Echoes In Time Part 29

For answer, the doors slid open.

And framed there were two Baldies, blasters in hand.

CHAPTER 29.

QUICKER THAN AN eye blink, Zina slammed her hand on the door controls and they shut on the Baldies.

She poked at the manual lock, saying over her shoulder, "Fast. Out of here."

Misha led the way.

Gordon picked Saba up; Ross fell in step right behind them, in case Gordon, who was breathing heavily, should falter. Ross glanced down, saw Eveleen at his side.

"They must get that same vertigo right after the transfer," she panted.

Up ahead, Zina turned. "I counted on that." She gave them a faint smile.

Under his breath, Ross said to Eveleen, "She's fast. Give her that."

Eveleen chuckled somewhat breathlessly. "You mean the rest of us were going to stand around like zombies."

From behind came the keening noise of blaster fire.

"They're out," Misha said with mordant humor. "And hunting us."

"Quiet." Zina's word was not loud, but her voice carried command.

No one spoke. Ross's mind roiled with questions- guesses-plans as he plunged along the pathway behind Eveleen.

Viktor took over the lead, and in silence they wound along trails and under hanging ferns, coming to a stop in a deep little grotto.

Gordon bent, and Saba slid to the ground, where she sat with her eyes closed. It was hard to see her expression; the light seemed muted.

Ross blinked, surprised to discover that night was falling.

The rain had ceased, but the sky was covered by a heavy bank of clouds.

Everyone was breathing hard.

Ross said, "If they've got the machine, that means they've got the camp upstream."

Zina gave a tired nod. "It means they might have the ships as well." She turned to Gordon. "Your surmise was my own: that our tampering with the navigational wire must have sent out some kind of signal we were never aware of."

"Where do we go now?" Vera asked. "Back to the city?"

"Then we lead them right to the others, and they'll start shooting everyone," Eveleen protested.

"They will find their way to the city anyway," Zina said. "And they will shoot until they find us. I think we must go ahead, and warn the Yilayil. Now, so they have time to prepare."

Viktor gave a single nod, and plunged into the undergrowth.

A short time later they came to the transport, and both Viktor and Misha checked the area carefully before they emerged from the protective screen of shrubbery and dodged down into the partially overgrown entrance.

"This ought to buy us a few hours," Ross commented as they half skipped, half ran down the steep rampway.

"The lights will draw them," Misha responded.

"Whom do we tell to get the fastest action?" Zina asked.

Saba said, "We must return to the House."

The car was still there from earlier; they all dropped into it, Gordon hovering protectively near Saba. The two of them conferred in quiet voices as everyone else found a seat and leaned back.

Misha worked the controls. The car lurched, then began to pick up speed, pressing Ross back into his seat. He rather enjoyed these things, but he'd always liked roller coasters- the more dangerous the better.

They pa.s.sed their old station and continued to the House of Knowledge station.

This one, Ross noted with grim surprise, did not seem as dusty and neglected as all the others. Who in that place used it-and why?

Useless to ask now.

When the car had come to a stop, Gordon helped Saba out, and in a group they proceeded up the ramp.

There they found a clean, dry tunnel. At the exit doors, Saba turned. "You'll have to wait," she said. "No one's been permitted inside. Even with all the changes, I don't know what it might mean to break that rule."

Zina said, "We will be much better here. Gordon, go with her. The rest of us will remain here until you return."

Ross promptly dropped his pack to the tiled flooring and sank down with his back to the wall. He pulled out his canteen, took a deep drink, then offered it to Eveleen, who also drank.

Vera sat down on Eveleen's other side, and Viktor beside her. They began to converse in quiet Russian. Zina and Irina had embarked on another conversation, also in Russian. Ross, lifting his head slightly, saw Misha standing at the other end of the tunnel, his back to the group, his body tense. Reading his letter, of course. Ross shook his head, and returned his attention to his immediate surroundings; from time to time, he saw his wife sending covert and compa.s.sionate glances Misha's way.

It was not long before Gordon and Saba abruptly returned.

"They know," Gordon said. "And if I understand right, they are prepared."

"Then here our responsibilities end," Zina said. "Let us return to the time-shift apparatus. We have to see if they still hold it."

"We have to take it back," Ross said grimly.

Misha turned around. "You don't," he said with all his old sardonic humor, "want to see what happens?"

"And how can we do that?" Eveleen asked, hands on hips. "I'd as soon not have a ringside seat, especially with blasters providing the special effects."

"No," Ross cut in. "Let me guess: another of these transport stations will give us a perfect view?"

Misha smiled, and Viktor laughed.

"The other tower. The s.p.a.ceport tower," Misha said. "It was probably a military outpost of some sort. You can see over the entire city from it."

Zina hesitated, then gave a nod. "If it's quick. We'll have a better report, maybe a better understanding of what happened."

Again to the cars, and this time they proceeded farther up the line. Ross realized he was getting a feel for the geography of the transport system; if he was right, the Yilayil city had been much, much bigger in the past.

They disembarked and walked out into an empty street, partially overgrown. All of them used their flashlights, making their way after Misha.

The tower turned out to be one of the ones Ross and Gordon had found in the far future-the tall red one wherein the savage weasel-creatures had built their lair. They had not been able to explore farther.

This time there was an elevator to take them up, silent and slow but still working. Bluish lights flickered in it, faint but still working from some long-term power source.

At the top, there were a number of devices that turned out to be zoom lenses. A central control area with a huge screen above must have been a video linkup of some sort- but age had destroyed that system.

The lenses were manually operated. The one Ross chose had dust and some tiny fungi growing tenaciously in it, but it worked well enough. He could see more clearly down into the dark street than he could with his naked eye. The principle was not infrared-he couldn't figure it out. Everything looked shadowless and curiously flat, but discernible.

"Hey!" Eveleen's voice was sharp. "They're right below us!"

"The s.p.a.ceport," Zina said. "Of course. They would check there first-"

"What do we do? We haven't any weapons," Vera asked, looking from one to another.

Ross saw his wife in her fighting stance, her face tense but calm. Misha had not moved.

He suddenly looked up. "Watch now." He pointed downward.

Ross pressed his eye to his viewer, in time to see not two Baldies, but a team of ten of them, walking in single file up the empty street, firing at anything that moved. They also shot away any plants in their way, blazing a trail that anyone could follow.

And had.

As Ross watched, the lead Baldy tipped his head back and stared right up at the tower-seemingly at him.

"You think this was their their tower, long ago?" Eveleen murmured. tower, long ago?" Eveleen murmured.

No one answered-everyone was watching.

From behind came a group of six tall, four-armed figures, all of them in flaxen robes.

"Yilayil," Saba murmured, easily heard in the silent room.

The lead Baldy swung about, lifting his weapon, but before he could fire, the Yilayil all raised long tubes to their mouths. Ross could see their furred cheeks puff as a cloud of particles that glowed with odd colors streamed out of the tubes; he didn't know if the colors were real, or some effect of the lenses.

The Baldies got off two shots, and two Yilayil collapsed to the street. Then the Baldies stopped firing. Looking around wildly, they slapped at their faces and bodies, tried to run, but moved as though wading through glue. The ground seemed to be sticking to their feet. Involuntary wormlike motions lifted their arms into the air, splayed their fingers, and tipped their heads back. Within a minute, they stood frozen, and horror suffused Ross as he saw thin green tendrils curl out of their ears, mouths, and noses.

He hastily looked away, swallowing rapidly. Whatever had happened, it was no more pleasant a death than the blasters had been.

Zina's voice was flat. "That's enough. Let us retreat."

"Just as well," Ross said tightly, "we don't have to go out there."

Eveleen gave a quick, wincing nod.

They withdrew in ordered haste, glad of the tight air system-for whatever that spore had been that the Yilayil had used might still be permeating the air.

No one spoke on the return-either on the transport ride or during the night hike to the time-transportation apparatus.

Misha and Viktor checked ahead-but they found the transport hut deserted. The rest of the group emerged from the jungle, Gordon still helping Saba, and Zina once again pressed the controls.

And again nothing happened.

Ross felt Eveleen's hand slide into his. It was obvious what had occurred. The Baldies had either changed the codes or else had jammed the apparatus. Either way, unless the team up the timeline figured out what was going on, they were stuck here forever.

"We a.s.sume that a signal brought them," Saba said at last. "Why do you think they came?"

"To rescue that scoutcraft," Gordon said in a tired voice. "Remember, the globe ship belonged to the Baldies originally."

"Then..." Eveleen said slowly. "Then we are the bad guys here, not the Baldies?"

Silence met this, but Ross sensed everyone's attention turning her way.

They all sat in the dark, forming a semicircle around the transport doors. No one lit a flash-too dangerous a lure.

"Think about it," Eveleen said. "I mean, I'm scared of them, and I know the horrible things they did. But we came here on their ship, and we know that the crews on these globe ships all died. How would we feel to get a signal from one of our craft, and follow it up to find a lot of aliens on it-and our crew gone, presumed dead?"

"They brought the war to us," Ross said.

"We don't know if it was a war. Oh, they seem to be shoot-happy, but then so have we been in the past, and we've always seen ourselves as the good guys."

"So we're the villains?" Misha's voice came out of the darkness, cool and amused.

"To them we are," Eveleen said, her voice steady. "We don't know anything about the Baldies' motivations. Boris- everyone-thought that the globe was a scoutcraft. That argues that at least some of their missions were not war-related. Their encounters with us have involved their deaths as well as our own."

"So their action on Dominium-the old timeline-was self-defense?" Ross asked.

"No," Gordon said. "That was warfare, all right. But we don't know when those Baldies appeared from. Their cultures might vary as much as ours have. All we really know about these people is that they are hairless humanoids, that they have interstellar travel, that some of their foods can be ingested by us, and that they have time-travel capabilities. We don't know what their grand strategy is, we don't know their motivations, emotions, loyalties, or what they consider threats. Nothing."

Just then a hum filled the air, lights flickered on the transport-and the doors slid open.

In the dim light, Valentin stepped out. "Ah! Did we manage well?" he asked.

Voices talked, laughed, whooped, a spontaneous expression of relief-and release. Neither Gordon nor Zina said anything about maintaining silence as they helped Saba in first.

Ross squashed his primitive but urgent instinct to shove his way forward and make sure he was next. Instead, he waited, and Irina and Vera were sent next; after that he and Eveleen stepped inside.

As soon as the doors closed, Eveleen sighed and leaned against Ross. "I just want to go home," she said.