“Guns! We have four ports open now, and a weapon in each ready to fire. It was the chiefs guess that this was—is— a small military scout, or police patrol ship.” He clicked the lever back into place and the lights were gone.
“Not very helpful now,” Ross commented. “What about the chances for getting back home?”
Renfry shrugged. “Not a chance that I can see so far. Frankly, I’m afraid to do any poking around these controls while we’re in space. There is too good a chance of stopping and not getting started again—either forward or back.”
“That makes sense. So we’ll just have to keep on going to whatever port for which your controls are now set?”
Renfry nodded. “Not my controls, though, sir. This—all of this—is far advanced, and different—beyond our planes. Maybe, if I had time, and we were safely on ground, I could discover how the engines tick, but what makes them do so would still be another problem.”
“Atomic fuel?”
“Even that I can’t say. The engines are completely sealed. That sealing may be atomic shielding, we didn’t dare pry too far.”
“And home port may be anywhere in the universe,” mused Ashe. “They had some type of distance-time jump—voyages couldn’t have lasted centuries.”
Renfry was studying the banks of buttons and levers with an expression of complete exasperation. “They could have every gadget in a fiction writer’s imagination, sir, and we wouldn’t know it—until the thing did or didn’t work!”
“Quite a prospect.” Ashe got up with the careful motions of a novice in no-weight. “I think a detailed exploration of the rest of our present home is now in order.”
There were three of the small living cabins, each equipped with two bunk-hammocks. And by experimenting with the wall panels they discovered clothing, personal effects of the crew. Travis did not like to empty those shallow cupboards and handle those possessions of dead men. But he did his share during the hunt for some clue which might mean the difference between life and death for the present passengers. He had opened a last small cavity in one locker when he caught a promising glitter. He picked up the object and found himself holding a rectangle of some slick material with the texture of glass. It was milky white, blank when he picked it up. But the chill of the first touch faded as he turned it over curiously. The rim was bordered in a band of tiny flashing bits of yellow which might be gem stones—framing blank-ness instead of a picture.
A picture! If he could hold a picture of a far place—what sort would it be? Family—home—friends? He watched the plain surface within the border. Plain—? There was something there! Color was seeping up to the surface, spreading; outlines were becoming solid. Bewildered, almost frightened, Travis studied that changing scene.
He did have a picture now. And one he knew. It was an entirely familiar scene—a stretch of desert and mountains. Why, he might be standing on the cliffs looking toward Red Horse Canyon! He wanted to throw the thing from him. How could an alien who lived twelve thousand years ago carry among his belongings a picture of the country Travis knew as home? It was unbelievable—unreal!
“What is it, son?” Ashe’s hand was real on his arm, Ashe’s voice warm through the chill congealing inside him as he continued to stare at the thing he held, the thing which, in spite of its familiar beauty, was wrong, terrible. . . .
“Picture . . .” he mumbled. “Picture of my home—here.”
“What?” Ashe stopped closer and gave an exclamation, took the block out of Travis’ hands. The younger man wiped his sweating palms down his thighs, trying to wipe away the touch of that weird picture.
But, as he watched the desert scene, he cried out. For it was fading away, the colors were absorbed in the original white. The outlines of cliffs and mountains were gone. Ashe held the plaque up in both of his hands. And now there was a new stirring in the depths, a murky flowing as again a scene grew into sharp brilliance.
Only this was not the desert, but a stand of tall, green trees Travis recognized as pines. Below them was a strand of gray-white sand, and beyond the pound of waves lashing high in foam against fanged rocks. Above that restless water white birds hung.
“Safeharbor!” Ashe sat down suddenly on the bunk and the picture shook as his hands trembled. “That’s the beach by my home in Maine—in Maine, I tell you! Safeharbor, Maine! But how did this get here?” His expression was one of dazed bewilderment.
“To me it showed my home also,” Travis said slowly. “And now to you another scene. Perhaps to the man who once lived in this cabin it also showed his home. This is a magic thing, I think. Not of the magic which your people have harnessed to do their will, nor of the magic of my Old Ones either.” Somehow the thought that this object bewildered the white man as much as it did him took away a little of the fear. Ashe raised his eyes from the scene of shore and sea to meet Travis’. Slowly he nodded.
“You may be guessing, but I’ll stake a lot on your guess being right. What they knew, these people—what wonders they knew! We must learn all we can, follow them.”
Travis laughed shakily. “Follow them we are, Doctor Ashe. About the learning—well, we shall see.”
8
A FIGUBE edged along the narrow corridor, his cushioned feet barely touching the floor. In the timeless interior of the spaceship where there was no change between day and night, Travis had had to wait a long time for this particular moment. His brown hands, too thin nowadays, played with the fastening of his belt. Under that was a gnawing ache which never left him now.
They had stretched their water supply with strict rationing, and the concentrate tablets the same way. But tomorrow —or in the next waking period they would arbitrarily label “tomorrow”—they would have only four of those small squares. And Travis was keenly aware of not only that indisputable fact but of something which Ross had said that day when they had argued out the need for experiment with alien food supplies. “Case Renfry,” the younger time agent had pointed out the obvious, “is certainly not going to be your tester. If we are ever going to be able to find out what makes this bus tick and get it started home again, he’s the one to do it. And, chief-he had then turned upon Ashe—“you’ve the best brain—it’s up to you to help him. Maybe somewhere in this loot we’ve found you can locate a manual, or a do-it-yourself tape that’ll give us a fair break.”
They had been pulling over the material they had found in the cabins. Objects such as the disappearing picture were set aside on the hope that Ashe, with his archaeologist’s training in the penetration of age-old mysteries, might understand them through study.
“Which,” Ross had continued,” leaves the food problem up to a volunteer—me.”
Travis had remained quiet, but he had also made plans. He had already followed Ross’s reasoning to a logical end, but his conclusion differed from Murdock’s. Of the four men on board he, not Murdock, was certainly the most expendable. And the history of his people testified to the fact that Apaches possessed the toughest of digestive apparatus. They had been able to live off the natural products of a land where other races starved. So—he was now engaged in his own private project.
Last sleep period he had tackled the first container chosen from the supply cupboard, the one which had sloshed when shaken. He had swallowed two large mouthfuls of a sickly sweet substance with the consistency of stew. And, while the taste had not been pleasant, Travis had suffered no discomfort afterward. Now he chose a small round can, prying off the lid quickly while listening for any warning from the corridor.
He had left Ross asleep in the small cabin they shared, had looked in upon Renfry and Ashe before he made this trek.
There was so little time and he had to wait a reasonable period between each tasting.
Travis wanted a drink, but he knew better than to take one. He had palmed his concentrate tablet at the last “meal,” held the canteen to his mouth but not drunk, keeping his stomach empty. Now he studied his new selection with disgust.
A brown jelly, it quivered slightly with the movement of the cylinder in his hand, its surface reflecting the light. Using the edge of the lid as an improvised spoon, Travis ladled a portion into his mouth. Unlike the stew the stuff had little flavor, though he did not relish the greasy feel on his tongue. He swallowed, took a second helping. Then he chose a third sample—a square box. He •would wait. If there were no ill effects from the jelly—then this. If he could prove four or five of these different containers held food the Terrans could stomach, they might have enough to outlast the voyage.