The Time Masters

by Wilson Tucker

  She made no answer.

  “And there was Santun, the second officer,” Nash went on. “Santun was the only fool in the lot—he committed suicide in a Roman arena. Santun was a devil with the ladies (as you may know!) but lacking in good judgment; when he finally realised he was marooned here for the rest of his life he ran wild. Woke up one morning to find himself with a disease that wouldn’t be cured, and chose a violent and spectacular death in the arena to a slow and inglorious one elsewhere. Raul and I were unwilling witnesses.” The teasing odour of the coffee haunted his nostrils though he tried to ignore it. “And Leef, the geologist—he came out of the wreck too. Leef wasn’t as initially lucky as some of the rest of us; he nearly froze to death when he fell in the snow country, far to the north. His first winter was almost the last for him. But he grew to like it, I suppose, for he stayed there. After a while he outfitted an expedition and sailed across the Atlantic, seeking this continent. I never saw him again.” Nash suddenly shifted in the chair, turning his back on the table and the coffee. Carolyn was watching him with a tiny smile. The gun lay carelessly in her lap.

  “I also discovered a girl named Brunna—did you know her?” He let his eyes close to shut out temporarily the sight of Carolyn. “Brunna worked with motors but her real interest was anthropology. Can you guess where I found her? In the mountains back of Afghanistan, searching for the source of life of these people.” He spread his hand in a half-circle to encompass the trailer court and the city beyond. “She seemed to think she had found it, in the place they call Tibet. Are you interested in all this?” He didn’t bother to open his eyes and see if she were interested, or to wait for a spoken answer. “Brunna and I enjoyed each other; we were seriously considering marriage when she was caught up by the soldiers of some Minoan king. Brunna was given alive to a lion, to appease some legendary lion-goddess.” His eyes snapped open and he swung back to Carolyn. “This goddess was a bloodthirsty bitch.”

  The silence came again.

  After a while Carolyn asked, “All of us in that one hemisphere? None here?”

  “Apparently not; that part of the world was directly beneath the ship when it cracked up. I thought I had found some traces here in the new world but they proved to be only imitations. No—none here, until we came. Unless of course Leef made it.”

  “Were there no more?” Carolyn asked then. “Only Raul, and Santun, Leef and Brunna, you and I? Is that all?” There was no hint of an emotion in her husky voice. “Six out of three hundred! I would have liked seeing them again.”

  “You were too busy being a white goddess,” he answered laconically. When she said no more, he continued with a sudden spurt of enthusiasm “There was someone else. Perhaps more than one. Someone introduced a form of writing to one of the old civilizations; a degenerate copy of that form still existed when I arrived among them, changed and broken, but readable after a fashion. I never found the originator. It was none of our six survivors; I made certain of that. But for a while there was someone else.”

  “Not I,” she told him.

  “No—not you. I’ve been quite interested in you, Carolyn. When I could, I followed you over most of the world although I did not always know your identity. When I reached southern Africa you had long gone and your little empire there had blown away with the winds; by the time I returned to the Mediterranean you had also been there, to vanish once again. But there you left a few things behind that had not blown away.” His hard stare bored into hers. “The dances, the bulls and the lions, the feasts of blood. Those things came from Ichor, Carolyn, and few of our ship’s company had ever visited Ichor. Too, queer mementos of your passing turned up in Crete, in Egypt—in my library up the road I have a pornographic caricature of you. Maybe I should compliment you on your vivid imagination.” He shrugged and half turned away. “But I never found you. So much time passed without my finding you that at last I decided you were dead, like Raul, like Leef, like the other two. I had really given you up for lost—until the rocket experiments started in Germany.

  “I very nearly caught you in Germany, Carolyn. It may have only been a matter of weeks, even days, that I missed you again. And then when I learned of the theft of the forty-five quarts of water during this last war, I knew you had gone, and guessed where you were going. So—I followed you here, prepared for your eventual discovery. And here we are.” He blinked at her.

  “Yes, mule, here we are. I wondered how long you would need to get around to that.” She stretched, moving her slim legs in provocative fashion. “Here we are, you and I, the last two alive in a world of savages. And so . . .?”

  He lifted his head to stare at a point above her, to stare into the past. “Raul said that you were evil.”

  “Raul was a meddling old fool!” she snapped.

  “Raul,” he contradicted, “was the oldest and wisest man I have ever known. His memory of our people and our kind of life goes back before my father’s time, and perhaps your father’s as well. He said that you were evil and I have learned to accept his judgment. He said you had lost all regard for life—other’s lives, the lives of these people you term savages; he said that you had learned to kill or cause death at a whim, to maim and destroy as it pleased you. I have found that to be true. The swathe of death and destruction you’ve left behind you cannot be denied; your black record is a blot on the civilization and the world that gave you birth. Carolyn, you might have been born on Ichor, so far have you gone. You killed Brunna, you killed your husband and you killed again yesterday.” Nash brought his eyes down to lock with hers. “You will kill again tonight if you are able.”

  The careless, mocking smile remained on her face, a frozen curvature of the lips that seemed to enhance her beauty. The gun was at attention, aimed at his heart.

  “And you, mule? You are going to play the judge?”

  He shook his head. “You haven’t been listening, Carolyn. I said that Raul was an older and wiser man than I can ever hope to be. Raul was your judge long ago, and he said you were evil. I accepted his judgment.”

  “Policeman, then? You will be a policeman?”

  “No, there are no police in our life; I wouldn’t have the stomach for it if there were. I couldn’t hand you over to the authorities here because I know what they would do to you—and that would be equal to killing you myself. I couldn’t hang you, or whatever punishment they deal out to murderers in this state. I will not be a party to that.”

  “That’s very considerate of you, mule.” She was almost laughing at him, laughing with the sure knowledge of having an advantage on him. “Considerate, and quite noble. You must be fairly bursting with noble humility. But you followed me here for some purpose! You admitted it. Didn’t you?”

  “Did, yes. To offer you a choice.”

  “Still being noble,” she retorted bitingly. “A choice of what?”

  “Of remaining here with me in this world. And of forsaking your evil ways if you do remain.”

  “That isn’t all of it!” she snapped, the laughter suddenly gone. “What is the alternative?”

  “Why,” he said simply, “of continuing on your way—of going wherever you think you are going.”

  She sat up with astonishment. “You call that a choice?”

  “You’ll find it one if you persist with your plan.” He blinked and rubbed the skin above his temple, wondering how much information she possessed. “Of going wherever you think you are going,” he repeated. “Where do you think you are going, Carolyn? Your husband didn’t know the purpose or the ultimate destination of that ship. And I don’t believe Dikty knew it.” Suddenly he smiled at her. “You’d be wise to accept my offer.”

  “Oh, you fool, you utter fool! You’ve lived among the savages for so long their stupidity has rubbed off on you. You’re offering me a choice of nothing!”

  “I’m offering you a choice between life and death,” he softly contradicted her.

  “You lie! You have nothing to offer.”

  “Carol
yn,” Nash said gently, “I can’t hang you; you know that I can’t harm you in any way unless it be in self-defence. Despite what you’ve done to Brunna, to those others, I can’t kill you for it. You know that and you are laughing at me.” He lowered his voice. “Carolyn, this I can do: I can let you commit suicide if you desire.”

  She laughed at him then, a husky, raucous sound that filled the trailer cabin with mocking noise. “And do you think, noble mule, that I am about to commit suicide? Like your Santun perhaps? Do you really, mule?” Her wild laughter continued.

  Nash waited patiently until she had stopped. “Yes,” he told her. “But the Roman arenas are gone!” she exclaimed gaily.

  “A ship exists.”

  Carolyn sobered, stared hard at him. “Have you forgotten my profession so soon? Have you forgotten that I was a navigator?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten that.”

  “Do you doubt my ability to take that ship up?”

  “There’s an element of chance involved.”

  “Of course there’s an element of chance involved!” she blazed. “An element of chance is involved every time a ship takes to the sky, anywhere, any time. A thousand chances are run on a thousand ships every day! Why do you think we’re here now, throwing away our lives on this stinking ball of mud? Of course there’s a risk—I expect it, I’ll take it.

  “Listen to me, Gilbert Nash: there’s a ship out there on the desert that I helped to build, helped to design and power! A ship capable of taking me home. I prostituted myself with an ignorant, stinking savage for more than ten years to get that ship built—lived with him, submitted to him, catered to him, and now I’m going to take what’s mine. I paid a high price for that ship! I crammed knowledge and discovery into his miserable little head until I was sick at the sight of him, sick of his stupidities and his maudlin gibberish; I fed him technical data until he could have powered that ship with his eyes closed. I coaxed him, flattered him, educated him, forced him to build that reaction motor. I wanted to go home! And I’m going—alone.”

  “Alone, yes.” Nash nodded. “I expected that.” •

  “Did you think for a second that I’d take you?”

  “You couldn’t afford to take me, Carolyn. I’d talk—if we got back.” The yellow eyes held her fixed in serious study. “You wouldn’t want stories about you circulated at home. Not these stories.”

  “They will have given us up for lost, Gilbert. And they will be glad to find the one last survivor.”

  “You.”

  She nodded. “Me.”

  “I can picture the gala homecoming,” he said dryly. “You’ll make a production of it.”

  “I will pay glowing tribute to your memory, dear mule.” She moved like a kitten on the divan, arching her back and smiling at him. “Yours, and poor little Brunna—Santun—Leef—yes, even Raul. You will be heroes, dead heroes buried on a miserable, insignificant ball of mud that will be unsafe to the touch. They will not come searching for you, not when I tell them of this place. They will want to know how I built my ship and I will tell them, with suitable reservations and protective colouration. And after I have told them about this planet they will never again come near it, until it will have swept itself clean of barbaric life.” It will be a memorable day when I return home, mule.”

  “If you return home,” he reminded her.

  “Are you still doubting me, doubting my ability, fool? I can take that ship up, I can pilot it!”

  “The ship,” he pointed out, “will be radio-controlled from base. It will fly on a preset course.”

  “The ship,” she mocked him prettily, “can easily be disconnected from its radio controls.” She leaned forward, tapped her knee with emphasis. “Don’t pretend to stupidity, Gilbert. You and I can do or undo anything these pigs have done. Once off the earth, that ship is mine to do with as I please! And you know that it won’t be too difficult to make contact with our own kind again. Are you familiar with the navigation charts? Do you know where in the universe we are?”

  “I lack your specialised knowledge, Carolyn.”

  “All I need to do, doubting mule, is to blast a certain number of degrees above this system’s elliptical plane to reach our trade routes. Our ships are up there now, they’re up there all the time, running past this solar system as though it didn’t exist. We were on course, Gilbert, when the ship cracked up and we fell here. We were following a well-marked, well-used trade route.

  “And that ship of mine out there on the desert will carry me out of this system, carry me up to the trade routes where I will be found. I’m not going to the moon, or to whatever destination that ship is set for. I’m going home! I know the reaction motor in that ship Gilbert, know its possibilities and its limitations. I should know it, I built it. I know that it can carry me above the elliptical plane and start me on the homeward journey. After that I trust to your element of chance, but it’s much more of a chance than I have here!”

  “Supposing you aren’t found right away?”

  “I don’t expect to be found right away. I will have what food I can carry, and I have a cache of drugs. If need be, I’ll put myself into deepsleep and wait it out. I’m going to stay alive in that ship until I’m found!”

  Nash shrugged. “You seem to believe you know all the answers.”

  “I’ve had ten thousand years to figure them out,” she retorted sarcastically. “And the last ten to perfect them. My late lamented husband would be surprised if he knew—really knew—the motor he thought he made. That motor is outsized, mule, outsized and shielded; it requires a ship to contain it, not one of your primitive instrument rockets. It was deliberately designed outsize because it would have to carry me as well. And, mule—listen well: in perfectly useless pockets it contains heavy water as supposed moderators, water I will drain off. The only thing for my comfort I could not put into that motor was food. I must risk that.”

  “Sounds fine,” Nash said laconically. “Did you work in a signal too?”

  Carolyn laughed delightedly. “That motor will give off an alarm that can be heard all over the universe! It will command attention. In space, mule, uncharted obstacles don’t radiate an alarm.”

  “You almost make me want to go along,” he told her. “Almost. Your sales appeal lacks only a little something.”

  The woman shook her head. “You aren’t going, Gilbert. I’m sure I will miss you.”

  “I’m sure,” he repeated. “And so you are going to steal a heavily guarded ship and take off?”

  “Gilbert!” She sat stiffly upright, searching his face. “Gilbert, I don’t like the way you said that. Were you thinking of stopping me? Of warning them?” She lifted the gun significantly.

  “Me?” he asked innocently, and grinned without humour. “Of course not.” He settled back on the chair and hooked his thumbs in his belt, contemplating her. “Your actions are disgusting to me; I’ll never forgive you for murdering Brunna. But I’m not going to stop you, or warn anyone.” He blinked at her. “I offered you a choice a few moments ago. It’s still open: you can commit suicide if you wish.”

  Carolyn suddenly leaped to her feet, staring at him.

  “Gilbert . . .”

  “Yes?” He knew what was coming.

  “Will you kiss me? Or . . .?” She gestured.

  “No.”

  “Please, Gilbert! I must—”

  “Of a sudden,” he told her, “you have an idea that you may be committing suicide. You want me to kiss you, to find out for you. No.”

  She ran her hand over the buttons on the pyjama blouse. “Gilbert.”

  “No.”

  Carolyn stood by the divan, staring at him with open disbelief. The gun was hanging at her side, forgotten. She jerked at the blouse, ripping off the entire row of buttons to fling the garment on the floor.

  Nash leaned back to lock his fingers behind his head. “Pretty,” he said.

  “Would you like . . .?”

  “No,” he repeated.
/>
  Carolyn waited there for a long, indecisive moment, glaring at him with vexation. From somewhere outside, some near-by trailer, came the muted sounds of a radio and the crying of a baby. Beyond that a truck could be heard moving along the road with heavily growling motor. Still the woman stood, her fiery eyes fixed on the man’s passive face. It was then that she remembered the automatic in her hand.

  “I could force you,”

  “You could try.”

  “I could!” she insisted.

  “Try then, and see what happens,” he invited. “Take one step, Carolyn, and I’ll act in self-defence. You can’t very well pilot that ship with both arms broken. Try it—and I’ll send you to the hospital for the next month. Your ship will be in the sky by the end of that time.” He hadn’t moved, hadn’t unlocked his fingers from behind his head.

  “Gilbert, this is silly! All I want to do is—”

  “All you want to do is kiss me. All you want to do is find out if you will live beyond next week. All you want me to do is look into your evil mind for you.” Nash grinned with an inner satisfaction. “They have a phrase in this country. Go to hell.”

  “You won’t do that for me.”

  “I won’t do anything for you unless you accept my offer—the one choice. Remain here.”

  She stamped her foot in anger. “You mule!”

  He indicated the discarded pyjama top with a nod of his head. “The show’s over. Close the curtains.”

  “I may as well leave,” Nash suggested. “We don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

  “Gilbert . . .” She was on the divan, sitting at stiff attention. “You aren’t going to warn them?”

  “I’ve told you twice, Carolyn, I will not prevent your committing suicide. No, I won’t warn them, there’s no need to warn them. Do you know anything at all about White Sands? Know how well its guarded? The radar will find you first and flash a warning to the motor patrols. Or the fence will detect you; the place is surrounded by a very simple electronic fence, Carolyn. If so little as a coyote wanders near that fence, the presence of his Body alters the electrical current passing through it and that alteration is registered on the alarm meters. My warnings would be wasted. No, I won’t try to stop you.”