man, half understood the gesture of the half-raised arm, of the cryptic sign that the fingers made.
Then the gleam faded and the arm dropped back and the fingers came apart.
Sutton knew, even before he bent with his head turned against the heart, that the man was dead.
Slowly Sutton stood up.
The flame was dying down and the birds had gone. The craft lay half buried in the mud and its lines, he noted, were none he had ever seen.
Asher Sutton, the man had said. And his eyes had lighted up and he had made a sign just before he died. And there had been a battle back in '83.
Eighty-three what?
The man had tried to time-jump…who had ever heard of time-jump?
I never saw the man before, said Sutton, as if he might be denying something that was criminal. So help me, I don't know him even now. And yet he cried my name and it sounded as if he knew me and was very glad to see me and he made a sign…a sign that went with the name.
He stared down at the dead man lying at his feet and saw the pity of it, the crumpled legs that dangled even flat upon the ground, the stiffened arms, the lolling head and the flash of moonlight on the teeth where the mouth had opened.
Carefully, Sutton went down on his knees, ran his hands over the body, seeking something…some bulging pocket that might give a clue to the man who lay there dead.
Because he knew me. And I must know how he knew me. And none of it makes sense.
There was a small book in the breast pocket of the coat and Sutton slipped it out. The title was in gold on black leather, and even in the moonlight Sutton could read the letters that flamed, from the cover to hit him straight between the eyes.
THIS IS DESTINY
By
Asher Sutton
Sutton did not move.
He crouched there on the ground, like a cowering thing, stricken by the golden letters on the leather cover.
A book!
A book he meant to write, but hadn't written yet!
A book he wouldn't write for many months to come!
And yet here it was, dog-eared and limp from reading.
An involuntary choking sound rose unbidden in his throat.
He felt the chill of the fog rising from the marsh, the loneliness of a wild bird's crying.
A strange ship had plunged into the marsh, disabled and burning. A man had escaped from the ship, but on the verge of death. Before he died he had recognized Sutton and had called his name. In his pocket he had a book that was not even written.
Those were the facts…the bare, hard facts. There was no explanation.
Faint sounds of human voices drifted down the night and Sutton rose swiftly to his feet, stood poised and waiting, listening. The voices came again.
Someone had heard the crash and was coming to investigate, coming down the road, calling to others who also had heard the crash.
Sutton turned and walked swiftly up the slope to the car.
There was, he told himself, no earthly use of waiting.
Those coming down the road would only cause him trouble.
XVII
A man was waiting in the clump of lilac bushes across the road and there was another one crouched in the shadow of the courtyard wall.
Sutton walked slowly forward, strolling, taking his time.
'Johnny,' he said, soundlessly.
'Yes, Ash.'
'That is all there are — just those two?'
'I think there is another one, but I can't place him. All of them are armed.'
Sutton felt the stir of comfort in his brain, the sense of self-assurance, the sense of aid and comradeship.
'Keep me posted, Johnny.'
He whistled a bar or two, from a tune that had been forgotten long ago but still was fresh in his mind from twenty years before.
The rent-a-car garage was two blocks up the road, the Orion Arms two blocks farther down. Between him and the Arms were two men, waiting with guns. Two and maybe more.
Between the garage and hotel was nothing…just the landscaped beauty that was a residential, administrative Earth. An Earth dedicated to beauty and to ruling…planted with a garden's care, every inch of it mapped out by landscape architects with clumps of shrubs and lanes of trees and carefully tended flower beds.
An ideal place, Sutton told himself, to execute an ambush.
Adams, he wondered. Although, it hardly could be Adams. He had something that Adams expected to find out and killing the man who holds information that you want, no matter how irate you may be at him, is downright infantile.
Or those others that Eva had told him of…the ones who had Benton conditioned and all set to kill him.
They tied in better than Adams did, for Adams wanted him to stay alive, and these others, whoever they might be, were quite content to kill him.
He dropped his hand in his coat pocket as if searching for a cigarette and his fingers touched the steel of the gun he had used on Benton. He let his fingers wrap around it and then pulled them away and took his hand out of the pocket and found the cigarettes in another pocket.
Not time yet, he told himself. Time later on to use the gun, if he had to use it, if he had a chance to use it.
He stopped to light the cigarette, dallying, taking his time, playing for time.
The gun would be a poor weapon, he knew, but better than none at all. In the dark, he probably couldn't hit the broad side of a house, but it would make a noise and the waiting men were not counting on noise. If they hadn't minded noise, they could have stepped out minutes ago and mowed him down.
'Ash,' said Johnny, 'there is another man. Just in that bush ahead. He expects to let you pass and then they'll have you three ways.'
Sutton grunted. 'Good, tell me exactly.'
'The bush with the white flowers. He's on this edge of it. Quite close to the walk, so he can step around and be behind you the minute that you pass.'
Sutton puffed on the cigarette, making it glow like a red eye in the dark.
'Shall we take him, Johnny?'
'Yes, we'd better take him.'
Sutton resumed his stroll and now he saw the bush, four paces away, no more.
One step.
I wonder what it's all about.
Two steps.
Cut out your wondering. Act now and do your wondering later.
Three steps.
