“There is no need for me to tell you the sad tale of my life, Murdock. And you would doubtless find much of it boring. If you wish to continue to live—for a while, at least—you will remain quiet and do as you are told.”
Kurt must be armed, for he would not be so confident unless he had a weapon he could now turn on Ross. On the other hand, if what Ross guessed were true, this was the time to play the hero—when there was only Kurt to handle. Better to be a dead hero than a live captive in the hands of Kurt’s dear friends across the pole.
Without warning, Ross threw his body to the left, striving to pin Kurt against the driver’s side of the cabin. His hands clawed at the fur ruff bordering the other’s hood, trying for a throat hold. Perhaps Kurt’s over-confidence betrayed him and left him open to a surprise attack. He struggled hard to bring up his arm, but both his weight and Ross’s held him tight. Ross caught at his wrist, noticing a gleam of metal.
They threshed about, hampered by the bulkiness of the fur clothing. Ross wondered fleetingly why the other had not made sure of him earlier. As it was he fought with all his might to keep Kurt immobile, to try and knock him out with a lucky blow.
In the end Kurt aided his own defeat. When Ross relaxed somewhat, the other pushed against him, only to have Ross flinch to one side. Kurt could not stop himself, and his head cracked against the wheel of the cat. He went limp.
Ross made the most of the next few moments. He brought his belt from under his parka, twisting it around Kurt’s wrists with no gentleness. Then he wriggled about, changing places with the unconscious man.
He had no idea of where to go, but he was sure he was going to get away—at the cat’s top speed—from that point. And with that in mind and only a limited knowledge of how to manage the machine, Ross started up and turned in a wide circle until he was sure the cat was headed in the opposite direction.
The light which had guided them was still on. Would reversing its process take him back to the base? Lost in the immensity of the frozen wilderness, he made the only choice possible and gunned the cat again.
Once again Ross sat waiting for others to decide his future. He was as outwardly composed as he had been in Judge Rawle’s chambers, but inwardly he was far more apprehensive. Out in the wilderness of the polar night he had had no chance for escape. Heading away from Kurt’s rendezvous, Ross had run straight into the search party from the base. He had seen in action that mechanical hound that Kurt had said they would put on the fugitive’s trail—the thing which would have gone on hunting them until its metal rusted away. Kurt’s boasted immunity to that tracker had not been as good as he had believed, though it had won them a start.
Ross did not know just how much it might count in his favor that he had been on his way back, with Kurt a prisoner in the cat. As his waiting hours wore on he began to think it might mean very little indeed. This time there was no show on the wall of his cell, nothing but time to think—too much of that—and no pleasant things to think about.
But he had learned one valuable lesson on that cold expedition. Kelgarries and the others at the base were the most formidable opponents he had ever met, and all the balance of luck and equipment lay on their side of the scales. Ross was now convinced that there could be no escape from this base. He had been impressed by Kurt’s preparations, knowing that some of them were far beyond anything he himself could have devised. He did not doubt that Kurt had come here fully prepared with every ingenious device the Russians could supply.
At least Kurt’s friends had had a rude welcome when they did arrive at the meeting place. Kelgarries had heard Ross out and then had sent ahead a team. Before Ross’s party had reached the base there had been a blast which split the arctic night wide open. And Kurt, conscious by then, had shown his only sign of emotion when he realized what it meant.
The door to Ross’s cell room clicked, and he swung his feet to the floor, sitting up on his bunk to face his future. This time he made no attempt to put on an act. He was not in the least sorry he had tried to get away. Had Kurt been on the level, it would have been a bright play. That Kurt was not, was just plain bad luck.
Kelgarries and Ashe entered, and at the sight of Ashe the taut feeling in Ross’s middle loosened a bit. The major might come by himself to pass sentence, but he would not bring Ashe along if the sentence was a really harsh one.
“You got off to a bad start here, Murdock.” The major sat down on the edge of the wall shelf which doubled as a table. “You’re going to have a second chance, so consider yourself lucky. We know you aren’t another plant of our enemies, a fact that saves your neck. Do you have anything to add to your story?”
“No, sir.” He was not adding that “sir” to curry any favor; it came naturally when one answered Kelgarries.
“But you have some questions?”
Ross met that with the truth. “A lot of them.”
“Why don’t you ask them?”
Ross smiled thinly, an expression far removed and years older than his bashful boy’s grin when playing shy. “A wise guy doesn’t spill his ignorance. He uses his eyes and ears and keeps his trap shut—”
“And goes off half cocked as a result . . .” the major added. “I don’t think you would have enjoyed the company of Kurt’s paymaster.”
“I didn’t know about him then—not when I left here.”
“Yes, and when you discovered the truth, you took steps. Why?” For the first time there was a trace of feeling in the major’s voice.
“Because I don’t like the set-up on his side of the fence.”
“That single fact has saved your neck this time, Murdock. Step out of line once more, and nothing will help you. But just so we won’t have to worry about that, suppose you ask a few of those questions.”
“How much of what Kurt fed me is the truth?” Ross blurted out. “I mean all the stuff about shooting back in time.”
“All of it.” The major said it so quietly that it carried complete conviction.
“But why—how—?”
“You have us on the spot, Murdock. Because of your little expedition, we have to tell you more now than we tell any of our men before the final briefing. Listen, and forget all of it except what applies to the job at hand.
“Once Greater Russia emerged from the wreckage of the old Soviet Union and started gobbling up its neighbors, joint space ventures were out of the question. But they didn’t start a new space race either. Not that we’ve sent men to the moon ourselves—” the major’s voice tightened “—in more years than I care to count. So why weren’t they interested in taking the high ground?”
Ross stared back blankly. Did “high ground” mean space?
“Any discovery in science comes about by steps. It can be traced through those steps by another scientist. But suppose you were confronted by a result which apparently had been produced without any preliminaries. What would you guess had happened?”
Ross stared at the major. Although he didn’t see what all this had to do with time-jumping, he sensed that Kelgarries was waiting for a serious answer, that somehow Ross would be judged by his reply.
“Either that the steps were kept strictly secret,” he said slowly, “or that the result didn’t rightfully belong to the man who said he discovered it.”
For the first time the major regarded him with approval. “Suppose this discovery was vital to your life—what would you do?”
“Try to find the source!”
“There you have it! Within the past five years our friends across the way have come up with three such discoveries. One we were able to trace, duplicate, and use, with a few refinements of our own. The other two remain rootless; yet they are linked with the first. We are now attempting to solve that problem, and the time grows late. For some reason, though the Russians now have their super, super gadgets, they are not yet ready to use them. Sometimes the things work, and sometimes they fail. Everything points to the fact that the Russians are now experimenting with discoveries which are not actually their own—”