“Possibly,” Clem agreed. “If so, they’ve got a mighty fine weapon!”
They finished the rest of the journey on foot, each busily thinking, and by the time they had reached Buck Cardew’s home in the city’s heart, the lights had come on again and power was working normally.
Mrs. Cardew, slim, practical, and dark-headed, was clearly discomfited by the power failure.
“Is something the matter, Eva?” Buck asked in surprise. “Outside of the blackout, I mean.”
“Yes, Buck, I—” She stopped, looking past Clem towards Lucy.
“Friend of mine,” Clem smiled. “Lucy Denby. We found her in rather peculiar circumstances— Well, we’ll need you to help us.”
“I know you can,” Buck added reassuringly. “This girl has got to have protection and she can’t get it anywhere better than right here.”
“Willingly,” Eva assented. “But who is she? I mean what Grade?”
“No Grade at all. She’s come direct from 2009 A.D. She’s an Ancient Briton. Remember reading about them in the History Recorders?”
Eva Cardew stared blankly; and she stared even more as the story was unfolded to her. Finally she looked at Lucy for confirmation.
“Yes, it’s true,” Lucy sighed. “I’ll try not to seem too dense in face of the scientific wonders you must have in this Age of yours, and I do thank all of you for the way in which you’ve helped me—”
“Buck,” Eva interrupted, “we can’t get away with this! I didn’t know this girl was not registered. It’s a risk we can’t afford to take! Don’t you realize that if we’re caught sheltering her, and she has no index-card to produce, we can be lethalized?”
“Course I know,” Buck growled. “What about it? You don’t suggest we turn the poor girl loose, do you? Anyway, that’s all sorted out. I’m canceling Worker Ten, and Ancient here can take her place.”
“That,” Eva said, “will be more difficult than you think. Worker Ten was killed tonight on an in-town transport. It went over the bridge on which you had such a narrow escape.”
Clem started and Buck’s eyes widened.
“Was it Transport KT-eight-nine-seven?” Clem questioned sharply.
“It was. They gave it out on the local newsflash not ten minutes before you arrived. That was why I was looking so bothered when you came — trying to decide about my household duties.”
“This,” Buck groaned, “is the finish! The authorities know that Worker Ten is dead, along with hundreds of other people, and we told that officer that Ancient here is Worker Ten.”
“Yes,” Clem muttered, “we did.”
Silence, Lucy looking from one to the other uneasily.
“So there it is,” Eva said, glancing at her. “You can surely see, Lucy — I suppose I can call you that — that we can’t jeopardize our lives by having you stay with us?”
“And what’s the alternative?” Buck asked. “We can’t turn her loose in a city and time she doesn’t know anything about. It would be worse than murder! And certainly Clem can’t take her to his place since he’s known to live alone.”
“Suppose we got married?” Lucy asked surprisingly.
“Huh?” Clem stared at her, uncomprehending.
“I mean it,” she said. “I’d trust you anywhere, Clem — or you, Buck. You’re both grand fellows. Don’t you see?” she went on eagerly. “If we got married, Clem — in name only of course, since I’d be doing it solely to protect myself — we could live together in safety and decency, and then Buck and Eva wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“Now I know you’re an Ancient Briton,” Buck smiled. “Do you mean that in your time marriages were entered into as lightly as that?”
“Sometimes, yes. Just get a special license, a Justice of the Peace and the thing’s as good as done.”
“Not anymore,” Clem said, with a serious shake of his head. “If we tried to get married, Lucy — and don’t think I don’t appreciate the compliment — we’d be worse in the soup than we are now. First your index-card would be needed; then you would have to go before the Eugenics Council for a medical examination. Then I would have to do likewise. After a gap of about six months the Council would decide if we were fitted to marry each other. If so, special forms would be granted, fully indexed mind you, and then a rubber stamp would proclaim us mated. Not married: that word is defunct. Marriage today is a biological partnership of ideally suited male and female parties. So say the great ones.”
“Then one doesn’t marry for love anymore?” Lucy asked in amazement.
“Sometimes it works out that love and eugenics match. In the great majority of cases you only get biological matches. Good idea in some ways. It has stamped out disease, the unfit, and the over or under-prolific. No, Lucy, that wouldn’t do.”
“She stays here!” Buck declared flatly. “That was the idea in the first place, and it still holds good. Tomorrow, if we haven’t thought of anything bright, we’ll smuggle her to the underground site until we do think of something bright. Nobody from the law will get down there without your express permission, Clem.”
“Looks like the only solution,” Clem admitted. “Think you can fall in with our views, Eva, and take a gamble?”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” Lucy exclaimed. “It isn’t fair that you should be asked to take such a chance. I’m all for giving myself up to the authorities and explaining the facts.”
“They’d listen, no doubt of that,” Clem said. “If they didn’t I think I could get the Master to give us a hearing — and his word is law. But unless I could prove what we were saying I’d get nowhere. And there isn’t a shred of evidence!”
“Not even in these ancient clothes I’m wearing?” Lucy pulled aside the overalls. “Ancient to you, that is.”
“Not even those. You could have obtained them from the history museum — or, if none have been reported missing from there, you could have manufactured them on a synthetic clothing machine. Most women have them these days.”
“Then — then what about these biological experts you have?” Lucy hurried on. “Surely, if I submitted to an examination, they could find things different in my make-up to those of a woman normal to this time? In a thousand years there must have been some sort of evolution.”
“Not in a thousand years,” Clem replied seriously. “It takes tens of thousands to alter a physical characteristic so far as to make it noticeable. You think back to your own time, and then to people existing a thousand years before you. How much change is there to be detected?”
Lucy sighed. “None. To the eye, anyway. Even two thousand years doesn’t seem to make much difference. I never thought we could be so stumped for proof. The force-bubble gone, the cavern blown up, and all traces of Bryce’s handiwork rusted into dust.”
“That brings us back to my own idea,” Buck insisted. “No other way, Ancient. You can see that too, Eva, surely?”
Eva seemed to have made up her mind — or else her overbearingly generous husband had made it up for her. She turned to Lucy, smiled, and then said quietly:
“All right, Lucy, I’ll risk it—” and to cement the fact she shook hands warmly. Then she began to move into action. “Take off those overalls and make yourself at home. I’ll fix an extra place for you at the table. You’ll certainly be in need of a meal?”
“Starving,” Lucy confirmed, struggling out of the overalls with Clem’s help. When at last she was free he patted her shoulder.
“Everything will be all right,” he assured her, smiling seriously. “I’ll be along tomorrow with some plan worked out. Meantime I can rely on Buck to keep you hidden if anything unpleasant arises.”