Time Travel Omnibus, page 213
Pete paused anxiously, but nobody seemed insulted. Grul was glaring, open-mouthed, baffled.
“Now look, pals.” Pete’s voice became softly ingratiating. “I ain’t trying to sell you something. I’m trying to help you—all of you.” He eyed his clenched fist and opened it suddenly, to reveal nothing. “See that, folks? Nothing at all! That shows it’s easy to trick people, just like you were fooled, Grul, old boy. You thought I didn’t like you, eh? Now look, pal, I just want to show you how wrong you were.”
“Hah!” Grul remarked. “All the shes like you. They do not like me. I kill.”
He extended unpleasantly long fingers toward Pete, who shrank back in terror. Abruptly he felt something being pressed into his hand. Looking down, he saw that Shak had surreptitiously slipped him a sharp little knife chipped from flint. An idea sprang full-blown, into Pete’s mind.
“Hold on!” he yelped. “Listen, Grul, you got the wrong slant altogether. The whole trouble”—he pointed to the giant’s crop of bristling beard—“is there. Dames don’t like whiskers. They hide your beauty. Back where I come from—uh—I mean there’s a famous poem illustrating the point. ‘Never let your whiskers wave. Shave ’em off with Flint-o-shave,’ ” Pete improvised hurriedly. He threw all his persuasive ability into the argument. “It’s painless, too. You’ve got a Barrymore profile—but nobody can see your mug behind that bush. Just let me demonstrate—”
CHAPTER III
The Hottest Climate Yet
GRUL was tempted and fell. He sat down nervously on the rock. Growling under his breath, he watched suspiciously as Pete smeared bear grease and water on the red beard and gingerly applied the knife. Gradually half of Grul’s face emerged from the underbrush. Pete kept up a running comment designed to distract his patient’s attention.
“See how simple it is, pal? How’dya expect to get sun-tanned unless you shave? See how you look now—a ringer for King Kong. One of the handsomest guys I know,” Pete amended, and shaved away with greater confidence. “Facial, massage, shampoo—Boy, all you’ll need is a manicure. Just—”
At that moment the blow fell. Pete had grown much too confident for his meager skill. The sharp flint sliced neatly through the red hair. But it continued from there, and went on to slice a good-sized hunk of epidermis from Grul’s jutting jaw.
Half-shaved, Grul stood up and batted Pete over the head with a hamlike fist. The clout knocked Manx end over end. Before he could scramble to his feet, Grul was swarming all over him.
“Help!” Pete squawked, striving to keep his opponent’s teeth from his throat. “You can’t do this! It’s illegal!”
“I kill!” Grul snarled, and did his best to make good the threat.
Pete frantically kicked the red giant in the stomach, whereupon Grul seized a large rock and beat his barber over the head with it. The world started to spin around . . .
Pete let himself go limp, playing possum. Through narrowed eyes he watched the brutal face of Grul twist into a frown. The giant hesitated, drew back. Pete’s muscles tensed.
“He lives!” somebody said. “Will you kill him now?”
“No,” Grul refuted. “Tonight we shall cook and eat him. Till then—” The cave man moved swiftly.
“Hey!” Pete gulped.
He said no more, for a rock bounced off his skull, and the lights went out for Mr. Manx.
He woke up in approximately the same position. Shak was squatting on his haunches, devouring part of an auroch. He grinned toothily at Pete.
“Ow, my head,” Manx groaned. “Where’s that Galento?”
“Who?”
“Grul.”
“A tiger carried him off,” Shak said, “Must have smelled the blood from when you cut Grul’s cheek. It was smart of you, Ulg. You are the chief now.”
Pete blinked, dazed. It seemed too good to be true. But Shak assured him that it had actually happened. A huge saber-tooth had bounded into the clearing, smelled the blood on Grul’s jaw. Seizing the man, it had leaped back into the jungle. That, apparently, was that.
The whole tribe, Pete noticed, knelt in a circle. They were banging their heads on the ground. He gulped.
“You mean—I’m the boss? The big shot?”
Shak nodded and grinned. Pete took a deep breath.
“Then,” he said grimly, “there’s going to be a New Deal, starting right now. Yeah! A Blitzkrieg, pal—and watch my dust!”
TWO days later, a transformed Pete Manx strolled about the camp. He had painfully fashioned shirt and shorts from the skin of a deer, and the other missing links were clothed similarly. It had been hard work, and the line of hairy men who stood solemnly in a row were far from sartorially perfect. But it was, at least, a start.
“Right—dress!” Pete roared.
Several dozen arms and heads flipped busily. Unfortunately the tribe didn’t know right from left.
“Patrol Leader Shak, report!” Pete ordered.
Shak stepped forward, saluting.
“All present, Ulg—I mean sir.”
Pete eyed the man’s uniform narrowly.
“Hold on. When I made you, Patrol Leader, I sewed two stripes of white rat fur on your sleeve. What happened? Where are those two stripes?”
Shak wriggled miserably. Under Pete’s baleful glare he blinked embarrassedly.
“I—I ate ’em,” he finally confessed.
Pete spoke at some length. When the air had cleared, he dismissed the troop. He stood watching them, feeling a strong sense of satisfaction. Shak was instructing three rookies in the art of making fire by friction. Farther away, two others were sending each other messages by means of semaphore flags. They certainly were doing it badly.
Others were practicing first-aid on an unwilling patient. He was finally subdued by the simple expedient of beating him over the head till he lay limp and was an actual patient.
Pete clucked happily to himself, and turned at a sound behind him. Grul was loping forward, a gaping scar on his left arm. The red giant’s teeth were bared in a vicious grin.
Pete’s stomach turned over sickeningly. He gurgled.
“Grul! But—but—”
“I killed the tiger,” stated Grul, licking his lips unpleasantly. “With my bare hands. And now—tonight—
I shall kill and eat you, as I did the tiger.”
With that he sprang upon Pete and choked the horrified ex-barker into unconsciousness. Manx’s last thought was a vain regret that he had not remembered to invent the bow and arrow.
SOME time later, Cave Man Manx recovered. Flickering firelight was gleaming in his eyes.
Rising unsteadily, Pete started. A huge figure bounded away toward the back of the cave in which he stood.
It was Burl, the former chief, now motivated by the ego of a rabbit. Apparently Burl was destined for the same fate as Pete.
The cave had evidently been used as a storeroom. Piles of old hides, stacks of wood, clay pots, and various other primeval objects were scattered here and there. A fire was burning nearby. The cave wasn’t a large one, and Pete went toward the circle of blue sky that marked its mouth. He peered down and shuddered.
The ground was unpleasantly far below. The tribe was still squatting about their fire, and it was late afternoon. What had Grul said?
“Tonight we shall cook and eat him.”
“I’m getting out of here!” Pete remarked—but it was more easily said than done. The cliff outside the cave mouth was absolutely perpendicular. A line of pegs, stuck into holes cut in the rock-face, extended up from a ledge forty feet below. But the uppermost dozen pegs had been removed, making Pete a prisoner. Above him the cliff beetled out. Obviously there could be no escape that way.
Burl squeaked and hopped into a corner as Pete came back, scratching his head. What now? He couldn’t get out of this prison and there was nobody around for him to talk his way out. What was left? At dark Grul would come for him—and Pete would find himself the entree at the feast. Frantically Manx’s eyes scanned the cave in the hope of discovering some weapon. But his search was futile.
Pete threw more wood on the fire, and then his eyes brightened. If Grul could only be frightened! If Pete could somehow manage to arouse the red giant’s superstitious fears, that would be far more effective than any weapon. Yet—how?
Pete examined the pile of skins in the cave. His attention was caught by the horned head of a bison, auroch, or buffalo. It was rather mangy, but the horns curled out terrifyingly. An interesting masquerade costume might be constructed from it, with the aid of a few strategically arranged skins. But that wouldn’t be enough.
The sound of lapping came to Pete’s ears. Turning, he saw Burl crouched toward the back of the cave. His face was buried in a little spring that rose silently to vanish in a hole in the wall. Abruptly Pete’s eyes widened.
“Eureka!” he whispered. “Maybe—Yeah! If it works, I think I got something!”
He had fire and water. For some reason that reminded Pete of his days barking before the Fun House at the amusement park. Suckers used to stand and gape when a horned devil arose through billowing white clouds, in an alcove above the ticket booth. An old stunt, and plenty corny, but—cavemen might fall for it.
PETE went to work. He didn’t know how much time he had, but the sun was ominously near the tree-tops. Swiftly he found all the pots he could and brought them to the spring. He filled them with water, after replenishing the fire.
Gluey yellow clay lined the banks of the little pool. Pete used it to seal the mouths of the water-filled pots. He went back to the pile of wood and selected a number of hollow bamboo poles.
The giant bamboo of prehistoric days towered as high as the great redwoods. Each segment, Pete saw, was about fifteen feet long—quite sufficient for his purposes. Selecting a dozen of the straightest of the hollow tubes, Pete brought them to the spring. He hastily went to work.
Each bamboo shoot was inserted in one of the water-filled pots. He packed clay about it, so the sealing was complete. After that, Pete baked the clay at the fire, taking pains not to burn the bamboo. He sent apprehensive glances toward the cave-mouth. It was nearly sundown.
As darkness fell, Pete grew more and more apprehensive. What if the clay pots failed to hold? Obviously they weren’t very strong. Well—, there was only one way to tell.
Finding a sharp piece of flint, Pete whittled wooden stoppers for the bamboo tubes. He arranged the pots in the fire, and laid the poles fanwise toward the mouth of the cave. They just reached it, as Pete had planned.
Burl squeaked sadly and cowered against the wall. From below, loud shouts arose. The cavemen were becoming hungry.
The sun vanished behind the jungle fringe. Twilight deepened. Pete anxiously examined the pots. The clay was still holding. He fitted his stoppers into the bamboo tubas and then hurried to the pile of skins, selecting one of the largest. This he tied about his body. Struck by an idea, he added a dozen more, until he looked like a furry ovoid topped by a bullet-shaped head. The more grotesque he appeared, the more effective would be his stratagem. If it worked! Time dragged. From below, loud shouts still drifted up. Pete hovered frantically about his gadget, examining it with anxious eyes and fingers. So far it was working all right.
Burl squeaked. Pete waved at him with an assurance he didn’t feel.
“It’s okay, pal. Just relax. We’ve got ’em licked—I hope . . .”
The moon rose. Simultaneously, suspicious noises were heard. Pete crept to the cave-mouth and peered over, holding the auroch head in one arm. The cavemen, led by Grul, were climbing up toward him. Their shadows slanted blackly along the steep cliff face.
Pete drew back sharply. The auroch head banged against a rock. One of the horns fell off. It rolled toward the brink. Manx caught it just in time.
HE peered at it. Pretty old. It was hollow, in fact. It looked like—like a horn! Pete’s eyes widened. He put the tip of the hollow horn to his lips, hesitated, and took a deep breath.
Then, abruptly, he felt a curious shock of disorientation. Briefly he felt himself falling, and the moonlight swam vaguely before his eyes. He saw, phantomlike, the walls of Dr. Mayhem’s laboratory . . .
Like a ghostly vision, it faded and was gone. Nor did it reappear. Pete felt weak with disappointment. For a moment he had hoped that he had been rescued, that Mayhem had got the time machine repaired. But it was not to be. Pete had to get out of this mess without anybody’s help. He reached for the auroch head.
The tribe climbed up, Grul leading the way. They reached the ledge, passed it, and kept on. Grul drew some pegs from a pouch at his side and inserted them, into the holes in the cliff face. He climbed more slowly now, and his long teeth were bared in a grin of anticipation.
CHAPTER IV
The End of the Ulg!
GRUL’S furred hands reached the lip of the ledge. The red giant drew himself up. He could see nothing but the fire inside the cave, and some lengths of bamboo that lay on the rock floor. He waited, crouching lower, while several fuzzy heads bobbed up behind him and blinking eyes stared.
“He is trying to hide,” Grul stated. “Come. We shall kill and eat both. Ulg and Burl.”
The tribesmen started to clamber over the ledge. Then, without warning, hell broke loose!
A hairy devil bounded out of the shadows. It skipped to the bamboo tubes. With urgent haste, it bent to fumble at them. Grul’s jaw dropped. Before he could gather his wits, a stinging, searing pain blinded him.
White clouds gushed out, spurting, aching, flame-hot! Steam, built up in the sealed clay pots in the fire, shot through the bamboo tubes as Pete pulled out the plugs. Clouds of hot steam rolled out, red-tinged by the flames farther back.
Nor was that all. The hairy devil—huger than a man, with a single horn projecting from its misshapen head—had raised another horn to its muzzle. The ear-shattering bellow of Pete Manx’s improvised trumpet skirled out. Hideously discordant, it was obviously the hunger cry of a night-demon preparing to spring upon the horrified cavemen.
The men screamed in fright. The ones farther down the cliff could not see into the cave. Nevertheless, they noticed the clouds of steam rolling out and heard the horn, as well as the shrieks of their fellows. The tribe cascaded down the cliff like a waterfall, howling in terror.
Success went to Pete’s head. Only Grul remained facing him, and the red giant was preparing to scramble down to safety. Pete made the error of trying to kick Grul in the teeth.
The caveman’s reactions were instinctive. He blocked the blow, and his taloned fingers gripped Pete’s leg. Manx tottered, yelped, and fell. The auroch head went rolling across the cave floor.
The clouds of steam were dying. Grul, blinking, stared at the astonishing sight before him. The demon’s head was gone, and in its place was—Ulg’s unprepossessing face.
Grul did not try to puzzle out the why or wherefore. He had a single-track mind. Consequently he bellowed in enraged fury and sprang at Pete.
“Hey!” Mr. Manx objected, as iron fingers sank into his throat. “Wait a—Urk! Uggle!” He said no more.
“I kill!” Grul roared.
Desperately Pete Manx tried to tear away the talons. Flat on his back, encumbered by the furs, he could make no real resistance. The face of Grul swam before his eyes. Pete gave himself up for lost.
Then, suddenly, Grul went away. He was merely picked up. He dangled in mid-air, kicking helplessly. Wheezing and gasping, Pete sat up, staring with bulging eyes. The red giant was held prisoned in the mighty grip of—Burl, the chief!
But Burl was insane, a caveman with the mind of a rabbit! Yet there was no madness in the chief’s eyes. And there was, Pete thought, sound logic in Burl’s remarks as he expressed his intention of tearing Grul into bits.
Abruptly Manx realized what had happened. Dr. Mayhem had repaired the time machine. The rabbit’s ego had been returned to its normal time sector, 1940. Burl was himself again!
Pete applauded weakly. Grul was putting up a game battle, but the outcome of the struggle was already apparent. It became certain when Burl clouted Grul over the head. The incredible blow sent the red giant hurtling against the wall with a thud.
The vibrations of the thud didn’t die. They grew stronger. Pete was conscious of a weird shock, a familiar sense of disorientation. The firelight faded before his eyes.
Just before he lost consciousness, he realized Mayhem was bringing him back to his original time sector.
LIGHT came—blazing sunlight.
Pete realized that he was standing on a crowded sidewalk. He moved aside because pedestrians shoved him out of their way. What had happened? He wasn’t back in the laboratory.
He looked around. A signpost caught his eye—Central Park West and 65th Street. Central Park was just across the street. What had gone wrong?
Suddenly Pete guessed. He bought a paper. One glance at the date-line told him the truth.
Mayhem had not forgotten the original purpose of the experiment! Instead of bringing Pete back to the hour of the test in the laboratory, he had brought him back to the day before. Pete was in yesterday!
A column on the front page of the paper he held caught his eye.
“Kentucky Derby to be run today. Track clear—”
That meant that Pick-me-up had not yet won the race. But he would, perhaps in a few hours. Before that time Pete had to lay his wager. He fumbled in his pocket.
Less than a dollar in silver. In the wallet that he discovered in his coat, he found thirty dollars in bills. There was a driver’s license that made him blink in amazement. It bore the name of—Professor Aker!
Naturally, when Pete went back through time, his mind had entered the body of somebody else. But Aker, of all people! Yet this was what had happened, as a glance in a nearby shop window proved. The reflection was that of the paunchy, dignified man with pince-nez and a grim expression.
Pete thought fast. In the past, both he and Professor Aker had traveled into time. Perhaps because of that there existed some mysterious psychic affinity between them. That might explain a little. Yet the important thing now was Pick-me-up.
