It had taken ten full days of back-breaking work to build the
pyramid. They'd hauled the rocks from the creek bed half a mile
away and had piled them, stone by rolling stone, to the height of
a full twelve feet. It took a lot of rocks and a lot of patience,
for as the pyramid went up, the base naturally kept broadening
out.
But now all was finally ready.
Hudson sat before the burned-out campfire and held his blistered
hands before him.
It should work, he thought, better than the logs--and less
dangerous.
Grab a handful of sand. Some trickled back between your fingers,
but most stayed in your grasp. That was the principle of the
pyramid of stones. When--and if--the time machine should work,
most of the rocks would go along.
Those that didn't go would simply trickle out and do no harm.
There'd be no stress or strain to upset the working of the
force-field.
And if the time unit didn't work?
Or if it did?
This was the end of the dream, thought Hudson, no matter how you
looked at it.
For even if they did get back to the twentieth century, there
would be no money and with the film lost and no other taken to
replace it, they'd have no proof they had traveled back beyond the
dawn of history--back almost to the dawn of Man.
Although how far you traveled would have no significance. An hour
or a million years would be all the same; if you could span the
hour, you could span the million years. And if you could go back
the million years, it was within your power to go back to the
first tick of eternity, the first stir of time across the face of
emptiness and nothingness--back to that initial instant when
nothing as yet had happened or been planned or thought, when all
the vastness of the Universe was a new slate waiting the first
chalk stroke of destiny.
Another helicopter would cost thirty thousand dollars--and they
didn't even have the money to buy the tractor that they needed to
build the stockade.
There was no way to borrow. You couldn't walk into a bank and say
you wanted thirty thousand to take a trip back to the Old Stone
Age.
You still could go to some industry or some university or the
government and if you could persuade them you had something on the
ball--why, then, they might put up the cash after cutting
themselves in on just about all of the profits. And, naturally,
they'd run the show because it was their money and all you had
done was the sweating and the bleeding.
"There's one thing that still bothers me," said Cooper, breaking
the silence. "We spent a lot of time picking our spot so we'd miss
the barn and house and all the other buildings...."
"Don't tell me the windmill!" Hudson cried.
"No. I'm pretty sure we're clear of that. But the way I figure,
we're right astraddle that barbed-wire fence at the south end of
the orchard."
"If you want, we could move the pyramid over twenty feet or so."
Cooper groaned. "I'll take my chances with the fence." Adams got
to his feet, the time unit tucked underneath his arm. "Come on,
you guys. It's time to go."
They climbed the pyramid gingerly and stood unsteadily at its top.
Adams shifted the unit around, clasped it to his chest.
"Stand around close," he said, "and bend your knees a little. It
may be quite a drop."
"Go ahead," said Cooper. "Press the button."
Adams pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
The unit didn't work.