The Ancient Mariners
Another map spread out and this time with small on beach gravel.
"Here, here, and here—" Ashe's the points marked in a pattern which out from three of Finger Island. Each marked a set of three in perfect with the land which, according to the map, had once been a on a much larger land mass. Though the Terrans had the ruins, if those in the sea be so termed, the had no meaning for the explorers.
"Do we set up here?" Ross asked. "If we just a report to send back...." That might the the co-operation of the Project policy makers so that a of and would to their way.
"We set up here," Ashe decided.
He had a point two of the lines where a would provide them with a secure base. And once that was made, the Terrans into action.
Two days to go, to the peep-probe and take some the ship had to clear with or without their evidence. Together Ross and Ashe the out to the reef, Ui and Karara helping to the and parts, the pushing on occasion. The were as as the beings they aided. And in water their help was invaluable. Had hands, Ross fleetingly, would they have long ago of their native world—or at least of its seas—from the kind?
All the beings with ease, while and submerged, to set the in place, it at the check point of the Finger's of rock. After Ashe the final adjustments, each and every part of the assembly, he them in.
Karara's hand movement asked a question, and Ashe's code-clicked in reply: "At twilight."
Yes, was the proper time for using a peep-probe. To see without of being in return was their safeguard. Here Ashe had no data to him. Their search for the might be a long drawn-out across centuries as the machine was to Terran time eras.
"When were they here?" Back on Karara out her hair, spread it over her to dry. "How many hundred years will the return?"
"More likely thousands," Ross commented. "Where will you start, Gordon?"
Ashe from the page of the notebook he had against one and out at the where they had set the probe.
"Ten thousand years—"
"Why?" Karara wanted to know. "Why that exact figure?"
"We know that ships on Terra then. So their and empire—if it was an empire—was far-flung at that time. Perhaps they were at the of their civilization; they were already on the slope. I do not think they were near the beginning. So that date is as good a starting place as any. If we don't what we're after, then we can move until we do."
"Do you think that there was a native population here?"
"Might have been."
"But without any large land animals, no modern of any," she protested.
"Of people?" Ashe shrugged. "Good for both. Suppose there was a world-wide of to out a species. Or a in which they used our to the whole of this planet, which did happen—the alteration, I mean. Several have life. Then such as the have or from smaller, more types."
"Those ape-things we on the planet." Ross to their on the derelict. "Maybe they had once been men and were degenerating. And the people, they have been less than men on their way up——"
"Ape-things ... people?" Karara interrupted. "Tell me!"
There was something in her demand, but Ross himself in detail their past adventures, on the world of and sealed where the had rested for a purpose its had understood, and then of the Terrans' limited of that other which might have been the world of a far-flung empire. There they had a with a people in the of a jungle-choked city.
"But you see"—the Polynesian girl to Ashe when Ross had finished—"you did them—these ape-things and the people. But here there are only the and the burrowers. Are they the start or the finish? I want to know—"
"Why?" Ashe asked.
"Not just I am curious, though I am that also, but we, too, must have a and an end. Did we come up from the seas, to know and and think, just to return to such at our end? If your people were and your ape-things descending"—she her head—"it would be to a of life, ends in your hands. Is it good for us to see such things, Gordon?"
"Men have asked that question all their lives, Karara. There have been those who have said no, who have and to the of knowledge here or there, to make men still on one of a stairway. Only there is that in us which will not stop, ill-fitted as we may be for the climbing. Perhaps we shall be safe and here on Hawaika if I do not go out to that tonight. By that action I may on all of us. Yet I can not for that. Could you?"
"No, I do not that I could," she agreed.
"We are here we are of those who must know—volunteers. And being of that temperament, it is in us always to take the next step."
"Even if it leads to a fall," she added in a low tone.
Ashe at her, though her own were on the sea where a of marked the reef. Her were ordinary enough, but Ross to match Ashe's stare. Why had he that odd of as if his had of true?
"I know of you Time Agents," Karara continued. "There were of about you told while we were in training."
"Tall tales, I can imagine, most of them." Ashe laughed, but his to Ross.
"Perhaps. Though I do not that many be any than the truth. And so also I have of that you follow, that you must do nothing which might the of history. But suppose, here that the of history be altered, that might be averted? If that was done, what would to our settlement in the here and now?"
"I don't know. That is an which we have to try, which we won't try—"
"Not if it would a of life for a whole native race?" she persisted.
"Alternate worlds then, maybe." Ross's up that idea. "Two worlds from a point in history," he elaborated, her look of puzzlement. "One from one decision, another from the alternate."
"I've of that! But, Gordon, if you return to the time of here and you had it in your power to say, 'Yes—live!' or 'No—die!' to the natives, what would you do?"
"I don't know. But neither do I think I shall be in that position. Why do you ask?"
She was her still into a and it so with a cord. "Because ... I feel.... No, I can not put it into words, Gordon. It is that one has on the of some event—anticipation, fear, excitement. You'll let me go with you tonight, please! I want to see it—not the Hawaika that is, but that other world with another name, the one they saw and knew!"
An was in Ross's throat, but he had no time to voice it. For Ashe was already nodding.
"All right. But we may have no luck at all. Fishing in time is a thing, so don't be if we don't turn you up that other world. Now, I'm going to these old for an hour or two. Amuse yourselves, children." He and closed his eyes.
The past two days had the from his lean, face. He had two years, three, Ross thankfully. Let them be lucky tonight, and Ashe's be nearly complete.
"What do you think here?" Karara had moved so that her was now to the wash of waves, her more in the shadow.
"How do I know? Could be any of ten different things."
"And will I up and you alone?" she swiftly. "Do you wish to the then, a world upon world, or am I saying it right? We have Hawaika One which is a new world for us; now there is Hawaika Two which is in time, not distance. And to that—"
"We won't be it really," Ross protested.
"Why? Did your not days, weeks, months of time in the past on Terra? What is to prevent your doing the same here?"
"Training. We have no way of learning the drill."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it wasn't as easy as you to think it was on Terra," he scornfully. "We didn't just through one of those gates and set up business, say, in Nero's Rome or Montezuma's Mexico. An Agent was physically and to the he was to explore. Then he trained, and how he trained!" Ross the hours learning how to use a sword, the of Beaker trading, the in a language which was already centuries his own country existed. "You learned the language, the customs, you about your time and your cover. You were perfect you took a trial run!"
"And here you would have no guides," Karara said, nodding. "Yes, I can see the difficulty. Then you will just use the peep-probe?"
"Probably. Oh, maybe later on we can through a gate. We have the material to set one up. But it would be a limited project, no of being caught. Maybe the big home can take peep-data and work out some of for us from it."
"But that would take years!"
"I so. Only you to swim in the shallows, don't you—not by jumping off a cliff!"
She laughed. "True enough! However, a look into the past might solve part of the big mystery."
Ross and out to Ashe's example. But his closed his brain was busy, and he did not the patience he needed. Peep-probes were all right, but Karara had a point. You wanted more than a small window into a mystery, you wanted a part in it.
The setting of the sun rose to red, a wine-hued banner of most of the sky, so that under it they moved in a sea, looked at an where were of ashes. Three humans, two dolphins, and a machine on a which might not have in the time they sought. Ashe his final adjustments, and then his pressed a and they the vista-plate no larger than the of two hands.
Nothing, a nothing! Something must have gone with their work. Ross touched Ashe's shoulder. But now there were on the plate, thickening, to into a picture.
It was still the hour they watched. But somehow the colors were paler, less red and than the ones about them in the here and now. And they were not the toward which the had been aimed; they were looking at a where well above the beach-strand. While on those cliffs—! Ross had not Karara had out to his arm until her into his flesh. And then he was aware of the pain. Because there was a on the cliff!
Massive of native in defenses, in towers. And from the high point of one tower the pointed of a banner in the wind. There was a of out, not toward them but to the north, and that....
"War canoe!" Karara exclaimed, but Ross had another identification:
"Longboat!"
In reality, the was neither one the other, not the of the Pacific which had on from one to another, or the shield-hung of the Vikings. But the Terrans were right in its purpose: That rakish, sharp-prowed ship had been for passage of the seas, for as a weapon.
Behind the another and a third. Their were by the sun, but there were painted on them, and the lines of those designs as if they had been with a fluid.
"The castle!" Ashe's their attention to land.
There was movement along those walls. Then came a flash, a in the water close to the lead ship to wet her with spray.
"They're fighting!" Karara against Ross for a look.
The ships were course, away from land, out to sea.
"Moving too fast for alone, and I don't see any oars." Ross was puzzled. "How do you suppose...."
The from the but did not score any hits. Already the ships were out of range, the lead off the screen of the as well. Then there was just the in the sunset. Ashe up.
"Rocks!" he wonderingly. "They were rocks!"
"But those ships, they must have had engines. They weren't just on when they retreated." Ross added his own for bewilderment.
Karara looked from one to the other. "There is something here you do not understand. What is wrong?"
"Catapults, yes," Ashe said with a nod. "Those would fit from the Roman Empire into the Middle Ages. But you're right, Ross, those ships had power of some to take them that quickly."
"A up against a more one?" the man.
"Could be. Let's go some." The was well up on the reef. Ashe had to his as he and under water to make the necessary adjustment.
Once more he pressed the button. And Ross's was by one from the girl. The again, but there was no it, only a ruin, more than rubble. Now, above the of the great of metal, into fire by the sunset, into the sky like gaunt, fingers. There were no ships, no of any life. Even the which had on had vanished. There was an of and death which the Terrans forcibly.
Those pylons, Ross them. Something familiar in their his memory. That where the ship had set twice, on the out and on their return. That had been a world of metal structures, and he he a his memory of those and these pylons. Surely they had no with the on the cliff.
Once more Ashe to the probe. And in the fast-fading light they a third and last picture. But now they might have been looking at the of the present, save that it no and there was a about it, a of now vanished.
Those pylons, were they the key to the which had come upon this world? What were they? Who had set them there? For the last Ross he had an answer. They were the product of the empire. And the ... the ships ... ... settlers? Two different eras, and the still, them. Would they be able to the key to it out of time?
They for the where Ui had a fire and their supper prepared.
"How many years those probes?" Ross fish with his fingers.
"That was ten thousand years ago, the second," Ashe paused, "only two hundred years later."
"But"—Ross at his superior—"that means——"
"That there was a or some of invasion, yes."
"You that the star people and just took over this whole planet?" Karara asked. "But why? And those pylons, what were they for? How much later was that last picture?"
"Five hundred years."
"The were gone, too, then," Ross commented. "But why—?" he Karara's question.
Ashe had taken up his notebook, but he did not open it. "I think"—there was a sharp, note in his voice—"we had out."
"Put up a gate?"
Ashe all the previous of their service with his answer:
"Yes, a gate."
