CHAPTER FOUR
Occasionally, now, some brave effort seemed to be made to build the city on a different scale. There were other types of architecture, always smaller; little sections, newly built, stood heroically, surrounded by gigantic, moldy ruins. Suddenly I realized that it was a dead city at which I was staring. There were no longer changes, except those natural to the passing years. The city was deserted; its inhabitants had died or had fled—or both.
It was after five o'clock. The dials registered just short of eight thousand years. I had less to see now, and I could give my attention to other things. The ruins of a dead city do not remain long in visible existence. Two thousand years more were recorded. Beneath me the vegetation seemed untouched by the hand of man; only in a few scattered places were there any remaining ruins: a tumbledown segment of building; the broken base of a tower; skeletons of crumbling steel here and there; headstones on the grave of what once had been a city.
With these changes the contour of the landscape itself was forced to my attention. The rivers had changed; they were broader. South of Manhattan Island, and somewhat to the west, I could distinguish a great expanse of water. All the lowlands there—the "Meadows," as we call them—had sunk. To the north, the land seemed higher than normal, and an arm of the sea had crept in up there to lap the foothills.
I have not told you of the temperature I was experiencing. When I started there was an almost immediate drop—a blending of day and night, winter and summer. It penetrated into the cabin, making the ship almost cold after the warm August evening of my departure.
Now, however, at seven o'clock, when I had been gone some nine hours, I felt that it was growing noticeably colder. And the faintest suggestion of a vague whiteness began to creep into the scene below me. That is an odd way for me to phrase it. I was seeing each minute only the effect of the snowfalls of thirty winters, blended with all the other seasons. The snowfalls were increasing in severity; I became aware of that in the aspect of the scene, but I cannot describe it.
It was after seven o'clock now. I had been gone about nine and a half hours. The dials showed eleven thousand four hundred and fifty odd years. I now faced a new problem: the landscape we had seen in our experiment had nothing in it of great duration. How could I find it, or tell when I had reached its time? That house in which the girl was held captive could stand no more than a hundred years, if that. And it was the only distinguishing mark in the whole scene. I would pass the lifetime of that house in a minute or two. I puzzled over this for quite a while. I had almost decided to stop and verify the actual, momentary conditions beneath me. And then I realized I still had far to go. There were trees, plenty of them, beneath me. They were constantly shifting and changing, but quite distinguishable, nevertheless. And in the enclosure about that house, Father and I had seen a tree—the only tree in the landscape. It was a curious looking tree, stunted, and with a look of the far north about it. These below me, at eleven and twelve thousand years ahead of our present, were more or less normal looking trees—or they probably would have been, had I stopped to examine them.
I still had far to travel, so I increased the current from the tenth to the fifteenth intensity. Again I was conscious of that feeling of lightness in my head, and the humming and vibration of everything increased. I had almost forgotten my personal sensations; had quite forgotten them, in fact, for several hours past.
I passed fifteen thousand years. I could see that the ocean to the north had come further inland. There was now, from my altitude, no evidence of mankind visible, nor anything to indicate that man had ever lived on this earth. The scene was more blurred now and grayer. I could still make out the bay to the south, with a range of hills on Staten Island and water behind it and to the west as far as I could see. The rivers bounding Manhattan were still there, but the Palisades along the Hudson had broken down.
Directly beneath me was forest. I believed I had not drifted much from my original position. I was still over where Central Park had been some twenty thousand years before. The forest—it was more like woods—covered a narrow rolling country between the two rivers. I knew I was moving through time much more swiftly now, perhaps twice as fast as before. The vegetation was blurred, almost distorted. It was changing constantly and, on the whole, was growing sparser, more stunted. It was as though I were traveling northward, or ascending a mountain almost to the timber line. Another interval passed. My time-velocity had so increased that once I thought I could see a hill rising. But that probably was imagination.
I had been gone some twelve hours—it was almost ten o'clock—when I realized I was about exhausted. My head was reeling; my eyes burned and watered. It was growing much colder—so cold that I switched on the electrical heating apparatus.
That was when the dials recorded between twenty and thirty thousand years. I don't remember exactly. I was confused. The scene beneath me was noticeably whiter, and I was now drifting to the south. I felt perturbed. I was going too far.
I had reached about forty-five thousand years when abruptly I realized that there was no vegetation in the scene! Just when it melted away I had not noticed. It was all a whitish blur, now, that suggested very snowy winters blended with a shorter summer season. I leaped to the control, and threw its handle back, pausing an instant at each intensity of current until I had come to the first. There I left it.
These new sensations of decreasing my time-velocity so abruptly were almost equally as severe as those when I started. The humming slowed up. My whole body seemed to be turning to lead—or freezing. I was heavy, stiff, and cold. I was standing up, and I managed to grip the side of the cabin for support, and reaching down, I threw off the switch, cutting off the current completely. There came a tremendous, soundless clap in my head; I seemed tumbling headlong into an abyss of blackness.
I do not think I lost consciousness. My senses reeled for what seemed an age, but was doubtlessly only a second or two. I fell into a chair and the horrible dizziness passed. I raised my head and looked about me.
My first impression was of the extraordinary solidity of the cabin interior. I had not realized how shadowy it had been before. Two little electric bulbs were burning overhead. They illuminated the compartment. The windows were black rectangles; It was night outside.
I was cold; I could see my breath in the chill of the room, even though one of the electric heaters was in operation. Everything close to me was oppressively silent; the humming still seemed to persist vaguely, but I knew it was only the reaction from it roaring in my ears. From the next compartment came the drone of the Frazia motors.
When I had fairly recovered normality, I went to the nearest window. The sky was blue-black. There was no moon and the stars seemed a trifle hazy. Beneath me I could make out a barren expanse of snow. I checked my compass. Its needle had steadied now, and I saw that my drift was almost directly south. The ship was moving rapidly, and I was alarmed. I knew that, even with the compass, I could easily get lost—geographically, so to speak.
My first action was to ascend. When I was up some six thousand feet I started back northward, against the wind.
I was hopelessly lost, both in time and in space. I could distinguish nothing in the starlit, snowy landscape that seemed familiar. Whether or not I had passed the time world I was seeking, I had no idea. Then I flew low, skimming the snow no more than one or two hundred feet above it. There were houses! Huts would be a better word. I think they were built of snow, but I could not tell. It seemed an Arctic world.
I knew then I had gone too far in time. I decided to stay near here in space until morning. Fortunately that proved only a short time away. Within half an hour the stars paled; twilight came and passed, and the sun rose—a huge, red, glowing ball.
I was circling about, quite high—six or eight thousand feet possibly. By this reddish light of early morning I could see the bay south of me. There was no Long Island; the ocean had closed in to the north and east, and I was near its shore—a cold, snowy beach, with lazy rollers. But west of me there was a river—the Hudson, I was sure—double the breadth of one I had known. It seemed to come from a mountainous region in the northwest, and an arm of it north of Manhattan emptied into the sea.
Everywhere there was snow. The bay was full of floating ice. Across the river was an area of stunted trees. I was over Manhattan Island, I was sure. I circled around, searching. It was not the time world I was seeking—that was obvious. Should I go on, or go back through the centuries I had passed? I decided on the latter.
I had now been away from you nearly sixteen hours. I was worn out. I flew across the river, found a level plateau to the north. There was no sign of human habitation in the vicinity. Shutting off my Frazia motors completely, I descended and came to rest on the surface of the snow, in a time world forty-six thousand and eight years beyond our present. I ate a little and, dropping to the floor of the cabin, fell asleep. Unwise maybe, but I had to take a chance.
At any rate, I awakened without having been disturbed. It was night again; I had slept some twelve hours. I flew upward, back over Manhattan Island, and threw the opposite proton current into its first intensity.
I need not go into further details. My sensations were the same as before, though they bothered me less as I grew more accustomed to them. I came back through time. At intervals I stopped and examined the landscape.
The wind was blowing almost continually from the north during all these centuries. I flew into it slowly, keeping my approximate position without great difficulty. I tried to hold myself near the south center of the island, and look northward. I was right in going back through time, I soon discovered. From close to the ground where I stopped once, I could see a rolling hill near by that had a familiar contour. I cannot describe it to you, but once I saw it from that angle, I knew it was in the landscape we had seen from the laboratory.
Then I found the tree. There was no house. No snow, either, for I had chanced then to stop in a summer season. The tree was too small. I chose a ten years later time world, and watching the dials closely, descended at a period ten and a half years later. I had struck it exactly; it must have been within a week or two from the time world Father and I had observed.
I had occupied some eight hours with this search. The dials had stopped now at twenty-eight thousand two hundred odd years. I was at that instant flying at an altitude of no more than a few hundred feet. It was again early morning, just after sunrise, and there was that familiar, snowy landscape we had seen from the laboratory.
The house, with its enclosure and outbuildings, lay below me. I circled over it, staring down through the floor window. The Frazia motors are greatly muffled, as you know, but, even so, their sound carried down to the house. A figure came out into the enclosure, and stared upward at me. It was the girl—in a fur garment, but bareheaded—watching my plane. Before I could think what to do, three huge dogs, each of them the size of a pony, came leaping from one of the outbuildings and stood in a group, snarling at me with such volume and power that they made my blood run cold.
I was circling slowly over the house, cursing my lack of caution and still too confused to do anything, when the figure of a man appeared in the enclosure, clad in furs and bareheaded like the girl. He stood head and shoulders over her. Evidently the noise of the dogs blotted out the sound of my motors. He did not look up into the air, but striding angrily to the girl, struck her in the face with the flat of his hand. Then he dragged her, cowering, into the house.
I straightened out, and flew south. The howling of the dogs died away. Without realizing where I was going, I headed down the wind. Soon I was over the water. I had risen, and in the morning light could see the landlocked bay into which the main channel of the Hudson emptied. The bay itself had an entrance to the sea almost at the river's mouth.
It was midwinter, I learned afterward. The river and the bay both seemed frozen over, with a mantle of snow on their ice. I passed above an island—Staten Island, no doubt—and mechanically swung to the west.
What was I to do? I had several rifles in the plane, as you know, and one of the latest Collinger hand guns. My instinct was to land at the house boldly, overawe its inmates with my weapons, and carry off the girl. That was a fatuous thought. I very soon realized that for all I knew they might have the power to strike me dead with some weapon totally unknown.
I was still flying west. I found myself far out over Jersey, and still I had decided nothing. There were houses beneath me and even a little village or two. But I did not heed them, though fortunately I had sense enough to ascend to a higher altitude where I could escape observation.
The sun was rising above the sea behind me, and at last I swung about to face it. As it mounted higher—it was moving at about normal speed—some of the red, glowing look was lost; it assumed more of its familiar aspects of our own time world. But still an hour above the horizon as it was now, I could stare at it quite steadily without being blinded.
I was heading east. In another ten minutes I would have been back in Manhattan. I decided that I would leave the plane secluded somewhere and approach the house on foot, quietly. If I could only elude the dogs and not arouse them, I hoped to be able to get into the house and get the girl out. I realize now it was a foolhardy plan.
I flew very low up the Hudson from its mouth. I was afraid I might be seen. Then it suddenly occurred to me how easily I could avoid that with certainty. I threw the switch of the proton current into the first and then the second intensity, and began a slow time flight forward through the day simultaneously with my flight up the river.
I found a good hiding place for the plane on the east bank of the river—a broad, flat sort of gully some two hundred feet wide. I figured this was about abreast of the house, and I lowered the plane into it. It was difficult to do because of my southward drift, but I managed it. As I neared the ground I shut off the proton current and came to rest in time and space almost at the same moment.
The sun was just setting behind a line of hills across the river. As I had not eaten for several hours, I sat in the cabin now and ate, planning exactly what I should do to rescue the girl.
You will not understand it, but as I sat there, alone, with no one to consult, it did not seem to me so desperate an enterprise. My Collinger, no bigger than your hand, would silently fire a dozen bullets in as many seconds, each capable of killing a human, or one of those dogs.
It was the dogs I was most afraid of. And yet, as I had observed from the laboratory, they did not run loose about the grounds at night, but were trained to stay in the kennel, which was some distance from the dwelling...three or four hundred feet, perhaps.
I decided to start about midnight. My clock gave a totally different hour, of course, from the correct one of that particular time world. But I was planning to leave the plane about six hours after sunset.
It was a long evening, but the time finally arrived. I put on my fur coat and went bareheaded, because I wanted to look as rational to the girl as possible. At best she would be afraid of me, a stranger—probably more afraid of me than of her captors. I realized fully what a difficulty that would be. An outcry from her, or any resistance on her part, might lose me everything. But my intentions were the best, though she could not know it.
I left the plane. Besides the Collinger, I had a hand compass and a small flashlight. It was very cold. I scrambled out through the snow, up the side of the gulley to the level land above—a climb of sixty or seventy feet. The snow was deep, with an underlying surface of ice that would support my weight. Up here on the higher land it was colder than ever. The north wind hit me full, and I had been walking no more than five minutes when it began to snow—tremendous flakes, that soon came in a thick, soft cloud, and blotted out everything around me. In my pocket I had my fur cap with ear tabs, and I soon found I would have to wear it.
I was heading across the wind, plowing through the loose snow. I could see only a few feet ahead of me. It was a pathless waste. And suddenly the whimsical thought came over me that I was crossing Fifty-ninth Street, and soon I would be near Columbus Circle. It was the same space, the same location. Nothing was different but the time—the changes time had brought.
I took out my compass and, by the light of the flashlight, I consulted it. I was heading as nearly as I could toward the house. So far as I had been able to tell before, there was no other habitation on the island. I suppose I struggled along for nearly an hour. I figured I must be in the vicinity of the house now, though I could see nothing but the snow covered ground a few feet ahead of me, the whirling flakes close at hand, and the blackness overhead. Without warning, through a rift in the clouds to the east, came moonlight; a gigantic, egg-shaped moon with a reddish tinge to it that gave the scene a lurid, extremely weird look.
The house was in sight, ahead and to the left, on a slight rise of ground no more than a quarter of a mile away. I was faced now with the necessity for a definite course of action. From the laboratory, with my telescope, I had occasionally seen the girl late at night, sitting in the central living room of the house. I had seen her through the windows, and she had always left the living room in a southeast direction. The house faced south; I felt that her room was in the southeast end. The enclosure lay mostly behind the house, toward the north, with the dog kennel in its extreme northern wall.
This was all advantageous to me. I knew I had to keep away from those dogs. With a wind of from twenty to thirty miles an hour blowing from them to me, I felt sure that they would not get my scent. My plan was to get into the house through either a sort of gateway in the southeast wall of the enclosure, or directly in through a window. I expected to locate the girl and carry here away—by force, I suppose. I was confident—absurdly so, I realize now. I think it was the enthusiasm—the excitement—of being actually engaged in what I had contemplated for two long years and had worked so hard to attain.
My heart was beating fast as I crept forward, the Collinger in my gloved hand. It was still snowing hard, and presently the clouds swept back over the newly risen moon; but I was now so close up that I could see the dark outlines of the house, and the wall of the enclosure.
The building was only one story, but quite high, with a queer looking overhanging roof. The wall of the enclosure was some ten feet high. I circled to the south, and was soon close up to the main doorway of the house. The whole place was piled with snow. There was not a sound, only the howling of the wind as it swept in gusts under the low eaves.
The glass door—I suppose it was glass—was a single rectangular pane in a dark, narrow frame. It was no more than three feet broad, and at least twelve feet high. Behind it I could see the dimly lighted interior—a soft, blue-white light. I could not see where it came from.
For quite a while I must have stood there motionless, peering in. A portion of a large room was in the line of my sight; It seemed unoccupied. I could see a back wall hung with something dark; a sort of low couch to one side; queerly shaped, low chairs and a table or two. And there was a floor covering of some thick, soft textile, and several furs lying about. A large fur rug covered the couch.
To the right I could see a low archway, hung with a curtain. That was in the direction of the girl's room. There were two other archways with curtains, but evidently no interior doors to the house.
I had been pressing against the glass pane; it seemed to give a little. I pushed. The motion was inward, and greater at the bottom. I knelt down and shoved it. The lower half swung silently and smoothly inward and upward, while the upper half came out and down. The whole twelve foot pane was pivoted at its center. When it paralleled the floor it stopped, and there was a six foot opening leading into the house.
I took a cautious step, listening intently, peering around me—behind me—with the sudden feeling that something supernatural might leap forth and spring at me any instant.
But the Collinger, my finger on the trigger, gave me courage. In my left hand I held the flashlight, and very slowly I crept toward the curtained archway behind which I hoped the girl might be. Suddenly I remembered my cap. I smiled at the absurdity of the detail, but, nevertheless, I pulled it off and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I went forward, pushed aside the curtain, and entered the space behind it.
I was in darkness as the curtain dropped. It must have been a sort of anteroom, or a short hallway, for some twenty feet ahead of me I saw another curtain with a blue radiance beyond it.
A moment more and I had pushed aside the second curtain and stood peering into the room beyond. It was more dimly lighted than the living room. Across it, in a angle of wall, the first thing my gaze caught was a low couch or divan, bathed in the blue radiance from a brazier beside it, which left the rest of the room in gloom. The girl lay there asleep. A soft, pure-white fur was covering her, but her bare arms and shoulders were above it. One arm was crooked under her head for a pillow; the other, almost as white as the rug, lay stretched out over the fur. On her breast, her golden hair lay in waves.
I stood transfixed by the ethereal loveliness of the face, calm in deep slumber. It was a small oval face of seemingly perfect features, with soft, curving red lips, smooth, rosy cheeks and long, silken lashes that lay motionless as she slept.
My emotion at the picture was short lived; other thoughts crowded up me. What was I to do? I could not awaken the girl and ask her to come with me. She would not understand the words, and if she did, she would probably have screamed before I could get them out. Seize her, stifle her cries and carry her off forcibly? Perhaps that is what I should have done; taken her to the plane and left explanations until afterward.
But I could not bring myself to do that. Somehow, my whole instinct was to retreat from the room. I felt myself a gross intruder in a sanctified place, my very gaze an insult. What I would finally have done, I don't know. Events took the decision out of my hands. The wind outside roared with a sudden gust that must have pulled loose something under the eaves. There came a rattle, a thump, loud in the silence of the house. Then the wind died again.
I glanced up to the ceiling, startled, with my heart pounding and the Collinger pointed toward the sound. I could see nothing but the dark rectangle of a window up there. My gaze fell again to the couch—and met the opened eyes of the girl. She was sitting up, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, one hand instinctively gripping the white fur to raise it more closely about her, the other pressed against her mouth. I think I could never imagine an expression of more utter terror than that on her face.
I murmured something intended to be reassuring and made the mistake of taking a step forward. It was the worst thing I could have done, for her frightened scream rang out through the house. I guess by then I was thoroughly confused. I turned back toward the curtain. I would escape from the house—come back some other time. Or should I pick her up now, and run with her? She was small, frail. I could carry her easily; escape almost as quickly with her, perhaps, as by myself. And shoot back at anyone—anything—that followed.
I found myself back at her couch. She had withdrawn to the further side of it, huddled against the wall. Her horrified eyes were on my face, but she did not scream again.
There was a noise behind me, and I swung about. The curtain was parting. There was a figure there. I could not see it plainly; it was in the darkness, and I was in the light. I aimed the Collinger, pressed the trigger. Simultaneously, a tiny pencil-point of light seemed to spring at me from where the figure was standing. A brief, very tiny but horribly intense glare flashed in my eyes.
I was in darkness; everything went black. I did not fall, but reeled sidewise. I heard a mocking laugh and footsteps coming toward me; a hand struck me across the mouth.
It is terrible to fight in total darkness. I stumbled aimlessly somewhere, and felt the Collinger twisted from me. But when I lurched in that direction, my outflung arms met only empty air. Again a hand struck me across the mouth; again that mocking laugh. My assailant was playing with me.
I was unhurt, and desperately I rushed to where I thought the room's exit might be. But strong fingers gripped my shoulder and I was flung violently sidewise. I must have struck my head against something as I went down. My senses faded; the last thing I remember was that jeering, mocking laughter floating out of the darkness.
CHAPTER FIVE
When I came to, I was still lying where I had fallen. Striking my head had knocked me out momentarily. I heard voices; some one was kneeling beside me. I opened my eyes, but everything was black. I remember feeling my head; It was not cut. I was unhurt, and I struggled to a sitting position. Whoever it was beside me, now stood up and moved away. The girl's voice came to me out of the darkness. The low words were unintelligible—yet they were words not wholly unfamiliar in ring.
The darkness was full of little darting red spots. And my eyes pained me; the backs of my eyeballs were burning. I was blind. I had thought the light in the room had suddenly been extinguished, and a vague idea that my antagonist could see in the dark had possessed me. But it wasn't so. He had blinded me with the tiny flash of light that had struck into my eyes.
My head was still reeling from the blow it had received when I fell. They carried me, half conscious, into some other room, and left me lying on something soft. I closed my eyes, but I could not shut out those darting red spots. At last, I must have drifted off to sleep.
When I awoke it was morning. The red glow of the sunrise was coming in through a small aperture up near the ceiling. I could see it; the blindness had passed. My head was still ringing and my eyes still pained me, but I was uninjured. I was on a low couch, with a fur rug under me. My overcoat lay beside me on the floor. The whole thing seemed like a dream, but finally I got it straightened out in my mind.
I was in a fairly large bedroom. Two windows of heavy transparent material were up near the ceiling. Opposite the windows was a doorway with a curtain. I slipped into my overcoat, searching its pockets. My cap was there, but the compass and the flashlight were gone and my Collinger had already been taken from me.
The storm outside seemed to have passed. The house was dead silent. I went to the curtain; beyond it was a small hall, empty, and with another curtain at its further end. This I pushed aside cautiously. I was looking into the main living room of the house, and met the direct gaze of a man who was lounging there.
I dropped the curtain hastily, but he had seen me and sprung to his feet—a powerful man, taller than myself, with gray, loose-fitting trousers and naked torso. I retreated back to the bedroom; the fear of what he might do to me, blind me or worse, made me anything but anxious to encounter him again.
He followed and was upon me, twisting me by the shoulders to face him. He was a man of about thirty-five with black hair, long to the base of his neck; a smooth-shaven, strong, rugged face; keen gray eyes beneath black, bushy brows; a nose a little like a hawk, and a wide mouth with thin lips. It was the sort of face that bespoke power and cruelty—a nature born to dominate its fellows. His gaze was searching, puzzled. I knew he was trying to make me out—wondering what manner of man I was, and where I had come from. He spoke to me. I could not understand the words, but again I got the impression that they were familiar English words spoken differently. I answered him. I don't remember what I said, but he frowned and pushed me from him, toward the couch.
I had decided to appear docile. I stumbled to the couch and sat down on it. He stood in the center of the room, regarding me, and I managed what I hoped might be an ingratiating smile. This seemed to appeal to him, for he smiled back. Then he swung about and left the room.
For a while I sat quiet. The girl—where she was I did not know. I would have escaped without her if I could, but escape did not seem possible; at least, it was more of a risk than I cared to take. The feeling came to me that even now as I sat on the couch, I might be observed. How could I tell whether someone was watching me from behind some hidden orifice, through which, as I turned my gaze that way, that tiny, blinding beam of light would spring at me?
It was too big a chance. I would wait, and when I knew better what I had to contend with, watch for an opportunity to escape.
The room was fairly light now, with that queer, reddish light. I could see the sky, brilliant with a glorious red sunrise, through the little windows overhead. I moved the table and climbed on it; outside was snow, tinged with red. I was at an east end of the house, perhaps next to the girl's room.
At a corner of the building nearby sat one of the dogs—like a gigantic shaggy wolf, quiet but alert. His head was fully six feet above the ground as he sat there, squatting on his haunches. He heard me open the window, and trotted quietly over to look at me. My fascinated stare met his eyes squarely—eyes that seemed to hold an almost uncanny human intelligence. He seemed satisfied with the situation, for he trotted back to the corner of the house and sat down again. But he was still watching me.
I dropped to the floor. The incident had left me shuddering. What manner of brutes were these, with gleaming, tusk-like teeth, dripping jowls and a power in those tremendous muscles that must have far exceeded the strongest horse! And eyes that might have been human! At that moment, escape seemed further away than ever.
For three days they fed me in that room. A woman came mostly. She wore a loose, shapeless robe of dark cloth. It was dowdy-looking. Her hair was iron-gray, long to her waist, twisted into a bundle and bound with strips of dark cloth. Her face was thin, careworn. She brought me my food; some kinds of cooked meats and starchy vegetables, like potatoes. She was kind enough, but grim, as though I were an unpleasant task that her conscience made her discharge punctiliously.
I tried to talk to her, but she couldn't understand me, nor I her. Afterward, I learned she was the older man's old maid daughter. The old man himself came in a few times; a smooth-shaven, stalwart man of about seventy, dressed in wide, flowing trousers and naked above the waist. Sometimes he wore a short little house jacket. His name was Bool. The younger man—the master of the house—was named Toroh. He came in and sat by me a few times, always intent on seeing that I was properly cared for. But there was no mistaking the fact that he would have killed me without compunction had I annoyed him; and I could not forget his sardonic laughter when he had blinded me.
I've been telling you about my first three days in the house. I did not see the girl except once, just for a moment. I was not held to the room, although I stayed there almost constantly. And one or the other of those dogs was outside all the time. After the first day, I grew bold enough to go into the living room.
Once, when I was sitting alone in the main room, the girl entered. She stood in the doorway, and for the first time I realized how small and slight she was. She looked almost Egyptian—I mean her manner of dress. She was wearing a blue-colored cloth wound wide about her hips, with a dull red sash hanging knee-length down one side; sandals on her bare feet; breastplates of metal, and a broad, low-cut collar of cloth with little coins on it that widened to cover her shoulders. And her golden hair was parted forward over her shoulders in plaits that ended with little tassels.
She was standing there staring at me, and this time there was no fear in her eyes—only curiosity. My heart leaped; it was what I hoped for most. I could do nothing toward planning to get her out of the house as long as she continued to be afraid of me.
I smiled at her in as inoffensive and friendly a fashion as I could. Her eyes fell, then came up and I could see she was wondering at my clothes; my shoes, trousers, shirt and tie. Abruptly I realized that, except for my garb, I probably did not look extraordinary or frightening to her. The thought gave me new courage. I stood up, and spoke. At once she turned and ran from the room.
We were a strange household, but after a time, except for having my meals alone, I found I could move about pretty freely. Once Toroh brought me my electric torch, and, making sure I did not aim it at him, he made me light it. I knew he believed it a weapon. I thought this a good chance to convince him I was friendly. I smiled and shined it into my eyes, to show him it was harmless. He grunted and, taking the flashlight from me, tossed it across the room, indicating it was of no use or further interest.
Then he produced my Collinger and made me show him how to operate it. But he was too clever to let me hold it; he did not let it get out of his hands. When he had fired it at a mark out the doorway, he grunted again and laid it on the snow. At a distance of twenty feet he stood with some object in his hand which he did not show me. Abruptly the Collinger flew into fragments! All its cartridges had been exploded simultaneously. The bullets whistled past us, startling Toroh as much as they did me. Later I learned he had exploded it by something akin to radio. He picked up the remains and when he got back into the house, he tossed my broken weapon away disdainfully. It was the attitude a soldier of today might have toward an Indian warrior and his bow and arrow.
Toroh, I learned later, thought I had come from another planet. He had seen my plane the morning I hovered over the house. No one from another planet had been to the earth for centuries. But history told of them, and he thought I was one of them, come again. He treated me kindly enough—probably because I did not anger him or cross him in any way. But I had seen him strike the girl in the face, and one day he struck the woman. I have never seen such a look of sullen, repressed hatred as she gave him. She seemed to hate her father, too. Later, I often saw him cuff her when she annoyed him.
I have so much to tell you. Toroh took two of his dogs and his sled and went away after about a week. He was gone a month, and during that time I stayed docilely in the house. I saw many opportunities when I might have escaped. But now I would not, without taking the girl—whose name, by the way, is Azeela—and I could not expose her to such danger as always seemed imminent.
I must have convinced them all that I was harmless. No one paid me great attention except the woman, Koa. Often I would see her peering furtively at me from some distant doorway.
Azeela soon became friendly, and since we both had nothing to do, she devoted herself to learning our language. I tried to learn hers and failed miserably. But she picked ours up with extraordinary rapidity—perhaps because her mind was quicker, her memory more retentive. And I think, also, because she has behind her the inherited instincts of knowledge through all the centuries from our own time-world forward.
Anyway, within the month she could speak English freely enough for us to get along—with a quaint little accent that is wholly indescribable.
I think her language was derived very nearly from the English we speak today. Ours was, to her, merely archaic; but hers, modern beyond my time, was too much for me. It was an extraordinary story that Azeela had to tell me—as extraordinary as mine must have seemed to her. We became friends, and with friendship came a renewed desire on both our parts to escape. Her people were many hundred miles away, and, when I told her of my plane, I very soon persuaded her to let me take her back to her own country.
Quite evidently my plane had not been discovered. If it had not snowed so heavily that first night, the dogs would have led Toroh back over my trail to it. But it was still safe, though I did not know it then; and the thought that it might have been found bothered me a lot, I can tell you.
We decided to try and escape. Toroh was expected back any day. We spent a morning discussing it, planning it in detail. My weapons were gone, and Azeela did not know where they were. Bool had a cylinder of the blinding-flash—I call it that because their name for it would mean nothing to you—but we could not get it; he always kept it about his person. The woman, Koa, we did not think was armed—though she might have been.
Toroh had taken two of the dogs. There was one left, and almost continually it was pacing about the house outside. We realized that even if we succeeded in getting away from the place, the dog would follow and overtake us before we could reach the plane.
Bool was in one of the outbuildings nearly all that morning. Koa was moving about the house. We did not think she was listening to us; but she was, and evidently she had picked up something of our language—enough to give her the import of what we were discussing.
She appeared suddenly, and with a furtive glance around, told Azeela she would help us escape. Azeela translated it to me, and the woman nodded grimly in confirmation. She was sorry for Azeela, and she hated Toroh sufficiently to want the girl out of his clutches.
Koa's plan was simple and it sounded eminently practical. She had no weapons, and did not know where any were, except for her father's, and that she would not dare try to secure. But late that afternoon Bool would be in his room dozing. Koa would lock the dog in the kennel. Then we would be free to depart.
The sun was almost setting that day when Koa informed us that the time had come. We had restrained our excitement; Bool had apparently not noticed anything unusual in our outward appearance during the day. He had retired to his room as customary, and Koa had taken the dog away.
I did not altogether trust Koa, and it made me shudder to think of taking Azeela outside and perhaps having the dog spring upon us from somewhere. But we had to chance it, and the woman seemed sincere.
We had searched the house as best we could without arousing Bool, but we found no weapon of any kind. At last we were ready, I in my fur coat, Azeela in furs; shoes, trousers and coat all in one piece. She looked like a slender little Eskimo girl, and I smiled as she pulled up a fur hood and fitted it close about her face, tucking her hair up under it. I had been mistaken about headgear; it was just a coincidence that I had never seen anyone in this time-world wearing a cap.
I put on my own cap and we were ready. As we met in the main room, Koa nodded sourly for us to be gone. At that instant the dog, outside in the kennel, gave a long mournful howl. I don't know why; I suppose it was just fate. Koa, waving us toward the doorway, hastened away to quiet the dog.
For a moment I hesitated. Should we start? Had the dog gotten loose? That moment of hesitation was too long. Bool stood in the doorway, staring at our fur-covered figures. Astonishment, anger, rage swept over his face. His hand went to his belt; he jerked something loose. I heard Azeela give a sharp cry of warning. Bool's hand held an object like a little crescent of glass, with a tiny wire connecting its horns. Sparks darted from the wire.
I was about to leap forward when suddenly I was stricken. I can only describe it as paralysis. I stood stock-still; my arms dropped to my sides. I felt no pain, but I was rooted to the spot, without power to lift my legs. Azeela, beside me, was evidently within the influence of the weapon, also. She was standing rigid. Bool's face held a leer of triumph. His left hand was fumbling at his belt for some other weapon. I knew that in another moment he would have killed us, and still I could not move. I tell you, it was a ghastly feeling. There was a numbness creeping all over me. My hands were turning cold. My feet felt wooden. My legs were giving way under me, and in a few seconds more I think I should have fallen.
It all happened very quickly. Behind Bool, Koa had appeared. He did not hear her, and she darted forward and struck at his wrist. The little crescent of glass dropped to the floor and was shattered. A wave of heat swept over me—the blood rushing again to my limbs.
Bool had turned furiously upon Koa, but my strength was coming back fast. I jumped at them, caught Bool unprepared. My body struck his and we went down. He fell backward with me on top of him. His hand now held a metal cylinder; he was trying to get it up to my face.
Azeela came darting across the room, threw herself upon us, and twisted the weapon from Bool's fingers. I did not know she had done it. Bool was kicking, squirming, and his left hand had me by the forehead, pushing my head back to expose my face. Enraged, I flung myself down on him, my forearm striking his head against the floor. His hold relaxed; he lay still.
When I got to my feet, Koa was stooping over Bool. She seemed frightened at what she had done, although I knew well enough that the man had mistreated her constantly, and that she could bear him no great love. She waved us away, still with that same stolid grimness.
"Ask her if the dog is locked up, Azeela," I said.
The woman nodded at me vehemently, and I gripped Azeela's hand and we hurried out. It was just sunset. The sky was like blood; the snowy ground was all tinted with it.
We ran west, so fast that Azeela could hardly keep on her feet. I suppose we went a mile or two, then slowed up and walked a little, then went back to a run. There was nothing but that unbroken expanse of snow, with the drop that was the river ahead of us.
At last I could make out the break in the plateau surface that marked the gully. We were running, and were no more than fifty feet from it, when from behind us we heard the loud baying of the dog—that eager baying of a dog following a trail and closing in on its quarry. I went cold all over. I knew what had happened. Bool had recovered, and, in spite of his daughter, had let the dog loose upon us!
I caught a glimpse of Azeela's white, frightened face as I gripped her hand and jerked her forward. It was faster than carrying her. She stumbled, almost fell headlong, but I pulled her up and onward.
We came upon the gully. For one agonized instant I wondered if the plane would still be there. The dog seemed almost upon us. I could hear its eager whine as it came leaping along. Then I saw the plane—snow-covered, but undisturbed.
We flung ourselves down the gully side, sliding, falling to its bottom. The deep snow there broke our fall. The dog was at the top; I saw its huge head and bared fangs as it dashed along, selecting a place to descend.
I jumped to the cabin platform of the plane and shoved open the door. Then I stooped, grasping Azeela under the armpits and lifting her. The dog came sliding into the gully, and gathering itself up, it leaped.
But we were inside, and I slid the door closed just as the brute's great body struck the cabin with an impact that rocked the plane. The dog fell, but was up again with a snarl, standing on its hind legs, its huge paws scratching at the cabin wall.
I had flung Azeela to the floor of the compartment. She shouted at me reassuringly, and I jumped to the Frazia controls.
A moment later the 'copters were raising us out of the gully. The dog's baffled yelps grew fainter. As we rose into the air I saw Bool, a quarter of the way from the house, stumbling along through the snow, following the trail.
I went up a thousand feet, dropped a little, and began horizontal flight. To the south, perhaps a mile away, Toroh's sled, with its two dogs, was swinging up toward the house. He saw the plane, and, as we swept over him at an altitude of some five hundred feet, he turned and followed us.
It was amazing to see those two gigantic dogs run. They kept the sled almost under us. We came to the south of the island and they went down a declivity and out over the frozen, snow-covered water. Toroh was lashing them with a long whip.
I put on more power, and we gradually drew ahead. When we had crossed the broad expanse of bay, the sled was no more than a black blob in the distance. It swung to the right, turned and went back—lost to our sight in the gathering darkness.
We were alone, headed southward to Azeela's native country.
Azeela and her people live on an island which once was the mainland—the southeastern corner of the United States, as you know it. It's a narrow, crescent-shaped island, something like Cuba in outline, but smaller. It's separated from the mainland by a channel some ten miles at its greatest width. The climate, now, is vastly different from your time-world. Climate is the most potent factor of all that influences mankind. The change throughout ten thousand years was dramatic in its effects: it hastened decadence, it drove civilization toward the equator. And then, as though nature were bent upon destruction, disease sprang up in the only warm regions left—disease that could not be coped with. Insects, carrying and transmitting deadly bacteria, swarmed over what we call the torrid zone, making it almost uninhabitable. You must realize over how long a period this went on.
Even that was thousands of years before Azeela's birth. This island had formed, and nature had seemed to hold it the one place where humanity could make its last stand. A volcano stood at each end; beneficent, treasured because they contained heat. The internal fires of the earth had broken through here. Hot springs and geysers dotted the land. A river just below the boiling point rose from subterranean depths, flowed for a hundred miles, and plunged down again. And a huge range of mountains running east and west on the mainland to the north offered shelter from the cold winds that were coming down.
Anglo-Saxons with a strain of Latin had settled on this palm-covered, tropical island long before the conditions farther north had become so drastic. They kept to themselves and fought against the pollution of their blood by others; they were descendents of the highest type of Earth civilization.
For centuries they were left to themselves, to drift along in their own fashion. But with the coming of the cold, the mixed races of the north began moving down—coveting the island. Then these island people suddenly sprang into activity. Defense of the homeland brought action; lost arts of war were revived. The Anglese—that is as near the sound of their word for themselves as I can get—repulsed all comers.
To the north was now a climate that held snow from September to June. Only three brief months availed for agriculture. The mixed peoples there did not rise to master such rigors. Centuries of struggle turned them almost primitive, with arts and sciences and ways to conquer their environment lost and forgotten. They became barbarians.
Such is the condition as I have found it. I can give you details only of our northern half of the western hemisphere. Transportation is back nearly to the primitive; the rest of the world is almost unknown to Azeela's race.
Toroh, I've learned now, is an Anglese, but they banished him. He was plotting to overthrow the government. When he was banished, he went among the barbarians of the north and began organizing them for an attack on the island. Toroh has scientific knowledge; up there in the north he has been manufacturing weapons. Then he came back to the island secretly, and abducted Azeela. She's the daughter of Fahn, the leading scientist of the Anglese—he's the man who holds the reins of power. With Azeela as hostage, Toroh planned to make Fahn yield.
But now that I have released Azeela, Toroh's attack will come swiftly. That is why I send you this message. Toroh is a menace—the greatest figure of evil in this time-world. There will be war, a struggle in which the Anglese may go down before the onslaught of Toroh and the hordes of barbarians with whom he has allied himself. Oh, I can't tell you all the details...I'm too tired.
I'll stop now, and send this message back to you in the cube. And, Father, you know what we arranged—that you would come and join me if I needed you. Well, I do; I need you here now.
As we agreed, I will raise a light-beam signal, which will mark the exact point in space and the exact moment in time at which I want you to be here.
For me, that moment is now!
So as soon as I dispatch this message off to you, I shall raise the signal. It will be at the southeastern tip of our island. For you geographically, it will be about Miami. From that point in space, you cannot fail to see it, if your time-flight is slow enough. I will hold it in the sky for as long as I can, so that it will have enough duration for you not to miss it.
Please tell Mamita not to worry about me, or about you either. We will both come back to her safely. You may bring one or two of our friends who wish to make the trip. I think that George will want to come and I would like to have him. You need bring no weapons; they would be worse than useless.
Please hurry, Father. I need you!
CHAPTER SIX
Roger's slow, solemn voice died away. He rustled the pages of Loto's message in his hand.
"That's all, gentlemen. All of the message itself. The other pages give detailed instructions—data based on Loto's flight and memoranda for the construction of another plane, gathered from previous notes made by Loto and myself."
There was complete silence when Rogers paused. George decided to speak, but checked himself and relaxed back in his chair.
"I shall start the Frazia Company on another plane at once," Rogers added. "And working on Loto's mechanism simultaneously, I should be ready in ninety days."
He waited, but again no one else spoke. Then he said:
"I am going, of course. It is a great trial for my wife, but I know she is willing."
George turned and flashed an admiring glance at Lylda; her face was strained, but she smiled at him gently.
"Do not be hasty, my friends," Rogers went on quickly. "Any two of you are free to come—or to stay, all of you—as you think best."
"I'm going," said George suddenly. "Loto said I could. And you say so. I'm going."
He jumped to his feet and grasped Roger's hand. "You can count on me, Mr. Rogers."
Rogers smiled. "Thank you, George. I knew I could."
George sat down again. Then he got up and crossed to Lylda, shaking her hand also, and whispering to her. But in another instant he was pacing the room, smoking violently, and frowning.
Rogers was saying to the others, "I will take one more. I realize it is a momentous question. Your lives may be at stake."
The Big Business Man was deep in reverie. "I wonder," he murmured. "I wonder if I do want to go."
"Come on," urged George, stopping suddenly before him. "Take a chance." He did not wait for an answer, but went back to his pacing.
The Banker said, half apologetically. "You don't really need me, do you, Rogers?"
"Of course not," Rogers said heartily. "Use your own judgement. But I knew you'd be offended if I didn't give you the opportunity."
The Banker nodded. "Yes, but you don't need me. I'm an old man—seventy-three, though I hope you'd never guess it. I think I'd better stay where I'm used to things."
"Of course," agreed Rogers.
"But if you need money," the Banker added hopefully, "and you will, naturally—everybody needs money—you'll call on me, won't you? I'm going to see this thing through."
"I don't believe I'll go," the Business Man declared. He met the Doctor's glance, and the Doctor seemed relieved. "You don't really need us, Rogers. I think Frank would prefer to stay also."
The Doctor nodded emphatic agreement.
"Quite so," said Rogers. "I can understand perfectly how you feel."
George stopped his pacing. "Then it's all settled, Mr. Rogers. You and I go; the others stay on guard here. Now listen, everybody, I've got some good ideas..."
Two days before Christmas, another plane lay glistening on the roof of the Scientific Club, walled in from curious eyes by the board enclosure. Sleek, self-satisfied, its every line denoting latent power, it lay motionless, awaiting those human masters who soon were to launch it into another time world.
Occasionally during the afternoon George visited it, anxiously verifying again and again that all was in readiness.
Evening came. The others arrived, singly and in couples. For two hours a bustle of final preparations went on—things forgotten, last minute plans put into execution. But by nine o'clock the moment of departure was finally at hand.
The Banker was in a fluster of excitement. He had appointed himself the leader of those who were to be left behind, and he felt the responsibility keenly.
"Tell me exactly what we've got to do," he insisted. "I don't want anything to go wrong."
Rogers slapped him on the back. "It's nothing to be alarmed over."
"No. But I want to be sure I've got it straight. Tell me all over again."
Rogers repressed a smile. "When we have gone you will all wait some ten minutes to be sure nothing has gone wrong to bring us immediately back. Then you will lock up the enclosure and leave. I have made arrangements with the club to have the enclosure left standing."
"That's all?" asked the Banker anxiously. "We leave the roof open?"
"Yes. In coming back we will want it open, and you cannot tell when we may return."
"But no more than six months," the Banker insisted. "You promise that?"
Rogers nodded.
"Come on," George's voice called. "Let's get started." He had shaken hands with Lylda and climbed up to the doorway of the cabin. "Come on, Mr. Rogers. Let's get started."
Lylda stood apart. Her farewell to her husband was brief. The others turned away, feeling that they should not intrude upon it. When Rogers joined George on the platform of the plane, the Doctor was with Lylda, comforting her.
With a final good-by Rogers slid the door closed. The forward compartment, with its low arch ceiling and its concave walls, was small, but comfortably equipped. The side windows had upholstered seats running under them. In front, to the right, were the Frazia controls, a low seat for the pilot and a small window above the control panel. The time dials and the proton current switch were on the wall to the right. To the left of the seat was the main entrance door.
The division wall between the forward compartment and the engine room behind it held a small doorway with a sliding door.
"Are we ready?" Rogers asked. "I think we should be sitting. The shock of departure, new to us, may be more severe than we anticipate."
His words were calm enough, but they sent a thrill of excitement through George. "All ready," he said. "Go ahead!"
Rogers took a last look about. Then without hesitation, he moved the switch to the first intensity. To George, the humming seemed very different now than when he had heard it outside the plane. It was no louder, but it seemed to hum and vibrate inside his body. He was quivering inside, his head began reeling dizzily; then came that sickening, horrible sensation of falling headlong—a vertigo that turned everything to blackness.
"Are you all right? We've started."
It was Rogers's anxious voice. George opened his eyes; everything seemed glowing, unreal and ghostlike. But he was uninjured, and his head had steadied.
"I'm all right," he managed to say.
The sickness passed quickly. George stood up, steadying himself. "Gosh, how light I feel! Queer in the head—don't you? I never imagined—"
He stopped abruptly. Through a side window the fur-coated figure of the Banker was standing against the wall with the others around him. They were staring toward the plane with an expression that clearly indicated they could not see it.
"We've started all right," George added. "Look at them! We're already in future time to them. They can't see us!"
Suddenly the Banker came forward walking with extraordinary swiftness, and seemingly with little jerks, like a manikin. George held his breath, for the Banker popped forward, his head and shoulders piercing the glowing phosphorescent walls and floor of the cabin. He stood motionless a brief instant, his face close to George's knees. Then, even more rapidly than he had advanced, he threw a swift glance around and retreated.
George recovered himself. "Boy," he said. "Wasn't that weird though? But we're all right. I feel fine now."
The droning of the Frazia motors sounded very faintly above the humming. It was a relief, a help toward normality. The plane was slowly raising into the air.
As it mounted, the roof of the Scientific Club dwindled away below. It was a dark night, with heavy clouds and a cold wind from the east. The city, with snow on its rooftops, was sliding eastward beneath them; vague black shadows, dark buildings dotted with lights, and seemingly empty streets.
They were still mounting diagonally upward, and carried sidewise by the wind, when the Hudson River slid into view.
"Rotten weather, Mr. Rogers," George suggested.
"Yes," Rogers agreed, "but that will not bother us for very long. Are you warm enough?"
"One heater is going," George responded. "I'll switch on another." He had familiarized himself thoroughly with the various mechanical appliances of the plane, and he turned a switch that threw current into another of the small electric radiators.
"Anything else?" he demanded.
"No, I think I shall try the higher intensities of the proton current. I want our time-progress accelerating as much as possible right from the beginning."
George selected a seat hastily.
It was not much of an ordeal. The humming seemed to move up a scale to a higher pitch as Rogers pulled the lever around. The reeling of the senses came again, but passed almost at once.
"There," said Rogers. "I'm glad that's accomplished." "We're at the fifteenth intensity—the highest that Loto used."
George was staring down through the floor window. "I can see lights down here. Are you sure it's the highest speed Loto used? He didn't describe it this way."
"Our acceleration will pick up over several hours," Rogers replied. "Our time-progress is still comparatively slow."
The Frazia motors were still droning.
"How high are we, do you suppose?" George demanded after a moment.
"Possibly five thousand feet. We're blowing westward over New Jersey. And a little to the south, I think. Soon it will be day."
His words were anticipated. The scene lighted swiftly. It was day; a dull, cold-looking, cloudy morning. Below them lay New Jersey, almost a network of villages on the fringe of lowlands. A more congested area of building was almost directly beneath and slid under them as they watched it.
"Newark!" exclaimed George. "And we're into tomorrow. We're making it—we'll soon be with Loto."
They were up higher than Rogers realized—ten thousand feet, at least. And their drift seemed constantly of a more southern trend. It was still uncomfortably cold in the cabin.
"Perhaps we should stay at this level," Rogers remarked. "We seem to have caught a wind from the north."
Night came again in a few moments. Lights dotted the landscape below, but they were vague, flickering lights. Then day, with sunlight. The wind sudsided. The plane's southern drift was stilled. And then came night with a moon plunging across the sky, and stars dizzily sweeping past. Then day again, until presently the daylight and the darkness were blended into gray. The drift was permanently passed. In a blending of all the diversified air currents, the plane remained almost stationary.
The white, snowy hills of New Jersey soon turned to green. The cabin air warmed a little. Then autumn and winter came again—and passed in a moment or two.
Rogers sighed with relief. "We're fairly started. One year out of twenty-eight thousand!"
"And we've got eight hundred or a thousand miles of space to travel also," said George. "We're going to make that simultaneously, aren't we?"
"Yes," agreed Rogers.
George took a last look through the floor window at the blurring gray landscape beneath, and stood up to join him. "Let's talk things over," he suggested. "I've got a lot of questions—plans and things."
Rogers had taken a sheaf of script from his pocket.
"Loto's notes to guide us," he explained. "I've followed them closely so far. We have a flight through time of something more than twenty-five thousand years at the fifteenth intensity, and then we slacken. Simultaneously, we must fly southward some thousand miles or more through space, directing our course for the southern tip of Florida. Loto specifies that we should, under all circumstances, reach the latitude of north Florida coincident with twenty-five thousand years of our time-progress. We will then—or perhaps a thousand years further along—see the island. We cannot miss it, of course. It is so large, and it must certainly endure over a great period of time."
"How long did Loto take to reach twenty-five thousand years?"
"About twelve hours," Rogers consulted the memoranda. "He computes his average speed as equivalent to the twelfth intensity. We are using the fifteenth continuously. Our clocks should register no more than ten hours for the time-flight.
"Ten hours," he added thoughtfully. "And flying directly south at a hundred miles an hour we would reach the island in those ten hours."
"But we haven't started south yet," George protested. "We're moving through time all right, but we're still right over Newark—and look at it!"
The New Jersey metropolis was spreading west to the Orange Mountains, and eastward it seemed to be linked solid with Jersey City. Factories dotted the intervening meadows, which were drained of their stagnant water.
"You're right," exclaimed Rogers. "We have barely nine hours left; we must start our horizontal flight."
In a few moments more they were speeding south and slightly west, at an altitude of some five thousand feet, with their progress through time steadily accelerating.
An hour, by their clocks, had passed. They were over Delaware Bay. Its shores, in the more congested areas, were lined almost solid with buildings. There was a great city on each side of the mouth of the river, with a gigantic bridge connecting them. The bridge rose into being under the eyes of the watchers in the flying plane, but they swept on past and in a moment left it far in the distance behind them.
George was seated on the floor watching the changing landscape; a huge, concave gray surface, shadowless, stretching out and up to the circular horizon. Steadily, like a panorama unrolled, it slid sidewise beneath them. The motion was greatest directly below. To the west, the mountains seemed, by an optical illusion, to be following, speeding forward with them.
The sea or its arms constantly occupied a portion of the scene, for they were still flying south and somewhat west, following the Atlantic coast. And of everything in sight, the sea alone seemed unchanging.
In time-progressing, that height of civilization Loto had described lay under them. They were flying lower now.
Rogers, in his seat at the controls, said: "I think we're making it as we should. That's the four thousand year mark just passed, and we're flying at a hundred and ten miles an hour."
"Are you sure we'll hit it right?" George asked anxiously.
"I think so. It's about as Loto figured so far. Those buildings—what a civilization that must be down there. It will fade presently...in three or four thousand years."
George joined him at the forward window. "Where are we? Are we still over Virginia?"
"Yes, at least I think we haven't crossed into North Carolina yet. That was Chesapeake Bay a while ago. Look! That city over there is melting—going down fast!"
The cabin interior was unlighted and dark, except for that phosphorescence with which everything glowed. In their absorption in the scene below, the travelers had forgotten their own curious aspect, until George suddenly remarked:
"Look at us! Ghosts flying through space! Doesn't it make you feel queer, Mr. Rogers?"
The dim cabin interior, with its vague, luminous human figures, did indeed seem unreal. But the unreality was matched now by the scene beneath; their forward flight through space, combined with a time-progress now tremendously accelerated, made everything below a shifting, sliding kaleidoscope of changing effects. Details were transient things, blurred one into the other.
The broad fundamentals, however, were obvious. The gray, concave land, ridged with mountains, the indented coast line, the gray, changeless sea—all were distinguishable. And overhead the sky was luminous with the mingled light of sun and moon and a myriad starry worlds, all blended darker by nights of rain and snow and storm.
They were over North Carolina when Rogers, at the Frazia controls, grew tired. The clock stood at two five. They had been gone some five hours.
"I must rest," said Rogers. "George, can you take my place?"
George hesitated. "I've flown a bit, but never in a Frazia. I think I'd better not experiment—not on this flight."
"All right," Rogers agreed. "I'll use the automatic 'copters for a while. Half an hour will rest me up."
In a few moments they were hovering, seemingly motionless, over North Carolina. Far away to the east, over a bulge in the coast line, they could just make out Cape Hatteras and the ocean beyond it.