The that Price was without light or sound. That, when he of it later, was the most of it.
He a shock, but not the of he expected. This was a impact as of the plane, himself, some and through, a rending, tearing, thing that was like no he had experienced.
He yelled, terror the air from his lungs. His weight against the straps, and he from that that the plane was in a spin. Mechanically, his hands to the controls. He off....
But he wasn't dead. He was alive, undestroyed, and how that be if the of a bomb had been him?
Price's mind was a turmoil. What had happened?
He had right over the bomb test-area, right over the bomb-tower. And the the area had to stop him. Probably, if his radio hadn't been off, he would have them to him.
But had the bomb gone off? If it had, he would surely have been annihilated.
He hadn't been. He was alive. The plane was along through the night. The functioned.
But something had happened. That ghastly, that had to the very of his body—his still with the memory of it. Something had happened. But what?
Price couldn't think. The mind just not with a thing like this. He sat, the controls, and the Beechcraft on and on.
Gradually, his mind came alive. He the plane around. He was going to Las Vegas. Right now, and prison looked good to him to what had happened, or nearly happened.
If he hadn't been so trying to escape, he thought, he would have about the bomb-tests up. There had been newspaper stories. Guarded about a physical of the new-type H-bombs, and mention of being to study these effects.
Price's suddenly. He a scientist's that the center of of the new-type bomb might be like the of a hurricane, a focus of but in a different way by those forces.
Had the bomb gone off under him, then? Had his plane and himself, at the "eye" of the explosion, been somehow through into safety the light and and him?
It an speculation. Yet about this was insane. He would be himself, if he didn't to Earth soon.
He not see the of Las Vegas in the night. He cut his radio in and spoke into it.
"Beechcraft 4556 calling Las Vegas Airport! Come in, Las Vegas!"
There was no answer. The radio operative—but when he the dials, not a came out.
"Knocked out," Price muttered. "And no wonder, if—"
He couldn't the thought, it was too soul-shaking a thing to on, the thing that might have to him.
He the plane around, looking for lights, for an beacon, anything.
Nothing. Nothing but the and the stars.
A little frantically, he the plane around and started again. He must have missed Las Vegas. But if he going east, he'd surely cut the main highways. There were always of on them at night, in the summer.
He on and on. And the continued. No lights at all, not the from a ranch.
Nothing.
He would have landed, now, but he did not know where he was or what was under him. The Beechcraft was with fuel for long away from any of supply, and they had been full when he started. He a long time yet.
He flew.
After a while he to think that there was only one explanation. He was dead, and in limbo.
And limbo, it seemed, on forever.
Finally, after many hours there to be a light in the ahead of him, and his up, that at last he had the of a big town. But it was only the dawn. He it cold and across the world, and now he that he was alive. But he was not cheered. Now he see what was him.
Forest. Rolling like a dark green sea from north to south, from east to west. He had left the behind. He that he was over Missouri now, and there should have been towns, villages, farms, fields.
There was forest.
The light rosy, then golden. The sun up and it was day. Far ahead the Mississippi gleamed. Price sent the Beechcraft at full throttle, toward St. Louis. He not see any from the great of city and that there over banks of the river, and he not see any bridges. But St. Louis had to be there.
It was. But it had since he saw it last. The high were low, and the low were mounds, with and fox-grape, and trees in the public and through the windows. The river, and placid, was empty for a log. Obstructions along the might once have been docks, but were so no longer. And there was a great stillness.
For one wild moment Price thought, The bomb did it last night, the new-type bomb with they didn't about. Then he that that was possible. You can a city with an H-bomb in a of seconds, but you can't an tree sixty high in the of the City Hall in much under a century.
Time had passed since last night.
This was too much to take in all at once. Price didn't try. He looked for a place to land, but there wasn't any, so he on flying, across the river.
Time had passed, and he had passed with it. Slowly it to come to Price, the and truth of what had happened. The wrenching, he had in the of the blast was not physical but temporal. The powers of the bomb had been than anyone had guessed. They the ordered of the space-time itself, and acting on the of himself and his plane at the "eye" of the explosion, had them too—into the future.
The Beechcraft through the empty sky. Price looked on desolation, green and peaceful and as as it had been men came with and to it.
How in the future?
He did not know.
Were there still men, in this wilderness? Or had itself in a final act of madness? Were all the and dust?
He did not know that either.
He only that he was too and to go much farther. He had to have water and food and sleep. He had to have a place to land.
He it well the river, a natural in the of trees. He to the way the wind was by the of the grass, and then he in a long to the north to it. As he did so he he saw an iron to the northeast, something very and as of the sun from a of metal mountain-high and wide. Then he low over the tree-tops, and the was he not see it any more.
The Beechcraft and to a stop. Price sat for a moment his hands shake on the controls, and then some last measure of him taxi the plane back, to the of the and nose it into the wind, to take off again with no delay.
He had a and in the plane. He on the revolver, his pockets full of for the rifle, and to the ground. He for minutes in the of the plane's wing, looking around, but he not see any of life a pair of over his with cawing. It was late summer, and the wind was and hot. He to walk toward the woods.
He looked a little dazedly, as he walked, toward the northeast. What was it, the iron he had away there?
About thirty yards from the plane Price stopped suddenly, his and a on his skin. The was here in an circle, with of earth in the ground. There was a large quantity of blood, dry. A wide to the woods. Something had been killed here, something big, like a or a cow, and the in among the trees.
Men. Hunters. An animal would have its kill where it lay.
But what of men?
Price over the ground, his ready, looking this way and that and nothing. The wind over the and the trees to it and their branches, but there was no other motion, no other sound. Even the had gone.
Price shouted. "Hello! Hello! Is there? I'm lost. I need help. Hello!"
His voice was in the stillness, loud and impolite.
There was no answer.
He on the toward the trees. He was afraid, and tired.
"Hello?" he said, and now his voice was pleading. "Please. Where are you? Help me—"
Help me, you men of an unknown future, you in impossibility, you in nightmare. Help me, or I die.
The were under the trees. The did not here, but there were and other to a trail. It was not a long one. He saw the in a little glade. It was a black-and-white cow, already butchered. He moved toward it, and then from the overhead and the on either of leather came flying, at their ends with stones. Price and floundering, bruised, his arms and in the bolo-like ropes, and one around his off his so he not out.
In a and six men from among the trees and about him. One his rifle, another his revolver. They of leather, and they were as dark and wild as the Shawnees and Wyandots who had these long ago, that some of them had light and all of them were bearded.
One of them, a tall wide-shouldered man with a of sun-bleached and more blue, more and with than any Price in his life, him and the rope from his neck. Price to speak, but he do more than for the brown-haired man out a knife and the point of it for Price's throat.
"Now," he said, "you star-spawn—we'll see if your blood is any than the we on Earth!"
The hard. Price screamed.
