A Century of Progress (22 page)

“Toto,” said Norlund, “I don’t think this is Kansas.” Seeing how blankly the others looked at him, he sighed. “Or maybe it could be. All right, I’m going to climb to the top of one of those dunes and take a look around from there.”

“We could drive up it,” Andy suggested.

Norlund shook his head. “I’d rather keep the APC in time-mode, save a few seconds on a quick getaway if it’s necessary. If we move it spatially we lose that, right? Jerry, you come with me. Andy, Ginny, you stay here.”

In silence he trudged with Jerry through crackling grass, over to the nearest dune and up its flank. Their feet slid frustratingly on the slope of sand.

Increasing elevation revealed nothing but more of the same landscape—until they reached the top. Then a plain of water came into sight, stretching from just past the line of dunes out to a calm gray horizon.

“The lake,” said Jerry, true Chicagoan.

“Maybe.” Norlund was scanning the expanse for sails, for smoke, for any sign of human presence, but finding none. “I don’t know what our geographic displacement was on that launch. For all I know, we could be in Asia now.”

Jerry, as if his natural navigator’s or hot-shot pilot’s instinct were affronted by this idea, shook his head and muttered something vulgar. He was plainly not impressed by Norlund’s recently acquired rank.

Gesturing for Jerry to follow, Norlund went sliding and scrambling down the side of the dune toward the water. Meanwhile he scanned the narrow beach for footprints. Only bird-tracks were visible in the strip of damp sand until he and Jerry crossed it. At the very shoreline Norlund squatted to scoop up in his palm a small sample of a cold, gentle wave. He tasted it and found it fresh.

“Maybe this is Lake Michigan,” he said, standing up again. “Anyway, I’m not sure that really matters to us now.” He surveyed the world, which from this viewpoint contained only the dull sky, the lake, the wind-carved dunes—all speaking of slow time. Small waves lap-lapped on sand. The breeze lofted birds that looked like gulls, and stirred the sparse, tough grass that half-clothed some of the dunes. It urged the small waves in from the horizon to the shoreline that smelled vaguely of dead fish.

And suddenly Norlund knew fear; this time not combat-terror of the enemy, but a more subtle and inescapable dread of time itself. He felt sure that they had been deflected further into the past than any of them realized. Further, perhaps, than anyone ought to go. He understood vaguely from his brief training that there were limits that ought not to be transgressed. He was afraid of what Ginny might tell him when he got back to the vehicle, afraid of hearing what the numbers really were.

“What now, chief?” Jerry, untroubled by metaphysics, was waiting to be given orders and be informed about what happened next.

Norlund shrugged, concealing his feelings. “Let’s get back to the APC.”

As they approached the carrier, they found Andy standing sentry in the open top hatch. Inside, Ginny was back in the observer’s seat, busy at the panel. As Norlund entered she looked up. “I’m not going to be able to determine where we are without a number of additional readings, and then some lengthy calculations. Anyway, the computer indicates that it might not be worth the trouble of trying to find out.”

“No?” Norlund felt obscure relief.

“No. Our best move in this situation may simply be to take a good guess as to where we are—or a bad guess, even, if it works out that way—and then start moving. We ought to be able to zero in on our target year by a series of successive approximations. We can tell if we’re moving toward it, even if we don’t know what time we’re starting from—where we are now.” And Norlund thought that Ginny shivered slightly as she spoke. He wondered if she were frightened, too, of time. The thought was not reassuring.

He nodded briskly. “All right, let’s do it that way.”

He got into his chair again, and there was the envelope of sealed orders, still waiting to be opened. As casually as possible he added: “While you guys are getting set up for another launch, I better take a look at this.”

He settled himself back into his seat and took up the envelope and ripped it open. He skimmed through the contents, saving details for later study. Several times in the course of scanning the papers he looked up from them, and each time found at least one member of his crew observing him.

Whatever they might be able to read in his face, thought Norlund, it was probably not surprise.

Once more he read through the key sentences in the orders. He looked up to find that his crew were all ready for launching, watching him and waiting.

Norlund told them.

“We’re going to kill Hitler.”

1934

As Norlund had feared, it took a long struggle, a good many subjective, inside-the-vehicle hours, to get back to their proper target year. Almost a full day passed, the crew grumbling and stiffening in their cramped positions, as the APC hunted from one approximation to another, before the change of exterior light and the revival of early instruments signalled once more that a full emergence was at hand. But in a sense the hours passed more quickly than those of that first deflected trip. Driver and observer had more to do, working out a course and staying with it. And Norlund used the opportunity to brief and drill everyone on the details of the plans and alternate plans that the sealed orders had presented.

“Roosevelt invited Hitler’t’visit the US?” Andy Burns, for all the classes they’d all had discussing timelines, was having trouble with the idea.

Norlund sighed. “Yeah. The idea was that between them they could maybe work out some way of keeping world peace. Getting out of economic troubles.”

“But it wouldn’t work.”

“No, it wouldn’t. But it gives us our chance at him.”

Andy nodded, probably not understanding much—a waist-gunner following orders, being briefed for the next mission.

An hour came when signs of emergence began to develop, and then a minute came when the signs were very strong.

“This is it, guys.”

“This is it . . . yeah, no doubt about it this time. Here we are, nineteen thirty-four.”

“The New York site? Chicago?”

“We’ll see.” That one wasn’t possible to answer so confidently.

As before, abrupt momentary free-fall was followed by a crunching landing. This time arrival was on what sounded like packed cinders.

The first glimpses of the outside obtainable through viewscreens were ambiguous. Again Norlund got the definite impression that he had probably not reached Kansas. More to the point, the APC did not seem to be in either of the landing slots, in New York and Illinois, that its crew had been attempting to reach.

“This is one of the emergency alternate sites, I’ll bet. The autopilot must have found it for us.”

“Or else the navigational grid diverted us again . . .”

Suddenly there were more possibilities than had been readily foreseeable. There was no absolute certainty. Anyway, sensors showed that this time the APC had come to rest in comparatively warm near-darkness, on a cindered or graveled flat of land. In the distance, Norlund thought he caught just a quick glimpse of something pyrotechnic—a skyrocket? A volcanic flare?

A cliff-like surface reared up close on the right side of the vehicle, cutting off the view in that direction and shadowing it from what was probably faint moonlight. In the opposite direction trees were silhouetted against sky, and Norlund recognized a palm. Near the palm was another shape: lower, peculiar . . . It wasn’t until Norlund had led the way out of the APC to reconnoiter, and had taken a couple of steps in that direction, that he recognized the horned head of a triceratops.

Norlund was still almost frozen, his weapon on the way to being leveled at the dinosaur, when brisk human footsteps off to one side distracted him. The single approach was quiet, though not really stealthy.

Norlund shifted his aim. “Who is it?” he called sharply.

“Mercury,” a low voice replied, as some yards away the footsteps stopped. It took Norlund a moment to recognize in the answer one of the code words that he had been taught to expect—in this case it was one of the less likely ones, the code name of a local agent at one of the alternate emergence sites in Thirty-four.

“Okay, come ahead.” Puffing out his breath, Norlund relaxed his aim. A quick glance back at the triceratops assured him that it had not moved.

The footsteps again came nearer, slowly, as quietly as could be expected for a man walking on cinders. Mercury on arrival was quite ordinary-looking: a youngish man dressed in overalls, an appropriate outfit for some Thirties caretaker or janitor. Now Norlund could see that the cliff-like surface right beside the vehicle was really the stuccoed and almost windowless wall of some huge building.

Mercury gave the vehicle a looking-over, and also the people emerging from it. He did not appear to be enormously impressed. “How many of you, four? You’ll need clothes, I suppose. Not weapons, I see. If you need money, I’m a little short but I’ll see what I can do. You can just leave the vehicle right where it is if you want to; it’ll be all right for an hour or so. Then I can get rid of it.”

“Where are we?” Norlund demanded, almost hopelessly.

Mercury blinked at him, surprised that Norlund did not know. “This is the fourth of July. Uh, nineteen thirty-four.”

“But
where
?”

“Why, Hollywood. This is the Paramount back lot.”

At Mercury’s suggestion the travelers stayed with their vehicle, while he went to a nearby building. He emerged again in a few minutes, clothing bundled in his arms. They had told him what sizes they required.

“Little short of money right now,” he repeated as he rejoined them, dumping his bundle down. “Even if I put in some of my personal funds, things are kinda tough, you know? But here’s six bucks each.” And he counted out fives and ones, pausing before he gave Ginny her share, as if he thought that for some reason a woman might not really require it. Meanwhile Norlund was silently cursing the decision, made higher up, for them to refit and resupply locally this time.

“And there’s the clothes,” Mercury went on. “I got extras’ stuff out of Wardrobe. Hope that dress fits you, lady.”

Ginny ducked inside the APC to change. The men meanwhile shuffled garments on and off while standing on the cindered lot. Norlund, fortunately for him, had got both legs into his new pants before the futuristic gunfire struck at them from the general direction of the palm tree and triceratops—he was able to hit the dirt without breaking a leg in the process.

The defensive shields of the APC had already reached out to embrace the exposed members of its crew, saving Norlund’s life and Jerry’s. For Mercury and Andy Burns, standing a trifle closer to the foe, the protection came fractionally too late, and they both were hit.

Norlund, sprawled on his belly in cinders, pumped silent and almost invisible death rays from his side-arm out into the darkness, toward the enemy’s concealed position somewhere near the dinosaur, while Jerry lying beside him did the same. Then, just above their heads, the heavier weapons of the APC lashed out, in the same spooky silence. Plaster triceratops and real palms were pretty much unaffected, but the enemy fire stopped.

Norlund turned his head. Mercury’s body and Andy’s were shriveled husks inside scorched clothing; it was obvious that they had been somehow fried to death. Only Andy’s artificial right arm was still moving, as if there might be a trace of life left in it . . .

“Clear now, chief.” Ginny’s voice, quavering but functional, came through a small external speaker in the APC’s armored flank. “My scan shows they’re all dead over there. Are you getting back aboard?”

“Thanks, Gin,” Norlund said. There was a smell of cooked meat in the air, and Jerry was being sick. Temporarily, Norlund hoped. He himself had been inoculated by the events of twenty combat missions. “Some of us are getting on. Just stay alert in there, and give us a minute to do some things out here.”

Jerry recovered quickly. Between him and Norlund they loaded the two casualties of the crew into the vehicle. There was no place to put the bodies but in seats; Ginny was going to have a grim trip back. Norlund rifled Andy’s and Mercury’s pockets for the local money that they had just been issued, but the bills were burned into unusability.

Ginny looked on, pale-faced in the concentrated interior lighting.

Norlund draped blankets over the bodies. Then he thumped his hand on the inner surface of the hull. “We can’t use this vehicle here in Thirty-four, and we can’t just leave it. I don’t know what Mercury’s method of hiding it or returning it would have been. So I want you to take it back to home base, Ginny. If the base isn’t there any more, or you can’t reach it, do what you can.”

“What about the mission?”

“Jerry and I are going on. You’re the utility person in the lineup, and this is where we need you.”

She nodded, more relieved than anything, Norlund thought. Then she remembered to give him back the few local dollars that Mercury had just given her. He split the money with Jerry; now the two of them had nine dollars each.

Norlund asked her to delay departure briefly while he went with Jerry to look over the enemy dead. There were four scattered bodies in Thirties clothing. Again, no money was salvageable; their dropped weapons were unfamiliar to Norlund, and what he thought was probably a communicator of some kind was dead.

He went back to the APC with Jerry and called for different weaponry. In moments all trace of the enemy dead was gone. There was only a faint scorching noticeable on what had been cindered ground anyway. Let Hajo Brandi wonder what had happened to his people—unless one of those bodies by some good luck had been his.

Moments after that the APC, with Norlund’s final wave to Ginny, was out of sight as well.

In the moon-shadow of the huge studio building, Norlund stood facing Jerry. “We split up here,” said Norlund. “Get to Chicago and—hell, you know what you have to do.”

“Yeah.”

They shook hands. Norlund waited until Jerry’s footsteps had died away before he moved himself.

Norlund during his more or less sheltered Depression youth had often heard about but never actually seen hobos riding freight trains across the country. According to the usual expression they “rode the rods”, which meant that in some perilous way that Norlund had never quite understood they traveled slung beneath the cars, taking their ease within inches of the rails and ties and roadbed roaring past beneath them.

In his own first five days of traveling by freight, Norlund had yet to see the trick performed by anyone in quite that way. Most non-paying riders, he had observed, followed the method he had chosen for himself—clinging to the top of a boxcar or else riding lower and more sheltered in a gondola. Some few were successful in getting inside, like the men Norlund had glimpsed during his own recent period of prosperity, when he’d been riding the
Twentieth Century
first class.

One idea his last five days’ experience had refuted—a cynical suspicion born during the time when he’d been paying for his passage. He was now quite sure that freights took just as long as passenger trains to cross the country. At least the ones he had been riding did. Five days, five times he’d watched the sun go down on dusty plains or desert, and he was still no farther east than Texas—crossing which, of course, promised to be an epic struggle in itself. Five days . . . or was it six?

With only nine dollars in his pocket at the start, there hadn’t been very many means of transportation open to him. And he knew that Jerry would prefer hitchhiking, and he was determined to travel separately from Jerry, determined that one of them at least was going to get through. Either of them, of course, could call for help, from Jeff or other local agents, but after being ambushed in the presence of one such agent Norlund didn’t want to do that just yet. There were a few days to spare. The
Graf
should not yet have departed from Germany, and to cross the Atlantic would take it a couple of days at the very least, even assuming favorable winds. Norlund meant to work his way east, closer to New York, and call for help when he was nearly there.

At least that had been his original plan on leaving Hollywood. Now he wasn’t so sure. In one sense his plan was working; at least Brandi’s people, Hitler’s people, hadn’t caught up with him yet. But on the other hand he wasn’t all that much closer to New York, where on the twentieth of July the
Graf Zeppelin
was due to tie up to Jeff Holborn’s ingenious mast atop the Empire State, and where the great dirigible would then discharge her illustrious passenger and his entourage to begin his state visit . . .

And Norlund was having other problems. He had eaten only twice in the last three days, and not too often in the three days before that, even if you could call swallowing the kind of stuff he had ingested eating. Three days ago he’d been granted a share from an iron stewpot hanging over a fire in a tramp encamp-merit lodged between railroad tracks and a highway bridge in Arizona. And the day after that he’d been fed at some religious charity’s soup kitchen in a New Mexico town of modest size whose name Norlund had never learned, any more than he had learned with any certainty the name of the religious group who ran the charity.

He was traveling alone, which had its good points and its bad. One point about it, good or bad, was that he had to decide for himself when he had passed the point of being merely hungry and had started actually starving, in the sense of growing dangerously weak. Clinging now to a boxcar’s top in the fifth or possibly sixth dusty sunset of his trip, he knew from the way the train’s swaying motion made him feel that he now qualified as starving. Next town he came to, he’d have to take some serious steps about getting food. He still had his nine dollars.

As soon as a scattering of lights appeared ahead, and the train began to slow, Norlund made his way to the iron ladder at the end of the car, climbed down most of the way, and watched and waited for his chance. You had to be careful of more than being run over by the train, old hands at this game had warned him. You couldn’t just stroll on and off, in and out of railroad yards. In some yards, some towns, the local cops or the railroad bulls lay in wait for unpaying passengers and beat them, sometimes just for the fun of it, or hauled them off to stand before a magistrate and then fill the ranks of work gangs on the county roads for thirty days. Personal and esthetic considerations aside, Norlund couldn’t afford that kind of a delay.

The train rattled swaying around a curve, as the lights ahead grew closer. When Norlund had judged that the train had slowed enough, he jumped, tumbling on the uneven footing in the dark, but luckily not spraining or breaking anything.