The Fury Out of Time (8 page)

The chair rattled on, reached the well-lighted complex of walks that converged on Wing Headquarters, and turned off toward the hangar area. The night was moonless, but clear and dazzlingly star-splashed. There were no planes up. Red obstruction lights gleamed brightly atop the control tower and dotted the invisible horizon, but the runway lights and the blue taxiway lights were on low intensity.

They were approaching a well-lighted gate, where two sentries stood lonely vigils in sentry boxes, when abruptly the siren cut loose. Karvel glanced at the lieutenant, saw his lips form the words “Practice alert,” and nodded. He pushed up his sleeve to see the second hand on his wristwatch.

The rumble of the alert aircraft blended with the dying wail of the siren. The field lights brightened, and the roar of the jets crescendoed as the first plane moved onto the runway. A scattering of spectators hurried to the fence to watch. The first plane took off, and Karvel nodded his satisfaction and shouted to the lieutenant, “A minute and fifty-two seconds.”

They watched until the fourth plane was airborne and a heavy silence had settled onto the field. “Ready to go?” the lieutenant asked.

Karvel nodded; and then, as familiar laughter rang out— brilliant bells of merriment tinkling in the darkness—he snapped, “Wait!”

He peered at a row of shadowy figures standing by the fence. One of them noticed him at the same time, and bounded forward.

“Major Karvel!” Ostrander exclaimed. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know,” Karvel said. “Is something supposed to be up?”

“I’ll take over, Steve,” Ostrander said. “Many thanks.”

Karvel added his own thanks, and told the volunteer he was free to go to bed. The others had gathered around, and Miss Sylvester said wonderingly, “It
is
Major Karvel. I was so sorry to hear you had an accident, Major. It was that tornado, wasn’t it? We must have gotten away from there just in time.”

“You did,” Karvel agreed gravely. “But it was no accident.”

“It wasn’t?”

“The tornado did it on purpose.”

Her laughter rang out again. “You have such an interesting accent, Major. I’ve never heard one just like it. Where are you from?”

“That’s another of the troubles with the human race,” Karvel said wearily. “No one knows where he’s going, so we make a science of figuring out where we’ve been. I’m not from anywhere, and I have a birth certificate to prove it.”

“Never mind Major Karvel,” a voice said.

“I know,” Miss Sylvester said. “He doesn’t approve of there being two sexes. I’d like to know what he intends to do about it.”

“Nothing, tonight,” Karvel said. He nudged Ostrander. “Let’s go over to Seven.”

“Right,” Ostrander said, not eagerly. “Night, folks. See you later—maybe.”

They moved off, and Karvel growled. “What’s
she
doing here?”

“The same thing the rest of us were doing. Watching the scramble.”

“What I meant was, why is she still on base?”

“They’re filming a TV program here. One of the ‘Wayward Girls’ is joining the Air Force.”

“Several of them already have. Has Security checked her out?”

“Oh,” Ostrander said. “Is that why Haskins was talking with her tonight?”

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

They passed the gate sentries and rolled smoothly along the paved road that led to the hangars. At Hangar Seven they ran the long gamut of identification and search, and finally they were allowed to enter the darkened building. One of the civilian guards obligingly followed, and turned on the lights.

“Were you looking for someone?” he asked. “They all went outside to watch the planes.”

“They?”

“Some of those scientists. I don’t think they were doing much anyway. Just sitting around talking about football.”

“I have a hunch,” Karvel said, as they moved toward the center of the hangar, “that our esteemed scientists are stumped.”

“You mean you aren’t?” Ostrander asked.

“Not stumped. Frustrated.”

“Haskins would say it amounts to the same thing.”

“The U.O. is enough of a problem. I’m not going to try to figure out Haskins.”

“Who do you suppose he is?”

“CIA, at a guess. He knows all the right people, and when he wants something, nobody asks him why.”

Karvel signaled a halt by a filing cabinet and took out the folder with the instrument panel photos. He laid aside the enlargements of individual instruments and sat back to study a shot of the full panel.

It seemed to simple, and yet it was so utterly incomprehensible. The raised symbols—tiny, angular maze, jagged serpentine, tangled, unsymmetrical web—did they mark off centuries, or miles, or light-years? Or some strange concept of velocity, such as centuries per minute?

The small, buglike lever was poised to crawl curvingly from symbol to symbol, over the hump of the outsized integer—if number it was—that occupied the central position. No symbol was repeated anywhere, and the symbols on the lesser instruments were, if anything, more intricate in design.

“Is it possible to have a numerical system where the smaller numbers are the most complicated?” Karvel asked.

“Sir?”

“Never mind. I was wondering— What’s the matter?”

“Frankly, sir, I’d rather be up there.”

“I told you yesterday you could chuck this assignment whenever you like. I don’t require a pilot, or even an officer, to push my wheel chair. How about it? Shall I tell Haskins to draft an enlisted man for me?”

“I’d feel as though I were running out on you, sir.”

“You wouldn’t be. It won’t take me five minutes to train a new man for the job. I’ll take care of it in the morning. Now let’s see if we can eliminate a little of my frustration before we call it a day. Has anyone explained this small hole at the top of the instrument panel?”

“They think there’s an instrument missing. It’s the same size as the holes that take the smaller capsules, but none of them will fit into it.”

“Of course not, since each one is keyed for its own hole. Interesting, but maybe not critical. We both know that there are a number of instruments on the panel of an F-102 that the plane would fly without, even if not so conveniently.”

“The U.O. flew all right—if that’s the word for it.”

“I don’t think we can be certain that it flew all right,” Karvel said. “It killed its pilot. But never mind. We aren’t likely to figure out the function of what’s missing until we’ve made some headway with what we have. Where are the capsules?”

“Maybe they put them back.”

Ostrander took a flashlight from a workbench and went to the U.O. The dilating hatch opened smoothly and silently when a hand placed on a recessed handle was moved in a circular motion; it closed automatically when released. Ostrander opened the hatch and aimed the flashlight. “Yes. They put them back.”

“Did they try to manipulate the things at all?”

“Sure. They manipulated them for hours. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d worn them out.”

Karvel propelled his chair toward the U.O. and pulled himself erect, balancing awkwardly on his artificial leg. “I wish I could get inside,” he said.

“Tell me what you want done, and I’ll do it.”

“Pull three of the capsules—the large one in the center and the ones on either side. The way I see it, they
have
to be the destination selectors. I want to know if they can be given settings that are opposite to the settings they arrived with.”

Ostrander climbed through the hatch. He seated himself on the circular metallic hump in front of the instrument panel, and bent forward against the curving wall. The position was cramped, and his knees partially obscured the instruments. “This thing was designed for midgets,” he complained.

Karvel leaned through the hatch, aiming the flashlight. “Interesting. No one mentioned that to me.”

“They must have noticed it. If they tried to sit here, they
had
to notice it. Let me have that photo.”

“You’d better pull them,” Karvel said.

“Nuts. What would that prove? What difference does it make what can be done with them when they aren’t in place?”

Karvel handed in the photograph. “Don’t force them.”

“There’s hardly any resistance. There. Precisely opposite. All three of them.”

“That is strange—about the seat, I mean. The dead passenger wasn’t a midget. Nearly eight feet tall, Haskins said.”

“He must have been awfully uncomfortable.”

“Maybe that thing isn’t supposed to be a seat.”

“Sure it is. You can tell that just by looking at it. It’s
shaped.
It certainly isn’t the shape of my bottom, though. Let me have the flashlight.”

Karvel traded the flashlight for the photograph and eased himself back into the wheel chair. The hatch opened again a moment later, and Ostrander babbled excitedly, “I found the light switch!”

“Which one is it?”

“The lowest gadget on the right. It lights up the whole interior. That metal projection at the top glows with a white light. Want to see it?”

“I can see it from here. Turn it off, and get out of there.”

“Right,” Ostrander said.

“Better not touch anything else. I’ve found out what I wanted to know, which wasn’t much, but at least I feel a little less frustrated. We can go to bed now.”

“Right.”

Ostrander’s head jerked back, and the hatch closed. Suddenly, with a tremendous
swish,
the U.O. vanished. Papers sucked from a nearby bench swirled about the hangar floor in a fluttering spiral, and then lay still. The excited scientists came at a run, shouting questions, arguing. Later Haskins arrived, with a raging Colonel Stubbins.

Through it all Karvel sat silently in his wheel chair with the crumpled photograph in his lap, and said nothing.

Chapter 5

It was another November Saturday. Karvel had been lying awake for hours, staring at his trailer ceiling, when the knock came at the door. The handsome, boyish, light-encircled face of Phineas Ostrander hovered just below the dark paneling, one of its variegated moods following another, the frowns, the laughter, the whimsies, the buffoonery, all so real, so terrifyingly
alive.

The knock came again. Wearily Karvel took his crutches, which were contraband from the base hospital, and started for the door. His ribs hurt when he used the crutches, but not as much as his muscles ached with the strain of trying to get around without them.

He opened the door. Gerald Haskins said matter-of-factly, “You look terrible,” and pushed past him into the trailer. Bert Whistler followed, remarking that there was nothing wrong with Karvel’s appearance that a little embalming fluid wouldn’t cure.

“Did you come to invite me to the court-martial?” Karvel asked Haskins.

“Nonsense. Stubbins wouldn’t dare. Five men heard you tell Ostrander not to touch anything. Anyway, Stubbins has no authority over you. You’re on special assignment to me.”

“I sent Ostrander in there.”

“So? Both of you had clearance to work on the U.O. Sit down. When did you eat last?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Fix the man some breakfast, Whistler.”

Whistler rummaged through the cupboards and glanced into the refrigerator. “There’s nothing to fix. Just a jar of coffee. I’ll go get some stuff.”

“Do that,” Haskins said. “Bring enough for three.” Whistler drove off, tires screaming in the loose gravel.

“A real nice guy,” Haskins remarked. “He’d give you both of his legs, if it were possible.”

“I know.”

“But he drives like a lunatic. Have a cigar? What have you been doing?”

“Climbing mountains.”

“Climbing— Oh. That chaplain.”

“Captain Morris. He spent yesterday evening with me. My mountains fascinate him.”

Haskins nodded absently. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk with you before. There’s one thing I wanted to ask you. What were you and Ostrander
really
trying to do?”

“I don’t know what Ostrander was trying to do. He’d found the light switch—”

“So had we. We tried each of the instruments, but with all of the others removed. The light switch was the only one that produced any result. We were gradually building up to the same thing Ostrander achieved, but it would have taken us a while.”

“So killing Ostrander didn’t even accomplish that much.”

“Nonsense. I feel certain that if it hadn’t been Ostrander it would have been one of the scientists. The U.O. was just too much for us. We don’t know much more about it now than we did when we started.”

“Do you think there’s any chance at all that Ostrander survived?”

Haskins shook his head. “You didn’t see the other passenger. I’d say no chance whatsoever.”