Part 2

Pearce spread his hands, grinning crookedly. "Well, I hope that leaves me and my suitcase explained to the complete satisfaction of everyone."

Fuller ran his hand through his red hair in agitation and rose to his feet. "It's the damnedest story I've ever heard, Andy. I wish I could be dead certain it isn't a gag. I can't believe it--or maybe it's just that I can't accept the idea of never seeing you again. If this hadn't come all of a sudden--" He broke off, gesturing helplessly.

"Picnics," Ellen muttered to no one in particular, "are going to be permanently spoiled for me."

"Hell!" Fuller growled. "I need a drink. I guess we all need a drink." He reached out as though to detain Pearce. "Andy, I've got a bottle in the car. For emergencies, you know--and this certainly is an emergency. So stay right here, Andy. Don't go running off into the future until I get back. Promise?"

"On my word of honor," Pearce said.

"Don't drop that bottle, Dave," Ellen put in.

With a last anxious glance at Pearce, Fuller turned and hurried away through the trees. Pearce was abruptly, sharply aware that he was alone with Ellen.

She seemed aware of it also. For a moment her dark eyes met his with a kind of pensive directness, then dropped.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"I'll never be quite the same again after today, Andy," Ellen murmured at last.

He stared morosely at his hands. "I'm sorry. I guess I did spring the story a bit too suddenly. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything at all, done a quiet fade-out."

"I think I'd rather have known what happened to you than otherwise." She traced a design on the blanket with one slim finger, then said, "Andy, you made a remark in the car--about avoiding what you called romantic complications. Were you avoiding them because you were eventually going away with this Nela female?"

He nodded. "Something like that."

"Wasn't it because you were in love with her?"

"Why, I ... I don't think so." He was startled. "I guess it's true that I had a crush on her as a kid, but I haven't seen her for fifteen years. I hardly feel I ever knew her."

"Then even though you're going away with her, there is someone you care for?"

He hesitated for an aching instant, finally managed a shrug. "It isn't important. Not any more."

"It is--to me. Andy, this is no time for historical novel gallantry or radio soap opera self-renunciation. This is the last chance we'll ever have to be completely frank with each other." Her dark eyes were intent. "Andy, do you love me?"

"I ... well--" He groped in confusion, with the feeling that he had suddenly found himself on a tight-rope, hundreds of feet in the air. Then he nodded miserably. "Yes."

"Then just why did you take it for granted that I was Dave's girl?" Ellen demanded bitterly.

"I thought Dave was the one you were interested in. He was my best friend, and I didn't want to--"

"You thought! Didn't it ever occur to you to find out?"

* * * * *

He made a helpless gesture. "I wanted to, Ellen--but I don't see what good it could have done. I was going away, you know."

"Don't you think I could have changed your mind about that? Don't you think I can change your mind--even now?" Abruptly she leaned toward him, her small face lighted as though by some fierce inner fire, at once pleading and demanding. "Andy--kiss me!"

Despite himself, that fire touched him, kindled to a blaze. His lips met hers with a quickening pressure, his hands slipped from her shoulders to draw her tightly against him. For long seconds nothing else had reality or importance. The glade dissolved around him, and he seemed to float in a dark sea that rose and fell with a wild rhythm.

Then awareness of his act exploded in him. He released the girl abruptly and drew away.

"It's hopeless, Ellen! I can't back down now."

She shook her dark head in swift protest. "It isn't hopeless, Andy. It isn't too late. I just proved that to you."

"But Nela is depending on me. I can't let her down."

"You owe her nothing! She took advantage of you at a time when you weren't mature and experienced enough to exercise good judgment. Why should you feel obligated to her now?"

"I agreed to go with her. If I let her down, she won't be able to obtain a replacement with my particular type of training. She can visit this point in time only once."

"That's her problem, Andy. You have your own life to live. Why shouldn't you be able to live it as you choose? You don't know just what sort of a life the future holds for you--but you do know what you'll find here."

He gripped his knees hard, finally shook his head. "This is something bigger than we are, Ellen--something more important than your personal happiness, or mine. It isn't just that Nela is depending on me. Behind her is a whole civilization. It's the greatest responsibility a man can be given. If I backed down, I'd never feel right again. I'd always have it on my conscience."

She slumped in despair. "Then there's nothing else I can do to change your mind?"

"Nothing, Ellen. I'm sorry."

Silence closed down again. A painful, uneasy silence, the silence of people between whom an unsurmountable barrier exists.

The silence added fuel to Pearce's inner turmoil. He wished that it had been possible to leave without hurting Ellen, even without discovering that she returned his own feelings. The knowledge that he would never see her again had been difficult enough to face. For in these last months the picture of her had come to haunt him--Ellen, with her shining dark hair and her slim vital body, at once gaily humorous and warmly sympathetic. He knew that he would never forget her, or cease thinking of the happiness he might have found with her.

"It might be a good idea to wipe that lipstick off your face, Andy," Ellen murmured at last.

Pearce fumbled for a handkerchief and scrubbed at his mouth. The action brought forward something that had been hovering at the back of his mind.

"What about Dave?" he asked abruptly. "I hope I haven't spoiled anything for him."

* * * * *

She shook her head with a grave seriousness. "Dave knows how I feel. And it isn't much of a loss where he's concerned, because he's been taking a growing interest in Susie. She has a terrific crush on him, and that's the reason she wanted to come with us so badly today. But you insisted on a three-sided party and as usual left Dave to nursemaid me."

Pearce felt a dull amazement. Engrossed with his preparations for leaving he had not sensed the emotional undercurrents beneath the outwardly placid surface of Dave and Ellen.

Ellen, he thought suddenly. Dave was accounted for--but Ellen? He could not voice the question, feeling himself too inextricably bound up in it.

There was the sound of footsteps as Fuller returned, brandishing a bottle. "Here it is!" he announced. "Get out the glasses, Ellen."

She produced three plastic tumblers from the basket, and Fuller poured a generous drink in each. He raised his own tumbler in a solemn gesture.

"Here's to Andy. Bon voyage--and a high old time in the future!"

"Thanks," Pearce said in self-conscious acknowledgement. He swallowed the whisky in a gulp, felt its raw warmth spread through him.

Bon voyage, he thought. The voyage part was true enough. But he doubted if he would have a high old time. He would always think of Ellen. And Dave. And all the other people he had known, who would continue to move against the old familiar background of their existence, among all the old familiar things, without sudden violent change, or pain, or loss. He would think of movies and dances, baseball games and parties. And restaurants and nightclubs and small quiet bars. And apple pie and coffee, hamburgers and malted milk. And his favorite brand of cigarettes, and two pants suits and straw hats in the summer. And beer and sport pages and classical records on a drowsy Sunday afternoon. And politics and elections and critical internal situations. And crowded downtown streets and quiet suburban cottages--all the other things he had known and liked, or had taken for granted and had not thought much about. He would think of them because they wouldn't exist in the future any more, because people would have changed, would have different ideals, habits and tastes.

Fuller filled the tumblers again and made an effort at the sort of artificially cheerful small talk that precedes the sailing of a troop ship.

Pearce, who had surreptitiously been keeping check on his watch, finally gestured. "It's almost time for Nela to pick me up--and I'd like to be alone when she comes. The situation might be too complicated if you and Ellen were present, Dave. I want things to be as easy as possible all around."

Fuller looked disappointed. "I was kind of hoping to get a look at this gal from the future, Andy. I still don't know whether to believe your story or not."

"Give me the benefit of the doubt, anyway, will you?" Pearce pleaded. He turned to Ellen. "You'll do this last favor for me?"

She nodded and leaned forward on tiptoe. "Good-bye, Andy--and good luck." Her voice was little more than a whisper.

* * * * *

He touched her lips with his and for a moment stood looking down at her, thinking once more of what might have been. An echo of his own thoughts seemed to glisten wetly in her dark eyes. Abruptly she turned away.

Pearce gripped Fuller's hand. "So long, Dave."

"Take care of yourself, Andy." Fuller looked painfully reflective, then suddenly held out the bottle. "Here, Andy, you take this. You might need it."

Pearce watched with a deep inward aching as Fuller and Ellen strode from the glade. Reaching the trees, they turned to look back at him. They hesitated, waved--were gone.

Pearce felt that the last door to the past had been irrevocably closed.

He looked down at the bottle he was holding and lifted it to his mouth. Then he lighted a cigarette, glanced at his watch again, and fell to pacing along one edge of the glade. His eyes roved tensely about him, expectant and dreading.

Thoughts shifted uneasily in his mind. Would Nela actually appear? Fifteen years had passed for him--a matter of a few hours to her. But perhaps something had gone wrong. Perhaps she had miscalculated somewhere.

And on mental scales he balanced Ellen against the future, wondering if his choice had been wise. Could the future possibly hold the happiness he might have known with Ellen, in the age familiar to him?

He heard a car motor start up in the distance. The sound rose in volume, then began fading. Dave and Ellen were on their way back to the city.

He felt suddenly alone--somehow abandoned.

Raising the bottle to his lips again, he resumed his nervous pacing. And then he stopped, frozen, aware of a change in his surroundings. The air in the glade was thickening queerly, the trees all around were growing crazily distorted. And he heard a deep humming sound--the kind of sound that might have been made by a string on a giant harp.

Across the glade, appearing as though from nothingness itself, an object was taking shape--a metal globe. Bands of distortion surrounded it like ripples in water. For an instant the globe seemed unsubstantial, illusory--then it was solid, resting quietly on the floor of the glade.

Pearce watched it, his heart pounding.

"Andy!"

The call hit him like a physical blow. Stunned, he whirled to see Ellen hurrying toward him through the trees.

"Andy!" she cried again. "Are you all right?"

"Ellen!" he gasped. "What are you doing here? I thought you left with Dave."

* * * * *

She caught breathlessly at his arm, steadying herself. "I made him go without me. I ... I couldn't leave you, Andy." Her voice rose. "I'm going with you!"

His mind whirled in dismayed confusion. He sent a swift glance at the metal globe. Any moment now, the door would open--

"Ellen, you can't go!"

"Why not? I'm willing to take the risk. And I'll be happy, whatever the future is like, as long as I'm with you."

He shook his head in despair. "It ... well, I'm afraid it's just impossible, that's all. No provision has been made for you. I don't know even if there would be room for you. I don't know if Nela can allow you in her plans, or--"

He broke off. Glancing at the globe again, he saw that the door was opening.

He waited for Nela to appear, wondering what her reaction would be when she saw Ellen, wondering how this hopelessly tangled situation could possibly be resolved.

The door of the globe stood fully open. Nothing else happened.

Pearce waited a moment longer, puzzled, then slowly looked into the globe. Except for two padded seats and a myriad of instruments on the curving walls, the interior of the machine was empty.

He turned in bewilderment to Ellen. "Something's wrong! Nela isn't inside."

Ellen looked gravely thoughtful. "Andy, I think I know what happened to her. She was an authority on Twentieth Century life, you know. She no doubt had all sorts of records to help her. She could speak the kind of English used here, she understood social customs, the economic situation, knew how to dress and act. What she didn't know, she could pick up by being careful and observing. In short, she could pass as an ordinary Twentieth Century girl, and hardly anyone would guess she was different."

Pearce's bewilderment grew. "What are you getting at?"

"Well, Andy, suppose this Nela wanted to make absolutely sure you'd be happy in the future, that nothing would interfere with your efficiency and general well-being. There was a big job ahead of you, and a lot depended on your particular field of knowledge and type of skill. So to make absolutely sure of you she stopped off along her route back to spend your last several months here with you. It wouldn't be hard for a clever girl like her to get acquainted with you and Dave. And you hadn't seen her for fifteen years, Andy. You wouldn't recognize her easily--especially if she'd had her hair cut short and wore Twentieth Century clothes and make-up."

Pearce stared at her a moment longer, then caught at her arms. "Ellen! You ... you're Nela!"

She nodded slowly, her smile uncertain and touched with shyness. "I hope you aren't disappointed, Andy, or that you hate me for having tricked you the way I did."

He laughed, a wild delight surging up in him. "Neither," he said. "And I'm going to prove it!"

He proved it to her entire satisfaction. Finally, hand in hand, they turned to the doorway of the globe.

"I suppose you brought the machine here by remote control or something of the sort," Pearce told Nela.

"Yes. I had a special gadget in my purse. The machine was here all along, you see, traveling a few minutes ahead in time."

"And Dave?" he said suddenly. "Did you tell him?"

"I told him I was going with you and hinted the reason why. He'll figure it out presently--even if he never completely believes it. Little has really changed for Dave. He'll marry Susie and lead a perfectly normal life."

Pearce halted Nela as she was about to enter the globe. "There's a little custom of this time that I'd like to observe. If you're as much of an authority on Twentieth Century life as you claim, you'll understand."

He gathered her up in his arms and carried her over the threshold. Her smile and then the pressure of her lips indicated that she understood.

The door closed. The trees at the edge of the glade grew crazily distorted, shimmering bands enclosed the globe like ripples in water, there was a humming sound like a giant harp string--

And then the glade was empty.