TIME MACHINE
Part III
Down the sidewalk Angus went, through the old limestone columns that served as a gateway into the park. He was so deeply immersed in brooding anger that he didn't even remember the park could be dangerous at night.
His mind roamed, wisps of thought coming through the dark haze, brushing here, touching there. He probably could've followed a line of thought if he had wanted to, but he didn't.
He walked, and he thought, and thought, and thought, and walked, and walked...
Something in the back of his mind nagged, telling him: This is dangerous. Don't do it. Go home; get Yorick to walk with you. It's dangerous. Don't walk... but only at the back of his mind. He was accustomed to it, now—and suddenly wasn't sure that he could trust Yorick at all.
He kept walking.
A burst, a streak of scarlet crossed his face—he jumped back, startled, fear coiling in him.
A cardinal perched on a branch nearby, looked down at him, cocking its head wisely to one side. "Purty, purty, purty," it informed him.
Angus's mouth twisted with the irony.
Abruptly, he frowned; he looked around him—and saw two long files of small new houses, only an occasional tree, no sidewalks, a lot of open land between houses, lots of room. The nearest one was dark, no curtains at the window.
Empty. A new tract house, waiting for a buyer.
Angus looked about, felt the sudden panic hit. He'd never been here before; he didn't even know where he was. And there was no one around, no one. Only an occasional car on the highway...
Car!
He leaped off the shoulder into the ditch, dropped to his hands and knees, cowering, trembling. He was alone; there was no one to protect him. There wasn't even a witness. They could kill him now and no one would know...
Then the steel of obstinacy clicked inside him. He lifted his head slowly, jaw tightened, glaring about him. Let them try! He'd stayed alive for thirty years before he'd met Yorick, and he would stay alive now. Let them try.
Blur of scarlet flashing down—the cardinal perched on a dry twig at the side of the ditch, head cocked, eyeing Angus with bright black eyes.
Angus's mouth twisted in a one-sided smile.
Saucy little devil...
Suddenly, his eyes widened and he lost his smile.
He rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, sprang upward in a frantic leap, up out of the ditch. He landed in a dive roll and kept on rolling until he could push himself up to his feet, running as best he could.
The sky tore behind him with a flash of ball lightning. Thunder blasted his ears, picked him up, threw him thirty yards, flung him aside in disgust. He heard it rolling away, booming and cursing.
Angus lay face down, clawing at the grass, trembling.
Then, slowly, he looked up, raising himself on his elbows, turned his head to look back over his shoulder...
A crater, at least twenty feet wide, tearing out blacktop, ditch, field...
Then the shakes hit, and the sick, rolling twist in the stomach.
A cardinal.
A fake. Beautifully done, of course. Beautiful. Remote-controlled carrier for a very small bomb.
It wouldn't have had to be very big.
Close.
Too damn close.
It flashed through his mind again: the cardinal's black bead of an eye, the frantic surge out of the ditch, the roll across the field.
He stiffened suddenly; something moved under the surface of his mind. The catapulting out of the ditch, from a stimulus that exploded... A sudden massive release of energy, catapulting mass, throwing it thirty feet... A straight line on the ground but a parabola in the air...
There was a twist to his vision, and the ditch was suddenly the time-line. The matter-transmitter was a rubber ball, bouncing back and forth from one side of the ditch to the other; but if you rotated the propelling surge at two right angles, the rubber ball shot up and came down well forward.
The words weren't right, the analogy wasn't really quite accurate, but he felt it, he knew it, he could wind it in wire; he had the concept now.
He could build a time machine.
Suddenly, he felt as though he were cocooned, trapped, locked into a future he hadn't really chosen, only let himself be pushed into. No! he screamed inside himself, and kicked his three-inch sole into the ground, set his teeth, clawed his fingers into the earth, and the angry negation boiled up in him: Not yet! I won't build it yet! I won't!
His anger wrenched a rift into the pathway to the future, opened a narrow channel leading straight to the empty tract house, and he knew it would stay open for as long as he wished it. He could walk straight down to that tract house if he wanted to, where everything was empty inside, and he could build it to his own shape and liking.
Angus smiled, beginning to relax, breathing more easily. He couldn't be caught. He would have to choose his future.
And he didn't. He kept his eyes on the tract house, the alternative, the life he wanted, the life he'd chosen on his own.
A sudden flash at one of the empty windows; a clot of earth shot into the air three feet to his right, pebbles stung his cheek, a shower of dirt; then the report, a loud, flat clap, harsh.
Angus knelt, staring, transfixed. A gunshot...
He threw himself flat and rolled as the second shot sounded, rolled and rolled frantically toward the crater, the only cover around, bullets tearing the ground around him. Pain seared his huge shoulder-muscle; he screamed, rolling, gunfire echoing, filling the world; pain ripped his arm, but he kept rolling, and there were more gunshots now, faster and faster, and...
He fell, howling in terror, for an hour, a second, eternity...
Earth struck up at his back, laid him flat, drove the breath from him; his head struck, hard, and the world swam about him.
Slowly, it settled and steadied. Silence rang in his ears; the only sound was his own hoarse, harsh breathing, out there, past the ringing in his ears...
The gunfire had stopped.
Then footsteps, quick, crunching in gravel, approaching... Angus tensed.
Yorick appeared over the edge of the crater, looking down, worried, grim, an old M-1 rifle in his hand.
Angus stared up, unbelieving.
"Y' okay, Ang?"
Slowly, Angus sat up. His right arm felt dead, his shoulder too. There would be pain there in a minute... He nodded.
"C'mon out, then." Yorick bent down, held out a hand. "They know there's no point in trying now."
Angus glanced at the rifle, swallowed, and grappled Yorick's hand and arm, pulled himself to his feet, out of the crater, Yorick half-lifting him. He stood shakily, one hand clamped onto Yorick's shoulder for support, and looked about him at the open field, the few trees, the tract house... There might've been ten snipers around...
But then, there might've been twenty GRIPE agents, too.
"C'mon." Yorick slung an arm around Angus's back, supporting him under the armpits, turned him toward the battered old Chevrolet.
Angus stumbled along with him, feeling guilty, ashamed, like a child caught being naughty. Just once, he wished, just once, Yorick would tell him he'd been a fool to go off alone, without a guard...
But the big man never would, of course. Angus's mouth twisted wryly. After all, that would be insubordination—wouldn't it? Even if Angus hadn't decided to invent the time machine yet, even if Angus hadn't decided to become Doc.
"It was worth it," he muttered, knowing Yorick would know what he was talking about. "It was all worth it. Because..."
The adrenaline ebbed just that little bit more, and the pain it had been blocking stabbed through—pain, sudden and scorching. He threw back his head, screaming.
Yorick frowned, turned...
And saw the hole in Angus's shoulder, and blood.
Angus had some very weird dreams while he was under the anesthesia. A myriad of faces, all his own, all lined and careworn but, other than that, identical to his, and all fifty years old: a business man, a farmer, a professor, an electrical engineer, a good husband and father living in a small tract house with a wife and a horde of kids...
At least he knew that one was impossible.
They swam past his face in endless succession but, again and again and again, one face out of all swam up to leer down at him, one face recurring, a face with a white lab coat below it, looking down at him with contempt and disgust. Each time Angus felt an answering anger and hatred, and the face would recede for a time, and the parade would begin anew.
A hundred, a thousand of them, some happy, some despairing, most barely content, or at least resigned: they were all the Anguses that could be, all the possible men that he could become—but only one of them would live, become real, the one that he decided would be.
The rest?
The rest would vanish as though they had never been—which, of course, they never would have. They were only potential, all of them, including the old bastard in the white lab coat.
That was the strangest dream, the most vivid, and it came back, again and again. Between that and the pain-killers they fed him all the next day, he could almost see the black haze around him, dark and palpable.
The day after, he came limping back home with Yorick's arm ready to grab in case he should stumble. He collapsed into the armchair in his bedroom and stayed there, the black haze still around him, unseen now, but there nonetheless. Angus simply sat, numb, drinking the mugs of soup that Yorick brought him now and then without tasting them, letting the shock wear off—but it was the dream that had shocked him more than the bullet.
Which one of those faces would he make real?
None of them! Something inside him shouted. I'm going to live the life I choose!
Which of course he would—and one of those future selves would thereby become real.
So he sat alone in the room while the afternoon faded and the twilight turned into night—there in the darkness, with only the light from a distant streetlamp, sitting, staring into space, hands lying useless in his lap.
Finally he rose, slowly, stiffly, and went out into the living room.
Yorick looked up from his newspaper with relief. "Feeling better, Angus?"
Angus didn't answer, only took down his coat from the peg and went out into the night.
Angus limped from one pool of lamplight to another, letting the black fog settle over his mind, letting random thoughts spin through, go wheeling away, reeling and laughing, howling derision at him. The parade of faces moved past him again, himself fifty years old in one suit of clothes after another, one hat after another.
Twenty yards behind him, there was a grunt, a sudden scuffle, but Angus didn't even hear it. He was aware only of the fragmented images in the darkness behind his eyes, the waves of chill shuddering through him.
He couldn't make sense of it. Any of it.
Behind him, a black-clothed man stepped out from behind a tree, lifting a strange-looking pistol.
Across the street, another man stepped into the light of a streetlamp, leveling a pistol at the first.
The first hesitated, but another man stepped out of the shadows on his side of the street, leveling a rifle.
Across the street, another man stepped out and lifted a rifle of his own.
The first man heard above him the sound of a rifle being cocked.
Across the street, a sizzle sounded, briefly lighting the face of a sniper in a tree; the muzzle of his weapon began to glow.
All the assassins looked at one another, shrugged, and stepped back into the shadows.
Angus walked on, unheeding.
Behind him came a parade of twenty sharpshooters, each with weapon ready, each watching for the slightest opening from the others, an opening which never came.
Finally Angus came to the lights of a business district. He stopped, mental images gradually fading enough for him to recognize a coffee shop. He went in; the door closed behind him.
The would-be assassins looked at one another, waited a few minutes, then quietly slipped back into the shadows.
Inside the coffee shop, the presence of other people, the susurrus of conversation around him, brought Angus out of his brown study and back into the world of the living. He looked around him, frowning, then down into his coffee cup—and suddenly realized his vulnerability. That's when he began to shake.
When the tremors had subsided, he stared down into the darkness of the coffee as though waiting for inspiration to rise. He sat in the corner with his token cup cooling before him, then remembered that light and company didn't necessarily make him safe and lifted his gaze, watching the few other people in the room very carefully, dread hollowing his belly, waiting for someone to take out a gun.
Somehow, he didn't want to go back outside.
He didn't notice that two of the other patrons were indeed watching him very closely—but were watching each other more closely still.
Fortunately, it was a coffee house that stayed open all night. Between the continual cups of coffee and the constant apprehension, Angus should have been on the verge of nervous collapse by sunrise—but adrenaline can keep pumping just so long, and Angus was still convalescent, so even though he had spent a long, sleepless night, he was strangely calm as the street outside lightened with false dawn. He finished his coffee, rose, and went out the door.
A minute later, the other two patrons rose too, as if by common consent, and followed him.
Angus turned his steps toward his apartment, then lost track of what he was doing, absorbed once again in the memory of that parade of fifty-year-old faces. If only he could find out which one would come to be, how he would choose...
He stopped stock-still outside an apartment house as insight struck. Of course! He could! He could find out how it all came out in, say, thirty years. All he had to do was build the time machine—and use it! He could destroy it after that one trip, if he wanted to.
Of course, he could do it without the time machine, for that matter—but on this issue, his sentry-host might be less than honest and, this time at least, Angus had to be sure.
So. It had to be the time machine. And he was the only man in the world who could build one, right now...
And he could. He was sure of that. He remembered the cardinal exploding, remembered himself shooting out of the ditch, and was certain.
For a moment, though, he was torn. Why should he take an advantage that was denied to the rest of humanity?
On the other hand, if he had to take all the disadvantages that went with being Angus McAran, why shouldn't he take the one big advantage with them?
Rage and resentment poured through him. Damn it, if the world was going to do all this to him, he was blasted well going to take it for everything he could!
He didn't even stop to wonder where Yorick was as he stomped through the living room and locked himself in his bedroom.
He got out the asbestos pad, the soldering iron, the tools, the wire. Then he sat down and started winding a coil.
Three hours, three new coils. Open the matter transmitter, solder in a few new resistors, replace the coils, link in a new rheostat and one hell of a big capacitor. He plugged it in, put away his tools, and sat down with his slide rule. A trajectory through the fourth dimension should require the same amount of power for the same "distance," after the initial surge that set it at right angles to the matter transmission trajectory... Angus frowned, slipped the stick, made some notes.
Half an hour later, he ran a few quick experiments, sending a sugar cube a minute ahead, waiting...
It didn't show up.
Angus scowled, turned down the rheostat, tried again... and again, and again, and again...
He got out the tools, hooked in a rheostat with reduction gear and, with the resultant fine-tuning, managed to get a sugar-cube to reappear after a ten-minute wait.
He hooked in a meter, took a reading, went back to the slide rule. Re-figure, re-hypothesize, re-experiment—after four hours, he finally got results to match predictions.
He felt a cold chill on his spine. On house current only, he had a two-hundred-thousand-year-range. Apparently time travel didn't require quite as much power as he'd thought. Of course, that was only for the mass of a sugar cube, but still...
He scowled, thinking furiously... Of course! He was doing a flat trajectory now, not a bank shot off the chronocline... But could that make so very much difference?
His lips pressed tight. It didn't matter, did it? Theorize later; all that mattered now was that he had a machine that could take him where he wanted to go. He set the rheostat for thirty years, checked the terminals to make sure the polarity was future-ward (if he reversed the connections, he'd go back in time), and stepped to the center of the room, under the hanging coil, with the remote button in his hand.
Shouts, yells, from the living room. A series of muted, heavy thuds—silenced gunshots! A scream; running feet coming up to the door, stopping; the sound of splintering wood, more muted thuds...
Angus stared at the door, amazed it was still intact, paralyzed with horror.
He snapped out of the paralysis, limped to the doorway with the button still in his hand, threw the door wide...
Yorick knelt just outside, blocking the narrow hall, kneeling behind a barrier of a chair and a broken table (the top was chipped, and Angus caught the gleam of metal). Pencil-thin beams of ruby light speared over Yorick's head, through the wood of the chair, just missing him as he twisted aside, fired with a silenced automatic...
A shout of triumph down the hall; a ruby pencil charred wood near Angus's head, singeing his cheek. He jumped back, howling, and a ruby ray speared through the space where his head had been.
Yorick's head snapped up; he saw Angus and his face went livid with rage. "Go!" he bellowed, and his foot lashed out, cracking into Angus's hip-bone, slamming him back into the bedroom. "Get out of here! Get out, or we're all dead! Go on, get into the future, GO!"
"But..."
Yorick twisted aside just as a ray snapped through the wood. Another ray crackled over his head as a wiry, dark-clothed man dove over the barricade, gun hissing fire.
Yorick rolled, shot straight up into the man's chest. The enemy screamed as his dead body flew high into the air; as he fell, Yorick caught him, folded him up against the barricade. A sizzle, a stink of burned flesh...
"Don't you understand?" Yorick bellowed, somehow pleading. "Once you're out of here, they'll quit trying! Get gone! It's the only help you can give! Will you GO!"
Clap of gunfire from the living room, a scream in the hall... Angus slammed the door, leaped to the center of the room, pushed the button.
Metal walls, a foot to each side and a foot in front of him... Claustrophobia hit, then vanished as Angus turned and saw an angular, lined face above a white lab coat two feet in front of him, smiling sardonically. With a sense of horror, Angus recognized that face for his own.
"The time," the face said precisely, "is May 14, 4:23 P.M., 1986. Remember that."
Angus stared.
"My name is Doc. Dr. Angus McAran. And all you're going to find out from me is that you've just made your decision."
Angus stared, going rigid; then he screamed.
"Shut up and listen!" Doc snapped. "You've come into your own future to visit me. Not a possible me, not a probable me—the definite me, the real me. You've chosen to make me real. You've selected one of your many possible futures, your many possible future selves—me. Dr. Angus McAran. Doc Angus. You've made your choice. Now you get to live with it."
Angus had run the emotional gamut from shock to anger to cold hatred while Doc talked. Now his eyes narrowed to slits, and Angus's voice was level, emotionless. "It's not true. I can still kill you. All I have to do is destroy that first time machine."
"Oh, you can—but you won't, you know." The older man smiled sourly. "You won't believe me, though. So quit wasting my time." His hand moved outside the cubicle, as if to throw a switch.
Angus suddenly realized that he was standing inside a time machine—considerably more sophisticated than his pilot model. And Doc was sending him back. He jabbed at a button, and...
...Angus was standing, rigid with rage, in the center of his bedroom again. In the dark, with only the light of the streetlamp outside.
Angus frowned, looked around, puzzled. The trip hadn't taken that long, had it?
His gaze fastened on the coil that was positioned on the table. It was smaller than the one he'd wound that afternoon—and it didn't have the right convolutions...
A matter transmitter coil.
Angus swallowed, hard. The bastard had sent him back at least twenty-four hours, maybe more—before he'd built the time machine!
And he'd hadn't thought to build in a reverse circuit. He was stranded.
He could either re-build the time machine, or hide out until tomorrow, May 14.
But he couldn't hide out here. His twenty-four-hour-younger self was out roaming the streets right now—Lord! Only twenty-four hours ago?—but he'd be back tomorrow morning, to start building the time machine. And Angus didn't much like thought of really meeting himself.
He frowned at a new thought. How could he be sure it was May 13 right now? That old bastard Doc might have sent him back to May 12, or 11, in which case Yorick would be bringing Angus home from the hospital tomorrow, or the next day...
Angus stiffened. May 12. Two days ago.
Doc might have been lying. It was in his interest to make Angus believe he'd made his decision for once and for all. If Angus didn't decide to go through with inventing the time machine and finishing setting up GRIPE, Doc Angus would never have existed.
Well, Angus had made his decision, all right, but he could go back on it, Doc had admitted that—but did he want to?
He sighed, pulled on his coat, and turned toward the door. He wasn't going to think clearly in here, that was for sure.
Yorick looked up from his newspaper, nodded, and turned back to reading. Then his head snapped up, eyes wide. "How'd you get out of the hospit... Oh."
"Oh," Angus mocked. "What's the date?"
"May 12." Then, cautiously: "Uh... Ang?"
Angus stopped with his hand on the knob, looked back. "Yeah?"
"Need any help getting back?" Yorick seemed embarrassed. "I mean, we can have somebody who knows how to operate that first pilot model standing by."
Angus stood for a moment, thinking, then nodded. "Not a bad idea. Have him push the button at, uh..." He glanced at his watch; it was still clocking the time of May 14. "...6:15 PM."
"Will do." Yorick sounded very, very happy.
Angus glared at him, but the Neanderthal was studiously engrossed in his newspaper again. Angus snarled and turned toward the door again—then stopped, suddenly remembering. He turned back to Yorick. "Uh... there's a gun battle coming up in here tomorrow."
Yorick raised his head, frowning slightly. Then he managed to dredge up a weak smile. "Y'know, I'd almost forgotten about that."
"Uh... yuh." Angus studied Yorick's face a moment, decided not to ask how he'd come by the information. "Uh, you'll, uh... take precautions?"
"Oh, sure!" Yorick waved a hand airily. "Bullet-proof vest—and the coffee table's got a slab of armor plate inside the top. Won't stop a laser forever, but it slows it down quite a bit."
"Uh—yeah, sure." Angus felt a little light-headed. He turned toward the door again. "Well, uh—g'night..."
"'Night," Yorick said cheerfully, returning to his newspaper.
Angus limped out the door, feeling numb. The promise of battle seemed to have been just what Yorick needed. Angus shivered. Some parts of this business, he was very glad he could leave in others' hands.
Maybe it was the promise that GRIPE, and Yorick, would keep existing. Angus held on to that.
He walked the darkened streets for an hour, so engrossed in analyzing the problem that he completely failed to notice the dozen scuffles he left in his wake. Finally he remembered Alasper and stopped, wondering how Yorick could cheerfully abandon this modern world and choose to live out his life in a Neolithic cave.
Then he remembered Nacha, and knew the answer.
It hadn't started out as something permanent, had it? Yorick had thought it was just one more assignment, and that Doc had his own reasons for wanting Yorick to make the hike across the Bering Straits Bridge, reasons that would strengthen GRIPE somehow, and the big guy had so much faith in Angus's future self that he had gone along with it cheerfully. Well, maybe not cheerfully, but at least willingly.
Then he had met Nacha, and known what those secret reasons were.
If Angus didn't finish setting up GRIPE, Yorick would die before his teens. He wouldn't ever be part of GRIPE, wouldn't ever meet Nacha.
Yorick was something completely new in Angus's life. Not just a time-traveler—a friend. Angus had never had a friend before. Not really.
But was Yorick his friend, or Doc's?
His. Angus had met Doc. He was sure the only reason Yorick liked him was because they'd been friends so long.
And a friend didn't abandon a friend to an early death.
Angus turned on his heel and headed back toward the apartment. Now he was so filled with zeal, with a fiery sense of purpose, that he never stopped to think what might be happening behind him—and of course he never looked back to see the silent spears of light that winked in the night.
Angus slammed into the apartment, ignoring Yorick's startled stare, and shucked his coat on the way to the bedroom-laboratory. He closed the door behind him, limped to the center of the darkened room, and stood waiting stiffly, trying to relax but failing, staring at the coil on the chair... waiting for the future...
An instant of dizziness, nausea, then...
Sunlight, gold and orange, the light of sunset—and the coil was larger, more convoluted. Angus squeezed his eyes shut, bowed his head. "What's the date?"
"May 14, 6:15 PM." Yorick's voice, gentle, somewhat tired.
Angus lifted his head slowly, turned to look at the Neanderthal, saw a stranger behind him at the improvised control board—and behind her, charred patches of wall, out in the hall. He swallowed with difficulty, remembering the battle. Involuntarily, his eyes went to the stain on the floor. He wrenched his gaze away, looked up to find Yorick watching him, trying to hide his tension and not succeeding.
Angus frowned. What was he waiting for?
Of course—a sign of commitment. So far, Angus could still change his mind.
But Yorick had gone through enough hell for him—Yorick, and all the agents he hadn't met. They had a right to a bond. He nodded, lifted his head slowly with a sardonic smile. "Who's the first time agent?"
Yorick let out a whoop of victory. Angus noticed that the woman at the controls had a radiant smile. Then Yorick leaped into the center of the room beside him, under the coil. "C'mon, Ang!" Then, to the woman at the controls, "You wired in the remote?"
"Right in here." She handed Angus a neat plywood box with a couple of knobs and a knife switch.
"Then set this monstrosity and let's go!"
"All right, all right," she said, grinning, and turned away to the control panel.
"When are we going to?" Angus asked.
"Tuesday, October 5th, 6:37 pm, in 82,684 BCE!" Yorick crowed.
The woman set the dial. "Where?"
"Twelve miles south-by-southwest of Prague! Hurry!"
Angus watched her set other dials, one part of his mind identifying each one's purpose while another wondered at Yorick's impatience. Well, it was probably to be expected.
The woman at the controls stood back, waving.
Angus swallowed, lifted a hand in reply, and pressed the button.
They stood in the middle of a field with the golden light of late afternoon about them. Yorick looked around, his face strangely taut, then pointed toward a range of hills rising out of a pine forest, raw and eroded, with sparse clumps of grass. "There. Second hill from the left, on that ledge above the talus slope—about three miles away and a hundred feet up."
Angus glanced up at him, frowning, wondering at the tension in the Neanderthal's voice. Then he turned back to the remote box, set the dials, pressed the button.
They stood on the ridge; looking down the slope.
Yorick glanced at the sky. "Three hours ahead—toward the future."
Angus set the dial, frowning, hit the button.
The sun was down, but its glow still made the sky light. Dusk gathered beneath the pines.
"Nice evening for dying."
Angus glanced up at Yorick, puzzled by the irony in the big man's voice.
Then he stared.
Eyes still on the sky, Yorick was taking an automatic from a shoulder holster inside his shirt, an eighteen-inch barrel from his left trouser leg, a rifle stock from his right. He began fitting them together absently, eyes still on the sky.
Angus cleared his throat delicately. "You, uh... always carry that thing?"
"Huh?" Yorick glanced down, seemed almost surprised to find the completed rifle in his hands. "Oh... usually. Not always, though." He slipped a small telescopic sight out of his pocket, screwed it on.
Angus felt prickles at the base of his skull.
"There." Yorick nodded his head down the slope, hands still busy with the rifle. "That rock outcrop, near the stand of pine—see?"
Angus looked and frowned. "I see it."
Yorick nodded. "Nothing there now—but there will be. Watch."
After perhaps fifteen minutes, Yorick suddenly pulled Angus down behind a scraggly thorn bush, muttering, "There. Coming out of the trees at the bottom of the slope. See him?"
Angus looked, saw a stocky, wind-tanned boy limping painfully up the slope. He wore only a loincloth but carried a heavy spear. His forehead sloped, his brow ridges were heavy; he had no chin.
Neanderthal.
And he limped because his right foot was twisted to the side.
He looked terrified.
"His name is 'Aacthuu,'" Yorick said, low. "He's the joke of his clan; everyone despises him. His parents have told him, often, that they wish he hadn't been born—they've lost status for having birthed a deformed male. He's a burden to them and to the whole clan—but by tribal custom, he had to be given a fair chance to prove his worth, so his parents had to raise him.
"But not any more. This is the summer of his twelfth year—time for him to prove he's worthy to be counted among the men of the clan, by killing a saber-tooth with nothing but that spear. Worse, he's committed a heresy—he invented something."
Angus stared. He knew innovations had been very rare among the Neanderthals; they had kept the same technology for tens of thousands of years. To invent something... "What?"
"A bow and arrow," Yorick said sardonically.
A weapon of death—and a threat to everyone else in the tribe. No wonder the boy had been exiled.
But the intelligence that invention showed, the will that had pitted him against tradition!
"Nobody expects him to return," Yorick said. "In fact, they expect just the opposite—that they'll never see him again. And, frankly, they'll be happier that way." He spoke with a tight, sour smile. "He meets all the requirements, Angus. All."
Angus realized he was staring at Yorick. He shook himself and turned away to watch the boy. "You mean that if Aacthuu disappears, nobody's going to miss him. But there has to be more than that, doesn't there? He has to die without having affected the destiny of any other living thing. Otherwise, we change history, and who knows what effects that might cause?"
"Been thinking about it, have you?" For a moment, Yorick's smile was victorious again; then it curdled. "Any effects his life has had are part of the past already—and he definitely will die without affecting anything else. Just watch."
The boy had scrabbled his way up to the outcrop. As he tried to circle the boulder at its top, though, that twisted foot wrenched about, skidding on loose gravel and shooting out from under him. With a cry of alarm, the boy fell. He scrambled to his feet, but the foot collapsed under him again.
"He broke it!" Angus cried.
Yorick shook his head. "Only a sprain—but he can't get up again. Can't get up, so he'll have to fight from his knees."
"Fight who?" Angus asked in alarm.
The boy crouched behind the boulder, glancing warily over the top from time to time as he raked together the fallen leaves and sticks that had blown up against the granite. He took one of the sticks and began to rub it against the shaft of his spear, feverishly, almost in a panic.
Angus realized he was trying to light a fire—not just for warmth, but for a weapon. "Tell me! Who's he going to fight?"
"A saber-toothed tiger," Yorick answered, his face grim and set.
Aacthuu crouched behind the boulder shivering, fear knotting his belly. He knew the cat denned near here; he had found its spoor often. And this was the strongest place he could find near the den—rock for some protection, and open space for a clear throw. The wind was at his back; it must surely bring his scent to the long-tooth. He himself was the bait—and he couldn't stand, couldn't walk! He rubbed the sticks feverishly, as he had seen the shaman do, but no fire came! He shuddered, tried vainly to summon some anger.
The long-tooth prowled out from the trees.
Aacthuu saw it and tensed. Fear and the sureness of death lent him strength. If he must die, he would die a man.
Would anyone know? Or care?
Yes. Himself.
The long-tooth crouched.
Aacthuu set himself and, suddenly, the fear was gone.
The long-tooth sprang.
Aacthuu shot upright on his knees, arm snapping down and around. The spear flew straight and true, struck deep into the cat's breast. It yowled with pain—but the momentum of its leap carried it to Aacthuu. It struck hard, claws raking his chest, fangs slashing. He staggered back, tripped, and fell, curling his legs in. His good foot caught the long-tooth in the belly. He straightened his legs in one massive surge, hurling the cat clear of him, heard its body jar against the ground, snap. It screamed one last time before he felt the welling, sticky warmth at his throat, spreading over his chest, and saw the sky clot and fade.
On the ledge above, Angus pounded Yorick's shoulder, screaming, "Do something! You've got a rifle—use it!"
Yorick turned his head from side to side, his face granite, his body ironwood.
"Why not?" Angus screamed.
"For you."
Angus stared, horrified.
Yorick stretched out an arm, pointing. "There. Are you satisfied?"
His voice was so dead, so flat... Angus felt as though an electric field were playing about his back, his neck. He turned and looked.
On the slope below, the boy lay dead, his throat torn away, his blood a widening pool around him. Near him lay the saber-tooth, curled around the heavy spear, still struggling feebly.
"They're dead," Yorick said, his voice flat and harsh. "Both of them. Dead. Their life-lines stop here, knotted together." He turned slowly to face Angus. "Dead, out here, where no one witnessed but ourselves, where no one will find them but the vultures." He frowned into Angus's eyes, brooding. "So what if one of the bodies is gone? A few vultures will lose a few calories; so what?"
Angus turned away, looking down the slope.
"Will a few grams of lead make much difference to history, Ang?"
"No," Angus whispered.
"It's not too late to do something," Yorick said, voice low. "Not for us."
Angus bent his head and set the remote box for ten minutes in the past.
The long-tooth crouched.
Aacthuu set himself and, suddenly, the fear was gone.
The long-tooth tensed, gathering itself to spring...
Thunder shook the slope.
A ragged, bloody hole appeared where the long-tooth's face had been as its body shot backward, slammed to the earth.
Aacthuu knelt, staring, stupefied.
Then fear shot strength down his veins. He spun about wildly, seeking the demon that had struck down the cat.
They rose from a thorn bush on a ledge above him—not one, but two! One was surely a demon, bent, gnarled, flat-faced, jut-chinned, with earth-colored skins hung on its body—but the other was a man like himself, though it wore very colorful skins...
And they were coming down toward him.
Aacthuu cringed, knowing he was helpless before them. Would they now hurt him, after saving him? But if they would not hurt him, they would not be demons!
Aacthuu stared at them, struck by a new thought. Then he trembled anew. Were they demons, or... gods!
They came down the slope to the boy, Angus dazed and puzzled, Yorick's face wooden—but somehow, there was great compassion in the big man's whole stance and attitude. He knelt, slowly, a few feet from the boy, spoke in a strange, fluid language.
The boy stared, shocked.
Yorick spoke again, softly. Then he knelt, silent and waiting.
Slowly, the boy began to recover from his fear...
And Angus's eyes widened. He stared at the boy's face, then glanced at Yorick, then back to the boy. Chill and bony fingers stroked his spine, fondled the base of his skull. He couldn't be sure, he hadn't seen very many Neanderthals, so naturally they all still looked alike to him—but there was something about those two faces, something... He glanced back at Yorick, felt something akin to horror at finding that the Neanderthal was watching him.
Yorick's wooden mask finally broke in a sardonic smile. Slowly, he nodded.
Angus swallowed hard and looked away.
Yorick turned back to the boy.
Suddenly Aacthuu blurted. "You are gods!"
The Gnarled One looked puzzled, but the Man said, "No, Aacthuu. We are men, and only men. Like your father, like the men of your clan—like yourself."
Aacthuu hung his head in misery. "I am no man. I could not kill my long-tooth."
"You could have." The Man's voice was harsh. "But you'd have died in the killing of it."
"Then should I not have?" Aacthuu cried. "Should I have not died a man?"
The Man stood slowly, gaze still fixed on him. "You shall prove your manhood later, Aacthuu. We shall find you greater lions than this for your testing."
The Gnarled One spoke in a strange, ugly tongue.
"What's he saying?" Angus asked.
"He insists we're gods."
Angus snorted. "Then tell him he's coming to Valhalla."
The Man spoke again in Aacthuu's tongue. "You must come with us, Aacthuu. Our shamans will see your foot straightened. We will watch you grow to the fullness of manhood—and you shall prove that manhood in our service."
"The land of the gods!" Aacthuu breathed—then wondered at the way the Man's features twisted. But he gathered his nerve and cried, "I will serve you the whole of my life if you will take me there!"
"Why then, so you shall," the Man said quietly—and he bent down to gather Aacthuu up in his arms, almost tenderly.
Aacthuu clung to his neck, at first gingerly, then with a death-grip.
Yorick closed his eyes for a moment, letting the surge of emotion pass; then opened them to see Angus staring—but his face instantly went neutral. "Shall we go?"
"Not quite yet." Yorick's mouth tightened. "One small formality, Ang—this boy's no longer a member of his clan. He can't bear the name they gave him any more. He needs a new one."
Angus was suddenly wary. "So name him."
Yorick closed his eyes, shaking his head. "No, Ang. That's not the way it happened. The naming or him was yours."
"Damn it, it doesn't have to be that way!" Angus shouted. "That small a change won't make any difference!"
"It will to me!" Yorick snapped.
"Why can't you name him?"
Yorick felt Aacthuu cringing against his chest, remembered how terrified the boy had been when he heard the gods fighting, and lowered his voice. "Because if I had to name him, I'd call him 'Oedipus.'"
Angus's face froze, the muscles of his neck strained into whipcords. He knew the name meant "twisted foot."
The two men stood glaring at each other.
Huddled against the broad chest of the Man, Aacthuu saw the two gods glaring at one another and trembled, for he knew who was hurt when gods fought—so he nearly fainted with relief when the Gnarled One turned on his heel and stalked away with a snarl that turned into words.
The Man stood in silence, watching him go, but Aacthuu could feel his satisfaction. When he looked down at the boy with a half-smile, Aacthuu plucked up his courage and asked, "What has he said?"
"The Gnarled One has welcomed you," the Man explained. "Your name is Aacthuu no longer. You shall be called 'Yorick' now, and shall be till you die."
"Eeoreeech," the boy repeated, wondering, for he knew what it meant to be given a new name. He was of the gods' tribe now! He was sure he would be only a servant, but he would be a servant in the household of the gods! "Eeyoreek?"
Yorick nodded, smiling. "You are Yorick now, and you will come with us to our homeland—and you will find that we are not gods, but only men, such as you yourself shall be one day." For a moment, he felt the full eeriness of the situation. "We have great knowledge, and you shall find that the Gnarled One is exceedingly wise, and we have things called 'machines,' such as the Gnarled One makes—machines that do marvelous things, such as taking us back to our dwelling."
The boy glanced at the Gnarled One, saw the gleaming square stone in his hand.
"That is the machine that brought us here, and which will take us back to our homeland," the Man said, his voice low. "It is a thing of magic... for we may not be gods, but we are magicians—magicians, even though we are only men."
Aacthuu shook his head, his gaze never leaving the Man's eyes. "You are gods," he said with absolute conviction.
Yorick sighed, reflecting that when Aacthuu had learned otherwise, he would remember that Yorick had told him the truth. His shoulders shook with a rueful inner laugh; then he said, "Believe it while you may."
He turned, carrying Aacthuu toward the Gnarled One, who was making strange motions at the machine. "How can we be gods," Yorick asked Aacthuu, "when we come from a machine?"
The Gnarled One pressed at the 'machine,' and the world went away—the old world, the world Aacthuu knew, but a strange, bright new world opened around him.
THE END