talking about.”
“Surely. Now note the arc DE, our return voyage in time to an instant in time, perhaps just a fraction of a second after the time we orginally left, point B that is. I can control the arrival at point E until it comes just after point B—but I can never arrive before point B. The graph must always read BE, never EB.”
“Why?”
“I am glad you asked that question, because that is the heart of the matter. Look again at the graph and you will note point K. This is the point where are BC crosses arc DE. That point K must exist or it would be impossible to make the return voyage, for K is the interchange of energy point, where the scales of time are balanced. If you put point E between D and B the arcs will not cross, no matter how close they come, the energy will not balance, the trip will not be made.”
Barney unknotted his brows and rubbed the sore spot between his eyes. “All of which adds up,” he said, “to the fact that we can’t come back to a time earlier than the time we left.”
“Precisely.”
“So all the time we have used up this week is gone forever?”
“Correct.”
“So if we want the picture to be completed by ten o’clock Monday morning we have to go back in time and stay there until it is done.”
“I could not have phrased it more succinctly myself.”
“Then let’s get this show on the road since it is already Saturday morning. The carpenters are finished so it’s time to roll.”
The first vehicle in the parade was a jeep: Tex was asleep in the front seat and Dallas in the back. Barney went over and leaned on the horn button, then found himself staring down the barrel of a long six-shooter held in Tex’s quivering grip.
“I got a headache,” Tex said hoarsely, “and I wish you wouldn’t do that.” He reluctantly slid the gun back into the holster.
“Nervy this morning, aren’t we?” Barney said. “What you need is some nice fresh air. Let’s go.”
Tex gunned the jeep to life while Dallas stumbled over to the platform and dragged two metal ramps into place at the back. As soon as the jeep had been driven aboard he pulled the ramps in after it.
“That’s all for the first trip,” Barney said. “We’ll find a level spot and come back for the rest. Take it away, Professor, back to the same landing site as the other trips, but right weeks later.”
Hewett mumbled to himself as he set the dials, then activated the vremeatron. The mark two was an improvement on the original model in that it compacted all the electrocution and nausea symptoms into a single quick twang of sensation—as though the passengers were harp strings plucked by a celestial finger—which was finished almost before it began. The sound stage vanished and salt spray and sharp, clear air took its place. Tex moaned softly and pulled up the zipper on his jacket.
“Over there, that meadow looks like a good spot,” Barney said, pointing to a fairly level field that ran down to the beach. “Drive me over there, Tex, and Dallas stay with the professor.”
The jeep ground up the rise in compound low, the popping of its exhaust sending the black-faced gulls screaming in circles over their heads.
“Looks big enough,” Barney said, climbing out and kicking at a tuft of short grass. “You can drive back and tell the Prof to jump forward in time a bit and to land the platform over here, just to make sure he can find the right spot when we start bringing the company back.”
Barney dropped to the ground and dug a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, but it was empty. He crunched it up and threw it away while Tex wheeled the jeep in a circle and roared back to the platform. The ramps were still down and the jeep bounced up them again. Barney had a clear view as Dallas pulled the ramps in and the professor turned to the vremeatron.
“Hey…” Barney said, just as the whole thing vanished, leaving nothing but the jeep tracks and the impression of the rows of tires on which the platform rested. He hadn’t intended Tex to go on with the others.
A cloud passed in front of the sun and he shivered. The gulls were settling down at the water’s edge again and the only sound now was the distant rush of the surf as the small waves broke on the beach. Barney glanced at the cigarette pack, the only familiar thing in the alien landscape, and shivered again.
He never looked at his watch, but surely no more than a minute or two passed. Yet in that short time he realized only too well how Charley Chang had felt, stranded on prehistoric Catalina with the eyes and teeth, and he hoped that Jens Lyn wasn’t too unhappy after his two months’ stay. If his conscience had not been eroded away by years in the movie business he might have felt a twang of pity for them. As it was he just felt sorry for himself. The cloud moved away and the sun shone warmly upon him, but he was still cold. For those few minutes he felt alone and lost in a manner he had never experienced before.
The platform appeared and dropped a few inches into the meadow close by.
“About time,” he shouted, the authority coming back with a rush as he stood and squared his shoulders. “Where have you been?”
“In the twentieth century—where else?” the professor said. “You have not forgotten point K already, have you? In order to come forward these few minutes in your subjective time I had to first return the time platform to the time we had left, then return here with the correct physical and temporal displacement. How long did it take— from your point of view?”
“I don’t know, a few minutes I suppose.”
“Very good, I should say, for a round trip of approximately two thousand years. Let us say five minutes, that would give a microscopically small figure for the error of…”
“All right, Prof, work it out on your own time. We want to get the company back in time and to work. Drive that jeep off and you two stay here with it. We’ll start shuttling back the vehicles and I want you to move them as soon as they arrive so we can have room for the next ones. Let’s roll.”
This time Barney returned with the platform and never for an instant did he think about how the two men must feel who had been left behind.
The transfer went easily enough. Once the first few trips had been made the trucks and trailers moved smoothly through the doors of the sound stage and vanished into the past. The only mishap was on the third transfer when a truck overhung the platform, so that when the time trip was made two inches of exhaust pipe and half a license plate clattered to the floor. Barney picked up the piece of pipe and looked at the shining end, flat and smooth, as if it had been polished. Apparently this bit had been outside the time field and had simply stayed behind. It could happen as easily to an arm.
“I want everyone inside the vehicles during the trip, all except the professor. We can’t afford accidents.”
A tractor towing the motorboat trailer and the deepfreeze truck made up the last load, and Barney climbed on after them. He took one last look at the California sunshine, then signaled the professor to take it away. His watch said 11:57, just before noon on Saturday as the twentieth century winked out and the eleventh century appeared, and he took a deep, relieved breath. Now time—in the century they had left—would have a stop. As long as they stayed in this era to film the picture, no matter how long they took, no time would elapse back home. When they returned with the film it would be noon Saturday, almost two full days before the Monday deadline. For the first time the pressure tension drained away. Then he remembered that he had an entire picture to shoot, with all the problems and miseries that would entail, and the pressure dropped heavily back onto his shoulders and the knot of tension returned, full strength.
A roar of sound burst over him as the tractor driver revved up his engine, and the clear air was filled with reeking exhaust. Barney got out of the way as the motorboat trailer was carefully backed off, and he looked across the meadow. The trucks and trailers were scattered about at random, though some of them had been drawn up in a circle like a wagon train getting ready for the Indians. A few figures were visible, but most of the people were still asleep. Barney wished that he were too, but he knew that he wouldn’t sleep even if he tried. So he might as well get some work done.
Tex and Dallas were just settling down in the grass with cushions from the jeep when he came up. “Catch,” he said, flipping a quarter toward Dallas, who grabbed it out of the air. “Toss. I want one of you to go with me to pick up Jens Lyn, the other can catch up on his beauty sleep.”
“Tails you go,” Dallas said, then cursed at George Washington’s portrait. Tex laughed once, then settled himself down.
