Part 3

Kimball dropped his cigarette and watched it fall regretfully toward the distant, almost invisible city. "Not many of those left--I'll be glad to get out of here myself." He lit another. In the brief match-flare, Jina's graceful, wheeling figure became visible like some angelic dream. "Why don't you go back now, Ken? I've already built a gate back to our own time. The Varese don't use much radioactive material, so I had to go back for supplies. You could go through just as simply."

"Yes," said Jina's voice from the blackness. "Why not, Ken?"

"This guy Atel seems to be after your pelt, and you're no match for him in his own environment," Johnny Kimball added. "It isn't as if the Varese needed you. I know the technical aspects of the situation, and I can hold my end up. But you could leave any time."

"Why are you staying?"

"Two reasons. First, I'm not inhuman, and I got handled roughly by the beasts. I'd like to see them smashed. Second, I can't market my time-coil--you can imagine what chaos it'd cause in our world!--but the Varese have promised me this anti-gravity-pack, and that's worth a lot." He waited for an answer, but Andreson didn't see any sense in making one. After a moment his friend sighed. "Well, got to get aloft." The glowing cigarette arced upwards dimming gradually.

Wings pulsed softly past Andreson's cheek. "Why _are_ you staying?" Jina whispered.

He tried to answer, but the moment's hesitation was fatal. The girl arrowed downward, a slim, lovely shadow in the artificial dusk. Her sweet, chiming voice drifted back tauntingly.

"Explain to the beasts!"

For a moment Andreson hung motionless in his harness, keenly aware that he was perhaps the loneliest man since Adam. The city looked like a tinsel toy below him, and all around him was darkness and silence; the nearest human being was the only one within millenia of him, and among the Varese he had just one friend--_maybe_.

Out of the murk a voice called mockingly. "What are you dreaming, Earthman? Or should we say--plotting?"

Andreson recognized the voice for Atel's, but could not place its direction. "I'm on my way to join my friend at the apex of the dome," he said shortly. "I'm not plotting anything, except getting home as soon as possible."

"Oh? That's odd." The Varan's voice roughened, then regained its first silkiness with obvious effort. "I passed Jina on the way up. I thought you two might have been having a talk."

"Suppose we were?" Andreson demanded. "What's that to you?"

The voice was closer now, and its tone was cold and hard. Andreson rested his fingers lightly on the levitator controls, still looking about him in the blackness.

"A great deal to me. When the Council voted to let your scientist accomplice have a free hand, I had to go along. But I still think you're both spies, and up to something dangerous." He paused, and at the same moment Andreson spotted him--circling with silent, outspread wings, about twenty-five feet up from where the Earthman hung. He went right on looking, as if he had seen nothing, turning his head from side to side in apparent bewilderment.

"Follow us around, then, if you have the time to waste," he said. "Two men against a city--you can afford to be brave. The odds are all on your side."

"You ground-grubber," the Varan gritted. "Follow you around--while you corrupt a Varan girl with your lies about the future, and plot to let the beasts in! Do you think I'm such a fool? The Council is blind with sitting so long under the Starstone--but there are still a few of us who can see!"

"What with?" Andreson taunted. "You seem to be all mouth."

With a low snarl of rage, Atel plunged. His powerful wings furled tightly around his body, he dropped straight for the Earthman. In the dim light, Andreson saw his massive right arm reach back to his belt--he was drawing his vacuum club--

* * * * *

Andreson jammed the button home and shot skyward. Inexperience told against him almost at once, for he had drawn the line too fine. His shoulder slammed hard against Atel's, and the bat-winged creature tumbled away from him.

The harness continued to haul Andreson blindly upwards. His collar-bone sent out sharp pains with every movement. It seemed to be broken, or cracked at least. Was Atel--no--there he was, wings thrashing the air as he arrested his fall. The Earthman poked the belt-control again, hovered over his fluttering opponent--two could play at this power-dive game--

Feet first, he arrowed downward, the hot air roaring in his ears. Somehow Atel saw him coming, furled his wings again--

For what seemed an eternity the two fell, the city swelling beneath them from a hazy splotch to a bright quilt, and from that to a glowing cloudy mass. A jabbing finger reversed Andreson's belt, and slowly he began to gain. In the growing light he could see Atel's face, turned up toward him, smiling sardonically.

Then the bat-wings boomed out and Atel was gone, sailing easily around the nearest tower. Andreson saw the thin, transparent thread of a bridge almost upon him, and tried to brake, but it was too late--if he stopped at this speed he'd black out--

The bridge burst under his plummeting feet with the sound of a waterfall of plate glass, and something snapped in his left foot, sending fresh waves of pain through his body. The harness cut into him, yanking against his momentum, and he tried to pull out. At the bottom of his immense plunge he could clearly see figures in the once-distant streets. Then he began to rise again--

Instantly sharp-ribbed wings battered at him, an open hand struck him a terrific blow behind the ear, and a second later something long and steel-hard thudded into his ribs. He was flung forcibly against the side of the nearby building. Only the mechanical obedience of the levitator saved him--it had been set for "up," and it dragged him on up, willy-nilly. A hot liquid oozed down his side from the blow of the vacuum-rod. In a fog of pain he saw Atel banking purposefully for another assault, and clutched at the "Up" control again.

The levitator could climb faster than the Varan could, and Andreson had a moment's respite. Grimly he kept on going, until a growing sense of pressure and heat warned him that the rock dome was near. Should he try to lose himself among the city towers, or yell to Johnny Kimball for help?

His whole heart turned from the thought. His earthly life had not kept him in very good physical shape, but he'd always fought his own battles. It made no difference that his life was the stake of this one. _I'll get him yet_, he thought intensely. _Get him without help--if it kills me._

"Well, Earthman," Atel's voice rang out below. The rock dome sent back a huge echo. "Running already? If Jina could see her hero now!"

For a moment Andreson was about to dive furiously after the Varan again, but he thought better of it. He remembered Johnny's words: "You're no match for him in his own environment." But--

Atel was not fighting another winged man. He was fighting an Earthman with a levitator. That scrap between the buildings--had Atel given such a buffeting to a Varan he would have knocked him and that would have been the end of it. But the levitator couldn't be knocked out, no matter what happened to the man operating it. It wouldn't fall unless it was set to fall.

There was something else, too. Birds fly because they're built for it--among other things they have a huge keel-like breastbone to which their flying muscles are anchored. But bats don't, and Andreson bet that the Varans didn't either. Rodents are ancestrally ground-animals, just like Earthmen, and have to adapt for flying in some other way....

Andreson smiled crookedly. There was only one way to test the idea. He touched the belt again, and the city began to swell beneath him--

Atel glided cautiously out of the way of his fall, then closed in. The Earthman shot off laterally, turned, began a tail-chase. For a few seconds the absurd circling continued, each combatant trying to gain on the other. Then Atel realized that the levitator could drive Andreson faster than he could fly, and spun to face him with a single sweep of his wings.

Andreson made no attempt to stop. He shot directly into the Varan's arms. The vacuum-rod crashed into his injured side again. Gritting his teeth, he grasped Atel around the chest, trying for a half-Nelson. The wings fluttered--the bar thudded home once more--

Then Atel broke free. "Monster!" he gasped.

"What's the matter, Atel?" Andreson shouted raggedly. "Met your match?"

For an answer the Varan shot at him head first, like a gull-winged rocket. Andreson flung himself lengthwise and grappled once more. Atel's body, as he had suspected, was remarkably light, probably hollow boned--and his arms were not nearly as strong as his wings. They simply couldn't be!

This was the death struggle. Fiercely the two strove against each other. Andreson locked one of the flailing legs, steadily forced the great body back. He had one hand free for a split second, and he grasped the belt-control--

The garish glow of the city began to brighten at an alarming rate. Atel's hands fastened upon the Earthman's throat; Andreson pried weakly at them, but he had already lost too much blood to be able to free himself with one hand. He clung doggedly to the belt-control with the other. The city grew and grew--the blood pounded in his head, and his lungs burned like twin sacs of acid--the pillars of cold fire that were the city's towers flowed past him, blurring rapidly--

At the last instant Atel realized what was happening. A scream of terror was whipped from his mouth into the slip-stream, and he released Andreson's throat to claw frantically at the hand on the belt-control--

But it had been too late seconds ago. Andreson let go of him entirely, kicked himself free, began to brake. The Varan spread his wings--and lost his life. The right pinion snapped back and broke at once. The vanes on the left somehow withstood the blast, but the membrane between them could not--in a split second the living fabric was bloody tatters. Atel's body slammed itself to jelly against the bright Earth.

Dizzy and sick, Andreson concentrated on cutting down the terrific velocity the levitator had built up. He succeeded fairly well, though he broke the other foot when he struck.

The levitator held him upright, swaying. A cloud of winged creatures gathered around him. One of them he thought he recognized.

"Jina--"

"Yes--Ken--we saw most of the fighting--how--"

"I outflew him," he said proudly, and then passed out for the third time.

* * * * *

Johnny Kimball peered out the door of the chamber the Varans had assigned as his laboratory, and grinned. "Quite a formal farewell committee coming across the bridge," he said. "Looks like the whole Council's in it."

He looked Andreson over critically. "For a while I was afraid they'd turn out to be Indian-givers on the levitator deal," he added, "but I must say you threw yourself into the job of protecting our interests. Look at you! Both feet bandaged, chest bound, right shoulder strapped up--if ever a man needed a levitator, you do!"

"Ah, dry up," Andreson growled. "How near through are you?"

"Almost. I'm not trying to hit the gallery, though it might be easier that way." Suddenly he became serious. "I'll tell you what, Ken. It's a new life we're going back to--a life where you and I can look back into the past whenever we want, and visit it, too, if we keep quiet about it. And it's a new world we're going back to, a world which is going to be given the levitator. That means free flight--not just flight in machines, but real flight, where one man can fly whenever, wherever he wants, without having to board a plane or pay a fare. And space-travel, and no heavy lifting for the housewife, and--"

"Get to the point."

Kimball looked a bit crestfallen. "I thought you'd understand how I felt. Well, I couldn't see going back to the old world at the same spot we left it. I had a new apartment rented when I left, that I'd never been in--hasn't even got any furniture in it. I want to put the Time-window through into there. A fresh start."

Andreson nodded. "A good idea, Johnny. But--make it quick."

Along the sunlit bridge the delegation of Varans walked ceremoniously. In the vanguard was a lovely shape, like an exquisite butterfly. Kimball looked out the door again and saw her. With a slight smile he left the room; Andreson didn't notice.

"Farewell, Ken."

"Farewell, Jina, I'm sorry to go."

There was a brief, stiff silence, and then she was in his arms, sobbing bitterly.

"Ken--why, why?"

He swallowed. "Do you remember, up there on the solarium ledge before the rock dome was destroyed--remember I said I had a question I had to answer?"

"Yes ... what--was it?"

"Just this: _Can Earth and Air mix?_ There's a legend in my time that few people understand, but I think I understand it. It's the story of Lilith, queen of Air and Darkness. She fought with Satan and God alike for the Earth, but she lost, because she was not part of their universe. It's the same with me. What part could I play in a time not my own, among people who live in the air?"

The girl did not move or answer. Steadily he went on: "Besides--there's a gap between us greater than parsecs or centuries. Look." He took her hand in his, held it up. The delicate, four-fingered limb made his own five stubby fingers look lumpy and misshapen. "We have no future together, Jina. We seem alike, but we're not. The apes are my cousins; the bats are yours. You should stay with your own race, and have the children I could never give you. We have no real happiness to give each other."

She drew back and squared her shoulders proudly, though her eyes still brimmed with tears. "You are right," she said. "Go back, then! But I extract one promise before you go."

He inclined his head. "Whatever I can do."

"You have the time-coil, and can visit any age you wish. Promise me--that you'll never come to this one again."

He said softly, "I promise, Jina."

Her first soft kiss was her last. The next instant, it was as if she had never been.

"Ready, Ken?"

The time-coil throbbed once, and then the glass-walled chamber was empty in the red sunlight.