"Let's be fair about it," I said to Elmer. "It might just have happened that the broken box was filled with that kind of stuff. Some of the other boxes might have been filled with arrowheads or spear points, early woven stuffs, mortars and pestles."
"Dr. Thorndyke thought," said Cynthia, "that the boxes my old ancestor saw contained only a small fraction of what the observer had collected. Probably only a few of the more significant items. Back somewhere in Greece, perhaps in other caverns carved into the rock, there may be a hundred times as much as was in the boxes."
"Whatever it may be it spells out treasure," Elmer said. "Artifacts of any sort, command a price and I suppose they'd be worth even more if they were artifacts from Earth. But Earth or not, there is a booming trade in them. A lot of wealthy men, and they have to be wealthy to pay the prices asked, have collections of them. But aside from that, I understand it's chic to have an artifact or two on the mantelpiece or in a display cabinet."
I nodded, remembering Thorney, pacing up and down the room, striking his clenched fist into an open palm and fulminating. "It's getting so," he'd yell, "that an honest archaeologist hasn't got a chance. Do you know how many looted sites we've found in the last hundred years or so-dug up and looted before we ever got to them? The various archaeological societies and some of the governments have made investigations and there is no evidence of who is doing it or where the artifacts are taken to be hidden out. We've found no trace of them or whoever might be responsible. They are looted and warehoused somewhere and then they trickle back into collectors' hands. It's big business and it must be organized. We've pushed for laws to forbid private ownership of any artifact, but we get nowhere. There are too many men in government, too many men who have special interests, who are themselves collectors. And undoubtedly there are funds available, from someone, to fight such legislation. We are simply getting nowhere. And because of this vandalism we are losing the only chance we have to gain an understanding of the development of galactic cultures."
The baying of the dogs had changed to excited yapping.
"Treed," said Elmer. "Whatever they were running has taken to a tree."
I reached out to the little pile of wood Elmer had brought in, laid new sticks on the fire, used another to push the spreading coals together. Little tongues of blue-tipped flame ran up from the coals to lick against the new wood. Dry bark ignited and threw out sparks. The fresh fuel caught and the fire leaped into new life.
"A fire is a pleasant thing," said Cynthia.
"Could it be," asked Elmer, "that even such as I should be warmed by such a feeble flame? I swear that I feel warmer sitting here beside it."
"Could be," I said. "You've had a lot of time to grow-into a man."
"I am a man," said Elmer. "Legally, that is. And if legally, why not otherwise?"
"How is Bronco getting on?" I asked. "He should be here with us."
"He is sitting out there soaking it all up," said Elmer. "He is weaving a woodland fantasy out of the dark shapes of the trees, the sound of nighttime wind in leaves, the chuckle of the water, the glitter of the stars, and three black shapes huddled at a campfire. A campfire canvas, a nocturne, a poem, perhaps a delicate piece of sculpture-he's putting it all together."
"He works all the time, poor thing," said Cynthia. "It is not work for him," said Elmer. "It is his very life. Bronco is an artist."
Somewhere off in the dark something made a flat cracking sound, and an instant later it was followed by another. The dogs, which had fallen silent, resumed excited barking. "The hunter shot whatever it was that the dogs had treed," said Elmer.
After he had spoken, no one said a word. We sat there imagining-or at least I was imagining-that scene off there in the darkened woods, with the dogs jumping about the tree, excited, the leveled gun and the burst of muzzle flame, the dark shape falling from the tree to be worried by the dogs.
And as I sat there listening and imagining, there was another sound, faint, far off-a rustling and a crackling. A breath of breeze came down the hollow and swept the sound away, but when the breeze died down, the sound was there again, louder now and more insistent.
Elmer had leaped to his feet. The flicker of the fire sent ghostly metallic highlights chasing up and down his body.
"What is it?" Cynthia asked and Elmer did not answer. The sound was closer now. Whatever it might be, it was heading toward us and was coming fast.
"Bronco!" Elmer called. "Over here, quick. By the fire with us."
Bronco came spidering rapidly.
"Miss Cynthia," Elmer said, "get up."
"Get up?"
"Get up on Bronco and hang on tight. If he has to run, stay low so a tree branch won't knock you off."
"What is going on?" asked Bronco. "What is all the racket?"
"I don't know," said Elmer.
"The hell you don't," I said, but he didn't hear me; if he did, he didn't answer.
The noise was much closer now. It was no kind of noise I had ever heard before. It sounded as if something was tearing the very woods apart. There were popping sounds and the shriek of tortured wood. The ground seemed to be vibrating as if something very heavy was striking it repeated hammer blows.
I looked around. Cynthia was up on Bronco and Bronco was dancing away from the fire out into the dark, not running yet, but staying limber and ready to run at a second's notice.
The noise was almost upon us, shrieking and deafening and the very ground was howling. I leaped to one side and crouched to run and would have run, I suppose, except I did not know where to run, and in that instant I saw the great bulk of whatever it was up on the ridge above us, a huge dark mass that blotted out the stars. The trees were shaking wildly and crashing down to earth, overridden and smashed by the black mass that charged along the ridgetop, almost brushing the camp, and then going away, missing us, with the noise rapidly receding down the hollow. On the ridge above, the smashed-down trees still were groaning softly as they settled into rest.
I stood and listened as the noise moved away from us and in a little time it was entirely gone, but I still stood where I was, half-hypnotized by what had happened, not knowing what had happened, wondering what had happened. Elmer, I saw, was standing, as hypnotized as I.
I sat down limply by the fire, and Elmer turned around and walked back to the fire. Cynthia slid off Bronco.
"Elmer," I said.
He shook his massive head. "It can't be," he mumbled, talking to himself rather than to me. "It would not still be there. It could not have lasted…"
"A war machine?" I asked.
He lifted his head and stared across the fire at me. "It's crazy, Fletch," he said.
I picked up wood and fed the fire. I put on a lot of wood. I felt an urgent need of fire. The flames crawled up the wood, catching fast.
Cynthia came over to the fire and sat down beside me. "The war machines," said Elmer, still speaking to himself, "were built to fight. Against men, against cities, against enemy war machines. They'd fight to the very death, until the last effective ounce of energy was gone. They were not meant to last. They were not fashioned to survive. They knew that and we who built them knew it. Their only mission was destruction. We fashioned them for death, we sent them out to death…"
A voice speaking from the past of ten thousand years before, speaking of the old ethics and ambitions, of ancient blood striving, of primordial hate.
"The ones who were in them had no wish to live. They were already dead. They had a right to die and they postponed their dying…"
"Elmer, please," said Cynthia. "The ones who were in them? Who was in them? I had never heard that anyone went in them. They had no crews. They were…"