“Compliments of the house,” he said. “I certainly never thought I’d want to wear one of these again.”
“Their uniforms?” Travis remembered the dead pilot. “What is this—silk?” He rubbed his hand over the sleek surface of a fabric he could not identify and was attracted by the play of color—blue, green, lavender—rippling from one shade to another as the material moved.
“Yes. It has its good points, all right—insulated against cold and heat, for one thing. For another, it can be traced.”
Travis paused, his arm half through the right sleeve. “Traced?”
“Well, I was trailed over about fifty miles of pretty rugged territory because I was wearing one like this. And they tried to get at me mentally, too, when I had it on. Went to sleep one night and woke up heading right back to the boys who wanted to collect me.”
Travis stared, but it was plain Ross meant every word he said. Then the Apache glanced down again at the silky stuff he was wearing, with an impulse to strip it off. Yet Murdock in spite of his story, was fastening the studs which ran from one shoulder to the other hip of his own garment.
“If we were in their time, I wouldn’t touch this with a fifty-foot pole,” Ross continued, smiling wryly. “But, seeing as how we are some thousands of years removed from the rightful owners, I’ll take the chance. As I said, these suits do have some points in their favor.”
Travis snapped his own studs together. The material felt good, smooth, a little warm, almost as soothing as the foam bubbles which had scoured and energized his tired body. He was willing to chance wearing the uniform. It was infinitely better than the hide garment he had discarded.
They were learning to navigate through weightlessness. The usual technique approached swimming, and they found convenient handholds to draw them along. If Travis could forget that the ship was boring on into the unknown, their present lodging had a lot to recommend it. But when the four of them gathered in the control cabin an hour or so later, they prepared to consider the major problem with what objectivity they could summon.
Ashe, alertly himself again, fresh from the healing of the aliens’ treatment, was their leader by unspoken consent. Only it was to Renfry that the three time scouts looked for hope. The technician had little to offer.
“The pilot must have set the ship’s controls on some type of homing device just before he died. I’m just guessing at this, you understand, but it is the only explanation to make sense now. When we explored here, my chief, working from what he knew of the tape records from the Russian headquarters, traced three installations; the one giving outside vision,” he began, tapping lightly on the screen which had been blue for those few precious moments before their involuntary take-off. “Another which is the inside com system connecting speakers all over the ship. And a third—this.” He pushed a lever to its head in a slot. Three winks of light showed on the board and out of the air above their heads came a sound which might have been a word in an unknown tongue.
“And what is that?” Ashe watched the lights with interest.
“Guns! We have four ports open now, and a weapon in each ready to fire. It was the chief’s 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, 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.”
“What’s the fuel?”
“Even that I can’t say. The engines are completely sealed. 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 caution, the careful motions of a novice in weightlessness. “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 that felt like 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 blankness 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 and 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 warmed 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 stepped 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 the 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 soared.
“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 the magic which your people have harnessed to do their will, nor 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 figure 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.