Blade tapped in Yama’s three-letter code but the screen didn’t change.
The same yellow light went on blinking. He figured Hickok and Yama must be together. He touched the icon of an envelope and typed, ‘Stay put. On my way.’ He tapped ‘Send’ and the watch told him the text had been sent.
“Technology,” Blade muttered, and lowered his arm. He’d encountered enough high-tech during his Freedom Force days that he wasn’t as averse to it as many in the Family were. Simply put, they didn’t trust it. Technology, after all, had brought about the horrors of the Big Blast. True, human beings had invented the missiles that delivered the radioactive payloads and created the concoctions that spewed chemical toxins over a once beautiful world. So it wasn’t fair to blame technology, per se. Yet blame it they did, and for a number of decades, the Family had wanted nothing to do with technology whatsoever.
Unslinging his Commando, Blade headed out. The chest plate under his vest felt uncomfortable but he shrugged the discomfort off. He had no choice.
Suddenly the jungle reverberated to an ear-shattering roar.
Blade froze in his tracks. He’d studied the fauna of the region. Thailand had tigers and leopards and the Asian black bear, but the latter two hardly ever roared. Tigers did, although the roar hadn’t sounded like one even a large cat would make.
Then the foliage twenty feet away parted and an enormous head thrust out, and Blade discovered he was right but he was wrong.
CHAPTER 20
Hickok opened his eyes and felt relief at being alive. He took a deep breath and wished he hadn’t. A sharp odor about made him gag. He sat up and nearly jumped out of his skin.
He was nose-to-snout with one of the strangest critters he’d ever come across. It looked to be a cross between a hog and he didn’t know what. It had a broad round body covered with gray hair. The snout was mostly pink, and hairless. Short ears stuck out from either side of its narrow forehead, giving it a comical look. It showed no hostility. All it did was sniff noisily, and grunt.
“What the blazes are you?” Hickok said.
The creature snorted, turned, and shambled off, displaying a bushy tail that reminded Hickok of a badger’s. “Good riddance, smelly,” he said, and rose.
Hickok looked around. He was in the middle of a small field. A stone’s throw away were thatched huts on stilts, and a crude corral made of thin poles. Several small horses dozed in the heat, their heads hung low.
“Where the devil?” Hickok grumbled. MABEL was supposed to transport them to coordinates near Bangkok, an hour earlier than when they left the Home, but he wondered if the time machine had dropped him near a village, instead. It wouldn’t surprise him. When it came to time travel, they were tampering with forces even Tesla barely understood. In his estimation, they should have left well enough alone. But then, how else could they stop the Lords of Kismet?
Hickok wasn’t surprised to find himself alone. The last time he’d been hurled into the time stream, the same thing happened. He remembered his Micro Tech IV, and cradling his Winchester in the crook of his right elbow, he pulled back his left sleeve and consulted the super-watch, as his son had called it. He pushed the power button and the thing came on as it was supposed to. “Thank the Spirit,” he said under his breath, and went to press the button that would let him pinpoint Blade’s and Yama’s positions.
A voice gave him pause.
Over by the rickety corral stood a winkled prune of a man in baggy shorts and a shirt that hung as loosely as a tent. Getting on in years, the man was holding a wooden pitchfork. Judging by how his mouth had dropped, and his wide eyes, he was flabbergasted.
“Howdy, old-timer,” Hickok said, and grinned to show he was friendly. “Savvy English, by any chance?”
The old man chattered something so rapidly, Hickok couldn’t make hide nor hair of it. Not that he could speak Thai, or Siamese. He’d been taught a few words before they left, and he used one of them now. Pointing at his chest, he said, “Peuang.” It meant ‘friend’.
The old man cocked his head and uttered another rapid-fire string of unintelligible syllables.
“You have to slow down, old-timer,” Hickok said. “You chatter faster than a chipmunk.”
Inexplicably, the old man suddenly wheeled and hurried around the corral.
Hickok reckoned he’d better have a look-see. He didn’t want the oldster running to the authorities, if there were any thereabouts. “Roh sakru!” he called out, which was ‘wait’. But the old man didn’t; he disappeared past the first hut.
Hickok jogged to catch up. He’d look for Blade and Yama after bit. He reached the hut and went partway around, and dug his heels in, in consternation.
A dirt street jammed with people seemed to go on forever. More huts lined it a way, then substantial houses with peaked roofs. Beyond were larger buildings. In the distance, spires and possibly temples and public buildings—their architecture so different from anything he was used to as to seem downright alien—rose many stories into the glaringly bright sky.
Hickok realized he must be at the very edge of Bangkok, which was where he was supposed to be. But where were Blade and Yama? Careful not to fully show himself, he searched for sign of them, and for the old man.
Most of the people going to and fro appeared to be poor. Their clothes were shabby, their bodies thin to the point of emaciation, their faces seldom happy. Here and there were a
