"Take care of yourself, Andy." Fuller looked painfully reflective, then
suddenly held out the bottle. "Here, Andy, you take this. You might
need it."
Pearce watched with a deep inward aching as Fuller and Ellen strode
from the glade. Reaching the trees, they turned to look back at him.
They hesitated, waved--were gone.
Pearce felt that the last door to the past had been irrevocably closed.
He looked down at the bottle he was holding and lifted it to his mouth.
Then he lighted a cigarette, glanced at his watch again, and fell to
pacing along one edge of the glade. His eyes roved tensely about him,
expectant and dreading.
Thoughts shifted uneasily in his mind. Would Nela actually appear?
Fifteen years had passed for him--a matter of a few hours to her.
But perhaps something had gone wrong. Perhaps she had miscalculated
somewhere.
And on mental scales he balanced Ellen against the future, wondering if
his choice had been wise. Could the future possibly hold the happiness
he might have known with Ellen, in the age familiar to him?
He heard a car motor start up in the distance. The sound rose in
volume, then began fading. Dave and Ellen were on their way back to
the city.
He felt suddenly alone--somehow abandoned.
Raising the bottle to his lips again, he resumed his nervous pacing.
And then he stopped, frozen, aware of a change in his surroundings.
The air in the glade was thickening queerly, the trees all around were
growing crazily distorted. And he heard a deep humming sound--the kind
of sound that might have been made by a string on a giant harp.
Across the glade, appearing as though from nothingness itself,
an object was taking shape--a metal globe. Bands of distortion
surrounded it like ripples in water. For an instant the globe seemed
unsubstantial, illusory--then it was solid, resting quietly on the
floor of the glade.
[Illustration: Andy stood out in the small clearing, waving a goodbye
to them, while behind him a strange metallic globe suddenly shimmered
in the air....]
Pearce watched it, his heart pounding.
"Andy!"
The call hit him like a physical blow. Stunned, he whirled to see Ellen
hurrying toward him through the trees.
"Andy!" she cried again. "Are you all right?"
"Ellen!" he gasped. "What are you doing here? I thought you left with
Dave."
* * * * *
She caught breathlessly at his arm, steadying herself. "I made him go
without me. I ... I couldn't leave you, Andy." Her voice rose. "I'm
going with you!"
His mind whirled in dismayed confusion. He sent a swift glance at the
metal globe. Any moment now, the door would open--
"Ellen, you can't go!"
"Why not? I'm willing to take the risk. And I'll be happy, whatever the
future is like, as long as I'm with you."
He shook his head in despair. "It ... well, I'm afraid it's just
impossible, that's all. No provision has been made for you. I don't
know even if there would be room for you. I don't know if Nela can
allow you in her plans, or--"
He broke off. Glancing at the globe again, he saw that the door was
opening.
He waited for Nela to appear, wondering what her reaction would be when
she saw Ellen, wondering how this hopelessly tangled situation could
possibly be resolved.
The door of the globe stood fully open. Nothing else happened.
Pearce waited a moment longer, puzzled, then slowly looked into the
globe. Except for two padded seats and a myriad of instruments on the
curving walls, the interior of the machine was empty.
He turned in bewilderment to Ellen. "Something's wrong! Nela isn't
inside."
Ellen looked gravely thoughtful. "Andy, I think I know what happened
to her. She was an authority on Twentieth Century life, you know. She
no doubt had all sorts of records to help her. She could speak the
kind of English used here, she understood social customs, the economic
situation, knew how to dress and act. What she didn't know, she could
pick up by being careful and observing. In short, she could pass as an
ordinary Twentieth Century girl, and hardly anyone would guess she was
different."