gestures to do the same among each other.
‘Fellowship,’ he declaimed, because any human sound was good in this wasteland. ‘We’re caught in some unbelievableaccident, we want home again, okay, we stick together. Right?’
He looked at the cylinder. A minute passed while he mustered courage. The wind blew, his heart knocked. ‘That thing brought
us,’ he said, and started toward it.
They hesitated. He waved them to come along. Erissa soared in his direction. He made her follow behind. Oleg muttered what
was probably a curse and joined her. He seemed about ready to collapse in a pool of sweat. Uldin advanced too, but further
back. Reid guessed the Hun was a pro, more interested in being able to cover a wide field with his archery than in heroics.
Not that Oleg was equipped for anything but close-in fighting.
Beneath Reid’s shoes, dirt and gravel scrunched. His topcoat was smothering him. He took it off and, thinking about possible
sunstroke, draped it on his head for a crude burnoose. The hollow-voiced wind tried to blow it away. Behind the cylindroid,
barrenness reached on, and on, and on, till horizon met sky in a vague blur of mirages and dust devils. The cylindroid was
almost as hard to make out, within the shifting mother-of-pearl light-mist that enveloped it.
That’s a machine, though, he compelled himself to understand. And I, the only child here of a machine age, I am the only one
who has a chance to deal with it.
How big a chance?
Bitsy. Pam. Mark. Tom. Dad. Mother. Sisters, brothers. Phil Meyer and our partnership. Seattle, the Sound, the Straits, the
wooded islands, the mountains behind; Vancouver; funny old Victoria; the Golden Gate Bridge, upward leap of walls from the
Rotterdam waterfront, Salisbury Cathedral, half-timbered steep-gabled delight of Riquewihr, a thatch-roofed hut in a Hokusai
print and those homes you were going to build; why does a man never know how much there was in his world before he stands
at the doors of death?
Pam, Pamela, Pamlet as I called you for a while, will you remember that underneath everything I loved you?
Is that true, or am I just posturing for myself?
No matter. I’m almost at the machine.
The time machine?
Nonsense. A bilgeful of crap. Physical, mathematical, logical impossibility. I proved it once, for a term paper in the philosophy
of science.
I, who recall well how it felt to be that confidently analyticaltwenty-year-old, now know how it feels to be marooned without warning in a grisly desert, nearing a machine like none I had
imagined, at my back a medieval Russian and a Hun from before Attila and a woman from no place or age bespoken in any of the
books I read when I might have been being kind to Pamela.
Abruptly the iridescence whirled, became a maelstrom, focused its shiningness upon a single point of the metal thing. That
point grew outward, opened as a circle, gave onto a dusk-purple space within where twinkled starry sparks of light. A man
came forth.
Reid had an instant to see him. He was small, compactly built, mahogany in hue, hair a cap of black velvet, features broad
but finely molded. He wore a prismatic white robe and transparent boots. In his hands he bore twin two-foot hemispheres of
bright metal upon which were several tiny studs, plates, and switches.
He walked uncertainly, he looked very ill, and his garb was discolored by vomit stains.
Reid halted. ‘Sir—’ he began, making the sign of peace.
The man reeled and fell. Blood ran from his mouth and nostrils. The dust quickly drank it. Behind him, the portal closed.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘My God! If the pilot’s dead!’ Down on his knees, Reid felt across the still body. The rib cage moved, though with unhealthy
rapidity and shallowness. The skin was hotter than the desert beneath.
Erissa joined him. Her face had gone utterly intent. Murmuring to herself what sounded like an invocation, she examined the
dark man with unmistakable skill:
‘Fellowship,’ he declaimed, because any human sound was good in this wasteland. ‘We’re caught in some unbelievableaccident, we want home again, okay, we stick together. Right?’
He looked at the cylinder. A minute passed while he mustered courage. The wind blew, his heart knocked. ‘That thing brought
us,’ he said, and started toward it.
They hesitated. He waved them to come along. Erissa soared in his direction. He made her follow behind. Oleg muttered what
was probably a curse and joined her. He seemed about ready to collapse in a pool of sweat. Uldin advanced too, but further
back. Reid guessed the Hun was a pro, more interested in being able to cover a wide field with his archery than in heroics.
Not that Oleg was equipped for anything but close-in fighting.
Beneath Reid’s shoes, dirt and gravel scrunched. His topcoat was smothering him. He took it off and, thinking about possible
sunstroke, draped it on his head for a crude burnoose. The hollow-voiced wind tried to blow it away. Behind the cylindroid,
barrenness reached on, and on, and on, till horizon met sky in a vague blur of mirages and dust devils. The cylindroid was
almost as hard to make out, within the shifting mother-of-pearl light-mist that enveloped it.
That’s a machine, though, he compelled himself to understand. And I, the only child here of a machine age, I am the only one
who has a chance to deal with it.
How big a chance?
Bitsy. Pam. Mark. Tom. Dad. Mother. Sisters, brothers. Phil Meyer and our partnership. Seattle, the Sound, the Straits, the
wooded islands, the mountains behind; Vancouver; funny old Victoria; the Golden Gate Bridge, upward leap of walls from the
Rotterdam waterfront, Salisbury Cathedral, half-timbered steep-gabled delight of Riquewihr, a thatch-roofed hut in a Hokusai
print and those homes you were going to build; why does a man never know how much there was in his world before he stands
at the doors of death?
Pam, Pamela, Pamlet as I called you for a while, will you remember that underneath everything I loved you?
Is that true, or am I just posturing for myself?
No matter. I’m almost at the machine.
The time machine?
Nonsense. A bilgeful of crap. Physical, mathematical, logical impossibility. I proved it once, for a term paper in the philosophy
of science.
I, who recall well how it felt to be that confidently analyticaltwenty-year-old, now know how it feels to be marooned without warning in a grisly desert, nearing a machine like none I had
imagined, at my back a medieval Russian and a Hun from before Attila and a woman from no place or age bespoken in any of the
books I read when I might have been being kind to Pamela.
Abruptly the iridescence whirled, became a maelstrom, focused its shiningness upon a single point of the metal thing. That
point grew outward, opened as a circle, gave onto a dusk-purple space within where twinkled starry sparks of light. A man
came forth.
Reid had an instant to see him. He was small, compactly built, mahogany in hue, hair a cap of black velvet, features broad
but finely molded. He wore a prismatic white robe and transparent boots. In his hands he bore twin two-foot hemispheres of
bright metal upon which were several tiny studs, plates, and switches.
He walked uncertainly, he looked very ill, and his garb was discolored by vomit stains.
Reid halted. ‘Sir—’ he began, making the sign of peace.
The man reeled and fell. Blood ran from his mouth and nostrils. The dust quickly drank it. Behind him, the portal closed.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘My God! If the pilot’s dead!’ Down on his knees, Reid felt across the still body. The rib cage moved, though with unhealthy
rapidity and shallowness. The skin was hotter than the desert beneath.
Erissa joined him. Her face had gone utterly intent. Murmuring to herself what sounded like an invocation, she examined the
dark man with unmistakable skill:
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