Ship of Strangers

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The draped figure of the Saladinian lurched forward two paces and stopped. McErlain moved in between her and the strange black disc and forced her to move away from it.

“Keep her there, sergeant.” Giyani’s voice sounded almost contented. “We may be back in time for breakfast, after all.”

“This is what she was looking for,” Lieutenant Kelvin said. “I’ll bet it’s a kind of lifeline. That’s our own time through there.”

Surgenor shaded his eyes and peered upwards into the disc. The stars within did look exactly like those he had last seen wheeling above the Saladinian desert in the 23rd century AD, although he had to admit that all stars looked pretty much alike. He shivered, then noticed that a gentle breeze was playing on his back. The air currents appeared to be moving in the direction of the enigmatic disc. He began to pick his way through the stand of undamaged vegetation which separated the end of the gouged-out trail from the circle of jet blackness.

“What are you doing, David?” Giyani said alertly.

“Just carrying out a little experiment.” Surgenor got closer to the disc, the lower edge of which was just above his head. He drew deeply on his cigarette and blew the smoke upwards. It travelled vertically for a short distance and was sucked into the blackness. He threw the remainder of the cigarette in after it. The white cylinder gleamed briefly in the sunlight, and did not complete its trajectory on the other side of the disc.

“Pressure differential,” he said, rejoining the group. “The warm air is flowing through into that hole. Into the future, I guess.”

He, Giyani and Kelvin forced their way through the vegetation until they were on the other side of the disc, but from that standpoint in was nonexistent. There was nothing to see, except for McErlain impassively facing the Saladinian with his rifle lying in the crook of his arm. Giyani took a coin from his pocket and threw it in a twinkling arc which took it through the disc’s estimated position. The coin fell to the ground near McErlain.

“It looks tempting,” Giyani said as they moved back round to their starting point, watching the blackness grow from a vertical line through an ellipse to a full circle. “It would be comforting to think that we have only to jump through that hoop to arrive safely back in our own time—but how can we be sure?”

Kelvin clapped a hand to his forehead. “But it’s obvious, sir. Why else would it be there?”

“You’re being emotional, Lieutenant. You’re so anxious to get back to the ship that you’re casting the Saladinians as benevolent opponents who clean you out at poker then give you your money back at the end of the game.”

“Sir?”

“Why should they hit us with a time bomb, and then rescue us? How do we know there isn’t a thousand-metre drop on the other side of that hole?”

“They couldn’t rescue their own female if that was the case.”

“Who says? After we had jumped through and killed ourselves they could re-focus it in some way and let the prisoner stroll through in safety.”

Kelvin’s smooth face was clouded with doubt. “That’s pretty devious, sir. How about if we pushed the prisoner through first?”

“And perhaps have them close the thing up on us? I’m not trying to be devious, Lieutenant. We just can’t afford a wrong assumption in this case.”

Giyani went to the silent woman, pointed at the disc and made an arcing movement with his hand. She stared at him for a moment, hissed faintly and duplicated his gesture. Her gaze returned to McErlain’s face and the sergeant’s eyes locked with hers as if they had entered some kind of rapport. Surgenor began to watch them.

“There you are, sir,” Kelvin said. “We’re supposed to go through.”

“Are you positive, Lieutenant? Can you guarantee me that when a Saladinian repeats a gesture it doesn’t mean ‘negative’ or ‘cancel’?”

Surgenor pulled his gaze away from the sergeant. “We have to make some assumptions, Major. Let’s throw something fairly heavy through the circle and find out if it makes a noise when it comes down on the other side.”

Giyani nodded. Surgenor went to the shallow crater caused by Module Five’s initial contact with the ground and picked up a football-sized rock. He brought it back and, using both hands, lobbed it up into the circle of darkness. Its disappearance was followed by complete silence.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Surgenor said, reneguing on his own experiment. “Perhaps sound doesn’t pass through the opening.”

“Sound is vibration,” Giyani said pedantically. “Starlight is vibration, too, and we can see stars in there.”

“But…’ Surgenor began to lose his temper. “I’m prepared to take my chances, anyway.”

“I’ve got it,” Kelvin put in. “We can get a downwards view.” Without waiting for permission from the major he swarmed up the silver bole of a tree and inched out on a horizontal bough which extended fairly close to the dark circle. When he was as close as he could get he stood up, balancing precariously by holding on to springy upper branches, and shaded his eyes.

“It’s all right, sir,” he shouted. “I can see the desert floor in there!”

“How far down?”

“Less than a metre. It’s at a higher level than the ground here.”

“That’s what caused the impact when we came through,” Surgenor said. “We’re lucky the level had altered so little in a few million years or so.”

Unexpectedly, Giyani smiled. “Good work, Lieutenant. Come down from there and we’ll build some kind of a ramp up to the lower edge.”

“Why bother?” Kelvin’s voice was taut and there was a desperate grin on his face. “I can make it from here.”

“Lieutenant! Come…’ Giyani’s voice faded away as Kelvin made an ungainly leap towards the circle. The lieutenant appeared to slip as he was jumping off, losing valuable height, but he tilted himself forward in the air as though diving into water. As his body was disappearing through the lower half of the circle one of his legs intersected the edge of the blackness, just at the ankle. A brown army boot fell into the vegetation below with an unpleasantly heavy thud. Even before he glimpsed the redness of blood, Surgenor knew that Kelvin’s foot was still in the boot.

“The young fool,” Giyani said disgustedly. “He’s finally managed to finish himself.”

“Never mind that,” Surgenor shouted. “Look at the circle!”

The black disc of night was shrinking.

Surgenor watched in arctic fascination as the circle contracted steadily, like the iris of an eye reacting to strong light, until its diameter was reduced to roughly two metres. Even when the inward movement had ceased he kept staring at the edge, reassuring himself that the portal to the future was not going to vanish completely.

“That’s bad,” Giyani whispered. “That’s very bad, David.”

Surgenor nodded. “It looks as though the power which keeps that hole open partially expends itself when something passes through. And if the shrinkage is proportional to the mass transmitted…What diameter would you say it was before Kelvin went through?”

“About three metres.”

“And it’s about two now—which means the area has been…halved.”

The three men stared at each other as they performed the simple piece of mental arithmetic which made them mortal enemies. And slowly, instinctively, they began to move apart.