There followed a moment of excited voice-sounds, and once or twice Rog
Tanlu answered, faintly, words I could not understand.
Suddenly, reaching down, the thing picked him up in its jointed metal
arms and started to carry him on up the passageway.
For a moment I stood there, saddened and appalled by this grim turn of
fate. Then I began running up the slope after them. But so swiftly did
that metal thing stride on before me that the blast of glacial air from
the Ice Stone was hissing in my ears before I overtook them.
"Rog Tanlu!" I cried. "Where--?"
"The healing ray," his voice came back to me. "You do not have it ...
my good friend.... But somewhere ... in the Future ... it will be
rediscovered. Eyoaoc Eiioiei will take me ... on into the Future ...
through the Ice Stone ... again and again if necessary ... until we
find it--"
His voice ceased. For Eyoaoc Eiioiei had not paused, but had continued
on straight into that frigid blast.
I caught a last vague glimpse of that nightmare shape disappearing into
the Ice Stone.
* * * * *
There is but little more to tell. Those assassins from the Past
were all dead, as I discovered when I left the cavern--Rog Tanlu's
laboratory.
I buried what was left of little rawboned Doctor Champ in the sand at
the foot of that cliff below the Ice Stone.
Then I headed back in the truck for Qum, the Holy City. Three days
later the fuel ran out. I do not know what plans Doc had made for
replenishing it, but whatever they were he hadn't put me wise. So I
left the truck there at the edge of a mud-salt swamp and went on afoot.
Two weeks later, more dead than alive, I arrived at Qum and tried to
give warning.
It may seem queer, but until that moment I had not worried over the
chance of my word being doubted. Moreover, the one substantiating
exhibit I had thought to bring along--that fawn-colored silk garment of
Rog Tanlu's--I had been forced to abandon along with the truck.
I soon realized that if I persisted in trying to tell the truth, one of
two things would happen: I would either be locked up as a nut, or, if I
managed to convince certain Iranian officials, then the "Most Lofty of
Living Men"--the Shah--might possibly send a few airplanes out there to
bomb the Ice Stone "out of existence," as they lightly and humorously
suggested.
I doubt that this could be done. If the Ice Stone were dislodged from
its setting, there in the mountain-cliff where it was installed by its
maker--Rog Tanlu--who knows what world-catastrophe might not result?
So at last I gave up.
At Bandar Shahpur I caught a boat for home.
But I am now dickering with a certain Pennsylvania university. They
are interested in the disappearance of Dr. Champ Chadwick, and I've
offered to act as guide if they will send a party of scientists out to
investigate the Ice Stone. Perhaps something may come of it--before it
is too late.
But then I get to thinking of how Eyoaoc Eiioiei is carrying his
wounded master on and on into the Future in search of a "healing ray!"