It took Ross a while to learn that the dirty-white walls of this tunnel
which were almost entirely opaque, with dark objects showing dimly
through them here and there, were of solid ice. A black wire was hooked
overhead and at regular intervals hung with lights which did nothing to
break the sensation of glacial cold about them.
Ross shuddered. Every breath he drew stung in his lungs; his bare
shoulders and arms and the exposed section of thigh between kilt and
boot were numb. He could only move on stiffly, pushed ahead by his
guards when he faltered. He guessed that were he to lose his footing
here and surrender to the cold, he would forfeit the battle entirely and
with it his life.
He had no way of measuring the length of the boring through the solid
ice, but they were at last fronted by another opening, a ragged one
which might have been hacked with an ax. They emerged from it into the
wildest scene Ross had ever seen. Of course, he was familiar with ice
and snow, but here was a world surrendered completely to the brutal
force of winter in a strange, abnormal way. It was a still, dead
white-gray world in which nothing moved save the wind which curled the
drifts.
His guards covered their eyes with the murky lenses they had worn pushed
up on their foreheads within the shelter, for above them sunlight
dazzled on the ice crest. Ross, his eyes smarting, kept his gaze
centered on his feet. He was given no time to look about. A rope was
produced, a loop of it flipped in a noose about his throat, and he was
towed along like a leashed dog. Before them was a path worn in the snow,
not only by the passing of booted feet, but with more deeply scored
marks as if heavy objects had been sledded there. Ross slipped and
stumbled in the ruts, fearing to fall lest he be dragged. The numbness
of his body reached into his head. He was dizzy, the world about him
misting over now and again with a haze which arose from the long
stretches of unbroken snow fields.
Tripping in a rut, he went down upon one knee, his flesh too numbed now
to feel the additional cold of the snow, snow so hard that its crust
delivered a knife's cut. Unemotionally, he watched a thin line of red
trickle in a sluggish drop or two down the blue skin of his leg. The
rope jerked him forward, and Ross scrambled awkwardly until one of his
captors hooked a fur mitten in his belt and heaved him to his feet once
more.
The purpose of that trek through the snow was obscure to Ross. In fact,
he no longer cared, save that a hard rebel core deep inside him would
not let him give up as long as his legs could move and he had a scrap of
conscious will left in him. It was more difficult to walk now. He
skidded and went down twice more. Then, the last time he slipped, he
sledded past the man who led him, sliding down the slope of a
glass-slick slope. He lay at the foot, unable to get up. Through the
haze and deadening blanket of the cold he knew that he was being pulled
about, shaken, generally mishandled; but this time he could not respond.
Someone snapped open the rings about his wrists.
There was a call, echoing eerily across the ice. The fumbling about his
body changed to a tugging and once more he was sent rolling down the
slope. But the rope was now gone from his throat, and his arms were
free. This time when he brought up hard against an obstruction he was
not followed.
Ross's conscious mind--that portion of him that was Rossa, the
trader--was content to lie there, to yield to the lethargy born of the
frigid world about him. But the subconscious Ross Murdock of the Project
prodded at him. He had always had a certain cold hatred which could
crystalize and become a spur. Once it had been hatred of circumstances
and authority; now it became hatred for those who had led him into this
wilderness with the purpose, as he knew now, of leaving him to freeze
and die.
Ross pulled his hands under him. Though there was no feeling in them,
they obeyed his will clumsily. He levered himself up and looked around.
He lay in a narrow crevicelike cut, partly walled in by earth so frozen
as to resemble steel. Crusted over it in long streaks from above were
tongues of ice. To remain here was to serve his captors' purpose.
Ross inched his way to his feet. This opening, which was intended as his
grave, was not so deep as the men had thought it in their hurry to be
rid of him. He believed that he could climb out if he could make his
body answer to his determination.
Somehow Ross made that supreme effort and came again to the rutted path
from which they had tumbled him. Even if he could, there was no sense in
going along that rutted trail, for it led back to the ice-encased
building from which he had been brought. They had thrust him out to
die; they would not take him in.
But a road so well marked must have some goal, and in hopes that he
might find shelter at the other end, Ross turned to the left. The trace
continued down the slope. Now the towering walls of ice and snow were
broken by rocky teeth as if they had bitten deep upon this land, only to
be gnawed in return. Rounding one of those rock fangs, Ross looked at a
stretch of level ground. Snow lay here, but the beaten-down trail led
straight through it to the rounded side of a huge globe half buried in
the ground, a globe of dark material which could only be man-made.
Ross was past caution. He must get to warmth and shelter or he was done
for, and he knew it. Wavering and weaving, he went on, his attention
fixed on the door ahead--a closed oval door. With a sob of exhausted
effort, Ross threw himself against it. The barrier gave, letting him
fall forward into a queer glimmering radiance of bluish light.
The light rousing him because it promised more, he crawled on past
another door which was flattened back against the inner wall. It was
like making one's way down a tube. Ross paused, pressing his lifeless
hands against his bare chest under the edge of his tunic, suddenly
realizing that there was warmth here. His breath did not puff out in
frosty streamers before him, nor did the air sear his lungs when he
ventured to draw in more than shallow gulps.
With that realization a measure of animal caution returned to him. To
remain where he was, just inside the entrance, was to court disaster. He
must find a hiding place before he collapsed, for he sensed he was very
near the end of his ability to struggle. Hope had given him a flash of
false strength, the impetus to move, and he must make the most of that
gift.
His path ended at a wide ladder, coiling in slow curves into gloom below
and shadows above. He sensed that he was in a building of some size. He
was afraid to go down, for even looking in that direction almost
finished his sense of balance, so he climbed up.
Step by step, Ross made that painful journey, passing levels from which
three or four hallways ran out like the radii of a spider's web. He was
close to the end of his endurance when he heard a sound, echoed,
magnified, from below. It was someone moving. He dragged his body into
the fourth level where the light was very faint, hoping to crawl far
enough into one of the passages to remain unseen from the stair. But he
had gone only part-way down his chosen road when he collapsed, panting,
and fell back against the wall. His hands pawed vainly against that
sleek surface. He was falling through it!
Ross had a second, perhaps two, of stupefied wonder. Lying on a soft
surface, he was enfolded by a warmth which eased his bruised and frozen
body. There was a sharp prick in his thigh, another in his arm, and the
world was a hazy dream until he finally slept in the depths of
exhaustion.
There were dreams, detailed ones, and Ross stirred uneasily as his sleep
thinned to waking. He lay with his eyes closed, fitting together odd
bits of--dreams? No, he was certain that they were memories. Rossa of
the Beaker traders and Ross Murdock of the project were again fused into
one and the same person. How it had happened he did not know, but it was
true.
Opening his eyes, he noticed a curved ceiling of soft blue which misted
at the edges into gray. The restful color acted on his troubled, waking
mind like a soothing word. For the first time since he had been struck
down in the night his headache was gone. He raised his hand to explore
that old hurt near his hairline that had been so tender only yesterday
that it could not bear pressure. There remained only a thin, rough line
like a long-healed scar, that was all.
Ross lifted his head to look about him. His body lay supported in a
cradlelike arrangement of metal, almost entirely immersed in a red
gelatinous substance with a clean, aromatic odor. Just as he was no
longer cold, neither was he hungry. He felt as fit as he ever had in his
life. Sitting up in the cradle, he stroked the jelly away from his
shoulders and chest. It fell from him cleanly, leaving no trace of
grease or dampness on his skin.
There were other fixtures in the small cylinderlike chamber besides that
odd bed in which he had lain. Two bucket-shaped seats were placed at the
narrow fore part of the room and before those seats was a system of
controls he could not comprehend.
As Ross swung his feet to the floor there was a click from the side
which brought him around, ready for trouble. But the noise had been
caused by the opening of a door into a small cupboard. Inside the
cupboard lay a fat package. Obviously this was an invitation to
investigate the offering.
The package contained a much folded article of fabric, compressed and
sealed in a transparent bag which he fumbled twice before he succeeded
in releasing its fastening. Ross shook out a garment of material such as
he had never seen before. Its sheen and satin-smooth surface suggested
metal, but its stuff was as supple as fine silk. Color rippled across it
with every twist and turn he gave to the length--dark blue fading to
pale violet, accented with wavering streaks of vivid and startling
green.
Ross experimented with a row of small, brilliant-green studs which made
a transverse line from the right shoulder to the left hip, and they
came apart. As he climbed into the suit the stuff modeled to his body in
a tight but perfect fit. Across the shoulders were bands of green to
match the studs, and the stockinglike tights were soled with a thick
substance which formed a cushion for his feet.
He pressed the studs together, felt them lock, and then stood smoothing
that strange, beautiful fabric, unable to account for either it or his
surroundings. His head was clear; he could remember every detail of his
flight up to the time he had fallen through the wall. And he was certain
that he had passed through not only one, but two, of the Red time posts.
Could this be the third? If so, was he still a captive? Why would they
leave him to freeze in the open country one moment and then treat him
this way later?
He could not connect the ice-encased building from which the Reds had
taken him with this one. At the sound of another soft noise Ross glanced
over his shoulder just in time to see the cradle of jelly, from which he
had emerged, close in upon itself until its bulk was a third of its
former size. Compact as a box, it folded up against the wall.
Ross, his cushioned feet making no sound, advanced to the bucket-chairs.
But lowering his body into one of them for a better look at what vaguely
resembled the control of a helicopter--like the one in which he had
taken the first stage of his fantastic journey across space and time--he
did not find it comfortable. He realized that it had not been
constructed to accommodate a body shaped precisely like his own.
A body like his own.... That jelly bath or bed or whatever it was....
The clothing which adapted so skillfully to his measurements....
Ross leaned forward to study the devices on the control board,
confirming his suspicions. He had made the final jump of them all! He
was now in some building of that alien race upon whose existence
Millaird and Kelgarries had staked the entire project. This was the
source, or one of the sources, from which the Reds were getting the
knowledge which fitted no modern pattern.
A world encased in ice and a building with strange machinery. This
thing--a cylinder with a pilot's seat and a set of controls. Was it an
alien place? But the jelly bath--and the rest of it.... Had his presence
activated that cupboard to supply him with clothing? And what had become
of the tunic he was wearing when he entered?
Ross got up to search the chamber. The bed-bath was folded against the
wall, but there was no sign of his Beaker clothing, his belt, the hide
boots. He could not understand his own state of well being, the lack of
hunger and thirst.
There were two possible explanations for it all. One was that the aliens
still lived here and for some reason had come to his aid. The other was
that he stood in a place where robot machinery worked, though those who
had set it up were no longer there. It was difficult to separate his
memory of the half-buried globe he had seen from his sickness of that
moment. Yet he knew that he had climbed and crawled through emptiness,
neither seeing nor hearing any other life. Now Ross restlessly paced up
and down, seeking the door through which he must have come, but there
was not even a line to betray such an opening.
"I want out," he said aloud, standing in the center of the cramped room,
his fists planted on his hips, his eyes still searching for the vanished
door. He had tapped, he had pushed, he had tried every possible way to
find it. If he could only remember how he had come in! But all he could
recall was leaning against a wall which moved inward and allowed him to
fall. But where had he fallen? Into that jelly bath?
Ross, stung by a sudden idea, glanced at the ceiling. It was low enough
so that by standing on tiptoes he could drum his fingers on its surface.
Now he moved to the place directly above where the cradle had swung
before it had folded itself away.
Rapping and poking, his efforts were rewarded at last. The blue curve
gave under his assault. He pushed now, rising on his toes, though in
that position he could exert little pressure. Then as if some faulty
catch had been released, the ceiling swung up so that he lost his
footing and would have fallen had he not caught the back of one of the
bucket-seats.
He jumped and by hooking his hands over the edge of the opening, was
able to work his way up and out, to face a small line of light. His
fingers worked at that, and he opened a second door, entering a familiar
corridor.
Holding the door open, Ross looked back, his eyes widening at what he
saw. For it was plain now that he had just climbed out of a machine with
the unmistakable outline of a snub-nosed rocket. The small flyer--or a
jet, or whatever it was--had been fitted into a pocket in the side of
the big structure as a ship into a berth, and it must have been set
there to shoot from that enclosing chamber as a bullet is shot from a
rifle barrel. But why?
Ross's imagination jumped from fact to theory. The torpedo craft could
be an atomic jet. All right, he had been in bad shape when he fell into
it by chance and the bed machine had caught him as if it had been
created for just such a duty. What kind of a small plane would be
equipped with a restorative apparatus? Only one intended to handle
emergencies, to transport badly injured living things who had to leave
the building in a hurry.
In other words, a lifeboat!
But why would a building need a lifeboat? That would be rather standard
equipment for a ship. Ross stepped into the corridor and stared about
him with open and incredulous wonder. Could this be some form of ship,
grounded here, deserted and derelict, and now being plundered by the
Reds? The facts fitted! They fitted so well with all he had been able to
discover that Ross was sure it was true. But he determined to prove it
beyond all doubt.
He closed the door leading to the lifeboat berth, but not so securely
that he could not open it again. That was too good a hiding place. On
his cushioned feet he padded back to the stairway, and he stood there
listening. Far below were sounds, a rasp of metal against metal, a low
murmur of muted voices. But from above there was nothing, so he would
explore above before he ventured into that other danger zone.
Ross climbed, passing two more levels, to come out into a vast room with
a curving roof which must fill the whole crown of the globe. Here was
such a wealth of machines, controls, things he could not understand that
he stood bewildered, content for the moment merely to look. There
were--he counted slowly--five control boards like those he had seen in
the small escape ship. Each of these was faced by two or three of the
bucket-seats, only these swung in webbing. He put his hand on one, and
it bobbed elastically.
The control boards were so complicated that the one in the lifeboat
might have been a child's toy in comparison. The air in the ship had
been good; in the lifeboat it had held the pleasant odor of the jelly;
but here Ross sniffed a faint but persistent hint of corruption, of an
old malodor.
He left the vantage point by the stairs and paced between the control
boards and their empty swinging seats. This was the main control room,
of that he was certain. From this point all the vast bulk beneath him
had been set in motion, sailed here and there. Had it been on the sea,
or through the air? The globe shape suggested an air-borne craft. But a
civilization so advanced as this would surely have left some remains.
Ross was willing to believe that he could be much farther back in time
than 2000 B.C., but he was still sure that traces of those who could
build a thing like this would have existed in the twentieth century A.D.
Maybe that was how the Reds had found this. Something they had turned up
within their country--say, in Siberia, or some of the forgotten corners
of Asia--had been a clue.
Having had little schooling other than the intensive cramming at the
base and his own informal education, the idea of the race who had
created this ship overawed Ross more than he would admit. If the project
could find this, turn loose on it the guys who knew about such things....
But that was just what they were striving for, and he was the only
project man to have found the prize. Somehow, someway, he had to get
back--out of this half-buried ship and its icebound world--back to where
he could find his own people. Perhaps the job was impossible, but he had
to try. His survival was considered impossible by the men who had thrown
him into the crevice, but here he was. Thanks to the men who had built
this ship, he was alive and well.
Ross sat down in one of the uncomfortable seats to think and thus
avoided immediate disaster, for he was hidden from the stairs on which
sounded the tap of boots. A climber, maybe two, were on their way up,
and there was no other exit from the control cabin.