The Fury Out of Time (7 page)

He returned the photograph to Karvel.

“In that case,” Karvel said, “how do you account for the fact that the central symbol is the largest, with the other symbols decreasing in size in either direction?”

“That’s why I referred to the central symbol as the ‘norm.’ Such an interpretation is reasonably obvious. Consider the temperature gauge on an automobile. Between the two extremes of hot and cold there is some kind of mark to indicate the normal operating range. I would consider that this central symbol serves a comparable purpose.”

Karvel looked at Gerald Haskins. He had come to think of him as a personification of the Anonymous Man. He was so average in every way that he was almost invisible in a crowd. Everything about him was medium: his height, his build, the color of his hair, the price of his suit—even his age, though the wrinkles around his eyes suggested that he might be older than he looked. Only the ever-present cigar struck a jarring note. It was expensive, and Haskins was a heavy smoker.

It had occurred to Karvel that such a consistent mediocrity had to be deliberate.

Now Haskins was delivering a warning shake of his head with moderate firmness, as he always did when Karvel seemed about to theorize in public. Karvel muttered, “Thank you,” and wheeled himself away.

Lieutenant Ostrander hurried after him and took charge of the wheel chair. Haskins caught up with them a moment later, and they moved in silence toward the center of the hangar and the U.O.

“I suppose he’s going to write a report,” Karvel said.

Haskins nodded.

“What can he possibly have to report? He doesn’t even know what the problem is.”

“Does anyone?” Haskins asked. “What’s your interpretation of those symbols?”

“I think they’re a calendar.”

Haskins whirled, and received a sharp rap on the shin from the wheel chair. He stooped and rubbed his leg vigorously, but there was more amazement than pain in the stare he directed at Karvel. “Calendar?”

“I think three of those instruments work in conjunction to select the U.O.’s destination. When I asked about ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ I was thinking of movement forward or backward in time.”

Haskins gave his shin a final rub and straightened up with a smile. “At least you’re consistent. You’ll have to admit, though, that the professor’s objection is valid. If the controls measured time, the symbols on either side of the norm would exhibit similarities. Five centuries forward or five centuries backward. That sort of thing.”

“Nonsense. If the central symbol represented the year 2500—and I’m not suggesting that it does—the forward count would be six, seven, and eight, and the backward count four, three, and two. Where’s the similarity?”

“Eventually—”

“Eventually, nothing. Our numerical system builds from its simplest components, so we have a pattern of repetition neatly organized by tens. The U.O.’s numerical system uses an individual symbol for each number, without any repetition. Offhand I’d say it would be a difficult system to learn, but that wouldn’t bother the people who built the U.O. because they’re so much smarter than we are.”

Haskins grinned at him. “You’re in good form today, Major. Come along to my meeting, and shake up the security officer.”

Karvel waved a hand, and Ostrander obediently turned the chair toward the partitioned office at the end of the hangar.

Except for Haskins it was to be a military meeting, and Colonel Stubbins was waiting impatiently for him in the doorway. Karvel said softly to Ostrander, “Go have a smoke, Phinney. If the higher ups’ subconscious minds ever get you linked with me, your career will be blighted.”

Haskins chuckled, and placed a hand on the wheel chair. “Go ahead, Lieutenant. I’ll look after Major Karvel. They won’t want to let you in anyway, and since you’re in my party I’d have to insist, and a routine meeting isn’t that important. I’d rather save my ammunition.”

Haskins pushed the chair through the doorway, and Colonel Stubbins followed them and closed the door with a bang.

None of the six officers present paid any attention to Karvel, and he paid very little attention to the meeting. The security officer, a Captain Meyers, delivered a long report, replete with statistics on sentries and security checks and clearance cards and who owned them, and a new cover plan he was working on to replace one that had apparently been under severe criticism. Karvel’s mind wandered back to the U.O. instrument panel, and he was startled, many minutes later, to hear his name spoken.

“We seem to have lost Major Karvel,” Colonel Stubbins said dryly. “I am in the process of polling those present to see if they have any comments, Major. I apologize for the interruption.”

“That’s perfectly all right, sir,” Karvel said, ignoring the undercurrent of laughter that circled the room. “I fully approve of these elaborate security precautions, even though I don’t agree with the reason for them. If the Russians actually wished that U.O. onto us, as some of you seem to believe, I can’t see them wasting time and risking agents to break in here. They already know more about it than we do. I’m convinced that they didn’t send it, and that they’d eagerly offer a first mortgage on the Kremlin for a good description of it, with Lenin’s Tomb and the Berlin Wall thrown in for a photograph. So I am in complete agreement with Captain Meyers. I’ve heard two of you remark privately that his arrangements are thorough to the point of being ridiculous, and that’s the way it should be. We can’t be too careful.”

“Thank you, Major,” Colonel Stubbins said. “We all feel easier about it knowing that you approve. Next—”

“I’m not finished, sir. I wouldn’t say that this matter disturbs me, because I don’t think it makes any difference, but there are some intriguing inconsistencies in the security arrangements.” He paused, making certain that he had everyone’s attention. Haskins was scowling and shaking his head, but Karvel ignored him. “If the Russians
did
send the U.O., they’re going to be more interested in the valley below Whistler’s than they are in this hangar. They’re going to want to know the precise place the U.O. landed—”

“It’s a little difficult to place the whole countryside under guard, Major,” Captain Meyers said testily.

“—the precise place, and perhaps the precise time. Of course it’s too late to worry about that now, because their agents would have been on hand when the U.O. arrived, and left as soon as they got the information they wanted. It might be interesting to find out who the agents were, though. I point out that the personnel of a television program was visiting the base for allegedly honorable purposes, and three of the actresses were at Whistler’s last Saturday afternoon. Odd that they should turn up on that particular day, don’t I you think? I remember one of them asking exactly how far the tavern was from the base, which in retrospect seems a peculiar question. Whistler’s new bartender might be worth a casual investigation. There was a stranger who turned up at the tavern asking for directions to Highway 41, and looking for Highway 41 on Whistler’s road is a little like looking for the moon in a coal mine. It makes one wonder what he really wanted—and, of course, where he went when he left Whistler’s. And what other strangers conveniently managed to get lost about the valley on that particular afternoon. As I said, none of this disturbs me. If the Russians didn’t send the U.O., what they find in the valley won’t do a thing for them except whet their appetites to break in here. But if they did send it—”

Five minutes later Karvel managed to leave the room unnoticed in spite of his necessarily cumbersome departure and the fact that Haskins got up to help him through the door. The initial surge of argument had collapsed, and Colonel Stubbins was removing Captain Meyers’s hide, one sentence worth at a time, while the others looked on uncomfortably.

“It was your idea,” Karvel said, when they were safely away.

“I was about to thank you,” Haskins said. “If they will now concentrate on who was where last Saturday, and leave us alone somewhat, perhaps we’ll get some work done.”

“I wouldn’t say that your own guards are any improvement over the military.”

“They make it difficult to get in or out, but they don’t bother you while you’re here. Feel like having an early supper?”

“No. I’ll have Ostrander bring me something later. Have they found any wires yet?”

“In the U.O.? No, no wires. Each instrument capsule is a self-contained unit. We’re still trying to figure out a way to break into one without damaging it.”

“What about the fuel?”

“We’re working on it.”

They reached the first guard post, at the hangar door, and two men in civilian clothes searched them routinely but thoroughly. They were not halted again until they came to a gate in the tall, barbed-wire-topped fence that had been erected around the hangar. Getting back in was much more time-consuming.

Ostrander caught up with them and helped Karvel into the car. “We’ll drop Mr. Haskins at the Officers’ Club,” Karvel told him. “Then I’d like to go back to the B.O.Q.”

Ostrander folded the wheel chair, stowed it away in the trunk, and cheerfully took his place at the steering wheel. The ready and efficient way he’d assumed the role of personal nursemaid was irksome to Karvel. In some previous incarnation Ostrander had been a millionaire’s well-trained houseboy, and he had not lost the touch. When Haskins suggested that Karvel should have an assistant, he’d asked for Ostrander, thinking that the assistant was to help him on the U.O. project. It turned out that Haskins meant someone to assist him up and down stairs.

Twenty minutes later Karvel was settled in his wheel chair in the small room he was occupying temporarily in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters.

“When do you want to eat?” Ostrander asked.

“I don’t. Let’s skip it.”

“Something to drink? Pinky Selton has some pretty good brandy.”

“Nothing, thanks. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ostrander left obediently, and Karvel lapsed into a sullen, brooding silence. In a lifetime of frustrations, he had never felt as frustrated as he did now. He was weary of being hauled about in a wheel chair, and furious with Colonel Vukin for prohibiting crutches. He was mentally exhausted from formulating ideas that Haskins’s cavernous mind swallowed up unthinkingly, and more ideas to counter objections to ideas he’d already expressed. He was feeling intensely resentful of Haskins, and bewildered as to why the intelligence agent—which Haskins certainly was—had wanted his help in the first place. He had an overwhelming urge, active service or no, to hook his trailer onto his car and depart.

Any destination would do, as long as it was satisfactorily remote from the damnably inert U.O. in Hangar Seven.

Eventually he fell asleep.

He awakened suddenly, surprised to find himself in the wheel chair. He moved it a few feet, pushed himself erect on his artificial leg, and pivoted to drop onto the bed. As he fumbled with his shirt buttons, his mind gyrated uneasily.

Where was Haskins? The Anonymous Man had made a practice of dropping in each night for a quiet chat. Had he found Karvel asleep, and left without waking him?

It was ten after midnight. The B.O.Q. reposed in a state of unnatural silence. Karvel maneuvered himself back into the wheel chair and rolled it toward the door, again cursing Colonel Vukin’s ban on crutches.

As soon as he opened the door he heard reassuring noises—the faint vibration of snoring from a room across the corridor, hushed laughter floating down the stairway from the floor above. He rolled the chair along the corridor to the next room, Ostrander’s, and knocked softly. He waited, knocked again, opened the door.

Ostrander was not there. The bed had not been touched.

He swung the chair toward Haskins’s room. Haskins was not in, and the ash trays were empty of cigar stubs— incontrovertible proof that the Anonymous Man had not been in his room since morning.

Karvel closed the door silently and rolled back to his own room. He took his blouse from the bed, wriggled into it, and propelled the chair around the corner to the building’s main entrance. He had halted at the door and was sourly contemplating the outside steps when a late-returning lieutenant hove into view and sprang to his assistance.

“Going somewhere, Major? Want some help?”

“Thanks,” Karvel said. “If you’d take the chair down, and then help me—it isn’t easy—” He winced as the lieutenant put an arm around him. Ostrander managed it much more adroitly, and without hurting him. “Thanks. I’ll be all right now.”

“I doubt it, sir. Not if you’re going very far.”

“I’m going to Hangar Seven.”

“You can’t, sir. It’s been put off limits.”

“It isn’t off limits to me.”

“Then I’d better take you.”

He ignored Karvel’s protests and got the wheel chair rolling at a brisk pace. As they rattled along the deserted, heavily shadowed walk Karvel reflected that he was doing an idiotic thing. He did not want to go to Hangar Seven. He wanted to go back to his house trailer, and have a sound, drunken sleep, and wake up with a blissfully shattering hangover in a world where no U.O. existed. Would Haskins’s men be working at this hour? He didn’t know. Probably the U.O. would be locked up for the night.

“Lieutenant—” he said.

“Too fast? It is a bit bumpy along here.”