Gordon R. Dickson (18 page)

"Control?"

I waited a second; but he did not
say any more.

"What's the matter?" I
asked. "Did I say some kind of dirty word?"

"You don't understand," he
said. "If the whole disturbance is bigger than our planet, possibly
system-wide—and in some sort of dynamic balance, the idea of controlling it is...."
He hesitated. For the first time there was something like emotion in his voice.
"Don't you realize we never have been able to control even a hurricane—no,
not even a thunderstorm like the one you were talking about—when this first hit
us. Have you any idea of the magnitude of the forces involved in something like
this, if it's stretching all over the solar system?"

"What makes you think it
is?" I asked.

He did not answer.

"All right," I said, after
a moment. "If you're not going to talk, let me out of here and we'll say
goodby. I was going to invite you to come along with me—out where you can study
the moving lines as well as this static one. But I gather that's not the way
you like to work."

I turned on my heel, went back to
the stairway door and pushed. But it was still locked.

"Wait," he said. "Do
you have other people with you?"

"Yes," I told him.
"How about you? Are you alone here?"

"That's right," he said.
"There were a couple of hundred people in the installation here, when the
disruption first hit. When I got my senses back, I was the only one left. I was
in the hyperbaric chamber at the time—not that I can figure out why that should
have made a difference."

"I've got an idea about
that," I said. "I think some of us are just naturally
immune—statistical survivors."

"Survivors."

"Of the time changes. It's only
a thought. Don't ask me for details."

"An interesting thought...."

The voice trailed off. Down the long
inner wall of the corridor, one of the doors opened, and a short, lightly-boned
figure in white slacks and white shirt stepped out and came toward me. He was
so small that my first thought was that he could not be more than twelve or
fourteen years old in spite of his adult voice; but when he got closer, I saw
that his face was the face of a man in his late teens or early twenties. He
came up to me and offered me his hand.

"Bill Gault," he said. It
was a strong name for someone that light.

I shook hands with him.

"Marc Despard," I
answered.

"I think I'd like to go with
you, after all," he said.

I studied him. He was in no way
frail or abnormal, just light and small. At the same time, his lack of size and
the spurious air of being half-grown about him, made me hesitate now at the
thought of adding him to our party. I had just not expected anyone so... so
physically insignificant, to be the person behind the voice I had been talking
with. For a moment I felt a touch of exasperation. All my life, until I had run
into the girl and the crazy cat, I had gotten by nicely with no responsibility
for anyone but myself. But since this damned time storm started, it seemed I
had done nothing else but play guardian and protector—to girls, leopards, women
and children—and from the look of Bill Gault, I now had another responsibility
on my hands. I could imagine what would happen if this featherweight should try
to stand up alone to one of Tek's men, for example.

"Well, you can't just walk out
there like that," I said. "Haven't you got some heavier clothes and
some hiking boots? And if you've got a gun of any kind around, bring that
along, too, with whatever in the way of a pack and extra clothing you can
scrape up."

"Oh, I'm all prepared,"
Bill Gault said. "I've had things ready for some time, in case I did
decide to leave."

And you know—he had. He took me down
the corridor to a room where he outfitted himself in synthetic wool and leather
gear that filled me with envy. Evidently, this installation had been testing,
among other things, various kinds of special-duty outerwear for the armed
services. When he was done, he looked like an officer in the ski troops,
lacking only the skis. The well-stuffed backpack he wore was a marvel; and he
had both a revolver and the latest in army lightweight, automatic rifles.

I looked at the rifle particularly.

"You don't have another one
like that lying around, do you?" I asked.

"This is the only one," he
said. "But there's a machine pistol, if you'd like it."

I looked at him. He had looked so
ready in his outdoor garb, it had been hard for me to remember that he had been
boxed up here since the time storm had started. But one good innocent sentence
like that brought back the realization in a hurry.

"You've got ammunition for
it?"

"Lots of ammunition," he
said.

"And," I said, "you
were actually going to let us walk off without it? You were going to leave it
behind?"

"Well, you've already got a
rifle," he said, nodding at the 30.06. "And a machine pistol's not
very practical for hunting."

I shook my head.

"Get it," I said,
"and as much ammunition for it as you think I can reasonably carry."

He did. It was an Uzi. And the damn
fool would have left it behind.

"Let's go," I said,
loading my pockets and belt with the spare clips he had brought, until I felt
heavy enough to walk bow-legged. "That is, unless you've got some other
useful surprises to spring on me."

"Nothing I can think of,"
he said. "Food-"

"Food's no real problem,"
I said. "There seems to be canned goods enough to last the few of us
who're left for the rest of our lifetimes. Come on."

He led me out. The door opened this
time when I pushed on it. We went down the stairs and out of the building; and
I led him back to the mistwall.

"What should I expect?" he
asked, as we came up to it.

His tone was so casual that, for a
second, I did not understand. Then I looked at him and saw that his face was
pale. Calm, but pale.

"You're thinking of how it was
when the time storm first caught you?" I said. He nodded. "It won't
be that bad. It seems to get easier with experience. Hang on to my belt,
though, if you want; and if I feel you let go, I'll put down the rifle and lug
you through myself. But try and stay on your feet if you can, because we can
use both these guns if we can get them out."

He nodded again and reached out to
hook fingers in my belt.

"You'll have to close your eyes
against the dust when we get close," I said. "Just concentrate on
keeping on your feet, and staying with me."

We went into the mistwall then. It
was not bad at all for me, this time; but I could imagine how it might be for
him. I was so undisturbed by the passage through that I had attention to spare
when I heard Marie's voice on the far side of the mistwall, as we started to
come out of the far side of it.

. . shoot it!" Marie was
crying, almost hysterically. "No," said another voice. "If you
make them hurt him at all, I'll shoot
you!"

It was the girl talking and making
the longest speech I had ever heard her utter.

13

I took a few more steps forward out
of the dust and opened my eyes. There was a regular convention in session in
the hollow where I had left just Marie, Wendy and the dogs. They, of course,
were still there; and all the dogs were on guard position, not making a sound.
Wendy was holding tight to her mother, and Marie was facing away from me.

Beyond Marie were the girl and
Sunday. The girl sat cross-legged on the ground, with the .22 rifle aimed at
Marie. The girl's back was against the back of Sunday. He also was seated, on
his haunches, and looking bored-but the tip of his tail was twitching
ominously. He faced outward at a half-ring of figures, all with their rifles
facing in Sunday's direction but looking momentarily baffled. Tek and his gang
had come visiting us again and, apparently, encountered a problem.

The appearance of myself and Bill
Gault out of the mistwall did nothing to make their problem any easier. In
fact, clearly it came as a severe jolt. They stared at us as if Bill and I were
ghosts materializing before their eyes; and a sudden intuitive conclusion
clicked into place in the back of my mind. Just as I once had, obviously they
were in the habit of avoiding mistwalls. No doubt, everybody still on the face
of the earth today avoided them, instinctively, remembering the emotional upset
and discomfort of their first experience with any part of the time storm. And
here were Bill and I, strolling out of this particular mistwall as casually as
walking from one room into another.

Hard on the heels of that bit of
understanding came another. The scrap of overheard conversation I had heard
suddenly resolved itself. Clearly, the "it" Marie had been telling
Tek and his men to shoot had been Sunday; and, just as clearly, Sunday and the
girl had come here hunting me—which meant that Tek and company had probably
been following them, as well as the dogs and us, all this time.

I had gotten this far with my
thoughts, when the frozen moment in which the girl and Tek's gang stared at me
was abruptly and joyously smashed asunder by Sunday. Plainly, he heard,
smelled, or otherwise recognized me in spite of his back being turned. He
jumped to his feet, turned about, and came bounding at me like a kitten,
purring like an outboard motor and stropping himself up against me with unrestrained
enthusiasm.

I had a second to brace myself, but
being braced did not help much. When a hundred and forty pound leopard throws
an affectionate shoulder block into your midsection, you realize the advantages
of four legs over two. At least when one cat makes loving demonstrations to
another, the recipient has a couple of spare feet to prop himself upright with.
I staggered and nearly went down. Meanwhile, Marie had turned around to see
what was going on and saw me.

"Marc!" she cried.

There was so much desperate relief
in her voice, I was almost ready to forget that she had seemed on the verge of
entering into partnership with the enemy to get rid of Sunday and the girl. But
our difficulties were not at an end, because now she also came to throw her arms
around me.

"You've been gone for
hours!" she said.

I had no time to point out that I
had not even been gone one hour, at the most; because Sunday, seeing her
coming, had already classed her as a potential attacker and finally decided to
do something about her. I fended her off with one arm, while just managing to
slap Sunday hard on the nose to check the lethal paw-swipe with which he would
have turned our little reunion into a very real tragedy.

I succeeded—but of course, success
left me with a rebuffed woman and a rebuffed leopard at once, on my hands.
Marie was hurt that I should shove her off. Sunday was destroyed. I tried to
soothe the leopard with my hands and the woman with my voice at the same time.

"Marie—no!" I said.
"Bless you! I love you—but stand back, will you? Sunday's likely to claw
you in half."

"Then what are you doing
petting the animal?" cried Marie.

"So he won't get loose and claw
somebody else! For Christ's sake—" I yelled at her, "stand back, will
you? Keep Wendy back-"

I was running out of breath. Sunday
had forgiven me and was once more trying to throw frantic, affectionate
shoulder blocks into me.

"Down, Sunday!" I managed,
finally, to wrestle the leopard to the ground and lie on him while he licked
cheerfully and lovingly at any part of my person that was within tongue-reach.
I looked up and glared at the girl.

"What are you doing on this
side of the river?" I snarled.

"He pulled himself loose!"
she said.

I went on glaring at her. She was an
absolute, bare-faced liar. Sunday would have choked himself to death on those
chains I had used to restrain him before he would have been able to pull
himself free. Of course, the girl had turned him loose herself, deliberately,
so that they could both follow me. I knew it, and she knew I knew it; and I
could see she didn't care a hoot that I knew it.

Girl, leopard and woman—I could not
do a thing with any of them. I looked around for something in my own class to
tie into; and my gaze lighted on Tek. The man was two axe-handles across the
shoulders and besides being six years or more younger than I, had that easy,
muscular balance of movement that signals the natural athlete. He could, almost
undoubtedly, have held me off with one hand while beating me to death with the
other; but just at that moment, if I had not been occupied with the absolute
necessity of keeping Sunday flattened out, I would have picked a fight with Tek
for the simple joy of having something legitimate to hit.

I had dropped both the machine
pistol and the rifle, necessarily, needing both hands to handle Sunday and
Marie. But the pistol was only a short arms-length from me. I scooped it up,
now, pointing it at Tek, and noticed that Bill Gault had maintained enough
presence of mind to lift his army automatic rifle into firing position under
his arm. In terms of sheer firepower, we two more than matched up to the
hunting rifles carried by Tek and his men, and the dogs could mop up any other
difference that existed. But then, Tek took me completely by surprise.