"Metasteel," Trelawney said, "and thank God for that. The building's
sound; the stresses haven't affected it. We'll have some anchor points.
A clamp piton against that wall, six feet above the console walk and in
line with it, another one against the doorframe here, and we can rope
across."
Dowland saw it, unsnapped his harness, fed the end of the magnerope
through the eye of a piton, and twisted it tight. "Are we going
together?" he asked.
Trelawney shook his head. "You're going, Dowland. Sorry about that, but
this is no time for sporting gestures. The rope doesn't eliminate the
danger. But if you find your feet suddenly dangling over the air of a
very old time, you'll still stay here--I hope. If you don't make it
across, I'll follow. We get two chances to shut Ymir down instead of
one. All right?"
"Since you have the gun, yes," Dowland said. "If I had it, it would be
the other way around."
"Of course," Trelawney agreed. He watched in silence then as Dowland
rammed the threaded piton down the muzzle of the gun, locked it in
position, took aim across the machine platform, and fired. The piton
clamp made a slapping sound against the far wall, froze against it.
Dowland gave the loose end of the rope a few tugs, said, "Solid," cut
the rope, and handed the end to Trelawney.
The Freeholder reached up to set a second piton against the doorframe,
fed a loop of the rope through it, and twisted it tight. Dowland
slipped a set of grappling gloves out of the harness, pulled one over
his right hand, tossed the other to Trelawney. "In case," he said, "you
have to follow. Magnerope gets to be wearing on bare hands."
Trelawney looked briefly surprised, then grinned. "Thanks," he said.
"Can you do it with one glove?"
"No strain at that distance."
"Too bad you're not a Terran, Dowland. We could have used you."
"I'm satisfied," Dowland said. "Any point in waiting now for another
run of those cracks in space before making the trip?"
Trelawney shook his head. "None at all, I'm afraid. From what I saw,
there's no more regularity in those stress patterns than there is in a
riptide. You see how the rope is jerking right now--you'll get pulled
around pretty savagely, I'd say, even if you don't run into open splits
on the way across."
* * * * *
Dowland was fifteen feet from the door, half running with both hands
on the rope, when something plucked at him. He strained awkwardly
sideways, feet almost lifting from the floor. Abruptly he was released,
went stumbling forward a few steps before the next invisible current
tugged at him, pulling him downward now. It was a very much stronger
pull, and for endless seconds it continued to build up. His shoulders
seemed ready to snap before he suddenly came free again.
The rest of the way to the platform remained almost undisturbed, but
Dowland was trembling with tensions before he reached it; he could feel
the drag of the AR field on his breathing. The steps to the platform
were a dozen feet to his right--too far from the rope. Dowland put his
weight on the rope, swung forward and up, let the rope go and came
down on the narrow walk between instrument board and machine section.
The panels shone with their own light; at the far end he saw the
flow-control wheel Trelawney had indicated, a red pointer opposite the
numeral "5." Dowland took two steps toward it, grasped the wheel, and
spun it down.
The pointer stopped at "1." He heard it click into position there.
Instantly, something slammed him sideways against the console, sent
him staggering along it, and over the low railing at the end of the
platform. The floor seemed to be shuddering as he struck it, and then
to tilt slowly. Dowland rolled over, came up on hands and knees, facing
back toward the platform. Daylight blazed again in the building behind
him, and the roar of a river that rolled through another time filled
his ears. He got to his feet, plunged back toward the whipping rope
above the platform. The light and the roaring cut off as he grasped the
rope, flashed back into the building, cut off again. Somewhere somebody
had screamed....
Dowland swung about on the rope, went handing himself along it, back
toward the door. His feet flopped about over the floor, unable to get
a stand there for more than an instant. It was a struggle now to get
enough air through the antiradiation field into his lungs. He saw dust
whip past the open door, momentarily obscuring it. The building bucked
with earthquake fury. And where was Trelawney?
He saw the red, wet thing then, lying by the wall just inside the door;
and sickness seized him because Trelawney's body was stretched out
too far to make it seem possible it had ever been that of a man. Dust
blasted in through the door as he reached it, and subsided, leaving a
choking residue trapped within the radiation screen. If he could only
cut off the field....
* * * * *
His gun lay too close to the sodden mess along the wall. Dowland picked
it up, was bending to snatch the climbing harness from the floor when
light flared behind him again. Automatically, he looked back.
Once more the interior of the building seemed to have split apart.
Wider now. He saw the rushing white current below. To the right, above
the forest on the bank, the sun was a swollen red ball glaring through
layers of mist. And to the left, moving slowly over the river in the
blaze of long-dead daylight, was something both unmistakable and not
to be believed. But, staring at it in the instant before the scene
shivered and vanished again, Dowland suddenly thought he knew what had
happened here.
What he had seen was a spaceship.
He turned, went stumbling hurriedly out the door into the whistling
wind, saw Jill Trelawney standing there, white-faced, eyes huge, hands
to her mouth.