* * * * *
It was then that both Henry and Martia launched themselves into a
detailed and vivid account of that strange interlude in time which
they, alone, remembered. The other three listened, with both mixed
emotions and mixed opinions relative to the youngsters' sanity.
"The reason we're giving you such a wealth of details," Henry
concluded, "is because therein lies the proof that there is a time
machine in the jungle."
Uncle Andy shook his head, bewildered. "I'm afraid I'm hopelessly
lost," he said. "I can't see where it fits in. And if it happened, why
wouldn't the rest of us remember it? You say we were there, too."
Henry cast a covert glance at Martia, and only she could understand
what that look meant. Impulsively, she grasped his hand and held on to
it.
"Let's skip your lack of memory for a minute," Henry answered.
"Instead, try to remember the fact that certain people were missing in
this camp before the meeting took place."
"That's right!" said Valerie. "The English people--" She looked at
Martia. "Your mother, Lady Dewitt! She went away and got lost!"
"And Sir Rollins!" put in Peggy.
"Now it comes back," said Uncle Andy. "They had gone out to look for
springwater and had not returned."
"To make a long story short," said Henry, "there were two separate
groups. First, the English group, consisting of Lady Dewitt, Cyril
Rollins, the Crispin sisters, the two mothers who lost their babies,
and Mr. Langham. The second group consisted of Mania's governess,
Emily, three WAACs, and the three Texas GIs.
"Now as I see it, here's what happened. The first group found the time
machine and entered it, possibly without knowing what they were doing.
They were transported back in time perhaps several thousands of years.
Stranded there and with no other recourse but to survive, they set up
their own type of colony, and their descendants established the Empire
of New Bretania."
Peggy looked at Valerie, and both found a common conviction in their
eyes. They were sadly understanding and patient as they looked back at
Henry and Martia. Uncle Andy only refilled his pipe with the last of
his tobacco and watched Henry intently.
"Now wait a minute!" put in Martia. "Henry's not as crazy as you think!
Let him continue!"
"We're listening," replied Uncle Andy.
"Having benefitted by some knowledge of modern technology on the part
of their original ancestors, this race soon attained a degree of
civilization equivalent to our own, though with fewer numbers. Their
science enabled them to detect the unbalanced nature of the ionosphere,
so they knew they had to get off the planet in order to survive. By
some means unknown to us, they were able to make observations through
the ionosphere and detect livable conditions on Venus, after all. In
other words, after a billion years beyond our time, Venus must have had
sufficient time to build up an atmosphere containing a life-sustaining
percentage of oxygen. This discovery spurred the building of their
space ark, which was to take a representative number of their kind to
the new world.
"Now in the meantime let's go back to the second group that was
lost--Emily, the WAACs and the Texans. They, too, went through the time
machine and built up a civilization contemporaneous with that of New
Bretania. Hence the origin of the country, Texania. These latter people
were trying to get the ark of space from the New Bretanians.
"Don't you see how it all fits in? When those two groups went through
the time machine, we found ourselves in an alternate time, a world
changed by their effects on two or three thousand years of the
immediate past."
"Then how did everything get back to where it was originally?" asked
Uncle Andy. "What got rid of that alternate time so abruptly?"
"The alien," Henry replied. "I think we arrived here, in the first
place, by accident and without his knowledge. As a time-traveler, he
was no doubt gone from this world for long stretches of time. Perhaps a
gap of several thousands of years means nothing to him. But somewhere
along that alternate time he returned. He probably proceeded at once to
trace down the sources of New Bretania and Texania. This could have led
him not only back to Lady Dewitt and the Texans but forward, again, to
this present time, to the moment when they were about to go into the
time machine in the first place. Taking them prisoner thus prevented
that alternate time from occurring. So it was all a lost interlude
and Weston went right on talking at the meeting as though nothing had
happened. Yet all the while the alien was now aware of our presence,
and so he came to take us into custody."
"That is the most astounding tale I have ever listened to," said Uncle
Andy. "Now tell me, Henry, why is it that only you and Martia remember
that alternate time experience and we do not?"
Again--that strange, knowing look between Henry and Martia.
"Look!" cried Peggy, pointing toward the beach.
When they all turned and looked they saw the same, eternal sea as
before, its lazy surf glistening in the forever light of the sky. But
there was one, subtle difference. Weston lay there no longer. The
whole beach was a scene of desolation--deceivingly peaceful, ominously
deserted.
"Cone on!" said Uncle Andy, with sudden sternness. "We can talk about
all this later. Just now we'd better try to keep one step ahead of
Weston."
They took _all_ of the available weapons with them....
* * * * *
The trail of the captives led them gradually upward toward the summit
of the low range of hills. They soon discovered that the nature of the
jungle near the seashore was much less spectacular than the aspect
of it inland. It began to appear as though Nature had dumped all her
experiments into one bottle and mixed them together.
They passed through "groves" of trees that were mostly roots, all
intertwined like some giant vine. Their bark was like shaggy hair
and their fine, web-like branches sprouted foliage that looked like
feathers. Among these feathered branches crawled brilliant orange and
red land crabs, some of them as much as two feet in diameter.
In a swampier region just at the base of the hills they observed flat,
leathery looking discs oozing along over the swamp mud, some of them
reaching three feet in diameter. They could not imagine what they were
until they saw one of them uncover a six foot, scaly worm. The latter
fought ferociously, but the leathery disc wrapped itself around its
body and the worm's mouth very much like that of a snapping turtle, was
incapable of penetrating that leathery hide.
"Those are gigantic leeches," observed Uncle Andy.
And so they went on, following the trail upward, beyond the swamp. They
discovered carnivorous plants, huge insects, gigantic birds, but always
any mammalian species they saw was small and in the minority.
Finally, they came to an abrupt halt, because the trail ended. There
were no more footprints, no more tell-tale marks such as trampled weeds
and underbrush or broken branches. No matter where they searched, they
could not find a further continuation of the trail. It ended in the
center of a meadow, half way up in the jungle clad hills.
"You don't suppose they could have been taken away in some kind of an
airship, do you?" asked Uncle Andy.
"No," said Henry. "There are no marks here showing that any such vessel
has been sitting here. Moreover, if the alien had come in an aircraft,
why would he land it here and walk so far?"
"_Hey! Get yo'selves off'n dat place!_"
When they all looked, startled, behind them, they saw Pee Bee standing
on the edge of the meadow.
"Pee Bee!" exclaimed Valerie, relieved to see something that was both
familiar and harmless in this place. "How did you get here?"
"Get off'n dat place you're standin' on!" shouted Pee Bee. "It goes
down into de ground where all dose other folks's went!" His eyes were
wide with superstitious terror. "Man, ah had mah suspicions dat Missin'
Link was de debbil, an' ah don't need no further convincin'! He's _it_!
He done took dem folks t'_his_ place! Dat's where dey are!" he yelled,
hysterically. "Dey's done gone to de hot place! Get off'n dat ground!"
"Poor Pee Bee!" said Peggy. "Now he's going crazy on us!"
* * * * *
Pee Bee ran back and forth at one edge of the meadow, helplessly
wringing his hands but not daring to approach his friends.
"Look at this," said Martia. "It's a cairn!"
They had not noticed it before, because it was small and half concealed
by weeds.
"Who could have put that there?" asked Peggy.
"Perhaps one of our captured friends," said Uncle Andy, squatting down
to examine it.
"_Get off'n dat ground!_" shouted Pee Bee, at the top of his voice.
Uncle Andy removed the top rock from the cairn and uncovered a metal
pipe with a screw cap on it. "Oh, oh!" he said. "Booby trap!"
"Unscrew it!" Henry urged him.
"Do you think you'd better?" asked Valerie.
"What else can we do?" put in Martia. "We can't just sit down here and
form a colony of our own!"
Uncle Andy looked at the two women and their faces colored. "You asked
for it!" he said, abruptly, and unscrewed the cap.
Beneath the cap were two tiny light bulbs embedded in a small panel, in
addition to a red button. One of the lights glowed red.
"Well! Civilization at last! Shall I press the button?"
"I think Pee Bee may be right," said Henry. "They probably all went
down under the ground and this is the control operating the hidden
opening."
Uncle Andy looked up at him. "But if we go rushing in we're liable to
end up captives too...."
In that moment, however, the decision was made for them. They
discovered that the cairn marked the exact center of an area that was
about fifty feet in diameter. This area suddenly sank downward.
"Run!" shouted Uncle Andy, springing to his feet.
But it was too late.
* * * * *
The walls of the pit into which they descended were twenty feet
high before they could reach the edge of the circular area. As
they continued their descent, the walls grew higher--fifty feet,
seventy-five, a hundred....
* * * * *
Pee Bee threw himself on the trampled jangle grass and beat at his head
in blind frustration.
"Ah told 'em!" he cried out. "Ah done told 'em t'stay off'n dat debbil
ground! Now dey done gone 'n left me all alone--'n where am I?"
He sat up, abruptly, more bug-eyed than ever before. He listened.
The still, hot air brought him only the sound--and the smell--of the
pristine jungle surrounding him. A giant bird with a black back and
brilliant yellow belly soared over-head and squawked at him hostilely.
Somewhere down the hill something small and warm-blooded squealed in
terror. He heard a tremendous threshing about in the underbrush and
remembered the vines that made a net for their prey--then clutched it
inescapably and mashed it into pulp before devouring it. The eternal
sky that never turned dark and cool, that sky up there that beat its
itchy heat down on him and was making a rash creep up on his skin--it
wasn't God's blue sky.
But it was _his_ sky--Pee Bee's! All Pee Bee's world now.
He sprang to his feet and screamed, "Dey can't leave me alone in dis
place!"
But when he looked at the big, round, gaping hole in the center of the
meadow he had to admit the reality of the situation. He _was_ alone!
So he threw himself down on the musty smelling grass again and sobbed
uncontrollably. How had he gotten himself into this? By being in the
Army in the first place. He didn't make the wars and all the trouble in
the world, but they dragged him off to Europe to hold a bayonet in the
people's faces--at a boundary line. He didn't make those boundaries!
God made the world, but he didn't make no boundary lines. Man made the
boundaries. Man made shoes for me to shine.
Shine, _shine_?
_All God's chillun got shoes...._
"Pee Bee!"
Was that somebody calling him? Sure! Hank Thomas, standing there by his
newspaper stand at 12th and Central. The traffic light was red. _Was_
red. _Was_ red.
When? A _billion_ years ago! That's what Henry said.
"Pee Bee!"
That was _Henry_ calling!
Pee Bee sat up again and looked out onto the meadow. The hole was gone,
all filled in. In the middle of it stood Henry, alone, beckoning to him.
"Come on, Pee Bee! It's all right!"
Pee Bee jumped to his feet and started to run. Then he stopped,
abruptly.
"Oh no!" he said. "Ah done heard about _my_-rages before! Sometimes
it's a lake in de middle of de desert or one of dem oh-wayseses, but
you ain't gonna fool Pee Bee! Ah's stayin' right here an' if Gabriel's
still got wind left after all dis time t'blow dat beat-up ol' horn o'
his he's gonna have t'play a solo fo' jist little ol' me--'cause I
ain't leavin' dis spot! No debbil's gonna git me. No animulated bush
is gonna git me! An' no _my_-rage is gonna git me! Ah's jist gonna sit
here an' wait fo' me, only kind of pick-up dat pays off--when Gabriel
blows dat horn!"
Henry approached him and took him by the arm. "It's all right, Pee Bee.
It's me in the flesh. Now come on! There's no time to lose."
As the circular slab of meadowland lowered itself once more into the
ground, Pee Bee remained on his knees, clutching Henry to him for
dear life. At the bottom of the pit he fell into Uncle Andy's and
Valerie's arms, sobbing. They patted him and consumed several minutes
in reassuring him.
All the while, the others shared one thought in common that they felt
it would be inopportune to express to Pee Bee. The place they had
reached appeared to be empty. Yet someone had operated controls to let
them in--those button controls right there in the passageway.