“The problems are not isolated,” the Master muttered to himself. “Therein lies the mystery of it all. Steel supports have collapsed in countless places, and machinery and vital instruments containing steel have rotted and fallen apart. Then there are numerous instances of silk garments that have rotted and developed holes or disappeared altogether. On top of that is corroding leather, dying animals that subsequently disappear leaving only bones, warps in beechwood and devastating increase in the size of some beech trees.…” He drew a hand over his face wearily as he looked at the reports. “All this cannot be the work of spies, surely?”
He sat for a long time, thinking, turning the mystery over in his mind, but scientist though he was even he could not work without a known premise or fact from which to start. So, gradually, his thoughts drifted back to one recollection — that of the guard who had found clothes belonging to a period many centuries earlier, and then had discovered their entire disappearance. And they had belonged to a woman who had not been identified, and Clem Bradley and Buck Cardew possibly knew a good deal about her.
His face grim the Master flicked a switch and spoke. “Find Boring Engineers Bradley and Cardew at the Protection Tower site and order them to come here without delay. If they refuse, use force. And with them bring, if possible, a woman worker whom they are shielding.”
“Yes, Master.”
The information was promptly passed to the appropriate quarter, and it happened to be Guard 67 who was on duty when the order came through. So far he had not reported that he had been hit in the face and that Cardew, Clem and the mystery girl had got away from him: he didn’t wish to take the risk on top of having already failed to produce the clothes after the song he had made about them. But this new order looked like his supreme chance to clean matters up. His eyes narrowed, he gave orders to his men and promptly went into action.
In consequence he and his fellow guards appeared suddenly in the underground workings of the Protection Tower, towards the close of the afternoon. Clem and Buck were not expecting such a thing to happen and were overpowered before they could make an attempt to save themselves.
“What the devil’s the idea?” Clem demanded hotly. “Or don’t you know I’m in charge down here?”
“Not as far as the law is concerned,” the guard answered, with a sour glance. “I’ve been waiting for a chance like this, Mister Bradley, to even up the score — and now I’ve got it! Where is that woman you brought with you?”
“What woman?” Buck asked innocently.
“You know perfectly well! The one who was with you in your autobus this morning.”
“Suppose you try and find out?” Clem suggested. “She is quite innocent of any crime, no matter what the law thinks or does — and she’ll stay safely hidden. Understand?”
“You’re a fool,” Guard 67 said. “She’ll be found! Search the place,” he added to his men.
Clem gave Buck a significant glance. The girl, concealed in a high niche of the wilderness of working, was not likely to even be seen, let alone captured, and the boys on the job would see that she was kept safe and well provisioned since they were completely loyal to their two bosses.
“All right, let’s be on our way,” the guard snapped at last. “We can’t hang about forever. Get a move on, you two! For the time being you can consider yourselves under arrest, by order of the Master.”
He led the way to the official autobus in the tunnel and in a few minutes it was whirling them through the city again. So, at length, Clem and Buck found themselves in the austere presence of the Master.
“You may go,” he told the guards; then his thin hand reached out and pressed a button so that the entire interview might be recorded for later play-back and study.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” he invited, and both men looked surprised.
“I was given to understand by the guard, sir, that we are prisoners,” Clem remarked.
“Guard Sixty-Seven is hardly a man of discernment, Mister Bradley,” the Master answered dryly. “You are not prisoners — yet. I simply wish to ask you a few questions, and you will be good enough not to be evasive with your answers. There are limits to my patience with the number of problems I have on my mind.”
Clem sat down slowly and so did Buck, his big jaw jutting obstinately.
“Now.…” The Master relaxed in his chair, “what is your explanation, gentlemen, for shielding a woman from the authorities because she has no index-card? What is this mystery woman’s connection with mysterious acts of sabotage which began from the time she was first noticed?”
Clem hesitated for a long moment, then he said deliberately, “That woman, Master, is named Lucy Denby. She came from the year 2009.”
“I warned you, Mister Bradley, that my patience is wearing thin. To the point, please!”
“That is the truth, sir. And it is because she has come from 2008 that so many queer things keep happening.”
“I can understand that she is probably at the back of the many mysterious incidents besetting us, but I certainly do not believe that she comes from a time of a thousand years ago. Our best scientists have proven time travel — in a physical form at least — to be impossible.”
“I am aware of it, Master, but you would not deny that a person could, by scientific means, be physically suspended for a thousand years and awaken in perfect health, would you?”
“Well — no.” The Master frowned. “You mean this woman slept for almost a thousand years?”
“She didn’t exactly sleep. Because of entropy being fully created she leapt the time-gap without being aware that she had leapt it.”
The Master made a weary movement. “Mister Bradley, I am a very tired man, and I am in no mood to ponder such outrageous theories at the moment. This much I will tell you — then you may realize the seriousness of your behavior. Our ambassador to the East informs me that Eastern invasion is imminent within a day or two. This hemisphere of ours is faced by an onslaught from the most efficient scientific armada in history, and it is horribly possible that we may be utterly defeated. The West is riddled with spies, of which this woman — who has evidently fooled you into thinking she is a denizen of a thousand years ago — is a particularly blundering example. Only since her appearance has steel developed such grave faults, a vital ingredient of our infrastructure and armaments. Beechwood, and beech trees, leather — those, too, have been queerly affected, obviously by atomic control. I remain convinced this woman can explain the mystery even if she did not actually participate in the sabotage. I would also ask her, could I find her, how she, or her contemporaries, destroyed a valuable cargo of machinery and silkworms from a freight vessel at sea. Silk is also being treated strangely, Mister Bradley, and of course it is a valuable armament ingredient, apart from its use for clothing—”
“That’s it — silkworms!” Clem cried in excitement. “That fits in! I do believe my theory is right!”
The Master frowned. “What theory?”
“I’ve been working one out, sir, and I needed a few more factors to make it fit. And now I think it does! But first may I ask if you will please at least listen to the story of this woman, and how I came to discover her in a sealed globe.”
“Proceed,” the Master invited, and half-closed his eyes in order to concentrate.
“As I see it,” Clem said, when he had outlined the earlier details of the finding of Lucy in the force-globe, “that scientist, Bryce Fairfield, forgot something, and it was this: If you place anything organic or inorganic in a field of non-time you destroy the entropy. Everything in the bubble was stopped dead in its tracks. No entropy went on at all, but each article in the bubble gave off the energy that we recognize as entropy. Therefore the energy was still there, but imprisoned.”