Part 6

"I've been doing some checking," said Scarface, without smiling, and without preamble. "There's only one place they could have gone."

"Did you let us in here?" asked Uncle Andy, irrelevantly.

"Yes. There's some kind of viewer that shows who's upstairs. When I saw you out there I pressed the entrance button. But I've been busy since. I think I know the next step."

"Where have you been all this time?" asked Henry.

Scarface glanced at Martia, then at the shimmering mirror behind her. "Trying to trace down missing persons," he answered. "I was topside in the jungle when One Eye brought in his prisoners. So I came down here to pick up the trail, and it ends in front of that mirror."

* * * * *

As all of them turned to look at the shimmering mirror, Scarface advanced toward it to show them something that had, until now, escaped their notice. He mounted two steps of a raised dais on which the mirror stood. Then he halted before it and pointed at its base.

"Look at that!" he said.

Protruding from the strange substance of the mirror was a small branch. He kicked it outward with his foot, and more of the branch emerged into view.

"One of the bunch that was captured dropped that as he went through. Look!" He shoved his hand into the mirror up to his elbow, then pulled it out again. "No pain at all," he said.

"A teletransporter!" exclaimed Henry.

Scarface looked at him quizzically. "I knew _you'd_ have a name for it," he said. "But come again?"

"A teletransporter. I get more of the picture now," said Henry. "Underground stations like this may be scattered all over the planet. Transportation between them is accomplished instantaneously by this means. Perhaps, with the proper setting of controls, one could walk around the world, through various stations, in a few minutes!"

"Whoa!" said Uncle Andy. "When did you ever see a teletransporter?"

"I didn't, but their possibility may be extrapolated from a set of known facts in our own era of time. One premise is that energy may be propagated at the speed of light through the ether, in various pulsation patterns that can be used for the reintegration of sound or light in receivers. Another premise is that matter is energy. Therefore, it lies within the realm of possibility to reduce matter to its basic energy components, broadcast the energy in a representative pattern sequence--perhaps on multiple wavebands--and reintegrate the same form of matter at the other end. On the other hand, new principles may have been discovered after our own time, such as the manipulation or use of hyper-space or ether warp of some kind. But I'm sure this is a bonafide teletransporter. We have only to step through it, the way it is adjusted now, and be where our friends are. Since Scarface is armed, I think we need not fear being surprised by the alien."

Scarface raised his brows and looked at the others. "It's simple when you know how," he said, wryly. "But there's an easier way of analyzing this contraption. I'll walk through it. If I don't come back, you can decide for yourselves if you want to follow or take up camping in that jungle outside for the rest of your lives. Here goes!"

"Wait!" cried Uncle Andy.

But Scarface walked into the mirror and disappeared.

They waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes. And Scarface did not return. Finally, Pee Bee offered a solution.

"Ah sees it like this," he said, breaking an oppressive silence. "Ah feels safe when ah's on de right side of dat gun. Now if we goes through dat mirror an' finds Scahface, we's better off than we is here. If we goes into dat mirror an' gets snuffed into nothin'--then dat means Scahface an' all de rest is probably big, flattened out blobs of nothin', too. So we might as well join 'em instead of hangin' around here. Ah's sick of it, an' ah's ready!" Before they could stop him, he hurled himself into the mirror and disappeared.

The remaining castaways looked at each other in silence for almost thirty seconds.

Then Uncle Andy said, "I think we'd better try it."

Valerie grasped his hand and Martia's. "Let's all go through together," she suggested, quietly.

They drew close to each other, held hands, and formed a straight line of five as they walked through the mirror together--just as the corridor behind them filled with light again and a pair of bloodshot eyes noted their departure....

* * * * *

This was definitely a tremendous, subterranean city, or the beginning of one. But its only inhabitants, other than the alien, seemed to be the survivors of MATS flight 702. They were still in a state of hypnosis, standing there on the pillared mezzanine that overlooked the vast room below and beyond them. Other mezzanines were visible on the far side of that tremendous chamber, and beneath them a dozen or so tunnel entrances indicated that there was much to be seen further on.

Among the people who stood out there on the mezzanine were Pee Bee and Scarface, also in a trance, as well as the Texas GIs, the missing WAACs, Martia's governess, Emily, the two mothers, Mr. Langham, Sir Rollins--and Lady Dewitt.

Martia might have cried out and run to her mother were it not for the fact that the alien, himself, confronted them.

They stood in an alcove that was half filled with banks of controls and instruments. The alien stood before these controls and glared at them purposefully as they came through the teletransmitter. His neck was dark with dried blood, and the three arrows still protruded from his side. His stooping posture gave more evidence than before that he was growing weaker.

As they came through and caught sight of him and the others, one of his hands moved on the control panel, then paused.

_Don't do that!_--came a sharp command into his mind.

He straightened up suddenly, his single eye brightening in shocked surprise as he looked first at Henry, then at Martia.

Valerie, Peggy and Uncle Andy watched the alien, white-faced, uncomprehendingly, as he slowly turned to face them squarely, his eye fairly glittering with inner lights of its own. Then--without warning--he uttered a few unintelligible words, groaned, and fell on his face.

"Quick!" said Uncle Andy. "The gun!" He ran, himself, to pluck it out of Scarface's nerveless fingers.

"But what happened!" exclaimed Valerie. "Is he dead?" She and Peggy did not follow Henry and Martia as they went over to look at the alien.

"Henry," whispered Martia. "What _are_ we? I know what you did!"

Henry paused to look at her. "Martia, Lady Dewitt is not really your mother--_is_ she?"

Martia colored.

"You know there are no secrets between us," he insisted.

"No," she answered. "I am an orphan, like you."

"An orphan equipped with photographic memory and extra-sensory perception," he said, rapidly. "Also, other things, like extended perception in time. You have lately come to sense that your mind was 'fixed,' long ago, to keep you from using your full powers and to prevent you from knowing who or _what_ you were, but these recent experiences have started an awakening process--"

"Yes!" she agreed. "Henry, what--"

His eyes bored into hers, his nostrils flaring in his tense excitement. "Shall I tell you where you were really born?" He turned his head and looked down. "Wait! He's beginning to stir! _He_ can give us the final answer!"

As the alien stirred, one of the tendrils on his wrist twirled a control on the panel at his waist. Martia swayed, but Henry stood his ground, blocking that telepathic signal and showing Martia how to do it at the same time. But Valerie and Peggy and Uncle Andy dropped to the floor, unconscious.

The alien rose slowly to his feet, and Henry turned, instinctively, to get the gun that Uncle Andy had dropped. Then he and Martia, as well as the alien, stiffened in surprise as Scarface smilingly picked up the gun and leveled it.

"Everything is going to be all right," he said, confidently. "I think I have all the answers now. It was not the impossible coincidence I imagined it to be, his coming upon all three of us on board that plane. I think that he--"

"Look out!" screamed Martia.

Out of the mirror had come an unexpected figure, hurling itself upon Scarface's back. Scarface went down and the gun was torn from his fingers, even as the alien reached for his controls on the instrument panel behind him.

"No you don't!" yelled Tommy Weston.

He stood there, his clothes half torn off, supporting himself on one good leg and painfully trying not to bring pressure to bear on the other, which appeared to be sprained.

"I'm _still_ running the show!" he yelled, hysterically.

_Quick!_--came a thought from Scarface to the two adolescents. _Through the teleporter!_

As they literally threw themselves into the silvery mirror in back of them, they heard Weston firing shot after shot into the alien....

* * * * *

Back in the subterranean chamber where they had come upon their first teleporter, Scarface reached behind the mirror and adjusted something, whereupon the sheet of silvery substance took on a bluish sheen.

"You see, I knew all along what this was," he said. "But if I had told you that it would probably lead you right into Mlargn's hands you would not have dared follow. You needed one more shock to bring you out, and I waited there for you, waiting for my final proof." He smiled. "In his weakened condition, it was too _much_ of a shock to Mlargn. I didn't quite expect him to pass out like that--the poor beast! Well, anyway, Weston has taken care of him, and this adjustment will keep him from following us."

"Wait, please!" interrupted Henry. "You're assuming too much knowledge on our part. We--"

"Just one more detail," said Scarface, as he made a last adjustment behind the mirror. By now it was a shimmering pink. "Follow me," he directed. And without further explanation he stepped _back_ through the teleporter.

Under ordinary circumstances, Henry and Martia would have reacted emotionally to this new development, and fear would have restrained them. But this was a very special circumstance because they had had an awakening. A calm logic told them that Scarface would not have directed them to follow him if it would do them any harm. One of the premises of that logic was that they had "read" at least his attitude. He was definitely an ally--and the ultimate answer to their mutual enigma.

So they followed him.

They found themselves in a great, domed citadel which covered the entire top of a small island. Some miles away was a long stretch of jungle-covered land and low hills easily recognizable as the country where they had first camped. They could even make out the silvery glitter of the wrecked plane.

They remembered having seen this island from the shore, but it had looked like a flat-topped, barren rock protruding from the sea. Then it came to them that the citadel on top was invisible from the land.

Scarface sat at the console of a tremendous instrument panel. On his head was an elaborate headpiece equipped with silvery anodes that clamped against his skull. His eyes were closed. His fingers made delicate adjustments on the console while strange, almost ultra-sonic tones emanated from a battery of glowing tubes on the wall.

Martia and Henry sensed that they were not to disturb him. So they walked around inside the dome and looked at the sea, and the old, old land. Their minds were awakening to new perspectives and powers, and slowly they caught glimpses of a billion year pattern of destiny that dazzled their thoughts. So they barred these perspectives, holding them breathlessly at the threshold of soaring consciousness--waiting for experienced guidance.

At length, Scarface finished his task and came over to them. "While I am waiting for results," he said, "I will tell you what you want to know...."

* * * * *

He told them that somewhere in the era of time in which they had been raised, a cataclysm had occurred which had destroyed all life on Earth. Oceans had come over the land and the whole, slow, geo-biological process of regeneration had begun once more. Evolution through hundreds of millions of years had at last arrived at a dominant, intelligent species of which Mlargn, the "alien," was the last survivor.

He told them the story of Xlarn, of the cooling of the sun, of the reaction sphere, and of the Chronotron. And he described the developments which finally led to Mlargn's time journey in search of life before the Beginning.

"Actually, Mlargn made two trips into Earth time. On his first trip he must have arrived somewhere in an earlier century than the one you knew--"

"The thirteenth century," interrupted Henry.

Scarface looked at him in wonderment. So both Henry and Martia told him the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

For almost a minute, the other was silent. Then he said, "So that's where the ancestors of Galactic Civilization came from...."

"Galactic Civilization!" Martia exclaimed.

Scarface grinned at them. "Yes," he said. "We call it that, because we have inhabited at least a dozen solar systems and are still growing. Let me continue the story...."

Mlargn had chosen a group of children because he knew they could be trained and conditioned easier. When he returned through the Chronotron to his own time, the Xlarnan immortals considered the human captives to be unimaginable, short-lived, soft-skinned bipeds, but amazingly advanced mammalia from the evolutionary viewpoint. And they could think, in a primitive fashion. Moreover, they proved to be incredibly fertile.

Only slightly encouraged, the Xlarnans threw them into a Chronotron cycle of five hundred thousand years. The resultant race and alternate time proved to be something for which they were totally unprepared. Since the continuum between Cause and Effect was a simultaneous structure in time, there it was, complete from beginning to end--a superman civilization that encompassed great stretches of the galaxy. An alien brand of intelligence. Virile resourcefulness and aggressiveness, far outstripping the sterile civilization of Xlarn.

Astounded and frightened, the Xlarnans sought to trace the beginnings of this alternate time, through the Chronotron, and throttle the totally unexpected development at its source. However, this was foreseen by the civilization which had sprung from the Chronotron--and there was war. The Xlarnans were eliminated, except for one, who swore vengeance.

This unsuspected immortal was he who had brought back the ancestors of the star men from beyond Beginning, from the world where the moon was young. This was Mlargn, himself.

* * * * *

Although the star men had abandoned the dying solar system of their origin, it was inevitable that a few of their number should be left behind--castaways who finally organized themselves, built a citadel of their own, and sought to build a small star ship in which to escape the threat of the reaction sphere. But the specialized science that had developed the hyper-space drive eluded them and they struggled in vain, while Mlargn besieged them, jealously endeavoring to discover what they were accomplishing. He applied his warfare so vigorously that one day only Kimnar was left, with two youngsters. In fact, they were babes.

In desperation, Kimnar gained access to the Chronotron. Hoping to create another alternate time, he hurled himself and the two children into further depths of time than he intended.

And Mlargn followed him. Aware of his own immortality and equipped with controls that could reverse his course in time because they were interlocked with the Chronotron, he was determined to spend centuries, if necessary, to find those two advanced children and use them to his own advantage....

* * * * *

Henry shook his head to clear it. "Just a moment," he said. "I might extrapolate from all this that you are Kimnar."

"I am," smiled Scarface. "I arrived with you two in the human era, in Earth's calendar year nineteen hundred forty-four A.D., on June 6th, to be exact. The country was France. The place--Caen...."

There was a stunned moment of silence. Then Martia's eyes widened. "But that was--!"

"Yes," said Kimnar, smiling grimly. "The Allied invasion of Normandie. I landed right in the middle of D-Day."

"What happened?" asked Henry. "I mean--to you?"

"I was injured by shrapnel. That's how I acquired the scar on my face. I woke up later in a hospital and have been looking for you two ever since."

"Kimnar," said Henry, "are Martia and I sister and brother?"

Martia's mind leaped out to find the answer in Kimnar's thoughts before he could speak. "No!" she cried, happily. "We're not!" Henry suddenly found her in his arms.

"She's right," Kimnar confirmed.

"You two were survivors of Mlargn's attack in those days when Jirahn was alive--but you were not of the same family."

"Who was Jirahn?"

Kimnar waved a hand toward the great instrument panel. "It was he who invented that hyper-space transceiver. Or rather, he re-invented it, remembering much of the science of our kin, the star men. Just before Mlargn's powerful attack, in which he utilized a deadly radiation that killed everybody in the citadel, I believe Jirahn succeeded in contacting the star men. But I could not be certain, as I had been away from the citadel when the attack came. Upon my return, I found my friends dead, and Jirahn sat slumped over those controls with the head gear attached to him. Certain lights were signalling to me from the board, but I could not decipher them. Moreover, I feared that Mlargn would find the right teleporter frequency to tie his system in with ours, and that he might surprise me at any time. So I removed the bodies, dumping them into the sea, and prepared, generally, to 'abandon ship.' Just as I was about to leave, I found you two halfway down the cliffs on a covered terrace that your parents had been in the habit of using. They had left you there for your naps. It was then that I conceived the idea of finding the Chronotron and trying to create a new alternate time based on your descendants."

"But Kimnar," persisted Henry. "What about that transceiver? You worked it when we first arrived here, and I remember you mentioned something about 'waiting for results.'"

Kimnar shrugged. "I tried the thing, and to the best of my knowledge I was transmitting through hyper-space at full power. So far, there has been no response. I have the receiver wide open."

"Do you mean--it is conceivable that some of the star people might return for us?"

Kimnar smiled in a puzzling sort of way. "I tossed them the bait," he said. "I think they'll consider the risk worth while--if they received my message."

"What risk is there now? I'm quite sure Weston finished Mlargn off."

* * * * *

Kimnar raised his eyes heavenward. "Remember? The reaction sphere could go any time. Fortunately, most of the harder radiations are expending themselves convexly, into outer space, and what is shooting towards us still has many miles to travel. But it's getting very unhealthy around here. When the sphere blows, it will take the Great Ring with it--the ring that used to be the moon."

Simultaneously, Henry and Martia thought of something else. The other passengers, their original companions. What of them--and Weston, with his gun?

"We can't leave them here to die," said Henry. "What about the Chronotron? Can't we send them all back?"

Kimnar shook his head. "The Chronotron is not that accurate at such long range. Only a few people at a time can go through, and they might land anywhere, from Earth's prehistoric ages to Xlarn's eras of development ante-dating the generation of an oxygen content atmosphere. Moreover, Mlargn changed the location of the Chronotron. I have not been able to find it. That was what I originally went back to look for when I left you on the beach after that fight with Weston."

"Wait a minute!" cried Martia. "But my moth--I mean, Lady Dewitt and those others found it!"

Kimnar looked at both of them wonderingly. Briefly, they told him about the alternate time episode involving New Bretania and Texania, which Mlargn successfully nipped in the bud.

"I must have been underground somewhere at the time," said Kimnar, "traveling through various teleporters. Otherwise, had I been on the surface, I have enough temporal perspective, myself, to have been able to remember that alternate time experience." He frowned. "If Weston ever finds the Chronotron--"

"Well, why not?" asked Martia. "You couldn't blame them for going back--or trying to!"

"I see what he means," said Henry. "If any of them should go back to the approximate time from which we started and do anything to circumvent that moon experiment--"

"_What_ moon experiment?" asked Martia.

"I forgot to tell you, I guess. Kimnar knew because he read it in Uncle Andy's mind. Uncle Andy as Andrew Dearden, is one of the world's greatest rocket specialists. He was just returning from Africa on that plane after having supervised all preparations for firing a rocket at the moon."

"That _is_ amazing," said Martia, "but--oh!" She read the rest in Henry's mind. The rocket carried the world's first D-C bomb, which letters represented the word, "de-cohesion." In detonation, the bomb was supposed to liberate the cohesive forces of the proton. They were going to observe its effects on the moon.

"I believe," said Henry, "that it produced a sustained reaction in stable matter, and the moon blew to fragments, thus creating the Great Ring. The thermal effects plus orbital perturbations of the Earth destroyed all life on the planet. And I deduce that the free oxygen and hydrogen in our atmosphere made some kind of critical mixture and went _foom_! The result was H_{2}O, oceans of it. And so time began again, biologically speaking, anyway."

"If Andrew Dearden or any of his kind get back there and manage to abolish the 'D-C' bomb," said Kimnar, "then Xlarn will never have been, and neither you nor I nor Galactic Civilization, with its myriad worlds and metropoli and billions of star people and all their science and culture, shall have ever evolved. And there you have a difficult question. Is it better for us to relinquish our existence for the sake of a civilization that might have continued, or to preserve a greater one that actually exists _now_?"

* * * * *

Before they could bring much concentration to bear upon this weighty problem, a new situation diverted their attention. Inasmuch as the three of them were standing by the transparent wall of the citadel and facing shoreward, they could not help seeing the small industrial city that suddenly sprang into being there. Again, up on the hill, was a great black rocket, its nose pointing toward the threatening sky.

But this was not New Bretania. Nor was it Texania. Nor was there the slightest evidence of any type of conflict or preparations for defense, except in the design of the rocket, itself.

"That's a different alternate!" said Henry, instantly. "The city is different--more heavily industrialized. See the steel mills? It's even futuristic. Those insulator towers and antenna, for some kind of power transmission--"

"And that rocket is different--more efficient looking," observed Martia. "It seems to carry armament. You can see the firing cupolas."

"You're both very calm about it," said Kimnar. "Somebody has found the Chronotron. Come on!"

A moment after they had stepped through the teleporter, leaving the island citadel deserted, the hyper-space receiver began to react to signals. Lights flickered rapidly for several minutes. Then a human voice boomed into the empty dome. It spoke in a strange language, rapidly, urgently. But there was no operator there to reply....