Purnie moved across the top of the rockpile for a last look at his friends. His weight on the end of the first log started the slide. Slowly at first, the giant pencils began cascading down the short distance to the sand. Purnie fell back onto solid ground, horrified at the spectacle before him. The agonizing screams of the animals below filled him with hysteria.
The boulders caught most of them as they stood ankle-deep in the surf. Others were pinned down on the sand.
“I didn’t mean it!” Purnie screamed. “I’m sorry! Can’t you hear?” He hopped back and forth near the edge of the rise, torn with panic and shame. “Get up! Please get up!” He was horrified by the moans reaching his ears from the beach. “You’re getting all wet! Did you hear me? Please get up.” He was choked with rage and sorrow. How could he have done this? He wanted his friends to get up and shake themselves off, tell him it was all right. But it was beyond his power to bring it about.
The lapping tide threatened to cover those in the orange surf.
Purnie worked his way down the hill, imploring them to save themselves. The sounds they made carried a new tone, a desperate foreboding of death.
“Rhodes! Cabot! Can you hear me?”
“I—I can’t move, Captain. My leg, it’s... My God, we’re going to drown!”
“Look around you, Cabot. Can you see anyone moving?”
“The men on the beach are nearly buried, Captain. And the rest of us here in the water—”
“Forbes. Can you see Forbes? Maybe he’s—” His sounds were cut off by a wavelet gently rolling over his head.
Purnie could wait no longer. The tides were all but covering one of the animals, and soon the others would be in the same plight. Disregarding the consequences, he ordered time to stop.
Wading down into the surf, he worked a log off one victim, then he tugged the animal up to the sand. Through blinding tears, Purnie worked slowly and carefully. He knew there was no hurry—at least, not as far as his friends’ safety was concerned. No matter what their condition of life or death was at this moment, it would stay the same way until he started time again. He made his way deeper into the orange liquid, where a raised hand signaled the location of a submerged body. The hand was clutching a large white banner that was tangled among the logs. Purnie worked the animal free and pulled it ashore.
It was the one who had been carrying the shiny object that spit smoke.
Scarcely noticing his own injured leg, he ferried one victim after another until there were no more in the surf. Up on the beach, he started unraveling the logs that pinned down the animals caught there. He removed a log from the lap of one, who then remained in a sitting position, his face contorted into a frozen mask of agony and shock. Another, with the weight removed, rolled over like an iron statue into a new position. Purnie whimpered in black misery as he surveyed the chaotic scene before him.
At last he could do no more; he felt consciousness slipping away from him.
He instinctively knew that if he lost his senses during a period of time-stopping, events would pick up where they had left off... without him. For Purnie, this would be death. If he had to lose consciousness, he knew he must first resume time.
Step by step he plodded up the little hill, pausing every now and then to consider if this were the moment to start time before it was too late. With his energy fast draining away, he reached the top of the knoll, and he turned to look down once more on the group below.
Then he knew how much his mind and body had suffered: when he ordered time to resume, nothing happened.
His heart sank. He wasn’t afraid of death, and he knew that if he died the oceans would roll again. And his friends would move about. But he wanted to see them safe.
He tried to clear his mind for supreme effort. There was no urging time to start. He knew he couldn’t persuade it by bits and pieces, first slowly then full ahead. Time either progressed or it didn’t. He had to take one viewpoint or the other. Then, without knowing exactly when it happened, his mind took command...
His friends came to life. The first one he saw stir lay on his stomach and pounded his fists on the beach. A flood of relief settled over Purnie as sounds came from the animal.
“What’s the matter with me? Somebody tell me! Am I nuts? Miles! Schick! What’s happening?”
“I’m coming, Rhodes! Heaven help us, man—I saw it, too. We’re either crazy or those damn logs are alive!”
“It’s not the logs. How about us? How’d we get out of the water? Miles, we’re both cracking.”
“I’m telling you, man, it’s the logs, or rocks or whatever they are. I was looking right at them. First they’re on top of me, then they’re piled up over there!”
“Damnit, the logs didn’t pick us up out of the ocean, did they? Captain Benson!”
“Are you men all right?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Who saw exactly what happened?”
“I’m afraid we’re not seeing right, Captain. Those logs—”
“I know, I know. Now get hold of yourselves. We’ve got to round up the others and get out of here while time is on our side.”
“But what happened, Captain?”
“Hell, Rhodes, don’t you think I’d like to know? Those logs are so old they’re petrified. The whole bunch of us couldn’t lift one. It would take superhuman energy to move one of those things.”
“I haven’t seen anything superhuman. Those ostriches down there are so busy eating seaweed—”
“All right, let’s bear a hand here with the others. Some of them can’t walk. Where’s Forbes?”
“He’s sitting down there in the water, Captain, crying like a baby. Or laughing. I can’t tell which.”
“We’ll have to get him. Miles, Schick, come along, Forbes! You all right?”
“Ho-ho-ho! Seventeen! Seventeen! Seventeen planets, Benson, and they’ll do anything I say! This one’s got a mind of its own. Did you see that little trick with the rocks? Ho-ho!”
“See if you can find his gun, Schick; he’ll either kill himself or one of us. Tie his hands and take him back to the ship. We’ll be along shortly.”
“Hah-hah-hah! Seventeen! Benson, I’m holding you personally responsible for this. Hee-hee!”
Purnie opened his eyes as consciousness returned. Had his friends gone?
He pulled himself along on his stomach to a position between two rocks, where he could see without being seen. By the light of the twin moons he saw that they were leaving, marching away in groups of two and three, the Weak helping the weaker. As they disappeared around the curving shoreline, the voices of the last two, bringing up the rear far behind the others, fell faintly on his ears over the sound of the surf.
“Is it possible that we’re all crazy, Captain?”
“It’s possible, but we’re not.”
“I wish I could be sure.”
“See Forbes up ahead there? What do you think of him?”
“He’ll never be the same. He really cracked, didn’t he?”
“Right. And if you’d lost your mind, you’d never be aware of Forbes’s condition; you’d be just like he is. He thinks the world is out of step; you think you’re out of step. You’re O.K., Cabot, buck up.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
“Tell me something. What was the most unusual thing you noticed back there?”
“You must be kidding, sir. Why, the way those logs were off of us suddenly—”
“Yes, of course. But I mean beside that.”
“Well, I guess I was kind of busy. You know, scared and mixed up.”
“But didn’t you notice our little pop-eyed friend?”
“Oh, him. I’m afraid not, Captain. I—I guess I was thinking mostly of myself.”
“Hmmm. If I could only be sure I saw him. If only someone else saw him too.”