“Not the right feel to it.”
Ashe nodded to Ross, who picked up a third stone head, offering it in exchange for the one Travis still held. The new point was, to all examination by eye, a copy of the first. Yet, as he ran a forefinger along the fine serrations of the flaked edge, Travis knew that this was the real thing, and he said so.
“Well, well.” Ross studied his store of points. “Something new had been added,” he informed the empty space before him.
“It’s been done before,” Ashe said. “Give him your gun.”
For a moment it seemed as if Ross might refuse, and he frowned as he drew the weapon. The Apache, putting down the Folsom point with care, took the weapon and examined it closely. Though its general shape was that of a revolver, there were enough differences to make it totally new to Travis. He sighted it at a tree trunk and found that when it was held correctly for firing, the grip was not altogether comfortable, as if the hand for which it had been fashioned was not quite like his own.
There was another difference growing in his mind the longer he held the weapon. He did not like that odd sensation.
Travis laid the gun down beside the flint point, regarding them both with wide and astonished eyes. From them he had gained a common impression of age—a wide expanse of time separating him from the makers of those two very dissimilar weapons. For the Folsom point that feeling was correct. But why did the gun give him that same answer? He had come to rely on that queer unnamed sense of his—its apparent failure now was disconcerting.
“How old is the gun?” asked Ashe.
“It can’t be—” Travis protested against the verdict of his sense. “I won’t believe that it is as old—or older—than the spearhead!”
“Brother”—Ross regarded him with an odd expression— “you can call ’em!” He reholstered the gun. “So now we have a time guesser, chief.”
“Such a gift is not too uncommon,” Ashe commented absently. “I’ve seen it in operation before.”
“But a gun can’t be that old!” Travis still objected. Ross’s left eyebrow raised in a sardonic arc as he gave a half-smile.
“That’s all you know about it, brother,” he observed. “New recruit?” That was addressed to Ashe. The latter was frowning, but at Ross’s inquiry he smiled with a warmth which for a second or two made Travis uncomfortable. It so patently advertised that those two were a long-established team, shutting him outside.
“Don’t rush things, boy.” Ashe stood up and went over to the com unit. “Any news from the front?”
“Cackle-cackle, yacketty-yak,” snorted the operator. “Soon as I tune out one band interference, we hit another. Someday maybe they’ll make these walkie-talkies so they’ll really operate without overloading a guy’s eardrums. No, nothing for us yet.”
Travis wanted to ask questions, a lot of them. But he was also sure that most would receive evasive answers. He tried to fit the gun into the rest of his jigsaw of surmises, hints, and guesses, and found it wouldn’t. But he forgot that when Ashe sat down once more and began to talk archaeologist’s shop. At first Travis only listened, then he realized he was being drawn more and more into answering, into giving opinions and once or twice daring to contradict the other. Apache lore, cliff ruins, Folsom man—Ashe’s conversation ranged widely. It was only after Travis had been led to talking freely with the pent-up eagerness of one who has been denied expression for too long, that he understood the other man must have been testing his knowledge in the field.
“Sounds rugged, the way they lived then,” Ross observed at the conclusion of Travis’ story of the use of their present camp site by Apache holdouts in the old days.
“That, from you, is good,” Grant said, laughing, and then snapped on his earphones once more as the com came to life. With one hand he steadied a pad on his knee and wrote in quick dashes.
Travis studied the shadows on the cliffs. It wasn’t far from sundown now, and he was growing impatient. This was like being in a theater waiting for the curtain to go up—or lying in wait for trouble to come pounding around some bend when you had a rifle in hand.
Ashe took the scribbled page from Grant, checked it against more scribbles in his notebook. Ross was chewing on a long stem of grass, relaxed, outwardly almost sleepy. Yet Travis suspected that if he were to make a wrong move, Ross would come very wide awake in an instant.
“You know this country must have been popping once,” Ross commented lazily. “That looks like a regular apartment house over there—with maybe a hundred, two hundred people living in it. How did they live, anyway? This is a small valley.”
“There’s another valley to the northwest with irrigation ditches still marked,” Travis replied. “And they hunted— turkey, deer, antelope, even buffalo—if they were lucky.”
“Now if a man had some way to look back into history he could learn a lot—”
“You mean by using an infra-red Vis-Tex?” Travis asked with careful casualness, and had the satisfaction of seeing the other’s calm crack. Then he laughed, with an edge on his humor. “We Indians don’t wear blankets or feathers in our hair any more, and some of us read and watch TV, and actually go to school. But the Vis-Tex I saw in action wasn’t too successful.” He decided on a guess. “Planning to test a new model here?”
“In a way—yes.”
Travis had not expected a serious answer like that. And it was Ashe who had made it, plainly to the surprise of Ross. But the possibilities opened up by that assent were startling.
Photographing the past, beginning with a few hours past, by the infra-red waves, had succeded in experimentation as far back as twenty years previously—during the late fifties. The process had been perfected to a point where objects would appear on films exposed a week after the disappearance of those objects from a given point. And Travis had been present on one occasion when an experimental Vis-Tex had been demonstrated by Dr. Morgan. But if they did have a new model which could produce a real reach back into history—1 He drew a deep breath and stared at the cave-enclosed ruins before him. What would it mean to bring the past to visual life againl Then he grinned.
“A lot of history will have to be rewritten in a hurry if you have one that works.”
“Not history as we know it.” Ashe drew out cigarettes and passed them. “Son, you’re a part of this now, whether or no. We can’t afford to let you go, the situation is too critical. So— you’ll be offered a chance to enlist.”
“In what?” countered Travis warily.
“In Project Folsom One.” Ashe lit his cigarette. “Headquarters checked you out all along the line. I’m inclined to think that providence had a hand in your turning up here today. It all fits.”
“Too well?” There was a frown line between Ross’s brows.
“No,” Ashe replied. “He’s just what he said he is. Our man reported from the Double A and from Morgan. He can’t be a plant.”
What kind of a plant? wondered Travis. Apparently he was being drafted, but he wanted to know more about why and for what. He said so with determination and then believed he wasn’t hearing correcdy when Ashe answered.
“We’re here to see the Folsom hunters’ world.”
“That’s a tall order, Doctor Ashe. You’ve a super Vis-Tex if you can take a peek ten thousand years back.”
“More likely farther than that,” Ashe corrected him. “We aren’t sure yet.”
“Why the hush-hush? A look at some roaming primitive tribe should bring out the TV and the newsmen—”
“We’re more interested in other things than primitive tribesmen.”
“Such as where that gun came from,” agreed Ross. He was again rubbing his scarred hand, and there was that in the bleakness of his eyes which Travis recognized from their first meeting on the rim of the canyon. It was the look of a fighter moving in to give battle.