Time Travel Omnibus, page 282
Leeds and Rusty fired simultaneously. And I saw the sudden flash of enraged flame shoot into the queer eyes of the thing as its head snapped up and back and its body recoiled from the force of the gun blasts.
There were two huge rents in the thing’s hide. Rents from which poured a bluish ooze that must have been blood.
“Again!” I yelled.
Once more our M-3’s guns blasted, and the huge beast thrashed backward, its enormous tail slapping dangerously around, almost swiping our tank, out of existence.
It trumpeted then; that terrifying roar. Trumpeted and started to move sluggishly, limpingly, toward us. There was hell and fury in those wild eyes.
“Give it!” I yelled.
Rusty and Leeds blasted loose again. Blasted loose just as the horrible head of the monster was sweeping down directly at me in the tower. I closed my eyes, and clenched my teeth.
There was an enraged, gurgling bellow from the beast, followed by the sounds of terrible threshing, and stone and slag and rock banged against the sides of our tank.
I opened my eyes.
The dinosaur lay some twenty yards off, twisting and thrashing wildly on its side. But its efforts were growing feebler every second. And I knew we’d finished it off!
We shifted back to our own positions then, with the exception of Rusty, who went up into the tower once more. None of us said a word during this rapid reshuffling. We didn’t feel up to it.
Rusty gave me the signal and we were off again, picking our way around the still dying hulk of the huge dinosaur. The rain was lessening in force, and up ahead—a scant hundred yards or so now—the lightning flashes in the area of the cliff scar were less frequent.
Leeds was mumbling and cursing as he saw this, and we were knocking ourselves out, taking it the hardest and the fastest way. Fifty yards, now, and we hung on for dear life as we bounced from crag to boulder to brush.
“Oh, God,” Leeds groaned, “we’ll never make it!”
And at that instant the white flash of the lightning bolt seared down at us, splitting the rock less than ten feet from the tank. I had a sensation of being hurtled forward, and smashing my head hard against the side of the tank. I could hear Rusty yelling something at the top of his lungs, while Leeds cursed like a madman. . . .
I WAS dragging my helmet off and sliding along on my stomach to get out of the tower exit. We were flat on our side, tipped completely over, and I could hear the rain still pounding against the metal shell of our tank.
I slithered out the tower and plunked flat on my face into a mire of mud. Then Rusty was helping me to my feet, and Leeds was just crawling out and we turned to help him.
We stood there, then, the three of us, drinking in the country landscape like thirsty nomads rescued from a desert. There was no mountain, no avalanche debris, no stinking sweet primeval valley.
There was just good old Georgia!
Rusty was looking strangely sheepish.
“Look, Burt,” he said, plucking at my sleeve, his face struggling between emotions of shame and bewilderment, “I’m sorry I dozed off. Damnedest thing. Never done it before in all my life!”
For a minute I didn’t get it. Then I looked at Leeds. There was growing realization on his face. And in the glance we exchanged, there passed a silent agreement to carry it out this way. For obviously, the redheaded lug had instantly decided that what had happened was nothing but a dream!
“You,” said Leeds sharply, “and your damned dreams. You’re to blame for spilling us like this. You had the tower position.”
“Hell,” I said to Leeds, “it’s just lucky the redheaded ape didn’t let us plough head on into a stone wall.”
“Ape!” Rusty said, snapping his fingers. “There was guys like apes in my dream. And you and Leeds was there. Damnedest thing, huh?”
It was better this way. My, so much better. For even though Leeds and I knew the facts we’d never be such fools as to put ourselves in line for the booby hatch by spilling such a yarn to Old Blue Bolt. And Rusty, bless his little soul, would have spread the story all over camp. But—and I took a deep breath and thanked God—the redhead figured it was all a dream.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling the nice, warm twentieth century, Georgia rain cooling my forehead. “Yeah, it was certainly the damnedest thing!”
Leeds grinned at this perfect understatement. . . .
SAFARI TO THE LOST AGES
William P. McGivern
What thing could be so valuable that five people would face certain death in Earth’s dim past to gain possession of it?
BARRY RUDD glanced up from the charts on his desk as McGregor, his burly, square-faced assistant, lumbered into his office.
McGregor’s red face was redder than usual and there was an outraged gleam in his normally mild eyes.
“Boss,” he said hoarsely, “I’m reaching the limits of my patience. No fair man will deny that I’ve stood for a lot, but this is the final straw. I just can’t take any more.”
“What’s up, Mac?” Barry Rudd asked quizzically.
“It’s just this: We’re goin’ soft as lap dogs on a cream diet. When I think of what we used to be and what we are now I could weep for the shame of it. And it’s gone far enough, I tell you. Right now is the time to stop.”
The big Scotchman paused and swept a heavy arm about the elaborately furnished office.
“This ain’t our style, boss,” he said, almost pleadingly. “We don’t belong on the two hundred and fifteenth floor of an office building.”
Barry Rudd stood up, grinning faintly. He was a tall young man with solid shoulders and narrow hips. His features were regular and pleasant, but his gray eyes were startlingly out of place in that ordinary face. His eyes were the eyes of a man who has seen everything the world contained and who has found much of it not worth looking at. They were not cynical, but, rather, amused, as if deep inside he were grinning at something that others couldn’t see.
“Are you sure it’s not spring fever that’s bothering you, Mac?” he asked, still smiling.
“Spring fever!” McGregor snorted. “That’s not my trouble and you know it. I’ll tell you what’s bothering me.”
“I wish you would,” Barry sighed.
“All right. Time travel today is just as common as telephones were a couple of hundred years ago. You can’t deny that we had a lot to do with convincing people that it’s a safe and sensible pastime. Now that, in a nutshell, is my gripe.”
Barry ran his hand through his black kinky hair and laughed.
“I don’t follow you, Mac. Sure time travel is safe. If it wasn’t we’d be darn soon out of business. If people weren’t making vacation excursions into the past there would be little use for our time travel agency, our machines and our services. We organize, equip and direct expeditions into the past. It’s a good business. We make nice money. I don’t see your complaint.”
McGREGOR jammed his hands into his pockets and paced nervously up and down the room, breathing heavily.
“Maybe I can’t explain what I feel,” he growled. “In the old days we had fun. There was a lot of excitement exploring the past. Sure, it wasn’t all coffee and cake, but damn it, it was living. Remember that fracas we had in the twelfth century? The time I got captured by the Saracens and you got there just in time to save me from being cut into sixty-six pieces?”
“I remember,” Barry said softly. McGregor’s words were churning memories to life within him.
“Now,” McGregor went on disgustedly, “we’re acting as nursemaids for a lot of tittering school teachers who don’t want to go back any farther than their own grandparents. I tell you it ain’t right. And this girl is the last straw. She—”
“Girl?” Barry interrupted. “What girl?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” McGregor stopped pacing. “I guess I was so mad I forgot all about it.”
“I guess you did,” Barry said drily. “She’s out in the reception room now,” McGregor continued moodily. “She wants to see you.”
“Why didn’t you send her in?” Barry asked.
“I was just going to,” McGregor said guiltily, “when all of a sudden I looked at her and got mad all over. I told her to wait and I came in to get this off my chest.”
Barry sat down behind his desk and toyed with a pencil with lean strong fingers.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked ironically. “She must be pretty terrible if the mere sight of her caused you to explode like this.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her,” McGregor muttered. “She’s little and pretty with great big eyes. But she’s either a college dame or a society debutante. I could tell that from her clothes.”
“Very shrewd of you,” Barry said with faint sarcasm.
“You don’t get what I mean,” McGregor said miserably. “If we start taking business like that we’re sunk forever. She’ll probably want us to take a party of young punks back fifty or sixty years for a party or something. Or maybe she’ll want an expedition for a sorority initiation.” The big Scotchman shuddered visibly at the thought. “Don’t you see, boss,” he went on desperately, “if we start sending out joy rides like that we’re through. Let me tell her you aren’t in. Then let’s lock the door of this office and throw the key away. That’s the only way we’ll ever get away.”
“It’s a tempting idea,” Barry said thoughtfully, “but it’s out of the question right now. Maybe when we get ourselves straightened out financially we can make a break like that. Now you’d better show the young lady in before she decides to take her business somewhere else.”
“All right,” McGregor grumbled mournfully, “but wait and see. You’re making a mistake.”
WHEN the girl walked into his office, Barry received a start. McGregor had neglected to say that she was extraordinarily beautiful. Her hair was long and dark and her eyes were the clearest, deepest and bluest that Barry had ever seen. There was a lithe grace in her stride as she approached his desk.
He stood up and held a chair for her. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re Barry Rudd, aren’t you?”
“Guilty,” he smiled. “What can I do for you?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Instead her deep eyes regarded him thoughtfully, almost appraisingly.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “You’ve changed a little, but not too much.”
“Changed?” Barry asked, mystified. “Have we met before?”
“No,” the girl said, “we haven’t met before. But five years ago, Mr. Rudd, you were a special hero of mine. I suppose every girl in her teens has one. I collected all the pictures and stories of you that I ran across and pasted them into a scrapbook. I followed your career as closely as I could. It used to be my fondest dream that I could go with you on one of your exciting trips into the deep past.”
Barry ran a finger under his collar uncomfortably.
“That’s very nice,” he said awkwardly, “but why are you telling me this now?”
“Because,” the girl said quietly, “I need the Barry Rudd of five years ago. I need the Barry Rudd who laughed at the danger of time travel, who loved the excitement of it, who flashed deeper into the past than any man has since, and did it with a smile on his lips. There was something about that Barry Rudd that made him seem a knight in shining armor to a silly sixteen year old girl. I’m wondering if the armor is still shining, Mr. Rudd.”
Barry sat down behind his desk, face expressionless. He cupped his chin in his hands and stared steadily at the girl.
“Suppose you tell me what you want?” he suggested quietly.
The girl leaned forward eagerly and Barry noticed that her small hands were clasped together, the knuckles whitening with strain.
“My name is Linda Carstairs,” she said. “My father, Professor Carstairs, traveled into the past about three months ago. His trip was supposed to be a very brief one. In fact he only took food enough for three or four days. He was accompanied by his laboratory assistant. They haven’t returned.”
“I remember reading about it,” Barry said, “As I recall they were going back to the fourth century. Is that correct?”
“No, it isn’t,” the girl said evenly. “For some reason or other there was a great deal of secrecy about the purpose of the trip and father didn’t announce his real destination. Actually he was planning on traveling much deeper than the fourth century.”
BARRY straightened up, a flicker of interest in his eyes.
“Just where was he going?”
“He was attempting to reach the era before the North American ice age,” the girl answered. “He estimated it at thirty thousand years B.C.”
“Thirty thousand years B.C.” Barry muttered. “Whatever put an idea like that in your father’s head?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Linda Carstairs said helplessly. “It was necessary and that was sufficient reason for him.” Barry was silent for a moment. Then he said, “And you want me to go after him? Is that why you came here?”
“I know he isn’t dead,” Linda said passionately. “Everyone has told me I’m crazy for thinking that, but it isn’t a matter of logic or reason. It’s something I feel inside me. I came here because I felt you were the one person who could help me. Please, won’t you?” Barry suddenly found it impossible to meet her eyes. He dropped his gaze to the pencil he held in his hands.
“You must realize,” he said uncomfortably, “that what you are asking is practically impossible. It just isn’t feasible. Besides the expense and the danger there’s the possibility that your father—I mean, well, we might not find any trace of him.”
Barry lifted his eyes to the girl’s and what he saw there brought a stain of color to his cheeks. It wasn’t actually contempt. Worse, it was something close to pity.
“I’m sorry to have troubled you,” she said, standing up. “I was looking for a man by the name of Barry Rudd, but I seem to be about five years late.”
She turned on her slender ankles and started for the door, but not so quickly that Barry didn’t see the trembling of her firm small chin.
The door opened before she reached it, and McGregor stuck his big red face into the room.
“Well, boss,” he said resignedly, “I suppose we’ve got ourselves a job, eh?” In the next brief instant Barry Rudd did a lot of thinking. He thought of the comfortable, safe existence he was enjoying, the sensible, dependable business he was building, and he wasn’t pleased.
He thought of Linda Carstair’s deep blue eyes and the look of contemptuous pity that he had seen in them and he wasn’t pleased with that either.
He stood up and there was a reckless smile on his lips. A smile that had been absent for almost five years.
“Miss Carstairs,” he said suddenly. “Please don’t go. I’ve changed my mind.”
“I knew it,” growled McGregor. “Now we are sunk.”
Linda Carstairs was half way through the door when Barry spoke. She stopped dead and turned slowly, almost as if she didn’t trust her ears. When she saw the smile on his face her eyes changed to stars.
“I wasn’t wrong,” she breathed. “I wasn’t too late.”
McGregor scowled at the floor. “What kind of a stunt are we in for now?” he demanded of Barry.
Barry solemnly removed the office keys from his pocket and tossed them to him.
“You may lock the office,” he said, “and then throw those as far away as you can. We’re nomads again.”
“Hot dog!” McGregor yelped. “How far, boss?”
“It’s the jackpot this time,” Barry said, “thirty four thousands years should do it.”
McGregor had a hard time swallowing.
CHAPTER II
30,000 Years Into the Past
IT TOOK a week to make the necessary arrangements. Barry checked every detail of the trip personally. It was while he was checking a long list of supplies, frowning absorbedly at the items listed, that the door of his office opened and Linda Carstairs entered.
With her was a tall, heavyset man of about thirty-five years. He had a frank, open face, and blond, almost wheat-colored hair. His eyes were a pale blue, surprisingly keen and intense. The tweeds he wore fitted him well, giving his bigness a smooth, trimmed-down look.
Barry shoved the papers from him and stood up.
“Mr. Rudd,” Linda smiled at him, “this is my fiancé, Bruce Allerton. Bruce was one of my father’s closest friends.”
The men shook hands.
“Glad to know you, Allerton,” Barry said. He appraised the other man carefully. You’re not good enough for her, he found himself thinking. This was a foolish, illogical thought, and he smiled wryly to himself. What difference did it make to him?
“Thanks,” Allerton said, smiling affably. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Linda. And of course I’ve read all about your adventurous past.” His glance dropped to the desk, swept over the charts and specifications. “Don’t take a chance on anything slipping up, do you?”
“No,” Barry answered, “we don’t. If you’ve ever time-traveled you’ll realize that there are enough unknown factors to meet, without adding to them by carelessness or oversight.”
“Bruce understands that,” Linda said quickly, “he’s had some experience with time travel himself. He made all the arrangements for father’s trip. Father wouldn’t trust the last minute inspections to anyone but Bruce.”
Her attitude was defensive and Barry smiled.
“I’m sure he’s very capable,” he said diplomatically.
“It’s because I understand some of the risks you’re taking,” Allerton said, “that I objected to Linda’s going with you.”
“Going with me?” Barry raised an eyebrow and glanced at Linda. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“I didn’t tell you,” Linda said, blushing, “because I knew you’d object. But I am going. This means everything to me.”
BARRY noticed her grimly set jaw and sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “As long as you realize what you’re letting yourself in for it’s all right.”
