“He went this way,” Pete said, breathing hard alongside Chuck. “See his tracks?”
Chuck nodded, making his way through the foliage, his palm sweating against the gun butt.
Tempomaniac.
The word popped into Chuck’s mind, and he could not dislodge it. Tempomaniacs were dangerous people. They were the borderline schizophrenics of his own time. Instead of leaping all the way into the nontrespassable reaches of insanity, they chose escape in another form. When the demands of society became too great, they left society, seeking refuge and asylum in the uncluttered past. Tempomania was a serious criminal offense. The offender could not plead complete insanity because there were tests that would immediately establish his normality. And the government had to be strict with offenders. The entire balance of the present could be seriously thrown out of whack by these marauders into the past.
A tempomaniac confronted with capture, therefore, was almost like a cornered wild animal. If this man Pete had seen turned out to be a tempo... Chuck shuddered at the thought.
“There he goes!” Pete shouted.
Chuck looked up instantly, and this time he saw the man, too. He was built heavily, with shaggy brown hair and a flowing brown beard. He turned for a moment, and his eyes glared fiercely in his frightened, pale face.
“Stop!” Chuck shouted.
The man turned and fled, scrambling over the rocks like a frightened creature of the woods. His fingers scrabbled wildly, and he pushed himself upward, almost on all fours. The face of the outcropping was dotted with small, tunnel-like caves. The man climbed the sheer, angled rock with practiced skill, darting into one of the deep holes in its face.
“He went into one of the caves,” Pete said. He was holding the rifle tightly in his hands, and his mouth was drawn across his face in a tight line.
“I think he’s a tempo,” Chuck said tersely.
Pete sounded disappointed. “Not a cave man?”
“No. There’s no such thing in Jurassic times, Pete.”
“A tempo, huh? That’s not so good.”
“No. In fact, it’s bad.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’ll have to try to take him.”
“Why?”
Chuck turned to Pete in surprise. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why not leave him here? I’m not anxious to meet my Maker, Chuck.”
“He’s a criminal,” Chuck said firmly. “If we left him here, we’d be helping him.”
Pete seemed to consider this for a moment. “I hadn’t looked at it that way,” he said.
“Are you with me then?”
“I’m with you. What’s our next move?”
“Let’s get closer to the cave.”
Together, almost like reptiles themselves, they crawled on their bellies until they were only several feet away from the mouth of the cave. There they lay flat on the angular rock.
“What now?” Pete whispered.
For answer, Chuck lifted his .45 and fired a shot into the air. The echoes of the shot bounded over the steep rock surface, spread over the land and then died away.
“We know you’re in there,” Chuck called.
There was no answer. Without hesitation he fired another shot, waiting for the echoes to die before he spoke again.
“You’d better come out,” he shouted.
There was another long silence, and then a voice called, “Go away. Go away.” The voice sounded tired and desperate.
“Come out, or we’ll come in shooting,” Chuck answered.
“Go away,” the voice said again.
“You heard me,” Chuck called. “We’ll count to three.”
He waited for an answer and when he got none he shouted, “One!” His voice bounced off the rocks, seemed to fill the countless caves that sat like black pockmarks on the face of the outcropping.
“Two!”
Again the echoes and the long silence after the echoes had dissipated themselves over the rocks and the earth.
He was ready to call again when the voice shouted, “Please! Go away. Please!”
“Three!” he shouted.
He waited again and then said, “All right, we’re coming in.”
He and Pete began crawling closer to the cave, their eyes on the black opening.
“Are we going to shoot?” Pete asked.
Chuck bit his lip. “I don’t know. I didn’t think he’d call my bluff. I guess...”
He saw movement at the cave’s entrance and he shut his mouth at once, bringing up the .45. The man they had chased appeared in the opening, his hands over his head, his eyes blinking at the sunlight.
“Don’t shoot,” he said. “Don’t shoot.”
Chuck watched him as he came further from the cave’s mouth, ready to counteract any trick. And then he saw more movement at the entrance.
“Hold it!” he called.
The man stopped in his tracks.
“Who else is in the cave?” Chuck asked.
“My colleague,” the man said.
“Only one other man?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“Tell him to come out with his hands up.”
The man turned to the cave. “Come out, Pierre,” he said. “With your hands up. They are armed.”
Pete swung his rifle around to cover the first man while Chuck kept his eyes on the entrance. A small man stepped out into the sunlight, the strong rays glancing off the thick eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose. He was bald, with a broad, flat nose and thin lips. In contrast to his glistening pate, his chin and face were covered with a wiry black beard that lent a ferocious look to his otherwise timid features. He walked forward slowly, blinking his eyes. When he saw Chuck, he said, “Why, you’re just a boy!”
There was a faint accent to his voice, and Chuck couldn’t place it until he recalled that the first man had called him Pierre. French. The first man still stood with his hands over his head, and Chuck had a good opportunity to look him over more carefully.
He was broad across the shoulders and chest, a heavily built, squat man, who somehow resembled a shoe salesman, with a thick furry beard. He had brown hair and brown eyes and a slightly curving nose that looped down to a sensitive mouth with a pouting lower lip.
The second man moved up close to him and said, “He is just a boy, John. A boy with a gun.”
“I ain’t a boy, Mister,” Pete said.
The first man looked at Pete and then squared his shoulders. “Now that you have us, what are you going to do with us?”
His voice was cultured, an educated voice with the ring of authority behind it. Chuck stared at the man, trying to analyze the peculiar quirks of character that made men seek escape into the past.
“I don’t know exactly,” Chuck said. “Take you back, I suppose.”
“Take us back where?” the second man wanted to know.
“Why, to the authorities, of course.”
“The what?”
“The authorities,” Chuck repeated, tightening his grip on the .45.
The bigger man started to laugh. “Please,” he said, “don’t overtax our credulity.”
“I don’t understand you,” Chuck said. He was beginning to feel nervous. Something was all wrong.
“Why would a tempomaniac take us to the authorities?” the man asked, a smile on his face.
“What?”
“We know you’re tempos,” the little man with the glasses said. “There is no need to pretend.”
“How do you like that?” Pete said, incredulity stretching his face. “They’re calling us tempos!”
“We’re on a chartered time slip,” Chuck said, his voice firm. “We’re taking you back to...”
The big man dropped his arms and took a step toward Chuck, his face erupting in a beaming smile.