“I’ve seen film of that on television.” Polly pointed towards the clump of trees that had first taken Crane’s eye. “The trees — they’ve gone. They’ve been sucked down. And, look, over there — those rocky crags have just been upthrust.”
“Whatever’s happening out there, then,” Crane said slowly, losing some of his own elemental fear now that Polly had calmed down, “is purely on the natural level. The road, the man-made — or the what-have-you-made — artifact is unaffected. It’s all part of nature.”
Polly laughed, still a trifle too shrilly. “If you can call a sea of solid earth natural, then, yes, you’re right.”
VII
At first they didn’t realize what happened next. Then, when the soft white flakes began to drift silently into the car and disappear into tiny patches of moisture, gleaming in the sun, they had to accept it.
“It’s snowing!” Crane said, and was surprised he could still feel surprise, here in this maniacal other world.
Polly had regained her usual poise and Crane felt a quick stab of admiration for her unalloyed by his habitual sense of inferiority toward her. She put a hand to her hair and shivered as the snow built up with unbelievable speed, so that a carpet of white covered everything outside. “If this is what it was like a million years ago then I’m glad I wasn’t born then.”
“No. We weren’t born then. But we are there — now.”
“If we’re there. We don’t know where we are.”
“Except that we’re in the Map Country.”
“Yes. The Map Country.” Polly’s voice held steadily.
Crane decided he’d better show a little spirit.
“And it cost a cool hundred thousand.”
Polly didn’t laugh. But she said: “Plus the hotel and crossing expenses and the hire of the car.”
“The car!” said Crane. He ducked his head fast and checked. “We’ve less than half a tank left.”
“You’ve only just thought of that?”
“Yes.” He kicked himself mentally very thoroughly. The lack of fuel would have been a trump card to have played in persuading her to turn back to their own normal world.
“Hadn’t we better think about—?” he began uneasily.
“Our pal’s catching up,” said Polly crisply, looking in the rear view mirror.
Crane sighed. “Okay, okay. Just a minute.”
He opened the door and stepped out onto crunchy snow. The road had quietened down now although the ground beyond still rose and fell uneasily. He waited until the tank was at the optimum range and then tossed the grenade very accurately. He ducked.
When he looked up after the blast the tank had fallen on its side off the road and its starboard arms were going up and down with the movement of the ground. A wisp of smoke rose from it. After the noise the silence hung menacingly, broken only by an ominous hissing from the wrecked tank.
Again Crane felt he should exert himself. Polly was so much of a personality, so tough, so dominating, mentally even more than physically, so independent and youthfully modern a character.
He said: “I think I’ll take a closer look at that clanking monster.” He used the old name deliberately. “Hold on.”
He wasn’t surprised when she joined him. Together they walked across the snow-covered road, leaving large and splodgy footprints. It was not at all cold now and the snow gradually ceasing had no power to lay. Their feet rang hard on the old road surface by the time they reached the wreck.
The hissing noise had stopped.
“Something hot against the snow,” surmised Polly.
Crane walked up the road to the tank warily, wishing he had a gun and yet recognizing the weak fallibility of that.
“Yes,” he said, not taking his eyes off the machine.
The body, he could see more clearly now the thing was in repose, arched out into a rugged barrel-shape, with plenty of room inside for power-sources, controls, radio-equipment — and people. The tank sprocket system appeared at first glance to be relatively simple and uncomplicated without an armored skirting to protect the return rollers. The bogey wheels were small and set in three pairs of four, each set sprung on a rocker arm and coil springing. He eyed the mess of tracks snarled around the driving sprocket.
“Reminds me of our old Mark One Infantry tanks, as far as suspension and tracks go. No wonder a grenade could do all this. The track snarled up on the sprocket, probably a link jammed in and held. Nasty mess.”
“You sound sorry for it, Rolley. Were you in Tanks?”
“No, thank goodness. But I received an intensive and highly unpleasant training in dealing with them.” He added out of the pit of his own dissatisfaction with his military career, “Not that those poor devils of terrorists used tanks.”
“Well,” Polly said brightly. “You’ll be able to use your tank-busting technique around here. Quite fortuitous, really. And you’re doing all right so far.”
“Why do you imagine I volunteered for an anti-tank course?” Crane fairly snarled the words at her. “D’you think I’d forgotten the clanking monsters when I joined the Army?”
And, at once, they were both contrite and apologizing to each other.
“Anyway,” he said after the spate of words that neither really understood, “the Infantry Mark One had leaf springing and only two sets of four, rubber and steel bogie wheels. The old bashers did well for themselves, too, I’m told, before Dunkirk.”
“That’s all ancient history, Mac. What about those?”
And Polly pointed one slender finger at the tank’s flail-like arms.
“They do pose a different problem. Have you seen anything like them before?”
Polly shook her head. “No. Can’t say I have.”
Crane mused, worrying at odd memories, trying to bring into focus an elusive picture. Those sinuous tentacular arms were really alien; but the jointed arms, now, they rang a bell somewhere. Beneath his feet the group still trembled slightly, a diminishing shudder that rippled in dying waves out across the land from which the snow melted visibly in swathes of irregular gray and green. The sun began to pull steam from the sodden fields. Somewhere — and most strangely — a bird was singing. Now there seemed to be more trees than before, thick groves and clumps of them stretching out in all directions. A river, too, had appeared, winding slowly close to the road. Glints sparkled from its surface. Fish plopped satisfyingly, rippling the surface.
All the time he stood there Crane was aware of the background thought in his mind: What happens next in this nightmare world?
Polly said: “Only things I can think of are cranes.” And she laughed.
Crane smiled weakly. “Yes. The arms are like derricks. But it’s not that He pushed the elusive memory away and bent closer to the smashed tank. He could see no hole or hatchway by which he might have entered. On the broad back, canted now, protruded three radar bowls and a mat of complex and incomprehensible design and purpose. Whip aerials rose springily from the rear where the dramatic venturi showed blackened and pitted orifices. The metal looked blued and tough and the bright vermilion paint a scabrous unnecessary growth, peeling here and there, scratched, bubbled by the sun, slapped on carelessly — odd.
“We could build something like this if we had to with our present techniques,” Crane said slowly. “But it would all be fakery. There’d be no need for half of all this dramatic appearance.”