Ross dropped from the web-slung chair to the floor and made himself as
small as possible under the platform at the front of the cabin. Here,
where there was a smaller control board and two seats placed closely
together, the odd, unpleasant odor clung and became stronger to Ross's
senses as he waited tensely for the climbers to appear. Though he had
searched, there was nothing in sight even faintly resembling a weapon.
In a last desperate bid for freedom he crept back to the stairwell.
He had been taught a blow during his training period, one which required
a precise delivery and, he had been warned, was often fatal. He would
use it now. The climber was very close. A cropped head arose through the
floor opening, and Ross struck, knowing as his hand chopped against the
folds of a fur hood that he had failed.
But the impetus of that unexpected blow saved him after all. With a
choked cry the man disappeared, crashing down upon the one following
him. A scream and shouts were heard from below, and a shot ripped up the
well as Ross scrambled away from it. He might have delayed the final
battle, but they had him cornered. He faced that fact bleakly. They need
only sit below and let nature take its course. His session in the
lifeboat had restored his strength, but a man could not live forever
without food and water.
However, he had bought himself perhaps a yard of time which must be put
to work. Turning to examine the seats, Ross discovered that they could
be unhooked from their webbing swings. Freeing all of them, he dragged
their weight to the stairwell and jammed them together to make a
barricade. It could not hold long against any determined push from
below, but, he hoped, it would deflect bullets if some sharpshooter
tried to wing him by ricochet. Every so often there was the crash of a
shot and some shouting, but Ross was not going to be drawn out of cover
by that.
He paced around the control cabin, still hunting for a weapon. The
symbols on the levers and buttons were meaningless to him. They made him
feel frustrated because he imagined that among that countless array were
some that might help him out of the trap if he could only guess their
use.
Once more he stood by the platform thinking. This was the point from
which the ship had been sailed--in the air or on some now frozen sea.
These control boards must have given the ship's master the means not
only of propelling the vast bulk, but of unloading and loading cargo,
lighting, heating, ventilation, and perhaps defense! Of course, every
control might be dead now, but he remembered that in the lifeboat the
machines had worked successfully, fulfilled expertly the duty for which
they had been constructed.
The only step remaining was to try his luck. Having made his decision,
Ross simply shut his eyes as he had in a very short and almost forgotten
childhood, turned around three times, and pointed. Then he looked to
see where luck had directed him.
His finger indicated a board before which there had been three seats,
and he crossed to it slowly, with a sense that once he touched the
controls he might inaugurate a chain of events he could not stop. The
crash of a shot underlined the fact that he had no other recourse.
Since the symbols meant nothing, Ross concentrated on the shapes of the
various devices and chose one which vaguely resembled the type of light
switch he had always known. Since it was up, he pressed it down,
counting to twenty slowly as he waited for a reaction. Below the switch
was an oval button marked with two wiggles and a double dot in red. Ross
snapped it level with the panel, and when it did not snap back, he felt
somehow encouraged. When the two levers flanking that button did not
push in or move up and down, Ross pulled them out without even waiting
to count off.
This time he had results! A crackling of noise with a singsong rhythm,
the volume of which, low at first, arose to a drone filled the cabin.
Ross, deafened by the din, twisted first one lever and then the other
until he had brought the sound to a less piercing howl. But he needed
action, not just noise; he moved from behind the first chair to the next
one. Here were five oval buttons, marked in the same vivid green as that
which trimmed his clothing--two wiggles, a dot, a double bar, a pair of
entwined circles, and a crosshatch.
Why make a choice? Recklessness bubbled to the surface, and Ross pushed
all the buttons in rapid succession. The results were, in a measure,
spectacular. Out of the top of the control board rose a triangle of
screen which steadied and stood firm while across it played a rippling
wave of color. Meanwhile the singsong became an angry squawking as if in
protest.
Well, he had something, even if he didn't know what it was! And he had
also proved that the ship was alive. However, Ross wanted more than a
squawk of exasperation, which was exactly what the noise had become. It
almost sounded, Ross decided as he listened, as if he were being
expertly chewed out in another language. Yes, he wanted more than a
series of squawks and a fanciful display of light waves on a screen.
At the section of board before the third and last seat there was less
choice--only two switches. As Ross flicked up the first the pattern on
the screen dwindled into a brown color shot with cream in which there
was a suggestion of a picture. Suppose one didn't put the switch all the
way up? Ross examined the slot in which the bar moved and now noted a
series of tiny point marks along it. Selective? It would not do any harm
to see. First he hurried back to the cork of chairs he had jammed into
the stairwell. The squawks were now coming only at intervals, and Ross
could hear nothing to suggest that his barrier was being forced.
He returned to the lever and moved it back two notches, standing
open-mouthed at the immediate result. The cream-and-brown streaks were
making a picture! Moving another notch down caused the picture to
skitter back and forth on the screen. With memories of TV tuning to
guide him, Ross brought the other lever down to a matching position, and
the dim and shadowy images leaped into clear and complete focus. But the
color was still brown, not the black and white he had expected.
Only, he was also looking into a face! Ross swallowed, his hand grasping
one of the strings of chair webbing for support. Perhaps because in some
ways it did resemble his own, that face was more preposterously
nonhuman. The visage on the screen was sharply triangular with a small,
sharply pointed chin and a jaw line running at an angle from a broad
upper face. The skin was dark, covered largely with a soft and silky
down, out of which hooked a curved and shining nose set between two
large round eyes. On top of that astonishing head the down rose to a
peak not unlike a cockatoo's crest. Yet there was no mistaking the
intelligence in those eyes, nor the other's amazement at sight of Ross.
They might have been staring at each other through a window.
Squawk ... squeek ... squawk.... The creature in the mirror--on the
vision plate--or outside the window--moved its absurdly small mouth in
time to those sounds. Ross swallowed again and automatically made
answer.
"Hello." His voice was a weak whistle, and perhaps it did not reach the
furry-faced one, for he continued his questions if questions they were.
Meanwhile Ross, over his first stupefaction, tried to see something of
the creature's background. Though the objects were slightly out of
focus, he was sure he recognized fittings similar to those about him. He
must be in communication with another ship of the same type and one
which was not deserted!
Furry-face had turned his head away to squawk rapidly over his shoulder,
a shoulder which was crossed by a belt or sash with an elaborate
pattern. Then he got up from his seat and stood aside to make room for
the one he had summoned.
If Furry-face had been a startling surprise, Ross was now to have
another. The man who now faced him on the screen was totally different.
His skin registered as pale--cream-colored--and his face was far more
human in shape, though it was hairless as was the smooth dome of his
skull. When one became accustomed to that egg slickness, the stranger
was not bad-looking, and he was wearing a suit which matched the one
Ross had taken from the lifeboat.
This one did not attempt to say anything. Instead, he stared at Ross
long and measuringly, his eyes growing colder and less friendly with
every second of that examination. Ross had resented Kelgarries back at
the project, but the major could not match Baldy for the sheer weight of
unpleasant warning he could pack into a look. Ross might have been
startled by Furry-face, but now his stubborn streak arose to meet this
implied challenge. He found himself breathing hard and glaring back with
an intensity which he hoped would get across and prove to Baldy that he
would not have everything his own way if he proposed to tangle with
Ross.
His preoccupation with the stranger on the screen betrayed Ross into the
hands of those from below. He heard their attack on the barricade too
late. By the time he turned around, the cork of seats was heaved up and
a gun was pointing at his middle. His hands went up in small reluctant
jerks as that threat held him where he was. Two of the fur-clad Reds
climbed into the control chamber.
Ross recognized the leader as Ashe's double, the man he had followed
across time. He blinked for just an instant as he faced Ross and then
shouted an order at his companion. The other spun Murdock around,
bringing his hands down behind him to clamp his wrists together. Once
again Ross fronted the screen and saw Baldy watching the whole scene
with an expression suggesting that he had been shocked out of his
complacent superiority.
"Ah...." Ross's captors were staring at the screen and the unearthly man
there. Then one flung himself at the control panel and his hands whipped
back and forth, restoring to utter silence both screen and room.
"What are you?" The man who might have been Ashe spoke slowly in the
Beaker tongue, drilling Ross with his stare as if by the force of his
will alone he could pull the truth out of his prisoner.
"What do you think I am?" Ross countered. He was wearing the uniform of
Baldy, and he had clearly established contact with the time owners of
this ship. Let that worry the Red!
But they did not try to answer him. At a signal he was led to the stair.
To descend that ladder with his hands behind him was almost impossible,
and they had to pause at the next level to unclasp the handcuffs and let
him go free. Keeping a gun on him carefully, they hurried along, trying
to push the pace while Ross delayed all he could. He realized that in
his recognition of the power of the gun back in the control chamber, his
surrender to its threat, he had betrayed his real origin. So he must
continue to confuse the trail to the project in every possible way left
to him. He was sure that this time they would not leave him in the first
convenient crevice.
He knew he was right when they covered him with a fur parka at the
entrance to the ship, once more manacling his hands and dropping a noose
leash on him.
So, they were taking him back to their post here. Well, in the post was
the time transporter which could return him to his own kind. It would
be, it must be possible to get to that! He gave his captors no more
trouble but trudged, outwardly dispirited, along the rutted way through
the snow up the slope and out of the valley.
He did manage to catch a good look at the globe-ship. More than half of
it, he judged, was below the surface of the ground. To be so buried it
must either have lain there a long time or, if it were an air vessel,
crashed hard enough to dig itself that partial grave. Yet Ross had
established contact with another ship like it, and neither of the
creatures he had seen were human, at least not human in any way he
knew.
Ross chewed on that as he walked. He believed that those with him were
looting the ship of its cargo, and by its size, that cargo must be a
large one. But cargo from where? Made by what hands, what _kind_ of
hands? Enroute to what port? And how had the Reds located the ship in
the first place? There were plenty of questions and very few answers.
Ross clung to the hope that somehow he had endangered the Reds' job here
by activating the communication system of the derelict and calling the
attention of its probable owners to its fate.
He also believed that the owners might take steps to regain their
property. Baldy had impressed him deeply during those few moments of
silent appraisal, and he knew he would not like to be on the receiving
end of any retaliation from the other. Well, now he had only one chance,
to keep the Reds guessing as long as he could and hope for some turn of
fate which would allow him to try for the time transport. How the plate
operated he did not know, but he had been transferred here from the
Beaker age and if he could return to that time, escape might be
possible. He had only to reach the river and follow it down to the sea
where the sub was to make rendezvous at intervals. The odds were
overwhelmingly against him, and Ross knew it. But there was no reason,
he decided, to lie down and roll over dead to please the Reds.
As they approached the post Ross realized how much skill had gone into
its construction. It looked as if they were merely coming up to the
outer edge of a glacier tongue. Had it not been for the track in the
snow, there would have been no reason to suspect that the ice covered
anything but a thick core of its own substance. Ross was shoved through
the white-walled tunnel to the building beyond.
He was hurried through the chain of rooms to a door and thrust through,
his hands still fastened. It was dark in the cubby and colder than it
had been outside. Ross stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to
the gloom. It was several moments after the door had slammed shut that
he caught a faint thud, a dull and hollow sound.
"Who is here?" he used the Beaker speech, determining to keep to the
rags of his cover, which probably was a cover no longer. There was no
reply, but after a pause that distant beat began again. Ross stepped
cautiously forward, and by the simple method of running fullface into
the walls, discovered that he was in a bare cell. He also discovered
that the noise lay behind the left-hand wall, and he stood with his ear
flat against it, listening. The sound did not have the regular rhythm of
a machine in use--there were odd pauses between some blows, others came
in a quick rain. It was as if someone were digging!
Were the Reds engaged in enlarging their icebound headquarters? Having
listened for a considerable time, Ross doubted that, for the sound was
too irregular. It seemed almost as if the longer pauses were used to
check up on the result of labor--was it the extent of the excavation or
the continued preservation of secrecy?
Ross slipped down along the wall, his shoulders still resting against
it, and rested with his head twisted so he could hear the tapping.
Meanwhile he flexed his wrists inside the hoops which confined them, and
folding his hands as small as possible, tried to slip them through the
rings. The only result was that he chafed his skin raw to no advantage.
They had not taken off his parka, and in spite of the chill about him,
he was too warm. Only that part of his body covered by the suit he had
taken from the ship was comfortable; he could almost believe that it
possessed some built-in conditioning device.
With no hope of relief Ross rubbed his hands back and forth against the
wall, scraping the hoops on his wrists. The distant pounding had ceased,
and this time the pause lengthened into so long a period that Ross fell
asleep, his head falling forward on his chest, his raw wrists still
pushed against the surface behind him.
He was hungry when he awoke, and with that hunger his rebellion sparked
into flame. Awkwardly he got to his feet and lurched along to the door
through which he had been thrown, where he proceeded to kick at the
barrier. The cushiony stuff forming the soles of his tights muffled most
of the force of those blows, but some noise was heard outside, for the
door opened and Ross faced one of the guards.
"Food! I want to eat!" He put into the Beaker language all the
resentment boiling in him.
The fellow ignoring him, reached in a long arm, and nearly tossing the
prisoner off balance, dragged him out of the cell. Ross was marched into
another room to face what appeared to be a tribunal. Two of the men
there he knew--Ashe's double and the quiet man who had questioned him
back in the other time station. The third, clearly one of greater
authority, regarded Ross bleakly.
"Who are you?" the quiet man asked.
"Rossa, son of Gurdi. And I would eat before I make talk with you. I
have not done any wrong that you should treat me as a barbarian who has
stolen salt from the trading post----"
"You are an agent," the leader corrected him dispassionately, "of whom
you will tell us in due time. But first you shall speak of the ship, of
what you found there, and why you meddled with the controls.... Wait a
moment before you refuse, my young friend." He raised his hand from his
lap, and once again Ross faced an automatic. "Ah, I see that you know
what I hold--odd knowledge for an innocent Bronze Age trader. And
please have no doubts about my hesitation to use this. I shall not kill
you, naturally," the man continued, "but there are certain wounds which
supply a maximum of pain and little serious damage. Remove his parka,
Kirschov."
Once more Ross was unmanacled, the fur stripped from him. His questioner
carefully studied the suit he wore under it. "Now you will tell us
exactly what we wish to hear."
There was a confidence in that statement which chilled Ross; Major
Kelgarries had displayed its like. Ashe had it in another degree, and
certainly it had been present in Baldy. There was no doubt that the
speaker meant exactly what he said. He had at his command methods which
would wring from his captive the full sum of what he wanted, and there
would be no consideration for that captive during the process.
His implied threat struck as cold as the glacial air, and Ross tried to
meet it with an outward show of uncracked defenses. He decided to pick
and choose from his information, feeding them scraps to stave off the
inevitable. Hope dies very hard, and Ross having been pushed into
corners long before his work at the project, had had considerable
training in verbal fencing with hostile authority. He would volunteer
nothing.... Let it be pulled from him reluctant word by word! He would
spin it out as long as he could and hope that time might fight for him.
"You are an agent...."
Ross accepted this statement as one he would neither affirm nor deny.
"You came to spy under the cover of a barbarian trader," smoothly,
without pause, the man changed language in mid-sentence, slipping from
the Beaker speech into English.
But long experience in meeting the dangerous with an expression of
complete lack of comprehension was Ross's weapon now. He stared somewhat
stupidly at his interrogator with that bewildered, boyish look he had
so long cultivated to bemuse enemies in his past.
Whether he could have held out long against the other's skill--for Ross
possessed no illusions concerning the type of examiner he now faced--he
was never to know. Perhaps the drastic interruption that occurred the
next moment saved for Ross a measure of self-esteem.
There was a distant boom, hollow and thunderous. Underneath and around
them the floor, walls, and ceiling of the room moved as if they had been
pried from their setting of ice and were being rolled about by the
exploring thumb and forefinger of some impatient giant.