Mists of Dawn (100 page)

“Mark!”
he
gasped.
“Mark—”

Doctor
Nye
embraced
his
adopted
son
with
a trembling
gladness
and
then
stepped
back
again
to stare
at
him.
“I
just
can’t
believe
it,
Mark,”
he
whispered.
He
looked
at
his
watch.
“It’s
nine-fifteen—you’ve only
been
gone
fifteen
minutes
in
this
time.
I
was hoping
against
hope
.
.
.”

Momentarily
overcome
with
emotion,
Doctor
Nye stopped,
running
his
hands
through
his
white
hair
as if
to
get
his
mind
under
control
by
sheer
physical
force. Mark
put
his
arm
around
his
uncle’s
shoulder,
ignoring
a
strong
impulse
simply
to
put
his
right
hand
on his
shoulder,
Danequa
fashion.
He
understood
that
it had
all
happened
so
fast
for
his
uncle
that
he
was
unnerved
by
it
all.
He
had,
after
all,
only
discovered his
nephew’s
absence
a
few
minutes
ago,
and
here Mark
was
back
again,
to
all
intents
and
appearances a
grown
man.
It
was
characteristic
of
Doctor
Nye
that he
obviously
had
not
even
thought
of
the
loss
of
his space-time
machine,
or
of
his
vanished
dream
to
go back
to
the
Rome
of
legend.
His
every
thought
had been
of
his
boy.

“Upstairs,”
Doctor
Nye
said
finally,
shaking
himself. “Let’s
go
upstairs.”

Together,
they
walked
out
of
the
lead-lined
room that
housed
the
space-time
machine
and
through
the basement
laboratory.
Mark
noticed
that
the
machine was
approximately
two
feet
nearer
the
door
than
it had
been
before;
an
error
of
two
feet
and
a
few
sec
onds
in
a
fifty-thousand-plus
years’
journey
through space-time
was
nothing
to
be
ashamed
of.
They climbed
the
stairs,
went
through
the
kitchen
where the
roast
was
still
warming
in
the
oven
and
die
pot of
coffee
Mark
had
started
a
half-hour
or
so
ago
was bubbling
merrily,
and
entered
the
sitting
room.
There was
the
bust
of
Caesar
by
the
lamp
on
the
table,
the long
shelves
full
of
books,
the
Navajo
rugs
on
the
floor, the
walls
of
lightly
varnished
pine.
It
was
all
just
as he
had
left
it
a
few
short
minutes
ago,
and
it
was
all strange
and
unreal
to
the
Mark
who
had
traveled across
the
ages,
as
though
something
remembered from
a
dream.

Fang,
who
had
been
awakened
earlier
by
the
explosion,
stood
bolt
upright
in
the
best
armchair
in
the house
and
growled
curiously
at
Mark.
Who
was
this intruder
with
the
fur
clothes
and
the
long
hair
tied with
rawhide?
Fang
bristled,
and
barked
shrilly.
Then he
eyed
Mark
more
closely,
and
the
stump
of
his
tail began
to
wag.
Uncertainly,
he
leaped
off
the
chair and
the
golden-brown
cocker
spaniel
puppy
trotted across
the
room
and
sniffed
Mark
suspiciously.
Satisfied
then,
as
Mark
scratched
his
ears,
Fang
wagged the
stump
of
his
tail
again
and
returned
to
his
armchair.
He
couldn’t
quite
figure
it
out,
but
he
trusted his
sense
of
smell
more
than
he
did
his
eyes.
He
was not
excessively
glad
to
see
Mark,
of
course—after
all, his
master
had
just
gone
downstairs
a
few
minutes before.

Doctor
Nye
sank
into
a
chair,
and
Mark
did
likewise.
The
soft
cushions
felt
curiously
unpleasant;
he felt
as
though
he
were
sinking
through
to
the
floor.

Nervously,
Mark
clenched
and
unclenched
his
fists, trying
to
get
used
to
his
own
home
again.

“How
long
were
you
gone,
Mark?”
Doctor
Nye
asked finally.

“I’m
not
sure,”
Mark
said.
“A
few
months,
I
think.” The
English
felt
awkward
in
his
mouth,
like
a
foreign tongue.

“Fifty
thousand
years
before
Christ,”
mused
Doctor Nye,
who
had
set
the
dials
himself.
And
then,
oddly: “Are
you
hungry?”

Mark
smiled.
“No.
What
happened—was
it
the rocket?”

Doctor
Nye
nodded.
“The
test
rocket
went
off-course and
blew
up
in
the
hills
near
here,”
he
said.
“It
was a
miracle
no
one
was
hurt.”

Mark
shifted
uncomfortably
in
the
silence.
The
very concept
of
such
things
as
“rockets”
was
strange
to him
now;
his
whole
mental
set
had
changed,
his
mind was
oriented
to
a
different
set
of
conditions,
and
he felt
like
an
intruder
in
his
own
home.

“I
would
never
have
forgiven
myself,
Mark,
if—”

Mark
shook
his
head.
“It
wasn’t
your
fault,
Uncle Bob,”
he
said.
“And
I’m
grateful,
really.
I
can’t
talk about
it
now,
but
it
was
the
most
wonderful
experience
I’ve
ever
known.”

Doctor
Nye
nodded,
understanding.
“There’ll
be plenty
of
time
to
talk
later,”
he
said
quietly.

“Uncle
Bob
—
I’m
so
sorry
—
the
space-time
machine
.
.
.”

“Forget
it,
son,”
Doctor
Nye
said,
rising
and
placing his
hand
on
Mark’s
shoulder
in
a
gesture
strangely
like that
of
the
Danequa.
“Perhaps,
one
day,
I
can
rebuild it
again.
What
man
has
done
once,
man
can
do
again.

You
are
all
that
counts,
Mark.
I
do
not
think
that
the space-time
machine
was
wasted.
When
you
left
here fifteen
minutes
ago,
you
were
a
boy.
Now
you
are
a man.
Your
eyes
are
open,
son,
and
that
is
something beyond
any
price.”