Douglas nodded curtly. "All right. You can take off with your patrol."
The captain glanced at Tim. "Will you be—"
"I'll handle them."
The Captain saluted. "Fine, sir." He quickly disappeared through the door. Outside, he and his men climbed aboard a long thin truck, like a pipe mounted on treads. With a faint hum the truck leaped forward.
In a moment only gray clouds and the dim outline of ruined buildings remained.
Douglas paced back and forth, examining the living room, the wall paper, the light fixtures and chairs. He picked up some magazines and thumbed through them.
"From the past. But not far in the past."
"Seven years."
"Could it be? I suppose. A lot of things have happened in the last few months. Time travel." Douglas grinned ironically. "You picked a bad spot, McLean. You should have gone farther on."
"I didn't pick it. It just happened."
"You must have done something."
Tim shook his head. "No. Nothing. We got up. And we were—here."
Douglas was deep in thought. "Here. Seven years in the future. Moved forward through time. We know nothing about time travel. No work has been done with it. There seem to be no evident military possibilities."
"How did the war begin?" Mary asked faintly.
"Begin? It didn't begin. You remember. There was war seven years ago."
"The real war. This."
"There wasn't any point when it became—this. We fought in Korea. We fought in China. In Germany and Yugoslavia and Iran. It spread, farther and farther. Finally the bombs were falling here. It came like the plague. The war grew. It didn't begin." Abruptly he put his notebook away. "A report on you would be suspect. They might think I had the ash sickness."
"What's that?" Virginia asked.
"Radioactive particles in the air. Carried to the brain. Causes insanity. Everybody has a touch of it, even with the masks."
"I'd sure like to know who's winning," Earl repeated. "What was that outside? That truck. Was it rocket propelled?"
"The snake? No. Turbines. Boring snout. Cuts through the debris."
"Seven years," Mary said. "So much has changed. It doesn't seem possible."
"So much?" Douglas shrugged. "I suppose so. I remember what I was doing seven years ago. I was still in school. Learning. I had an apartment and a car. I went out dancing. I bought a TV set. But these things were there. The twilight. This. Only I didn't know. None of us knew. But they were there."
"You're a Political Commissioner?" Tim asked.
"I supervise the troops. Watch for political deviation. In a total war we have to keep people under constant surveillance. One Commie down in the Webs could wreck the whole business. We can't take chances."
Tim nodded. "Yes. It was there. The twilight. Only we didn't understand it."
Douglas examined the books in the bookcase. "Ill take a couple of these along. I haven't seen fiction in months. Most of it disappeared. Burned back in '77."
"Burned?"
Douglas helped himself. "Shakespeare. Milton. Dryden. I'll take the old stuff. It's safer. None of the Steinbeck and Dos Passos. Even a polic can get in trouble. If you stay here, you better get rid of that." He tapped a volume of Dostoevski, The Brothers Karamazov.
"If we stay! What else can we do?"
"You want to stay?"
"No," Mary said quietly.
Douglas shot her a quick glance. "No, I suppose not. If you stay you'll be separated, of course. Children to the Canadian Relocation Centers. Women are situated down in the undersurface factory-labor camps. Men are automatically a part of Military."
"Like those three who left," Tim said.
"Unless you can qualify for the id block."
"What's that?"
"Industrial designing and Technology. What training have you had? Anything along scientific lines."
"No. Accounting."
Douglas shrugged. "Well, you'll be given a standard test. If your IQ is high enough you could go in the Political Service. We use a lot of men." He paused thoughtfully, his arms loaded with books. "You better go back, McLean. You'll have trouble getting accustomed to this. I'd go back, if I could. But I can't."
"Back?" Mary echoed. "How?"
"The way you came."
"We just came."
Douglas halted at the front door. "Last night was the worst rom attack so far. They hit this whole area."
"Rom?"
"Robot operated missiles. The Soviets are systemically destroying continental America, mile by mile. Roms are cheap. They make them by the million and fire them off. The whole process is automatic. Robot factories turn them out and fire them at us. Last night they came over here—waves of them. This morning the patrol came in and found nothing. Except you, of course."
Tim nodded slowly. "I'm beginning to see."
"The concentrated energy must have tipped some unstable time-fault. Like a rock fault. We're always starting earthquakes. But a time quake... interesting. That's what happened, I think. The release of energy, the destruction of matter, sucked your house into the future. Carried the house seven years ahead. This street, everything here, this very spot, was pulverized. Your house, seven years back, was caught in the undertow. The blast must have lashed back through time."
"Sucked into the future," Tim said. "During the night. While we were asleep."
Douglas watched him carefully. "Tonight," he said, "there will be another rom attack. It should finish off what is left." He looked at his watch. "It is now four in the afternoon. The attack will begin in a few hours. You should be undersurface. Nothing will survive up here. I can take you down with me, if you want. But if you want to take a chance, if you want to stay here—"
"You think it might tip us back?"
"Maybe. I don't know. It's a gamble. It might tip you back to your own time, or it might not. If not—"
"If not we wouldn't have a chance of survival."
Douglas flicked out a pocket map and spread it open on the couch. "A patrol will remain in this area another half hour. If you decide to come undersurface with us, go down this street this way." He traced a line on the map. 'To this open field here. The patrol is a Political unit. They'll take you the rest of the way down. You think you can find the field?"
"I think so," Tim said, looking at the map. His lips twisted. "That open field used to be the grammar school my kids went to. That's where they were going when the troops stopped them. Just a little while ago."
"Seven years ago," Douglas corrected. He snapped the map shut and restored it to his pocket. He pulled his mask down and moved out the front door onto the porch. "Maybe I'll see you again. Maybe not. It's your decision. You'll have to decide one way or the other. In any case— good luck."
He turned and walked briskly away from the house.
"Dad," Earl shouted, "are you going in the Army? Are you going to wear a mask and shoot one of those guns?" His eyes sparkled with excitement. "Are you going to drive a snake?"
Tim McLean squatted down and pulled his son to him. "You want that? You want to stay here? If I'm going to wear a mask and shoot one of those guns we can't go back."
Earl looked doubtful. "Couldn't we go back later?"
Tim shook his head. "Afraid not. We've got to decide now, whether we're going back or not."
"You heard Mr. Douglas," Virginia said disgustedly. "The attack's going to start in a couple of hours."
Tim got to his feet and paced back and forth. "If we stay in the house we'll get blown to bits. Let's face it. There's only a faint chance we'll be tipped back to our own tune. A slim possibility—a long shot. Do we want to stay here with roms falling all around us, knowing any second it may be the end—hearing them come closer, hatting nearer—lying on the floor, waiting, listening—"