and fondle it?'
'But now we know where it is.'
'Exactly. If we can get back to our own present, if the shades know what they're doing, if there really is a time-trap, and if there is, it doesn't take us ten thousand years in- to the future as measured by our natural present time…'
'You believe all these things you're saying?'
'Let's say this: I recognize them as possibilities.'
'And, Fletch, if there is no time-trap? If we're stuck back here?'
'We'll do the best we can. We'll find a way.'
We went out the door and started down the bluff. Below us lay the river and the cornfield, the house where the dead man lay, the weedy garden by the house.
'I don't think,' said Cynthia, 'that there will be a time-trap. The shades are no scientists; they are bunglers. A fraction of a second, they said, and then they sent us here '
I grunted at her. This was no time for talk like that. But she persisted. She put out a hand to stop me and I turned to face her.
'Fletch,' she said, 'there has to be an answer. If there is no time-trap.'
'There may be one,' I said.
'But if there's not?'
'In such a case,' I said, 'we'll come back to that house down there. We'll clean it out. It's a place to live, there are tools to work with. We'll save seed from the garden so we can plant other gardens. We'll fish, we'll hunt, we'll live.'
'And you'll love me, Fletch?'
'Yes,' I said, 'I'll love you. I guess I already do.'
Chapter 19
We went down across the cornfield and I wondered as we went if Cynthia might be right-not because O'Gillicuddy and his band were bunglers, but because they were Cemetery. O'Gillicuddy, when I'd asked him, had carefully pointed out that Cemetery had no hold on them because there was nothing Cemetery could do against them and nothing that they wanted. On the face of it, this would seem to be quite true, but how could one be certain it was true? And what better tool could Cemetery use to get rid of us than O'Gillicuddy and his time ability? Surely if we were placed in another time and no way to get back Cemetery would be certain of no further interference.
I thought of my own pink world of Alden-Cynthia's world, as well. I thought of Thorney pacing up and down his study, talking of the long-lost Anachronians and fuming at the indiscriminate treasure-hunters who looted primitive sites and robbed archaeologists of their chance to study ancient cultures. And I thought with a bit of bitterness of my own fine plans to make a composition of the Earth. But mostly, I guess, I thought of Cynthia and the rotten deal she'd gotten. She, of all of us, had had the least to gain from this wild adventure. She had started out by serving as an errand boy for good old Thorney and see what it had got her.
If there were no time-trap, what could we do other than what I'd told her we would do? I could think of nothing else to do, but it would be a bleak life at the best. It was not the kind of life for Cynthia-nor for me. Winter would be coming soon, most likely, and if there were no time-trap, we'd have little time to get ready for it. We'd have to tough it through somehow, and when spring had come around we; might have, by that time, figured out a better way.
I tried to quit thinking about it, for it hadn't happened yet and there might be no need to think of it, but try as I might I couldn't seem to get my mind away from it. The very horror of the prospect seemed to fascinate me.
We came down into the river valley and walked along the river until we came to the hollow that led to the cliff where we'd holed up after fleeing from the ghouls. Neither of us were saying anything. Neither of us, I suspect, trusted ourselves to speak.
We started up the hollow and when we turned the bend just ahead of us, we could see the cliffs and we'd be almost there. We'd not have long to wait. Fairly soon we'd know.
We rounded the bend and stopped dead in our tracks.
Standing just this side of the cliffs were two war machines.
There was no mistaking them. I think I would have known what they were in any case, but from having heard Elmer talk of them so often, I recognized them immediately.
They were huge. They had to be huge, to carry all the armaments they packed. A hundred feet long at least, and probably half as wide and looming twenty feet or more into the air. They stood side by side and they were most unlovely things. There was strength and ugliness in them.
They were monstrous blobs. It made a man shiver just to look at them.
We stood there looking at them and they looked back at us. You could feel them look.
One of the machines spoke to us-or at least someone in their direction spoke to us. There was no way to tell which machine was speaking.
'Don't run away,' it said. 'Don't be frightened of us. We want to talk with you.'
'We won't run,' I said. There'd have been little use in running. If they wanted us, they'd have us in a minute. I was sure of that.
'No one will listen,' said the machine, rather piteously.
'Everyone flees from us. We would be friends to the human race, for we ourselves are human.'
'We'll listen to you,' said Cynthia. 'What have you to say?'
'Let us introduce ourselves,' it said. 'I am Joe and the other one is Ivan.'
'I am Cynthia,' said Cynthia, 'and the other one is Fletcher.'
'Why don't you run from us?'
'Because we're not afraid,' said Cynthia. I could tell from the way she said it she was very much afraid. 'Because,' I said, 'there'd be no use of running.'
'We are two old veterans,' said Joe, 'long home from the wars and most desirous of doing what we can to help rebuild a peaceful world. We have wandered very far and the few humans we have found have had no interest in what we might do for them. In fact, it seems they have a great aversion to us.'
'That is understandable,' I said. 'You, or others like you, probably shot the hell out of them before the war came to an end.'
'We shot the hell out of no one,' said Joe. 'We never fired a shot in anger. Neither one of us. The war was done with before we got into it.'
'And how long ago was that?'
'By the best computation that we have, a little over fifteen hundred years ago.'
'Are you sure of that?' I asked.
'Very sure,' said Joe. 'We can calculate it more closely if it means that much to you.'
'It doesn't matter,' I said. 'Fifteen hundred is quite close enough.'
And so, I told myself, O'Gillicuddy's fraction of a second had turned out to be more than eighty centuries.
'I wonder,' said Cynthia, 'if either one of you recall a robot by the name of Elmer…'
'Elmer!'
'Yes, Elmer. He said he was a supervisor of some sort on the building of the last of the war machines.'
'How do you know Elmer? Can you tell me where he is?'
'We met him,' I said, 'in the future.'
'That can't be true,' said Joe. 'You do not meet people in the future.'
'It's a long story,' I said. 'We'll tell it to you sometime.'
'But you must tell me now,' said Joe. 'Elmer is an ancient friend. He worked on me. Not on Ivan. Ivan is a Russian.'
It was quite apparent there was no way to get away from them. Ivan hadn't said a word, but Joe was set to
