Time Travel Omnibus, page 244
“We will leave these weaklings, and go forth to find meat for ourselves,” he had told her.
And they had. Scouring far and wide, farther even than the old tribal laws had permitted. Kogar took his mate in search of flesh to sustain life. That had been countless star-skies ago. Kogar could not remember how long. He knew, of course, that the others were dead by now. They had been foolish, and weak.
“See, Kogar,” Merena whispered, “the strange creatures halt!”
KOGAR, jolted from his musings, turned his attention back to the strange creatures. They had stopped, several hundred paces away, and were making sounds at each other. They looked like animals quarreling.
For an instant, Kogar looked at the sharpened stone in his big hand. He lifted it once or twice doubtfully. A throw might bring one of them down. But if he missed, it would frighten them away. He wet his thick lips.
Merena put her hand on his arm.
“Wait,” she breathed, “do not frighten them.”
Kogar nodded. For an instant he considered moving out from behind his hiding place and chasing down after them. He was fleet of foot. He had trapped the last of the four-footed animals that way. But Kogar realized that he was weaker now and not so swift. Besides, he wasn’t certain how swift these strange creatures were in their own right. They might even be like the sky creatures, able to swoop up and away if frightened. Although he saw no signs of wings Kogar couldn’t be sure.
Merena touched his arm again.
“They move,” she whispered.
The creatures were indeed, moving toward them once more. Kogar wondered if there might not be a watering place nearby, unknown to him, to which they were going. He had found many such watering places by following the animals.
Kogar had a sudden idea. He turned to Merena.
“By that other great rock, over there,” he pointed a few hundred feet away to a boulder lying just behind the strange creatures, “you take your place.”
Merena looked uncomprehending Kogar picked up the second of his sharpened stones. He handed it to her. He had taught Merena to hurl the sharpened stones with a fair amount of skill and cunning. From short distances—if the targets moved slowly as these did—she was deadly.
“Behind that great rock,” Kogar repeated, “you take a place!”
Merena nodded, understanding. She smiled at her mate in open admiration of his superior cunning. Kogar was infinitely pleased by the implied compliment. Merena took the stone and flattened herself out on the ground, preparing to inch along to the other boulder.
“After I throw,” Kogar reminded her. “Wait until then.”
Stealthily, with the ability of long practice[*] Merena moved away toward the position her mate had indicated. Kogar watched her progress, aware at the same time that the strange creatures had given them additional advantage by halting again and making angry sounds at each other.
Almost at the same time that the strange creatures resumed their movement toward his boulder, Kogar saw Merena gain the shelter of the other great rock a hundred feet behind them.
ONE of the strange creatures as it moved closer, brought forth a stick from its chest and put it in its mouth. Kogar frowned bewilderedly at this. Then the same strange creature produced a glittering thing and held it up to the stick.
The glittering thing puffed a tiny spurt of orange, then the stick smoked odd blue clouds. The tiny spurt of orange had disappeared now, and the creature put the glittering thing away. But the stick still made small blue clouds. And the blue clouds issued from the mouth of the creature as well.
Kogar shook his head, bewildered. Indeed these were oddly different animals.
Suddenly the creatures were close enough for Kogar to hear the sounds they made. Weird, unintelligible sounds.
“I’m for going back, Wolf!” one creature said. Or, at least that was the way the strange noises sounded to Kogar. His thick brows knit uncomprehendingly at these strange noises. They were communicating, of course, just as dogs communicate by whining, or birds by chirping. Nevertheless, it made Kogar uneasy.
Kogar growled softly in his throat. They were close enough now.
His eyes measuring the distance with deadly certainty, Kogar lifted the sharpened stone again, bringing it back behind his head, his muscles tightening like steel webbing.
Kogar was counting on surprise to hold them motionless long enough to hurl the stone. With most animals it worked that way.
Now, suddenly, thick lips flattened against his teeth in a snarl, Kogar rose from behind the boulder. So intent were the strange creatures that for an instant they didn’t see him. And in that instant Kogar hurled the stone with terrible force.
It caught one of the strange creatures squarely between the eyes, and from the sound it made, Kogar knew he’d crushed in its skull. Red, warm, delicious blood spurted forth from the wound as the creature toppled over dead.
Kogar yelled wildly now, and it had the frightening effect he wanted.
The other creature—the one with the stick in its mouth—was momentarily rooted with terror as it watched its companion fall. Then, on Kogar’s shrill whoop, it suddenly turned—the cloud stick falling to the ground—and dashed madly in the opposite direction, straight toward the boulder behind which Merena waited.
The creature was less than five paces from Merena’s boulder, when she rose, whooping just as Kogar had, but more shrilly.
The effect of this was just as the cunning Kogar had planned. The creature halted abruptly in terror, and in that split second, while it turned its head right and left seeking escape, Merena threw her pointed stone with incredible force and magnificent accuracy.
Kogar was forced to grunt in admiration at Merena’s skill, as the second strange creature shrieked once and fell to the ground. Blood gushed from its head, just as it had from the other.
KOGAR and Merena dragged the bodies of the two slain animals together, then, and with fierce exultation began to tear ravenously. This was flesh, warm and fine.
But the creatures were indeed strange. They had shells of dry flesh covering their bodies. Bloodless flesh, so it seemed. But these shells came away readily. Kogar examined them as they stripped them off.
The shells were the odd coverings Kogar had noticed at first. And they had many pouches. It was in one of these pouches, that Merena found the glittering thing that had puffed orange spurts.
The glittering thing lay in the same pouch as a packet of the cloud sticks. While Merena munched on the cloud sticks dubiously, Kogar toyed with the glittering thing. Suddenly it spurted orange. Kogar noted with astonishment that the orange held heat.
Gingerly, Kogar touched his finger to the orange heat, and brought it away with a sharp growl. He had never been burned before.
Merena dropped the packet of cloud sticks and came beside him.
“What is this orange god?” she asked.
Kogar shook his head.
“It brings warmth. But I do not dare to touch it again.”
Merena frowned.
“I remember,” she said, “a legend told to me about an orange god when I was a child in the compounds. It is a very old legend.” She turned away, walking to a pile of brush a few yards distant.
Returning with the brush, Merena placed it on the ground.
“Now,” she said. “Touch the orange god to this.”
Kogar obeyed. Flames crackled as a small fire grew. The two stood back, awed.
“It brings great warmth,” Kogar said, pleased.
Merena nodded.
“Over it we can warm the flesh of our kill,” she said. “We must never let this orange god die.”
Kogar turned the glittering object over in his hand. It stopped spurting orange. But there was still the fire at their feet. There was something cut into the side of the glittering object. And looking at it, Kogar failed to understand what the strange symbols meant.
“To Schmidt,” they read, “From the Leader. To mark loyalty and devotion in our Cause. And to bind our future, greater Civilization.”
Kogar shook his head bewilderedly. Then turned to Merena. The warmth from the orange god at their feet was incredibly pleasant. Kogar said, “You are right. We must never let this die.”
[*] Science has many instances on record of human beings, who, when placed in a savage environment, developed the faculties of the beast to a high degree. The ability to stalk a quarry, to move noiselessly, and to remain hidden from the eyes of an intended victim, is thought by some scientists to be an ingrained heredity, handed down to man by his ancestral past, when he was in the process of evolving from the actual beast, to the true man. But other scientists deny this, and insist that-it is environment alone that makes a man develop animalistic abilities. In this story we have an interesting commentary on this scientific conception.
Here, the author’s characters, placed by a terrible, civilization-wrecking war in a very primitive environment, forced to use mind, muscle, and stealthy cunning to procure food and to satisfy the most powerful of all urges, hunger, have slipped back in a few years to an animalistic plane that is actually not any different from that of the dawn man himself. Kogar and Merena are the products of our own civilization—yet, after the greatest of all wars, they become savages on a swift swoop back through time. Are we really as civilized as we think we are? And are we really as savage as we ever were in the past? Are men like Hitler really throwbacks?
THE MAN FROM THE FUTURE
Don Wilcox
Would a man from the future like living in our world? The answer is, he wouldn’t! But here he was, from 10,950 A.D.!
DON’T get me wrong. This guy didn’t lift the street-car by himself. A dozen other fellows were heaving, and the truck that had bumped the thing off its tracks a couple of minutes before was tugging at a taut log-chain.
But it was this big innocent tancheeked fellow in the soft gray topcoat and hat that really muscled the car back on its tracks. Then he backed into the crowd modestly and pulled out a silk handkerchief to brush the dust off his pink hands.
Then and there opportunity knocked, and yours truly, Ham-and-Eggs Brown, jumped to answer. I sprang for the articles that spilled out of this guy’s handkerchief pocket. My chance to get next to him. Something told me there was money in them biceps.
“Your notebook and money, mister—” I drew up out of the shuffle of feet to hand the fellow the silver coin and the little gray memo book—But he was gone—practically. I saw him, half a head above the crowd, making for the sidewalk. I darted after him. The congestion caught me. I charged around two fat men and took a shortcut under a news-camera. By that time the fellow was out of sight.
I looked at the stuff in my hands. The coin went to my pocket automatically. The notebook hung disturbingly in my fingers.
I drifted into the first restaurant, turned the pages of the notebook over a plate of spagetti. The notes were shorthand of some sort. Might as well try to read my spagetti.
But here was a patch of neat long-hand.
Must brush up on archaic writing. The final entry was in the same legible hand:
Underwent the test. No ill effects. The time-transfer was instantaneous. Arrived at the ancient year of 1950—a 9000 year jump. Fine sunny day, but noise and smoke are terrible. Otherwise, so far so good. Must get busy at once.
I pushed my spagetti aside, gulped my ice-water, mopped my brow. The date of that entry was May 10, 10,950!
Reaching into my pocket for aspirins I found the coin. It was screwy too. Dated 10,945. And worn. The letters said, Twenty-five Cents. America.
Not U. S. A. Just America. I looked around to see if some gagster was watching over my shoulder. Hell, if this thing was on the level the guy that heaved that street-car was no mere Hercules, he was a gold mine! He needed a promoter. Ham-and-Eggs Brown to the rescue! Bundle this fellow off to Hollywood—
But where would I find him? A chill hit me. Darned if I hadn’t let him slide right through my lunch-hooks and lose himself among four million—
A shadow crossed my unfinished spagetti and I looked up to see the well filled gray topcoat and hat crossing in front of me. I almost leaped.
“Steady, Ham!” I said to myself. “He might be delicate. Don’t scare him off. Don’t—ah!”
The fellow had forgotten his check. I picked it up, started after him, at the same time glancing in his notebook for his name.
“Mr. Destinoval.”
The fellow whirled and a passing waiter jumped to avoid a spill.
“Your check, Mr. Destinoval.” I gave him my suavest smile. “Also the things you spilled by the street-car.”
As his hand closed over the articles I got a good look at his face. Aside from being contorted with bewilderment it was a good face, one to compare with your favorite movie hero. A trifle less heavy on the jaw, a bit bulgier on forehead. Something sensitive in his features like a well-bred racehorse. At the sound of his name his ears pinkened, his crisp eyelashes flickered.
Then he managed a smile and uttered some words too fast for me to understand, which I took to mean thank you.
“My name is Ham Brown, Mr. Destinoval—”
The introduction was lost. He was off. He strode past the cashier, never stopping to pay.
The cashier shouted and a little dried apple of a manager and two husky waiters caught their cue and bounded outdoors after him. I slapped my money down and gave chase, overtaking them approximately two pie-throws down the street.
The argument was painfully onesided. The little dried apple waved his fists and cursed the air blue. Destinoval looked scared to death—obviously up to his ears in trouble. So I plunged.
“I’ll pay it.”
The glares turned on me. But as quick as J.D. Destinoval saw he was supposed to fork over his check, I put some cash with it and the matter was settled. Dried apple and bodyguard trooped off grumbling contentedly.
This time I grabbed my protégé by the sleeve and hung on.
“Why’d you do it, pal? Don’t you know no better?”
What he answered buzzed off his tongue fast enough to put a tobacco auctioneer to shame. I didn’t get a word of it.
“Come again,” I said, “or ain’t you hep to English?”
He gave me the same scared eye he’d wasted on the restaurant manager and tried to pull away. I bulldogged his coatsleeve all the way to the stoplight. Then I let go. Two cops and a plainclothes on the other side of the street were looking our way hungrily.
WE backed into a doorway and my protégé talked on.
“Hold it!” I said. “Is that the way you talk where you come from?”
He nodded eagerly. He rattled on, pointing first to me and then to the gray memo book. His eyes brightened as we came to an understanding.
“Yes, I read a little of it.” I admitted. “That’s where I got your name. If you’re on the level about coming back from 10,950—”
He almost hugged me, he was so excited. He shook both my hands at once. Out of the wild rattle of his words I caught exactly nothing. I broke in:
“Listen, partner, you need a friend and I’m it. I’m your general manager, see?” I flashed a card at him. “Promoter, that’s my business. We’ll draw up a contract. But first you’ve got to slow down that sixteen cylinder jabber—Quiet! We can’t both talk at once . . . What’s that . . . Say it again . . . Slow! . . . Slower!”
Gradually I throttled him down and his smooth rich voice made sense.
“I’m at sea, my dear atom-smasher.” He was addressing me with a term of endearment, as I later learned. “Why can’t we both talk at once?”
“It’s bad manners.”
“Why?”
“Because when one guy’s talking the other oughta listen.”
“That’s absurd,” he said. “Can’t you talk and listen at the same time?”
“Maybe you can,” I said skeptically. “Of course. It’s perfectly good etiquette as long as not more than six talk at once. It takes five or six to round out a conversation, in my times, and nobody misses a word.”
“You’re back in the twentieth century now, brother,” I advised. “A word to the wise. And another thing—this business of walking out on your bills—” Anxiety flickered through his face. This was a matter he’d tried to ask about, he said, but no one had understood him. I questioned him and saw there was a trouble cloud gathering.
You see, he carried a head full of dangerous notions. They might be good for 10,950 but they were screwball for 1950.
“I supposed food was free,” he said. “Now in my times—”
“These ain’t your times,” I snapped. He squinted an eye at me.
“Do you pay to walk on the sidewalks? To sit in the parks?”
“Of course not. That’s public. Everybody uses the streets and parks—
“My point exactly,” he said. “In my times everybody uses food and beds. The public pays the bill from our taxes. If a man needs a room at a hotel—”
“Great guns! Don’t tell me you’ve walked out on a hotel bill!”
My answer came in action stronger than words. The cops and the plainclothes man had crossed the street toward us. The plainclothes, who happened to be the house dick at the Ingerbond Hotel, thrust a thumb at my friend and muttered, “That’s him. Professional deadbeat, most likely.”
“We’ll let the judge look into it,” said a cop.
As they led him to a wagon he looked back with a hint of scare in his movie-star face and called, “Don’t forget, you’re my manager.”
I grabbed a car for the police station.
Then remembering I was short on ready cash I back-tracked, through a time-costly traffic jam, to the Daily Beacon. I brushed past the city editor and hove up at the desk labeled: VELMA MACK, SOCIETY.
“She’s not in,” growled Split-Infinitive, the rewrite man.
“Give her my love,” I said. “Tell her bluebirds are singing. She’ll get that vacation to Atlantic City. I’m taking her myself.”
