Time Traders (33 page)

Travis snapped his own studs together. The material felt good, smooth, a little warm, almost as soothing as the foam bubbles which had scoured and energized his tired body. He was willing to chance wearing the uniform. It was infinitely better than the hide garment he had discarded.

They were learning to navigate through weightlessness. The usual technique approached swimming, and they found convenient handholds to draw them along. If Travis could forget that the ship was boring on into the unknown, their present lodging had a lot to recommend it. But when the four of them gathered in the control cabin an hour or so later, they prepared to consider the major problem with what objectivity they could summon.

Ashe, alertly himself again, fresh from the healing of the aliens' treatment, was their leader by unspoken consent. Only it was to Renfry that the three time scouts looked for hope. The technician had little to offer.

"The pilot must have set the ship's controls on some type of homing device just before he died. I'm just guessing at this, you understand, but it is the only explanation to make sense now. When we explored here, my chief, working from what he knew of the tape records from the Russian headquarters, traced three installations; the one giving outside vision," he began, tapping lightly on the screen which had been blue for those few precious moments before their involuntary take-off. "Another which is the inside com system connecting speakers all over the ship. And a third—this." He pushed a lever to its head in a slot. Three winks of light showed on the board and out of the air above their heads came a sound which might have been a word in an unknown tongue.

"And what
is
that?" Ashe watched the lights with interest.

"Guns! We have four ports open now, and a weapon in each ready to fire. It was the chief's guess that this was—is—a small military scout, or police patrol ship." He clicked the lever back into place and the lights were gone.

"Not very helpful now," Ross commented. "What about the chances for getting back home?"

Renfry shrugged. "Not a chance that I can see so far. Frankly, I'm afraid to do any poking around these controls while we're in space. There is too good a chance of stopping and not getting started again—either forward or back."

"That makes sense. So we'll just have to keep on going to whatever port for which your controls are now set?"

Renfry nodded. "Not
my
controls, sir. This—all of this—is far advanced, and different—beyond our planes. Maybe, if I had time, and we were safely on ground, I could discover how the engines tick, but what makes them do so would still be another problem."

"What's the fuel?"

"Even that I can't say. The engines are completely sealed. We didn't dare pry too far."

"And home port may be anywhere in the universe," mused Ashe. "They had some type of distance-time jump—voyages couldn't have lasted centuries."

Renfry was studying the banks of buttons and levers with an expression of complete exasperation. "They could have every gadget in a fiction writer's imagination, sir, and we wouldn't know it—until the thing did or didn't work!"

"Quite a prospect." Ashe got up with caution, the careful motions of a novice in weightlessness. "I think a detailed exploration of the rest of our present home is now in order."

There were three of the small living cabins, each equipped with two bunk-hammocks. And by experimenting with the wall panels they discovered clothing, personal effects of the crew. Travis did not like to empty those shallow cupboards and handle those possessions of dead men. But he did his share during the hunt for some clue which might mean the difference between life and death for the present passengers. He had opened a last small cavity in one locker when he caught a promising glitter. He picked up the object and found himself holding a rectangle of some slick material that felt like glass. It was milky white, blank when he picked it up. But the chill of the first touch faded as he turned it over curiously. The rim was bordered in a band of tiny flashing bits of yellow which might be gem stones—framing blankness instead of a picture.

A picture! If he could hold a picture of a far place—what sort would it be? Family—home—friends? He watched the plain surface within the border. Plain—? There
was
something there! Color was seeping up to the surface and spreading. Outlines were becoming solid. Bewildered, almost frightened, Travis studied that changing scene.

He did have a picture now. And one he knew. It was an entirely familiar scene—a stretch of desert and mountains. Why, he might be standing on the cliffs looking toward Red Horse Canyon! He wanted to throw the thing from him. How could an alien who lived twelve thousand years ago carry among his belongings a picture of the country Travis knew as home? It was unbelievable—unreal!

"What is it, son?" Ashe's hand was real on his arm, Ashe's voice warmed the chill congealing inside him as he continued to stare at the thing he held, the thing which, in spite of its familiar beauty, was wrong, terrible . . .

"Picture . . ." he mumbled. "Picture of my home—here."

"What?" Ashe stepped closer and gave an exclamation, took the block out of Travis' hands. The younger man wiped his sweating palms down his thighs, trying to wipe away the touch of that weird picture.

But, as he watched the desert scene, he cried out. For it was fading away, the colors were absorbed in the original white. The outlines of the cliffs and mountains were gone. Ashe held the plaque up in both of his hands. And now there was a new stirring in the depths, a murky flowing as again a scene grew into sharp brilliance.

Only this was not the desert, but a stand of tall, green trees Travis recognized as pines. Below them was a strand of gray-white sand, and beyond the pound of waves lashing high in foam against fanged rocks. Above that restless water white birds soared.

"Safeharbor!" Ashe sat down suddenly on the bunk and the picture shook as his hands trembled. "That's the beach by my home in Maine—in Maine, I tell you! Safeharbor, Maine! But how did this get here?" His expression was one of dazed bewilderment.

"To me it showed my home also," Travis said slowly. "And now to you another scene. Perhaps to the man who once lived in this cabin it also showed his home. This is a magic thing, I think. Not the magic which your people have harnessed to do their will, nor the magic of my Old Ones either." Somehow the thought that this object bewildered the white man as much as it did him took away a little of the fear. Ashe raised his eyes from the scene of shore and sea to meet Travis'. Slowly he nodded.

"You may be guessing, but I'll stake a lot on your guess being right. What they knew, these people—what wonders they knew! We must learn all we can, follow them."

Travis laughed shakily. "Follow them we are, Doctor Ashe. About the learning—well, we shall see."

A figure edged along the narrow corridor, his cushioned feet barely touching the floor. In the timeless interior of the spaceship where there was no change between day and night, Travis had had to wait a long time for this particular moment. His brown hands, too thin nowadays, played with the fastening of his belt. Under that was a gnawing ache which never left him now.

They had stretched their water supply with strict rationing, and the concentrate bars the same way. But tomorrow—or in the next waking period they would arbitrarily label "tomorrow"—they would have only four of those small squares. And Travis was keenly aware not only of that indisputable fact but of something which Ross had said when they had argued out the need for experiment with alien food supplies.

"Case Renfry," the younger time agent had pointed out the obvious, "is certainly not going to be your tester. If we are ever going to be able to find out what makes this bus tick and get it started home again, he's the one to do it. And, chief"—he had then turned upon Ashe—"you've the best brain—it's up to you to help him. Maybe somewhere in this loot we've found you can locate a manual, or a do-it-yourself tape that'll give us a fair break."

They had been pulling over the material they had found in the cabins. Objects such as the disappearing picture were set aside on the hope that Ashe, with his archaeologist's training in the penetration of age-old mysteries, might understand them through study.

"Which," Ross had continued, "leaves the food problem up to a volunteer—me."

Travis had remained quiet, but he had also made plans. He had already followed Ross's reasoning to a logical end, but his conclusion differed from Murdock's. Of the four men on board he, not Murdock, was certainly the most expendable. And the history of his people testified that Apaches possessed remarkably tough digestions. They had been able to live off a land where other races starved. So—he was now engaged in his own private project.

Last sleep period he had tackled the first container chosen from the supply cupboard, the one which had sloshed when shaken. He had swallowed two large mouthfuls of a sickly sweet substance with the consistency of stew. And, while the taste had not been pleasant, Travis had suffered no discomfort afterward. Now he chose a small round can, prying off the lid quickly while listening for any warning from the corridor.

He had left Ross asleep in the small cabin they shared and had looked in upon Renfry and Ashe before he made this trek. There was so little time and he had to wait a reasonable period between each tasting.

Travis wanted a drink, but he knew better than to take one. He had palmed his concentrate bar at the last "meal," held the canteen to his mouth but not drunk, keeping his stomach empty. Now he studied his new selection with disgust.

It was a brown jelly that quivered slightly with the movement of the cylinder in his hand, its surface reflecting the light. Using the edge of the lid as an improvised spoon, Travis ladled a portion into his mouth. Unlike the stew, the stuff had little flavor, though he did not relish the greasy feel on his tongue. He swallowed, took a second helping. Then he chose a third sample—a square box. He would wait. If there were no ill effects from the jelly—then this. If he could prove four or five of these different containers held food the humans could stomach, they might have enough to outlast the voyage.

He did not return to his bunk. The magnetic bottoms of each container clung to the surface of the table, just as the thick soles of his suit feet clung to the walking surfaces in the ship when he planted them firmly. They had all adapted in a measure to the lack of gravity and the actual conditions of space flight. But Travis had a struggle to conceal his dislike of the ship itself, of the confinement forced upon them. And now, to sit alone brought him a fraction of comfort, for he dared to relax that strict control.

He had enjoyed the venture into time. The prehistoric world had been an open wilderness he could understand. But the ship was different. It seemed to him that the taint of death still clung to its small cabins, narrow corridors, and ladders. The very alienness of it was a menace far more acute than a sabertooth or a charging mammoth.

Once he had believed that he wanted to know more about the Old Ones. He had wanted to probe the mysteries which could be deduced from bits of broken pottery or an arrowhead pried from a dust-filled crevice. But those Old Ones had been distantly akin to him; those who had built this ship were not. For a moment or two his claustrophobia welled up, shaking his control, making him want to batter the walls about him with his fists, to beat his way out of this shell into the light, the air, into freedom.

But outside these walls there was no light, no air, and only the freedom of vacuum—or of the mysterious hyperspace that canceled the distance between the stars. Travis fought his imagination. He could not face that picture of the ship hanging in emptiness without even the frigid points of light to mark the stars—where there was nothing solid and stable.

The travelers could only hope that sometime they would reach the home port for which the dying alien pilot had set controls. But that course had been set twelve thousand—perhaps more—years ago. What port would they find waiting beyond the wall of time? Twelve-fifteen thousand years . . . These were figures too great for ordinary comprehension. At that time on earth, the first mud-walled villages had not yet been built, nor the first patch of grain sown to turn man from a wandering hunter into a householder. What had the Apache been then—and the white man? Roving hunters with skill in spear and knife and chasing game. Yet at that time the aliens had produced this ship, voyaged space, not only between the planets of a single system, but from star to star!

Travis tried to think of their future, but his thoughts kept sliding back to his craving for open space. He yearned to stand under the sun with wind—yes, even a desert wind hot and laden with grit—blowing against him. That longing was as acute as a pain—a pain!

His hands went to his middle. A sudden thrust of pure agony that rent him was not born out of any homesickness. The cramping was physical and very real. He bent half double, trying to ease that hot clawing in his insides as the cabin misted before his eyes. Then the stab was gone, and he straightened—until it caught him again. This was it. His luck at his second attempt with the alien food was bad.

Somehow he got to his feet, lurching against the table as a third bout of cramps caught him. The torture ebbed, leaving his hands and face wet. And in the few moments before the next pang he made it halfway along the corridor, reaching the haven he sought just as his outraged stomach finally revolted.

Travis would not have believed that two mouthfuls of a greasy jelly could so weaken a man. He pulled his spent body back to the mess cabin, dropping limply into a chair. More than anything now he wanted water, to cleanse the foulness from his mouth, to slake the burning in his throat. The canteens mocked him for he dare not take one up, knowing just how little of the precious liquid still remained.

For a while he hunched over the table, weakly glad of his freedom from pain. Then he drew the can of jelly to him. This must be marked poisonous. Only two containers had been tested—and how many more would prove impossible?