Mists of Dawn (7 page)

Could
they
go
back?

The
darkness
was
upon
them
now,
and
it
was
hard to
see.
Mark
and
Doctor
Nye
knew
the
road
well, however,
and
proceeded
without
difficulty.
The
rain seemed
to
be
suspended
above
them,
waiting
only
for a
trigger
to
loose
a
deluge.
Flashes
of
lightning
lit
up the
rocks
and
pines
around
them,
and
the
booming
of the
thunder
drew
nearer
as
the
road
climbed
into
the hills
near
Ruidoso.
Fang
was
very
much
subdued
in the
face
of
the
storm,
and
kept
tangling
himself
up in
Mark’s
legs.
Mark
could
smell
the
wet
smell
of
rain around
them.

“The
Rome
of
the
Caesars
is
closer
than
you
think,” Doctor
Nye
said
quietly,
sensing
his
nephew’s
thoughts. “Rome
is
only
two
weeks
away.”

Mark
stopped
short
and
then
moved
on
again,
his mind
spinning
with
surprise.
Two
weeks?
That
meant—

“It’s
all
finished,”
Doctor
Nye
went
on,
his
pipe
a red
glow
in
the
darkness.
“I
finished
the
actual
construction
last
night,
and
all
it
needs
now
are
a
few
final touches
and
supplies.
Better
brush
up
on
your
Latin, Mark.”

“Hie,
haec,
hoc,”
said
Mark,
with
a
lightness
that
he did
not
feel.
He
knew
how
much
this
meant
to
his uncle.
It
was
the
result
of
twenty
years
of
work,
twenty years
of
dreams.

A
machine
to
carry
man
backward
in
time—now
a dream
no
longer!

The
two
walked
on
in
silence,
working
their
way back
to
Doctor
Nye’s
mountain
lodge.
Mark
could
not help
feeling
a
little
in
awe
of
the
man
who
walked
beside
him.
Doctor
Nye
had
been
father
and
mother
to him
ever
since
he
was
five
years
old,
when
his
parents-had
been
lost
in
a
plane
crash.
Doctor
Nye,
with
no children
of
his
own,
had
survived
the
disaster
which had
taken
the
life
of
his
own
wife,
as
well
as
of
Mark’s parents,
and
had
been
closer
to
Mark
than
to
any
other person
in
the
world.
Yet
Mark
felt
strange
beside
him tonight,
much
as
he
might
have
felt
walking
beside Archimedes,
Da
Vinci,
Edison,
Einstein—or
perhaps. Columbus,
sailing
into
the
unknown
.
.
.

The
unknown.
What
could
be
more
mysterious, more
wonderful,
than
a
journey
through
time
into
the fabled
past
of
Earth,
that
most
incredible
of
all
planets?

Doctor
Robert
Nye,
who
was
a
nuclear
physicist working
with
the
rocket
experiments
at
near-by
White Sands,
had
all
his
life
been
fascinated
by
the
history of
ancient
Rome.
The
idea
of
time
travel
had
been
a hobby
with
him
all
his
adult
life,
and
he
had
pursued that
hobby
with
the
single-minded
devotion
and
energy
which
men
give
only
to
their
special
dreams. Einstein’s
theoretical
work
on
space-time
had
started him
in
the
right
direction,
and
the
harnessing
of
the atom
at
Los
Alamos
had
provided
him
a
magnificent power
source
that
enabled
him
to
focus
and
direct
the vast
energies
necessary
to
warp
an
organic
substance back
through
space-time.