“Meaning what?”
“Meaning you haven’t got the money to get back to Aiden once you have your composition.”
“I know that,” I said, “but if I have the composition …”
“No money,” she said, “and Mother Earth not about to make it easy for you.”
“There is that,” I said, “but I can’t see how taking you along . . •”
“That is what I have been trying to tell you. This may sound silly to you . . .”
Her words ran out and she sat there looking at me. Her face no longer looked as if it were about to smile.
“Damn you,” she said, “why don’t you say something? Why don’t you help me just a little? Why don’t you ask me what I have?”
“All right. What is it that you have?”
“I know where the treasure is.”
“For the love of Christ, what treasure?”
“The Anachron treasure.”
“Thorney is convinced,” I told her, “that the Anachronians had been on Earth. He wanted me to watch for any possible clues to their being here. It was a fool’s errand, of course, as he spelled it out to me. The archaeologists aren’t even sure there was such a race. Their planet never has been found. All that had been found are fragments of inscriptions on half a dozen planets, fragmentary inscriptions found among the inscriptions and the shreds of the native culture. Some evidence, although it seems to me shaky evidence, that at one time members of this supposedly mysterious race lived on other planets-perhaps as traders, which is what most archaeologists believe, or as observers, which is what Thorney believes, or for some other reason, neither as traders or observers. He told me all of this, but he never mentioned treasure.”
“But there was a treasure,” she said. “It was brought from olden Greece to olden America in the Final War. I found an account of it and Professor Thorndyke …”
“Start making some sort of sense,” I said. “If Thorney is right, they weren’t here for treasure. They were here for data, to observe . .”
“For data, sure,” she said, “but what about the observer? He would have been a professional, wouldn’t he? A historian, perhaps far more than a historian. He would have recognized the cultural value of certain artifacts -the ceremonial hand axe of a prehistoric tribe, a Grecian urn, Egyptian jewelry . . .”
I crammed the letter into my jacket pocket, jumped out of the car. “We can talk about this later,” I said. “Right now I have to turn Elmer loose so we can start setting up the Bronco.”
“Am I going with you?”
“We’ll see,” I said.
How the hell, I wondered, could I keep her from going?
She had Thorney’s blessing; she maybe did have something about the Anachronians, perhaps even about a treasure. And I couldn’t leave her here, flat broke-for if she wasn’t quite broke yet, she would be if she stayed on at the inn and there was no place else for her to stay. God knows, I didn’t want her. She would be a nuisance. I was not on a treasure hunt. I had come to Earth to put together a composition. I hoped to capture some of the feel of Earth-Earth minus Cemetery. I couldn’t go off chasing treasure or Anachronians. All that I’d ever told Thorney was that I’d keep my eyes open for clues and that didn’t mean going out to hunt for them.
I headed for the open door of the shed, with Cynthia trailing at my heels. Inside the shed was dark and I paused for a moment to let my eyes become accustomed to the darkness. Something moved and I made out three men-three workmen from the looks of them.
“I have some boxes here,” I said. There were a lot of boxes, the piled cargo off the funeral ship.
“Right over there, Mr. Carson,” said one of them. He gestured to one side and I saw them-the big crate enclosing Elmer and the four crates in which we had boxed the Bronco.
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate your keeping them separate from the rest. I’d asked the captain, but. . .”
“There’s just one little matter,” said the man. “Handling and storage.”
“I don’t get it. Handling and storage?”
“Sure, the charges. My men don’t work for free.”
“You’re the foreman here?” “Yeah. Reilly is the name.” “How much is this storage?”
Reilly reached into his back pocket and hauled forth a paper. He studied it fixedly, as if making sure he had the figures right.
“Well,” he said, “it runs to four hundred and twenty-seven credits, but let us say four hundred.”
“You must be wrong,” I told him, trying to keep my temper. “All you did was unship the crates and haul them in here and, as for storage, they’ve been here only an hour or so.”
Reilly shook his head, sadly. “I can’t help that. Them’s the charges. You either pay them or we hold the cargo. Them’s the rules.”
The other two men had moved up silently, one to either side of him.
“It’s all ridiculous,” I protested. “This must be a joke.” “Mister,” said the foreman, “it isn’t any joke.” I didn’t have four hundred credits, and I wouldn’t have paid it if I had, but neither was I going to tackle the foreman and the husky stevedores standing with him.
“I’ll look into this,” I said, trying to save face, having no idea what I could do next. They had me cold, I knew. Although it wasn’t them; it was Maxwell Peter Bell. He was the one who had me cold.
“You do that, mister,” said Reilly. “You just go ahead and do it.”
I could go storming back to Bell and that was exactly what he wanted. He expected that I would and it would be all right, of course, and all would be forgiven, if I accepted a Cemetery grant and did Cemetery work. But I wasn’t going to do that, either.
Cynthia said, behind me, “Fletcher, they’re ganging up on us.”
I turned my head and there were more men, coming in the door. “Not ganging up on you,” said Reilly. “Just making sure that you understand. There can’t be no outlander come in here and tell us what to do.”
From behind Reilly came a faint, thin, screeching sound and the instant that I heard it, I pegged it for what it was, a nail being forced out of the wood that held it.
Reilly and his henchmen swung around and I let out a yell. “All right, Elmer! Out and at them!”
At my yell the big crate seemed to explode, the planks nailed across its top wrenched and torn away, and out of the crate rose Elmer, all eight feet of him.
He stepped out of the crate, almost fastidiously.
“What’s the matter, Fletch?”
“Go easy on them, Elmer,” I said. “Don’t kill them. Just cripple them a little.”
He took a step forward and Reilly and the two men backed away.
“I won’t hurt them none,” said Elmer. “I’ll just brush them off. Who’s that you got there with you, Fletch?”
“This is Cynthia,” I said. “She’ll be going with us.”
“Will I?” Cynthia asked.
“Look here, Carson,” Reilly roared, “don’t you try no rough stuff . . .”
“Get going,” Elmer said. He took a rapid step toward them and swung his arm. They broke and ran, piling out the door.
“No, you don’t!” yelled Elmer. He went past us rapidly. They were closing the door and just before it closed, he thrust a hand into the crack, clutched the door, and wrenched it open, then butted it with his shoulder. It crumpled and hung.
“That will hold them,” Elmer said. “Now the door won’t close. They were about to lock us in, can you imagine that. Now if you’ll tell me, Fletch, what is going on.”
“Maxwell Peter Bell,” I said, “doesn’t like us. Let’s get going on the Bronco. The quicker we are out of here . ..”
“I have to get the car,” said Cynthia. “I’ve got all the supplies and my clothes in there.”
“Supplies?” I asked.
“Sure. Food and the other stuff we’ll need. I don’t suppose you brought anything along. That’s one reason I’m so broke. I spent the last of my money . . .”
“You go and get the car,” said Elmer. “I’ll keep watch. There won’t no one lay a hand on you.”
“You thought of everything,” I said. “You were pretty sure . . .”
But she was running out the door. There was no sign of Reilly or his men. She got into the car and drove it through the door into the shed.
Elmer went over to the other crates and rapped on the smaller one. “That you, Bronco?” he asked. “You inside of there?”
“It’s me,” said a muffled voice. “Elmer, is that you? Have we reached the Earth?”