Part 2

"Naturally, this injustice made me desperate. I swore that I'd be the first to pass through. In the meantime Eyoaoc Eiioiei had managed to enter Iralnard City, disguised. He was very attached to me. He helped me escape, helped me reach the laboratory. However, at the last moment, we became separated. To avoid recapture I was forced to pass through the Ice Stone alone.

"Now, my friends, you know why I am here."

Doc was beating his arms to keep from freezing.

"If I understand you," he puffed, "that thing"--pointing toward the Ice Stone--"affords a short-cut into the future, by a kind of suspended animation. And once there, you can't go back."

"Quite correct." Rog Tanlu seemed pleased. "If I were to pass through it again, in either direction, I would not return to the Ice Age but would take another jump into the future."

It sounded simple, as he told it, even to me, and Doc nodded.

"What seems queer," he observed, "is about this cold and wind. I understand it's blowing from the outside cliff into the Ice Stone--from way back in the Ice Age--and is only now emerging here. In that case the cube must have swallowed a tremendous amount of air--and energy!"

"You grasp the idea," said Rog Tanlu, with quiet satisfaction. "But you must not judge the capacity of the Ice Stone by its external dimensions. They are quite deceptive. I assure you that its ramifications in the fourth dimension would enable it to absorb a total of all telluric energies, and still have room to spare.... Come, my friends, I had not realized that you were suffering from the cold! Let us return to the balmy open. I find your climate--inexpressible!"

Well, I wasn't sorry to hear this proposal. And judging by the way Doc Champ was frostily puffing and rubbing his ears, I guess he wasn't, either.

We soon got down to where the wind didn't hit so strong, and Doc started asking questions.

When would the refugees start coming? Would Darlu Marc--Rog Tanlu's enemy--be among the first?

"He may never come," said Rog Tanlu bitterly. "His purpose is to bleed the people, sell them passage to this paradise. That would enable him to live in comparative security and comfort back in Iralnard City for the remainder of his lifetime."

I could see by the way he spoke that those half-million years separating him from this guy Marc were pretty galling on Rog Tanlu.

We were moving slowly down toward that all-but-closed entrance, and now and then he would flash his light to show the way.

"Here's a strange thought," said Doc Champ suddenly, as he stumbled along at my elbow. "Why can't we go up on that ledge and look through the Ice Stone from that direction? We ought to be able to see right into your laboratory, as it was a short time after you left, and find out what's going on."

Rog Tanlu chuckled. "Of course," he agreed eagerly. "That's right where we're bound now. I've been hanging around there for nine days--watching. But so far--"

A funny sound cut in on him--a sound coming from somewhere ahead. It was like a voice--a metallic voice--thin and clear.

"_Rog Tanlu ... Rog Tanlu ... Rog Tan-lu._..."

Then I saw something move, there in the shadows, and goose-pimples sprang out on me. For as the light glinted on that thing, I saw it wasn't human.

"Eyoaoc Eiioiei!" cried Rog Tanlu. "He's come through--he has followed me!"

Did you ever see a dog frisk around someone he likes, someone he's been separated from for a long time? Then picture the dog as no dog at all, but a madhouse thing prancing on two jointed-metal legs, as thick as stovepipes, its eyes glinting ruby-red when they catch the light--

But the part that made cold shivers run up my back was the thing's head--a round globe from which those ruby eyes sparkled. That head wasn't attached in any visible manner to its short, squat body, but seemed to float, six inches above its shoulders, as if poised there by some magnetic force.

All the while the thing was capering around Rog Tanlu, it was jabbering at him in some outlandish tongue, and he was jabbering back at it.

Doc Champ and I stood there staring.

But by and by I heard Doc's voice.

"A robot," he said, speaking softly and in kind of an awed tone. "So his laboratory assistant is a robot."

"No wonder it was immune to the cold," I gulped, swallowing hard.

Presently Rog Tanlu swung around toward us and commenced to talk so we could understand.

"Serious news," he bit out. "Darlu Marc has delayed the emigration. But he is sending a party of his vassals to wipe me out. He thinks I possess means to destroy the Ice Stone--thinks I'd do it out of sheer spite. He's wrong of course, in both instances. But the idea is hindering the sale of tickets. Eyoaoc Eiioiei learned of Marc's intentions. He managed at last to reach the Ice Stone, and bring me warning. He emerged on the cliff side while we were in here. But an armed band of Marc's vassals are right on his heels!"

I couldn't tear my gaze from that thing he called Eyoaoc Eiioiei. It had stopped frisking around him and was now blinking its ruby-red eyes at Doc Champ and me; and, I swear, I believe that damned thing was just as amazed and curious as I was.

"Do you mean," asked Doc, "that these killers are outside now?"

"I do not know," answered Rog Tanlu. "If so, they will soon find the entrance to my laboratory, since they are familiar with the terrain."

"Then we better sneak out of here," I suggested, not liking the idea of being bottled up, there in that hole.

"My friends," said Rog Tanlu, "I regret having drawn you into this. Leave now; you may be able to escape undetected. But I shall await them here, in this cavern which is very familiar to me."

Doc Champ shook his head. I knew he wouldn't fall in with that plan.

"We're both armed," he told Rog Tanlu, slapping the automatic that sagged in his pocket. "We'll hang around awhile."

I guess I like this quality in Doc. Maybe it was partly the reason why I took to him.

Well, I backed up the little guy ... but I thought he was wrong. That fight--if there was going to be a fight--wasn't ours. And I couldn't just see men with pistols getting very far against those fountain-pen affairs, like Rog Tanlu had. And then, there was that Eyoaoc Eiioiei.... The whole thing was a little beyond my depths. I thought Doc was wrong to mix up in something we didn't know a cussed thing about--and I still think so!

Rog Tanlu had switched off his light. We stood there in the dark listening. But we didn't hear a sound.

I groped around and touched Doc's arm.

"Doc," I whispered, "let's slip down to the entrance and find out what's going on."

Although my words shouldn't have carried six feet, that robot thing must have heard me--and, stranger still, must have understood.

For immediately I heard a subdued, metallic jabbering, then Rog Tanlu's voice speaking urgently to Doc and me.

"That would be very unwise. Eyoaoc Eiioiei suggests that it would be better for us three to withdraw farther from the entrance. He will remain here and act as guard. Moreover, I can easily learn, with the audio-visiscope, what is taking place outside--just as soon as I have a moment of leisure. Come, my friends."

Well, we faced around and started back. And I could hear that nightmare thing he called Eyoaoc Eiioiei moving on down toward the rock-choked entrance--its steps surprisingly soundless, considering its clumsy appearance.

However, the entire arrangement didn't seem right to me, especially letting that thing plan our line of action as if it was one of us and, well, alive.

But that robot-thing could certainly think, and fight, as I was shortly to learn!

Doc Champ and I groped along after Rog Tanlu. He seemed to know right where he was going, and after a hundred feet or so he stopped.

It was not quite dark here--just enough light for us to see, in a vague sort of fashion, that he was bending over a low, flat block of stone, a stone suggesting that it had once served as the foundation for some huge machine. I realized that he was setting up that flashlight contraption with the black bulb at one end.

And suddenly that bulb began to glow softly.

"Now," said Rog Tanlu, "we'll see what's going on."

The three of us bent over the thing. What looked like reflections in it were shifting around and around, and abruptly the steep face of a cliff swung into view. We could see the Ice Stone as it appeared from the outside, and the ledge running up to it.

We saw no one near the Ice Stone. But suddenly, under Rog Tanlu's swift adjustment, the image shifted and enlarged--like a movie close-up--magnifying a certain portion of that ledge.

And there, in a heap like cast-off cocoons, were some half-dozen of those heavy, fawn-colored garments, identical with the one we had seen hanging in the tree.

"So-o-o," Rog Tanlu breathed tensely, "Eyoaoc Eiioiei was right! They _have_ come! They must be--"

A startled shout cut off his words. It was followed by a blinding flash of light. Then hell suddenly broke loose down below us....

In that cavern-darkness the blast of light was, in itself, almost stunning; and following it were other blasts of equal intensity. Vision was a torturing thing. It was like those brief but vivid glimpses presented by lightning during a summer storm at night.

But with hurting eyes I managed to discern a group of figures jamming the entrance-way to the cavern, with Eyoaoc Eiioiei's weird shape looming between us and them.

"Down!" shouted Rog Tanlu to Doc and me. "Down, behind the rock!"

In a dim, bewildered way I realized that those flashes of light were from weapons in the hands of invaders--weapons trained on Eyoaoc Eiioiei. But we, also, were directly in line.

Doc Champ didn't seem to hear Rog Tanlu's order. He was staring down at that weird sight--staring at Eyoaoc Eiioiei. And for a moment I, too, ignored the warning. For that grotesque thing was fighting--fighting in a way that was an astonishing sight to witness.

Thin, dazzling, rapierlike beams were flashing up at him and past him. But Eyoaoc Eiioiei was avoiding those hissing shafts with a skill not human--a dancing, cavorting nightmare thing, silhouetted against and enmeshed by those lethal streaks of fire; and I saw that now and then from his metal hand flashed a return blast of radiance. He was standing between his master and his master's assassins, and such wild courage and savagery brought into my throat a choked feeling of admiration.

A hissing white shaft flashed within a foot of my head, bringing me to my senses. I made a grab at Doc Champ, intending to drag him down to safety. Then I realized that he was already lying flat behind that ancient block of rock.

Rog Tanlu was on his knees. He had jerked that fountain-pen affair into action. Again and again I saw its belching bar of whiteness blast down toward the entrance. This man from the Past, despite his thin, pale face and affable manner, was also a fighter!

And strangely, watching him and that wildly cavorting shadow that was Eyoaoc Eiioiei, I forgot all about the automatic in my pocket. For somehow this fantastic meeting of forces seemed remotely withdrawn from the affairs of Doc Champ and myself--although heaven knows we were mixed up in it at that moment close enough!

I do not know for how long that flaming barrage lasted--perhaps only a moment or so, although it seemed longer. But suddenly it was over. Darkness and silence blotted down on us there in the cavern.

"Doc!" I gasped.

He didn't answer. But I heard someone moaning softly.

I groped around in the darkness. Then my hand touched him. He didn't move, and somehow it needed only that touch to tell me the truth.

"Rog Tanlu," I called hoarsely. "Rog Tanlu--!"

"Here," came a voice, followed by a moan.

The temporary blindness caused by those recent blasts of light was leaving my eyes. I began to see dimly.

I crawled over to where Rog Tanlu was lying.

"They accomplished their purpose," he muttered. "I--I'm--"

"Where are you hurt?" I asked, my hands running over his shoulder and arm. That glove-fitting silk garment over his right arm and part of his chest felt strangely altered, brittle, charred.

"The healing ray," he muttered. "The orlex ray--only that could help me ... and I know that you do not have it."

A sound, the clump of heavy metal feet, caused me suddenly to jerk erect. My eyes tried to pierce the darkness.

A grotesque form was emerging from the gloom--Eyoaoc Eiioiei.

I drew back as that metal thing bent over Rog Tanlu.

There followed a moment of excited voice-sounds, and once or twice Rog Tanlu answered, faintly, words I could not understand.

Suddenly, reaching down, the thing picked him up in its jointed metal arms and started to carry him on up the passageway.

For a moment I stood there, saddened and appalled by this grim turn of fate. Then I began running up the slope after them. But so swiftly did that metal thing stride on before me that the blast of glacial air from the Ice Stone was hissing in my ears before I overtook them.

"Rog Tanlu!" I cried. "Where--?"

"The healing ray," his voice came back to me. "You do not have it ... my good friend.... But somewhere ... in the Future ... it will be rediscovered. Eyoaoc Eiioiei will take me ... on into the Future ... through the Ice Stone ... again and again if necessary ... until we find it--"

His voice ceased. For Eyoaoc Eiioiei had not paused, but had continued on straight into that frigid blast.

I caught a last vague glimpse of that nightmare shape disappearing into the Ice Stone.

* * * * *

There is but little more to tell. Those assassins from the Past were all dead, as I discovered when I left the cavern--Rog Tanlu's laboratory.

I buried what was left of little rawboned Doctor Champ in the sand at the foot of that cliff below the Ice Stone.

Then I headed back in the truck for Qum, the Holy City. Three days later the fuel ran out. I do not know what plans Doc had made for replenishing it, but whatever they were he hadn't put me wise. So I left the truck there at the edge of a mud-salt swamp and went on afoot.

Two weeks later, more dead than alive, I arrived at Qum and tried to give warning.

It may seem queer, but until that moment I had not worried over the chance of my word being doubted. Moreover, the one substantiating exhibit I had thought to bring along--that fawn-colored silk garment of Rog Tanlu's--I had been forced to abandon along with the truck.

I soon realized that if I persisted in trying to tell the truth, one of two things would happen: I would either be locked up as a nut, or, if I managed to convince certain Iranian officials, then the "Most Lofty of Living Men"--the Shah--might possibly send a few airplanes out there to bomb the Ice Stone "out of existence," as they lightly and humorously suggested.

I doubt that this could be done. If the Ice Stone were dislodged from its setting, there in the mountain-cliff where it was installed by its maker--Rog Tanlu--who knows what world-catastrophe might not result?

So at last I gave up.

At Bandar Shahpur I caught a boat for home.

But I am now dickering with a certain Pennsylvania university. They are interested in the disappearance of Dr. Champ Chadwick, and I've offered to act as guide if they will send a party of scientists out to investigate the Ice Stone. Perhaps something may come of it--before it is too late.

But then I get to thinking of how Eyoaoc Eiioiei is carrying his wounded master on and on into the Future in search of a "healing ray!"