came backâblinking lights on the panel and faint sunlight from a small observation screen.
Boone struggled to his knees, tried to rise to his feet. He bumped his head rather painfully on the ceiling.
âThese vehicles are cramped,â said Enid, speaking easily, unexcited. âYou crawl on your hands and knees.â
âWhere are we?â
âIâm not sure where. I had no chance to pick a location or a time. I simply told it âgo!ââ
âThat was taking a chance, wasnât it?â
âSure it was. But would you rather I had stayed and let that monster wreck the traveler?â
âNo, of course not. I implied no criticism.â
âI am getting a reading,â said Enid, bending low over the panel. âA time reading, that is. I still donât know where we are.â
âAnd the reading?â
âMeasured from where we started, more than 50,000 years into the pastâ54,100 to be exact.â
â50,000 B.C.?â
âThatâs right,â she said. âOpen country. A plain. Hills in the distance. Funny looking hills.â
He crawled forward, crowded in beside her, and looked through the forward vision plate.
Scant grass flowed toward bald, squat hills. In the distance were dots that looked like a grazing game herd.
âAmerica, I think,â he said. âThe western plains. Somewhere in the southwestern United States, more than likely. I canât tell you how I know. I just have a feel for it. Desert in my time, but 50,000 years before that, it would have been good grassland.â
âPeople?â
âNot likely. The best bet is that men first came to the continent 40,000 years before my time. Not sooner. The scientists could be wrong, of course. In any case, Ice Age America. There would be glaciers to the north.â
âSafe enough, then. No bloodthirsty tribesmen. No ravening carnivores.â
âThere are carnivores, but thereâs good feeding for them. They shouldnât bother us. Any idea where the others are?â
She shrugged. âIt was each man for himself.â
âTimothy? He said he wouldnât go.â
âI think he went with the others. Your friend, Corcoran, held back, arguing, seeing what was happening to you. David picked him up and heaved him into the other small traveler. They all took off, not waiting for us.â
âYou waited for me.â
âI couldnât leave you to that monster.â
âYou think itâs the one that destroyed the base at Athens?â
âProbably. There is no way of knowing. You know this place we are in?â
âIf itâs the southwestern United States, Iâve been there. Spent a couple of vacations there. It looks like it to me, unless some other places have that kind of butte. Iâve never seen any that resembled them in any other part of the world.â
âThe food and whatever else Horace threw in the traveler should be somewhere in the back. He put some supplies in each of the travelers, but he was in a hurry and he probably paid less attention to what he included than he should have. I think he threw the rifle that David brought Timothy from New York in this one.â
âYou want to go out now?â
âI think we should. Itâs terribly cramped in here. Get out and stretch our legs, have a look, take a little time to decide what we should do.â
âHave you any idea what we should do?â
âNone. But in this sort of place it should take a while to track us down, if it can be done at all.â
Crawling the length of the traveler, Boone found the rifle, a rucksack, a roll of blankets, and a few other packages bundled up in haphazard fashion. He got them all together while Enid opened the port.
Crouching in the doorway, Boone examined the rifle. One cartridge was in the breech and it had a clip of five. There was, he hoped, more ammunition in the bundles.
âYou stay here for
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