He heard a scream of sheer terror, scaling up. A black shape, bigger than any nightmare, pounded into sight. The mammoths were charging down-valley as Ashe had feared.
“—get out!” Ross pulled Ashe to the right. Now the older man was between them, stumbling dazedly along.
They skirted the wall of rods about the globe and squeezed through to the ball. A mammoth trumpeted behind them. There was little hope now of reaching the personnel transfer in time. Ashe must have realized that. He pulled free of the other two and staggered around the ship, one hand on its surface for guide.
Travis guessed his reason—Ashe wanted to find the ladder which led to the open port, use the ship as a refuge. He heard Ashe call, and slipped behind him to find that the other held the ladder.
Ross gave his officer a boost, then followed after him, while Travis steadied the dangling ladder as best he could. He had started to ascend when he saw Ashe, only a dark blot, claw through the port above. Again he heard a mammoth trumpet and wondered that the beasts had not already smashed into the framework surrounding the ship. Then Travis in turn scrambled through the port, and lay inside gasping and coughing as the irritation carried in the fog bit into his nose and throat.
“Shut it!” Someone shoved Travis roughly away from the door and pushed past him. The outer hatch closed with a clang. Now the fog was only a wisp or two, and utter silence took the place of the bedlam outside.
Travis drew a long breath, one that did not rasp in his throat. The bluish light from the walls of the ship was subdued, but it was bright enough to reveal Ashe. The older man lay half propped against a wall. A bruise was beginning to raise on his forehead, which was no longer covered by any wig. Ross returned from the outer hatch.
“Kind of close quarters here,” he commented. “We might as well spread out some.”
They went out the inner door of the lock. Murdock swung that shut behind them, a move which was to save their lives.
“In here—” Murdock indicated the nearest door. The barriers which had been tightly closed on their first visit to the ship had been opened by the technicians. And the cabin beyond was furnished with a cross between a bunk and a hammock. It was both fastened to the wall and swung on straps from the ceiling. Together they guided Ashe to it and got him down, still dazed. Travis had time for no more than a quick glance about when a voice rang down the well of the stair.
“Hey! Who’s down there? What’s going on?”
They climbed to the control cabin. In front of them stood a wiry young man in technician’s coveralls, who stared at them wide-eyed.
“Who are you?” he demanded, as he backed away raising his fists in defense.
Travis was completely bewildered until he caught sight of a reflection on the shiny control board—a dirty, nearly naked savage. And Ross was his counterpart—the two of them must certainly look like savages to the stranger. Murdock peeled off his ash-encrusted wig, a gesture Travis copied. The technician relaxed.
“You’re time agents.” He made that recognition sound close to an accusation. “What’s going on, anyway?”
“General blowup.” Ross sat down suddenly and heavily in one of the swinging chairs. Travis leaned against the wall. Here in this silent cabin it was difficult to believe in the disaster and confusion outside. “There’s a volcanic eruption in progress,” Murdock continued. “And the mammoths charged—just before we made it in here—”
The technician started for the stairwell. “We’ve got to get to the transfer.”
Travis caught his arm. “No getting out of the ship now. You can’t even see—ash too thick in the air.”
“How close were they to taking this ship through?” Ross wanted to know.
“All ready, as far as I know,” the technician began, and then added quickly, “d’you mean they’ll try to warp her through now—with us inside?”
“It’s a chance, just a chance. If the grid survived the quake and the mammoths.” Ross’s voice thinned. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
“We can see—a little.” The technician stepped to one of the side panels his hand going to a button there.
Ross moved, leaping from his seat in a spring which rivaled a sabertooth’s for quickness. He struck the other, sending him sprawling on the floor. But not before the button was pressed home. A flat screen rose from the board, glowing. Then, over the head of the angry technician who was still on his knees, they beheld swirling ash-filled vapor, as if they were looking through a window into the valley.
“You fool!” Ross stood over the technician, and the menace Travis had seen in him at their first meeting was very much alive. “Don’t touch anything in here!”
“Wise guy, eh?” The technician, his face flushed and hard, was getting up, his fists ready. “I know what I’m doing—”
“Look—out there!” Travis’ cry broke them apart before they tangled.
The fogged picture still held. But there was something else to see there now. Yellow-green lines of light built up, bar by bar, square by square, bright and brutal as lightning. The pattern grew fast, superimposed on the gray of the drifting ash.
“The grid!” The technician broke away from Ross. Grasping the back of one of the swinging seats, he leaned forward eagerly to watch the screen. “They’ve turned the power on. They’re going to try to pull us through!”
The grid continued to glow—to scream with light. They could not watch it now because of its eye-searing brilliance. Then the ship rocked. Another earthquake—or something else? Before Travis could think clearly he was caught up in a fury of sensation for which no name was possible. It was as if his flesh and his mind were at war with each other. He gasped and writhed. The brief discomfort he had felt when he used the personnel transfer was nothing compared to this wrenching. He groped for some stability in a dissolving world.
Now he was on the floor. Above him was the window on the outside. He lifted his head slowly because his body felt as if he had been beaten. But that window display—there was no gray now—no ashes falling as snow. All was blue, bright, metallic blue—a blue he knew and that he wanted above him in safety. He staggered up, one hand stretching toward that promise of blue. But that feeling of instability remained.
“Wait!” The technician’s fingers caught his wrist in a hard, compelling grasp. He dragged Travis away from the screen, tried to push him down in one of the chairs. Ross was beyond, his scarred hand clenched on the edge of a control panel until the seams in the flesh stood out in ugly ridges. Losing that look of cold rage, his expression grew wary.
“What’s going on?” Ross asked harshly.
It was the technician who gave a sharp order. “Get in that seat! Strap down! If it’s what I think, fella—” He shoved Ross back into the nearest chair. The other obeyed tamely as if he had not been at blows with the man only moments earlier.
“We’re through time, aren’t we?” Travis still watched that wonderful, peaceful patch of blue sky.
“Sure—we’re through. Only how long we’re going to stay here . . .” The technician stumbled to the third chair, that in which they had discovered the dead pilot days earlier. He sat down with a suddenness close to collapse.
“What do you mean?” Ross’s eyes narrowed. His dangerous look was coming back.
“Dragging us through by the energy of the grid did something to the engines here. Don’t you feel that vibration, man? I’d say this ship was preparing for a take-off!”
“What?” Travis was half out of his seat. The technician leaned forward and shoved him back into the full embrace of the swinging chair. “Don’t get any bright ideas about a quick scram out of here, boy. Just look!”
Travis followed the other’s pointing finger. The stairwell through which they had climbed to the cabin was now closed.