Special Deliverance

12

Once again they made a circuit of the cube, the three of them staying close together; for now, with the others gone, they felt very much alone. They scanned the walls with care, alert to lines of color or other subtle configurations that might tell them something. Certain lines were no more than shadows that either changed or disappeared with the shifting of the light and they were left with nothing. They found three slabs of stone that had gone unnoticed, set flush against the outer circle of the sand, lying flat and so well covered with sand that they had escaped detection. Only by chance were they now detected. Four feet wide, they extended six feet or so into the circle. With the sand brushed from their surfaces, they were simple slabs of stone, albeit very smooth. They bore no dressing marks; apparently they had been split along natural geologic fracture seams. How deeply they might sink into the ground there was no way to know. The combined efforts of the two humans and the robot could not budge them from their anchorage. They discussed using a shovel to dig along the outer end of one of them in an attempt to find its depth, but decided against it — the circle was guarded by something that struck with power and swiftness, and the danger might outweigh the worth of what they’d find. The three stones were set at roughly equal distances from one another, dividing the circle into thirds.

“It’s not just happenstance that they are set where they are,” said Mary. “They betray an engineering knowledge. Where they are set must have some purpose or significance.”

“Perhaps an aesthetic purpose,” suggested Lansing. “A certain symmetry.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it.”

“A magic,” Jurgens said. “They might respond to certain ritual, certain chants or words.”

“If that’s the case,” said Mary, “we haven’t got a chance.”

Near the road they found the pole that the Parson had dropped once he’d reached safety. Lansing picked it up. “You’re not going to have a try at going in again?” asked Mary. “If I were you, I wouldn’t try it.”

“Nothing as foolish as that,” he said, “but I just now remembered something. When I tried to run in to reach Jurgens, I tripped and fell. I’m sure something caught my toe as I was running. Let’s see if we can find it.” “Maybe you just tripped.”

“It’s possible, but I seem to recall I stubbed my toe on something in the sand.”

The tracks showed in the sand — those that Jurgens had made, covered by those of the Parson and the track that Lansing had made up to the spot on which he’d fallen. Teetering on the edge of the sand circle, Lansing reached out with the pole and probed. After several seconds the pole caught on something. Carefully Lansing lifted the pole to force up whatever the tip of the pole had caught. One corner of a board came out of the sand, and after several more attempts, Lansing managed to free the thing and sweep it toward the edge of the circle. It was a board, no more than two feet square, with a narrow strip of board (a post, perhaps?) fastened to one side of it.

Mary reached out and grasped it, pulled it free of the circle and turned it over. Crude lettering showed on it.

Lansing bent above it. “That looks like Cyrillic,” he said. “Could it be Russian?”

“It is Russian,” said Mary. “That first line with the larger letters is a danger warning. Or I think it is. It spells out a danger warning.”

“How do you know? Can you read Russian?”

“To a certain extent. But this Russian is not exactly the Russian that I know. Some of the characters seem to be wrong. The bigger characters warn of danger; I am sure of that. But the writing underneath it, the smaller characters, I don’t recognize.”

“It had been planted out here, opposite the road,” said Lansing. “Where any visitor might see it. But it must have blown over or been knocked down and the sand drifted over it. It would never have been found if I’d not stumbled over it.”

“I wish I were better at reading it,” she said. “My Russian is fairly limited. Sufficient to spell my way through a technical report, but that is all. Many engineers, like myself, can read some Russian; it’s almost obligatory that we can. The Russians are a very technical people. It’s worth some effort to try to follow what they’re doing. Of course, there is a free exchange of ideas, but—” “A free exchange with Russia?”

“Yes, of course. Why not? The same as is true of all the other technical nations.”

“I suppose,” he said, “that there is no reason.” He upended the sign, and using his belt knife, pounded the stake into the ground.

“It’ll stay there until it blows over or falls again,” he said. “For all the good it’ll do.”

They returned to the camp, proceeding slowly so Jurgens could keep pace with them. The sun was halfway down the western sky; they’d spent a longer time at the cube than they had thought.

The fire had burned down to a bed of gray ash, but a few coals still remained when Lansing brushed the ash away. He fed in small dry twigs until he had a blaze, then patiently built the fire up. Mary stood and watched him, saying nothing, while he worked. She knew as well as he, he thought, that there was no use staying here, that they had done as much as could be done and they might as well head for the city — if, as Mary had said, there really was a city.

By now surely he would be missed back at the college, he told himself; perhaps by now his abandoned car would have been found. How much of a stir would his disappearance cause, he wondered — perhaps no more than a ten-day wonder, a few headlines in the press, and then he’d be forgotten, the case filed away along with all the other unsolved disappearances that popped up every year. He held his hands over the fire for its warmth. The day was warm, not chilly, but still it seemed that he felt a brush of cold.

He and the others, he and the many others who had disappeared — had some of the others who had disappeared come this way? he wondered.

“Back at the cube,” said Mary, “you seemed surprised that there should be research cooperation with the Russians. Why did you question it?”

“In my time,” he told her, “the United States and some of the other nations are at odds with Russia. There was a revolution during the First World War and Russia became a communist state.”

“The First War?”

“Yes, the First World War. The Second World War. The nuclear bomb.”

“Edward, in my world there were no world wars, no — what did you call it? — nuclear bomb?”

He squatted back from the fire on his heels. “So that was the crisis point between your world and mine. You had no First World War and we did. Tell me, how about the British Empire?”

“It still is sound and solid. The sun never sets on it. And you said something else. The United States, I believe. The United States of what?”

“The United States of America.”

“But North America is part of the British Empire and South America a part of Spain — except for Brazil, that is.”

He gaped at her.

“It’s the truth,” she said. “That is the way it is.” “But the American colonies revolted.” “Yes, back in the eighteenth century. The revolt was short-lived.”

“So the crisis point goes back farther than the First World War.”

“I’m a bit confused,” she said, “but apparently it does. You told us about your friend’s speculation about crisis points and alternate worlds. You didn’t believe him when he talked of it. You thought he was fantasizing and maybe he thought so, too. He was just trying to make a point. When you told us back at the inn, I thought what a pretty conceit it was, how imaginative. From what you’ve told me, it must be more than a conceit.”

“You must have lived in a good world. Better than the one I had.”

“It’s solid and serene,” she said. “Almost no wars, only a few little ones. The big power blocs have carved out their territories and finally, by and large, seem content with what they have. There are, of course, cries against imperialism, but no one pays attention.”

“India, of course, is starving.”

She shrugged. “India always starves. There are too many people.”

“And Africa exploited?”

“Edward, are you for me or against me? How do you stand with the British Empire?”

“Why, not too badly. I’ve felt at times that we lost something big and comfortable when it fell apart after World War Two.”

“It fell apart?”

“Utterly apart. Just like that.”

For a moment he caught the stricken look on her face, then the face smoothed over.

“I am sorry,” he said.

She said, “I’ll put together supper. You get in wood for the fire. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

“Ravenous,” he said. “We had an early breakfast and no lunch.”

“I’ll help with the wood,” said Jurgens. “Even stove up as I am, I still can be of help.”

“Sure,” said Lansing. “Come along.”

After supper they built up the fire and sat around it.

“So we are learning slowly where we came from,” Mary said, “but we still have no idea where we’re going. I came from a continuation of the great empires, the logical working out of the empire concept, and you from a world in which the empires have disappeared. Or was it only the British Empire that disappeared?”

“Not only the British. All nations lost at least the major part of their colonial holdings. In a sense there still are empires, although not quite the same. Russia and the United States. They aren’t called empires — they’re called super-powers.”

“Sandra’s world is harder to figure out,” she said. “It sounds much like a fairyland. Like a combination of the ancient Grecian ethos, or what sentimentalists would call the Grecian ethos, and recurring Renaissances. What was it she said — the Third Renaissance? Anyhow, it sounds like an unreal world. A beautifully fuzzy world.”

“We don’t know about the Parson and the Brigadier,” said Lansing, “except for what the Brigadier said about playing war games.”

“I think he was given the impression,” Mary said, “that we disapproved of his world. He tried to make it sound like knightly medieval tournaments, but I think it might be more than that.”

“The Parson is the close-mouthed one,” said Lansing. “That business about the Glory in the turnip patch, but that is all he told us. He kept silent after that.”

“His world sounds like a dismal one,” she said. “Dismal and holy. The two so often go together. But we’re forgetting Jurgens.”

“You’ll excuse me, please,” said Jurgens.

“Oh, it’s all right with me,” said Mary. “We were just gossiping.”

“What beats the hell out of me,” said Lansing, “is trying to figure out what we have in common. The one reason I can think of that we should have been pitchforked here is that all six of us are the same kind of people. But it’s apparent, when you think of it, that there are few similarities among us.”

“A college professor,” she said, “a military man, a parson, a poetess and — how would you describe yourself, Jurgens?”

“I’m a robot. That is all. I’m not even human.” “Cut that out,” said Lansing sharply. “Whatever sent us here made no distinction between a robot and the human. Which makes you one of us.“ ”Later it may come clear,“ said Mary, ”this common denominator that you mention. Right now I can’t seem to find it.”

“We’re not the only ones,” said Lansing. “There have been others here before us and there may be others after us. It all spells out to a program or a project. I wish someone would tell us what kind of program or project. I’d feel more comfortable about it.”

“So would I,” said Mary.

Jurgens struggled to his feet and, balancing on his crutch, threw more wood upon the fire.

“Did you hear that?” asked Mary.

“I heard nothing,” Lansing said.

“There’s something out there in the dark. I heard it snuffling.”

All of them listened. There was nothing. The dark was silent.

Then Lansing heard it — a sniffling. He held up his hand in a warning for the others to stay silent.

The sniffling stopped, then started again, a short distance from where it had been before. As if some animal had its nose against the ground, sniffing at a spoor. It stopped, then took up again, in a different place, as if whatever was doing the sniffling was circling the camp-fire.

Jurgens pivoted about, flailing his crutch. Lansing shook his head at him. Jurgens froze.

They listened. For long minutes there was no sniffling and they relaxed.

“You heard it?” Mary asked.

“Yes,” said Jurgens. “It started right behind me.”

“There was something out there, then?”

“It’s gone now,” said Lansing. “Jurgens scared it off.”

“Sandra heard it last night,” said Mary. “It’s been here all the time.”

“It’s not unusual,” said Lansing. “It’s something we should expect. Wild animals are always attracted to a fire.”