“Howie, did you bring any of those Briskies? They sound as if you eat them. Or are they whiskbrooms? About this time of night — or is it day — I yonk on a steak sandwich.”
They both turned as a heavy weight crashed into the top of a small tree. The branches writhed and cracked and a powerful young man dressed in working clothes plummeted down, hitting on the slope, rolling almost to their feet.
He sat up, looked straight up in the air, said, “Heavenly Mary Jane! Where’s the building?”
“You lose a building?” Mary Callahan asked sweetly. “I lost a night club and Howie, my pal here, he lost a car and a railroad bridge.”
Joe Gresham stared at her, got slowly to his feet, testing arms and legs. He looked around at the landscape, glared at Howard Loomis, looked up again, recoiled as he saw the silver box with lense floating over his head.
“Whassat?” he gasped.
“Oh, we all wear them here. De riguer, you know,” Mary answered. “I assume that you fell off a building. You want the pitch?”
“Pitch? You mean you can tell me what happened?” Joe asked.
“Oh, it’s very simple,” Mary said. “The fall killed you.”
Joe Gresham sat down. He tilted his head on one side and peered at Howard. “Where’d you get this crazy dame?”
“Her name is Mary Callahan and I’m Howard Loomis and we both got here almost the same way you did. If she’s crazy, so am I. I haven’t said it out loud before but we’re all dead. Mary was shot through the head. I went off a bridge. What floor did you fall from?”
“About the forty-first. And my name is Joe Gresham.”
“Joe, how many people do you know that fell from the forty-first floor and didn’t break even a finger.”
Joe took out a bandanna and wiped his sunburned brow. He said softly, “Al Brunert fell off the top of the tool house and busted his arm and a pint of drinking liquor. You win, pal.”
“And what do I win? Joe, is this any part of earth you ever heard about?”
Joe took another look around. He stood up and said, “They got the wrong colors here. And that sun is too big and I never seen rocks that look like they’re all metal. I don’t want to sound like a dope, folks, but is this heaven?”
Mary said, “A — I haven’t been a very good girl. B — I don’t think you get hungry in heaven. C — This isn’t exactly a heavenly dress I’ve got on.”
“Then it’s hell,” Joe said firmly.
“Don’t be so dogmatic,” Mary said briskly. “Maybe they’ve got three deals.”
As she spoke Joe took hold of her arm so hard that she gasped. He spun her around and pointed with a big calloused hand. And he whistled softly. “Heaven it might be,” he said.
The girl was on the grass twenty feet away, gasping and choking. She was a slightly sallow blonde with a honey tan — all over. Her hair was soaked.
“She represents the ultimate in my profession,” Mary said.
The girl sat up, hugged herself and glared at them out of streaming eyes. “Well — do something!” she rasped between coughs.
Howard ran and got his discarded topcoat. Keeping his eyes carefully averted, he held it for the blonde. Mary watched her as she slipped into the coat, buttoned it around her. Mary said, appreciatively, “Sister, you ever want to change your line of work, I can give you the address of my agent.”
The blonde stamped her foot on the grass. As it was a bare foot and as she managed to stamp it on a pebble, the gesture was ineffectual. She yelped with pain and hopped on one foot, holding the other.
The three stood and watched her. Stacey Murdock said, “Get in touch with my father immediately. He’s T. Winton Murdock. I’m Stacey Murdock. The Stacey Murdock. He’ll be worried about me.”
They still stared.
She raised her foot to stamp it again, thought better of it. “Didn’t you cretins hear me? I insist that you get in touch with my father. He’ll be worried. He’ll pay you thugs whatever you ask.”
Mary nodded, said in an aside to Howard, “You ask me, I think she drowned. Swimming raw too.”
“This is no time for silly jokes,” Stacey said. “I passed out and you pulled me out of the water and brought me here. Daddy has the note you wrote him.”
Howard said tiredly, “I gather that you think we’ve kidnapped you. Look around, Miss Murdock. Take a good look.”
Stacey took a long look and swallowed hard. “This is — a funny place,” she said weakly.
“Ha, ha!” said Mary Callahan. “Funny.”
“I detest oversized women,” Stacey said briskly. She smiled at Joe. “Now you look like a good earthy type. Tell me where I can fined a phone.”
Joe pointed at his tree. “Lady, I just fell outa the topa that tree. I don’t know my way around.”
Stacey gave him a dazzling smile. “Now I get it,” she said. “They rescued me and I’m still delirious from the shock. You are all figments of my shocked imagination.”
Mary grinned tightly. “Figments, eh. Then we can’t hurt you a bit?”
“Of course not,” Stacey said.
Mary straightarmed Stacey in the forehead with the heel of her hand. Stacey sat down. “Just a love pat from an oversized woman, dearie.”
Howard and Joe had to combine forces to pry them apart.
When they had calmed Stacey down they pointed out the floating boxes. She made a tiny bubbling sound. Howard caught her as she fell. He carried her over to the shade of a tree. She was wonderfully light in his arms.
Mary said bleakly, “I’m still starving.”
“Could eat something myself,” Joe admitted.
Howard shaded his eyes and looked at the sun. “If that sun moves as fast as the one we’re used to, kids, we’ve got two hours to find food, water and a place to sleep.”
Mary took off her shoes and hurled them off into the brush. “Better sore feet than a busted ankle. Wake up your dreamboat and we’ll trudge.”
Ten years after the death of Glish it was O’Dey, expanding the group of basic materials subject to the Baedlik Enigma, who first managed to test the formulae propounded by Glish. His experiments attracted the attention of the original Planet Foundation, which assigned the Third Integrated Research Team to the task.
Forty-one years after the Third Integrated Research Team took over the task, a method was perfected whereby recording apparatus could be sent to any specific segment of the past after the exact position of the planet in question had been computed.
During the period when the histories of the planets were being rewritten the first basic rules of time travel were being determined, largely by trial and error.
The first truth to come to light was that no specific alteration can be made in the past. By alteration is meant any specific action which, by itself, will cause reactions and interactions that, like a pebble dropped in a pool, might cause alterations in the future.
The second truth to be exposed was that, as the future pre-exists in the variabilities of the present, no travel into the future for prognostic purposes can be made.
Chapter III
Harvest of Bones
Mary Callahan sat on the river bank at dawn and smiled beatifically as she held her bruised feet in the cold water.
She half turned, then relaxed as Howard Loomis came up and sat beside her. In four days Howard had changed a great deal. He had grown more nervous and his hands shook uncontrollably.
“We need food,” he snapped, “and rather than sitting here, crooning to your feet, you could be fishing. Stacey found more grubs last night.”