The end to the need to keep staggering came at last. Abruptly the valley came to shore land, and the stream flowed on to form a miniature delta on the lip of a rolling sea. Sea?
Keen salt air roused Ray to something again approaching coherent thought. Sea? In the midst of a’ continent? He looked upon the pale crescent of sand with a kind of dull horror. There could be no sea here. But then here was not his own world! He was firmly caught in a nightmare.
A hail from the beach urged his captors to a swifter pace, and they dragged him with them, one on either side to jerk him along. Down at the edge of that incredible water, smoke, thin and tenuous as morning mist, plumed up from a driftwood fire, and several dark figures stood to greet the huntsmen.
“Still say fairy tale?” Fordham did not raise his eyes from the view screen.
When Hargreaves did not answer, he glanced around. There was a frown drawing the other’s features into a pattern of angry belligerence. Fordham had witnessed that reaction before. This time he welcomed the sign of doubt battered by evidence.
“All right. I see something-trees-like those on your other films.”
“Trees?” Fordham pushed. “Do they resemble any you have seen before?”
“No-” Hargreaves’ admission came reluctantly. Fordham continued to press.
“Trees such as those,” he pointed out, “have probably not been seen in this part of the world for several hundred years. The early settlers are reported to have had their problems when they cleared this land. Sometimes it took years to remove virgin forest, stump and root.”
“All right! I’ll admit you have something, that we see a section of country through that beam which certainly is not out there now and may not have been for a long time. But time travel-Atlantis-I have to have more proof before I send in any recommendation-”
“You have the films to take back with you. I only spoke of Atlantis as a possibility-I didn’t promise it. You may merely see pre-Columbian or just pre-Revolutionary Ohio but there. We have no way yet of proving or disproving Ibby’s equation. But you’ll have to admit it is an impressive beginning-”
“I want to see the film of what we’ve just watched,”
Hargreaves said. “I want to see if I can spot the change when the beam went on.”
“Take a little time to set it up-”
Hargreaves’ scowl grew deeper. “I’ve got plenty-for this. And I want to see what I’m taking back. There’ll be a lot of questions to answer.”
“There-” Fordham settled down in the projection room. “Here we go, Nowhere’s the cutting as is.”
Raw earth under the weak sunlight of winter, a bulldozer to the left throwing a shadow, the rise of the disputed mound
“I’ll admit I saw a change. I only hope that the film shows it!”
Fordham laughed. “Hypnotism? That’s what you think I’m doing? What would be the point? Unless you think I’ve ridden a hobby completely out of sane bounds. This is the first time we’ve held a beam so long-so we should have more detailed evidence.”
Hargreaves stared at the screen. “When can you-” he hesitated.
“Go over the line ourselves? So far we can only look. We don’t know about the going. We’ll have to build up a lot more power-”
“That growth of timber-” Hargreaves watched the great forest, or that portion of it the beam and film had trapped for them. “Might be a lot of other resources to be tapped. Looks like an empty world-”
“Yes, be practical. Suppose we can open a door into wherever that is, draw upon the resources there. Now-what sort of reaction do you believe you would get to a presentation before the committee if you stress that?”
“They would want to be sure it had a fifty-fifty chance of working. How soon before you will be able to make a real experiment?”
“Send someone through, you mean? I don’t know. It has taken us two years to get this far.”
Hargreaves shook his head. “Get your films; let me show them. We may be able to grant you at least half of what you asked for.” “Generous. But I suppose to be expected.” Fordham’s words were not as grudging as they might have been. He was inwardly satisfied with his half-convert. They watched the run-through, Hargreaves well forward in his chair. There was the scar of the cutting, the mound, then a flicker, and the trees. But a sharp exclamation from Fordham broke the hum of the pro-jector. “Langston,” he called to the operator, “backtrack. Hold it slow just before the switch-” “What—?” Hargreaves’ protest stopped as he looked at his companion. Fordham’s satisfaction of moments earlier had disappeared. The scar about the mound again came into view. “To the left of the mound-right there-look!” Hargreaves looked. A figure, difficult to distinguish, but surely a human figure, stepped within the path of the beam. That which had shown as a flicker when the film was run at normal speed now became a flash that made him blink. Then there were the trees and, surely, beside one of them still that human figure. “Come on!” Fordham was making for the door in a surprising burst of speed for one of his age and habits. They were actually running as they passed down a hallway and into a small outside parking area. Fordham jerked at the door of his car and scrambled into the driver’s seat. And Hargreaves had just time to make it in beside him and slam the door before they skidded across the concrete, heading for the gate. The guard saw them coming and must have had his wits about him, for he threw the automatic switch just in time. Hargreaves released his breath in a faint whistle of relief. At least Fordham had not plowed into that barrier as it looked he might do. Luckily the road was deserted beyond, for they entered it at a prohibited speed. Caution must have caught up with Fordham somewhere along that stretch, for he slowed to turn into the lower cutting, where they bumped and skidded along the rough road of the earth movers. Then once more the director was out and running for the mound. His fear or excitement kept him several paces ahead of Hargreaves, but when the latter rounded the end of the mound, he came upon Fordham at a dead halt. The director held a camera in his hands. But of the figure they had seen on the film, there was no sign at all. “He’s gone!” Hargreaves stated the obvious. Fordham looked up from the camera, his face bleak. “He’s gone, yes-out there-” He looked over his shoulder to where they had seen those rows of trees. And Hargreaves shivered, knowing how that other had gone but not where. “WHERE?” Hargreaves heard himself putting that thought into words.
Fordham’s answer came in a voice hardly above a whisper. “Atlantis-perhaps.”
“But-you said that the forest could be pre-Columbian -or even later,” Hargreaves protested.
“Sure. It could be that-or anything. You saw it, and the film-and you see this now-” Fordham waved the camera. “That poor fool went in, or back, or out whichever way you want to express it—and we sent him.”
“Can you get him back?” Hargreaves pushed aside speculation, reaching as ever for hard fact.
“It will take at least four days, maybe more, to build up the power in the beam again. These things have to be timed. Why do you suppose we selected this particular date and hour to try it this time? It isn’t just a matter of pressing a button to open a door. There has to be a careful working from code. Four days-” He stared around him. “And we have no way of telling how fast time passes over there. He won’t be just sitting there for four days-he has no idea that we’ll try to get him back. He may be miles away when we are ready.”
Hargreaves turned away from the mound to look out over the raw cutting. “But it will have to be done. And the sooner we get to work doing it-”
“Of course.” But Fordham sounded as if he knew already they faced a hopeless task. Hargreaves still gazed at the cut.
“Atlantis-no!” And there was determined refusal in his voice:
Ray stumbled, to sprawl face down in sand near a fireplace rudely built out of rocks. Exhausted, he was content to lie there, paying small attention to the
hunters and those others who awaited them in this camp, but he was not left undisturbed.
Legs, slightly bowed, encased in boots of stiff hide to which patches of thick hair still clung, moved into his restricted line of vision. Then one of those boots was thrust under him, and he was rolled over, face up to the sky. The newcomer wore the same leather tunic as the hunters, but a kilt fashioned of metal strips clashed together as he moved. Instead of a metal-reinforced jerkin, he wore breast and back plates cast in single pieces to fit his barrel chest and wide shoulders snugly. His left arm from wrist to elbow was sheathed in a metal cuff guard, but his right was bare save for two jeweled bracelets.