Part 2

Dolan frowned doubtfully. "'Temporal re-integrator'," he repeated. "Could be anything. What do the others say?" Among the litter the first electrician had left, there was a short length of lead-shielded two-conductor number 14 wire. He picked it up and began to run it absently through his fingers, straightening it. Someone had apparently amused themselves by clipping idly at it with a pair of side-cutters, it was irregularly nicked along its length.

"This," Brown continued, "is something called a 'selective resonator', and this, well, the term does not translate, it is a--" he pronounced carefully, as if unfamiliar with the word, "'bractor-quatic'--"

There was something peculiar about the indentations in the wire, Dolan realized, a pattern--He pulled it unobtrusively through his fingers again, letting his thumbnail run over the nicks. It was Morse: K-I-T-T-E ... _kitten?_ ... no, it must be American Morse ... K-I-L-L-E-R ... _killers hs end rvr rd_

Killers in the house at the end of River Road.

This was the house at the end of River Road.

Brown had stopped speaking and was looking at him questioningly.

"Uh, yeah," Dolan said hastily. "Well, that still doesn't tell me too much." He carefully rolled the length of wire and hung it on a projecting piece of the time translator. His hands were damp, and he was sure he was moving awkwardly and unnaturally. Dolan was not an easily flustered person, but things were coming a little fast--mysterious aliens, time machines, and now--murder, or hint of it.

He needed time to think.

"It's getting pretty late," he said, hoping his voice sounded natural. "Let's just knock off for now, I'll study it over, maybe I'll have something figured by tomorrow."

Historical research, huh? Some professors all right, this bunch--

The thing to do was to stall, not let them know he suspected anything.

"I tell you," he said casually, "do you have some place I could bed down here? Save me a trip into town and back."

Was it his imagination, or did Brown relax slightly?

"Why, yes, we do have a spare cot in Mr. Smith's room," Brown said. "Would that be good enough?"

"Sounds fine," Dolan said. He snapped the lid of his tool-box shut. "Let's go see what it looks like."

* * * * *

The two male gun runners held a council of war while Dolan was eating his breakfast.

"Subject's attention diverted," the senior gun runner said. "Unknown factor. Annoying."

Smith clucked his tongue in sympathy. He thought for a moment. "Raise threshold to override?" he suggested.

"Must. Moirta."

Smith nodded and went out. He returned in a moment with the female gun runner. Brown explained the problem to her in the same few words he had used to Smith.

She shrugged. She did not bother to practise her specialty on her colleagues--they were, for one thing, almost immune, they had grown up in a civilization where her specialty was over-crowded. For another, in the nature of her specialty, she found it hard to concentrate on more than one subject at a time. "Doing best," she said indifferently.

Brown studied her shrewdly. "Supplies short," he said mildly. "One-half larger than one-third. Each must pay way."

His voice was mild, but Moirta understood the threat quite clearly. "Suggestions?" she asked coldly.

Brown nodded equably--he was used to temperament in this member of his team--and told her what he wanted her to do. She would obey, he knew. She would also double-cross him, if the occasion offered; but he did not intend that the occasion _should_ offer.

* * * * *

There was a foot-path leading up the ridge back of the cabin. Dolan did not ordinarily feel the need of an after-breakfast stroll, but today he was looking for something. He was not quite sure what it would be, but he thought he would recognize it if he saw it. He walked slowly up the foot-path, letting his eyes roam. Perhaps fifty yards from the cottage, the grass was trampled and the brush bent where someone had left the path.

This might be it.

He followed the trampled trail off the path, searching carefully now. Three or four steps along it, he found what he had been looking for--two empty .45 caliber cartridges lying in the grass.

He picked them up and juggled them in his hand, looking speculatively about. Angling off to the left was an opening in the undergrowth.

He walked that way and found himself standing on the lip of a sharply eroded gully. Someone or something had kicked the bank down recently, there was a great pile of new earth in the bottom of the gully. He kicked around in the leaves and mold at his feet. There was a dark crusted substance on the leaves.

The door of the cottage slammed. He slipped the empty cartridges in his pocket and stepped hastily back to the path, listening.

Were those footsteps hurrying toward him?

He began to stroll slowly back toward the cottage. Around the first turn he met Moirta.

The girl now, he thought, where does she really fit? Possible ally? Enemy? Or neutral?

She came up to him a little breathless and took his hand. "Were you going back to the house?" she asked.

"Not specially. Just walking around."

"Let's not go back just yet, then," she said. They turned and walked slowly back up the path, hand-in-hand. After a while they came out on an open shoulder from which they could look down, catching glimpses of the path they had climbed here and there, and at its end the cottage. They sat down close together, leaning back against a large tree, not speaking at first.

After a while the girl sighed. "I shall feel very sorry when we leave this time," she said.

"Me, too." He kissed her.

After a moment she pulled away and looked at him searchingly. "There is something bothering you?" she asked. She flushed a little. "That was not very ... ardent."

Dolan looked away, feeling foolish. "I guess not," he said.

She took his hand and squeezed it. "Poor George. It must be very confusing for you. Can I help?"

Perhaps she could, he thought.

"Look here," he said cautiously, "what happens when I get this thing fixed, if I do? You folks go on back to your own time, I suppose, but what happens to me?"

She hesitated. "I don't think I understand," she said. "Mr. Brown pays you for your work, I suppose, and you stay here, that's all. Should there be more?"

Dolan smiled grimly. "Like the first technician, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, Brown pays me, and I stay here, like the first technician." He took his hand out of his pocket with the two empty cartridge cases in it and rolled them gently back and forth in his open palm.

Moirta stared at them fascinated. "Oh," she said faintly, "I didn't know. I thought ... I didn't know...."

"Well, you know now," he said. "And your job is to keep me cheered up and plugging away at the job until payday comes. Right?"

"No," she said. "Oh, no. Please, George. They wouldn't do that ... that is, I don't think ... it's so unnecessary."

"Unnecessary?"

"Yes. You see--I shouldn't tell you this, but I can't have you thinking ... you see, after we are gone, you will forget all this. Why should they kill you when there's no reason?"

She did not seem very strongly convinced herself, Dolan thought.

"How do you mean, I'll forget it? You mean they'll hypnotize me, something like that?"

She shook her head. "No, they won't have to do anything. It's the displacement effect. You see, we are not _really_ here, in a way, it is a sort of illusion, but more real for us than for you. When we return to our own time, we will remember all that happened, but you will remember nothing, since the translator does not really exist in your time. You will just forget, it will be as if none of this had ever happened, as if you had never met me, never heard of a 'time-translator'."

It sounded plausible, in a way, but there was a flaw in the logic.

"If everybody in this time forgets, why so much to-do about secrecy? Won't anyone else I tell forget too?"

"There is a limit to the possible displacement. If the limit is exceeded, according to the Alwyn hypothesis the continuum itself may be altered, and one of the ways in which it might change would be to eliminate the irritant--in other words, all of us concerned directly."

"I see. So they figured two of us put too much of a strain on the displacement, that's why they killed this other joker--what was his name, anyway?"

"Nelson. Perhaps," she said uncertainly, "that might be it."

"And maybe they figure even one is too much strain, better to be safe than sorry, huh?"

"No, I don't think so. Killing requires even more displacement than ... loss of memory. Really, I don't understand it, you see, I am just a sort of employee, they don't confide in me. If they knew I had been talking to you about these things like this--" she shuddered and smiled wryly. "Perhaps I too know too much, perhaps I should be worrying about the pros and cons of various types of displacement for myself."

Dolan looked at her thoughtfully. "This displacement thing," he said gently, "I'll forget you too?"

She nodded. "You will forget me. But I will remember you--for a long time, I am afraid."

He frowned and kicked at a tuft of sod. "I don't want to forget you. Do you have to leave with the others? Couldn't you stay? For a little while anyway? You haven't really had a good chance to see our world yet."

"No. They would never trust me out of their control. If I refused to go ... well ..." she shrugged.

"And I don't suppose I could go back with you to your world, spend some time there, either?"

"No, that would be to travel into your own future, which cannot be done."

"I see." Dolan leaned back against the tree, thinking.

"Well, there's one thing sure," he said. "If the machine can't be fixed, it can't be fixed, there isn't much they can do about it. You may _all_ stay in this time yet."

She shook her head gently. "Not all. At least, not all alive. There would be no displacement, and the only hope they would have to avoid the Alwyn action would be to preserve absolute secrecy. You have a saying, I believe: 'dead men--'" She hesitated. "Even if you and I could find a way to escape, even if they _told_ me I might leave, I could not trust them. They are very dangerous men. As long as we and they are both in this time, there would be no safety for me, nor for you."

"I suppose you're right," Dolan said reluctantly. He looked down at her searchingly. "What do you _want_ to do?" he asked. "Do you want to stay with me, or do you want me to forget you?"

"I want to be with you," she said softly. "Always."

"And I, with you," he said. He bent his head toward hers.

Below, the door of the cottage opened. Smith's figure appeared. He glanced around and then came plodding up the path.

Moirta pulled away and got to her feet. "We might as well start back, I suppose," she said unenthusiastically.

"Let's go back in the woods, he won't find us there."

She hesitated and then shook her head. "No. We have both been very indiscreet today, and they are suspicious men. It is important in their trade to be suspicious. It would not be wise to let them think we are avoiding them."

"OK, I suppose not," he acknowledged glumly. He rose and followed her down the path.

* * * * *

Like all true artists, Moirta tended to submerge herself completely in her role, a failing which the senior gun runner recognized and allowed for in his calculations.

In the following days, Dolan held her hand often, and kissed her sometimes, and talked with her frequently, and took her in his arms for short periods; but at the crucial moment Smith or Brown always casually appeared upon the scene. Dolan suspected, accurately, that they were deliberately permitting him just enough contact with her to keep him constantly on edge, keep his mind off other matters.

They made no overt threats, but he was constantly aware of the body in the gully, the bulge in Smith's pocket, Brown's cold eyes studying him. Dolan was not a submissive person, and under the pressure a cold malevolence toward the two gun runners began to develop in him. He concealed it, as well as he could, under a shell of impassivity.

His time would come. The sketch of a plan was beginning to form in his mind, it was not very solid yet, but if it worked out they would be laughing on the other side of their faces.

What was it Moirta had said? There would be danger "as long as we and they are both in this time." The answer to that was simple. Eliminate "they" and eliminate the danger.

In his work, Dolan kept running into reminders of the first technician, and the matter bothered him. The man seemed to have been making progress, and surely he would not have been such a fool as simply to refuse to work, the message he had left showed he understood quite clearly his danger. He asked Moirta about this, and got another shock.

"That was a mistake," she said. "We did not fully understand your world then. In our time, medical science is very exact. There are no incomplete men or incomplete women. We assumed that because this man ... person ... looked like a man, and seemed to be a man, he was one. However, we have since discovered that this is not always true, and it was not in this case. We could not allow him to work on the machine, since we could not predict his reactions adequately."

Not predict his reactions? There was an obvious corollary--

Dolan's lips tightened. "But you _can_ predict mine, is that it?"

Moirta ran her fingers lightly along the back of his hand, studying his knuckles with the tips of them. "Of course," she said idly, "Why not? There is nothing wrong with _your_ reactions, George dear."

He flung her hand away violently. "Why not? So you push the buttons, and I react as predicted, and you sit back and laugh at me while I fix your machine, and then you all go tootling off to find more suckers, while I hold the bag. That's it, isn't it? Boy, I bet you've been getting a _big_ charge out of this. I thought it was mighty coincidental the way one of your boyfriends always pops up as soon as we're alone for five minutes. Not taking any chances on the reaction getting out of hand, are you?"

She stared up at him in shocked surprise. "No," she said, "no. Oh, poor George. How stupid of me. You see, I am not really very wise, I know only one thing, how to be a woman. I keep forgetting that you do not think as we do. Because we can predict a reaction, does that make it less real?"

"But you _used_ me, you knew this would happen."

There were tears in her eyes. "I used you," she admitted, "and I used myself, and Brown used both you _and_ me.

"And you used me, also. Do you wish me to think that when you hold a woman's hand, and say certain things to her, and look at her in a certain way; you are entirely innocent, you do not guess what may happen?"

"I didn't force you," he said stubbornly, "the choice was yours to make."

"Nor did I force you. But I knew what your choice would be, and further, I knew what _my_ choice would be. Emotion is my trade, as electronics is yours. Electrons, I have been told, have a certain freedom of choice, or appear to have. Yet you know with quite high probability which choice they will make under the influence of certain physical fields. In the same way, I know what choice to expect of a man or a woman, under the influence of certain emotional fields."

"You didn't want _me_, though, you just wanted a technician. The first man would have done just as well for you, if he had 'reacted.'"

"That is true. And I am the first woman you have ever made love to?"

"No, of course not. But I've never felt the same about them as I do about you."

"I, the same. George, I think you still do not understand me. In your time there are women who get things from men by seeming to promise more than they intend to give, for simulating emotions they do not feel. You think I am one of those ... no, please don't interrupt ... I am not. In my time there are no such women, people understand each other too well, they are too hard to fool.

"Instead, there are women like me, women who are peculiarly attractive to men, and peculiarly susceptible to men--honestly so. Believe me, it is not an easy way to make a living. A woman has only so much honest emotion to give. Do you understand now?" She looked up at him appealingly.

He did not understand, but he believed.

He could not doubt that this was as important to her as to him, that regardless of the motives behind it, her feeling was deep and honest. And yet, it was impossible to understand, impossible for him to visualize a world in which people knew accurately the feeling others held for them; and yet still loved, disliked, or were indifferent. It was, he thought, a little like a caveman trying to understand the complexities and compulsions of polite urban society.

He slumped back down beside her. "I don't know," he said glumly. "You're right, I suppose, it all sounds logical; but I still don't understand."

She drew him to her. "Poor George," she said with her mouth against his ear. "Poor George, I know only one way to console you, and only one way to console myself." She sighed. "And it seems they will not permit that, I suppose the 'reaction,'" she smiled wryly, "would not fit with their plans."

Dolan straightened and looked at her sharply. Her remark had reminded him of something else he needed to know. "How do they _know_ just when to break us up," he asked, "just when to drop in 'accidentally' on us? Can they read my mind?"

She shook her head. "No, they are not mind-readers. It is just that they know so much about what to expect of people--remember that for thousands of years there has been nothing so important to us as what other people do, in my time men of science no longer study physical things, all that is known, they study people. In any given situation, they can predict quite accurately what action a given individual will take."

"You think they know what we're talking about now?"

"Not in detail. But in general, yes--and I suppose it must serve their purpose in some way for us to worry about these things, what will become of you and me, or they would not permit it. In a matter such as this, they do nothing without a purpose."

"Well, that's fair enough," Dolan said grimly. "As long as they aren't actually mind-readers, they can guess all they want to."

Moirta shook her head. "It is not guessing, that is what I have been trying to tell you. Whatever you plan, they will have foreseen it, perhaps not the exact thing you wish to do; but all the possible things you can do, and the most likely thing you will do.

"Really, it will not be so bad, you will finish the translator, and we will go, and you will forget us, and ... well, in time I suppose I will forget you also."

"No." He squeezed her hard against him. "I don't intend to forget you, and I don't intend you to forget me." He grinned down at her. "In this time, the boy always gets the girl, and they live happily ever after. It's a natural law, like gravitation.

"Brown and Smith aren't infallible. They may know people, but I know machines. Don't forget, the time translator is the key, the big item in this mess. And that's in my bailiwick."

* * * * *

Dolan went back to work.

He left it to Brown to satisfy the people at the shop, and apparently Brown satisfied them, they sent along the equipment and supplies he requested without comment.

He still had no idea _why_ the time translator worked, but he was beginning to know quite a bit about _how_ it worked, in the sense of functional operation, the input/output relations of the black boxes. A time came when he could have activated the machine by making a few minor connections.

He did not do so.

With the knowledge that he had the technical problem whipped, some of his urgency faded. He could take time to amplify and clarify his knowledge. Quite probably the time translator could never be duplicated by twentieth century technology. At the same time, only a fool would pass up a chance to learn what he could, it was too big a thing, even with the limitations under which it seemed to operate. Also, familiarity with the translator was a weapon, knowledge Brown did not have--a weapon he was grimly intent on using.

He kept testing and checking, varying inputs and measuring outputs.

Remembering what Moirta had said about losing his memory--he did not think he would, if his plans worked out, but there was always the chance of something going wrong--he kept careful notes. Brown watched this activity blandly. Thinking it over, Dolan saw that this was only logical. There were always fires for notes.

So, as an extra precaution, he made copies of the most important data in secrecy and stored them in a glass jar under a rock back of the cottage. Then it occurred to him that he might forget about the jar--or he might not be around to remember it, there was still the gully to keep in mind. Well, what had worked once should work again. He nicked a code message in a piece of wire, showing the location of the notes, and left it in his tool-box.

Also, he made certain changes in the time-machine.

Finally, he told Brown the machine was ready.

"You want to test-hop it?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure it'll work now, but it's still a haywire job, I could be wrong."

Brown shook his head. "Not necessary. If the machine works, we will be ... home. If not, well, you will just have to tinker with it some more." It was not sound reasoning, from Dolan's viewpoint, but consistent with what he had come to expect from these people in technical matters. He had counted heavily on such a reaction.

"OK," he said. "Then she's ready to go."

Brown nodded and tossed a key to Smith, speaking curtly in a language strange to Dolan. Dolan had noticed long before that the back bedroom door was always locked, and the windows securely boarded up. Artifacts of historical interest, Brown had told him. It seemed like rather extreme precaution to take for security of such material.

Brown turned back to Dolan. "You had better move your equipment out of range of the machine now, if you wish to keep it," he said.

Dolan carried his equipment outside. When he returned the three aliens were carrying small heavy boxes out of the back room, stowing them in a tight circle about the machine. Moirta was straining at a heavy case with neatly dove-tailed corners, marked "Remington".

So that was what it was all about.

It suddenly occurred to him to wonder how, if the machine could not move a person into the future, if it had no real existence in this time, they expected to move guns and ammunition. Did the laws of time operate differently for living organisms and inanimate things? What was it someone had once said about life--'islands of reverse entropy'? But that was only a figure of speech, men were still made up of the same elements as steel and brass--

Well, it could wait, there were more important things right now. "You need a hand?" he asked Moirta.

She smiled and nodded breathlessly.

As he stooped to help lift the box, their heads almost touched. "Listen!" he whispered, "be on your toes, now. I'm going to try something. Stay on this side of the machine, no matter what happens, and do just as I say."

She looked startled, but nodded.

With four of them working, it did not take long to pile the cargo in place. Brown checked it over with his eye and then turned to study Dolan.

"Well," he said slowly, "I suppose we are ready to go. No doubt you wish your payment now, eh, Mr. Dolan?"

This was the critical point. Dolan tensed as Smith stepped clear and lifted an inquiring eyebrow at Brown, his hand in his hip-pocket; but the senior gun runner shook his head. "Don't be stupid," he said quietly. "I think we have a few negotiations to make now." He looked at Dolan inquiringly.