Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  The voice came from there. Terra’s grid power had returned to Lion Mesa.

  * * *

  A WEEK later, Lieutenant Frank Dowland was shown into the office of the chief of the Solar Police Authority. The chief introduced him to the two other men there, who were left unidentified, and told him to be seated.

  “Lieutenant,” he said, “these gentlemen have a few questions to ask you. You can speak as openly to them as you would to me.”

  Dowland nodded. He had recognized one of the gentlemen immediately—Howard Camhorn, the Coordinator of Research. Reputedly one of the sharpest minds in the Overgovernment’s top echelons. The other one was unfamiliar. He was a few years younger than Camhorn, around six inches shorter, chunky, with black hair, brown eyes, an expression of owlish reflectiveness. Probably, Dowland thought, wearing contact lenses. “Yes, sir,” he said to the chief, and looked back at the visitors.”

  “We’ve seen your report on your recent visit to Terra, Lieutenant Dowland,” Camhorn began pleasantly. “An excellent report, incidentally—factual, detailed. What we should like to hear now are the things that you, quite properly, omitted from it. That is, your personal impressions and conclusions.”

  “For example,” the other man took up, as Dowland hesitated, “Miss Trelawney has informed us her uncles were attempting to employ the Ym-400 they had acquired to carry out a time-shift to an earlier Earth period—to the period known as the Pleistocene, to be somewhat more exact. From what you saw, would you say they had succeeded in doing it?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Dowland said. “I’ve been shown pictures representing that period during the past few days. The scene I described in the report probably might have existed at that time.” He smiled briefly. “However, I have the impression that the very large flying creature I reported encountering that night is regarded as being . . . well, er . . . ah . . .”

  “A product of excited nerves?” the short man said, nodding. “Under such extraordinary circumstances, that would be quite possible, you know.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  The short man smiled. “But you don’t think it was that?”

  “No, sir,” Dowland said. “I think that I have described exactly what I did hear and see.”

  “And you feel the Trelawneys established contact with some previous Earth period—not necessarily the Pleistocene?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And you report having seen a spaceship in that prehistorical period . . .”

  Dowland shook his head. “No, sir. At the moment I was observing it, I thought it was that. What I reported was having seen something that looked like a spaceship.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “A timeship—if there is such a word.”

  “There is such a word,” Camhorn interrupted lazily. “I’m curious to hear, lieutenant, what brought you to that conclusion.”

  “It’s a guess, sir. But the thing has to fit together somehow. A timeship would make it fit.”

  “In what way?”

  “I’ve been informed,” Dowland said, “that the Overgovernment’s scientists have been unable to make a practical use of YM because something has invariably gone wrong when they did try to use it. I also heard that there was no way of knowing in advance what would happen to make an experiment fail. But something always would happen, and frequently a number of people would get killed.” Camhorn nodded. “That is quite true.”

  “Well, then,” Dowland said, “I think there is a race of beings who aren’t quite in our time and space. They have YM and use it, and don’t want anyone else to use it. They can tell when it’s activated here, and use their own YM to interfere with it. Then another experiment suddenly turns into a failure.

  “BUT they don’t know yet who’s using it. When the Trelawneys turned on their machine, these beings spotted the YM stress pattern back there in time. They went to that point and reinforced the time-blending effect with their own YM. The Trelawneys hadn’t intended a complete contact with that first test. The aliens almost succeeded in blending the two periods completely in the area near the laboratory.”

  “For what purpose?” Camhorn asked.

  “I think they’re very anxious to get us located.”

  “With unfriendly intentions?”

  “The ones we ran into didn’t behave in a friendly manner. May I ask a question, sir?”

  “Of course,” Camhorn said. “When the Trelawneys’ machine was examined, was the supply of YM adequately shielded?”

  “Quite adequately,” Camhorn said.

  “But when I opened the door, the laboratory was hot. And Miguel Trelawney died of radiation burns . . .”

  Camhorn nodded. “Those are facts that give your theory some substance, lieutenant. No question about it. And there is the additional fact that after you shut off the YM flow in the laboratory, nearly ten minutes passed before the apparent contact between two time periods was broken. Your report indicates that the phenomena you described actually became more pronounced immediately after the shutoff.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As if the aliens might have been making every effort to retain contact with our time?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dowland said. “That was my impression.”

  “It’s quite plausible. Now, the indications are that Paul Trelawney actually spent considerable time—perhaps twelve to fourteen hours, at any rate—in that other period. He gave no hint of what he experienced during those hours?”

  “No, sir, except to say that it was night when he appeared there. He may have told Miss Trelawney more.”

  “Apparently, he didn’t,” Camhorn said. “Before you and he went into the laboratory, he warned her to watch for the approach of a creature which answers the description of the gigantic things you encountered twice. But that was all. Now, here again you’ve given us your objective observations. What can you add to them—on a perhaps more speculative basis?”

  “Well, sir,” Dowland said, “my opinions on that are, as a matter of fact, highly speculative. But I think that Paul Trelawney was captured by the aliens as soon as he appeared in the other time period, and was able to escape from them a number of hours later. Two of the aliens who were attempting to recapture him eventually followed him out on Lion Mesa through another opening the YM stresses had produced between the time periods, not too far away from the first.”

  Camhorn’s stout companion said thoughtfully, “You believe the birdlike creature you saw arrived by the same route?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dowland said, turning to him. “I think that was simply an accident. It may have been some kind of wild animal that blundered into the contact area and found itself here without knowing what had occurred.”

  “And you feel,” the other man went on, “that you yourself were passing near that contact point in the night at the time you seemed to be smelling a swamp?” Dowland nodded. “Yes, sir, I do. Those smells might have been an illusion, but they seemed to be very distinct. And, of course, there are no swamps on the mesa itself.”

  CAMHORN said, “We’ll assume it was no illusion. It seems to fit into the general picture. But, lieutenant, on what are you basing your opinion that Paul Trelawney was a captive of these beings for some time?”

  “There were several things, sir,” Dowland said. “One of them is that when Miss Trelawney regained consciousness in the hospital she didn’t remember having made an attempt to get away from me.”

  Camhorn nodded. “That was reported.”

  “She made the attempt,” Dowland went on, “immediately after she had taken off her radiation suit to avoid being choked in the dust storm on the way down from the mesa. That is one point.”

  “Go ahead,” Camhorn said. “Another is that when I discovered Paul Trelawney early in the morning, he was wearing his radiation suit. Judging by his appearance, he had been in it for hours—and a radiation suit, of course, is a very inconvenient thing to be in when you’re hiking around in rough country.”r />
  “He might,” the stout man suggested, “have been afraid of running into a radioactive area.”

  Dowland shook his head. “No, sir. He had an instrument which would have warned him if he was approaching one. It would have made much more sense to carry the suit, and slip into it again if it became necessary. I didn’t give the matter much thought at the time. But then the third thing happened. I did not put that in the report because it was a completely subjective impression. I couldn’t prove now that it actually occurred.”

  Camhorn leaned forward. “Go ahead.”

  “It was just before the time periods separated and the creature that was approaching Miss Trelawney and myself seemed to drop through the top of the mesa—I suppose it fell back into the other period. I’ve described it. It was like a fifty-foot gray slug moving along on its tail . . . and there were those two rows of something like short arms. It wasn’t at all an attractive creature. I was frightened to death. But I was holding a gun—the same gun with which I had stopped another of those things when it chased me during the night. And the trouble was that this time I wasn’t going to shoot.”

  “You weren’t going to shoot?” Camhorn repeated.

  “No, sir. I had every reason to try to blow it to pieces as soon as I saw it. The other one didn’t follow up its attack on me, so it probably was pretty badly injured. But while I knew that, I was also simply convinced that it would be useless to pull the trigger. That’s as well as I can explain what happened . . .

  “I think these aliens can control the minds of other beings, but can’t control them through the interference set up by something like our AR fields. Paul Trelawney appeared in the other time period almost in their laps. He had a rifle strapped over his back, but presumably they caught him before he had a chance to use it. They would have examined him and the equipment he was carrying, and when they took off his radiation suit, they would have discovered he belonged to a race which they could control mentally. After that, there would have been no reason for them to guard him too closely. He was helpless.

  I THINK Trelawney realized this, and used a moment when his actions were not being controlled to slip back into the suit. Then he was free to act again. When they discovered he had escaped, some of them were detailed to search for him, and two of those pursuers came out here in our time on the mesa.

  “As for Miss Trelawney—well, obviously she wasn’t trying to get away from me. Apparently, she wasn’t even aware of what she was doing. She was simply obeying physically the orders her mind began to receive as soon as she stepped out of the radiation suit. They would have been to come to the thing, wherever it was at the moment—somewhere up to the north of the ranch area, judging from the direction in which she headed.”

  There was silence for some seconds. Then Camhorn’s companion observed, “There’s one thing that doesn’t quite fit in with your theory, lieutenant.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “Your report states that you switched off your AR field at the same time you advised Miss Trelawney to get out of her suit. You should have been equally subject to the alien’s mental instructions.”

  “Well,” Dowland said, “I can attempt to explain that, sir, though again there is no way to prove what I think. But it might be that these creatures can control, only one mind at a time. The alien may not have realized that I had . . . well . . . knocked Miss Trelawney unconscious and that she was unable to obey its orders, until it came to the spot and saw us. My assumption is that it wasn’t till that moment that it switched its mental attack to me.”

  * * *

  THE stout man—his name was Laillard White, and he was one of Research’s ace trouble-shooters in areas more or less loosely related to psychology—appeared morosely reflective as he and Camhorn left Solar Police Authority Headquarters, and turned toward the adjoining Overgovernment Bureau.

  “I gather from your expression,” Camhorn remarked, “that our lieutenant was telling the truth.”

  White grunted. “Of course, he was—as he saw it.”

  “And he’s sane?”

  “Quite sane,” White agreed absently.

  Camhorn grinned. “Then what’s the matter, Lolly? Don’t you like the idea of time-travel?”

  “Naturally not. It’s an absurdity.”

  “You’re blunt, Lolly. And rash. A number of great minds differ with you about that.” Laillard White said something rude about great minds in general. He went on, “Was the machine these Trelawneys built found intact?”

  Camhorn nodded. “In perfect condition. I found an opportunity to look it over when it and the others the Freeholders had concealed on Terra were brought in.”

  “And these machines are designed to make it possible to move through time?”

  “No question about that. They function in Riemann space, and are very soundly constructed. A most creditable piece of work, in fact. It’s only regrettable that the Trelawney brothers were wasted on it. We might have put their talents to better use. Though as it turned out . . .”

  He shrugged.

  White glanced over at him. “What are you talking about?” he asked suspiciously.

  “They didn’t accomplish time-travel,” Camhorn said, “though in theory they should have. I know it because we have several machines based on the same principles. The earliest was built almost eighty years ago. Two are now designed to utilize the YM thrust. The Trelawney machine is considerably more advanced in a number of details than its Overgovernment counterparts, but it still doesn’t make it possible to move in time.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’d like to know,” Camhorn said. “The appearance of it Is that the reality we live in takes the same dim view of time-travel that you do. Time-travel remains a theoretical possibility. But in practice—when, for example, the YM thrust is applied for that purpose—the thrust is diverted.”

  White looked bewildered. “But if Paul Trelawney didn’t move through time, what did he do?”

  “What’s left?” Camhorn asked. “He moved through space, of course.”

  “Where?”

  Camhorn shrugged. “They penetrated Riemann space,” he said, “after harnessing their machine to roughly nineteen thousand times the power that was available to us before the Ymir series of elements dropped into our hands. In theory, Lolly, they might have gone anywhere in the universe. If we’d had the unreasonable nerve to play around with multikilograms of YM—knowing what happened when fractional quantities of a gram were employed—we might have had a very similar experience.”

  “I’m still just a little in the dark, you know,” Laillard White observed drily, “as to what the experience consisted of.”

  “Oh, Lieutenant Dowland’s theory wasn’t at all far off in that respect. It’s an ironic fact that we have much to thank the Trelawneys for. There’s almost no question at all now what the race of beings they encountered were responsible for the troubles that have plagued us in the use of YM. They’re not the best of neighbors—neighbors in Riemann space terms, that is. If they’d known where to look for us, things might have become rather hot. They had a chance to win the first round when the Trelawneys lit that sixty-eight kilogram beacon for them. But they made a few mistakes, and lost us again. It’s a draw so far. Except that we now know about as much about them as they’ve ever learned about us. I expect we’ll take the second round handily a few years from now.”

  WHITE still looked doubtful.

  Was it one of their planets the Trelawneys contacted?”

  “Oh, no. At least, it would have been an extremely improbable coincidence. No, the machine was searching for Terra as Terra is known to have been in the latter part of the Pleistocene period. The Trelawneys had provided something like a thousand very specific factors to direct and confine that search. Time is impenetrable, so the machine had to find that particular pattern of factors in space, and did. The aliens—again as Lieutenant Dowland theorized—then moved through Riemann space to the planet where the YM thrust
was manifesting itself so violently. But once there, they still had no way of determining where in the universe the thrust had originated—even though they were, in one sense, within shouting distance of Terra, and two of them were actually on its surface for a time. It must have been an extremely frustrating experience all around for our friends.”

  Laillard White said, “Hm-m,” and frowned.

  Camhorn laughed. “Let it go, Lolly,” he said. “That isn’t your field, after all. Let’s turn to what is. What do you make of the fact that Dowland appears to have been temporarily immune to the mental commands these creatures can put out?”

  “Eh?” White said. His expression turned to one of surprise. “But that’s obvious!”

  “Glad to hear it,” Camhorn said drily.

  “Well, it is. Dowland’s attitude showed clearly that he suspected the truth himself on that point. Naturally, he was somewhat reluctant to put it into words.”

  “Naturally. So what did he suspect?”

  White shook his head. “It’s so simple. The first specimen of humanity the aliens encountered alive was Paul Trelawney. High genius level, man! It would take that level to nullify our I.Q. tests in the manner he and his half-brother did. When those creatures were prowling around on the mesa, they were looking for that kind of mentality. Dowland’s above average, far from stupid. As you say, you like his theories. But he’s no Trelawney. Unquestionably, the aliens in each case regarded him as some kind of clever domestic animal. The only reason he’s alive is that they weren’t taking him seriously.”

  “THAT,” Camhorn said thoughtfully, “may have changed a number of things.”

  “It may, indeed.”

  “Do we have anything on hand that would block their specific psi abilities?”

  “Oh, surely. If an AR field can stop them, there’s nothing to worry about in that respect. Our human telepaths wouldn’t be seriously hampered by that degree of interference.”