'Are you all right?'
The reply was unintelligible.
'We're upside down,' he continued, 'and I can't open the panel. When I call three, throw yourself against the right side, and we may be able to roll on half a turn.' He paused, then: 'One—two—three.'
The cylinder lurched a little, hovered, and then settled back.
'Try again.'
The second attempt met with no more success than the first. Roy wiped his brow; it was getting very warm in the cramped quarters.
'Something in the way,' he called. 'Better try swinging her from side to side, and see if we can roll over it.'
They struggled for over a minute, but very little movement was possible. There appeared to be obstructions on both sides, and Roy began to fear that his time-traveller would prove a double coffin.
'Once more,' he yelled.
Still the cylinder refused to surmount the obstacles. Roy lay back, sweating and exhausted, puzzling to find a way out of the situation. Once he thought he heard a movement outside, but decided that it must be the girl stirring.
'Betty!' he shouted again.
As though in answer, there came three deliberate taps on the outer wall.
'Betty, there's somebody outside! Let's try again. One—two —three.'
He threw every ounce of his weight against the side. Hesitantly the cylinder rolled, this time, until the ports came uppermost. For a second it hung poised; then there came a clank against the side, just in time to stop it from settling back.
Chapter Two
THE MAN FROM 10,402
Swiftly Roy reached up and slid back his panel, to admit a welcome gust of fresh air. Sitting up, he thrust out his head and looked back, to see that Betty's panel also was open. Her dishevelled head appeared, but she gazed beyond rather than at him. He spun round, and stared in astonishment at the figure which stood by the battered forepart of the cylinder. His surprise was reciprocated, and for some seconds the two faced one another in silence.
Roy felt a shock at the sight of the man before him. He stood barely four feet in height, and his body, hands and feet were in good proportion to that size. But his totally bald head was of normal dimensions—perhaps a trifle larger—and gave an odd effect of being insecurely balanced on his small frame. His visible clothing consisted of a single silvery garment designed on the lines of a smock, but caught around his waist by a broad leather belt to which a number of dangling objects were hooked.
He approached them as they climbed out of the cylinder. Betty shrank back, an expression of disgust on her face. Roy pulled himself together.
'You speak English?' he inquired.
'English is my language,' the other replied, his accent differing but little from Roy's own. He continued to regard the two with a puzzled air.
'Then we have you to thank for our rescue. I am Roy Saber, and this lady is Miss Betty Mordan.'
'And I,' returned the little man, 'am Del Two-Forty-A.'
In the ensuing pause, Roy became aware of the unexpected aspect of the countryside. A large, red Sun was pouring down from the cloudless sky to show, not the fertile land he had left, but a tumbled scene of sand and rock. Nowhere was it relieved by a single soothing patch of green, and over all hung the deathly silence of desolation. They stood in a steep-sided valley, whose floor was dotted with fallen masses of rock and banked in many parts with drifts of sand. An unhurried river ran twisting past them, disappearing where the curve of the valley cut off their view, a mile away. There was inexpressible dreariness in the barren vista. Roy glanced up at the hillside behind them.
'It's a miracle we weren't smashed in rolling down there,' he murmured.
'It certainly is,' replied Betty's voice, harshly. 'And no credit to you, either. Now suppose you get us back—and quick. I'd like to know what sort of game you think you're playing with me?'
Roy stared at her, and then recovered himself. After all, there was some excuse for her tone.
'Something went wrong,' he began. 'That cop―'
'Oh, yes? Something went wrong, did it? Well, it's your job to see that it darned well goes right again. Say, do you realise that this is abduction?'
Roy spread his hands helplessly, looking ruefully at his ruined time- traveller.
'I can't make that work again. When the cop fired into the machinery, he jammed something. And now that roll down here's smashed the thing right up.'
The dwarf had been peering interestedly into the wreckage of the fore-part, prying among the tangled wiring and examining the remains of shattered vacuum tubes. Still looking perplexed. he turned to Roy again.
'What is your date?' he asked.
Roy suffered another surprise. He had not expected the immediate recognition of his time-traveller for what it was.
'I'm from 1951,' he replied.
'1941,' Betty corrected. 'What's wrong with your memory?'
'No, 1951. I'll explain later.'
'So early? That is remarkable,' said the little man, indicating the cylinder. 'My own date is 10,402.'
'Say, what is all this about?' Betty demanded.
'It means that the cop's shot has landed us in the year 10,402,' Roy informed her.
Betty's regard was scornful and scathing. 'Suppose,' .she suggested, 'you quit the kidding. I'm in no mood for it. What's more, the sooner you get us back home, the better it's going to be for you. Get me?'
Roy stared at her. Her menacing tone of voice shocked him. He felt bewildered, as though the girl he knew had suddenly turned into a stranger. In his surprise, he had forgotten Del, who broke in as he turned:
'You are mistaken. I meant to say only that I started from the year 10,402. What this year is, I do not know—save that it is many millennia later.'
'That's right,' said Betty. 'You must keep the joke up! But I'm not laughing—I can't see that you're both so damned funny as you think you are.'
A plaintive expression passed over Del's face. 'What does she mean?' he inquired.
Roy changed the subject. Turning to the dwarf: 'Why did you come to this year?' he asked.
Del shook his head. 'Something was wrong with my machine, just as something was wrong with yours. It is over there.' He pointed to a large boulder some twenty yards away. The end of a bright metal bar protruded from behind it.
'It is smashed too?'
'Only slightly damaged.'
'Let's go and look at it.'
Before they left the cylinder, Roy groped in the control compartment and produced his revolver. He stuffed a handful of cartridges into each side pocket, and they moved off. Betty followed sulkily.
Del's machine bore no resemblance to his own. The impression it gave was of a cubical cage with six-foot sides, and built of an intricate criss-cross strutting of two metals, one silvery, the other black. A padded bucket-seat was set in the middle, with a small control-board before it. The driving mechanism was evidently contained in three black boxes clamped to the base framework and inter-connected by heavy cables. Roy's heart sank as he saw it. An idea that parts of his own cylinder might be used to render Del's machine workable was roughly quashed. The two contrivances had nothing constructionally in common.
Del mutely pointed to one base corner, where the framework was wrenched and sadly twisted. It was also noticeable that the cover of one of the black boxes was split open. Roy leaned over to examine the damage more closely.
'You see,' Del began, 'unlike your machine, this works by the capillary absorption of light. The rays striking―'
'Look, look!' cried Betty, behind them.
They wheeled to find her pointing up at the sky-line of the opposite hill, where a row of strange objects was progressing in single file. There was nothing to give them scale, and Roy was able to estimate their height only very roughly in the neighbourhood of twenty feet. Each consisted of an egg-shaped main bulk balanced upon two trellised supports, tapering towards the ground. These 'legs' were jointed in the middle and, like the 'body' above, were coloured a bright red. Around the main upper bulk, complexities of levers were folded.