“Why?” Ross asked.
“Because this ship didn’t make as good a landing as the one you saw the Russians stripping. According to the films we took through the peeper, there was a bad smash when it hit dirt. We may have to let it go altogether and track down Number Two on our list. Only, if we can come up with just one good find on board this one, we can stave off the objections of the Committee and get the appropriation for future exploration.”
“Might do to run one of the Committee through,” Ross remarked.
Ashe grinned. “Want to lose your job, boy? Give ’em a good look around in some of the spots we’ve prospected and they’d turn up their toes—quick.”
Just three days later a bright shaft of sunlight pierced a small side pocket of the canyon to spotlight the three as they worked under the critical eyes of a small, neat man. He regarded them intently through the upper half of his bifocals and made terse suggestions in a dry, precise voice. Stripping, they meticulously rubbed their skins with the cream their instructor had provided. That treatment turned their tanned, or naturally dark, skins into the leathery uniform brownness of men who wore very little clothing in any kind of weather.
Ashe and Ross had been provided with contact lenses so that their eyes were now as dark brown as Travis’. And their closely cropped hair was hidden under wigs of straggling, coarse black locks which fell shoulder-length at the sides and descended like a pony’s mane between their shoulder blades.
Then each took his turn flat on his back while the make-up artist, working from film charts, proceeded to supply his victims with elaborate patterns of simulated tattoos on chests, upper arms, chins, and upper cheekbones. Travis, undergoing the process, studied Ashe, who now represented the finished product. Had he not seen all the steps in that transformation, he would not have guessed that under that savage exterior now existed Dr. Gordon Ashe.
“Glad we’re allowed sandals,” the same savage commented as he tightened the thongs which held about him a loincloth-kilt of crudely dressed hide.
Ross had just thrust his bare feet into a pair of such primitive footwear. “Let’s hope they’ll stay on if we have to scramble, chief,” he said, eyeing them dubiously.
Finished at last, the three stood in line to be checked by the make-up man and Kelgarries. The Major carried some furred skins over his arm, and now he tossed one to each of the disguised men.
“Better hold on to those. It gets cold where you’re going. All right—the ’copter’s waiting.”
Travis slung a hide pouch over his shoulder and gathered up the three spears he had headed with pseudo-Folsom points. All the men were armed with the same weapons and there was a supply bag for each man.
The ’copter took them up and out, swinging away from the Canyon of the Hohokam into a wide sweep of desert land, bringing them down again before a carefully camouflaged installation. Kelgarries gave Ashe his last instructions.
“Take a day—two if you have to. Make a circle about five miles out, if you can. The rest is up to you.”
Ashe nodded. “Can do. We’ll signal in as soon as we can give an ‘all clear.’”
The concealed structure housed a pile of material and an inner compartment of four walls, one floor, no roof. Together the three agents crowded into it. They watched the panel slide shut behind them while radiance streamed around their bodies. Travis felt a tingling through bone and muscle, and then a stab of panic as the breath was squeezed from his lungs by a weird wrenching that twisted his insides. But he kept his feet, held on to his spears. There was a second or two of blackness. Then once again he gulped air, shook himself as he might have done climbing out of a strong river current. Ross’s dot-bordered lips curved in a smile and he signaled “thumbs up” with his scarred hand.
“End of run—here we go . . .”
As far as Travis could see they were still in the box. But when Ashe pushed open the door panel, the stacked boxes which had lain there before had been replaced by an untidy heap of rocks. And clambering over those in the wake of his companions, the Apache did find a very strange world before him.
Gone was the desert with its burden of sun-heated rock. A plain of coarse grass, thigh- or even waist-high, rolled away to some hills. And that grassy plain was cut by the end of a lake which stretched northward beyond the horizon. Travis saw brush and clumps of small trees. Although too distant for him to distinguish their species, he could make out slowly moving lumps which had to be grazing animals.
There was a sun overhead, but an icy wind lashed Travis’ three-quarters-bare body. He pulled the hide robe about his shoulders, and saw that his companions had copied that move. The air was not only chilly, it was dank with a wealth of moisture. And each puff of breeze carried new, rank smells, which his nostrils could not identify. This world was as harsh and grim as his own, but in an entirely different fashion.
Ashe stooped and rolled aside one of the nearby rocks to disclose a small box. From his supply bag he produced three small buttons and gave one to each of the younger men.
“Plant that in your left ear,” he ordered, and did so with his own. Then he pushed a key on the side of the box. A low chirruping sound was instantly audible. “This is our homing signal. It acts as radar to bring you back here.”
“What’s that?”
A plume of wind-whipped smoke bannered to the north. Travis could not believe that the long trail of grayish vapor marked a forest fire, yet it surely signalized a conflagration of some size.
Ashe glanced up casually. “Volcano,” he returned. “This part of the world hasn’t settled down yet. We head northwest, around the lake tip, and we should strike the wreck.” He started off at a steady lope which told Travis that this was not the first time the time agent had played the role of primitive hunter.
The grass brushed against them, leaving drops of cold moisture on their bare legs and thighs. Travis concluded that there must have been rain just before their arrival. And from the look of the massing clouds to the east, a second storm might catch them soon.
As they came away from the hill marking the time transfer, the chirruping in his ear grew fainter, varying in intensity as Ashe twisted and turned about the hooked end of the lake. The wide reach of lush grass continued. This was truly game country although they had not yet passed close enough to any of the grazers to identify them.
About a half mile from the curving shore of the lake rested an object that Nature never made. Half a globe of metallic material had been rammed into the ground. Two jagged rents gaped in its side. The blackened earth around it bore random clumps of new grass. But what impressed Travis chiefly was the object’s size. He deduced that only half of the thing was visible—if its form had originally been a true globe. Yet that half now above the earth was at least six stories tall. The complete vessel must have been a veritable monster, far larger than the largest aircraft of his own time.
“She certainly got it!” observed Ross. “Bad crack up at landing—”
“Or else she had it before landing.” Ashe leaned on a spear to survey the hulk.
“What—?”
“Those holes might have been caused by shell fire. We’ll leave that to the experts to determine. This could be a wreck from a space battle. But look! That storm’s coming fast. I say we’d better circle west ahead of it and find some shelter in the hills. If the first reports are correct, we’ll be caught in a rain worse than we’ve ever known!”