Once again Ross sat waiting for others to decide his future. He was as as he had been in Judge Rawle's chambers, but he was more apprehensive. Out in the of the night he had had no for escape. Heading away from Kurt's rendezvous, Ross had into the search party from the base, had in action that that Kurt had said they would put on the fugitives' trail—the thing which would have gone on them until its metal into powder. Kurt's to that had not been as good as he had believed, though it had them a start.
Ross did not know just how much it might count in his that he had been on his way back, with Kurt a in the cat. As his waiting hours on he to think it might very little indeed. This time there was no on the of his cell, nothing but time to think—too much of that—and no to think about.
But he had learned one valuable lesson on that cold expedition. Kelgarries and the others at the were the most he had met, and all the of luck and on their of the scales. Ross was now that there be no from this base. He had been by Kurt's preparations, that some of them were anything he himself have devised. He did not that Kurt had come here prepared with every device the Reds supply.
At least Kurt's friends had had a welcome when they did arrive at the meeting place. Kelgarries had Ross out and then had sent ahead a team. Before Ross's party had the there had been a blast which the night wide open. And Kurt, by then, had his only of when he what it meant.
The door to Ross's room clicked, and he his to the floor, up on his to his future. This time he no attempt to put on an act. He was not in the least sorry he had to away. Had Kurt been on the level, it would have been a play. That Kurt was not, was just plain luck.
Kelgarries and Ashe entered, and at the of Ashe the in Ross's middle a bit. The major might come by himself to pass sentence, but he would not Ashe along if the was a one.
"You got off to a start here, Murdock." The major sat on the of the which as a table. "You're going to have a second chance, so lucky. We know you aren't another plant of our enemies, a that saves your neck. Do you have anything to add to your story?"
"No, sir." He was not adding that "sir" to any favor; it came naturally when one answered Kelgarries.
"But you have some questions?"
Ross met that with the truth. "A of them."
"Why don't you ask them?"
Ross thinly, an and years older than his boy's of the act. "A wise guy doesn't his ignorance. He his and ears and his shut——"
"And goes off as a result...." the major added. "I don't think you would have the company of Kurt's paymaster."
"I didn't know about him then—not when I left here."
"Yes, and when you the truth, you took steps. Why?" For the time there was a of in the major's voice.
"Because I don't like the line-up on his of the fence."'
"That single has saved your this time, Murdock. Step out of line once more, and nothing will help you. But just so we won't have to worry about that, you ask a of those questions."
"How much of what Kurt me is the truth?" Ross out. "I all that about in time."
"All of it." The major said it so that it complete conviction.
"But why—how—?"
"You have us on a spot, Murdock. Because of your little expedition, we have to tell you more now than we tell any of our men the final briefing. Listen, and then all of it what to the job at hand.
"The Reds up Sputnik and then Muttnik.... When—? Twenty-five years ago. We got up our a little later. There were a of on the moon, then that space station that didn't in orbit, after that—stalemate. In the past century we've had no into space, nothing that was prophesied. Too many bugs, too many failures. Finally we to of something big, than any football the heavens.
"Any in science comes about by steps. It can be through those steps by another scientist. But you were by a result which had been produced without any preliminaries. What would be your it?"
Ross at the major. Although he didn't see what all this had to do with time-jumping, he that Kelgarries was waiting for a answer, that somehow Ross would be by his reply.
"Either that the steps were secret," he said slowly, "or that the result didn't to the man who said he it."
For the time the major him with approval. "Suppose this was to your life—what would you do?"
"Try to the source!"
"There you have it! Within the past five years our friends across the way have come up with three such discoveries. One we were able to trace, duplicate, and use, with a of our own. The other two rootless; yet they are with the first. We are now attempting to solve that problem, and the time late. For some reason, though the Reds now have their super, super gadgets, they are not yet to use them. Sometimes the work, and sometimes they fail. Everything points to the that the Reds are now with which are not their own——"
"Where did they them? From another world?" Ross's came to life. Had a successful space been secret? Had there been with another race?
"In a way it's another world, but the world of time—not space. Seven years ago we got a man out of East Berlin. He was almost dead, but he long to record on tape some data, so wild it was almost as the of delirium. But that was after Sputnik, and we didn't any from the other of the Iron Curtain. So the was over to our scientists, who proved it had a of truth.
"Time travel has been up in fiction; it has been otherwise as an impossibility. Then we that the Reds have it working——"
"You mean, they go into the and to use now."
The major his head. "Not the future, the past."
Was this an joke? Somewhat Ross out the answer to that. "Look here, I know I haven't the education of your big brains, but I do know that the you go into history the are. We in cars; only a hundred years ago men horses. We have guns; go a little and you'll them and with and arrows—those that don't wear plate on them to stop being punctured——"
"Only they were, after all," Ashe. "Look at Agincourt, m'lad, and what did to the French in armor."
Ross the interruption. "Anyway"—he to his point—"the you go, the are. How are the Reds going to anything in history we can't today?"
"That is a point which has us for years now," the major returned. "Only it is not how they are going to it, but where. Because in the past of this world they have a able to produce and ideas so as to our experts. We have to that and either mine it ourselves or close it off. As yet we're still trying to it."
Ross his head. "It must be a long way back. Those who and up old cities—couldn't they give you some hints? Wouldn't a like that have left something we today?"
"It depends," Ashe remarked, "upon the type of civilization. The Egyptians in stone, grandly. They used and of copper, bronze, and stone, and they were to in a which well. The of the Fertile Crescent in and used stone, copper, and tools. They also a of the world where was a in their memory green.
"The Greeks in stone, their books, their history to it to their successors, and so did the Romans. And on this of the the Incas, the Mayas, the unknown them, and the Aztecs of Mexico all in and in metal. And and metal survive. But what if there had been an early people who used and alloys, who had no to permanent buildings, and were meant to wear out quickly, for economic reasons? What would they us—considering, perhaps, that an ice age had their time and ours, with to into what little they did possess?
"There is that the of our world have and that this northern region was once close to being tropical. Any to about a in the of this might well have out all of a civilization, no how superior. We have good to that such a people must have existed, but we must them.
"And Ashe is a from the skeptics—" the major from his on the shelf—"he is an archaeologist, one of your discoverers, and what he is talking about. We must do our in time than the pyramid, than the group of farmers who settled by the Tigris River. But we have to let the enemy us to it. That's where you come in."
"Why me?"
"That is a question to which our are still trying to the answer, my friend. It that the majority of the people of the nations together in this project have too civilized. The of most men to sets of have set in regular patterns and they cannot that conditioning, or if personal them to those patterns, they are so they cannot at their potential. Teach a man to kill, as in war, and then you have to him later.
"But these same we also another type. He is the commando, the agent, the man who on action. There are not many of this kind, and they are weapons. In that particular of emotions, nerve, and a to the very he has to a war. He is by the peaceful into a or a misfit.
"The men we send out from here to the past are not only the best we can possibly supply for them, but they are all of the type once as the frontiersman. History is about that type—when he is safely dead—but the present him difficult to live with. Our time are in the modern world their are out of season now. They must be and a of to take the and to adapt, and they must pass our tests. Do you understand?"
Ross nodded. "You want they are crooks——"
"No, not they are crooks, but they are in their time and place. Don't, I of you, Murdock, think that we are a penal here. You would have been recruited if you hadn't out to us. But the man who may be in his own period might rank as a hero in another, an example, but true. When we train a man he not only can in the period to which he is sent, but he can also pass as a native in that era——"
"What about Hardy?"
The major into space. "There is no operation which is foolproof. We have said that we don't into trouble or that there is no in this. We have to with of different times, and if we are lucky and a run, with the Reds. They that we are about, their trail. They managed to plant Kurt Vogel on us. He had an almost perfect and conditioning. Now you have it straight, Murdock. You satisfy our tests, and you'll be a to say yes or no your run. If you say no and duty, it means you must an and here. No man who has gone through our can return to normal life; there is too much of his being up and by the opposition."
"Never?"
The major shrugged. "This may be a long-term operation. We not, but there is no way of telling now. You will be in until we either what we want or fail entirely. That is the last card I have to on the table." He stretched. "You're for tomorrow. Think it over and then let us know your answer when the time comes. Meanwhile, you are to be with Ashe, who will see to you through the course."
It was a big to swallow, but once down, Ross it digestible. The opened up a whole new world to him. Judo and were easy to absorb, and he the workouts. But the patient hours of practice, the in the use of a long-bladed were more demanding. The of one new language and then another, the in social customs, the of and were difficult. Ross learned to keep records in on and was into the art of and trade. He came to the of a cross-shaped to a of and some well-cured white furs. He now why he had been a traders' that with the purpose Operation Retrograde.
During the days his toward Ashe materially. A man not work so closely with another and continue to his attitude; either he up entirely, or he learned to adjust. His at Ashe's amount of practical knowledge, offered to his own ignorance, a respect for the man which might have friendship, had Ashe his own of efficiency. Ross did not try to the them mainly he was sure that the for it was the that he was a "volunteer." It gave him an odd new he trying to analyze. He had always had a of in his record; now he had to wish sometimes that it was a record of a different type.
Men came and went. Hodaki and his partner disappeared, as did Jansen and his. One of time that which was the base. Ross that the whole a large area under an of ice and snow. There were laboratories, a well-appointed hospital, which only in museums, but which here were free of any of age, and for use. There were with mile upon mile of tape as well as films. Ross not he and saw, but he up all he so that once or twice, when off to sleep at night, he of himself as a which had nearly its total limit of absorption.
He learned to wear naturally the kilt-tunic he had on the slayer, to with assurance, using a leaf-shaped razor, to eat food until he the taste. Making lesson time a duty, he under while to tape recordings, until his skin to a Ashe's. There was always talk to to, talk which he was to miss.
"Bronze." Ashe a in his hand one day. Its hilt, of dark with an pattern of heads, had a not that of the blade. "Do you know, Murdock, that can be than steel? If it wasn't that iron is so much more and to work, we might have come out of the Bronze Age? Iron is and found, and when the learned to work it, an end came to one way of life, a to another.
"Yes, is to us here, and so are the men who it. Smiths were in the old days. We know that they a of their which the of district, tribe, and race. A was welcome in any village, his person safe on the road. In fact, the themselves were under the protection of the gods; there was peace on them for all wayfarers. The land was wide then, and it was empty. The were and small, and there was of room for the hunter, the farmer, the trader. Life was not such a of man against man, but of man against nature——"
"No wars?" asked Ross. "Then why the bow-and-dagger drill?"
"Wars were small affairs, family or tribes. As for the bow, there were in the forests—giant animals, wolves, wild boars——"
"Cave bears?"
Ashe with patience. "Get it through your head, Murdock, that history is much longer than you to think. Cave and the use of do not overlap. No, you will have to go maybe thousand years and then your with a flint-tipped in your hand if you are to try it."
"Or take a with you." Ross a he had to voice for some time.
Ashe on him swiftly, and Ross him well now to that he was displeased.
"That is just what you don't do, Murdock, not from this base, as you well know by now. You take no from here which is not designed for the period in which your lies. Just as you do not while on that in any action which might the of history."
Ross on the he held. "What would if someone did that rule?"
Ashe put the he had been playing with. "We don't know—we just don't know. So we have in the territory, away from any with a history which we can accurately. Maybe some day—" his were on a of he did not see—"maybe some day we can and watch the of the pyramids, the of Alexander's armies.... But not yet. We away from history, and we are sure that the Reds are doing the same. It has the old problem once presented by the bomb. Nobody wants to the and take the consequences. Let us their and we'll our men from all the other at once."
"What makes so sure that they have an somewhere? Couldn't they be right at the main source, sir?"
"They could, but for some they are not. As for how we know that much, it's received." Ashe thinly. "No, the is much in time than their post. But if we that, then we can them. So we plant men in and for the best. That's a good you have there, Murdock. Are you to wear it in earnest?"
The in that question Ross's full attention. His met those ones. This was it—at long last.
"Right away?"
Ashe up a of plates together with chains, a to that Ross had by the slayer. He it out to the man. "You can take your trial any time—tomorrow."
Ross a breath. "Where—to when?"
"An which will later be Britain. When? About two thousand b.c. Beaker were to open their there. This is your exercise, Murdock."
Ross the he had been into the on the belt. "If you say I can do it, I'm to try."
He that Ashe at him, but he not read its meaning. Annoyance? Impatience? He was still over it when the other and left him alone.
