And beyond it was not the gloomily raftered feast-hall of a Nazi baron,
with gray March outside its windows--but a woodland rich with high
summer. A breeze stole in from that preposterous outdoors and brought
warmth and scent of firs, and of something else.... Suddenly there was
a crashing in the thicket, a thud of racing hooves. "A deer," said
Manning stupidly. "Something must have scared it." Dugan, sweating with
his back to the door, relaxed slightly.
Like an echo from behind Manning came a dry cackle of laughter. He
faced about again; his glare stilled even the Herr Doktor's hysterical
glee.
"All right, how'd you do it?" he snapped in English, then, with
returning control: "_Erklaren Sie das sogleich!_"
"_Gern_," grinned the scientist. "This room, all of it, is my
invention. It was built into the house, but when I closed the switch,
it moved, and left the house behind."
"Where are we, then? No riddles!"
"It is simple enough. What you see outside is the world of the
future--no longer future to us, but present, though about a hundred
years removed from the 'present' which we have just left. This room is
my time traveler--_der Kahl'sche Zeitfahrer!_"
Meantime Dugan had taken a look out the door. He said nothing, but his
eyes grew larger and larger in a paling face. Manning told him, tersely
and without comment, what Kahl claimed to have done; in his own mind he
had already accepted it as truth, the only possible explanation for the
seeming impossible. He said stonily to the German: "The demonstration
of your invention is very interesting. But now we must deliver it to
American Intelligence, who will appreciate your genius. Set the machine
to take us back where we came from."
"I could not if I would," retorted Kahl. "Because of your interference,
I had no opportunity to make adjustments. I merely threw the activating
switch, and the _Zeitfahrer_ exhausted its power before coming to a
stop. You see, the switch is still closed. Only the field has collapsed
as the batteries went dead."
There was a sound like a sob. It came from the hard-faced Wolfgang. The
man's patent terror was more convincing than Kahl's assertions.
Manning eyed him coldly, inwardly surprised at his own reaction to
the news that they were stranded. Perhaps he was still dazed by the
incredible--but his chief emotion was a waxing excitement and wonder at
the thought of seeing with his own eyes that world of the future about
which people dreamed and speculated, cursing the shortness of their
lives....
Dugan had guessed more than he had understood the meaning of Kahl's
words. But to him the situation suggested more routine concerns.
"Say, Ray," he inquired, "do you suppose we're AWOL?"
"I don't think so," Manning choked down an impulse to wild laughter.
"No more than a guy that's blown off his post by an 88. Anyway, I
don't remember any General Order that says you've got to be in the
right year. But our program now will have to be: get oriented in this
place, this time, I mean, and dig up some fresh batteries to send this
thing back to 1945. In the twenty-first century batteries shouldn't be
scarce; we'll just have to be careful about contacting the natives, so
we don't get tossed in jail or the booby hatch.... To begin with, let's
get out of here. This damn traveling vault is getting on my nerves." He
motioned at Kahl and Wolfgang. "Outside."
Kahl didn't stir; his eyes narrowed slyly. "There is no sense in your
treating us as prisoners, now. The war is ancient history."
"Until further notice," said Manning, "we'll continue as of 1945. Move!"
Grudgingly they moved. Kahl growled over his shoulder, "One thing does
not seem to have occurred to you. This is _Germany_ of the future,
where Wolfgang and I are much more likely to find friends than you are."
* * * * *
Manning did not answer. He had halted, stiffening, on the time
machine's threshold, and sniffed the air critically. To him came sudden
recognition of the scent which mingled, strengthening, with that of
spruce and fir: a heavy, tarry odor of burning. He looked upwind.
Through the rifts of the treetops were clearly visible clouds of black
smoke, boiling upward against the blue sky. Flames flickered angrily
beneath, and to Manning's ears came the faint but subtly all-pervasive
crackling of the fire. It was drowned out briefly by the alarmed
croakings of a flight of ravens that circled overhead and then flapped
away, and in the relative stillness that followed another sound was
audible--that of human voices, raised in shouts and commands.
"Looks like the local fire department's on the job," remarked Dugan.
"The fire!" exclaimed Kahl hoarsely. "It is blowing toward us--If it
reaches the _Zeitfahrer_--"
"Guess the man's right," said Manning. "If that is the fire department,
we'd better get in touch with them." All four started to run,
quartering across the visible face of the blaze toward the voices'
source.
They had covered a hundred yards when from ahead, sharp above the
snapping flames, a shot spanged. The two Americans instinctively hugged
the ground; Kahl and Wolfgang, in advance, froze and stared at the
screen of firs. From just beyond exploded a violent fusillade, with the
hasty clatter of automatic fire setting the tempo; and in the midst of
all the shooting was the noise of a racing motor and a rackety whir
that could come only from spinning propeller blades.
The sound rose and seemed to hang overhead. Manning looked up and
thought for an instant that he glimpsed the dark moving shape of
a flying thing; but when he looked straight at the spot there was
nothing. A moment later he was conscious that the roar of the engine
had ceased and with it the noise of firing. The crackle of the forest
fire came as from far away to deafened ears.
Dugan and Manning looked blankly at one another. They got to their feet
and stood in indecision.
"Damned if I know," said Manning bewilderedly. "For a minute I thought
we'd landed in the middle of another war. Now I don't know whether it
was real or--"
"_Halt!_" barked a keyed-up voice on their right. "_Still-gestanden,
oder ich schiesse!_"
The man who had appeared from the bushes, despite the unfamiliar
uniform he wore, was at least real. So was the tommy gun he trained on
the group, and the look of vicious eagerness that twisted his face.
"_Das Gewehr fallen lassen!_" he shouted.
"Better drop it," said Manning quietly to his companion. "We don't know
what the score is yet. And that guy _wants_ to shoot."
Other uniformed figures appeared behind the first man. All of them were
armed and looked excited and dangerous. But surprising was the caution,
amounting to anxiety, with which they fanned out and kept their weapons
leveled; they seemed to expect some formidable and disconcerting
counterattack from the disbanded and outnumbered captives.
The first arrival jerked a thumb toward the way he had come; his manner
didn't encourage protest. And Manning, who had read science fiction
stories, reflected that a time traveler's best bet was to keep his
mouth shut.
Beyond the fir grove a meadow-like clearing opened out. Smoke was
drifting across it and the fire licking at its edges, but that didn't
seem to be what was bothering the men who swarmed about it. Some of
them were squinting into the bright summer sky, nervously fingering
guns, others arguing in loud groups. A crowd clustered about a
helicopter which perched on the grass with slowly revolving vanes.
Toward it the four prisoners were marched.
* * * * *
Under the intermittent shadow of the helicopter's blades a big man in
curiously patterned civilian garments stood with arms akimbo, facing a
soldier who was ramrod-stiff and obviously embarrassed before him.
"There was no chance, Herr Schwinzog," the latter was insisting. "They
wore _Tarnkappen_, and they were inside the machine and had the engine
going before we knew that anything was wrong. We fired on them as they
rose, and they made the helicopter invisible. Of course, then it was
too late to stop them--without shutting off the power over the whole
district, and that would mean chaos--"
"Of course it was too late," said Herr Schwinzog bitingly, "since it
was already too late when you started thinking. You may as well put
your report in writing, Captain, and hope that your superiors don't see
fit to demote you. For my part, I shall use my influence to see that
they do."
He pivoted, grinding his heel into the turf, and snapped at the man at
his elbow: "What is it?"
The soldier saluted jerkily. "Unauthorized persons, Herr Schwinzog. We
apprehended four of them about two hundred meters to the northwest. Two
were armed."
"Hum!" grunted the big man explosively. His eyes narrowed, coming to
rest on the group of captives. His scrutiny was chillily penetrating.
He held it on them while the shadows of the helicopter vanes swept
across his face a dozen times. Then he said flatly, in slightly
accented English: "You, no doubt, are Americans?"
Manning was silent, feeling the dream-sense of unreality overcome him
again. That question tangled time and space--it and another thing:
around the left arm of Schwinzog's oddly cut coat was a broad band,
and in a circle on it sprawled a stark black swastika. A hundred
years ago--if a hundred years _had_ passed--American armies had been
trampling that emblem in mud and blood.
But Dr. Pankraz Kahl burst out, "_Wir sind keine Amerikaner! Wir_--"
including himself and Wolfgang with a sweep of the arm, "_sind
Deutsche!_"
Schwinzog regarded him expressionlessly. "And you?" he turned abruptly
on Manning and Dugan.
"We're Americans," said Manning steadily, in English. Schwinzog's face
did not change. But something in the look with which he had received
Kahl's statement had jangled an alarm in Manning's brain. And he was
still determined to keep his mouth shut and his ears open as much as
possible.
Immediately he knew he had been right; for Schwinzog turned again to
Kahl. "You say you are German. Your citizen's card, then."
The Herr Doktor started automatically to fumble at a pocket, then
paused and made a wry face. "I--we have no such papers as you want.
Naturally, since we--"
"Since you are spies?" Schwinzog folded his arms and the fingers of his
right hand caressed his swastika brassard.
"That is ridiculous!" shouted Kahl. "I am trying to explain to you that
we are visitors from your past! We come from a hundred years ago!"
For the first time Schwinzog looked interested. "And how do you explain
your presence in the year 2051 _nach der Zeitwende_?"
The scientist was soothed. "I am Dr. Pankraz Kahl, member of
the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft, inventor of the world's first
_Zeitfahrer_."
"A time traveler? A machine of some sort?"
"Of course."
"Then where is this machine?"
"Back there in the forest--the forest! The fire! It may have reached
it--" Kahl plucked at Schwinzog's coatsleeve. "You must save my
invention--"