Time Traders (34 page)

Only five concentrate bars were left, counting the one he had hidden that day. Nothing was going to multiply that five into ten—or into two hundred. If they were to survive the voyage of unknown duration, they
must
use some of this other food. But Travis could not control the shaking of his hands as he worked to free the lid of the square box. Maybe he was rushing things, taking another sample so soon after the disastrous effects of the other. But he knew that if he did not, right now, he might not be able to force himself to the third attempt later.

The lid came free and he saw inside dry squares of red. To his questing finger these had the texture of something between bread and a harder biscuit. He raised the can to sniff. For the first time the odor was faintly familiar. Tortillas paper-thin and crisp from the baking had an aroma not unlike this. And because the cakes did arouse pleasant memories, Travis bit into one with more eagerness than he would have believed possible moments earlier.

The stuff crumbled between his teeth like corn bread, and he thought the flavor was much the same, in spite of the unusual color. He chewed and swallowed. And the mouthful, dry as it was, appeared to erase the burning left by the jelly. The taste was so good that he ventured to take more than a few bites, finishing the first cake and then a second. Finally, still holding the box in one hand, he slumped lower in his seat, his eyes closing as his worn body demanded rest.

He was riding. There was the entrance to Red Horse Canyon, and the scent of juniper was in the air. A bird flew up—his eyes followed that free flight. An eagle! The bird of power, ascending far up into a cloudless sky. But suddenly the sky was no longer blue, but black with a blackness not born of night. It was black, and caught in it were stars. The stars grew swiftly larger—because he was being drawn up into the blackness where there were only stars . . .

Travis opened heavy-lidded eyes, looked up foggily at a blue figure. Looming over him was a thin, drawn face, slight hollows marked the cheeks, dark smudges under cold gray eyes.

"Ross!" The Apache lifted his head from his arm, wincing at the painful crick in his back.

The other sat down across the table, glanced from the array of supply containers to Travis and back again.

"So this is what you've been doing!" There was accusation in his tone, almost a note of outrage.

"You said yourself it was a job for the most expendable."

"Trying to be a hero on the quiet!" Now the accusation was plain and hot.

"Not much of a one." Travis rested his chin on his fist and considered the containers lined up before him. "I've sampled three so far—exactly three."

Ross's eyelids flickered down. His usual control was back in place, though Travis did not doubt the antagonism was still eating at him.

"With what results?"

"Number one"—Travis indicated the proper can—"too sweet, kind of a stew—but it stays with you in spite of the taste. This is number two." He tapped the tin of brown jelly. "I'd say its only use was to get rid of wolves. This"—he cradled the can of red cakes—"is really good."

"How long have you been at it?"

"I tried one last sleep period, two this."

"Poison, eh?" Ross picked up the tin of jelly, inspecting its contents.

"If it isn't poison, it puts up a good bluff," Travis shot back a little heatedly, stung by the suggestion of skepticism.

Ross set it down. "I'll take your word for it," he conceded. "What about this little number?" He had arisen to stand before the cupboard, and now he turned, holding a shallow, round canister. It was hard to open, but at last they looked at some small dark balls in yellow sauce.

"D'you know, those might just be beans," Ross observed. "I've yet to see any service ship where beans in some form or other didn't turn up on the menu. Let's see if they eat like beans." He scooped up a good mouthful and chewed thoughtfully. "Beans—no—I'd say they taste more like cabbage—which had been spiced up a bit. But not bad, not bad at all!"

Travis found himself nursing a small wicked desire to have the cabbage-beans do their worst to Ross, not with as devastating results as the jelly—he wouldn't wish
that
on anyone! But if they would just make themselves felt enough to prove to Murdock that food testing was not as easy as all that . . .

"Waiting for them to turn me inside out?" Ross grinned.

Travis flushed and then the stain spread and deepened on his cheeks as he realized how he had given himself away. He pushed the cracker-bread to one side and got up to select with inward—if not outward—defiance a tall cylinder which sloshed as he pried at its cap.

"Misery loves company," Ross continued. "What does that smell like?"

Travis had been encouraged by his discovery of the bread. He sniffed hopefully at the cone opening, then snatched the holder away from his nose as a white froth began to puff out.

"Maybe you have the push-button soap," Ross commented unhelpfully. "Give the stuff a lick, fella, you have only one stomach to lose for your country."

Travis, so goaded, licked—suspicious and expecting something entirely unpalatable. But, to his surprise, though it was sweet, the froth was not so sickly as the stew had been. Rather, the result on the tongue was refreshing, carrying satisfaction for his craving for water. He gulped a bigger mouthful and sat waiting, a little tensely, for fireworks to begin inside him.

"Good?" Ross inquired. "Well, your luck can't be rotten all the time."

"This luck is mixed." Travis capped the foam which had continued to boil wastefully from the bottle. "We're alive—and we're still traveling."

"Traveling is right. A little more information as to our destination would be useful and comforting—or the reverse."

"The world the builders of this ship owned can't be too different from ours," Travis repeated observations made earlier by Ashe. "We can breathe their air without discomfort, and maybe eat some of their food."

"Twelve thousand years . . . D'you know, I can say that but I can't make it mean anything real." Ross's hostility had either vanished or been submerged. "You say the words but you can't stretch your imagination to make them picture something for you—or do you know what I mean?" he challenged.

Travis, rasped on an ancient raw spot, schooled his temper before he replied. "A little. I did four years at State U. There's more to us than beads and feathers."

Ross glanced up, a flicker of puzzlement in those cold gray eyes.

"I didn't mean it like that—for what it's worth." Then he smiled and for the first time there was nothing superior or sardonic in that expression. "Want the whole truth, fella? I picked up what education I had before I went into the Project the hard way—no State U. But you studied the chief's racket—archaeology—didn't you?"

"Yes."

"So—what does twelve thousand years mean to you? You deal with time in big doses, don't you?"

"That's a long span on our world, jumps one clear back to the cave period."

"Yeah—before they put up the pyramids of Egypt—before they learned to read and write. Well, twelve thousand years ago, these blue boys had the stars for theirs. But I'm betting they haven't kept them! There hasn't been a single country on our world, not even China, that has had a form of civilization lasting that long. Up they climb and then—" he snapped his fingers. "It's kaput for them, and another top dog takes over the power. So maybe when we get to this port Renfry believes we're homing for, we'll find nothing, or else someone else waiting for us there. You can bet one way or another and have a good chance of winning on either count. Only, if we do find nothing—then maybe our number's up for sure."

Travis had to accept the logic of that. Suppose they did come into a port which had ceased to exist, set down on a strange world from which they could not lift again because they had not the skill to pilot the ship. They would be exiles for the rest of their lives in a space uncharted by their kind.

"We're not dead yet," Travis said.

Ross laughed. "In spite of all our efforts? No—that's our private battle cry, I think. As long as a man's alive he's going to keep kicking. But it would be good to know just how long we're going to be shut up in this ship." His usual flippancy of tone thinned at that last remark as if his carefully cultivated self-sufficiency was beginning to show the slimmest of cracks.

In the end their experiments with the food were partially successful. The crackers Travis continued to label "corn"; the foam and Ross's cabbage-beans could be digested by a human being without difficulty. And they added to that list a sticky paste with the consistency of jam and a flavor approaching bacon, and another cake-like object which, despite a sour tang that puckered the mouth, was still edible. Greatly daring, Travis tapped the aliens' water supply and drank. Though the liquid had an unpleasant metallic aftertaste, it was not harmful.

In addition the younger members of the involuntary crew made themselves useful in the cautious investigations carried on by Ashe and Renfry. The technician was in an almost constant state of frustration during the hours he spent in the control cabin trying to study machines he dared not activate or dismantle for the fuller examination he longed to make. Travis was seated behind him one morning—at least it was ten o'clock by Renfry's watch, their only method of time-keeping—when there
was
a change to report, to report and take action on.

A shrill buzz pierced the usual silence, beeping what must be a warning. Renfry grabbed at the small mike of the ship's com circuit.

"Strap down!" He rasped the order with rising excitement. "There's an alert sounding here—we may be coming in to land. Strap down!"

Travis grabbed at the protecting bands on his chair. Below they must be scrambling for the bunks. There was vibration again—he was sure he could not mistake that. The ship no longer felt inert and drifting—she was coming alive.

What followed was again beyond his powers of description. It came in two stages, the first a queasy whirl of sensation not far removed from what they had experienced when the ship had been whirled through the time transfer. Limp from that, Travis lay back, watching the screen which had been blank for so long. And when his eyes caught what was now appearing there, he gave a cry of recognition.

"That's the sun!"

A point of blazing yellow set a beacon in the black of space.

"A sun," Renfry corrected. "We've made the big hop. Now it's the homestretch—into the system . . ."

That blaze of yellow-red was already sliding away from the screen. Travis had an impression that the ship must be slowly rotating. Now that the brighter glare of the sun was gone he could pick up a smaller dot, far smaller than the sun which nurtured it. That held steady on the screen.

"Something tells me, boy," Renfry said in a small and hesitant voice, "that's where we're going."

"Earth?" A warm surge of hope spread through Travis.

"An earth maybe—but not ours."

"We're down." Renfry's voice, thin, harsh, broke the silence of the control cabin. His hands moved to the edge of the panel of levers and buttons before him, fell helplessly on it. Though he had had nothing to do with that landing, he seemed drained by some great effort.

"Home port?" Travis got the words out between dry lips. The descent had not been as nerve- and body-wracking as their take-off from his native world, but it had been bad enough. Either the aliens' bodies were better attuned to the tempo of their ships, or else one acquired, through painful experience, conditioning to such jolts.

"How would I know?" Renfry flared, plainly eaten by his own frustration.

Their window on the outside world, the screen, did mirror sky again. But not the normal Earth sky with its blue blaze which Travis knew and longed to see again. This was a blue closer to the green hue of turquoise mined in his hills. There was something cold and inimical in that sky.

Piercing the open space was a structure which glinted like metal. But the smoothness of those dull red surfaces ended in a jagged splinter, raw against the blue-green, plainly marking a ruin.

Travis unfastened his seat straps and stumbled to his feet, his body once more adjusting clumsily to the return of gravity. As much as he had come to dislike the ship, to want his freedom from it, at this moment he had no desire to emerge under that turquoise sky and examine the ruin pictured on the screen. And just because he felt reluctance, he fought against it by going.

In the end they all gathered at the space lock while Renfry opened the fastening, then went on to the outer door. The technician glanced back over his shoulder.

"Helmets fastened?" His voice boomed hollowly inside the sphere now resting on Travis' shoulders and secured by a close-fitting harness. Ashe had discovered those and had tested them, preparing for this time when they might dare a foray into the unknown. The bubble was equipped with no cumbersome oxygen tanks. It worked on no principle Renfry was able to discover, but the aliens had used these and the humans must trust to their efficiency now.

The outer port swung back into the skin of the ship. Renfry kicked out the landing ladder and backed down it. But each of them, as he emerged from the globe, glanced quickly around.

What lay below was a wide sweep of hard white surface which must cover miles of territory. This was broken at intervals by a series of structures of the dull red, metallic material set in triangles and squares. In the center of each of those was a space marked with black rings. None of the red structures was whole, and the landing field—if that was what it was—had the sterile look of a place long abandoned.

"Another ship . . ." Ashe's arm swung up, his voice came to Travis through the helmet com.

There was a second globe, all right, reposing about a quarter of a mile away on one of the squares among the buildings. And beyond that Travis spotted a third. But nowhere was there any sign of life. He felt wind, soft, almost caressing, against his bare hands.

They descended the ladder and stood in a group at the foot of their own ship, a little uncertain as to what to do next.