“Stall him,” Barthold said, dragging Bairthre out the back door and into the Flipper. The doorbell was jangling insistently as Barthold slammed the Flipper’s door and turned to the controls.
Then he realized that the Inter-Temporal engineers had not returned his time clock.
He was lost, lost. Without the time clock, he couldn’t take the Flipper anywhere. For an instant, he was in a complete state of panic. Then he regained control of himself and tried to think the problem through.
His controls were still set for Present, 1912, 1869, 1676, 1595, and 662. Therefore, even without the time clock, he could activate any of those dates manually. Flying without a time clock was a federal offense, but to hell with that.
Quickly he stabbed 1912 and worked the controls. Outside, he heard his wife shrieking. Heavy footsteps were pounding through his house.
“Stop! Stop, you!” the man was shouting.
And then Barthold was surrounded by a filmy, never-ending grayness as the Flipper speeded down the years.
Barthold parked the Flipper on the Bowery. He and Bairthre went into a saloon, ordered a nickel beer apiece, and worked on the free lunch.
“Damned nosy investigator,” Barthold muttered. “Well, we’ve shaken him now. I’ll have to pay a stiff fine for joyriding a Flipper with no time clock. But I’ll be able to afford it.”
“It’s all moving too fast for me,” said Bairthre, downing a great gulp of beer. Then he shook his head and shrugged. “I was just going to ask you how going into the past would help us collect our checks in the morning in your Present. But I realize I know the answer.”
“Of course. It’s the elapsed time that counts. If we can stay hidden in the past for twelve hours or so, we’ll arrive in my time twelve hours later than we left. Prevents all sorts of accidents such as arriving just as you depart, or even before. Routine traffic precautions.”
Bairthre munched a salami sandwich. “The hypno-learning is a little sketchy about the time trip. Where are we?”
“New York, 1912. A very interesting era.”
“I just want to go home. What are those big men in blue?”
“They’re policemen,” Barthold said. “They seem to be looking for someone.”
Two mustached policemen had entered the saloon, followed by an enormously fat man in ink-stained clothes.
“There they are!” shouted Bully Jack Barthold. “Arrest them twins, officers!”
“What is all this?” inquired Everett Barthold.
“That your jalopy outside?” one of the policemen asked.
“Yes, sir, but—”
“That clinches it, then. Man’s got a warrant out for you two. Said you’d have a shiny new jalopy. Offering a nice reward, too.”
“The guy came straight to me,” said Bully Jack. “I told him I’d be real happy to help—though I’d rather take a poke at him, the lousy, insinuating, dirty—”
“Officers,” Barthold pleaded, “we haven’t done anything!”
“Then you got nothing to fear. Come along quiet now.”
Barthold plunged suddenly past the policemen, shoved Bully Jack in the face, and was in the street. Bairthre, who had been considering the same thing, stomped hard on one policeman’s foot, jabbed another in the stomach, rammed Bully Jack out of his way and followed on Barthold’s heels.
They leaped into the Flipper and Barthold jabbed for 1869.
They concealed the Flipper as well as they could, in a back street livery stable, and walked to a little park nearby. They opened their shirts to the warm Memphis sunlight and lay back on the grass.
“That investigator must have a supercharged time job,” Barthold said. “That’s why he’s reaching our stops before us.”
“How does he know where we’re going?” Bairthre asked.
“Our stops are a matter of company record. He knows we haven’t got a time clock, so these are the only places we can reach.”
“Then we aren’t safe here,” said Bairthre. “He’s probably looking for us.”
“Probably he is,” Barthold said wearily. “But he hasn’t caught us yet. Just a few more hours and we’re safe! It’ll be morning in the Present, and the check will have gone through.”
“Is that a fact, gentlemen?” a suave voice inquired.
Barthold looked up and saw Ben Bartholder standing before him, a small derringer balanced in his good left hand.
“So he offered you the reward, too!” Barthold said.
“He did, indeed. And a most tempting offer, let me say. But I’m not interested in it.”
“You’re not?” Bairthre said.
“No. I’m interested in only one thing. I want to know which of you walked out on me last night in the saloon.”
Barthold and Bairthre stared at each other, then back at Ben Bartholder.
“I want that one,” Bartholder said. “Nobody insults Ben Bartholder. Even with one hand, I’m as good a man as any! I want that man. The other can go.”
Barthold and Bairthre stood up. Bartholder stepped back in order to cover them both.
“Which is it, gents? I don’t possess a whole lot of patience.”
He stood before them, weaving slightly, looking as mean and efficient as a rattlesnake. Barthold decided that the derringer was too far away for a rush. It probably had a hair-trigger, anyhow.
“Speak up!” Bartholder said sharply. “Which of you is it?”
Thinking desperately, Barthold wondered why Ben Bartholder hadn’t fired yet, why he hadn’t simply killed them both.
Then he figured it out and immediately knew his only course of action.
“Everett,” he said.
“Yes, Everett?” said Bairthre.
“We’re going to turn around together now and walk back to the Flipper.”
“But the gun—”
“He won’t shoot. Are you with me?”
“With you,” Bairthre said through clenched teeth.
They turned like soldiers in a march, and began to pace slowly back toward the livery stable.
“Stop!” Ben Bartholder cried. “Stop or I’ll shoot you both!”
“No, you won’t!” Barthold shouted back. They were in the street now, approaching the livery stable.
“No? You think I don’t dare?”
“It isn’t that,” Barthold said, walking toward the Flipper. “You’re just not the type to shoot down a perfectly innocent man. And one of us is innocent!”
Slowly, carefully, Bairthre opened the Flipper’s door.
“I don’t care!” Bartholder yelled. “Which one? Speak up, you miserable coward! Which one? I’ll give you a fair fight. Speak up or I’ll shoot you both here and now!”
“And what would the boys say?” Barthold scoffed. “They’d say that the one-handed man lost his nerve and killed two unarmed strangers!”
Ben Bartholder’s iron gun hand sagged.
“Quick, get in,” Barthold whispered.
They scrambled in and slammed the door. Bartholder put the derringer away.
“All right, mister,” Ben Bartholder said. “You been here twice, and I think you’ll be here a third time. I’ll wait around. The next time I’ll get you.”
He turned and walked away.
They had to get out of Memphis. But where could they go? Barthold wouldn’t consider Konigsberg, 1676, and the Black Death. London, 1595, was filled with Tom Barthal’s criminal friends, any of whom would cheerfully cut Barthold’s throat for treachery.
“We’ll go all the way back,” Bairthre said. “To Maiden’s Castle.”
“And if he comes there?”
“He won’t. It’s against the law to go past the thousand-year limit. And would an insurance man break the law?”
“He might not,” Barthold said thoughtfully. “He just might not. It’s worth a try.”
And again he activated the Flipper.
They slept in an open field that night, a mile from the fortress of Maiden’s Castle. They stayed beside the Flipper and took turns at sentry duty. And finally the sun rose, warm and yellow, above the green fields.