Time Travel Omnibus, page 281
“Fair enough,” I told him. “Now let Yenga in on it and we’ll get started.”
Leeds turned to the blackhaired young savage in the loin cloth. He made gestures with his hands, pointed across the valley, and grunted one or two terse sound-words.
Yenga seemed to catch, for his lips went flat against his white teeth in a savagely pleased smile. He nodded his head rapidly up and down.
I turned and looked around the cliff edge on which we stood. There was a large boulder several yards away, and I jerked my thumb at it, then pointed at the girl on the ground.
“Let’s file her away for future reference,” I said.
Leeds nodded, and with Yenga, lifted the girl and carried her over behind the boulder. Her mouth was tight with rage, and her eyes flashed electrical sparks, but she didn’t make any sound.
Yenga and Leeds reappeared from behind the boulder.
“Let’s get started,” said Rusty. He pointed down toward the cleared, rising elevation at the corner of the valley. “They’re getting under way,” he said.
We both followed his gesture. Squinting hard, I could see the evidences of motion in the tangled underbrush around the clearing growing more definitely obvious. The motion was toward the mountain where the flatheads, unsuspecting, were probably still trying to figure out what they should do about the loss of their leader.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’d better get stepping.”
YENGA took us down a side trail, steep and rocky and hidden by thorny green brush that tore sections of skin from our faces as we moved along its twisting course.
After about five minutes we were in the moist green underfooting of the valley bed itself. And here the going became even tougher. There were vines and trailers that hung low over the scantily marked trail Yenga now guided us along; some of them, almost as if alive, catching and twisting around our legs and arms to further slow up our progress.
Although the sun wasn’t up as yet, the very dank heaviness of the jungle around us was hot and humid, so that we were bathed in sweat after five more minutes following the swift, lithe leadership of Yenga.
And it was five minutes after that when Yenga, some ten yards on ahead of us, suddenly disappeared from sight around the bend of the trail.
When we caught up with him he was waiting for us in a clearing. The same clearing in which we had left the tank; and the sight of the M-3, big and tough and deadly looking, was the most wonderful thing in the world.
Rusty put our emotions into words.
“Baby!” he yelped. “Oh, you pretty, pretty, baby!”
Rusty and I and Leeds were all grinning like three idiots as we ran to the side of the M-3. Rusty was first at its side. And the big damned fool draped an arm around the front of it, patting and stroking the steel surface.
“To think I’d ever be glad to see you again,” Rusty told the tank. “Oh, you great big beautiful doll!”
“No necking,” Leeds grinned. “We’ve got some fighting to do.”
“How’ll we get back to those babies?” I asked.
“Yenga can ride the tank and guide us,” Leeds said.
I busied myself making a thorough, though hasty, check of the M-3, and found everything still in perfect order. The old gal was raring to go.
Then Leeds was grunting and gesturing and explaining to Yenga exactly what he wanted, and the savage youth was nodding his black maned head excitedly.
Rusty clambered up through the tower and into the tank. I followed him; and Leeds, finishing his explanations to Yenga, hoisted himself up into tower position.
I could hear Yenga taking his place on the front of the tank, and then at Leeds’ signal we started up. The sound and feel of something familiar once again was something that brought a lump to my throat. No matter where in the hell we were in time, we were at least once again where any self-respecting tank fighters ought to be—moving out to battle.
RUSTY chortled and babbled and acted like a small child with a day off from school as he ordered his guns while we jounced along through the tangled jungle four minutes later.
Yenga was taking us to the flatheads’ mountain side cave camp by a different route. And the strong young savage seemed to know what were and were not impassable obstacles for the M-3. He ordered us through certain sections that we crashed over with ease, and sent us skittering around spots that might have held us up for minutes. He was doing a job of it.
And when at last we rolled out onto an ascending stretch of clearing, I knew that we were covering the terrain that led directly up to the mountain stronghold of the Neanderthal bunch. And it was as I turned to Rusty to yell something at him, that I heard the first wild shouts far up ahead of us and saw the swarm of loin skinned savages pouring from crags and bushes and crannies halfway up the mountain, some eight hundred yards from the Neanderthals’ encampment.
I could tell from the very size, swiftness, and grace of them that they were Yenga’s tribe, and that the attack on the aborigines had begun!
“Get the lead outta this garbage can,” Rusty yelled. “There’s fighting starting, and we’re being left outta it.”
Up ahead, now, I saw the first signs of the burly, flatheaded Neanderthals rushing from their caves, carrying clubs and stone knives, and hefty rocks of no little size.
They met the attack of their less crude brethren with wild fury, and the wave of Neanderthals meshed and locked with that of the attackers from Yenga’s tribe.
Yenga’s bunch were hurling smaller missiles, rocks about the size of a hand grenade. And I saw the method of their attack instantly. It was obvious that they didn’t want any hand-to-hand combat with the ape-like aborigines, knowing that they wouldn’t have equal brute strength. As a consequence, they waited until the ape-like flatheads drew within six or eight feet, then letting fly with their grenade sized rocks. Their aim would have put Bob Feller to shame, for one after another, the brutish defenders sprawled to the green moss of the clearing, skulls crushed by the well aimed missiles.
But additional waves of Neanderthal reinforcements were pouring from the caves, and although the attackers carried from five to six grenade sized rocks in crude leather sacks strapped to their sides, they couldn’t throw them forever. It was apparent that they’d be out of ammunition shortly, with more and more Neanderthals pouring down to grapple with them.
But the bunch from Yenga’s tribe weren’t as dumb as I thought they’d be. Evidently they’d realized this would happen, and now they were drawing their lines back in as orderly a tactical retreat as I’d ever witnessed. In their wake they left the dead bodies of more than forty Neanderthals, while only five or six of their own—who’d been unfortunate enough to run out of ammunition too soon—lay dead beside the brutes they’d attacked.
And then Rusty, operating our cannon without orders, let loose with an earth shaking shot that hit far up behind the struggling savages and plowed up a flower of black earth less than twenty feet from the Neanderthals’ cave quarters.
It had the desired effect. The ape-like aborigines turned and ran like hell back to their mountainside stronghold. And this gave Yenga’s bunch a chance to complete their orderly retreat.
We moved on perhaps another four hundred yards, and I could hear Yenga, still atop our tank, yelling shrill grunts to his tribesmen who had retreated to the brush once more.
I got the stop signal from Leeds.
His head poked down.
“Ask Rusty if he can reach the mountainside where the brutes have their caves from this distance,” he said.
Through my front vision slot, I could see Yenga clambering down from the tank and trotting across the clearing toward his tribesmen.
“What’s the pitch?” I demanded.
“I told Yenga to hold back his bunch until we give the mopping up orders,” Leeds said. “I have an idea. Ask Rusty about that range.”
I asked Rusty.
“What the hell,” he grinned, “why not?”
I repeated it to Leeds.
“Climb out, both of you,” he said, “and I’ll show you what I have in mind.”
We left the tank and climbed down beside Leeds. He pointed up the ascending section of clearing, indicating the cave community stronghold up there against the side of the mountain.
And then I realized what Leeds was getting at. The entire Neanderthal cave stronghold was built underneath a gigantic overhanging crag some two hundred feet above it.
“Supposing Yenga’s bunch, without getting too close, can draw the Neanderthals out after ’em.” Leeds said.
“That’d be easy enough,” I agreed. “Then what?”
“Then Rusty, banging away with well placed cannon fire, could blast the hell out of that overhang. Those big brutes would be buried alive under God knows how many tons of rock.”
Rusty frowned. “We’d have to get up a little closer,” he said. “Maybe a hundred yards more.”
“But then you could do it?” Leeds asked.
Rusty grinned. “What do you think?”
Leeds grinned back, then turned toward the underbrush where we’d seen Yenga disappear after this fellow tribesmen. He waved his hands four times, semaphore fashion.
“Let’s go,” Leeds said. “I’ve given Yenga the signal to start.”
WE WERE moving along slowly a minute later, giving Yenga’s bunch a chance to get well up to the clearing, close but not too close. Rusty, at his cannon beside me, was grinning delightedly.
“Okay,” Rusty said a minute later. “I got range enough.”
We halted. Ahead, the wave of Yenga’s savage buddies swept up toward the cave community, yelling like hell and hurling rocks. And then it started to rain. Just like that. A deluge, breaking from the gray skies without the slightest announcement. It was a terrific downpour. The sound of it banged like hail against the tank sides.
Rusty cursed. “Makes it tougher,” he said. “Can hardly see a damned thing through this!”
But even through the sheet of the downpour, I could see that the Neanderthals were pouring from their cave, rushing out to meet this second assault from Yenga’s tribe. And then I caught the faintest glimpse of something else. Something that made me refuse to believe my eyes. I wasn’t certain, but I thought for an instant that I’d had a glimpse of the incredibly gorgeous renegade wench up there near the caves. How on earth she’d be found, or returned to her thick-witted subjects, I didn’t have time to ponder.
“For God’s sake,” Leeds yelled down. “Get that range and start hammering away. If you don’t hurry Yenga’s bait will be gobbled up by those flatheaded slobs!”
Rusty had the cannon trained. And then, as the gun blasted, the entire landscape was bathed in a jagged white flash of lightning, affording us a split-second view of the effect of that burst.
It hit the overhang back and to the right, spraying a shower of rock and slag in every direction, and starting a jagged break along the very base of it.
“Jeeudas!” Rusty muttered. “My eyes are going back on me. That was three feet from where I wanted to place it.”
I didn’t have time to grin. The next cannon blast shook loose in half a minute. There was no lightning this time to show us its effect, and for twenty awful seconds we held our breath, guessing. The sudden awful crashing that followed a split second later was a most beautiful sound, sweeter than music. Rusty’s second shot had done it. The overhang was crashing down with a tremendous roaring fury!
“You got ’em! You got ’em! Oh, you sweetheart!”
It was Leeds’ voice, and he was poking his head down from the tower and chortling like a man gone mad.
“You buried the whole damned bunch,” he yelled. “There won’t be one of ’em left alive!”
But we could still hear it. The noise of the thunderous avalanche started down that mountainside by Rusty’s magnificent gun work. It was the wildest, angriest rumble of stone and mountain you’ve ever heard.
“What about us?” I yelled up at Leeds. “Hadn’t we better back out of the path of any complications that the avalanche might start?”
A savagely blinding flash of lightning seared the sky at that moment. It was almost too close for comfort. And then, less than half a second after that, another similar jagged ribbon of electrical fury split the air.
Leeds McAndrews suddenly poked his head down from the tower.
“Burt,” he yelled. “Burt, poke your nose out and see what’s going on!”
He clambered up out of the way, and I followed him, sticking my head out of the tower. Leeds was pointing excitedly up at the mountainside. Pointing to the bare, scarred side where Rusty’s shots had blasted loose the overhang.
Lightning flashes, dozens of licking tongues of them were slashing white hot ribbons at that surface. Hardly ten seconds passed between each one.
“Some mineral, some conductive ore, must have been behind that overhang,” Leeds said excitedly. “It’s drawing every streak of lightning in the sky toward it!”
“A damned good reason for our getting away from here,” I said. “Climb in and I’ll wheel this baby around and away. We wanta find some healthier spot in this jungle than here!”
Leeds was grabbing my shoulder, and his fingers were digging hard into my arm. He was pointing again; pointing at the swarms of primitives, Yenga’s tribe, dashing down the mountainside toward us.
“They’re running away from it, too,” Leeds said. “They don’t even want to stick around and dance about their victory.”
“Once again I admire their brains,” I said. “Climb in and let’s set a pace for them.”
Leeds shook his head. “It’s a natural,” he said. “It’s the only thing near a chance.”
“What are you babbling about?” I asked.
“We’re going up there,” Leeds said. “Over the debris left by the avalanche. Smack up into that electrical storm belt!”
“Have you lost your mind?” I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him down into the tank.
“Don’t you see?” Leeds demanded. “It’s a chance. We got here through electrical energy waves as they reacted on the damned radio device in our tank. It’s the only way we’ll ever leave. We can’t hang around here for centuries, waiting for another lucky blast of lightning to strike us. We may never have the chance to walk right into it again!”
AND then I got it. Got it and felt suddenly weak inside. For even though it was a chance, it was no more than that. It might work, or it might mean the end of all of us. I looked up there at that constant belt of ragged white flashes and gulped.
“Damn you, McAndrews,” I said. “Get down into the tank. I’ll put Rusty in the tower. See if you can get that damned mechanism in the same state as it was before!”
Rusty poked his head into the tower. “What’s up?” he demanded.
“You’re top man,” I said. “Leeds wants to tinker with the radio device again.”
Rusty gave me a disgusted glance. “Are you nuts?”
“That’s an order,” I snapped.
Grumbling, Rusty changed places with Leeds, and then we were all at stations again, and I was responding to Rusty’s starting signal. We lumbered up the inclined clearing, headed toward that flashing fury up on the mountainside, while Leeds muttered frantically to himself and messed around with the radio device.
The aborigines from Yenga’s tribe passed us half way along the ascension, going in the opposite direction. The glances they gave the tank were wild and frightened, but the glances they shot over their shoulders at the electrical storm belt up on that mountainside were those of stark terror.
“Anytime anyone ever tries to tell me primitives had no brains,” I grumbled, “I’ll spit in their eye. That’s the direction in which we ought to be traveling.”
“But we aren’t,” Leeds said tightly. “Keep on moving.”
By now we were climbing up and over and around the debris and rock left by the avalanche, and it was one solid hell of slam-bang bouncing around we got. I could hear Rusty’s profanity tearing loose from the tower.
And then, a scant three hundred yards off from the lightning belt, we heard the noise that was like thunder, trumpeting, and grunting all in one.
It was like no other noise I’d ever heard in all my life. It sounded alive.
Rusty’s yell followed it immediately. And we hit an up-bounce an instant later that gave a brief and hideous view of the cause of the noise.
My yell was drowned in the second thunderous roar of the beast that stood less than fifty yards from us, directly between our tank and the flashing lightning fury on the mountainside.
And when I say beast, I mean dinosaur!
My heart was in my throat, and unable to speak, I tugged at Leeds’ sleeve, pointing frantically out the vision slot. He leaned over, peered out and saw the dinosaur.
His face was chalk white when he turned to me.
“What a lovely little obstruction we find in our way,” he managed.
“Get to post at the cannon,” I snapped. Leeds scrambled back to the gun position.
There was another terrible roar from the huge beast, and it started toward us, its long neck and snake-like head swinging combatively back and forth as it sized us up.
“I’m finding a flat spot,” I yelled at Leeds. “Then we stop and let that monstrosity make the next move. In a twenty yard range, open up!”
It took another half minute to find the spot I wanted; another half minute and another twenty yards. That left the monster just thirty yards off. It was still surveying us, but moving closer cautiously.
Rusty booted me in the side of my helmet, and I inched over while he came down. Wordlessly, he went to the other gun, as I slid further out of the way. I clambered around and up toward the tower.
“I’ll signal from there,” I yelled. “I’ll have a better view of the damned thing.”
I poked my head out of the tower and almost choked to death as my heart skyrocketed up to meet my Adam’s apple.
THE head of the horrible monster was swinging out on that long, snake-like neck until it was less than thirty feet from the tower of the tank.
I kicked Rusty down below and yelled, “Fire!” at the same instant.
