As he passed through it Ross spedforward and followed him inside. 

Assha had crossed the bare room and was standing on a glowing plate inthe floor. Ross, aroused to desperate action by some fear he did notunderstand, leaped after him. His left hand fell upon Assha's shoulder, turning the man half around as Ross, too, stepped upon the patch ofluminescence. 

Murdock had only an instant to realize that he was staring into the faceof an astonished stranger. His hand flashed up in an edgewise blow whichcaught the other on the side of the throat, and then the world cameapart about them. There was a churning, whirling sickness which gripedand bent Ross almost double across the crumpled body of his victim. Heheld his head lest it be torn from his shoulders by the spinning thingwhich seemed based behind his eyes. 

The sickness endured only for a moment, and some buried part of Ross'smind accepted it as a phenomenon he had experienced before. He came outof it gasping, to focus his attention once more on the man at his feet. 

The stranger was still breathing. Ross stooped to drag him from theplate and began binding and gagging him with lengths torn from his kilt. Only when his captive was secure did he begin looking about himcuriously. 

The room was bare of any furnishings and now, as he glanced at thefloor, Ross saw that the plate had lost its glow. The Beaker traderRossa rubbed sweating palms on his kilt and thought fleetingly of forestghosts and other mysteries. Not that the traders bowed to those ghostswhich were the plague of lesser men and tribes, but anything whichsuddenly appeared and then disappeared without any logical explanation, needed thinking on. Murdock pulled the prisoner, who was now reviving, to the far end of the room and then went back to the plate with thepersistence of a man who refused to treat with ghosts and wantedsomething concrete to explain the unexplainable. Though he rubbed hishands across the smooth surface of the plate, it did not light upagain. 

His captive having writhed himself half out of the corner of the room, Ross debated the wisdom of another silencing--say a tap on the skullwith the heavy hilt of his dagger. Deciding against it because he mightneed a guide, he freed the victim's ankle bonds and pulled him to hisfeet, holding the dagger ready where the man could see it. Were thereany more surprises to be encountered in this place, Assha's double wouldtest them first. 

The door did not lead to the same corridor, or even the same kind ofcorridor Ross had passed through moments earlier. Instead they entered ashort passage with walls of some smooth stuff which had almost the sheenof polished metal and were sleek and cold to the touch. In fact, thewhole place was chill, chill as river water in the spring. 

Still herding the prisoner before him, Ross came to the nearest door andlooked within, to be faced by incomprehensible frames of metal rods andboxes. Rossa of the traders marveled and stared, but again, he realizedthat what he saw was not altogether strange. Part of one wall was aboard on which small lights flashed and died, to flash again in winks ofbright color. A mysterious object made of wire and disks hung across theback of a chair standing near-by. 

The bound man lurched for the chair and fell, rolling toward the wall. Ross pushed him on until he was hidden behind one of the metal boxes. Then he made the rounds of the room, touching nothing, but studying whathe could not understand. Puffs of warm air came in through grills nearthe floor, but the room had the same general chill as the hall outside. 

Meanwhile the lights on the board had become more active, flashing onand off in complex patterns. Ross now heard a buzzing, as if a swarm ofangry insects were gathered for an attack. Crouching beside his captive, Ross watched the lights, trying to discover the source of the sound. 

The buzz grew shriller, almost demanding. Ross heard the tramp of heavyfootgear in the corridor, and a man entered the room, crossingpurposefully to the chair. He sat down and drew the wire-and-disk frameover his head. His hands moved under the lights, but Ross could notguess what he was doing. 

The captive at Murdock's side tried to stir, but Ross's hand pinned himquiet. The shrill noise which had originally summoned the man at thelights was interrupted by a sharp pattern of long-and-short sounds, andhis hands flew even more quickly while Ross took in every detail of theother's clothing and equipment. He was neither a shaggy tribesman nor atrader. He wore a dull-green outer garment cut in one piece to cover hisarms and legs as well as his body, and his hair was so short that hisround skull might have been shaven. Ross rubbed the back of his wristacross his eyes, experiencing again that dim other memory. Odd as thisman looked, Murdock had seen his like before somewhere, yet thebackground had not been Gurdi's post on the southern river. Where andwhen had he, Rossa, ever been with such strange beings? And why could henot remember it all more clearly?

Boots sounded once more in the hall, and another figure strode in. Thisone wore furs, but he, too, was no woods hunter, Ross realized as hestudied the newcomer in detail. The loose overshirt of thick fur withits hood thrown back, the high boots, and all the rest were not of anyprimitive fashioning. And the man had four eyes! One pair were placednormally on either side of his nose, and the other two, black-rimmed andmurky, were set above on his forehead. 

The fur-clad man tapped the one seated at the board. He freed his headpartially from the wire cage so that they could talk together in astrange language while lights continued to flash and the buzzing diedaway. Ross's captive wriggled with renewed vigor and at last thrashedfree a foot to kick at one of the metal installations. The resultingclang brought both men around. The one at the board tore his head cageoff as he jumped to his feet, while the other brought out a gun. 

Gun? One little fraction of Ross's mind wondered at his recognition ofthat black thing and of the danger it promised, even as he prepared forbattle. He pushed his captive across the path of the man in fur andthrew himself in the other direction. There was a blast to make atorment in his head as he hurled toward the door. 

So intent was Ross upon escape that he did not glance behind but skiddedout on his hands and knees, thus fortunately presenting a poor target tothe third man coming down the hall. Ross's shoulder hit the newcomer atthigh level, and they tangled in a struggling mass which saved Ross'slife as the others burst out behind them. 

Ross fought grimly, his hands and feet moving in blows he was notconscious of planning. His opponent was no easy match and at last Rosswas flattened, in spite of his desperate efforts. He was whirled over, his arms jerked behind him, and cold metal rings snapped about hiswrists. Then he was rolled back, to lie blinking up at his enemies. 

All three men gathered over him, barking questions which he could notunderstand. One of them disappeared and returned with Ross's formercaptive, his mouth a straight line and a light in his eyes Rossunderstood far better than words. 

"You are the trader prisoner?" The man who looked like Assha leaned overMurdock, patches of red on his tanned skin where the gag and wrist bondshad been. 

"I am Rossa, son of Gurdi, of the traders, " Ross returned, meeting whathe read in the other's expression with a ready defiance. "I was aprisoner, yes. But you did not keep me one for long then, nor shall younow. "

The man's thin upper lip lifted. "You have done yourself ill, my youngfriend. We have a better prison here for you, one from which you shallnot escape. "

He spoke to the other men, and there was the ring of an order in hisvoice. They pulled Ross to his feet, pushing him ahead of them. Duringthe short march Ross used his eyes, noticing things he could notidentify in the rooms through which they passed. Men called questionsand at last they paused long enough, Ross firmly in the hold of thefur-clad guard, for the other two to put on similar garments. 

Ross had lost his cloak in the fight, but no fur shirt was given him. Heshivered more and more as the chill which clung to that warren of roomsand halls bit into his half-clad body. He was certain of only one thingabout this place; he could not possibly be in the crude buildings of thevalley village. However, he was unable to guess where he was and how hehad come there. 

Finally, they went down a narrow room filled with bulky metal objects ofbright scarlet or violet that gleamed weirdly and were equipped withrods along which all the colors of the rainbow ringed. Here was a rounddoor, and when one of the guards used both hands to tug it open, thecold that swept in at them was a frigid breath that burned as it touchedbare skin. 

CHAPTER 11

It took Ross a while to learn that the dirty-white walls of this tunnelwhich were almost entirely opaque, with dark objects showing dimlythrough them here and there, were of solid ice. A black wire was hookedoverhead and at regular intervals hung with lights which did nothing tobreak the sensation of glacial cold about them. 

Ross shuddered. Every breath he drew stung in his lungs; his bareshoulders and arms and the exposed section of thigh between kilt andboot were numb. He could only move on stiffly, pushed ahead by hisguards when he faltered. He guessed that were he to lose his footinghere and surrender to the cold, he would forfeit the battle entirely andwith it his life. 

He had no way of measuring the length of the boring through the solidice, but they were at last fronted by another opening, a ragged onewhich might have been hacked with an ax. They emerged from it into thewildest scene Ross had ever seen. Of course, he was familiar with iceand snow, but here was a world surrendered completely to the brutalforce of winter in a strange, abnormal way. It was a still, deadwhite-gray world in which nothing moved save the wind which curled thedrifts. 

His guards covered their eyes with the murky lenses they had worn pushedup on their foreheads within the shelter, for above them sunlightdazzled on the ice crest. Ross, his eyes smarting, kept his gazecentered on his feet. He was given no time to look about. A rope wasproduced, a loop of it flipped in a noose about his throat, and he wastowed along like a leashed dog. Before them was a path worn in the snow, not only by the passing of booted feet, but with more deeply scoredmarks as if heavy objects had been sledded there. Ross slipped andstumbled in the ruts, fearing to fall lest he be dragged. The numbnessof his body reached into his head. He was dizzy, the world about himmisting over now and again with a haze which arose from the longstretches of unbroken snow fields. 

Tripping in a rut, he went down upon one knee, his flesh too numbed nowto feel the additional cold of the snow, snow so hard that its crustdelivered a knife's cut. Unemotionally, he watched a thin line of redtrickle in a sluggish drop or two down the blue skin of his leg. Therope jerked him forward, and Ross scrambled awkwardly until one of hiscaptors hooked a fur mitten in his belt and heaved him to his feet oncemore. 

The purpose of that trek through the snow was obscure to Ross. In fact, he no longer cared, save that a hard rebel core deep inside him wouldnot let him give up as long as his legs could move and he had a scrap ofconscious will left in him. It was more difficult to walk now. Heskidded and went down twice more. Then, the last time he slipped, hesledded past the man who led him, sliding down the slope of aglass-slick slope. He lay at the foot, unable to get up. Through thehaze and deadening blanket of the cold he knew that he was being pulledabout, shaken, generally mishandled; but this time he could not respond. Someone snapped open the rings about his wrists. 

There was a call, echoing eerily across the ice. The fumbling about hisbody changed to a tugging and once more he was sent rolling down theslope. But the rope was now gone from his throat, and his arms werefree. This time when he brought up hard against an obstruction he wasnot followed. 

Ross's conscious mind--that portion of him that was Rossa, thetrader--was content to lie there, to yield to the lethargy born of thefrigid world about him. But the subconscious Ross Murdock of the Projectprodded at him. He had always had a certain cold hatred which couldcrystalize and become a spur. Once it had been hatred of circumstancesand authority; now it became hatred for those who had led him into thiswilderness with the purpose, as he knew now, of leaving him to freezeand die. 

Ross pulled his hands under him. Though there was no feeling in them, they obeyed his will clumsily. He levered himself up and looked around. He lay in a narrow crevicelike cut, partly walled in by earth so frozenas to resemble steel. Crusted over it in long streaks from above weretongues of ice. To remain here was to serve his captors' purpose. 

Ross inched his way to his feet. This opening, which was intended as hisgrave, was not so deep as the men had thought it in their hurry to berid of him. He believed that he could climb out if he could make hisbody answer to his determination. 

Somehow Ross made that supreme effort and came again to the rutted pathfrom which they had tumbled him. Even if he could, there was no sense ingoing along that rutted trail, for it led back to the ice-encasedbuilding from which he had been brought. They had thrust him out todie; they would not take him in. 

But a road so well marked must have some goal, and in hopes that hemight find shelter at the other end, Ross turned to the left. The tracecontinued down the slope. Now the towering walls of ice and snow werebroken by rocky teeth as if they had bitten deep upon this land, only tobe gnawed in return. Rounding one of those rock fangs, Ross looked at astretch of level ground. Snow lay here, but the beaten-down trail ledstraight through it to the rounded side of a huge globe half buried inthe ground, a globe of dark material which could only be man-made. 

Ross was past caution. He must get to warmth and shelter or he was donefor, and he knew it. Wavering and weaving, he went on, his attentionfixed on the door ahead--a closed oval door. With a sob of exhaustedeffort, Ross threw himself against it. The barrier gave, letting himfall forward into a queer glimmering radiance of bluish light. 

The light rousing him because it promised more, he crawled on pastanother door which was flattened back against the inner wall. It waslike making one's way down a tube. Ross paused, pressing his lifelesshands against his bare chest under the edge of his tunic, suddenlyrealizing that there was warmth here. His breath did not puff out infrosty streamers before him, nor did the air sear his lungs when heventured to draw in more than shallow gulps. 

With that realization a measure of animal caution returned to him. Toremain where he was, just inside the entrance, was to court disaster. Hemust find a hiding place before he collapsed, for he sensed he was verynear the end of his ability to struggle. Hope had given him a flash offalse strength, the impetus to move, and he must make the most of thatgift. 

His path ended at a wide ladder, coiling in slow curves into gloom belowand shadows above. He sensed that he was in a building of some size. Hewas afraid to go down, for even looking in that direction almostfinished his sense of balance, so he climbed up. 

Step by step, Ross made that painful journey, passing levels from whichthree or four hallways ran out like the radii of a spider's web. He wasclose to the end of his endurance when he heard a sound, echoed, magnified, from below. It was someone moving. He dragged his body intothe fourth level where the light was very faint, hoping to crawl farenough into one of the passages to remain unseen from the stair. But hehad gone only part-way down his chosen road when he collapsed, panting, and fell back against the wall. His hands pawed vainly against thatsleek surface. He was falling through it!

Ross had a second, perhaps two, of stupefied wonder. Lying on a softsurface, he was enfolded by a warmth which eased his bruised and frozenbody. There was a sharp prick in his thigh, another in his arm, and theworld was a hazy dream until he finally slept in the depths ofexhaustion. 

There were dreams, detailed ones, and Ross stirred uneasily as his sleepthinned to waking. He lay with his eyes closed, fitting together oddbits of--dreams? No, he was certain that they were memories. Rossa ofthe Beaker traders and Ross Murdock of the project were again fused intoone and the same person. How it had happened he did not know, but it wastrue. 

Opening his eyes, he noticed a curved ceiling of soft blue which mistedat the edges into gray. The restful color acted on his troubled, wakingmind like a soothing word. For the first time since he had been struckdown in the night his headache was gone. He raised his hand to explorethat old hurt near his hairline that had been so tender only yesterdaythat it could not bear pressure. There remained only a thin, rough linelike a long-healed scar, that was all. 

Ross lifted his head to look about him. His body lay supported in acradlelike arrangement of metal, almost entirely immersed in a redgelatinous substance with a clean, aromatic odor. Just as he was nolonger cold, neither was he hungry. He felt as fit as he ever had in hislife. Sitting up in the cradle, he stroked the jelly away from hisshoulders and chest. It fell from him cleanly, leaving no trace ofgrease or dampness on his skin. 

There were other fixtures in the small cylinderlike chamber besides thatodd bed in which he had lain. Two bucket-shaped seats were placed at thenarrow fore part of the room and before those seats was a system ofcontrols he could not comprehend. 

As Ross swung his feet to the floor there was a click from the sidewhich brought him around, ready for trouble. But the noise had beencaused by the opening of a door into a small cupboard. Inside thecupboard lay a fat package. Obviously this was an invitation toinvestigate the offering. 

The package contained a much folded article of fabric, compressed andsealed in a transparent bag which he fumbled twice before he succeededin releasing its fastening. Ross shook out a garment of material such ashe had never seen before. Its sheen and satin-smooth surface suggestedmetal, but its stuff was as supple as fine silk. Color rippled across itwith every twist and turn he gave to the length--dark blue fading topale violet, accented with wavering streaks of vivid and startlinggreen. 

Ross experimented with a row of small, brilliant-green studs which madea transverse line from the right shoulder to the left hip, and theycame apart. As he climbed into the suit the stuff modeled to his body ina tight but perfect fit. Across the shoulders were bands of green tomatch the studs, and the stockinglike tights were soled with a thicksubstance which formed a cushion for his feet. 

He pressed the studs together, felt them lock, and then stood smoothingthat strange, beautiful fabric, unable to account for either it or hissurroundings. His head was clear; he could remember every detail of hisflight up to the time he had fallen through the wall. And he was certainthat he had passed through not only one, but two, of the Red time posts. Could this be the third? If so, was he still a captive? Why would theyleave him to freeze in the open country one moment and then treat himthis way later?

He could not connect the ice-encased building from which the Reds hadtaken him with this one. At the sound of another soft noise Ross glancedover his shoulder just in time to see the cradle of jelly, from which hehad emerged, close in upon itself until its bulk was a third of itsformer size. Compact as a box, it folded up against the wall. 

Ross, his cushioned feet making no sound, advanced to the bucket-chairs. But lowering his body into one of them for a better look at what vaguelyresembled the control of a helicopter--like the one in which he hadtaken the first stage of his fantastic journey across space and time--hedid not find it comfortable. He realized that it had not beenconstructed to accommodate a body shaped precisely like his own. 

A body like his own. .. . That jelly bath or bed or whatever it was. .. . The clothing which adapted so skillfully to his measurements. .. . 

Ross leaned forward to study the devices on the control board, confirming his suspicions. He had made the final jump of them all! Hewas now in some building of that alien race upon whose existenceMillaird and Kelgarries had staked the entire project. This was thesource, or one of the sources, from which the Reds were getting theknowledge which fitted no modern pattern. 

A world encased in ice and a building with strange machinery. Thisthing--a cylinder with a pilot's seat and a set of controls. Was it analien place? But the jelly bath--and the rest of it. .. . Had his presenceactivated that cupboard to supply him with clothing? And what had becomeof the tunic he was wearing when he entered?

Ross got up to search the chamber. The bed-bath was folded against thewall, but there was no sign of his Beaker clothing, his belt, the hideboots. He could not understand his own state of well being, the lack ofhunger and thirst. 

There were two possible explanations for it all. One was that the aliensstill lived here and for some reason had come to his aid. The other wasthat he stood in a place where robot machinery worked, though those whohad set it up were no longer there. It was difficult to separate hismemory of the half-buried globe he had seen from his sickness of thatmoment. Yet he knew that he had climbed and crawled through emptiness, neither seeing nor hearing any other life. Now Ross restlessly paced upand down, seeking the door through which he must have come, but therewas not even a line to betray such an opening. 

"I want out, " he said aloud, standing in the center of the cramped room, his fists planted on his hips, his eyes still searching for the vanisheddoor. He had tapped, he had pushed, he had tried every possible way tofind it. If he could only remember how he had come in! But all he couldrecall was leaning against a wall which moved inward and allowed him tofall. But where had he fallen? Into that jelly bath?

Ross, stung by a sudden idea, glanced at the ceiling. It was low enoughso that by standing on tiptoes he could drum his fingers on its surface. Now he moved to the place directly above where the cradle had swungbefore it had folded itself away. 

Rapping and poking, his efforts were rewarded at last. The blue curvegave under his assault. He pushed now, rising on his toes, though inthat position he could exert little pressure. Then as if some faultycatch had been released, the ceiling swung up so that he lost hisfooting and would have fallen had he not caught the back of one of thebucket-seats. 

He jumped and by hooking his hands over the edge of the opening, wasable to work his way up and out, to face a small line of light. Hisfingers worked at that, and he opened a second door, entering a familiarcorridor. 

Holding the door open, Ross looked back, his eyes widening at what hesaw. For it was plain now that he had just climbed out of a machine withthe unmistakable outline of a snub-nosed rocket. The small flyer--or ajet, or whatever it was--had been fitted into a pocket in the side ofthe big structure as a ship into a berth, and it must have been setthere to shoot from that enclosing chamber as a bullet is shot from arifle barrel. But why?

Ross's imagination jumped from fact to theory. The torpedo craft couldbe an atomic jet. All right, he had been in bad shape when he fell intoit by chance and the bed machine had caught him as if it had beencreated for just such a duty. What kind of a small plane would beequipped with a restorative apparatus? Only one intended to handleemergencies, to transport badly injured living things who had to leavethe building in a hurry. 

In other words, a lifeboat!

But why would a building need a lifeboat? That would be rather standardequipment for a ship. Ross stepped into the corridor and stared abouthim with open and incredulous wonder. Could this be some form of ship, grounded here, deserted and derelict, and now being plundered by theReds? The facts fitted! They fitted so well with all he had been able todiscover that Ross was sure it was true. But he determined to prove itbeyond all doubt. 

He closed the door leading to the lifeboat berth, but not so securelythat he could not open it again. That was too good a hiding place. Onhis cushioned feet he padded back to the stairway, and he stood therelistening. Far below were sounds, a rasp of metal against metal, a lowmurmur of muted voices. But from above there was nothing, so he wouldexplore above before he ventured into that other danger zone. 

Ross climbed, passing two more levels, to come out into a vast room witha curving roof which must fill the whole crown of the globe. Here wassuch a wealth of machines, controls, things he could not understand thathe stood bewildered, content for the moment merely to look. Therewere--he counted slowly--five control boards like those he had seen inthe small escape ship. Each of these was faced by two or three of thebucket-seats, only these swung in webbing. He put his hand on one, andit bobbed elastically. 

The control boards were so complicated that the one in the lifeboatmight have been a child's toy in comparison. The air in the ship hadbeen good; in the lifeboat it had held the pleasant odor of the jelly;but here Ross sniffed a faint but persistent hint of corruption, of anold malodor. 

He left the vantage point by the stairs and paced between the controlboards and their empty swinging seats. This was the main control room, of that he was certain. From this point all the vast bulk beneath himhad been set in motion, sailed here and there. Had it been on the sea, or through the air? The globe shape suggested an air-borne craft. But acivilization so advanced as this would surely have left some remains. Ross was willing to believe that he could be much farther back in timethan 2000 B. C. , but he was still sure that traces of those who couldbuild a thing like this would have existed in the twentieth century A. D. 

Maybe that was how the Reds had found this. Something they had turned upwithin their country--say, in Siberia, or some of the forgotten cornersof Asia--had been a clue. 

Having had little schooling other than the intensive cramming at thebase and his own informal education, the idea of the race who hadcreated this ship overawed Ross more than he would admit. If the projectcould find this, turn loose on it the guys who knew about such things. .. . But that was just what they were striving for, and he was the onlyproject man to have found the prize. Somehow, someway, he had to getback--out of this half-buried ship and its icebound world--back to wherehe could find his own people. Perhaps the job was impossible, but he hadto try. His survival was considered impossible by the men who had thrownhim into the crevice, but here he was. Thanks to the men who had builtthis ship, he was alive and well. 

Ross sat down in one of the uncomfortable seats to think and thusavoided immediate disaster, for he was hidden from the stairs on whichsounded the tap of boots. A climber, maybe two, were on their way up, and there was no other exit from the control cabin. 

CHAPTER 12

Ross dropped from the web-slung chair to the floor and made himself assmall as possible under the platform at the front of the cabin. Here, where there was a smaller control board and two seats placed closelytogether, the odd, unpleasant odor clung and became stronger to Ross'ssenses as he waited tensely for the climbers to appear. Though he hadsearched, there was nothing in sight even faintly resembling a weapon. In a last desperate bid for freedom he crept back to the stairwell. 

He had been taught a blow during his training period, one which requireda precise delivery and, he had been warned, was often fatal. He woulduse it now. The climber was very close. A cropped head arose through thefloor opening, and Ross struck, knowing as his hand chopped against thefolds of a fur hood that he had failed. 

But the impetus of that unexpected blow saved him after all. With achoked cry the man disappeared, crashing down upon the one followinghim. A scream and shouts were heard from below, and a shot ripped up thewell as Ross scrambled away from it. He might have delayed the finalbattle, but they had him cornered. He faced that fact bleakly. They needonly sit below and let nature take its course. His session in thelifeboat had restored his strength, but a man could not live foreverwithout food and water. 

However, he had bought himself perhaps a yard of time which must be putto work. Turning to examine the seats, Ross discovered that they couldbe unhooked from their webbing swings. Freeing all of them, he draggedtheir weight to the stairwell and jammed them together to make abarricade. It could not hold long against any determined push frombelow, but, he hoped, it would deflect bullets if some sharpshootertried to wing him by ricochet. Every so often there was the crash of ashot and some shouting, but Ross was not going to be drawn out of coverby that. 

He paced around the control cabin, still hunting for a weapon. Thesymbols on the levers and buttons were meaningless to him. They made himfeel frustrated because he imagined that among that countless array weresome that might help him out of the trap if he could only guess theiruse. 

Once more he stood by the platform thinking. This was the point fromwhich the ship had been sailed--in the air or on some now frozen sea. These control boards must have given the ship's master the means notonly of propelling the vast bulk, but of unloading and loading cargo, lighting, heating, ventilation, and perhaps defense! Of course, everycontrol might be dead now, but he remembered that in the lifeboat themachines had worked successfully, fulfilled expertly the duty for whichthey had been constructed. 

The only step remaining was to try his luck. Having made his decision, Ross simply shut his eyes as he had in a very short and almost forgottenchildhood, turned around three times, and pointed. Then he looked tosee where luck had directed him. 

His finger indicated a board before which there had been three seats, and he crossed to it slowly, with a sense that once he touched thecontrols he might inaugurate a chain of events he could not stop. Thecrash of a shot underlined the fact that he had no other recourse. 

Since the symbols meant nothing, Ross concentrated on the shapes of thevarious devices and chose one which vaguely resembled the type of lightswitch he had always known. Since it was up, he pressed it down, counting to twenty slowly as he waited for a reaction. Below the switchwas an oval button marked with two wiggles and a double dot in red. Rosssnapped it level with the panel, and when it did not snap back, he feltsomehow encouraged. When the two levers flanking that button did notpush in or move up and down, Ross pulled them out without even waitingto count off. 

This time he had results! A crackling of noise with a singsong rhythm, the volume of which, low at first, arose to a drone filled the cabin. Ross, deafened by the din, twisted first one lever and then the otheruntil he had brought the sound to a less piercing howl. But he neededaction, not just noise; he moved from behind the first chair to the nextone. Here were five oval buttons, marked in the same vivid green as thatwhich trimmed his clothing--two wiggles, a dot, a double bar, a pair ofentwined circles, and a crosshatch. 

Why make a choice? Recklessness bubbled to the surface, and Ross pushedall the buttons in rapid succession. The results were, in a measure, spectacular. Out of the top of the control board rose a triangle ofscreen which steadied and stood firm while across it played a ripplingwave of color. Meanwhile the singsong became an angry squawking as if inprotest. 

Well, he had something, even if he didn't know what it was! And he hadalso proved that the ship was alive. However, Ross wanted more than asquawk of exasperation, which was exactly what the noise had become. Italmost sounded, Ross decided as he listened, as if he were beingexpertly chewed out in another language. Yes, he wanted more than aseries of squawks and a fanciful display of light waves on a screen. 

At the section of board before the third and last seat there was lesschoice--only two switches. As Ross flicked up the first the pattern onthe screen dwindled into a brown color shot with cream in which therewas a suggestion of a picture. Suppose one didn't put the switch all theway up? Ross examined the slot in which the bar moved and now noted aseries of tiny point marks along it. Selective? It would not do any harmto see. First he hurried back to the cork of chairs he had jammed intothe stairwell. The squawks were now coming only at intervals, and Rosscould hear nothing to suggest that his barrier was being forced. 

He returned to the lever and moved it back two notches, standingopen-mouthed at the immediate result. The cream-and-brown streaks weremaking a picture! Moving another notch down caused the picture toskitter back and forth on the screen. With memories of TV tuning toguide him, Ross brought the other lever down to a matching position, andthe dim and shadowy images leaped into clear and complete focus. But thecolor was still brown, not the black and white he had expected. 

Only, he was also looking into a face! Ross swallowed, his hand graspingone of the strings of chair webbing for support. Perhaps because in someways it did resemble his own, that face was more preposterouslynonhuman. The visage on the screen was sharply triangular with a small, sharply pointed chin and a jaw line running at an angle from a broadupper face. The skin was dark, covered largely with a soft and silkydown, out of which hooked a curved and shining nose set between twolarge round eyes. On top of that astonishing head the down rose to apeak not unlike a cockatoo's crest. Yet there was no mistaking theintelligence in those eyes, nor the other's amazement at sight of Ross. They might have been staring at each other through a window. 

Squawk . .. Squeek . .. Squawk. .. . The creature in the mirror--on thevision plate--or outside the window--moved its absurdly small mouth intime to those sounds. Ross swallowed again and automatically madeanswer. 

"Hello. " His voice was a weak whistle, and perhaps it did not reach thefurry-faced one, for he continued his questions if questions they were. Meanwhile Ross, over his first stupefaction, tried to see something ofthe creature's background. Though the objects were slightly out offocus, he was sure he recognized fittings similar to those about him. Hemust be in communication with another ship of the same type and onewhich was not deserted!

Furry-face had turned his head away to squawk rapidly over his shoulder, a shoulder which was crossed by a belt or sash with an elaboratepattern. Then he got up from his seat and stood aside to make room forthe one he had summoned. 

If Furry-face had been a startling surprise, Ross was now to haveanother. The man who now faced him on the screen was totally different. His skin registered as pale--cream-colored--and his face was far morehuman in shape, though it was hairless as was the smooth dome of hisskull. When one became accustomed to that egg slickness, the strangerwas not bad-looking, and he was wearing a suit which matched the oneRoss had taken from the lifeboat. 

This one did not attempt to say anything. Instead, he stared at Rosslong and measuringly, his eyes growing colder and less friendly withevery second of that examination. Ross had resented Kelgarries back atthe project, but the major could not match Baldy for the sheer weight ofunpleasant warning he could pack into a look. Ross might have beenstartled by Furry-face, but now his stubborn streak arose to meet thisimplied challenge. He found himself breathing hard and glaring back withan intensity which he hoped would get across and prove to Baldy that hewould not have everything his own way if he proposed to tangle withRoss. 

His preoccupation with the stranger on the screen betrayed Ross into thehands of those from below. He heard their attack on the barricade toolate. By the time he turned around, the cork of seats was heaved up anda gun was pointing at his middle. His hands went up in small reluctantjerks as that threat held him where he was. Two of the fur-clad Redsclimbed into the control chamber. 

Ross recognized the leader as Ashe's double, the man he had followedacross time. He blinked for just an instant as he faced Ross and thenshouted an order at his companion. The other spun Murdock around, bringing his hands down behind him to clamp his wrists together. Onceagain Ross fronted the screen and saw Baldy watching the whole scenewith an expression suggesting that he had been shocked out of hiscomplacent superiority. 

"Ah. .. . " Ross's captors were staring at the screen and the unearthly manthere. Then one flung himself at the control panel and his hands whippedback and forth, restoring to utter silence both screen and room. 

"What are you?" The man who might have been Ashe spoke slowly in theBeaker tongue, drilling Ross with his stare as if by the force of hiswill alone he could pull the truth out of his prisoner. 

"What do you think I am?" Ross countered. He was wearing the uniform ofBaldy, and he had clearly established contact with the time owners ofthis ship. Let that worry the Red!

But they did not try to answer him. At a signal he was led to the stair. To descend that ladder with his hands behind him was almost impossible, and they had to pause at the next level to unclasp the handcuffs and lethim go free. Keeping a gun on him carefully, they hurried along, tryingto push the pace while Ross delayed all he could. He realized that inhis recognition of the power of the gun back in the control chamber, hissurrender to its threat, he had betrayed his real origin. So he mustcontinue to confuse the trail to the project in every possible way leftto him. He was sure that this time they would not leave him in the firstconvenient crevice. 

He knew he was right when they covered him with a fur parka at theentrance to the ship, once more manacling his hands and dropping a nooseleash on him. 

So, they were taking him back to their post here. Well, in the post wasthe time transporter which could return him to his own kind. It wouldbe, it must be possible to get to that! He gave his captors no moretrouble but trudged, outwardly dispirited, along the rutted way throughthe snow up the slope and out of the valley. 

He did manage to catch a good look at the globe-ship. More than half ofit, he judged, was below the surface of the ground. To be so buried itmust either have lain there a long time or, if it were an air vessel, crashed hard enough to dig itself that partial grave. Yet Ross hadestablished contact with another ship like it, and neither of thecreatures he had seen were human, at least not human in any way heknew. 

Ross chewed on that as he walked. He believed that those with him werelooting the ship of its cargo, and by its size, that cargo must be alarge one. But cargo from where? Made by what hands, what _kind_ ofhands? Enroute to what port? And how had the Reds located the ship inthe first place? There were plenty of questions and very few answers. Ross clung to the hope that somehow he had endangered the Reds' job hereby activating the communication system of the derelict and calling theattention of its probable owners to its fate. 

He also believed that the owners might take steps to regain theirproperty. Baldy had impressed him deeply during those few moments ofsilent appraisal, and he knew he would not like to be on the receivingend of any retaliation from the other. Well, now he had only one chance, to keep the Reds guessing as long as he could and hope for some turn offate which would allow him to try for the time transport. How the plateoperated he did not know, but he had been transferred here from theBeaker age and if he could return to that time, escape might bepossible. He had only to reach the river and follow it down to the seawhere the sub was to make rendezvous at intervals. The odds wereoverwhelmingly against him, and Ross knew it. But there was no reason, he decided, to lie down and roll over dead to please the Reds. 

As they approached the post Ross realized how much skill had gone intoits construction. It looked as if they were merely coming up to theouter edge of a glacier tongue. Had it not been for the track in thesnow, there would have been no reason to suspect that the ice coveredanything but a thick core of its own substance. Ross was shoved throughthe white-walled tunnel to the building beyond. 

He was hurried through the chain of rooms to a door and thrust through, his hands still fastened. It was dark in the cubby and colder than ithad been outside. Ross stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust tothe gloom. It was several moments after the door had slammed shut thathe caught a faint thud, a dull and hollow sound. 

"Who is here?" he used the Beaker speech, determining to keep to therags of his cover, which probably was a cover no longer. There was noreply, but after a pause that distant beat began again. Ross steppedcautiously forward, and by the simple method of running fullface intothe walls, discovered that he was in a bare cell. He also discoveredthat the noise lay behind the left-hand wall, and he stood with his earflat against it, listening. The sound did not have the regular rhythm ofa machine in use--there were odd pauses between some blows, others camein a quick rain. It was as if someone were digging!

Were the Reds engaged in enlarging their icebound headquarters? Havinglistened for a considerable time, Ross doubted that, for the sound wastoo irregular. It seemed almost as if the longer pauses were used tocheck up on the result of labor--was it the extent of the excavation orthe continued preservation of secrecy?

Ross slipped down along the wall, his shoulders still resting againstit, and rested with his head twisted so he could hear the tapping. Meanwhile he flexed his wrists inside the hoops which confined them, andfolding his hands as small as possible, tried to slip them through therings. The only result was that he chafed his skin raw to no advantage. They had not taken off his parka, and in spite of the chill about him, he was too warm. Only that part of his body covered by the suit he hadtaken from the ship was comfortable; he could almost believe that itpossessed some built-in conditioning device. 

With no hope of relief Ross rubbed his hands back and forth against thewall, scraping the hoops on his wrists. The distant pounding had ceased, and this time the pause lengthened into so long a period that Ross fellasleep, his head falling forward on his chest, his raw wrists stillpushed against the surface behind him. 

He was hungry when he awoke, and with that hunger his rebellion sparkedinto flame. Awkwardly he got to his feet and lurched along to the doorthrough which he had been thrown, where he proceeded to kick at thebarrier. The cushiony stuff forming the soles of his tights muffled mostof the force of those blows, but some noise was heard outside, for thedoor opened and Ross faced one of the guards. 

"Food! I want to eat!" He put into the Beaker language all theresentment boiling in him. 

The fellow ignoring him, reached in a long arm, and nearly tossing theprisoner off balance, dragged him out of the cell. Ross was marched intoanother room to face what appeared to be a tribunal. Two of the menthere he knew--Ashe's double and the quiet man who had questioned himback in the other time station. The third, clearly one of greaterauthority, regarded Ross bleakly. 

"Who are you?" the quiet man asked. 

"Rossa, son of Gurdi. And I would eat before I make talk with you. Ihave not done any wrong that you should treat me as a barbarian who hasstolen salt from the trading post----"

"You are an agent, " the leader corrected him dispassionately, "of whomyou will tell us in due time. But first you shall speak of the ship, ofwhat you found there, and why you meddled with the controls. .. . Wait amoment before you refuse, my young friend. " He raised his hand from hislap, and once again Ross faced an automatic. "Ah, I see that you knowwhat I hold--odd knowledge for an innocent Bronze Age trader. Andplease have no doubts about my hesitation to use this. I shall not killyou, naturally, " the man continued, "but there are certain wounds whichsupply a maximum of pain and little serious damage. Remove his parka, Kirschov. "

Once more Ross was unmanacled, the fur stripped from him. His questionercarefully studied the suit he wore under it. "Now you will tell usexactly what we wish to hear. "

There was a confidence in that statement which chilled Ross; MajorKelgarries had displayed its like. Ashe had it in another degree, andcertainly it had been present in Baldy. There was no doubt that thespeaker meant exactly what he said. He had at his command methods whichwould wring from his captive the full sum of what he wanted, and therewould be no consideration for that captive during the process. 

His implied threat struck as cold as the glacial air, and Ross tried tomeet it with an outward show of uncracked defenses. He decided to pickand choose from his information, feeding them scraps to stave off theinevitable. Hope dies very hard, and Ross having been pushed intocorners long before his work at the project, had had considerabletraining in verbal fencing with hostile authority. He would volunteernothing. .. . Let it be pulled from him reluctant word by word! He wouldspin it out as long as he could and hope that time might fight for him. 

"You are an agent. .. . "

Ross accepted this statement as one he would neither affirm nor deny. 

"You came to spy under the cover of a barbarian trader, " smoothly, without pause, the man changed language in mid-sentence, slipping fromthe Beaker speech into English. 

But long experience in meeting the dangerous with an expression ofcomplete lack of comprehension was Ross's weapon now. He stared somewhatstupidly at his interrogator with that bewildered, boyish look he hadso long cultivated to bemuse enemies in his past. 

Whether he could have held out long against the other's skill--for Rosspossessed no illusions concerning the type of examiner he now faced--hewas never to know. Perhaps the drastic interruption that occurred thenext moment saved for Ross a measure of self-esteem. 

There was a distant boom, hollow and thunderous. Underneath and aroundthem the floor, walls, and ceiling of the room moved as if they had beenpried from their setting of ice and were being rolled about by theexploring thumb and forefinger of some impatient giant. 

CHAPTER 13

Ross swayed against a guard, was fended off, and bounced against thewall as the man shouted words Ross could not understand. A determinedroar from the leader brought a semblance of order, but it was plain thatthey had not been expecting this. Ross was hustled out of the room backto his cell. His guards were opening the cell door when a second shockwas felt and he was thrust into safekeeping with no ceremony. 

He half crouched against the questionable security of the wall, waitingthrough two more twisting earth waves, both of which were accompanied orpreceded by dull sounds. Bombing! That last wrench was really bad. Rossfound himself lying on the floor, feeling tremors rippling along theearth. His stomach knotted convulsively with a fear unlike any he hadknown before. It was as if the very security of the world had beenjerked from under him. 

But that last explosion--if it was an explosion--appeared to be the end. Ross sat up gingerly after several long moments during which no moreshocks moved the floor and walls. A line of light marked the door, showing cracks where none had previously existed. Ross, not yet ready totry standing erect, was heading toward it on his hands and knees when asharp noise behind him brought him to a stop. 

There was no light to see by, but he was certain that the scrape ofmetal against metal sounded from the far side of the wall. He crawledback and put his ear to the surface. Now he heard not only thatscraping, but an undercurrent of clicks, chippings. .. . 

Under his exploring hands the surface remained as smooth as ever, however. Then suddenly, perhaps a foot from his head, there sounded arip of metal. The wall was being holed from the other side! Ross caughta flicker of very weak light, and moving in it was the point of a toolpulling at the smooth surface of the wall. It broke away with a brittlesound, and a hand holding a light reached through the aperture. 

Ross wondered if he should catch that wrist, but the hope that thedigger might just possibly be an ally kept him motionless. After thehand with the light whipped back beyond the wall, a wide section gaveaway and a hunched figure crawled through, followed by a second. In thelimited glow he saw the first tunneler clearly enough. 

"Assha!"

Ross was unprepared for what followed his cry. The lean brown man movedwith a panther's striking speed, and Ross was forced back. A hand like asteel ring on his throat shut the breath away from his bursting lungs;the other's muscular body held him flat in spite of his struggles. Thelight of the small flash glowed inches beyond his eyes as he fought tofill his lungs. Then the hand on his throat was gone and he gasped, alittle dizzy. 

"Murdock! What are you doing--?" Ashe's clipped voice was muffled byanother sudden explosion. This time the earth tremors not only hurledthem from their feet, but seemed to run along the walls and across theceiling. Ross, burying his face in the crook of his arm, could not ridhimself of the fear that the building was being slowly twisted intoscrap. When the shock was over he raised his head. 

"What's going on?" He heard McNeil ask. 

"Attack. " That was Ashe. "But why, and by whom--don't ask me! You are aprisoner, I suppose, Murdock?"

"Yes, sir. " Ross was glad that his voice sounded normal enough. 

He heard someone sigh and guessed it was McNeil. "Another diggingparty. " There was tired disgust in that. 

"I don't understand, " Ross appealed to that section of the dark whereAshe had been. "Have you been here all the time? Are you trying to digyour way out? I don't see how you can cut out of this glacier that we'reparked under----"

"Glacier!" Ashe's exclamation was as explosive as the tremors. "So we'reinside a glacier! That explains it. Yes, we've been here--"

"On ice!" McNeil commented and then laughed. "Glacier--ice--that'sright, isn't it?"

"We're collaborating, " Ashe continued. "Supplying our dear friends witha lot of information they already have and some flights of fancy theynever dreamed about. However, they didn't know we had a few surprisepackets of our own strewn about. It's amazing what the boys back at theproject can pack away in a belt, or between layers of hide in a boot. Sowe've been engaged in some research of our own----"

"But I didn't have any escape gadgets. " Ross was struck by theunfairness of that. 

"No, " Ashe agreed, his voice even and cold, "they are not entrusted tofirst-run men. You might slip up and use them at the wrong moment. However, you appear to have done fairly well. .. . "

The heat of Ross's rising anger was chilled by the noise which crackedover their heads, ground to them through the walls, flattened andthreatened them. He had thought those first shocks the end of this iceburrow and the world; he knew that this one was. 

And the silence that followed was as threatening in its way as theclamor had been. Then there was a shout, a shriek. The space of lightnear the cell door was widening as that barrier, broken from its lock, swung open slowly. The fear of being trapped sent the men in thatdirection. 

"Out!"

Ross was ready enough to respond to that order, but they were stopped bya crackle of sound that could be only one thing--rapid-fire guns. Somewhere in this warren a fight was in progress. Ross, remembering thearrogant face of the bald ship's officer, wondered if this was not anattack in force--the aliens against the looting Reds. If so, would theship people distinguish between those found here. He feared not. 

The room outside was clear, but not for long. As they lay watching, twomen backed in, then whirled to stare at each other. A voice roared frombeyond as if ordering them back to some post. One of them took a stepforward in reluctant obedience, but the other grabbed his arm and pulledhim away. They turned to run, and an automatic cracked. 

The man nearest Ross gave a queer little cough and folded forward to hisknees, sprawling on his face. His companion stared at him wildly for aninstant, and then skidded into the passage beyond, escaping by inches ashot which clipped the door as he lunged through it. 

No one followed, for outside there was a crescendo of noise--shouting, cries of pain, an unidentifiable hissing. Ashe darted into the room, taking cover by the body. Then he came back, the fellow's gun in hishand, and with a jerk of his head summoned the other two. He motionedthem on in a direction away from the sounds of battle. 

"I don't get all this, " McNeil commented as they reached the nextpassage. "What's going on? Mutiny? Or have our boys gotten through?"

"It must be the ship people, " Ross answered. 

"What ship?" Ashe caught him up swiftly. 

"The big one the Reds have been looting----"

"Ship?" echoed McNeil. "And _where_ did you get that rig?" In the brightlight it was easy to see Ross's alien dress. McNeil fingered the elasticmaterial wonderingly. 

"From the ship, " Ross returned impatiently. "But if the ship people areattacking, I don't think they will notice any difference between us andthe Reds. .. . "

There was a burst of ear-splitting sound. For the third time Ross wasthrown from his feet. This time the burrow lights flickered, dimmed, andwent out. 

"Oh, fine, " commented McNeil bitterly out of the dark. "I never did carefor blindman's buff. "

"The transfer plate--" Ross clung to his own plan of escape--"if we canreach that--"

The light which had served Ashe and McNeil in their tunneling clickedon. Since the earth shocks appeared to be over for a while, they movedon, with Ashe in the lead and McNeil bringing up the rear. Ross hopedAshe knew the way. The sound of fighting had died out, so one side orthe other must have gained the victory. They might have only a fewmoments left to pass undetected. 

Ross's sense of direction was fairly acute, but he could not have goneso unerringly to what he sought as Ashe did. Only he did not lead themto the room with the glowing plate, and Ross stifled a protest as theycame instead to a small record room. 

On a table were three spools of tape which Ashe caught up avidly, thrusting two in the front of his baggy tunic, passing the third toMcNeil. Then he sped about trying the cupboards on the walls, but allwere locked. His hand falling from the last latch, Ashe came back to thedoor where Ross waited. 

"To the plate!" Ross urged. 

Ashe surveyed the cupboards once more regretfully. "If we could havejust ten minutes here----"

McNeil snorted. "Listen, you may yearn to be the filling in an icesandwich, but I don't! Another shock and we'll be buried so deep even adrill couldn't find us. Let's get out now. The kid is right aboutthat--if we still can. "

Once more Ashe took the lead and they wove through ghostly rooms to whatmust have been the heart of the post--the transfer point. To Ross'sunvoiced relief the plate was glowing. He had been nagged by the fearthat when the lights blew out the transfer plate might also have beenaffected. He jumped for the plate. 

Neither Ashe nor McNeil wasted time in joining him there. As they clungtogether there was a cry from behind them, underlined by a shot. Ross, feeling Ashe sag against him, caught him in his arms. By the reflectedglow of the plate he saw the Red leader of the post and behind him, hishairless face hanging oddly bodiless in the gloom, was the alien. Werethose two now allies? Before Ross could be sure that he had really seenthem, the wracking of space time caught him and the rest of the roomfaded away. 

". .. Free. Get a move on!"

Ross glanced across Ashe's bowed shoulders to McNeil's excited face. Theother was pulling at Ashe, who was only half-conscious. A stream ofblood from a hole in his bare shoulder soaked the upper edge of hisBeaker tunic, but as they steadied him between them, he gained somemeasure of awareness and moved his feet as they pulled him off theplate. 

Well, they were free if only for a few seconds, and there was noreception committee waiting for them. Ross gave thanks silently forthose two small favors. But if they were now returned to the Bronze Agevillage, they were still in enemy territory. With Ashe wounded, the oddsagainst them were so high it was almost hopeless. 

Working hurriedly with strips torn from McNeil's kilt, they managed tostop the flow of blood from Ashe's wound. Although he was still groggy, he was fighting, driven by the fear which whipped them all--time was oneof their foremost enemies. Ross, Ashe's gun in hand, kept watch on thetransfer plate, ready to shoot at anything appearing there. 

"That will have to do!" Ashe pulled free from McNeil. "We must move. " Hehesitated, and then pulling the spools of tape from his bloodstainedtunic, passed them to McNeil. "You'd better carry these. "

"All right, " the other answered almost absently. 

"Move!" The force of that order from Ashe sent them into the corridorbeyond. "The plate. .. . "

But the plate remained clear. And Ross noted that they must havereturned to the proper time, for the walls about them were the logs andstone of the village he remembered. 

"Someone coming through?"

"Should be--soon. "

They fled, the hide boots of the other two making only the faintestwhisper of sound, Ross's foam-soled feet none at all. He could not havefound the door to the outer world, but again Ashe guided them, and onlyonce did they have to seek cover. At last they faced a barred door. Asheleaned against the wall, McNeil supporting him, as Ross pulled free thelocking beam. They let themselves out into the night. 

"Which way?" McNeil asked. 

To Ross's surprise Ashe did not turn to the gate in the outer stockade. Instead he gestured at the mountain wall in the opposite direction. "They'll expect us to try for the valley pass. So we had better go upthe slope there. "

"That has the look of a tough climb, " ventured McNeil. 

Ashe stirred. "When it becomes too tough for me"--his voice was dry--"Ishall say so, never fear. "

He started out with some of his old ease of movement, but his companionsclosed in on either side, ready to offer aid. Ross often wondered laterif they could have won free of the village on their own efforts thatnight. He was sure their resolution would have been equal to theattempt, but their escape would have depended upon a fabulous run ofluck such as men seldom encounter. 

As it was, they had just reached a pool of shadow beside a small hutsome two buildings away from the one they had fled, when the fireworksbegan. As if on signal the three fugitives threw themselves flat. Fromthe roof of the building at the center of the village a pencil ofbrilliant-green light pointed straight up into the sky, and around thatspear of radiance the roof sprouted tongues of more naturalred-and-yellow flames. Figures shot from doors as the fire lapped downthe peak of the roof. 

"Now!" In spite of the rising clamor, Ashe's voice carried to his twocompanions. 

The three sprinted for the palisade, mingling with bewildered men whoran out of the other cabins. The waves of fire washed on, providinglight, too much light. Ashe and McNeil could pass as part of the crowd, but Ross's unusual clothing might be easily marked. 

Others were running for the wall. Ross and McNeil boosted Ashe to thetop, saw him over in safety. McNeil followed. Ross was just reaching todraw himself up when he was enveloped in a beam of light. 

A high, screeching call, unlike any shout he had heard, split theclamor. Frantically Ross tried for a hold, knowing that he waspresenting a perfect target for those behind. He gained the top of thestockade, looked down into a black block of shadow, not knowing whetherAshe and McNeil were waiting for him or had gone ahead. Hearing thatstrange cry again, Ross leaped blindly out into the darkness. 

He landed badly, hitting hard enough to bruise, but thanks to the skillhe had learned for parachuting, he broke no bones. He got to his feetand blundered on in the general direction of the mountain Ashe hadpicked as their goal. There were others coming over the wall of thevillage and moving through the shadows, so he dared not call out forfear of alerting the enemy. 

The village had been set in the widest part of the valley. Behind itsstockade the open ground narrowed swiftly, like the point of a funnel, and all fugitives from the settlement had to pass through that channelto escape. Ross's worst fear was that he had lost contact with Ashe andMcNeil, and that he would never be able to pick up their trail in thewilderness ahead. 

Thankful for the dark suit he wore which was protective covering in thenight, he twice ducked into the brush to allow parties of refugees topass him. Hearing them speak the guttural clicking speech he had learnedfrom Ulffa's people, Ross deduced that they were innocent of thevillage's real purpose. These people were convinced they had beenattacked by night demons. Perhaps there had only been a handful of Redsin that hidden retreat. 

Ross pulled himself up a hard climb, and pausing to catch his breath, looked back. He was not overly surprised to see figures moving leisurelyabout the village examining the cabins, perhaps in search of theinhabitants. Each of those searchers was clad in a form-fitting suitthat matched his own, and their bulbous hairless heads gleamed white inthe firelight. Ross was astonished to see that they passed straightthrough walls of flame, apparently unconcerned and unsinged by the heat. 

The human beings trapped in the town wailed and ran, or lay and beattheir heads and hands on the ground, supine before the invaders. Eachcaptive was dragged back to a knot of aliens near the main building. Some were hurled out again into the dark, unharmed; a few others wereretained. A sorting of prisoners was plainly in progress. There was noquestion that the ship people had followed through into this time, andthat they had their own arrangements for the Reds. 

Ross had no desire to learn the particulars. He started climbing again, finding the pass at last. Beyond, the ground fell away again, and Rosswent forward into the full darkness of the night with a vast surge ofthankfulness. 

Finally, he stopped simply because he was too weary, too hungry, to keepon his feet without stumbling, and a fall in the dark on these heightscould be costly. Ross discovered a small hollow behind a stunted treeand crept into it as best he could, his heart laboring against his ribs, a hot stab of pain cutting into his side with every breath he drew. 

He awoke all at once with the snap of a fighting man who is alert toever present danger. A hand lay warm and hard over his mouth, and aboveit his eyes met McNeil's. When he saw that Ross was awake McNeilwithdraw his hand. The morning sunlight was warm about them. Movingclumsily because of his stiff, bruised body, Ross crawled out of thehollow. He looked around, but McNeil stood there alone. "Ashe?" Rossquestioned him. 

McNeil, showing a haggard face covered with several days' growth ofrusty-brown beard, nodded his head toward the slope. Fumbling inside hiskilt, he brought out something clenched in his fist and offered it toRoss. The latter held out his palm and McNeil covered it with a handfulof coarse-ground grain. Just to look at the stuff made Ross long for adrink, but he mouthed it and chewed, getting up to follow McNeil downinto the tree-grown lower slopes. 

"It's not good. " McNeil spoke jerkily, using Beaker speech. "Ashe is outof his head some of the time. That hole in his shoulder is worse than wethought it was, and there's always the threat of infection. This wholewood is full of people flushed out of that blasted village! Most ofthem--all I've seen--are natives. But they have it firmly planted intheir minds now that there are devils after them. If they see youwearing that suit----"

"I know, and I'd strip if I could, " Ross agreed. "But I'll have to getother clothing first; I can't run bare in this cold. "

"That might be safer, " McNeil growled. "I don't know just what happenedback there, but it certainly must have been plenty!"

Ross swallowed a very dry mouthful of grain and then stooped to scoop upsome leftover snow in the shadow of a tree root. It was not asrefreshing as a real drink, but it helped. "You said Ashe is out of hishead. What do we do for him, and what are your plans?"

"We have to reach the river, somehow. It drains to the sea, and at itsmouth we are supposed to make contact with the sub. "

The proposal sounded impossible to Ross, but so many impossible thingshad happened lately he was willing to go along with the idea--as long ashe could. Gathering up more snow, he stuffed it into his mouth before hefollowed the already disappearing McNeil. 

CHAPTER 14

". .. That's my half of it. The rest of it you know. " Ross held his handsclose to the small fire sheltered in the pit he had helped dig andflexed his cold-numbed fingers in the warmth. 

From across the handful of flames Ashe's eyes, too bright in afever-flushed face, watched him demandingly. The fugitives had takencover in an angle where the massed remains of an old avalanche provideda cave-pocket. McNeil was off scouting in the gray drizzle of the day, and their escape from the village was now some forty-eight hours behindthem. 

"So the crackpots were right, after all. They only had their timesmixed. " Ashe shifted on the bed of brush and leaves they had rakedtogether for his comfort. 

"I don't understand----"

"Flying saucers, " Ashe returned with an odd little laugh. "It was a wildpossibility, but it was on the books from the start. This certainly willmake Kelgarries turn red----"

"Flying saucers?"

Ashe must be out of his head from the fever, Ross supposed. He wonderedwhat he should do if Ashe tried to get up and walk away. He could nottackle a man with a bad hole in his shoulder, nor was he certain hecould wrestle Ashe down in a real fight. 

"That globe-ship was never built on this world. Use your head, Murdock. Think about your furry-faced friend and the baldy with him. Did eitherlook like normal Terrans to you?"

"But--a spaceship!" It was something that had so long been laughed toscorn. When men had failed to break into space after the initialexcitement of the satellite launchings, space flight had become a matterfor jeers. On the other hand, there was the evidence collected by hisown eyes and ears, his own experience. The services of the lifeboat hadbeen techniques outside of his experience. 

"This was insinuated once"--Ashe was lying flat now, gazingspeculatively up at the projection of logs and earth which made them apartial roof--"along with a lot of other bright ideas, by a gentlemannamed Charles Fort, who took a lot of pleasure in pricking what heconsidered to be vastly over-inflated scientific pomposity. He gatheredtogether four book loads of reported incidents of unexplainablehappenings which he dared the scientists of his day to explain. And oneof his bright suggestions was that such phenomena as the vast artificialearthworks found in Ohio and Indiana were originally thrown up by spacecastaways to serve as S O S signals. An intriguing idea, and now perhapswe may prove it true. "

"But if such spaceships were wrecked on this world, I still don't seewhy we didn't find traces of them in our own time. "

"Because that wreck you explored was bedded in a glacial era. Do youhave any idea how long ago that was, counting from our own time? Therewere at least three glacial periods--and we don't know in which one theReds went visiting. That age began about a million years before we wereborn, and the last of the ice ebbed out of New York State somethirty-eight thousand years ago, boy. That was the early Stone Age, reckoning it by the scale of human development, with an extremely thinpopulation of the first real types of man clinging to a few warmerfringes of wilderness. 

"Climatic changes, geographical changes, all altered the face of ourcontinents. There was a sea in Kansas; England was part of Europe. So, even though as many as fifty such ships were lost here, they could allhave been ground to bits by the ice flow, buried miles deep in quakes, or rusted away generations before the first really intelligent manarrived to wonder at them. Certainly there couldn't be too many suchwrecks to be found. What do you think this planet was, a flypaper toattract them?"

"But if ships crashed here once, why didn't they later when men werebetter able to understand them?" Ross countered. 

"For several reasons--all of them possible and able to be fitted intothe fabric of history as we know it on this world. Civilizations rise, exist, and fall, each taking with it into the limbo of forgotten thingssome of the discoveries which made it great. How did the Indiancivilizations of the New World learn to harden gold into a useable pointfor a cutting weapon? What was the secret of building possessed by theancient Egyptians? Today you will find plenty of men to argue theseproblems and half a hundred others. 

"The Egyptians once had a well-traveled trade route to India. Bronze Agetraders opened up roads down into Africa. The Romans knew China. Thencame an end to each of these empires, and those trade routes wereforgotten. To our European ancestors of the Middle Ages, China wasalmost a legend, and the fact that the Egyptians had successfully sailedaround the Cape of Good Hope was unknown. Suppose our space voyagersrepresented some star-born confederacy or empire which lived, rose toits highest point, and fell again into planet-bound barbarism all beforethe first of our species painted pictures on a cave wall?

"Or take it that this world was an unlucky reef on which too many shipsand cargoes were lost, so that our whole solar system was posted, andskippers of star ships thereafter avoided it? Or they might even havehad some rule that when a planet developed a primitive race of its own, it was to be left strictly alone until it discovered space flight foritself. "

"Yes. " Every one of Ashe's suppositions made good sense, and Ross wasable to believe them. It was easier to think that both Furry-face andBaldy were inhabitants of another world than to think their kind existedon this planet before his own species was born. "But how did the Redslocate that ship?"

"Unless that information is on the tapes we were able to bring along, weshall probably never know, " Ashe said drowsily. "I might make oneguess--the Reds have been making an all-out effort for the past hundredyears to open up Siberia. In some sections of that huge country therehave been great climatic changes almost overnight in the far past. Mammoths have been discovered frozen in the ice with half-digestedtropical plants in their stomach. It's as if the beasts were given somedeep-freeze treatment instantaneously. If in their excavations the Redscame across the remains of a spaceship, remains well enough preservedfor them to realize what they had discovered, they might start questingback in time to find a better one intact at an earlier date. That theoryfits everything we know now. "

"But why would the aliens attack the Reds now?"

"No ship's officers ever thought gently of pirates. " Ashe's eyes closed. 

There were questions, a flood of them, that Ross wanted to ask. Hesmoothed the fabric on his arm, that stuff which clung so tightly to hisskin yet kept him warm without any need for more covering. If Ashe wereright, on what world, what kind of world, had that material been woven, and how far had it been brought that he could wear it now?

Suddenly McNeil slid into their shelter and dropped two hares at theedge of the fire. 

"How goes it?" he said, as Ross began to clean them. 

"Reasonably well, " Ashe, his eyes still closed, replied to that beforeRoss could. "How far are we from the river? And do we have company?"

"About five miles--if we had wings. " McNeil answered in a dry tone. "Andwe have company all right, lots of it!"

That brought Ashe up, leaning forward on his good elbow. "What kind?"

"Not from the village. " McNeil frowned at the fire which he fed witheconomic handfuls of sticks. "Something's happening on this side of themountains. It looks as if there's a mass migration in progress. Icounted five family clans on their way west--all in just this onemorning. "

"The village refugees' stories about devils might send them packing, "Ashe mused. 

"Maybe. " But McNeil did not sound convinced. "The sooner we headdownstream, the better. And I hope the boys will have that sub waitingwhere they promised. We do possess one thing in our favor--the springfloods are subsiding. "

"And the high water should have plenty of raft material. " Ashe lay backagain. "We'll make those five miles tomorrow. "

McNeil stirred uneasily and Ross, having cleaned and spitted the hares, swung them over the flames to broil. "Five miles in this country, " theyounger man observed, "is a pretty good day's march"--he did not add ashe wanted to--"for a well man. "

"I will make it, " Ashe promised, and both listeners knew that as long ashis body would obey him he meant to keep that promise. They also knewthe futility of argument. 

Ashe proved to be a prophet to be honored on two counts. They did makethe trek to the river the next day, and there was a wealth of raftmaterial marking the high-water level of the spring flood. Themigrations McNeil had reported were still in progress, and the three menhid twice to watch the passing of small family clans. Once a respectablysized tribe, including wounded men, marched across their route, seekinga ford at the river. 

"They've been badly mauled, " McNeil whispered as they watched the peoplehuddled along the water's edge while scouts cast upstream and down, searching for a ford. When they returned with the news that there was noford to be found, the tribesmen then sullenly went to work with flintaxes and knives to make rafts. 

"Pressure--they are on the run. " Ashe rested his chin on his goodforearm and studied the busy scene. "These are not from the village. Notice the dress and the red paint on their faces. They're not likeUlffa's kin either. I wouldn't say they were local at all. "

"Reminds me of something I saw once--animals running before a forestfire. They can't all be looking for new hunting territory, " McNeilreturned. 

"Reds sweeping them out, " Ross suggested. "Or could the ship people--?"

Ashe started to shake his head and then winced. "I wonder. .. . " Thecrease between his level brows deepened. "The ax people!" His voice wasstill a whisper, but it carried a note of triumph as if he had fittedsome stubborn jigsaw piece into its proper place. 

"Ax people?"

"Invasion of another people from the east. They turned up in prehistoryabout this period. Remember, Webb spoke of them. They used axes forweapons and tamed horses. "

"Tartars"--McNeil was puzzled--"This far west?"

"Not Tartars, no. You needn't expect those to come boiling out of middleAsia for some thousands of years yet. We don't know too much about theax people, save that they moved west from the interior plains. Eventually they crossed to Britain; perhaps they were the ancestors ofthe Celts who loved horses too. But in their time they were a tidalwave. "

"The sooner we head downstream, the better. " McNeil stirred restlessly, but they knew that they must keep to cover until the tribesmen belowwere gone. So they lay in hiding another night, witnessing on the nextmorning the arrival of a smaller party of the red-painted men, againwith wounded among them. At the coming of this rear guard the activityon the river bank rose close to frenzy. 

The three men out of time were doubly uneasy. It was not for them tomerely cross the river. They had to build a raft which would bewater-worthy enough to take them downstream--to the sea if they werelucky. And to build such a sturdy raft would take time, time they didnot have now. 

In fact, McNeil waited only until the last tribal raft was out of bowshot before he plunged down to the shore, Ross at his heels. Since theylacked even the stone tools of the tribesmen, they were at adisadvantage, and Ross found he was hands and feet for Ashe, workingunder the other's close direction. Before night closed in they had agood beginning and two sets of blistered hands, as well as aching backs. 

When it was too dark to work any longer, Ashe pointed back over thetrack they had followed. Marking the mountain pass was a light. Itlooked like fire, and if it was, it must be a big one for them to beable to sight it across this distance. 

"Camp?" McNeil wondered. 

"Must be, " Ashe agreed. "Those who built that blaze are in such numbersthat they don't have to take precautions. "

"Will they be here by tomorrow?"

"Their scouts might, but this is early spring, and forage can't havebeen too good on the march. If I were the chief of that tribe, I'd turnaside into the meadow land we skirted yesterday and let the herds grazefor a day, maybe more. On the other hand, if they need water----"

"They will come straight ahead!" McNeil finished grimly. "And we can'tbe here when they arrive. "

Ross stretched, grimacing at the twinge of pain in his shoulders. Hishands smarted and throbbed, and this was just the beginning of theirtask. If Ashe had been fit, they might have trusted to logs for supportand swum downstream to hunt a safer place for their shipbuildingproject. But he knew that Ashe could not stand such an effort. 

Ross slept that night mainly because his body was too exhausted to lethim lie awake and worry. Roused in the earliest dawn by McNeil, theyboth crawled down to the water's edge and struggled to bind stubbornlyresisting saplings together with cords twisted from bark. Theyreinforced them at crucial points with some strings torn from theirkilts, and strips of rabbit hide saved from their kills of the past fewdays. They worked with hunger gnawing at them, having no time now tohunt. When the sun was well westward they had a clumsy craft whichfloated sluggishly. Whether it would answer to either pole or improvisedpaddle, they could not know until they tried it. 

Ashe, his face flushed and his skin hot to the touch, crawled on boardand lay in the middle, on the thin heap of bedding they had put therefor him. He eagerly drank the water they carried to him in cupped handsand gave a little sigh of relief as Ross wiped his face with wet grass, muttering something about Kelgarries which neither of his companionsunderstood. 

McNeil shoved off and the bobbing craft spun around dizzily as thecurrent pulled it free from the shore. They made a brave start, but luckdeserted them before they had gotten out of sight of the spot where theyembarked. 

Striving to keep them in mid-current, McNeil poled furiously, but therewere too many rocks and snagged trees projecting from the banks. Sharingthat sweep of water with them, and coming up fast, was a full-sizedtree. Twice its mat of branches caught on some snag, holding it back, and Ross breathed a little more freely, but it soon tore free again androlled on, as menacing as a battering ram. 

"Get closer to shore!" Ross shouted the warning. Those great, twistedroots seemed aimed straight at the raft, and he was sure if that massstruck them fairly, they would not have a chance. He dug in with his ownpole, but his hasty push did not meet bottom; the stake in his handsplunged into some pothole in the hidden river bed. He heard McNeil cryout as he toppled into the water, gasping as the murky liquid floodedhis mouth, choking him. 

Half dazed by the shock, Ross struck out instinctively. The training atthe base had included swimming, but to fight water in a pool undercontrolled conditions was far different from fighting death in a riverof icy water when one had already swallowed a sizable quantity of thatflood. 

Ross had a half glimpse of a dark shadow. Was it the edge of the raft?He caught at it desperately, skinning his hands on rough bark, draggedon by it. The tree! He blinked his eyes to clear them of water, to tryto see. But he could not pull his exhausted body high enough out of thewater to see past the screen of roots; he could only cling to the smallsafety he had won and hope that he could rejoin the raft somewheredownstream. 

After what seemed like a very long time he wedged one arm between twowater-washed roots, sure that the support would hold his head above thesurface. The chill of the stream struck at his hands and head, but theprotection of the alien clothing was still effective, and the rest ofhis body was not cold. He was simply too tired to wrest himself free andtrust again to the haphazard chance of making shore through thegathering dusk. 

Suddenly a shock jarred his body and strained the arm he had thrustamong the roots, wringing a cry out of him. He swung around and brushedfooting under the water; the tree had caught on a shore snag. Pullingloose from the roots, he floundered on his hands and knees, fallingafoul of a mass of reeds whose roots were covered with stale-smellingmud. Like a wounded animal he dragged himself through the ooze to higherland, coming out upon an open meadow flooded with moonlight. 

For a while he lay there, his cold, sore hands under him, plastered withmud and too tired to move. The sound of a sharp barking aroused him--animperative, summoning bark, neither belonging to a wolf nor a huntingfox. He listened to it dully and then, through the ground upon which helay, Ross felt as well as heard the pounding of hoofs. 

Hoofs--horses! Horses from over the mountains--horses which might meandanger. His mind seemed as dull and numb as his hands, and it took quitea long time for him to fully realize the menace horses might bring. 

Getting up, Ross noticed a winged shape sweeping across the disk of themoon like a silent dart. There was a single despairing squeak out of thegrass about a hundred feet away, and the winged shape arose again withits prey. Then the barking sound once more--eager, excited barking. 

Ross crouched back on his heels and saw a smoky brand of light movingalong the edge of the meadow where the band of trees began. Could it bea herd guard? Ross knew he had to head back toward the river, but he hadto force himself on the path, for he did not know whether he dared enterthe stream again. But what would happen if they hunted him with the dog?Confused memories of how water spoiled scent spurred him on. 

Having reached the rising bank he had climbed so laboriously before, Ross miscalculated and tumbled back, rolling down into the mud of thereed bed. Mechanically he wiped the slime from his face. The tree wasstill anchored there; by some freak the current had rammed its rootedend up on a sand spit. 

Above in the meadow the barking sounded very close, and now it wasanswered by a second canine belling. Ross wormed his way back throughthe reeds to the patch of water between the tree and the bank. His fewpoor efforts at escape were almost half-consciously taken; he was tootired to really care now. 

Soon he saw a four-footed shape running along the top of the bank, giving tongue. It was then joined by a larger and even more vocalcompanion. The dogs drew even with Ross, who wondered dully if theanimals could sight him in the shadows below, or whether they onlyscented his presence. Had he been able, he would have climbed over thelog and taken his chances in the open water, but now he could only liewhere he was--the tangle of roots between him and the bank serving as ascreen, which would be little enough protection when men came withtorches. 

Ross was mistaken, however, for his worm's progress across the reed bedhad liberally besmeared his dark clothing and masked the skin of hisface and hands, giving him better cover than any he could havewittingly devised. Though he felt naked and defenseless, the men whotrailed the hounds to the river bank, thrusting out the torch over theedge to light the sand spit, saw nothing but the trunk of the treewedged against a mound of mud. 

Ross heard a confused murmur of voices broken by the clamor of the dogs. Then the torch was raised out of line of his dazzled eyes. He saw one ofthe indistinct figures above cuff away a dog and move off, calling thehounds after it. Reluctantly, still barking, the animals went. Ross, with a little sob, subsided limply in the uncomfortable net of roots, still undiscovered. 

CHAPTER 15

It was such a small thing, a tag of ragged stuff looped about a lengthof splintered sapling. Ross climbed stiffly over the welter of driftcaught on the sand spit and pulled it loose, recognizing the string evenbefore he touched it. That square knot was of McNeil's tying, and asMurdock sat down weakly in the sand and mud, nervously fingering thetwisted cord, staring vacantly at the river, his last small hope died. The raft must have broken up, and neither Ashe nor McNeil could havesurvived the ultimate disaster. 

Ross Murdock was alone, marooned in a time which was not his own, withlittle promise of escape. That one thought blanked out his mind with itsown darkness. What was the use of getting up again, of trying to findfood for his empty stomach, or warmth and shelter?

He had always prided himself on being able to go it alone, had thoughthimself secure in that calculated loneliness. Now that belief had beenwashed away in the river along with most of the will power which hadkept him going these past days. Before, there had always been some goal, no matter how remote. Now, he had nothing. Even if he managed to reachthe mouth of the river, he had no idea of where or how to summon the subfrom the overseas post. All three of the time travelers might alreadyhave been written off the rolls, since they had not reported in. 

Ross pulled the rag free from the sapling and wreathed it in a tightbracelet about his grimed wrist for some unexplainable reason. Worn andtired, he tried to think ahead. There was no chance of again contactingUlffa's tribe. Along with all the other woodland hunters they must havefled before the advance of the horsemen. No, there was no reason to goback, and why make the effort to advance?

The sun was hot. This was one of those spring days which foretell theripeness of summer. Insects buzzed in the reed banks where a green sheenshowed. Birds wheeled and circled in the sky, some flock disturbed, their cries reaching Ross in hoarse calls of warning. 

He was still plastered with patches of dried mud and slime, the reek ofit thick in his nostrils. Now Ross brushed at a splotch on his knee, picking loose flakes to expose the alien cloth of his suit underneath, seemingly unbefouled. All at once it became necessary to be clean againat least. 

Ross waded into the stream, stooping to splash the brown water over hisbody and then rubbing away the resulting mud. In the sunlight the fabrichad a brilliant glow, as if it not only drew the light but reflected it. Wading farther out into the water, he began to swim, not with any goalin view, but because it was easier than crawling back to land once more. 

Using the downstream current to supplement his skill, he watched bothbanks. He could not really hope to see either the raft or indicationsthat its passengers had won to shore, but somewhere deep inside him hehad not yet accepted the probable. 

The effort of swimming broke through that fog of inertia which had heldhim since he had awakened that morning. It was with a somewhat healthierinterest in life that Ross came ashore again on an arm of what was a bayor inlet angling back into the land. Here the banks of the river werewell above his head, and believing that he was well sheltered, hestripped, hanging his suit in the sunlight and letting the unusual heatof the day soothe his body. 

A raw fish, cornered in the shallows and scooped out, furnished one ofthe best meals he had ever tasted. He had reached for the suit drapedover a willow limb when the first and only warning that his fortunes hadonce again changed came, swiftly, silently, and with deadly promise. 

One moment the willows had moved gently in the breeze, and then a spearsuddenly set them all quivering. Ross, clutching the suit to him with afrantic grab, skated about in the sand, going to one knee in his haste. 

He found himself completely at the mercy of the two men standing on thebank well above him. Unlike Ulffa's people or the Beaker traders, theywere very tall, with heavy braids of light or sun-bleached hair swingingforward on their wide chests. Their leather tunics hung to mid-thighabove leggings which were bound to their limbs with painted straps. Cuffbracelets of copper ringed their forearms, and necklaces of animal teethand beads displayed their personal wealth. Ross could not rememberhaving seen their like on any of the briefing tapes at the base. 

One spear had been a warning, but a second was held ready, so Ross madethe age-old signal of surrender, reluctantly dropping his suit andraising his hands palm out and shoulder high. 

"Friend?" Ross asked in the Beaker tongue. The traders ranged far, andperhaps there was a chance they had had contact with this tribe. 

The spear twirled, and the younger stranger effortlessly leaped down thebank, paddling over to Ross to pick up the suit he had dropped, holdingit up while he made some comment to his companion. He seemed fascinatedby the fabric, pulling and smoothing it between his hands, and Rosswondered if there was a chance of trading it for his own freedom. 

Both men were armed, not only with the long-bladed daggers favored bythe Beaker folk, but also with axes. When Ross made a slight effort tolower his hands the man before him reached to his belt ax, growling whatwas plainly a warning. Ross blinked, realizing that they might wellknock him out and leave him behind, taking the suit with them. 

Finally, they decided in favor of including him in their loot. Throwingthe suit over one arm, the stranger caught Ross by the shoulder andpushed him forward roughly. The pebbled beach was painful to Ross'sfeet, and the breeze which whipped about him as he reached the top ofthe bank reminded him only too forcibly of his ordeal in the glacialworld. 

Murdock was tempted to make a sudden dash out on the point of the bankand dive into the river, but it was already too late. The man who washolding the spear had moved behind him, and Ross's wrist, held in a visegrip at the small of his back, kept him prisoner as he was pushed oninto the meadow. There three shaggy horses grazed, their nose ropesgathered into the hands of a third man. 

A sharp stone half buried in the ground changed the pattern of the day. Ross's heel scraped against it, and the resulting pain triggered hisrebellion into explosion. He threw himself backward, his bruised heelsliding between the feet of his captor, bringing them both to the groundwith himself on top. The other expelled air from his lungs in a gruntof surprise, and Ross whipped over, one hand grasping the hilt of thetribesman's dagger while the other, free of that prisoning wrist-lock, chopped at the fellow's throat. 

Dagger out and ready, Ross faced the men in a half crouch as he had beendrilled. They stared at him in open-mouthed amazement, then too late thespears went up. Ross placed the point of his looted weapon at the throatof the now quiet man by whom he knelt, and he spoke the language he hadlearned from Ulffa's people. 

"You strike--this one dies. "

They must have read the determined purpose in his eyes, for slowly, reluctantly, the spears went down. Having gained so much of a victory, Ross dared more. "Take--" he motioned to the waiting horses--"take andgo!"

For a moment he thought that this time they would meet his challenge, but he continued to hold the dagger above the brown throat of the manwho was now moaning faintly. His threat continued to register, for theother man shrugged the suit from his arm, left it lying on the ground, and retreated. Holding the nose rope of his horse, he mounted, waved theherder up also, and both of them rode slowly away. 

The prisoner was slowly coming around, so Ross only had time to pull onthe suit; he had not even fastened the breast studs before those blueeyes opened. A sunburned hand flashed to a belt, but the dagger and axwhich had once hung there were now in Ross's possession. He watched thetribesman carefully as he finished dressing. 

"What you do?" The words were in the speech of the forest people, distorted by a new accent. 

"You go--" Ross pointed to the third horse the others had leftbehind--"I go--" he indicated the river--"I take these"--he patted thedagger and the ax. The other scowled. 

"Not good. .. . "

Ross laughed, a little hysterically. "Not good you, " he agreed, "good--me!"

To his surprise the tribesman's stiff face relaxed, and the fellow gavea bark of laughter. He sat up, rubbing at his throat, a big grin pullingat the corners of his mouth. 

"You--hunter?" The man pointed northeast to the woodlands fringing themountains. 

Ross shook his head. "Trader, me. "

"Trader, " the other repeated. Then he tapped one of the wide metal cuffsat his wrist. "Trade--this?"

"That. More things. "

"Where?"

Ross pointed downstream. "By bitter water--trade there. "

The man appeared puzzled. "Why you here?"

"Ride river water, like you ride, " he said, pointing to the horse. "Rideon trees--many trees tied together. Trees break apart--I come here. "

The conception of a raft voyage apparently got across, for the tribesmanwas nodding. Getting to his feet, he walked across to take up the noserope of the waiting horse. "You come camp--Foscar. Foscar chief. He likeyou show trick how you take Tulka, make him sleep--hold his ax, knife. "

Ross hesitated. This Tulka seemed friendly now, but would thatfriendliness last? He shook his head. "I go to bitter water. My chiefthere. "

Tulka was scowling again. "You speak crooked words--your chief there!"He pointed eastward with a dramatic stretch of the arm. "Your chiefspeak Foscar. Say he give much these--" he touched his coppercuffs--"good knives, axes--get you back. "

Ross stared at him without understanding. Ashe? Ashe in this Foscar'scamp offering a reward for him? But how could that be?

"How you know my chief?"

Tulka laughed, this time derisively. "You wear shining skin--your chiefwear shiny skin. He say find other shiny skin--give many good things toman who bring you back. "

Shiny skin! The suit from the alien ship! Was it the ship people? Rossremembered the light on him as he climbed out of the Red village. Hemust have been sighted by one of the spacemen. But why were theysearching for him, alerting the natives in an effort to scoop him up?What made Ross Murdock so important that they must have him? He onlyknew that he was not going to be taken if he could help it, that he hadno desire to meet this "chief" who had offered treasure for his capture. 

"You will come!" Tulka went into action, his mount flashing forwardalmost in a running leap at Ross, who stumbled back when horse and riderloomed over him. He swung up the ax, but it was a weapon with which hehad had no training, too heavy for him. 

As his blow met only thin air the shoulder of the mount hit him, andRoss went down, avoiding by less than a finger's breadth the thud of anunshod hoof against his skull. Then the rider landed on him, crushinghim flat. A fist connected with his jaw, and for Ross the sun went out. 

He found himself hanging across a support which moved with a rockinggait, whose pounding hurt his head, keeping him half dazed. Ross triedto move, but he realized that his arms were behind his back, fastenedwrist to wrist, and a warm weight centered in the small of his spine tohold him face down on a horse. He could do nothing except endure thediscomfort as best he could and hope for a speedy end to the gallop. 

Over his head passed the cackle of speech. He caught short glimpses ofanother horse matching pace to the one that carried him. Then they sweptinto a noisy place where the shouting of many men made a din. The horsestopped and Ross was pulled from its back and dropped to the troddendust, to lie blinking up dizzily, trying to focus on the scene abouthim. 

They had arrived at the camp of the horsemen, whose hide tents served asa backdrop for the fair long-haired giants and the tall women hoveringabout to view the captive. The circle about him then broke, and menstood aside for a newcomer. Ross had believed that his original captorswere physically imposing, but this one was their master. Lying on theground at the chieftain's feet, Ross felt like a small and helplesschild. 

Foscar, if Foscar this was, could not yet have entered middle age, andthe muscles which moved along his arms and across his shoulders as heleaned over to study Tulka's prize made him bear-strong. Ross glared upat him, that same hot rage which had led to his attack on Tulka nowurging him to the only defiance he had left--words. 

"Look well, Foscar. Free me, and I would do more than _look_ at you, " hesaid in the speech of the woods hunters. 

Foscar's blue eyes widened and he lowered a fist which could haveswallowed in its grasp both of Ross's hands, linking those great fingersin the stuff of the suit and drawing the captive to his feet, with nosign that his act had required any effort. Even standing, Ross was agood eight inches shorter than the chieftain. Yet he put up his chin andeyed the other squarely, without giving ground. 

"So--yet still my hands are tied. " He put into that all the tauntinginflection he could summon. His reception by Tulka had given him onefaint clue to the character of these people; they might be brought toacknowledge the worth of one who stood up to them. 

"Child--" The fist shifted from its grip on the fabric covering Ross'schest to his shoulder, and now under its compulsion Ross swayed back andforth. 

"Child?" From somewhere Ross raised that short laugh. "Ask Tulka. I beno child, Foscar. Tulka's ax, Tulka's knife--they were in my hand. Ahorse Tulka had to use to bring me down. "

Foscar regarded him intently and then grinned. "Sharp tongue, " hecommented. "Tulka lost knife--ax? So! Ennar, " he called over hisshoulder, and one of the men stepped out a pace beyond his fellows. 

He was shorter and much younger than his chief, with a boy's rangyslimness and an open, good-looking face, his eyes bright on Foscar witha kind of eager excitement. Like the other tribesmen he was armed withbelt dagger and ax, and since he wore two necklaces and both cuffbracelets and upper armlets as did Foscar, Ross thought he must be arelative of the older man. 

"Child!" Foscar clapped his hand on Ross's shoulder and then withdrewthe hold. "Child!" He indicated Ennar, who reddened. "You take fromEnnar ax, knife, " Foscar ordered, "as you took from Tulka. " He made asign, and someone cut the thongs about Ross's wrists. 

Ross rubbed one numbed hand against the other, setting his jaw. Foscarhad stung his young follower with that contemptuous "child, " so the boywould be eager to match all his skill against the prisoner. This wouldnot be as easy as his taking Tulka by surprise. But if he refused, Foscar might well order him killed out of hand. He had chosen to bedefiant; he would have to do his best. 

"Take--ax, knife--" Foscar stepped back, waving at his men to open out aring encircling the two young men. 

Ross felt a little sick as he watched Ennar's hand go to the haft of theax. Nothing had been said about Ennar's not using his weapons indefense, but Ross discovered that there was some sense of sportmanshipin the tribesmen, after all. It was Tulka who pushed to the chief's sideand said something which made Foscar roar bull-voiced at his youthfulchampion. 

Ennar's hand came away from the ax hilt as if that polished wood werewhite-hot, and he transferred his discomfiture to Ross as the otherunderstood. Ennar had to win now for his own pride's sake, and Ross felt_he_ had to win for his life. They circled warily, Ross watching hisopponent's eyes rather than those half-closed hands held at waist level. 

Back at the base he had been matched with Ashe, and before Ashe with thetough-bodied, skilled, and merciless trainers in unarmed combat. He hadhad beaten into his bruised flesh knowledge of holds and blows intendedto save his skin in just such an encounter. But then he had beenwell-fed, alert, prepared. He had not been knocked silly and thentransported for miles slung across a horse after days of exposure andhard usage. It remained to be learned--was Ross Murdock as tough as healways thought himself to be? Tough or not, he was in this until hewon--or dropped. 

Comments from the crowd aroused Ennar to the first definite action. Hecharged, stooping low in a wrestler's stance, but Ross squatted evenlower. One hand flicked to the churned dust of the ground and snapped upagain, sending a cloud of grit into the tribesman's face. Then theirbodies met with a shock, and Ennar sailed over Ross's shoulder to skidalong the earth. 

Had Ross been fresh, the contest would have ended there and then in hisfavor. But when he tried to whirl and throw himself on his opponent hewas too slow. Ennar was not waiting to be pinned flat, and it was Ross'sturn to be caught at a disadvantage. 

A hand shot out to catch his leg just above the ankle, and once againRoss obeyed his teaching, falling easily at that pull, to land acrosshis opponent. Ennar, disconcerted by the too-quick success of hisattack, was unprepared for this. Ross rolled, trying to escapesteel-fingered hands, his own chopping out in edgewise blows, strivingto serve Ennar as he had Tulka. 

He had to take a lot of punishment, though he managed to elude thepowerful bear's hug in which he knew the other was laboring to engulfhim, a hold which would speedily crush him into submission. Clinging tothe methods he had been taught, he fought on, only now he knew, with agrowing panic, that his best was not good enough. He was too spent tomake an end. Unless he had some piece of great good luck, he could onlydelay his own defeat. 

Fingers clawed viciously at his eyes, and Ross did what he had neverthought to do in any fight--he snapped wolfishly, his teeth closing onflesh as he brought up his knee and drove it home into the bodywriggling on his. There was a gasp of hot breath in his face as Rosscalled upon the last few rags of his strength, tearing loose from theother's slackened hold. He scrambled to one knee. Ennar was also on hisknees, crouching like a four-legged beast ready to spring. Ross riskedeverything on a last gamble. Clasping his hands together, he raised themas high as he could and brought them down on the nape of the other'sneck. Ennar sprawled forward face-down in the dust where seconds laterRoss joined him. 

CHAPTER 16

Murdock lay on his back, gazing up at the laced hides which stretched tomake the tent roofing. Having been battered just enough to feel all oneaching bruise, Ross had lost interest in the future. Only the presentmattered, and it was a dark one. He might have fought Ennar to astandstill, but in the eyes of the horsemen he had also been beaten, andhe had not impressed them as he had hoped. That he still lived was aminor wonder, but he deduced that he continued to breathe only becausethey wanted to exchange him for the reward offered by the aliens fromout of time, an unpleasant prospect to contemplate. 

His wrists were lashed over his head to a peg driven deeply into theground; his ankles were bound to another. He could turn his head fromside to side, but any further movement was impossible. He ate only bitsof food dropped into his mouth by a dirty-fingered slave, a cowed huntercaptured from a tribe overwhelmed in the migration of the horsemen. 

"Ho--taker of axes!" A toe jarred into his ribs, and Ross bit back thegrunt of pain which answered that rude bid for his attention. He saw inthe dim light Ennar's face and was savagely glad to note thediscolorations about the right eye and along the jaw line, thesignatures left by his own skinned knuckles. 

"Ho--warrior!" Ross returned hoarsely, trying to lade that title withall the scorn he could summon. 

Ennar's hand, holding a knife, swung into his limited range of vision. "To clip a sharp tongue is a good thing!" The young tribesman grinned ashe knelt down beside the helpless prisoner. 

Ross knew a thrill of fear worse than any pain. Ennar might be about todo just what he hinted! Instead, the knife swung up and Ross felt thesawing at the cords about his wrists, enduring the pain in the rawgouges they had cut in his flesh with gratitude that it was notmutilation which had brought Ennar to him. He knew that his arms werefree, but to draw them down from over his head was almost more than hecould do, and he lay quiet as Ennar loosed his feet. 

"Up!"

Without Ennar's hands pulling at him, Ross could not have reached hisfeet. Nor did he stay erect once he had been raised, crashing forward onhis face as the other let him go, hot anger eating at him because of hisown helplessness. 

In the end, Ennar summoned two slaves who dragged Ross into the openwhere a council assembled about a fire. A debate was in progress, sometimes so heated that the speakers fingered their knife or ax hiltswhen they shouted their arguments. Ross could not understand theirlanguage, but he was certain that he was the subject under discussionand that Foscar had the deciding vote and had not yet given the nod toeither side. 

Ross sat where the slaves had dumped him, rubbing his smarting wrists, so deathly weary in mind and beaten in body that he was not reallyinterested in the fate they were planning for him. He was content merelyto be free of his bonds, a small favor, but one he savored dully. 

He did not know how long the debate lasted, but at length Ennar came tostand over him with a message. "Your chief--he give many good things foryou. Foscar take you to him. "

"My chief is not here, " Ross repeated wearily, making a protest he knewthey would not heed. "My chief sits by the bitter water and waits. Hewill be angry if I do not come. Let Foscar fear his anger----"

Ennar laughed. "You run from your chief. He will be happy with Foscarwhen you lie again under his hand. You will not like that--I think itso!"

"I think so, too, " Ross agreed silently. 

He spent the rest of that night lying between the watchful Ennar andanother guard, though they had the humanity not to bind him again. Inthe morning he was allowed to feed himself, and he fished chunks ofvenison out of a stew with his unwashed fingers. But in spite of themessiness, it was the best food he had eaten in days. 

The trip, however, was not to be a comfortable one. He was mounted onone of the shaggy horses, a rope run under the animal's belly to loopone foot to the other. Fortunately, his hands were bound so he was ableto grasp the coarse, wiry mane and keep his seat after a fashion. Thenose rope of his mount was passed to Tulka, and Ennar rode beside himwith only half an eye for the path of his own horse and the balance ofhis attention for the prisoner. 

They headed northeast, with the mountains as a sharp green-and-whitegoal against the morning sky. Though Ross's sense of direction was nottoo acute, he was certain that they were making for the general vicinityof the hidden village, which he believed the ship people had destroyed. He tried to discover something of the nature of the contact which hadbeen made between the aliens and the horsemen. 

"How find other chief?" he asked Ennar. 

The young man tossed one of his braids back across his shoulder andturned his head to face Ross squarely. "Your chief come our camp. Talkwith Foscar--two--four sleeps ago. "

"How talk with Foscar? With hunter talk?"

For the first time Ennar did not appear altogether certain. He scowledand then snapped, "He talk--Foscar, us. We hear right words--not woodscreeper talk. He speak to us good. "

Ross was puzzled. How could the alien out of time speak the properlanguage of a primitive tribe some thousands of years removed from hisown era? Were the ship people also familiar with time travel? Did theyhave their own stations of transfer? Yet their fury with the Reds hadbeen hot. This was a complete mystery. 

"This chief--he look like me?"

Again Ennar appeared at a loss. "He wear covering like you. "

"But was he like me?" persisted Ross. He didn't know what he was tryingto learn, only that it seemed important at that moment to press home toat least one of the tribesmen that he _was_ different from the man whohad put a price on his head and to whom he was to be sold. 

"Not like!" Tulka spoke over his shoulder. "You look like hunterpeople--hair, eyes--Strange chief no hair on head, eyes not like----"

"You saw him too?" Ross demanded eagerly. 

"I saw. I ride to camp--they come so. Stand on rock, call to Foscar. Make magic with fire--it jump up!" He pointed his arm stiffly at a bushbefore them on the trail. "They point little, little spear--fire comeout of the ground and burn. They say burn our camp if we do not givethem man. We say--not have man. Then they say many good things for us ifwe find and bring man----"

"But they are not my people, " Ross cut in. "You see, I have hair, I amnot like them. They are bad----"

"You may be taken in war by them--chief's slave. " Ennar had a reply tothat which was logical according to the customs of his own tribe. "Theywant slave back--it is so. "

"My people strong too, much magic, " Ross pushed. "Take me to bitterwater and they pay much--more than stranger chief!"

Both tribesmen were amused. "Where bitter water?" asked Tulka. 

Ross jerked his head to the west. "Some sleeps away----"

"Some sleeps!" repeated Ennar jeeringly. "We ride some sleeps, maybemany sleeps where we know not the trails--maybe no people there, maybeno bitter water--all things you say with split tongue so that we notgive you back to master. We go this way not even one sleep--find chief, get good things. Why we do hard thing when we can do easy?"

What argument could Ross offer in rebuttal to the simple logic of hiscaptors? For a moment he raged inwardly at his own helplessness. Butlong ago he had learned that giving away to hot fury was no good unlessone did it deliberately to impress, and then only when one had the upperhand. Now Ross had no hand at all. 

For the most part they kept to the open, whereas Ross and the other twoagents had skulked in wooded areas on their flight through this sameterritory. So they approached the mountains from a different angle, andthough he tried, Ross could pick out no familiar landmarks. If by somemiracle he was able to free himself from his captors, he could only headdue west and hope to strike the river. 

At midday their party made camp in a grove of trees by a spring. Theweather was as unseasonably warm as it had been the day before, andflies, brought out of cold-weather hiding, attacked the stamping horsesand crawled over Ross. He tried to keep them off with swings of hisbound hands, for their bites drew blood. 

Having been tumbled from his mount, he remained fastened to a tree witha noose about his neck while the horsemen built a fire and broiledstrips of deer meat. 

It would seem that Foscar was in no hurry to get on, since after theyhad eaten, the men continued to lounge at ease, some even dropping offto sleep. When Ross counted faces he learned that Tulka and another hadboth disappeared, possibly to contact and warn the aliens they werecoming. 

It was midafternoon before the scouts reappeared, as unobtrusively asthey had gone. They went before Foscar with a report which brought thechief over to Ross. "We go. Your chief waits--"

Ross raised his swollen, bitten face and made his usual protest. "Not mychief!"

Foscar shrugged. "He say so. He give good things to get you back underhis hand. So--he your chief!"

Once again Ross was boosted on his mount, and bound. But this time theparty split into two groups as they rode off. He was with Ennar again, just behind Foscar, with two other guards bringing up the rear. The restof the men, leading their mounts, melted into the trees. Ross watchedthat quiet withdrawal speculatively. It argued that Foscar did not trustthose he was about to do business with, that he was taking certainprecautions of his own. Only Ross could not see how that distrust, whichmight be only ordinary prudence on Foscar's part, could in any way be anadvantage for him. 

They rode at a pace hardly above a walk into a small open meadownarrowing at the east. Then for the first time Ross was able to placehimself. They were at the entrance to the valley of the village, abouta mile away from the narrow throat above which Ross had lain to spy andhad been captured, for he had come from the north over the spurs ofrising ridges. 

Ross's horse was pulled up as Foscar drove his heel into the ribs of hisown mount, sending it at a brisker pace toward the neck of the valley. There was a blot of blue there--more than one of the aliens werewaiting. Ross caught his lip between his teeth and bit down on it hard. He had stood up to the Reds, to Foscar's tribesmen, but he shrank frommeeting those strangers with an odd fear that the worst the men of hisown species could do would be but a pale shadow to the treatment hemight meet at their hands. 

Foscar was now a toy man astride a toy horse. He halted his gallopingmount to sit facing the handful of strangers. Ross counted four of them. They seemed to be talking, though there was still a good distanceseparating the mounted man and the blue suits. 

Minutes passed before Foscar's arm raised in a wave to summon the partyguarding Ross. Ennar kicked his horse to a trot, towing Ross's mountbehind, the other two men thudding along more discreetly. Ross notedthat they were both armed with spears which they carried to the fore asthey rode. 

They were perhaps three quarters of the way to join Foscar, and Rosscould see plainly the bald heads of the aliens as their faces turned inhis direction. Then the strangers struck. One of them raised a weaponshaped similarly to the automatic Ross knew, except that it was longerin the barrel. 

Ross did not know why he cried out, except that Foscar had only an axand dagger which were both still sheathed at his belt. The chief satvery still, and then his horse gave a swift sidewise swerve as if infright. Foscar collapsed, limp, bonelessly, to the trodden turf, to lieunmoving face down. 

Ennar whooped, a cry combining defiance and despair in one. He reined upwith violence enough to set his horse rearing. Then, dropping his holdon the leading rope of Ross's mount, he whirled and set off in a wilddash for the trees to the left. A spear lanced across Ross's shoulder, ripping at the blue fabric, but his horse whirled to follow the other, taking him out of danger of a second thrust. Having lost hisopportunity, the man who had wielded the spear dashed by at Ennar'sback. 

Ross clung to the mane with both hands. His greatest fear was that hemight slip from the saddle pad and since he was tied by his feet, lieunprotected and helpless under those dashing hoofs. Somehow he managedto cling to the horse's neck, his face lashed by the rough mane whilethe animal pounded on. Had Ross been able to grasp the dangling noserope, he might have had a faint chance of controlling that run, but asit was he could only hold fast and hope. 

He had only broken glimpses of what lay ahead. Then a brilliant fire, asvivid as the flames which had eaten up the Red village, burst from theground a few yards ahead, sending the horse wild. There was more fireand the horse changed course through the rising smoke. Ross realizedthat the aliens were trying to cut him off from the thin safety of thewoodlands. Why they didn't just shoot him as they had Foscar he couldnot understand. 

The smoke of the burning grass was thick, cutting between him and thewoods. Might it also provide a curtain behind which he could hope toescape both parties? The fire was sending the horse back toward thewaiting ship people. Ross could hear a confused shouting in the smoke. Then his mount made a miscalculation, and a tongue of red licked tooclose. The animal screamed, dashing on blindly straight between two ofthe blazes and away from the blue-clad men. 

Ross coughed, almost choking, his eyes watering as the stench of singedhair thickened the smoke. But he had been carried out of the fire circleand was shooting back into the meadowland. Mount and unwilling riderwere well away from the upper end of that cleared space when anotherhorse cut in from the left, matching speed to the uncontrolled animal towhich Ross clung. It was one of the tribesmen riding easily. 

The trick worked, for the wild race slowed to a gallop and the otherrider, in a feat of horsemanship at which Ross marveled, leaned from hisseat to catch the dangling nose rope, bringing the runaway against hisown steady steed. Ross shaken, still coughing from the smoke and unableto sit upright, held to the mane. The gallop slowed to a rocking paceand finally came to a halt, both horses blowing, white-foam patches ontheir chests and their riders' legs. 

Having made his capture, the tribesman seemed indifferent to Ross, looking back instead at the wide curtain of grass smoke, frowning as hestudied the swift spread of the fire. Muttering to himself, he pulledthe lead rope and brought Ross's horse to follow in the direction fromwhich Ennar had brought the captive less than a half hour earlier. 

Ross tried to think. The unexpected death of their chief might well meanhis own, should the tribe's desire for vengeance now be aroused. On theother hand, there was a faint chance that he could now better impressthem with the thought that he was indeed of another clan and that to aidhim would be to work against a common enemy. 

But it was hard to plan clearly, though wits alone could save him now. The parley which had ended with Foscar's murder had brought Ross a smallmeasure of time. He was still a captive, even though of the tribesmenand not the unearthly strangers. Perhaps to the ship people theseprimitives were hardly higher in scale than the forest animals. 

Ross did not try to talk to his present guard, who towed him into thewestern sun of late afternoon. They halted at last in that same smallgrove where they had rested at noon. The tribesman fastened the mountsand then walked around to inspect the animal Ross had ridden. With agrunt he loosened the prisoner and spilled him unceremoniously on theground while he examined the horse. Ross levered himself up to sight themark of the burn across that roan hide where the fire had blistered theskin. 

Thick handfuls of mud from the side of the spring were brought andplastered over the seared strip. Then, having rubbed down both animalswith twists of grass, the man came over to Ross, pushed him back to theground, and studied his left leg. 

Ross understood. By rights, his thigh should also have been scorchedwhere the flame had hit, yet he had felt no pain. Now as the tribesmanexamined him for a burn, he could not see even the faintestdiscoloration of the strange fabric. He remembered how the aliens hadstrolled unconcerned through the burning village. As the suit hadinsulated him against the cold of the ice, so it would seem that it hadalso protected him against the fire, for which he was duly thankful. Hisescape from injury was a puzzle to the tribesman, who, failing to findany trace of burn on him, left Ross alone and went to sit well away fromhis prisoner as if he feared him. 

They did not have long to wait. One by one, those who had ridden inFoscar's company gathered at the grove. The very last to come were Ennarand Tulka, carrying the body of their chief. The faces of both men weresmeared with dust and when the others sighted the body they, too, rubbeddust into their cheeks, reciting a string of words and going one by oneto touch the dead chieftain's right hand. 

Ennar, resigning his burden to the others, slid from his tired horseand stood for a long moment, his head bowed. Then he gazed straight atRoss and came across the tiny clearing to stand over the man of a latertime. The boyishness which had been a part of him when he had fought atFoscar's command was gone. His eyes were merciless as he leaned down tospeak, shaping each word with slow care so that Ross could understandthe promise--that frightful promise:

"Woods rat, Foscar goes to his burial fire. And he shall take a slavewith him to serve him beyond the sky--a slave to run at his voice, toshake when he thunders. Slave-dog, you shall run for Foscar beyond thesky, and he shall have you forever to walk upon as a man walks upon theearth. I, Ennar, swear that Foscar shall be sent to the chiefs in thesky in all honor. And that you, dog-one, shall lie at his feet in thatgoing!"

He did not touch Ross, but there was no doubt in Ross's mind that hemeant every word he spoke. 

CHAPTER 17

The preparations for Foscar's funeral went on through the night. Awooden structure, made up of tied fagots dragged in from the woodland, grew taller beyond the big tribal camp. The constant crooning wail ofthe women in the tents produced a minor murmur of sound, enough to drivea man to the edge of madness. Ross had been left under guard where hecould watch it all, a refinement of torture which he would earlier havebelieved too subtle for Ennar. Though the older men carried minorcommands among the horsemen, because Ennar was the closest of blood kinamong the adult males, he was in charge of the coming ceremony. 

The pick of the horse herd, a roan stallion, was brought in to bepicketed near Ross as sacrifice number two, and two of the hounds werein turn leashed close by. Foscar, his best weapons to hand and a redcloak lapped about him, lay waiting on a bier. Near-by squatted thetribal wizard, shaking his thunder rattle and chanting in a voice whichapproached a shriek. This wild activity might have been a scene lifteddirectly from some tape stored at the project base. It was verydifficult for Ross to remember that this was reality, that he was to beone of the main actors in the coming event, with no timely aid fromOperation Retrograde to snatch him to safety. 

Sometime during that nightmare he slept, his weariness of bodyovercoming him. He awoke, dazed, to find a hand clutching his mop ofhair, pulling his head up. 

"You sleep--you do not fear, Foscar's dog-one?"

Groggily Ross blinked up. Fear? Sure, he was afraid. Fear, he realizedwith a clear thrust of consciousness such as he had seldom experiencedbefore, had always stalked beside him, slept in his bed. But he hadnever surrendered to it, and he would not now if he could help it. 

"I do not fear!" He threw that creed into Ennar's face in one hot boast. He _would_ not fear!

"We shall see if you speak so loudly when the fire bites you!" The otherspat, yet in that oath there was a reluctant recognition of Ross'scourage. 

"When the fire bites. .. . " That sang in Ross's head. There was somethingelse--if he could only remember! Up to that moment he had kept a poorlittle shadow of hope. It is always impossible--he was conscious againwith that strange clarity of mind--for a man to face his own deathhonestly. A man always continues to believe to the last moment of hislife that something will intervene to save him. 

The men led the horse to the mound of fagots which was now crowned withFoscar's bier. The stallion went quietly, until a tall tribesman strucktrue with an ax, and the animal fell. The hounds were also killed andlaid at their dead master's feet. 

But Ross was not to fare so easily. The wizard danced about him, ahideous figure in a beast mask, a curled fringe of dried snakeskinsswaying from his belt. Shaking his rattle, he squawked like an angrycat as they pulled Ross to the stacked wood. 

Fire--there was something about fire--if he could only remember! Rossstumbled and nearly fell across one leg of the dead horse they werepropping into place. Then he remembered that tongue of flame in themeadow grass which had burned the horse but not the rider. His hands andhis head would have no protection, but the rest of his body was coveredwith the flame-resistant fabric of the alien suit. Could he do it? Therewas such a slight chance, and they were already pushing him onto thatmound, his hands tied. Ennar stooped, and bound his ankles, securing himto the brush. 

So fastened, they left him. The tribe ringed around the pyre at a safedistance, Ennar and five other men approaching from differentdirections, torches aflame. Ross watched those blazing knots thrust intothe brush and heard the crackle of the fire. His eyes, hard andmeasuring, studied the flash of flame from dried brush to seasoned wood. 

A tongue of yellow-red flame licked up at him. Ross hardly dared tobreathe as it wreathed about his foot, his hide fetters smoldering. Theinsulation of the suit did not cut all the heat, but it allowed him tostay put for the few seconds he needed to make his escape spectacular. 

The flame had eaten through his foot bonds, and yet the burningsensation on his feet and legs was no greater than it would have beenfrom the direct rays of a bright summer sun. Ross moistened his lipswith his tongue. The impact of heat on his hands and his face wasdifferent. He leaned down, held his wrists to the flame, taking instoical silence the burns which freed him. 

Then, as the fire curled up so that he seemed to stand in a frame ofwrithing red banners, Ross leaped through that curtain, protecting hisbowed head with his arms as best he could. But to the onlookers itseemed he passed unhurt through the heart of a roaring fire. 

He kept his footing and stood facing that part of the tribal ringdirectly before him. He heard a cry, perhaps of fear, and a blazingtorch flew through the air and struck his hip. Although he felt theforce of the blow, the burning bits of the head merely slid down histhigh and leg, leaving no mark on the smooth blue fabric. 

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Now the wizard capered before him, shaking his rattle to make adeafening din. Ross struck out, slapping the sorcerer out of his path, and stooped to pick up the smoldering brand which had been thrown athim. Whirling it about his head, though every movement was torture tohis scorched hands, he set it flaming once more. Holding it in front ofhim as a weapon, he stalked directly at the men and women before him. 

The torch was a poor enough defense against spears and axes, but Rossdid not care--he put into this last gamble all the determination hecould summon. Nor did he realize what a figure he presented to thetribesmen. A man who had crossed a curtain of fire without apparenthurt, who appeared to wash in tongues of flame without harm, and who nowcalled upon fire in turn as a weapon, was no man but a demon!

The wall of people wavered and broke. Women screamed and ran; menshouted. But no one threw a spear or struck with an ax. Ross walked on, a man possessed, looking neither to the right or left. He was in thecamp now, stalking toward the fire burning before Foscar's tent. He didnot turn aside for that either, but holding the torch high, strodethrough the heart of the flames, risking further burns for the sake ofinsuring his ultimate safety. 

The tribesmen melted away as he approached the last line of tents, withthe open land beyond. The horses of the herd, which had been driven tothis side to avoid the funeral pyre, were shifting nervously, the scentof burning making them uneasy. 

Once more Ross whirled the dying torch about his head. Recalling how thealiens had sent his horse mad, he tossed it behind him into the grassbetween the tents and the herd. The tinder-dry stuff caught immediately. Now if the men tried to ride after him, they would have trouble. 

Without hindrance he walked across the meadow at the same even pace, never turning to look behind. His hands were two separate worlds ofsmarting pain; his hair and eyebrows were singed, and a finger of burnran along the angle of his jaw. But he was free, and he did not believethat Foscar's men would be in any haste to pursue him. Somewhere beforehim lay the river, the river which ran to the sea. Ross walked on in thesunny morning while behind him black smoke raised a dark beacon to thesky. 

Afterward he guessed that he must have been lightheaded for severaldays, remembering little save the pain in his hands and the fact that itwas necessary to keep moving. Once he fell to his knees and buried bothhands in the cool, moist earth where a thread of stream trickled from apool. The muck seemed to draw out a little of the agony while he drankwith a fever thirst. 

Ross seemed to move through a haze which lifted at intervals duringwhich he noted his surroundings, was able to recall a little of what laybehind him, and to keep to the correct route. However, the gaps of timein between were forever lost to him. He stumbled along the banks of ariver and fronted a bear fishing. The massive beast rose on its hindlegs, growled, and Ross walked by it uncaring, unmenaced by the puzzledanimal. 

Sometimes he slept through the dark periods which marked the nights, orhe stumbled along under the moon, nursing his hands against his breast, whimpering a little when his foot slipped and the jar of that mishap ranthrough his body. Once he heard singing, only to realize that it washimself who sang hoarsely a melody which would be popular thousands ofyears later in the world through which he wavered. But always Ross knewthat he must go on, using that thick stream of running water as a guideto his final goal, the sea. 

After a long while those spaces of mental clarity grew longer, appearingcloser together. He dug small shelled things from under stones along theriver and ate them avidly. Once he clubbed a rabbit and feasted. Hesucked birds' eggs from a nest hidden among some reeds--just enough tokeep his gaunt body going, though his gray eyes were now set in what wasalmost a death's-head. 

Ross did not know just when he realized that he was again being hunted. It started with an uneasiness which differed from his previousfever-bred hallucinations. This was an inner pulling, a growingcompulsion to turn and retrace his way back toward the mountains to meetsomething, or someone, waiting for him on the backward path. 

But Ross kept on, fearing sleep now and fighting it. For once he hadlain down to rest and had wakened on his feet, heading back as if thatcompulsion had the power to take over his body when his waking will wasoff guard. 

So he rested, but he dared not sleep, the desire constantly tearing athis will, striving to take over his weakened body and draw it back. Perhaps against all reason he believed that it was the aliens who weretrying to control him. Ross did not even venture to guess why they wereso determined to get him. If there were tribesmen on his trail as well, he did not know, but he was sure that this was now purely a war ofwills. 

As the banks of the river were giving way to marshes, he had to wadethrough mud and water, detouring the boggy sections. Great clouds ofbirds whirled and shrieked their protests at his coming, and sleek wateranimals paddled and poked curious heads out of the water as thistwo-legged thing walked mechanically through their green land. Alwaysthat pull was with him, until Ross was more aware of fighting it than oftraveling. 

Why did they want him to return? Why did they not follow him? Or werethey afraid to venture too far from where they had come through thetransfer? Yet the unseen rope which was tugging at him did not grow lesstenuous as he put more distance between himself and the mountain valley. Ross could understand neither their motives nor their methods, but hecould continue to fight. 

The bog was endless. He found an island and lashed himself with his suitbelt to the single willow which grew there, knowing that he must havesleep, or he could not hope to last through the next day. Then he slept, only to waken cold, shaking, and afraid. Shoulder deep in a pool, he wasaware that in his sleep he must have opened the belt buckle and freedhimself, and only the mishap of falling into the water had brought himaround to sanity. 

Somehow he got back to the tree, rehooked the buckle and twisted thebelt around the branches so that he was sure he could not work it freeuntil daybreak. He lapsed into a deepening doze, and awoke, still safelyanchored, with the morning cries of the birds. Ross considered the suitas he untangled the belt. Could the strange clothing be the tie by whichthe aliens held to him? If he were to strip, leaving the garment behind, would he be safe?

He tried to force open the studs across his chest, but they would notyield to the slight pressure which was all his seared fingers couldexert, and when he pulled at the fabric, he was unable to tear it. So, still wearing the livery of the off-world men, Ross continued on hisway, hardly caring where he went or how. The mud plastered on him by hisfrequent falls was some protection against the swarm of insect life hispassing stirred into attack. However, he was able to endure a swollenface and slitted eyes, being far more conscious of the wrenching feelingwithin him than the misery of his body. 

The character of the marsh began to change once more. The river wassplitting into a dozen smaller streams, shaping out fanlike. Lookingdown at this from one of the marsh hillocks, Ross knew a faint surge ofrelief. Such a place had been on the map Ashe had made them memorize. Hewas close to the sea at last, and for the moment that was enough. 

A salt-sharpened wind cut at him with the force of a fist in the face. In the absence of sunlight the leaden clouds overhead set a winterlikegloom across the countryside. To the constant sound of birdcalls Rosstramped heavily through small pools, beating a path through tangles ofmarsh grass. He stole eggs from nests, sucking his nourishment eagerlywith no dislike for the fishy flavor, and drinking from stagnant, brackish ponds. 

Suddenly Ross halted, at first thinking that the continuous roll ofsound he heard was thunder. Yet the clouds overhead were massed no morethan before and there was no sign of lightning. Continuing on, herealized that the mysterious sound was the pounding of surf--he was nearthe sea!

Willing his body to run, he weaved forward at a reeling trot, pittingall his energy against the incessant pull from behind. His feet skiddedout of marsh mud into sand. Ahead of him were dark rocks surrounded bythe white lace of spray. 

Ross headed straight toward that spray until he stood knee-deep in thecurling, foam-edged water and felt its tug on his body almost as strongas that other tug upon his mind. He knelt, letting the salt water stingto life every cut, every burn, sputtering as it filled his mouth andnostrils, washing from him the slime of the bog lands. It was cold andbitter, but it was the sea! He had made it!

Ross Murdock staggered back and sat down suddenly in the sand. Glancingabout, he saw that his refuge was a rough triangle between two of thesmall river arms, littered with the debris of the spring floods whichhad grounded here after rejection by the sea. Although there was plentyof material for a fire, he had no means of kindling a flame, having lostthe flint all Beaker traders carried for such a purpose. 

This was the sea, and against all odds he had reached it. He lay back, his self-confidence restored to the point where he dared once more toconsider the future. He watched the swooping flight of gulls drawingpatterns under the clouds above. For the moment he wanted nothing morethan to lie here and rest. 

But he did not surrender to this first demand of his over-driven bodyfor long. Hungry and cold, sure that a storm was coming, he knew he hadto build a fire--a fire on shore could provide him with the means ofsignaling the sub. Hardly knowing why--because one part of the coastlinewas as good as another--Ross began to walk again, threading a path inand out among the rocky outcrops. 

So he found it, a hollow between two such windbreaks within which was ablackened circle of small stones holding charred wood, with some emptyshells piled near-by. Here was unmistakable evidence of a camp! Rossplunged forward, thrusting a hand impetuously into the black mass of thedead fire. To his astonishment, he touched warmth!

Hardly daring to disturb those precious bits of charcoal, he dug aroundthem, then carefully blew into what appeared to be dead ashes. There wasan answering glow! He could not have just imagined it. 

From a pile of wood that had been left behind, Ross snatched a smalltwig, poking it at the coal after he had rubbed it into a brush on therough rock. He watched, all one ache of hope. The twig caught!

With his stiff fingers so clumsy, he had to be very careful, but Rosshad learned patience in a hard school. Bit by bit he fed that tiny blazeuntil he had a real fire. Then, leaning back against the rock, hewatched it. 

It was now obvious that the placement of the original fire had beenchosen with care, for the outcrops gave it wind shelter. They alsoprovided a dark backdrop, partially hiding the flames on the landwardside but undoubtedly making them more visible from the sea. The siteseemed just right for a signal fire--but to what?

Ross's hands shook slightly as he fed the blaze. It was only too clearwhy anyone would make a signal on this shore. McNeil--or perhaps both heand Ashe--had survived the breakup of the raft, after all. They hadreached this point--abandoned no earlier than this morning, judging bythe life remaining in the coals--and put up the signal. Then, just asarranged, they had been collected by the sub, by now on its way back tothe hidden North American post. There was no hope of any pickup for himnow. Just as he had believed them dead after he had found that rag onthe sapling, so they must have thought him finished after his fall inthe river. He was just a few hours too late!

Ross folded his arms across his hunched knees and rested his head onthem. There was no possible way he could ever reach the post or his ownkind--ever again. Thousands of miles lay between him and the temporaryinstallation in this time. 

He was so sunk in his own complete despair that he was long unaware offinally being free of the pressure to turn back which had so longhaunted him. But as he roused to feed the fire he got to wondering. Hadthose who hunted him given up the chase? Since he had lost his own racewith time, he did not really care. What did it matter?

The pile of wood was getting low, but he decided that did not mattereither. Even so, Ross got to his feet, moving over to the drifts ofstorm wrack to gather more. Why should he stay here by a useless beacon?But somehow he could not force himself to move on, as futile as hisvigil seemed. 

Dragging the sun-dried, bleached limbs of long-dead trees to his halfshelter, he piled them up, working until he laughed at the barricade hehad built. "A siege!" For the first time in days he spoke aloud. "Imight be ready for a siege. .. . " He pulled over another branch, added itto his pile, and kneeled down once more by the flames. 

There were fisherfolk to be found along this coast, and tomorrow when hewas rested he would strike south and try to find one of their primitivevillages. Traders would be coming into this territory now that theRed-inspired raiders were gone. If he could contact them. .. . 

But that spark of interest in the future died almost as soon as it wasborn. To be a Beaker trader as an agent for the project was one thing, to live the role for the rest of his life was something else. 

Ross stood by his fire, staring out to sea for a sign he knew he wouldnever see again as long as he lived. Then, as if a spear had struckbetween his shoulder blades, he was attacked. 

The blow was not physical, but came instead as a tearing, red pain inhis head, a pressure so terrible he could not move. He knew instantlythat behind him now lurked the ultimate danger. 

CHAPTER 18

Ross fought to break that hold, to turn his head, to face the perilwhich crept upon him now. Unlike anything he had ever met before in hisshort lifetime, it could only have come from some alien source. Thisstrange encounter was a battle of will against will! The same rebellionagainst authority which had ruled his boyhood, which had pushed him intothe orbit of the project, stiffened him to meet this attack. 

He was going to turn his head; he was going to see who stood there. He_was_! Inch by inch, Ross's head came around, though sweat stung hisseared and bitten flesh, and every breath was an effort. He caught ahalf glimpse of the beach behind the rocks, and the stretch of sand wasempty. Overhead the birds were gone--as if they had never existed. Or, as if they had been swept away by some impatient fighter, who wanted nodistractions from the purpose at hand. 

Having successfully turned his head, Ross decided to turn his body. Hisleft hand went out, slowly, as if it moved some great weight. His palmgritted painfully on the rock and he savored that pain, for it piercedthrough the dead blanket of compulsion that was being used against him. Deliberately he ground his blistered skin against the stone, concentrating on the sharp torment in his hand as the agony shot up hisarm. While he focused his attention on the physical pain, he could feelthe pressure against him weaken. Summoning all his strength, Ross swungaround in a movement which was only a shadow of his former feline grace. 

The beach was still empty, except for the piles of driftwood, the rocks, and the other things he had originally found there. Yet he knew thatsomething was waiting to pounce. Having discovered that for him pain wasa defense weapon, he had that one resource. If they took him, it wouldbe after besting him in a fight. 

Even as he made this decision, Ross was conscious of a curious weakeningof the force bent upon him. It was as if his opponents had beensurprised, either at his simple actions of the past few seconds or athis determination. Ross leaped upon that surprise, adding it to hisstock of unseen weapons. 

He leaned forward, still grinding his torn hand against the rock as asteadying influence, took up a length of dried wood, and thrust its endinto the fire. Having once used fire to save himself, he was ready andwilling to do it again, although at the same time, another part of himshrank from what he intended. 

Holding his improvised torch breast-high, Ross stared across it, searching the land for the faintest sign of his enemies. In spite of thefire and the light he held before him, the dusk prevented him fromseeing too far. Behind him the crash of the surf could have covered thenoise of a marching army. 

"Come and get me!"

He whirled his brand into bursting life and then hurled it straight intothe drift among the dunes. He was grabbing for a second brand almostbefore the blazing head of the first had fallen into the twisted, bleached roots of a dead tree. 

He stood tense, a second torch now kindled in his hand. The sharp viseof another's will which had nipped him so tightly a moment ago waseasing, slowly disappearing as water might trickle away. Yet he couldnot believe that this small act of defiance had so daunted his unseenopponent as to make him give up the struggle this easily. It was morelikely the pause of a wrestler seeking for a deadlier grip. 

The brand in his hand--Ross's second line of defense--was a weapon hewas loath to use, but would use if he were forced to it. He kept hishand mercilessly flat against the rock as a reminder and a spur. 

Fire twisted and crackled among the driftwood where the first torch hadlodged, providing a flickering light yards from where he stood. He wasgrateful for it in the gloom of the gathering storm. If they would onlycome to open war before the rain struck. .. . 

Ross sheltered his torch with his body as spray, driven inward from thesea, spattered his shoulders and his back. If it rained, he would losewhat small advantage the fire gave him, but then he would find someother way to meet them. They would neither break him nor take him, evenif he had to wade into the sea and swim out into the lash of the coldnorthern waves until he could not move his tired limbs any longer. 

Once again that steel-edge will struck at Ross, probing hisstubbornness, assaulting his mind. He whirled the torch, brought thescorching breath of the flame across the hand resting on the rock. Unable to control his own cry of protest, he was not sure he had thefortitude to repeat such an act. 

He had won again! The pressure had fallen away in a flick, almost as ifsome current had been snapped off. Through the red curtain of historment Ross sensed a surprise and disbelief. He was unaware that inthis queer duel he was using both a power of will and a depth ofperception he had never known he possessed. Because of his daring, hehad shaken his opponents as no physical attack could have affected them. 

"Come and get me!" He shouted again at the barren shoreline where thefire ate at the drift and nothing stirred, yet something very much aliveand conscious lay hidden. This time there was more than simple challengein Ross's demand--there was a note of triumph. 

The spray whipped by him, striking at his fire, at the brand he held. Let the sea water put both out! He would find another way of fighting. He was certain of that, and he sensed that those out there knew it tooand were troubled. 

The fire was being driven by the wind along the crisscross lines ofbone-white wood left high on the beach, forming a wall of flame betweenhim and the interior, not, however, an insurmountable barrier towhatever lurked there. 

Again Ross leaned against the rock, studying the length of beach. Had hebeen wrong in thinking that they were within the range of his voice? Thepower they had used might carry over a greater distance. 

"Yahhhh--" Instead of a demand, he now voiced a taunting cry, screaminghis defiance. Some wild madness had been transmitted to him by thewinds, the roaring sea, his own pain. Ready to face the worst they couldsend against him, he tried to hurl that thought back at them as they hadstruck with their united will at him. No answer came to his challenge, no rise to counter-attack. 

Moving away from the rock, Ross began to walk forward toward the burningdrift, his torch ready in his hand. "I am here!" he shouted into thewind. "Come out--face me!"

It was then that he saw those who had tracked him. Two tall thinfigures, wearing dark clothes, were standing quietly watching him, theireyes dark holes in the white ovals of their faces. 

Ross halted. Though they were separated by yards of sand and rock and aburning barrier, he could feel the force they wielded. The nature ofthat force had changed, however. Once it had struck with a vigorousspear point; now it formed a shield of protection. Ross could not breakthrough that shield, and they dared not drop it. A stalemate existedbetween them in this strange battle, the like of which Ross's world hadnot known before. 

He watched those expressionless white faces, trying to find some replyto the deadlock. There flashed into his mind the certainty that while helived and moved, and they lived and moved, this struggle, this unendingpursuit, would continue. For some mysterious reason they wanted to havehim under their control, but that was never going to happen if they allhad to remain here on this strip of water-washed sand until they starvedto death! Ross tried to drive that thought across to them. 

"Murrrrdock!" That croaking cry borne out of the sea by the wind mightalmost have come from the bill of a sea bird. 

"Murrrrdock!"

Ross spun around. Visibility had been drastically curtailed by thelowering clouds and the dashing spray, but he could see a round darkthing bobbing on the waves. The sub? A raft?

Sensing a movement behind him, Ross wheeled about as one of the alienfigures leaped the blazing drift, heedless of the flames, and ranlight-footedly toward him in what could only be an all-out attempt atcapture. The man had ready a weapon like the one that had felled Foscar. Ross threw himself at his opponent in a reckless dive, falling on himwith a smashing impact. 

In Ross's grasp the alien's body was fragile, but he moved fluidly asMurdock fought to break his grip on the hand weapon and pin him to thesand. Ross was too intent upon his own part of the struggle to heed thesounds of a shot over his head and a thin, wailing cry. He slammed hisopponent's hand against a stone, and the white face, inches away fromhis own, twisted silently with pain. 

Fumbling for a better hold, Ross was sent rolling. He came down on hisleft hand with a force which brought tears to his eyes and stopped himjust long enough for the other to regain his feet. 

The blue-suited man sprinted back to the body of his fellow where it layby the drift. He slung his unconscious comrade over the barrier withmore ease than Ross would have believed possible and vaulted the barrierafter him. Ross, half crouched on the sand, felt unusually light andempty. The strange tie which had drawn and held him to the strangers hadbeen broken. 

"Murdock!"

A rubber raft rode in on the waves, two men aboard it. Ross got up, pulling at the studs of his suit with his right hand. He could believein what he saw now--the sub had not left, after all. The two men runningtoward him through the dusk were of his own kind. 

"Murdock!"

It did not seem at all strange that Kelgarries reached him first. Ross, caught up in this dream, appealed to the major for aid with the studs. If the strangers from the ship did trace him by the suit, they were notgoing to follow the sub back to the post and serve the project as theyhad the Reds. 

"Got--to--get--this--off--" He pulled the words out one by one, tuggingfrantically at the stubborn studs. "They can trace this and followus--"

Kelgarries needed no better explanation. Ripping loose the fastenings, he pulled the clinging fabric from Ross, sending him reeling with painas he pulled the left sleeve down the younger man's arm. 

The wind and spray were ice on his body as they dragged him down to theraft, bundling him aboard. He did not at all remember their arrival onboard the sub. He was lying in the vibrating heart of the undersea shipwhen he opened his eyes to see Kelgarries regarding him intently. Ashe, a coat of bandage about his shoulder and chest, lay on a neighboringbunk. McNeil stood watching a medical corpsman lay out supplies. 

"He needs a shot, " the medic was saying as Ross blinked at the major. 

"You left the suit--back there?" Ross demanded. 

"We did. What's this about them tracing you by it? Who was tracing you?"

"Men from the space ship. That's the only way they could have trailed medown the river. " He was finding it difficult to talk, and the protestingmedic kept waving a needle in his direction, but somehow in bursts ofhalf-finished sentences Ross got out his story--Foscar's death, his ownescape from the chief's funeral pyre, and the weird duel of wills backon the beach. Even as he poured it out he thought how unlikely most ofit must sound. Yet Kelgarries appeared to accept every word, and therewas no expression of disbelief on Ashe's face. 

"So that's how you got those burns, " said the major slowly when Ross hadfinished his story. "Deliberately searing your hand in the fire to breaktheir hold--" He crashed his fist against the wall of the tiny cabin andthen, when Ross winced at the jar, he hurriedly uncurled those fingersto press Ross's shoulder with a surprisingly warm and gentle touch. "Puthim to sleep, " he ordered the medic. "He deserves about a month of it, I should judge. I think he has brought us a bigger slice of the futurethan we had hoped for. .. . "

Ross felt the prick of the needle and then nothing more. Even when hewas carried ashore at the post and later when he was transported intohis proper time, he did not awaken. He only approached a strange dreamystate in which he ate and drowsed, not caring for the world beyond hisown bunk. 

But there came a day when he did care, sitting up to demand food with agreat deal of his old self-assertion. The doctor looked him over, permitting him to get out of bed and try out his legs. They wereexceedingly uncooperative at first, and Ross was glad he had tried tomove only from his bunk to a waiting chair. 

"Visitors welcome?"

Ross looked up eagerly and then smiled, somewhat hesitatingly, at Ashe. The older man wore his arm in a sling but otherwise seemed his usualimperturbable self. 

"Ashe, tell me what happened. Are we back at the main base? What aboutthe Reds? We weren't traced by the ship people, were we?"

Ashe laughed. "Did Doc just wind you up to let you spin, Ross? Yes, thisis home, sweet home. As for the rest--well, it is a long story, and weare still picking up pieces of it here and there. "

Ross pointed to the bunk in invitation. "Can you tell me what is known?"He was still somewhat at a loss, his old secret awe of Ashe temperinghis outward show of eagerness. Ross still feared one of those snubs theother so well knew how to deliver to the bumptious. But Ashe did come inand sit down, none of his old formality now in evidence. 

"You have been a surprise package, Murdock. " His observation had someof the ring of the old Ashe, but there was no withdrawal behind thewords. "Rather a busy lad, weren't you, after you were bumped off intothat river?"

Ross's reply was a grimace. "You heard all about that!" He had no timefor his own adventures, already receding into a past which made themboth dim and unimportant. "What happened to you--and to theproject--and----"

"One thing at a time, and don't rush your fences. " Ashe was surveyinghim with an odd intentness which Ross could not understand. He continuedto explain in his "instructor" voice. "We made it down the river--how, don't ask me. That was something of a 'project' in itself, " he laughed. "The raft came apart piece by piece, and we waded most of the lastcouple of miles, I think. I'm none too clear on the details; you'll haveto get those out of McNeil, who was still among those present then. Other than that, we cannot compete with your adventures. We built asignal fire and sat by it toasting our shins for a few days, until thesub came to collect us----"

"And took you off. " Ross experienced a fleeting return of that hollowfeeling he had known on the shore when the still-warm coals of thesignal fire had told him the story of his too-late arrival. 

"And took us off. But Kelgarries agreed to spin out our waiting periodfor another twenty-four hours, in case you did manage to survive thattoss you took into the river. Then we sighted your spectacular displayof fireworks on the beach, and the rest was easy. "

"The ship people didn't trace us back to post?"

"Not that we know of. Anyway, we've closed down the post on that timelevel. You might be interested in a very peculiar tale our modern agentshave picked up, floating over and under the iron curtain. A blast wentoff in the Baltic region of this time, wiping some installation cleanoff the map. The Reds have kept quiet as to the nature of the explosionand the exact place where it occurred. "

"The aliens followed _them_ all the way up to this time!"--Ross halfrose from the chair--"But why? And why did they trail me?"

"That we can only guess. But I don't believe that they were moved by anyprivate vengeance for the looting of their derelict. There is some moreimperative reason why they don't want us to find or use anything fromone of their cargoes----"

"But they were in power thousands of years ago. Maybe they and theirworlds are gone now. Why should things we do today matter to them?"

"Well, it does matter, and in some very important way. And we have tolearn that reason. "

"How?" Ross looked down at his left hand, encased in a mitten of bandageunder which he very gingerly tried to stretch a finger. Maybe he shouldhave been eager to welcome another meeting with the ship people, but ifhe were truly honest, he had to admit that he did not. He glanced up, sure that Ashe had read all that hesitation and scorned him for it. Butthere was no sign that his discomfiture had been noticed. 

"By doing some looting of our own, " Ashe answered. "Those tapes webrought back are going to be a big help. More than one derelict waslocated. We were right in our surmise that the Reds first discovered theremains of one in Siberia, but it was in no condition to be explored. They already had the basic idea of the time traveler, so they applied itto the hunting down of other ships, with several way stops to throwpeople like us off the scent. So they found an intact ship, and alsoseveral others. At least three are on _this_ side of the Atlantic wherethey couldn't get at them very well. Those we can deal with now----"

"Won't the aliens be waiting for us to try that?"

"As far as we can discover they don't know where any of these shipscrashed. Either there were no survivors, or passengers and crew took offin lifeboats while they were still in space. They might never have knownof the Reds' activities if you hadn't triggered that communicator on thederelict. "

Ross was reduced to a small boy who badly needed an alibi for some pieceof juvenile mischief. "I didn't mean to. " That excuse sounded so feeblethat he was surprised into a laugh, only to see Ashe grinning back athim. 

"Seeing as how your action also put a very effective spike in theopposition's wheel, you are freely forgiven. Anyway, you have alsoprovided us with a pretty good idea of what we may be up against withthe aliens, and we'll be prepared for that next time. "

"Then there will be a next time?"

"We are calling in all time agents, concentrating our forces in theright period. Yes, there will be a next time. We have to learn just whatthey are trying so hard to protect. "

"What do you think it is?"

"Space!" Ashe spoke the word softly as if he relished the promise itheld. 

"Space?"

"That ship you explored was a derelict from a galactic fleet, but it wasa ship and it used the principle of space flight. Do you understand now?In these lost ships lies the secret which will make us free of all thestars! We must claim it. "

"Can we----?"

"Can _we_?" Ashe was laughing at Ross again with his eyes, though hisface remained sober. "Then _you_ still want to be counted in on thisgame?"

Ross looked down again at his bandaged hand and remembered swiftly somany things--the coast of Britain on a misty morning, the excitement ofprowling the alien ship, the fight with Ennar, even the long nightmareof his flight down the river, and lastly, the exultation he had tastedwhen he had faced the alien and had locked wills--to hold steady. Heknew that he could not, would not, give up what he had found here in theservice of the project as long as it was in his power to cling to it. 

"Yes. " It was a very simple answer, but when his eyes met Ashe's, Rossknew that it would serve better than any solemn oath. 

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The Time Traders

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If it is possible to conquer space, then perhaps it is also possible toconquer time. At least that was the theory American scientists wereexploring in an effort to explain the new sources of knowledge theRussians possessed. Perhaps Russian scientists had discovered how totransport themselves back in time in order to learn long-forgottensecrets of the past. 

That was why young Ross Murdock, above average in intelligence but abelligerently independent nonconformist, found himself on a "hush-hush"government project at a secret base in the Arctic. The very qualitiesthat made him a menace in civilized society were valuable traits in aman who must successfully act the part of a merchant trader of theBeaker people during the Bronze Age. 

For once they were transferred by time machine to the remote Balticregion where the Russian post was located, Ross and his partner Ashewere swept into a fantastic action-filled adventure involving Russians, superstitious prehistoric men, and the aliens of a lost galacticcivilization that demanded every ounce of courage the Americanspossessed. 

Andre Norton's earlier books, _Star Born_ and _The Stars Are Ours!_, have made this author one of the most popular writers in thescience-fiction field. In this daring adventure into the mists of time, readers will find themselves transported to still more exciting "other"worlds. 

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_Star Born_

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Far from the Terran colony's Homeport on the planet Astra, young DalgardNordis and his merman companion Sssuri are suddenly confronted by theirold enemies, the alien Astrans. Within the ruins of the Astrans' formercitadel the two discover that remnants of this nonhuman race, which hadonce ruled the entire planet, are struggling to recover their lostknowledge and thus regain their power. Dalgard realizes that the safetyof the Terrans is seriously threatened by this, and there is no hope ofwarning his people in time. 

When a space ship arrives from Terra, its crew ignorant of the existenceof a Terran colony on the western continent across the sea, the aliensenlist the spacemen's aid. Of the members of the crew only young RafKurbi instinctively mistrusts the Astrans. Through a series of weird andexciting adventures among the ruins and in ancient underground tunnels, Raf eventually meets Dalgard and joins him in the fight against thealiens. 

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THE STARS ARE OURS!

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SPACE SERVICE

_Edited With an Introduction and Notes by Andre Norton_

Ten great stories by such leading science-fiction writers as Bernard I. Kahn, H. B. Fyfe, Walt Sheldon, Theodore R. Cogswell, and Raymond Z. Gallun that will delight all science-fiction fans with their portrayalsof adventure in a far-flung galactic empire. $2. 50

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