Jeff cleared his throat of dust. “The Earth’s inclination was twenty-three and a half degrees, wasn’t it—or isn’t it? Maybe with some instruments…”
“Well, we would still have to know the time of year it was,” Bill replied. “We could find that out from Cornelius and Zira, I suppose, or do a lot of measurements over a year or more. But I think we’ll be doing a lot more important things—like survival—over the next year!”
Jeff agreed. “That’s right. Just staying alive and free is taking up so much of our time that, well, I think we’d better concentrate on that for now. If Urko or any of his gorillas catch us, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about much of anything after that!”
Bill sighed and peered around at the new trail. “It looks cool enough now,” he said. “Why don’t we give it a try?” He handed the laser to Jeff. “I’ll go first. You hold on to this.”
The blond ex-astronaut stepped carefully out onto the new trail. The rock was hot, but not too uncomfortable. “Come on!” he called to the others. “It’s fine!”
Jeff shouldered the laser and grinned at Judy. “Stop worrying, Judy. Just think about all those people back in our time who wanted to go live in the future—and here we are!”
Motioning to the humanoids behind them, Judy just grunted at Jeff. “Shut up and move, philosopher!”
* * *
The sun was a blistering sore in the sky.
The ragged line of humanoids headed by the three astronauts was staggering across the desert that had begun soon after their descent from the rocky cliff and the several ridges that followed it. The gorge was far behind them. They were tired and half blinded by the glare.
All at once, Judy stumbled and fell to one knee. Jeff caught her arm and lifted her up again. “The heat…” she choked, “it’s… it’s like… a furnace!”
Impatiently, Bill turned to look at her. “But… we’ve got to… go on!”
“We’ve reached—and passed the point of… no return.” Jeff’s throat raw and dry. “Going… ahead… is better than… going back…” He coughed. “We know… what’s back… there.”
An elderly humanoid staggered and fell. Jeff stopped to raise the man’s head out of the dust and sand. The old man’s raspy whisper caught his attention.
“Ahbah… ahbah…”
“Here, old fellow, have… some water.”
The humanoid swallowed gratefully.
“Take it easy!” Jeff said, “It…won’t be… much longer…” The black astronaut trained his red-rimmed eyes on the distant, dusty horizon. “It can’t be!” he muttered to himself.
* * *
Captain Mulla saluted briskly. “The troops are in position,” sir! We await your command.”
General Urko looked up from the map he was studying. “Good!” He straightened and patted the revolver at his waist. “Now I’ll teach these beasts a lesson they’ll not soon forget!” He stepped past Mulla and stared ahead at the ring of men he had thrown around the immediate area in which the humanoids’ caves were hidden; their backs were turned to him and they faced forward, ready to move. “And, in the process,” he said, “I will restore my authority and reputation!” He turned back and pointed abruptly at Captain Mulla. “Sound the attack!”
The aide-de-camp whirled and shouted to the other officers: “Attack!”
A roar of approval boomed from the several lines of gorilla soldiers and vehicles behind as the orders were repeated. Soldiers started motors, jeep and truck racing them in their eagerness. With a growl of armed might, the vehicles started forward and the soldiers on foot started to run. The front ring had already surged forward up to the caves.
Soldiers ran to the rocky cliffs between the caves, took gas grenades in their leathery hands, and leaned around to pitch them deeply into the caverns. Gas grenades burst in the cave mouths. Then, as the almost invisible gas began to billow out, the front line of soldiers pulled on their gas masks.
Gorilla sergeant Gurto tossed his last canister of gas into a cave with a taunting jeer. “Here, you humanoid beasts—here’s a little present from your ape masters!”
Tanks and troop-carrier trucks and jeeps meanwhile closed in on the caves, adding more power to the attacking force.
Urko watched the clockwork precision of his troops with delight. “Brilliant! My strategy is brilliant!” He looked around at Captain Mulla. “Never before has there been such a perfectly planned attack!”
A nearby major grinned up at his commander, who was proudly standing on a rock. “Sir, you are bound to go down in simian history as the greatest military leader of all time!”
Urko was not one to disagree with an observation which favored him so. “That I will, major, that I will…”
Captain Mulla gave the opportunist major an inquisitive look. Did he mean that, or was he just greasing up the general?
Urko saw Sergeant Gurto running back from the caves and up to his observation point on the rock. The gorilla noncom was breathing hard, his hairy chest heaving as he came to a salute.
“Well?” the general asked the out-of-breath soldier.
“General Urko… uh… we can’t locate a single humanoid anywhere…”
Urko blinked at him, his expression incredulous. “What—?”
“It’s true, sir,” Gurto said breathlessly. “The caves are completely empty. We searched and—”
“Fools!” Urko exploded angrily. “You’re all a bunch of fools! Didn’t anyone scout the area beforehand?” Urko glowered over at the major who had so recently complimented him.
“We didn’t have time, sir. You were in a hurry and we just assumed—” the major explained.
“Assumed!” Urko was shouting insanely. “A good soldier never assumes!” Urko leaped from the rock and grabbed the edge of the. Major’s hard leather breastplate. “A good soldier operates on facts! Do you understand? Facts!” The general then whirled around to look down into the valley of caves. “Where have the beasts gone? Ah, yes, I’d forgotten. The troops we sent around in back of this mountainside to check but the holes—those holes from which the beasts escaped the last time! What have they found…?”
Captain Kogora ran up to the general at precisely that moment. “Sir… sir…” he burst out, breathless, “we covered the holes waiting, but no humanoids came through them. I even had… some of my men climb up into the holes, but no humanoids. Had… hidden there. We… just don’t understand…!”
Urko snapped out more orders: “Mulla, take some men and double-check those caves! Captain Kogora, get some of your men on those clifftops! See if they can see any sigh of those humanoids!”
Kogora saluted and ran quickly to obey his orders. Urko fumed and paced. The rest of the men kept away from him if they could.
Captain Mulla reported back first. “They’ve cleared out, sir. Took everything with them.”
Colonel Trafuna reported from his riverbank position, below Urko. “There seems to have been quite a bit of activity at the riverbank, general. Lots of footprints, a dropped skin of berries…”
“What would the humanoids be doing at the river? They’re too stupid to swim!” Then he looked suddenly shrewd. “Did they cross the river, or go into it and come back out further down—or up?”
The colonel shook his head. “They didn’t cross, sir. At least there are no indications. I have scouts going up and down the banks, looking for signs, but so far none have reported finding any place where they came out!”
General Urko tugged angrily at his glove, then once again exploded with an idea. “Wait a minute! Rafts! The humanoids must have somehow, understood how to chop down trees and build rafts!” Urko’s voice was now a frenzied shout. “They’re trying to escape by the river! After them! After them!”
The general started down the steep hill toward the water, then stopped when he realized his officers were not moving.
“But, general, we’re not prepared for river travel,” said Trafuna.
Urko screamed at the colon
el. “Not prepared? In the name of Kerchak’s eyes, why not…?”
The gorilla officer was trying not to cower under the full might of Urko’s wrath, but he couldn’t help it. “Sir, uh, we didn’t bring any amphibious craft with us, and—”
“Fool! I am surrounded by fools!” Urko turned to Captain Mulla. “Radio Strategic Defense Headquarters and have riverboats brought up!”
Colonel Trafuna raised a hand in protest, then dropped it quickly, but the angry Urko had seen his gesture.
“What is it, Trafuna?”
“Uh, sir, I—I believe we must first secure permission from the Council of Elders for any kind of amphibious operation. You see, sir, according to the Book of Military Procedure—”
“Rot on the Council of Elders! Curses on the Book of Military Procedure AND the Book of Laws AND The Book of Simian Prophecy! The Elders are nothing but a bunch of creaking old apes!” Urko slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand. “If it weren’t for those cursed orangutans, I would have rid us of the humanoid problem years ago. You can be certain of that!”
Colonel Trafuna was shocked. “But, sir… general, the Book is quite clear. The rules, sir, are very strict!”’
Urko was simmering with anger and frustration, but he was beginning to control himself.
“All right… I know, I know! Major Surga”—the major had just run up—“you will call SDH for the riverboats. Captain Mulla, come with me, Trafuna, keep the army in full readiness! I’ll push this thing through the council, no matter, what kind of threats I have to make!”
Urko strode quickly back to his jeep, shouting for his driver. Captain Mulla ran after him and jumped in just as the vehicle roared off in a choking cloud of dust.
* * *
The desert sandstorm had blinded them for two hours, but the long, ragged row of humanoids still followed Bill, Jeff, and Judy blindly. Breathing through nostrils clogged with sand, their eyes shaded against the flying grit, each holding on to the figure before him, they struggled through the raging blizzard of sand.
Bill, in the lead, leaning into the wind, shouted back to Judy and Jeff behind him. “The wind is increasing!”
“We’ve… got… to find… shelter!”” Jeff called out. “And fast!”
Judy, choking from the Sandstorm as much as any of them, raised her heard to squint ahead. “Wait… a minute!” She rubbed futilely at her eyes, then pointed. “What’s… that?”
A slight lull came just then in the wind, and for a moment the air was not completely filled with flying sand. For a brief second the three astronauts could see the desert ahead of them. Almost obscured by distant swirls of sand-borne wind was a mesa, rising ahead of them.
“It’s some kind of plateau,” Bill yelled, his voice barely audible above the again-increased wind. “Maybe it’ll give us… some kind of break from the wind…”
The storm closed in fully once more, darkening the rise of rock; but at least Bill had what seemed a workable plan of action. Urging the rest of the party on, he changed directions slightly and plowed through the sand drifts. Half an hour later, they felt a lessening of the wind, and were beneath the overhang of the mesa. Everyone crowded close to the mesa’s wall. Still, the sandstorm blinded them, deafened every ear with its constant roar, and drove grains of irritating grains into every fold of skin and clothing.
Jeff huddled, protecting the laser drill as best he could. Judy and Bill crowded around him to offer as much protection as possible.
The day wore on. There were moments of less wind, followed by blinding gusts that whipped new furies into the travelers’ eyes and minds.
Bill put his mouth next to Jeff’s ear and shouted, “How long do you… figure the storm will last…?”
“I don’t know… but it doesn’t seem to be… getting any better.”
Judy thrust up her face and screamed, “We’d better… count on spending the… night here!”
Bill nodded agreement. “I’ll check everyone and get them as comfortable as I can. You both try and get some rest.”
The former commander of the Venturer lurched to his feet and walked along the cliff wall, checking each humanoid, rearranging skins and furs so that they would be well protected yet able to catch a breath free of sand. Then he slowly rejoined his friends for a long, uncomfortable night.
* * *
Bill Hudson opened his eye. Just one. The other seemed glued shut. The silence was almost “noisy,” and he raised his head, forcing open the other eye. He shook his head vigorously to rid himself of the loose sand that had accumulated in his hair during the night.
Slowly and rather stiffly, he got to his feet and looked around in some amazement. The contours of the sand hills were markedly different from what he remembered of the day before. That was some sandstorm! he thought. He looked down at his two companions, and saw that they were part of a small dune that had built up against them in the night.
The long line of huddled humanoids was also partially buried, and every exposed head was beige with sand. Bill went along the line, waking everyone up.
The old humanoid did not awaken. He had died during the long night, suffocated in a blanket of sand. Bill left his body to the humanoids to bury in a shallow grave in the sand and came back to Jeff and Judy.
Awake and getting stiffly to their feet, they were brushing off the gritty encrustations. Jeff immediately started checking the laser for damage.
“All right, let’s get going!” Bill told them. “Come on!” he shouted to the humanoids. “On your feet! Let’s move out!”
They had straggled along less than a hundred yards when the sand dune to their left, only a few yards out from the cliff face, suddenly moved: a small sandslide fell down one side of it, which caused more sand to fall from higher up.
“Look!” Jeff shouted, unbelieving.
The sand that had slid down revealed a chipped and faded painting of an American flag. It was on the dented and rusted surface of some curved metallic object.
“An American flag!” Judy burst out in a choked voice.
Additional sand now slid down, exposing still more of the metal surface and giving them a better idea of what lay buried in the dune.
“A spaceship!” Bill exclaimed.
“Incredible…” Jeff breathed. “An American spaceship!”
Judy blinked away her disbelief. “But whose ship is it? And—and how long has it been here?”
“The design is… different,” Jeff said, peering at what appeared to be the ship’s tail surface. “More advanced than what we had…”
Bill’s face suddenly brightened, his red-rimmed eyes turning toward Jeff and Judy. “The dogtags Nova was wearing! Brent! This must be Colonel Ronald Brent’s spaceship!”
Judy was incredulous. “Brent—? But who is he?”
Bill explained how, after seeing her swallowed up in the Forbidden Zone soon after their arrival back on the planet, he and Jeff had wandered to the humanoids’ caves, met Nova, and spied her dogtags, which read: Colonel Ronald Brent, USAF. And gave his number as 553386086.
“I wonder… where Brent is now?” Judy half whispered.
Jeff stared at the craft submerged in the sea of sand. “Do—do you think he’s… still alive?”—Jeff looked around and up at the cliff—“somewhere…?”
Bill suddenly noticed a dazed expression on Judy’s face. She was staring in shocked wonder at the ship, and Bill turned to see what she was looking at.
The original sandslide had started when something had moved on the side of the dune. Bill now saw a hole—an opening—and recognized it as the hatch of a spaceship. Standing in the hatch was the grizzled and bearded figure of a man! He wore furs and leather; his feet were bound up in crude fur shoes!
The bearded man looked down in surprise and some shock at the line of sandblasted humanoids, but mostly at the three astronauts in their particular and distinctive clothing. He blinked at them for some time.
Finally Bill stepped forward. “I’m—I’m Bill
Hudson…”
The man did not speak for another moment. Then: “I… I… Oh, please… please excuse me!” Obviously he had not spoken—to anyone—for a very long period. He began again. “I am… so surprised to—to see anyone—anyone like you… again!” He clutched the side of the hatch suddenly, and tears streamed down his face uncontrollably.
Jeff and Bill reached up and gently lifted the middle-aged colonel down to the sand beside them. Judy walked over and took the man’s hands in hers.
He found his voice, and in it was a great accumulated happiness. He had waited so long. “Excuse me… I’m Colonel Ronald Brent…”
“Take your time, sir,” Judy counseled him. “We know how you must feel. Believe me, we feel just as glad—and relieved—as you do!”
Jeff introduced Judy, and himself.
“You… you came down here, too. Just as I did… so long ago.”
“We were—or are—a team testing a new ship.”
“When exactly was your, flight launched, Colonel Brent?” Jeff asked.
“Ron—call me Ron—if I may… call you Jeff, and Judy, and Bill…?” They all nodded. “I was launched on the sixth of August, 2109 from the launch facility at Mojave.”
“The Mojave Desert?” Judy asked. “In California? But what happened to Cape Kennedy?”
“Cape Kennedy was turned into a museum… at least sixty years before I was born. Oh, they launched weather satellites there sometimes, but mostly those were put in orbit from shuttle craft.”
Judy looked at Bill and Jeff in some wonder. “But if you were launched more than, uh, about a hundred and thirty years after us, how did you get here before we did…?”
Ron Brent shrugged. “I guess we… made quite a bit of progress in rocket fuels, capsule design, and engineering in general… in that century and a half.”
Jeff nodded. “It had to be that.”
Colonel Brent looked around at the desert. “As best as I can calculate, I crashed here about fifteen years ago. It’s… it’s hard to tell, exactly. It’s pretty difficult to keep track… of time in the desert, without any real seasons.”.
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