Гарри Гаррисон - Rebel in Time

'Steel parts galore, but I don't think any of them resembled gun parts. Of course if it were a new invention, why then I couldn't tell. But there was one portion of the plant that we didn't enter. Locked and sealed. An improved cotton gin was what he said. I remember thinking at the time that he must be lying, though I didn't know why.'

'That's it!' he said, striking me a stunning and enthusiastic blow on the shoulder. 'Do you think that your game leg can stand up to a little more riding? I want you to show me where this factory is, then give me some idea of the location of the sealed area. I'll come back tonight by myself and see just what that bastard is trying to hide!'

The time must have been close to three o'clock in the morning; the night still and hushed. When the moon had set soon after two-thirty the sleeping city had sunk into an even deeper slumber in the warm darkness.

Troy slept in the hayloft, close to the outside wall of the stable, where the night sky was clearly visible through the wide gap between the boards. He had woken twice, looked out and squinted at the moon, then gone back to sleep. Now he was awake, dipping water out of the bucket and rubbing it over his face. One of the horses stirred in its stall when it heard the small sound, then blew restlessly through its lips. It quieted when the barn door opened and shut noiselessly and silence descended once again.

Damp, hot, dark, the enemy on all sides; it was so much like Vietnam that Troy's hands felt strangely empty, missing the M-16 that had been so much a part of him. At first he had intended to bring the revolver, but then had changed his mind. If he had to use a weapon it would mean that the mission had been a failure. He wanted intelligence — not a fire fight. The steel lockpick was the weapon of choice this night. He also had his clasp knife, as well as a candle stub and some matches. There was nothing else that he needed.

Moving through the darkness of the unlit streets he felt secure, knowing that he would see or hear anyone long before they could be aware of him. He was on familiar ground now, a night reconnaissance, a straightforward mission.

Once a dog barked, catching his smell on the warm breeze, but Troy was well past before it had detected his presence. Later on he became aware of approaching footsteps. He stood silently in the darkness as the two men passed just a few yards away, talking quietly to each other.

Less than half an hour later he stood with his back to a picket fence, looking at the outline of the wooden building against the stars. McCulloch's factory.

Troy remained there, motionless, for a long time, the constellations of stars above dipping and vanishing in the west, patiently waiting. Nothing disturbed the quiet of the night. There appeared to be no watchman, and no dogs. A horse whinnied in the distance, then grew silent. This small noise did not disturb the stillness of the night, deep and profound.

He was in the clear. Troy moved away from the fence and drifted silently across the road. The front door of the building was before him and he pressed against it, his fingers feeling for the outline of the lock. Getting through this was almost too easy, the lock too simple. And there were certainly no electronic alarms or detectors to worry about. The lock snicked open and he pushed into the office beyond.

All of the interior doors were unlocked. He felt his way into the larger, open space of the workshop, filled with forms barely visible in the starlight that filtered through the high windows. To the rear, Robbie had said, a door in the back wall to the right of the forge. He moved forward, step by careful step.

Though he could not see the forge he felt the radiant heat of its presence. Soundlessly he crept by it, running his finger tips along the wooden wall until he found the outline of a door frame. A hasp held it shut and it was sealed with a padlock. Troy ran his fingers over its face, finding the keyhole, touching the pivoted shackle where it went through the eye of the hasp. Feeling it move under his fingers.

It was unlocked.

He stopped, motionless, not breathing, not making a sound. This was an unexpected bit of luck.

But was it just luck?

While his conscious mind considered this logical problem he found his body growing tense. He became aware of a growing sensation of unease. It appeared to have no physical source, he had heard nothing, seen nothing. Yet there was this expanding fear whose existence could not be denied. It was a sensation that he had experienced only once previously in his life, on a night patrol. Just before they had been ambushed. It was a reaction at an instinctual level, far removed from any rational thought processes.

It was completely irrational and emotional. Yet he had the sensation that something fearsome and deadly lay just beyond the wall. Waiting there, scant inches away from him. It did not make any kind of logical sense — but he knew that something was there in the darkness. He tried to dismiss the sensation, but he could not. The danger was unmistakably present.

He did not want to face it nor discover what it was. But he had to respect it — more than respect — he was terrified of it. His heart was thudding with this irrational fear and he wanted to get out of this dark trap, to leave at once, to run and keep on running. But that was the one thing he was not going to do. Instead of opening the door and facing whatever evil lay hidden on the other side, he would use other means to exorcize it. The traditional one. Still in absolute silence he withdrew the clasp knife from his pocket and opened it. Slowly and carefully, in order not to make the slightest sound, he pulled his shirt tail out of his trousers and used the razor-sharp blade to cut off a piece of cloth. He crumpled this, bent and placed it against the wall, then took out a match, cupping it in both hands. It made a small crack and ignited as he snapped the head with his thumbnail.

As soon as it was burning well he dropped the match onto the crumpled cloth, watched for a moment as the cloth flared and caught fire. The flame, small as it was, gave off enough light for him to move quickly across the workshop and out of the building the way he had come, finding shelter in a small grove on the far side of the road.

Where he waited with unmoving patience.

Inside the building the fire would be slowly spreading, eating into the wooden wall, moving along the floor. Some minutes passed before he saw a flicker of light through one of the front windows of the building. Only seconds after that there was the sound of a door crashing open in the back of the building, a horse neighing with excitement, then the quick hammer of hooves as horse and rider burst out into the street.

'Fire! Sound the alarm! Fire, fire!'

Troy smiled to himself in the darkness. He knew that voice.

McCulloch.

His was the presence of evil sensed on the other side of the wall. He had been laying in wait, ready to spring the trap. It had been well-baited, Troy suddenly realized, a plan undoubtedly galvanized by his own presence. McCulloch had not been sure of his identity or he would have been seized on the spot. But the colonel must have started to worry about the resemblance. Being a thorough man, once he had started on this train of thought he would have followed it through to the end. He would have considered the possibility of his being followed back through time. And the colonel was a careful man as well. There was always the possibility that the resemblance might have been a chance one, but the trap had still been laid to take care of the possibility that it had not. Therefore the guided tour, the implied secret of the locked room, McCulloch was a master tactician and his plan should have worked.