At the Narrow Passage (29 page)

Flicker.
The sky was almost blue. The earth was brown and barren, though here
and there I saw the stark skeletons of what had once been trees, and a
brown ash covered the earth that might have once been grass long ago. The
radiation level was still far too high to allow any kind of life that
I knew.
Flicker.
Blue sky, brown earth, radiation levels that perhaps men could survive
if they were buried deep under the ground.
My heart was sinking, and there was a lump where my throat should have been.
I was beginning to believe that my assumptions were pretty far wrong.
Maybe Latham . . .
"There just could be someone alive here," I said. "Mica's people could
even have an outpost here."
I flicked on the skudder's radio, scanned the frequencies from the lowest
up to the edges of microwave. Nothing. If there were anyone alive here,
he wasn't using radio. I can't say that I was too surprised.
"We'll go on," I said.
Flicker.
Things were about the same on the next Line. The radiation level was
a little lower, a few notches; men would have had a better chance of
surviving here than on the last Line; Mica's people would be more likely
to have an outpost, if we were anywhere near their Lines, which I had
begun to seriously doubt now, though, according to my figures, we ought
to be right about there.
The radio was dead. The air was silent. No one answered my transmissions.
We went on.
Flicker.
In the next Line the sky looked normal enough, though no clouds were visible.
The earth, as far as we could see, was brown and gray, scorched grasses
and burned trees and nothing much else. The radiation level was lower
still, but high enough to kill an unprotected man almost instantly.
Out of a hope that I knew now to be foolish I cut the radio's receiver
on again, slowly scanned the frequencies -- and nearly fainted when I
picked up a carrier at 104 MHz.
"What is it?" Sally gasped when she saw the expres-sion on my face,
realized that the buzz from the receiver meant something.
"There's somebody here," I said.
"Paratimers?"
"I don't know. It could be locals who survived the war, or it could be
Paratimers. No Krith or Timeliner has ever come this far to my knowledge."
"Talk to them."
"I'll try." Then I realized something and said, "I don't know the language.
Albigensian, I mean. You talk."
"Okay, what do I say?"
"Just tell them who we are and why we're here."
"Okay. Show me what to do."
"Well, you just . . ."
Ahead of us and to the right, maybe a hundred and fifty feet or a little
more, the air shimmered and flickered for a moment, then a solid object
materialized out of the nothingness, a squashed sphere that was unmistakable:
a Krithian skudder.
I did not doubt for a moment who it was. I merely wondered how he had
followed me so easily. What had I overlooked?"
"Eric!" Sally cried.
"Easy."
"Who is it?"
"I can make a guess. The skudder pilot said that Kar-hinter had something
to tell us. I guess he's come to tell us what it is."
"Oh, God, Eric, and we were so close."
"Don't worry."
"But they'll have guns."
"I've got one, too," I said. "There are no guns mounted on their hull.
There's never been a reason for it before now."
"What are we going to do?"
"Well, as I see it, we've got three choices. We can try to call for help,
but I don't know how much good that'll do or how soon. I'd hate to have
to count on it. Two, we can run, but I don't know how much good that'll
do either. If Kar-hinter could follow us this far, I suppose he could
keep on following us until he caught us. Or, three, we can talk to
Kar-hinter and see what he wants with us."
"What good will
that
do?"
"Damned if I know, but it can't hurt."
My hands fell to the radio controls and I switched to the Krithian/Timeliner
emergency broadcast frequency, thinking that was probably what Kar-hinter
would be using. It was.
". . . Eric. Please respond if you are receiving me."
"I hear you," I said into the microphone, satisfied that the voice on
the other end was that of Kar-hinter.
"Eric," the Krith answered at once. "Please do not be a fool. You do not
know what you are getting into."
"I have a fair idea," I said. "Listen, Kar-hinter, your false memories
didn't take. I saw through them. We know now that there's no Cross-Line
Civilization, and we can assume that all the rest of it is lies, too."
"You listen to me, Eric," Kar-hinter snapped back, anger in his voice,
a very human-sounding anger. "We have already sent patrols into the
worlds where the Paratimers claim to live, their world of origin and all."
"And where's that?" I demanded.
"Here, Eric. Here, and there is no human life here, not for a hundred Lines
in either direction."
"Another lie," I said flatly. "There's someone on this Line using radio,
Kar-hinter. I just picked up their carrier.
"I said
human
, Eric. The Paratimers are not human."
24
Kar-hinter, Kearns, Tracy, and Death
Eric, this is Tracy," said another voice from the radio's loudspeaker,
a voice which I recognized. "What Kar-hinter is saying is true, old boy.
I've seen them the way they
really
are and they aren't human beings."
"You're crazy," I said because I couldn't think of anything else to say.
"No, it's true," Tracy's voice said. "We've been making recons into these
Lines ever since we picked up you and Sally from Staunton, and we've found
out the truth about the Paratimers.
They
have a base somewhere on this
Line -- and, for God's sake, Eric, they aren't people."
"Eric," Kar-hinter's voice said, "you know that there is someone using
radio here. They will probably pick up our signals if we continue to talk
by radio. We do not have sufficient force to defend ourselves from an
attack on their own ground. I suggest, then, that we cease using radio
and meet outside the skudders to discuss this further."
"How can I believe anything you say?" I asked.
"You can believe me, can't you, Eric?" Tracy's voice asked.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," I replied.
"We are going to turn off our radio equipment," Kar-hinter said.
"We will dress in survival suits and leave our skudder. We will wait
for you midway between our craft and yours. We will be unarmed. Please,
Eric, give us -- and yourself -- a chance."
There was a click and the carrier of their transmitter died away.
For a long while I sat there silently before the transceiver, gazing blankly
at its controls.
What the hell am I going to do now?
I kept asking myself,
and I really didn't have any answers.
"It's a trap, isn't it, Eric?" Sally asked at last.
"Probably," I said, "but Tracy . . ."
"Who's Tracy?"
"A friend of mine. I've known him for a long time. He was with us the night
we kidnapped you."
"Oh, yes," she said, "the one who was wounded in the leg."
I nodded. "I don't think he'd lie to me," I said. "At least not
intentionally."
"Do you think they're forcing him?"
"Maybe. No, I don't think so." Tracy wasn't the sort of man who was easily
forced to do anything. "I don't know. Damn it, I just don't know!"
We were silent for a while longer.
The hatch of the other skudder opened, and three of its four occupants,
clad in emergency survival suits, stepped out onto the barren,
radioactive earth of this world. Two of the figures were probably human
from their size and proportions. The third was tall, built like a Krith,
built like Kar-hinter. The three slowly advanced across the scorched
ground and finally stopped about halfway to our skudder. There they
stood and waited. Assuming that one of the men was Tracy, who was the
other? Pall? If so, who was still inside the skudder? Maybe my old
buddy Kearns. Or maybe it was the other way around. Did it matter?
I'd learn soon.
"What are you going to do?" Sally asked.
"I'm going out there," I answered, finally making up my mind.
"But . . ."
"I have to go," I said, cutting her off. "There's too much that we don't
know. None of this makes any sense at all, and I've got to find out why."
I got up and walked back to the rear of the skudder, to where the locker
containing the survival suits was kept.
"You stay in the skudder," I told Sally. "I'll leave the probability
generator on, and I'll set the destination controls for your own Line.
If anything happens, well, all you'll have to do is press one switch
and the skudder'll take you home. I think we've still got the power to
do that."
"Please don't go, Eric," Sally said as I opened the locker and pulled
out one of the four survival suits.
"I've got to go," I said. "If what Mica and his people said is true,
we ought to be in one of their Lines now. I really don't think that my
figures were that far off."
"But you could be wrong."
"I could be, yes, but for some reason I'm convinced that I'm not.
There's something going on here that they haven't told us about.
Maybe what Tracy said is true. Maybe the Paratimers aren't human."
"That's not true, Eric," Sally said slowly. "Mica's as human as you are.
I know.
"
I slowly turned to look at her.
That's right
, I told myself, visualizing
Mica, naked and pale white, lying atop my Sally. Human or not, I hated him
for a moment.
Still if anyone knew, she would. She had been Mica's mistress; she had lived
with him; if he weren't human, she would know it.
But what's human?
I asked myself. And if Mica were, suppose, just
suppose for a minute, some kind of alien being disguised as a man,
well, what outside of moral scruples would prevent him from making love
to a human woman if he wanted to and had the proper equipment? I mean,
in situations where women -- or other men -- weren't available, men have
been known to have sexual relations with creatures that certainly aren't
human or even sentient. Everyone's heard stories of farmboys and their
cows and chickens and sheep. I felt a little sick. Okay, maybe . . .
"I have to go out there, Sally," I said slowly. "You can't talk me out
of it. Please, just do as I say."
I pulled the survival suit over my clothing, jerking the straps tight.
After tucking the helmet under my arm, I went back to the front of the
skudder's cabin, adjusted the controls to return Sally to her own Timeline
if anything happened to me.
"Just push that button," I told her, then led her back to the rear of
the craft again.
"Be careful, Eric," she said as I helped her into a similar survival suit.
When the skudder's hatch was opened, the interior would be liberally
dosed with deadly radiation. In fact, the skudder would probably not be
safe for an unprotected human being without some serious decontamination
once the hatch had been opened in this world.
"I'll be careful," I said, slipping the energy pistol into one of the
suit's capacious pockets. "I'm taking this pistol along just in case.
"Come back, Eric," Sally said. "I won't know what to do if you don't."
"If I don't, then get the hell out of here. Do what you can to . . .
Well, just get home and hide."
I kissed her and then clamped the helmet down over my head, sealed it,
and then turned toward the hatch.
"Good luck," Sally's voice said through the muffled speaker of her own
helmet as she sealed it.
"Thanks, sweetheart."
The hatch opened before me, and I leaped down to the dry, burned,
barren soil of this Earth. The hatch closed behind me. I walked toward
the place where Kar-hinter, Tracy, and the other man waited for me.
I don't suppose that I thought about very much while I crossed those
seventy-five feet of space between us. There wasn't much that my mind
could do, except wonder. But the time for asking idle questions was
over. I wanted some hard answers.
"I am glad you came to us, Eric," Kar-hinter said when I was within range
of his voice as it came from the speakers of his survival helmet.
"I want the truth now," I said in reply. "I know that you've been lying
to me."
"I will admit that there is no Cross-Line Civilization, as such, Eric,"
Kar-hinter said slowly. "It was a lie, but one that we told because we
had to."
"And the Contratime communications business?" I asked.
"That also is untrue," Kar-hinter said just as slowly. "The truth is
much more fantastic."
I ignored his last statement for the moment and looked at the two men with
the Krith. One of them was Tracy. And the other was our old companion,
Kearns, the same inexplicable expression on his warrior's face. Then was
the fourth one, the one in the skudder, Pall?
"They both know," Kar-hinter was saying.
"I won't ask you why you lied," I said. "I don't want to hear it now."
"But you must hear it, Eric," Kar-hinter said. "It is . . ."
"It's another lie!" I yelled. "And I don't want to hear any more lies
from you! Tracy, who are the Paratimers?"
"I don't really know," Tracy replied. "They're from the West, a hell of
a damned long way to the West. They do have a base here, but it looks
like it's just one of many they have in these Lines. There are more of
them farther West, but we don't know much about them yet."
"You said they aren't human," I said. "How do you know?"
"We raided one of their bases about a week ago. We captured some of
them alive."
"Then what are they if they aren't human?" I asked.
Tracy spread his hands to show his ignorance.
"They are as different from you as we are, perhaps more so, considering,"
Kar-hinter said. "The ones you have seen have been surgically modified
to look like men."
"Then what do they really look like?" I asked, still looking at Tracy.
"Well, they look something like us," he replied. "At least they're
humanoid, except, well, they're almost hairless and their skin had a
kind of almost bluish tint to it, and they have six fingers on each hand,
and their eyes have pupils like a cat's. But, well, they're mammals.
We caught one of their women, and there's no doubt about that. They're
more -- more like us in looks than the Kriths are, but, well, Eric,
they don't think the same way. I can't explain it. They're
alien
, Eric,
I mean real damned alien and I think they hate us more than we could
ever understand. I -- I can't really explain it. You've got to be with
one of them, the way they really are and not pretending to be people,
to know what kind of