Part 4

"Let us disregard, for the moment," said Henry, "that there is no night. Just concentrate on the fact that we can't see the sun at _any_ time, clouds or no clouds. Ergo, the ionosphere has changed its composition. It would take millions of years to do that, just as it took billions of years to build it up in the first place. I submit that the sun has cooled and the ionosphere is much thicker than it was before, thus acquiring different characteristics of refraction which reflect light back to Earth. It is almost like a mirror. Just as it once reflected radio waves back, it now shuts out the shorter wavelengths, including light, itself. I submit further, that if the sun were still bright we should notice a difference in relative brightness between day and night. Inasmuch as there is no difference, I say that the sun is now grown dim and feeble, and that we have traveled perhaps a billion years into the future."

"Hey!" cried out another civilian. "I thought there were only five psychos in camp! One billion years! What the--"

"Yes," put in Dr. Edwards, with an impatient scowl, "this business of extrapolating is next to nothing, as it leads nowhere. By the boy's own argument I could give the rebuttal that if a billion years have passed then Venus may have had time to finally develop an ionosphere and thus be able to support the higher forms of life. Behold! I submit that we are on Venus!" This was followed by sympathetic laughter all around.

"Wait now," insisted Dr. Bauml. "Give the boy a chance! Henry, you _have_ let me down into mere hypothesis, but we might as well have all of it. Let me ask you a question. If the sun has cooled, why are we surrounded by all this evidence of lush, tropical life? We should be freezing!"

Henry replied immediately. "Either the ionosphere has developed a sustained reaction that provides us with heat and the regular, life sustaining quanta, while absorbing the hard radiations, or--" He paused, groping suddenly for words.

"Or what!" demanded Dr. Edwards.

"Or _someone_ has set up nuclear heating plants all over the planet, or their equivalents. Wait!" He held up his hand as Dr. Edwards joined half the others in derisive laughter. "Go back to that alien creature who stole the babies. Just before he disappeared, precipitating us into our present environment, he spoke to us in a gutteral language that was vaguely familiar. You were present, Doctor Bauml, when he spoke. I understand you recognized that language. What was it?"

* * * * *

Dr. Edwards sobered. He and Merman and Burley and the others stared at the diminutive astronomer. The latter looked embarrassed.

"I--am German, as you know," he said. "As such I was naturally familiar with Middle High German, owing to my educational background. That is what this alien spoke. I only caught a few words, which were to the effect that no harm would come to any of us if we did something or other."

"Why didn't you tell us this before?" queried Merman. "If that freak spoke German--"

"Wait!" interrupted Henry. "Middle High German is a dead language. It came into use in the dark ages before the Renaissance and it died out with Martin Luther in the Sixteenth Century of our own era. The fact that this alien spoke that language indicates that he is a time traveler. He has been in our era before and I'll tell you where, when and why!"

"_That_ is a tall order," put in Dr. Edwards.

Uncle Andy turned to Valerie Roagland and the air hostess. "This is the tallest extrapolating I've ever heard from Henry."

By this time, many other people were gathering around to listen, including servicemen and a number of Tommy Weston's men.

"All right!" said Merman. "Let's have it! Where, when and why?"

"The place?" said Henry. "Westphalia, Germany. The time? Twelve eighty-four A.D. The reason? To kidnap children. Oh, I forgot to mention the town...."

"Hamelin!" exclaimed Dr. Bauml, astounded. "You mean--"

"Yes," said Henry. "The Pied Piper of Hamelin--no legend. An actual fact!"

"What is this?" asked one of Weston's construction stiffs. "A booby hatch? Let's get on with the meeting. Weston'll be here any minute!"

"Wait!" said Henry again. "Analyze it for yourselves. What does _pied_ mean?"

"Mottled color," someone offered.

"Exactly!" Henry exclaimed. "But it was no clown suit worn in a fairytale. Our alien's skin was definitely mottled. And he was a piper, too!"

"What do you mean?" asked Dr. Edwards.

"I heard it, Martia heard it, and the two children who were kidnapped heard it. I believe only younger ears can hear it owing to a greater sensitivity of the hair cells in the spiral cochlea. The sound, of course, has nothing to do with flutes. It was a phenomenon produced by his equipment."

"Hold on, screwball!" said another one of Weston's gang. "I know all about that Pied Piper yarn. What about the rats in Hamelin? How did he get rid of those?"

"Legends," said Henry, "are twisted from the truth because people who inherit such stories must always reduce the Unknown to the level of their own understanding, just as the people of our own time insisted that the flying saucers were everything from beer bottle tops to weather balloons. People in following generations could not accept the original story, so it degenerated gradually into a nice little bedtime story. But the fact remains, this Pied Piper is a time traveler who needs children for some purpose of his own. He represents a very advanced science. It is possible that he is here, somewhere, and _if_ he is, we might have a chance of getting him to send us all back to where we came from!"

Suddenly, the Indian Prince broke into their midst. His turban was slightly awry, his eyes were large with anxiety, and he was sweating. "Please!" he exclaimed, in a thick accent, wringing his fat hands in supplication before Henry. "You are an older soul! You have a vision beyond us all! I believe only you can save us! If you can bring me back to my own world I will pay you anything! I am rich! My fortune is yours if you will do it!"

This led to general confusion, but it also led to something else. One of Weston's men separated himself from the crowd and went to find his leader. Weston and Sceranka were back in camp, eating supper and licking their wounds. But they were gratified by one salient fact. Scarface was conspicuous by his absence. There would be no interference from him tonight....

* * * * *

When the meeting took place, Weston and Sceranka came to it alone. The rest of the gang, numbering about thirteen, were nowhere in sight. Merman and Burley told him about the missing people and suggested a postponement.

"To hell with that!" he told them. His mouth, though bruised by Scarface's fists, grinned at them in a way that was not at all reassuring, and his tawny eyes met theirs with a new confidence born of secret knowledge. "We can send a search party later. Right now we're concerned with--"

"In other words," Burley broke in, unsmilingly, "you insist on having the meeting?" About fifteen officers and servicemen silently closed in around the periphery of the group, but this did not appear to bother Weston, although Sceranka kept looking at them nervously.

"Yes," Weston answered. "Let's have the meeting!"

"Then you are out of order!" snapped Burley. "We will follow those rules of order which are befitting to a deliberative assembly. Captain Merman is our Chairman. We have an agenda for discussion, which will be introduced in proper sequence. Anyone wishing to speak will first recognize the Chair."

"Oh can it!" fumed Weston. "That's why I'm here--to tell you we're going to cut all the red tape and get down to facts--"

At a sign from Merman, two M.P.s stepped forward and tapped Weston on the shoulder. Each carried a club. They smiled through their teeth.

"We are the Sergeants at Arms," said the largest of the two, who was at least within twenty pounds of Weston's brawny mass. "Do you want to be nice or be made to stand in a corner?"

Weston appeared to swell like a toad. When his eyes met Sceranka's, over the M.P.'s shoulder, he nodded almost imperceptibly. Whereupon Sceranka threw his hat into the air.

Within three seconds, six G.I.s on the outside of the circle yelled in pain and fell to the ground. Protruding from their backs were crude but sturdy arrows. Standing on the beach sand just outside the jungle were twelve bowmen, all from Weston's gang. Two were Spaniards. One was a Filipino law student who had flunked out of Oxford. One was a pale, continental type, a non-descript foreigner traveling on a French passport whom Merman had suspected of being a Communist spy. The rest were American construction stiffs--not the ordinary kind who signed up on a year's contract to save up and come home again, but the camp drifters who had roamed the world since adolescence, men actually without a country, uneducated, but capable of running heavy equipment for American tax dollars. It was strictly a "cost-plus" crew, thought Burley.

Women screamed. Men cursed. And there were cries of "Murderers!" "Assassins!"

Weston and Sceranka ran to a position in front of their men, who handed them the only two axes in camp.

"All right!" Weston shouted. "I thought this party would turn out this way. From now on, _I'll_ run this show! You're going to shut your traps and listen to _me_!"

* * * * *

The remaining officers and servicemen, plus many of the older male civilian members of the camp, were gathering swiftly into a sullen crowd, facing Weston's bowmen.

"When we charge 'em," whispered one officer, "throw sand in their eyes and let 'em have it!"

"Just a minute," said Uncle Andy to all the members of his own group. "All this happened because we failed to recognize the man's ignorance. Let him talk! Talk is cheaper than human lives. Let's hear what he has to say!"

"Well, Dearden," shouted Weston, "You're getting smart!--even if you are insulting. But I'll take care of you later!"

"All right!" agreed Burley. "Let him jabber!"

"Spill it, Weston!" shouted Merman. "We've got plenty of time around here. All our lives!"

"No we ain't!" Weston answered. "We ain't got no time at all. We think there's a way of gettin' back to where we came from! Hey, Mohammed!" he yelled at the Indian Prince. "You willing to come on my side and pay off like you said if I get you back home?"

The Indian Prince, though frightened, separated himself from the crowd. He stood there, hesitantly, looking first at Weston, then back at Henry. "I will go with anyone," he said, "even assassins, if they lead me home! And I will pay! But young Henry here--he's the one who--"

"Sure!" grinned Weston. "Henry's the boy with the answers! You didn't think we were going to leave _him_ out, did you? He's going to help us find that big, bad bogeyman who stole the babies. And then when we find him we're going to sort of talk him into sending us back--that is, those who are on my side!"

"What's the matter with you, Weston!" shouted Burley. "We all have the same goal. If you had taken time to listen--"

"Pipe down! We been listening to you government guys all our lives and never got nowhere. We don't want this party to turn into another Korean truce talk. We want action!"

* * * * *

In that moment, Weston saw action, but of a totally unimagined kind.

Very suddenly, the world about them changed. Geologically, it was the same. The same, eternal daylight sky was above them. Before them lay the same, mysterious ocean with its plethora of unknown life forms. The low hills, the jungles, the flowers, the colorful birds--almost all the same.

* * * * *

But the jungle had been cleared away for several miles, and in its place stood a modern city with tall, well-designed buildings, electric power facilities, and motorized traffic. On the sea lay a fleet of gray battleships and cruisers. In the sky were at least a hundred jet aircraft, of strangely futuristic design, black and delta-shaped. The latter were attacking the warships with bombs and rocket fire, and their ears were assailed by the staccato reports of guns answering from the ships--and from the land.

The city defenses were aimed also at the strange, black aircraft. Ack-ack was all over the sky. Bombs and planes screamed through the air, and the ground shook with the shock of explosions.

The castaways, including Weston's gang, stood on a great pier before the sprawling city--a pier which lay half demolished around them, smouldering from several recent hits. Nearby, out in the water, lay a commuter vessel, semi-capsized, its crew and uniformed personnel leaping overboard and attempting to swim back to shore.

Armed troops were all around the castaways, rushing to set up new defenses on the pier, to repair loading derricks and put out fires with portable equipment.

"Hey!" shouted one of the castaways. "It's just like back home!"

"Civilization!" shouted another. "That screwy Garden of Eden was all a bad dream! We're back--thank God!"

Henry reasoned it was not the scene of battle they were welcoming. It was rather the transition from an unknown situation to a comprehensible one that they hailed with such relief.

"What is it?" queried Martia, close beside him. "What's happening? Where are we?"

"We're _not_ back home," he said. "Still in the future--but an alternate one. Keep your eyes open and we'll know very soon."

This was a pointed remark, inasmuch as an officered detail of troops had turned its amazed attention on the heterogeneous group. Weston's gang, especially, looked like a bunch of anachronisms with their crude bows and arrows and their stupidly gaping mouths.

"Look!" cried Doctor Bauml, pointing over the heads of the approaching soldiers. "On that distant hill!"

When everybody looked, they saw, unmistakably, a towering space ship, its slender nose pointing skyward. Men swarmed over it like ants, removing scaffolding. Some of the attacking planes were concentrating on this point and were being met with the most determined counter-fire observable in any part of the city.

"That rocket ship," said Uncle Andy, "seems to be the main issue of the battle."

"Andy!" exclaimed Valerie Roagland. "Are all of us insane?"

"I say there!" cried the officer in charge of the detail surrounding them. His accent was unmistakably British. "Who are you and whence came you?"

"That would be a better question if _we_ asked it," replied Burley. "What the devil _is_ this!" He waved his hand in an all-inclusive gesture.

The officer's eyes narrowed. "Why do you evade the question?" he almost growled. "You are certainly not of New Bretania. Therefore, you are Texanian spies! You are under arrest!"

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Henry, turning pale. "Oh no!"

"What, Henry? What is it?" insisted Martia. Uncle Andy, Valerie, Miss Hollenbeck and Pee Bee crowded close, listening to the two and watching their captors at the same time.

* * * * *

Burley drew himself up and addressed the officer. "I am an official representative of the government of the United States of America," he said. "I demand--"

"My dear sir," flamed the officer. "You are not in a position to make demands. You will follow me promptly and obey orders under penalty of death! Can you not understand that we are under martial law here?"

"Git on wi' ye!" said one soldier nearby, prodding Weston and Sceranka with a double-barreled, automatic rifle. "Or ye'll git a puck in the lug!"

"Let's go, everybody," said Colonel Rogers. "Inasmuch as this is a military situation I'll take charge of our group and be the spokesman. When we're presented to the authorities for questioning we'll have time enough to tell our story."

"And who would believe it?" asked Dr. Edwards, pessimistically.

"Who would believe _this_!" retorted Colonel Rogers.

They all marched along with their captors, including Weston and company, simply because there was no alternative.

In a subterranean staff headquarters somewhere in the center of the city, they faced an impatient Major in the service of Her Majesty, Helena III, Empress of New Bretania.

"What is all this!" he complained, over an unprocessed pile of urgent communiques, even as two visiphones on his desk glowed red call signals simultaneously. "Who are you? I can't be bothered at a time like this--"

"We don't wish to bother you," interrupted Colonel Rogers. He could appreciate the indescribable urgency of war and knew it would be best not to antagonize the officer with too much verbage. "Our presence here is not of our choosing and it would take too long to explain, although we are perfectly wiling to do so at your convenience. Suffice it to say, we are neither New Bretanians nor Texanians. So I suggest you place us in protective custody for the time being, and if you need volunteers for some of the manual work in the city you may call upon us to help."

The Major ignored the visiphones and glared at Colonel Rogers. "I said--who are you?"

"I am Colonel Rogers, attached to the Infantry of the United States Army, and these are--"

"United States!" exclaimed the Major. "That's a myth! What in the devil are you trying to say?"

Henry shook his head sadly, but with a grim expression of conviction on his aquiline face.

Martia's eyes were wide as she drew closer to him. "Henry!" she whispered. "I think I _know_!" Tears came to her eyes, and she said, "Mother! I'll never see her again."

For answer, Henry pressed her hand, wordlessly, and continued looking at the Major.

"Please!" said Dr. Bauml, pressing forward. "What is this battle all about? What is that space ship for?"

* * * * *

The Major sprang to his feet, motioning to the guard detail that had brought them in. "These strangers are some type of Fifth Column!" he exclaimed. "They are obviously attempting to camouflage their true identities and their purpose under a blanket of innocence! But no one could be _that_ innocent of the facts!" He leaned forward, addressing Dr. Bauml. "My dear sir, in case you have been reposing under a rock somewhere, I'll bring you up to date! Earth is dying! The ionosphere is shifting toward critical mass. Our race--the human race--is becoming sterile under the hardening radiations. It is imperative that we transport some of our kind to another world--Venus, to be specific! Or hadn't you heard that Hardesty and Williams discovered an atmosphere there under the upper dust strata? The Texanians could not build an ark such as ours--so they want it!" His dark eyes blazed angrily. "_You_ want it! You are Texanians and you want our ship, but you're not going to get it! Take them away! They are spies!"

"Irons, sir?" asked the officer in charge of the detail.

"Irons be damned! Execute them! This is war!"

They stood in a bleak prison yard, sixty-nine passengers of MATS flight 702, London to New York. But where they were just now did not matter. A ganged battery of machine guns faced them, with one operator seated apathetically at a bank of controls.

"_Ready--!_" cried the officer in charge.

Some of the women screamed, while others prayed. Uncle Andy had an arm around Valerie Roagland, as well as Henry and Martia. Sceranka was swearing in Polish. Pee Bee was hiding behind as many people as he could find, shivering.

"_Aim--!_"

Henry thought: This is all impossible! I can't let it happen! But who am I to--

Something began to happen inside his head. It felt like he had had a cold and his ears were clearing up. But it was purely a mental sensation. Suddenly, he saw everything with a new clarity. And in the same instant he began to utilize that new faculty.

But before the word, "Fire!" could be given, a new change occurred with the abruptness of an explosion....

* * * * *

They were back again at the old campsite on that timeless shore, with the jungle all around them. The city was gone, as were the warships and the planes and the soldiers--and the space ship. There stood Weston and Sceranka as before, in front of their calloused bowmen.

And Weston was saying, "We want action!"

Both Henry and Martia looked at their companions in growing amazement, _because the others acted exactly as if there had been no interlude whatsoever_! Yet Henry and Martia, when they looked into each other's eyes, knew that _they_ remembered!

"Wait!" cried Henry. Everyone looked at him, including Weston and his gang. "Something has happened! Doesn't anybody remember?"

"Remember _what_!" exclaimed Weston, impatiently.

"The city! All those warships and planes!"

They all looked at him, blankly, and he and Martia returned their stares, anxiously.

"The Major who called us Texanian spies! The space ship! The firing squad--I mean, those machine guns!"

Again, the blank, uncomprehending looks.

"The kid's cracking up!" said Weston. "Let's get on with this! Now I'm running things and I'll tell you what we're going to do!"

Just then Martia and Henry grasped each other's hands, their eyes wide with consternation.

"Henry, do you--"

"Yes!" he hissed, cautioning her to silence. "I hear it!"

_The ringing was in their heads._

"Henry," said Uncle Andy, "what in the world were you saying about a city?--and about this--er--space ship?"

Henry grasped his uncle's arm and signalled to Valerie, and Peggy Hollenbeck. "Follow me quickly!" he said.

The two young women looked at Uncle Andy and he studied Henry and Martia gravely. Then he turned to them and nodded. They all followed. Henry and Martia both put their fingers to their lips, admonishing them to silence.

They were about fifty feet away from the group when Weston yelled at them. "Hey! Where you think you're going?"

Henry grabbed Martia's arm and told her to scream and flail about, which she did instantly.

"The girl's out of her head!" answered Uncle Andy, catching on. "Psycho! We'll be back in a minute!"

"Well--hurry it up!"

When they gained a clump of verdure that cut off their view of the others, Henry motioned them into the woods. They all ran in to hide, only to be overtaken by Pee Bee.

"What done happened to dat girl?" he asked, panting.

"Nothing," said Henry.

"Then why are we here?" asked Peggy, the air hostess.

Henry looked at them squarely. "It's that alien," he said. "He is close by."

"The alien!" exclaimed Valerie. "How do you know?"

Pee Bee went bug-eyed again. "You mean dat Missing Link is back? Man, where's mah feet!"

"Stay here!" said Henry. "I believe he is searching for the main group. We can go back through the jungle and watch from hiding."

"Oh no!" exclaimed Pee Bee. "Dis am de point of no return! Ah just lost mah reversin' equipment and can only head straight for the no'th pole!"

But they all went back and looked.

* * * * *

Just as they arrived at their hidden point of observation, a bedlam of sound smote their ears. Screams, yells, swearing--the sound of running feet.

"Wait a minute!" they heard Weston shouting. "Hold on, all of you! I'll handle this!"

The sound of running stopped. The bedlam subsided.

They saw Weston making gestures at his bowmen to take up a new position. With tense motions and sober faces, the men obeyed, fixing arrows to their bowstrings while the rest of the camp watched them--and something else that stood just on the edge of the jungle.

There, towering a head above the tallest man, was the alien, staring at all of them with his one, baleful eye. Across his chest, near the breathing orifice in the middle, he wore several patches of something that looked like plasters, or bandages, where Scarface had shot him. He looked weak. His shoulders slumped, and his arms dragged almost to the ground.

"What's the matter, Merman?" yelled Weston.

Merman had been one of the first to run. Now he stood at a considerable distance from the group, looking back.