He looked at John Howard, saw that his lips were moving, and could not concentrate upon the words. Before the explanations, before the handshaking and the kissing, there was that terrible, urgent question.
Russell looked at John Howard and cut across the flow of words.
“How long? How long is it, John?”
The babel stopped.
“Long enough,” he answered, gently. “Quite long enough… We thought you were dead.”
“How bloody long?”
“Take it easy, Russell… You don’t know?”
“God dammit, I’m asking you!”
“Three and a half years—our time.” John Howard smiled. “Now, how long has it been in your time?”
But Russell was too busy catching Anna as she fainted.
At the same time, John was recovering from his own sense of shock. “Come on, everybody,” he snapped briskly. “Let’s get them inside and give them both a chance to pull round. We’ll all find out what has been happening, soon enough. And let’s move those bloody boxes out of the way. They bring back too many memories.”
Presently, Russell and Anna were leaning back in two of the comfortable chairs in the lounge of the Erewhon Hilton. Anna had only fainted momentarily. The colour was now coming back into her cheeks as she slowly sipped a glass of water.
John had banished everyone from the room except Ireg and Marion Redman who, as time passed, had come to be regarded as the group’s official doctor. He had wanted to banish Ireg also; but Ireg had turned a deaf ear to his plea. Were not Russell and Anna his friends? Had he not been the first to find them? John Howard did not press his argument too strongly with over two hundred pounds of partly educated Stone Age warrior.
Marion said: “Feeling better now? It’s bad enough to be brought here once in a box—but to be brought here twice…” She gazed at the pair of them compassionately.
“I am all right,” said Anna. “It was stupid of me. I am all right now. It was just that—” Words failed her. Russell held her hand tightly.
“There’s no hurry,” said John. “No hurry at all. Would you like me to give a potted version of our side of the story? Then, when you are ready, you can tell us a little of what has happened to you. And we can fill in all the details later.”
Russell took a deep breath. “We’d like that very much.” He smiled. “But just to ensure that the amazement is not too one-sided, I think you ought to know that we are only aware of being away for about a couple of days.”
John gazed at him open-mouthed. Russell suddenly felt much better. “Have a glass of water,” he suggested. “You look as if you need it.”
“Touche,” said John. “Shocks for all. I’ll try to contain myself until you have heard our bit… About ten days after you went sailing bravely off in that little boat, we began to have serious doubts. After about a month, most of us were convinced that you had all had it… Where is Farn, by the way? Is he alive?”
Russell and Anna looked at each other blankly. After a moment Russell said: “We don’t know. I’m betting he has been delivered by express parcel to Keep Marur much in the same way as we were brought here… I hope he’s alive; but in a little while I’ll tell you all that happened—or all that we think happened. It is still your turn.”
“Sorry. Where was I? Yes, by that time we thought you were dead. We mourned you; but life had to go on. We had to do something, we had to make plans—if only to stop us all going neurotic. But one thing our plans did not include was another attempt at passing through the mist barrier. At least, not until we knew more and not until we were better equipped… So we decided to educate and consolidate. Not only ourselves,” he glanced at Ireg, “but any other human beings in the same predicament. We felt we had to find some basis for understanding and accepting each other. It seemed a useful task.”
“It’s much more than that,” said Russell grimly. “It is our only hope of survival and sanity.”
“You recollect that Janice started to rear chickens?” asked John.
Russell smiled. “As if it were yesterday.”
“We didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out to be terribly important. It brought about a social and historical revolution.”
Anna joined in. “Chickens do not cause revolutions,” she observed tartly. “People are needed—special people.”
“In this case, both were needed,” said John. “Within three years our Stone Age friends—” he turned to Ireg—“you don’t mind us calling you Stone Age People?”
“Not at all, John.” Ireg grinned. “We call you the Canned Food People.”
“Well said, Ireg, old friend.” Russell began to laugh.
“Within three years,” went on John, “Ireg and his friends have become highly successful poultry fanners. It has changed their attitudes and their entire economy. They have found a local substitute for corn—it’s one of those high, tough grasses. The seeds taste like sweet corn dipped in vinegar. They have also discovered a kind of wild cabbage and something that looks and tastes like a cross between potato and onion. In short they have switched to an agrarian culture.
“And how did all that come about?”
“Janice—a woman to whom I take off my hat—went to live with them. Ireg and Ora came to visit us fairly frequently, and after a time she went back with them, taking a dozen hens and a cock. Originally it was just to show them how to cope with the hens and get eggs and chickens. She stayed in the River Settlement for a fortnight or so. Then she came back here for a while. But she couldn’t settle. She had found a mission in life. So she went back to the River Settlement and she has been there ever since. She has been teaching farming to the men and domestic science to the women. Now—God save us—she is teaching them to read and write.”
“A B C D E F G,” said Ireg complacently, “H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. Once two is two, two twos are four, three twos are six, four twos are eight, five twos are ten. I have ten fingers and ten toes, and that makes twenty. What do you think of that, Russell?”
“I think,” said Russell gravely, “that you are a great man, Ireg.” He turned to John once more.
“What about our friends at Keep Marur?”
John grinned. “They are tougher nuts to crack than the Stone Age People. The trouble is that they have some sophistication and some learning, but they also have a hell of a lot of rigid orthodoxy. Absu can’t get it into his head that we are not magicians. It does not, thank goodness, stop him from cooperating in important ventures. But he still thinks we do it all by mirrors.”
“What kind of important ventures?”
“Number One project is the building of a glider.”
“A glider?” Anna was nonplussed.
“A—man-carrying glider,” said John. “We thought you were dead. We thought you had frozen in the mist barrier. So, we reasoned, if we can’t pass through the mist, we shall have to pass over it. There are plenty of good thermals in this big prison of ours. Pulpul hide, incidentally, is much stronger and lighter than plywood, when it is cured properly. We demonstrated the principle of heavier-than-air machines to Absu with small models. So now we are working together on the construction of a light two-man glider. It should be ready in a month or two.”
“How will you launch it?”
“Teams of pulpuls. They run pretty fast when required.”
There was a brief silence. Russell’s head was reeling. There were so many more questions he wanted to ask, so much he wanted to say.
“Look here,” said John, eyeing them both. “There is such a lot to tell you that it will take days. We are, as you have already seen, well into the second generation. We’ve had accidents—Robert losing an arm, felling timber, and Mohan trying to blow himself to glory with explosives—but we’ll give you the domestic score when you have rested, and when we have had your own news.”