Andre Norton - Galactic Derelict

The story made sense—in a crazy kind of way. Travis mechanically handed Ashe the small tool he was groping for in the tangled grass.

“But how did the ship get there?” he asked. “Was there an early civilization on earth which had space travel?”

“That was what we thought—until we found the ship. No, it was from the outside—a cargo freighter lost from some galactic run. Either this world was an astrogation menace of the same type as a reef at sea, or there -was some other reason to cause forced landings here. We brought film from the Red time station pinpointing about a dozen such wrecks. And some of those were on this side of the Atlantic.”

“You’re planning to dig for one of those here?"

Ashe laughed. “What d’you think we’d find after about fifteen thousand years and a lot of land upheaval, even local volcanic activity? We want our ship in as good condition as possible.”

“To study?”

“With caution. If you’d check with Ross Murdock he’d give you a good reason for the caution. He was one of our agents who was actually aboard the ship the Reds were plundering. When they cornered him injthe control cabin, he accidentally activated the com system and called in the real owners. They weren’t too pleased with the Reds—came down and destroyed their time base on that level and then followed them through the other way stations, destroying each. Remember that hush-hush bang in the Baltic early this year? That was the ‘space patrol,’ or whatever they call themselves, putting finis to the Red project. So far as we know they didn’t discover that we were and are interested in the same thing. So if we find our ship here, we walk softly along its corridors.”

“You want the cargo?”

“In part. But mostly we want the knowledge—what its designers had—the key to space.”

The thrill of that touched Travis. Mankind had reached for the stars for almost two generations. Men had had small successes, many searing failures. Now—what was a satisfactory flight to the barren moon compared to star flight and what lay far out?

Ashe, reading his expression, smiled. “You feel it too, don’t you?”

The Apache nodded absently, gazing down the canyon, trying to believe that somewhere about here, trapped in the solid wall of time, there lay a wrecked star ship waiting for them. But he could not even visualize this country as it must have been in pluvial times. When rain fell most of the year, it must have made a morass of the lands outside the encroaching arms of the shrinking glaciers lying not too far northward.

“But why the Folsom points?” Out of the welter of facts and half facts he picked that as a starting point.

“We’ve sent back agents disguised as pre-Celts, as Tartars— or their remoter ancestors—as Bronze Age Beaker Traders, and in half a hundred other character parts. Now there’s a ohance we may have to produce a few Folsom spearmen. One of the first and most important rules of this game, Fox, is that one does not interfere with time by introducing any modernisms. There must be no hint of our agents’ real identity. We have no idea what might happen if one meddled with the stream of history as we know it, and we trust we’ll never have to find out the hard way.”

“Hunters,” Travis said slowly, hardly aware at that moment that he spoke at all. “Mammoth—mastodon—camels—the dire wolf—sabertooth—”

“Why do all those interest you?”

“Why?” Travis echoed and then stopped to examine his reasons. Why had his reaction to Ashe’s picture of the drifting prehistoric hunters in disguise been his own quick inner vision of a land peopled with strange beasts his own race had never hunted? Or had they? Had the Folsom hunters been his remote ancestors, as the pre-Celt and Beaker Trader Ashe mentioned been the other’s fore-fathers? He only knew that he had experienced a sudden thrust of excitement which lingered with him. There built up in him a desire to see that world which his own age knew only by the dim and often contradictory evidence of rocks, a handful of flint points, broken bones, the ancient smears of vanished cooking fires.

“My people were hunters—long after yours followed another way of life,” he said, making the best answer he could.

“Right.” Ashe’s tone held a note of satisfaction. “Now-just reach me that rod.” He went back to the job at hand and Travis settled down as his somewhat bewildered assistant. The Apache knew that he had made the choice Kelgarries wanted—that he was going to be a part of this whole unbelievable adventure.

The one thing he was sure of during the next two crowded days was that they were indeed working under pressure and against time. Whether the unexplained threat which seemed to overhang the whole project came from outside the country or from fear of a policy change here at home, no one bothered to make clear. But Travis was willing not to inquire about that. It was far more interesting and absorbing to work with Ross Murdock. They set the proper kind of shafts to the pseudo-Folsom spear points and then experimented with the spear thrower. This made the efficient weapons they finally turned out twice as powerful. A seven-foot javelin could be hurled a good hundred and fifty yards or more by the use of that two-foot shaft of the thrower, and Travis knew that in close infighting it would add tremendous thrusting power. No wonder a party of hunters so armed dared to go against the mammoth and the other giant mammals of the period.

In addition to the spears they had flint knives, the counterparts of those found in the debris of Folsom camp sites across most of western America. Travis did not know why he was so sure that he was actually going to use knife and spears and play the role of a wandering prehistoric hunter. Still, he was sure. He learned from Ross that the rest of the time agents’ equipment would not be assembled at the base until the experts had taped film reports out of the past to use as samples.

On the third day Kelgarries and Ashe took a three-man expedition, loading one ’copter to its limit, out of the canyon. They were gone for almost a week, and upon their return some reels of film were sent out in a hurry. Ashe joined Travis and Ross that same night and lay down beside the fire with a sigh of weary pleasure.

“Hit pay dirt?” Ross wanted to know.

His chief nodded. There were dark smudges under his eyes, a fine, drawn look to his features. “The wreck is there, all right. And we located hunters on the fringe of the territory. But I think we can follow Plan One. The tribe is small and there doesn’t appear to be more than one. Our guess that the district was thinly populated must be correct. It won’t be necessary to really establish our scouts with the tribe—just let them keep track of wandering hunters.”

“And the transfer?”

Ashe glanced at the watch on his wrist. “Harvey and Logwood are assembling the new one. I give them about forty-eight hours. H.Q. will fly in the extra power packs tonight. Then our men go through. We haven’t the time to spend on finer points now. A working crew follows as soon as the scouts give the ‘all clear.’ H.Q. is analyzing the film reports. They’ll have the rest of the equipment to us as soon as possible.”

Travis stirred. Who was going to be part of that scouting team into the far past? He wanted to ask that—to hope that he might be one. But what had happened a year ago to smash other plans, kept him tongue-tied now. Ross voiced that all-important question.

“Who makes the first jump, chief?”

“You—me—we’re on the spot. Our friend here, if he wants to.”

“You mean that?” Travis asked slowly.

Ashe reached for the waiting coffeepot. “Fox, as long as you don’t go loping off on your own to test that flint-tipped armory you’ve been constructing on the first available mammoth, you can come along. Mainly because you look the part, or will when we get through with you. And maybe you can adapt better than we can. Briefing for a time run used to take weeks. Ask Ross here; he can tell you what a cram course in our work is like. But today we haven’t weeks to spare. We’ve only days and they grow fewer with each sunrise. So we’re gambling on you, on Ross, on me. But get this—I’m your section leader, the orders come from me. And the main rule is —the job comes first! We keep away from the natives, we don’t get involved in any happenings back there. Our only reason for going through is to make as sure as we can that the technical boys are not going to be distrubed while they work on that wreck. And that may not be an easy job.” “Why?” Ross asked.