CHAPTER IX
_A Premonition_
Fire Valley had been the home of the ape-men. On that earlier journeyWalt and Chet had seen them, had fought with the tribe, and had livedfor a time in their caves that made dark shadows high on the rock wall.And they knew that the wood the ape-men used for their spears was wellsuited for bows.
Back in the caves they found discarded spears and some wood that hadbeen gathered for shafts. Tough, springy, flexible, it was a simplematter for the men to convert these into serviceable weapons. Sinewsthat the ape-men had torn from great beasts made the bowstrings, andthere were other slim shafts that they notched, then sharpened in thefire.
Yet, to Chet as he worked, came an overwhelming feeling of despondency.To be fashioning crude weapons like these--preparing to defendthemselves as best they could from the dangers of this new, raw world!No, it could not be true.... And he knew while he protested that it wasall in vain.
He asked himself a score of times if his impulsive, desperate act hadnot been a horrible mistake. And he found the same answer always: it wasall he could have done. Had he attacked Schwartzmann he would have beenkilled--and Walt, too! Schwartzmann would have had Diane. Only some suchstupefying shock as the effect of the shattered control could havechecked Schwartzmann. No, there had been no alternative. And the thingwas done. Finally, irrevocably done!
* * * * *
Chet walked to the cave-mouth to stare down at the ship below him in thevalley. From the fumerole's throat came a steady, rolling cloud ofshimmering green; the ship was immersed in it. The voice of Herr Kreissspoke to him; the scientist, too, had come forward for another look.
"If it were at the bottom of the sea," he said, "it would be no moreinaccessible. It is, in very fact, at the bottom of a sea--a sea of gas.We could penetrate an aqueous medium more easily."
"And," Chet pondered slowly, "if only I could have returned.... Withtime--and metal bars--and tools that I could improvise--I might...."
His voice trailed off. What use now to speculate on what he might havedone. The scientist concluded his thought:
"You might have reconstructed the control--yes, I, too, had thought ofthat. But now, the gas! No--we must put that out of our minds, unless wewould become insane."
Chet turned back into the black and odorous cave. He saw Harkness whowas flexing a bow he was making for Diane; he was showing her how togrip it and let the arrow run free.
"Towahg was the last one I instructed," Walt was saying; and Chet knewfrom the deep lines in his face that his attempt at casual talk was forDiane's benefit; "I wonder how long Towahg remembered. He was a gratefullittle animal."
"Towahg?" queried Kreiss. "Who is Towahg?"
"Ape-man," Harkness told him. "Friendly little rascal; he helped us outwhen we were here before. He saved Diane's life, no question about that.I showed him the use of the bow; jumped him ahead a hundred generationsin the art of self-defense."
"And offense!" was Kreiss' comment. "There are certain drawbacks toarming a potential enemy."
"Oh, Towahg is all right," Harkness reassured the scientist, "althoughhe may have taught the trick to others of the tribe who are not sofriendly."
"Where are they? In what direction do they live?" Kreiss continued.
"Want to make a social call?" Chet inquired. "You needn't mind thoselittle formalities up here, Doctor."
* * * * *
But in the mental makeup of Herr Doktor Kreiss had been included notrace of humor; he took Chet's remark at face value. And he answered inwords that echoed Chet's real thoughts and that took the smile from hislips.
"But, no," said Herr Kreiss; "it is the contrary that I desire. Here weare; here we stay for the rest of our lives. I would wish those years tobe undisturbed. I have no wish to quarrel with what primitiveinhabitants this globe may hold. There is much to study, to learn. Ishall pass the years so.
"And now," he questioned, "where is it that we go? Where shall be ourhome?"
Chet, too, looked inquiringly at Harkness. "You saw more of this countrythan I did," he reminded him; "what would you suggest?"
And, at sight of the serious, troubled eyes of Diane Delacouer, headded:
"We want a site for a high-grade subdivision, you understand. Somethinggood, something exclusive, where we can keep out the less desirableelement. Dianeville must appeal to the people who rate socially."
At the puzzled look on the scientist's face, Chet caught Diane's glanceof unspoken amusement, and knew that his ruse had succeeded: he must notlet Diane get too serious. Harkness answered slowly:
"I saw a valley; I think I can find it again. When Towahg guided me backto the ship, when we were here before, I saw the valley beyond the thirdrange of hills. We go up Fire Valley; follow the stream that comes infrom the side--"
"Water?" Chet questioned.
"Yes; I saw a lake."
"Cover? Trees? Not the man-eating ones?"
"Everything: open ground, hills, woods. It looked good to me then; itwill look a lot better now," said Walt enthusiastically.
"Walk faster," said Chet; "I'm stepping on your heels."
* * * * *
They reached the valley floor some distance above the fumerole and theclouds of poison gas; and the march began. The attack of the flyingreptiles had taught them the danger of exposure in the open, and theykept close to the trees that fringed the valley.
Once Chet left them and vanished among the trees, to return with thebody of an animal slung over one shoulder.
"Moon-pig!" he told the others. "Ask Doctor Kreiss if you want to knowits species and ancestry and such things. All I know is that it has gothams, and I am going to roast a slice or so before we start."
"Bow and arrow?" asked Harkness.
Chet nodded. "I'm a dead shot," he admitted, "up to a range of ten feet.This thing with the funny face stood still for me, so it looks as if wewon't starve."
The sun had swung rapidly into the sky; it was now overhead. One half oftheir first short day was gone. And Chet's suggestions of food met withapproval.
"I can't quite get used to it," Diane admitted to the rest; "to thinkthat for us time has turned back. We have been dropped into a new andsavage world, and we must do as the savages of our world did thousandsof years ago. Now!--in nineteen seventy-three!"
Chet removed a slab of meat from the hot throat of a tiny fumerole."Nineteen seventy-three on Earth," he agreed, "but not here. This isabout nineteen thousand B.C."
* * * * *
He called to Kreiss who was digging into a thin stratum of rock. Thescientist had a splinter of flint in his hand, and he was gouging at ared outcropping layer.
"Old John Q. Neanderthal, himself!" said Chet. "What have you found,silver or gold? Whatever it is, you're forgetting to eat; better comealong." But Doctor Kreiss had turned geologist, it was plain.
"Cinnabar," he said; "an ore of hydrargyrum!" His tone was excited, butChet refused to have his mind turned from practical things.
"Is it good to eat?" he demanded.
"_Nein, nein!_" Kreiss protested. "It is what you callmercury--quicksilver!"
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Chet dryly, "I see where this man Kreiss isto be a big help. He has discovered the site for the thermometerfactory. He will be organizing a Chamber of Commerce next."
He left out a portion of the cooked meat for Kreiss' later attention,and he and Harkness rolled a supply into leaf-wrapped packages andstowed them in the pockets of their coats before they started on. Againthe little procession took up the march with Harkness leading.
"Leave as little trail as possible," Harkness ordered. "We don't want toshout to Schwartzmann where we have gone."
They left the Valley of the Fires to follow the stream-bed in anotherhollow between great hills. Chet found himself looking back at thefamiliar flares with regret. Here was the only place on this new worldwhich was not utterl
y strange to his eyes. He continued to glance behindhim, long after the smoky fires were lost to sight; but he would notadmit even to himself that it was for another reason.
Nineteen seventy-three!--and he was a man of the modern civilization.Yet deep within him there stirred ancient instincts--racial memories,perhaps. And, as he splashed through the little stream and bent to makehis way through strange-leafed vines and leprous-spotted trees, awarning voice spoke inaudibly within his own mind--spoke as it mighthave whispered to some ancestor scores of centuries dead.
"You are followed!" it told him. "Listen!--there is one who follows onthe trail!"
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