Just before we left, the Mother Thing placed her hand against my forehead and started to hold me with her eyes. I pushed her hand aside and looked away. “No,” I told her. “No treatments! I’m not going to-oh, I know you mean well but I won’t take an anesthetic. Thanks.”
She did not insist; she simply turned to Peewee. Peewee looked uncertain, then shook her head. “We’re ready,” she piped.
The farther out we got on that great bare floor the more I regretted that I had not let the Mother Thing do whatever it was that kept one from worrying. At least I should have insisted that Peewee take it.
Coming at us from the other walls were two other flies; as they got closer I recognized them: the Neanderthal and the Legionary. The cave man was being dragged invisibly; the Roman covered ground in a long, slow, easy lope. We all arrived at the center at the same time and were stopped about twenty feet apart, Peewee and I at one point of a triangle, the Roman and the cave man each at another.
I called out, “Hail, Iunio!”
“Silence, barbarian.” He looked around him, his eyes estimating the crowd at the walls.
He was no longer in casual dress. The untidy leggings were gone; strapped to his right shin was armor. Over the tunic he wore full cuirass and his head was brave with plumed helmet. All metal was burnished, all leather was clean.
He had approached with his shield on his back, route-march style. But even as we were stopped he unslung it and raised it on his left arm. He did not draw his sword as his right hand held his javelin at the ready carried easily while his wary eyes assessed the foe.
To his left the cave man hunkered himself small, as an animal crouches who has no place to hide.
“Iunio!” I called out. “Listen!” The sight of those two had me still more worried. The cave man I could not talk to but perhaps I could reason with the Roman. “Do you know why we are here?”
“I know,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Today the Gods try us in their arena. This is work for a soldier and a Roman citizen. You’re no help so keep out. No-watch behind me and shout. Caesar will reward you.”
I started to try to talk sense but was cut off by a giant voice from everywhere: “YOU ARE NOW BEING JUDGED!”
Peewee shivered and got closer. I twisted my left hand out of her clutch, substituted my right, and put my left arm around her shoulders. “Head up, partner,” I said softly. “Don’t let them scare you.”
“I’m not scared,” she whispered as she trembled. “Kip? You do the talking.”
“Is that the way you want it?”
“Yes. You don’t get mad as fast as I do-and if I lost my temper . . . well, that’d be awful.”
“Okay.”
We were interrupted by that flat, nasal twang. As before, it seemed close by. “This case derives from the one preceding it. The three temporal samples are from a small Lanador-type planet around a star in an out-center part of the Third Galaxy. It is a very primitive area having no civilized races. This race, as you see from the samples, is barbaric. It has been examined twice before and would not yet be up for routine examination had not new facts about it come out in the case which preceded it.”
The voice asked itself: “When was the last examination made?”
It answered itself: “Approximately one half-death of Thorium-230 ago.” It added, apparently to us only: “About eighty thousand of your years.”
Iunio jerked his head and looked around, as if trying to locate the voice. I concluded that he had heard the same figure in his corrupt Latin. Well, I was startled too-but I was numb to that sort of shock.
“Is it necessary again so soon?”
“It is. There has been a discontinuity. They are developing with unexpected speed.” The flat voice went on, speaking to us: “I am your judge. Many of the civilized beings you see around you are part of me. Others are spectators, some are students, and a few are here because they hope to catch me in a mistake.” The voice added, “This they have not managed to do in more than a million of your years.”