:- be for him, would not be. As he had told U-Cha, there was only one road to take, and that lay north. And
– Taut, sailing under new orders, to hunt down fugitive fragments of the Atlantean fleet scouts, had agreed to
-‘ set him ashore where he wished.
– The raider captain pulled his sea cloak tighter about his thick shoulders. There was a chill breeze, more like
_= the breath of the winters Ray had known in the land this would become. Now he could .see patches of white ashore, traces of snow.
“We’ll cruise to the east. Light your signal fire when you want to be taken off-”
Ray nodded. That signal, he thought, would probably . never be lighted. Best make Taut understand that.
“I may not return at all,” he said. “I go to find my own people.”
“Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no fancy tales,” replied the other. “Oh, aye, every man is entitled to his own secrets. There is no colony here, only wilds and things in them such as make for hard meetings, one way or another. There were Atlantean ships cruising here, and some will turn pirate now. Outlaws make their camps back there.” He waved his hand to the
shore. “Walk quietly, warrior, and keep your hand ever on sword hilt while you do so. We’ll watch for your signal.”
“And if you do not see it within five days, go about your own business and do not seek me further,” repeated Ray firmly.
“Agreed. But then what do I report when I return? That I landed you in a wilderness, that you would have no escort from among us, and that I left you alone here? I think that I would have to accept sword-challenge if I said that. Especially when facing the Sunborn Cho whom you tricked when you stole away from him to come aboard my ship, bearing those orders with you.”
“Tell him to ask his questions of U-Cha, the Naacal. There are those who know what I must do.”
Ray was impatient. He almost wanted to dive over the side of the ship and swim. But at last Taut did not appear to wish to waste more time in argument. The captain gave orders, and Ray was rowed ashore. He jumped from the boat to the, wave-washed sand and turned to catch the provision bag the steersman threw to him. But he did not wait thereafter to watch the boat return to the ship.
Wind and wave had worked upon the sand dunes, but not too far away were fire-smoked stones. Yes, his inner urging had led him aright. This was the place of the Atlantean camp where he had been a captive. Now
Ray cached the bag of supplies behind a convenient rock. That was only an unnecessary burden and one he would probably never see again. He began to walk on as steady a course inland as if his feet followed a well-marked road, as sure of his route as if that path stretched smoothly-paved before him.
In time he came to the ravine where lay the cleaned bones of the elk. He scrambled up the rise down which they had brought him a prisoner. Before him, against the sky, was the dark line of the forest. There was no sun today. The sky was cold and drear, and winter bit more deeply here. Dark was that forest, for, in spite of the season, there had not been a complete loss of leaves from the trees, so a dusky canopy still hung overhead. He put aside a withered vine that struck against the crest of his Murian helmet and paused to pull the hem of his cloak from the thorny grasp of a bush.
Beneath the soles of his high sea boots was a moss carpet, its green only faintly touched with brown. As he looked on down those tree aisles, he could see only murk. This was his recurring dream of the forest and what might walk there to meet him. Yet this was his road, and now he had no power to turn from it. There was no will overriding his fears and desires as there had been in Atlantis, but he felt an overwhelming need to go on and on, to reach the place where he had come through time. The need had been only an uneasiness of spirit at first, but it had grown stronger and stronger each day, pulling at him in a way he could no longer resist, even if he had wanted to.
The leather and denim he had worn then were gone. He had a tunic of hide, tanned to fabric-softness, the metal-enforced kilt of a soldier, and over his bandaged chest a corselet of metal. A sword belt weighed about his waist, the sheath rubbing against his thigh. By so much had he changed. He wondered fleetingly what they would think when they saw him, the men of his own time. His fantastic story-perhaps his clothing would give it some credence.
Heedless of scratches, Ray broke through the last of the underbrush that fringed the true forest and trotted on down the aisle before him. He had fled this way in panic: Would he be able to find again the exact spot of the breakthrough? At least that pull on him continued, and he had come to trust it as a kind of homing device.
He was running again, this time into the wood, not from it. Now-now-now
“Something is coming in!” Burton pushed aside one earphone.
They could see the alien scene on the screen, the
giant trees, the edge of the forest glade. Hargreaves glanced around at the others gathered there. He thought-they didn’t really believe it. Until now-in spite of the film, all the other shots-they didn’t believe it. You can’t-until you actually see it for yourself.
“A reading-give me a reading!” Burton demanded sharply of one of his three assistants.
Each repeated a series of coordinates, and Burton adjusted dials before him, frowning.
“Dalberg-repeat!”
The man to the left reread his figures. Burton’s 7 pencil dug hard into the surface of the pad at his elbow as he scribbled. His frown deepened. He added, crossed out with a vicious stroke, and set down another line of figures.
“What is it?” asked General Colfax.
Burton waved an impatient demand for quiet. “Campbell-try- ” Another flood of equations was delivered to his right-hand neighbor. Fingers flicked keys; dials were turned. Burton hunched his shoulders, leaning farther forward until his nose tip was not far, from that smaller viewscreen repeating the scene on ‘the larger.
Fordham spoke for the first time. “Ten minutes to go on this hold.”
Burton looked around. “That may not be enough. We have him-or someone-on the beam. You’ve got to hold longer-”
“If we do, we’ll have to draw from the reserve. And we may blow any chance of another try very soon.”
“But we have him, I tell you!”
“You said-‘him or something.”’ The general spoke:` again. “You didn’t sound so sure a moment ago.”
“We’re doing this all on a supposition basis, on an: equation built from inadequate data,” Burton replied.’ “Naturally we must expect some variation. Well, we do have a fix on a mind now, and it’s coming in, answering , the beam. I don’t think we could pick up anything but – your man. We built our call around what we know of him-and him only.”
“But you’re still not sure.” The general picked up a small come from the table to give his own orders.
– “Small, alert your men. Pick up whoever comes
through, I want him brought here on the double the minute he shows.”
Fordham consulted his own dials. “Six minutes to go on this setting. How close is he now?” he asked of Burton.
“Less than a mile. You’ll have to switch onto the extra time, I tell you!”
Fordham’s fingers drummed on the edge of the panel. Finally he pulled a mike to him. “Let her go onto extra. Yes, I said switch onto extra when the time is up!”
Those trees on the screen, just an innocent picture now, Hargreaves thought. There were men stationed down there by the Indian mound, ready to jump on what was being pulled through, back into their time. This Ray Osborne-or someone-or something. It was human with a human brain or Burton’s beam could not have snared it, pulled it in. But was it their man or someone whose true world included that awesome forest?
Ray’s boot toe caught in a half-rotted, earth-embedded branch. He threw out his arms in an involuntary effort to keep his balance and managed to remain on his feet
s as he tottered forward into a glade. His hand slapped against a tree trunk, and he gripped the bark. Then-the tree-it was fading! He stumbled again and went to one knee. Shadows whirling in and out, around and about him in a giddy dance. There was a larger shadow looming-heaped earth-a mound-= The Indian mound!