Andre Norton - Ross Murdock 04 - Key Out Of Time

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Key Out of Time

Lotus World

There was a shading of rose in the pearl arch of sky, deepening to a rainbow

tint of cloud. The lazy swells of the ocean held the same soft color,

darkened with crimson veins where spirals of weed drifted. A rose world

bathed in soft sunlight, knowing only gentle winds, peace, and--sloth. Ross

Murdock leaned forward over the edge of the rock ledge to peer down at a

beach of fine sand, pale pink sand. Here and there sparkled the glitter of

crystalline shells--or were those fluted ovals shells? Even the waves came

in languidly. And the breeze which ruffled his hair and caressed his

sun-browned, half-bare body, lightly stirred the growths which the Terran

settlers called "trees" but which possessed long lacy fronds instead of true

branches. Hawaika--named for the old Polynesian paradise--a world seemingly

without flaw except the subtle one of being too perfect, too welcoming, too

wooing. Its long, uneventful, unchanging days enticed forgetfulness, offered

a life without effort. Except for the mystery . . . Because this world was

not the one pictured on the tape which had brought the human settlement team

here. A map, a directing guide, a description all in one, that was the

ancient voyage tape. Ross himself had helped to loot a storehouse on an

unknown planet for a cargo of such tapes. Once they had been the

space-navigation guides for a race or races who had ruled the star lanes ten

thousand years ago in his own world's past, a civilization which had long

since sunk back into dust. Those tapes returned to Earth after their chance

discovery, were studied, probed, deciphered by the best brains of his time,

shared out by lot between already suspicious global powers, bringing into

the exploration of space bitter rivalries and old hatreds. Such a tape had

landed their ship on Hawaika, a world of shallow seas and archipelagoes

instead of true continents. The settlement team had had all the knowledge

contained on that tape crowded into them, only to discover that much they

had learned from it was false! Of course, none of them had expected to

discover the cities or the civilization the tape had projected as existing

in that long-ago period. But no present island string that they had visited

approximated those on the maps they had seen, and so far they had not found

any trace that any intelligent beings had walked, built, or lived on these

beautiful, slumberous atolls. So, what had happened to the Hawaika of the

tape? Ross's right hand rubbed across the ridged scars which disfigured his

left one, to be carried for the rest of his life as a mark of his meeting

with the star voyagers in the past of his own world. He had deliberately

seared his own flesh to break their mental control over him. Then the battle

had gone his way. But from it he had brought another scar--the unease of

that old terror when Ross Murdock, outlaw by the conventions of his own era,

Ross Murdock who considered himself exceedingly tough and made tougher yet

by training for Time Agent sorties, had come up against a power he did not

understand. Now he breathed deeply of the wind--the smell of the sea, the

scents of the land growths, strange but pleasant. So easy to relax, to drop

into the soft, lulling swing of this world in which they had found no fault,

no danger, no irritant. Yet, once those others had been here--the

blue-suited, hairless ones he called "Baldies." And what had happened then .

. . or afterward? A black head, brown shoulders, slender body, broke the

sleepy slip of the waves. A shimmering mask covered the face, flashing in

the sun. Two hands freed a chin curved yet firmly set, a mouth made more for

laughter than sternness, wide dark eyes. Karara Trehern of the Alii, once a

lineage of divine chieftains in Hawaii, was an exceedingly pretty girl.

But Ross regarded her aloofly, with coldness which bordered on hostility, as

she flipped her mask into its pocket on top of the gill-pack. Below his

rocky perch she came to a halt, her feet slightly apart in the sand. There

was an impish twist to her lips as she called:

"Why not come in? The water's fine."

"Perfect, like all the rest of this." Some of his impatience came out in the

sour tone. "No luck, as usual?"

"As usual," Karara conceded. "If there ever was a civilization here, it's

been gone so long we'll probably never find any traces. Why don't you just

pick out a good place to set up that time-probe and try it blind?"

Ross scowled. "Because"--his patience was exaggerated to the point of

insult--"we have only one peep-probe. Once it's set we can't tear it down

easily for transport somewhere else, so we want to be sure there's something

to look at beyond."

She began to wring the water out of her long hair. "Well, as far as we've

explored . . . nothing. Come yourself next time. Tino-rau and Taua aren't

particular; they like company."

Putting two fingers to her mouth, Karara whistled. Twin heads popped out of

the water, facing the shore and her. Projecting noses, mouths with upturned

corners so they curved in a lasting pleasant grin at the mammals on the

shore--the dolphin pair, mammals whose ancestors had chosen the sea,

whistled back in such close counterfeit of the girl's signal that they could

be an echo of her call. Years earlier their species' intelligence had

surprised, almost shocked, men. Experiments, training, co-operation, had

developed a tie which gave the water-limited race of mankind new eyes, ears,

minds, to see, evaluate, and report concerning an element in which the

bipeds were not free. Hand in hand with that co-operation had gone other

experiments. Just as the clumsy armored diving suits of the early twentieth

century had allowed man to begin penetration into a weird new world, so had

scuba equipment made him still freer in the sea. And now the gill-pack which

separated the needed oxygen from the water made even that lighter burden of

tanks obsolete. But there remained depths into which man could not descend

outside a submarine whose secrets were closed to him. There the dolphins

operated, in a partnership of minds, equal minds--though that last fact had

been difficult for man to accept. Ross's irritation, unjustified as he knew

it to be, did not rest on Tino-rau or Taua. He enjoyed the hours when he

buckled on gill-pack and took to the sea with those two ten-foot,

black-and-silver escorts sharing the action. But Karara . . . Karara's

presence was a different matter altogether. The Agents' teams had always

been strictly masculine. Two men partnered for an interlocking of abilities

and temperaments, going through training together, becoming two halves of a

strong and efficient whole. Before -being summarily recruited into the

Project, Ross had been a loner--living on the ragged edges of the law, an

indigestible bit for the civilization which had become too ordered and

"adjusted" to absorb his kind. But in the Project he had discovered others

like himself--men born out of time, too ruthless, too individualistic for

their own age, but able to operate with ease in the dangerous paths of the

Time Agents. And when the time search for the wrecked alien ships had

succeeded and the first intact ship found, used, duplicated, the Agents had

come from forays into the past to be trained anew for travel to the stars.

First there had been Ross Murdock, criminal. Then there had been Ross

Murdock and Gordon Ashe, Time Agents. Now there was still Ross and Gordon

and a quest as perilous as any they had known. Yet this time they had to

depend upon Karara and the dolphins.

"Tomorrow"--Ross was still not sorting out his thoughts, though aware of

prickly feelings sharp as embedded thorns--"I will come."

"Good!" If she recognized his hostility for what it was, that did not bother

her. Once more she whistled to the dolphins, waved a casual farewell with

one hand, and headed up the beach toward the base camp. Ross chose a more

rugged path over the cliff. Suppose they did not find what they sought near

here? Yet the old taped map suggested that this was approximately the site

starred upon it. Marking a city? A star port? Ashe had volunteered for

Hawaika, demanded this job after the disastrous Topaz affair when the team

of Apache volunteers had been sent out too soon to counter what might have

been a sneak settlement planted by Greater Russia. Ross was still unhappy

over the ensuing months when only Major Kelgarries and maybe, in a lesser

part, Ross had kept Gordon Ashe in the Project at all. That Topaz had been a

failure was accepted when the settlement ship did not return. And that had

added to Ashe's sense of guilt for having recruited and partially trained

the lost team. Among those dispatched over Ashe's vehement protests had been

Travis Fox who had shared with Ashe and Ross the first galactic flight in an

age-old derelict spaceship. Travis Fox--the Apache archaeologist--had he

ever reached Topaz? Or would he and his team wander forever between worlds?

Did they set down on a planet where some -inimical form of native life or a

Russian settlement had awaited them? The very uncertainty of their fate

continued to ride Ashe. So he insisted on coming out with the second

settlement team, the volunteers of Samoan and Hawaiian -descent, to carry on

an even more exciting and hazardous exploration. Just as the Project had

probed into the past of Earth, so would Ashe and Ross now attempt to

discover what lay in the past of Hawaika, to see this world as it had been

at the height of the galactic civilization, and so to learn what they could

about their fore-runners into space. And the mystery they had dropped into

upon landing added to the necessity for those discoveries. Their probe, if

fortune favored them, might become a gate through time. The installation was

a vast improvement over the kind of passage points they had first -devised.

Technical information had taken a vast leap forward after human engineers

and scientists had had -access to the tapes of the interstellar empire.

Adaptations and shortcuts developed, so that a new hybrid technology came

into use, woven from the knowledge and experimentation of two civilizations

thousands of years apart in time. If and when he or Ashe--or Karara and her

dolphins--discovered the proper site, the two Agents could set up their own

experiment. Both Ross and Ashe had had enough drill in the process. All they

needed was the brick of discovery; then they could build their wall. But

they must find some remainder of the past, some slight trace of ancient ruin

upon which to center their peep-probe. And since landing here long days had

flowed into weeks with no such discovery being made. Ross crossed the ridge

of rock which formed a cocks-comb rise on the island's spine and descended

to the village. As they had been trained, the Polynesian settlers adapted

local products to their own heritage of building and tools. It was necessary

that they live off the land, for their transport ship had had storage space

only for a limited number of supplies and tools. After it took off to return

home they would be wholly on their own for several years. Their ship, a

silvery ball, rested on a rock ledge, its pilot and crew having lingered to

learn the results of Ashe's search. Four days more and they would have to

lift for home even if the Agents still had only negative results to report.

That disappointment was driving Ashe, the way that six months earlier his

outrage and guilt over the Topaz affair had driven him. Karara's suggestion

carried weight the longer Ross thought about it. With more swimmers hunting,

there was just that much increased chance of turning up some clue. So far

the dolphins had not -reported any dangerous native sea life or any perils

except the natural ones any diver always had at his shoulder under the

waves. There were extra gill-packs, and all of the settlers were good

swimmers. An organized hunt ought to shake the Polynesians out of their

present do-it-tomorrow attitude. As long as they had definite work before

them--the -unloading of the ship, the building of the village, all the

labors incidental to the establishing of this base--they had shown energy

and enthusiasm. It was only during the last couple of weeks that the languor

which appeared part of the atmosphere here had crept up on them, so that now

they were content to live at a slower and lazier pace. Ross remembered

Ashe's comparison made the evening before, likening Hawaika to a legendary

island on Earth where the inhabitants lived a drugged existence, feeding

upon the seeds of a native plant. Hawaika was fast becoming a lotus land for

humans.

"Through here, then westward . . ." Ashe hunched over the crate table in the

mat-walled house. He did not look up as Ross entered. Karara's still damp

head was bowed until those black locks, now sleeked to her round skull,

almost touched the man's close-cropped brown hair. They were both studying a

map as if they saw not lines on paper but the actual inlets and lagoons

which that drawing represented.

"You are sure, Gordon, that this is the modern point to match the site on

the tape?" The girl brushed back straying hair. Ashe shrugged. There were

tight lines about his mouth that had not been there six months ago. He moved

jerkily, not with the fluid grace of those old days when he had faced the

vast distance of time travel with unruffled calm and self-confidence to

steady the novice Ross.

"The general outline of these two islands could stand for the capes on

this--" He pulled a second map, this on transparent plastic, to fit over the

first. The capes marked on the much larger body of land did slip over the

modern islands with a surprising fit. Shattered and broken, the former land

mass could have produced the groups of atolls and islets they now

prospected.

"How long--" Karara mused aloud, "and why?"

Ashe shrugged. "Ten thousand years, five, two." He shook his head. "We have

no idea. It's apparent that there must have been some world-wide cataclysm

here to change the geography so much. We may have to wait on a return space

flight to bring a 'copter or a hydroplane to explore farther." His hand

swept beyond the boundaries of the map to indicate the whole of Hawaika.

"A year, maybe two, before we could hope for that," Ross cut in. "Then we'll

have to depend on whether the Council believes this is important enough."

The contrariness which spiked his tongue whenever Karara was present made

him say that without thinking. Then a twitch of Ashe's lips brought home

Ross's error. Gordon needed reassurance now, not a recitation of the various

ways their mission could be doomed.

"Look here!" Ross came to the table, his hand sweeping past Karara, as he

used his forefinger for a pointer. "We know that what we want could be

easily overlooked, even with the dolphins helping us to check. This whole

area's too big. And you know that it is certain that whatever might be down

there would be hidden with sea growths. Suppose ten of us start out in a

semi-circle from about here and go as far as this point, heading inland.

Video-cameras here and here . . . comb the whole sector inch by inch if we

have to. After all, we have plenty of time and manpower."

Karara laughed softly. "Manpower--always manpower, Ross? But there is

woman-power, too. And we have perhaps even sharper sight. But this is a good

idea, Gordon. Let me see--" she began to tell off names on her fingers,

"PaKeeKee, Vaeoha, Hori, Liliha, Taema, Ui, Hono'ura--they are the best in

the water. Me . . . you, Gordon, Ross. That makes ten with keen eyes to

look, and always there are Tino-rau and Taua. We will take supplies and camp

here on this island which looks so much like a finger crooked to beckon.

Yes, somehow that beckoning finger seems to me to promise better fortune.

Shall we plan it so?"

Some of the tight look was gone from Ashe's face, and Ross relaxed. This was

what Gordon needed--not to be sitting in here going over maps, reports,

reworking over and over their scant leads. Ashe had always been a field man.

The settlement work had been a dismal chore for him. When Karara had gone

Ross dropped down on the bunk against the side wall.

"What did happen here, do you think?" Half was real interest in the mystery

they had mulled over and over since they had landed on a Hawaika which

diverged so greatly from the maps; the other half, a desire to keep Ashe

thinking on a subject removed from immediate worries. "A nuclear war?"

"Could be. There are old radiation traces. But these aliens had, I'm sure,

progressed beyond nuclear weapons. Suppose, just suppose, they could tamper

with the weather, with the balance of the planet's crust? We don't know the

extent of their powers, how they would use them. They had a colony here

once, or there would have been no guide tape. And that is all we are sure

of."

"Suppose"--Ross rolled over on his stomach, pillowed his head on his

arms--"we could uncover some of that knowledge--"

The twitch was back at Ashe's lips. "That's the risk we have to run now."

"Risk?"

"Would you give a child one of those hand weapons we found in the derelict?"

"Certainly not!" Ross snapped, then saw the point. "You mean--we aren't to

be trusted?"

The answer was plain to read in Ashe's expression.

"Then why this whole setup, this hunt for what might mean trouble?"

"The old pinch, the bad one. What if the Russians discover something first?

They drew some planets in the tape lottery, remember. It's a seesaw between

us--we advance here, they there. We have to keep up the race or lose it.

They must be combing their stellar colonies for a few answers just as

furiously as we are."

"So, we go into the past to hunt if we have to. Well, I think I could do

without answers such as the Baldies would know. But I will admit that I

would like to know what did happen here--two, five, ten thousand years ago."

Ashe stood up and stretched. For the first time he smiled. "Do you know, I

rather like the idea of fishing off Karara's beckoning finger. Maybe she's

right about that changing our luck."

Ross kept his face carefully expressionless as he got up to prepare their

evening meal.

Lair of Mano-Nui

Just under the surface of the water the sea was warm, weird life showed

colors Ross could name, shades he could not. The corals, the animals

masquerading as plants, the plants disguised as animals which inhabited the

oceans of Earth, had their counterparts here. And the settlers had given

them the familiar names, though the crabs, the fish, the anemones, and weeds

of the shallow lagoons and reefs were not identical with terrestrial

creatures. There was just too much here, too much teeming life to attract

one's eyes and divert one's attention. It was hard to keep focused on the

job at hand--the search for what was not natural, for what had no normal

place here. As the land seduced the senses and bewitched the offworlder, so

did the sea have its enchantment to pull one from duty. Ross resolutely

skimmed by a forest of swaying lace which varied from a green which was

-almost black to a pale tint he could not truly identify. Among those waving

fans lurked ghost-fish, finned swimmers -transparent enough so that one

could see, through their pallid sides, the evidences of recently ingested

meals. The humans had begun their sweep-search a half hour ago, slipping

overboard from a ferry canoe, heading in toward the checkpoint of the finger

isle. They formed an arc of expert divers, men and girls so at home in the

ocean that they should be able to make the discovery Ashe needed--if such

did exist. Mystery built upon mystery on Hawaika, Ross thought as he used

his spear-gun to push aside a floating banner of weed in order to peer below

its curtain. The native life of this world must always have been largely

aquatic. The settlers had discovered only a few small animals on the

islands. The largest of these was the burrower, a creature not unlike a

miniature monkey in that it had hind legs on which it walked erect and

forepaws, well clawed for digging purposes, which it used with dexterity as

a man used hands. Its body was hairless and it was able to assume,

chameleonlike, the color of the soil and rocks where it denned. The head was

set directly on its bowed shoulders without vestige of neck; and it had

round bubbles of eyes near the top of its skull, a nose which was a single

vertical slit, and a wide mouth fanged for crushing the shelled creatures on

which it fed. All in all, to human eyes it was a vaguely repulsive creature,

but as far as the settlers had been able to discover it was the highest form

of land life. Smaller rodentlike things, the two species of wingless diving

birds, and an odd assortment of reptiles and amphibians sharing the island

were all the burrowers' prey. A world of sea and islands, what type of

native -intelligent life had it once supported? Or had this been only a

galactic colony, with no native population before the coming of the stellar

explorers? Ross hovered above a dark pocket where the bottom had suddenly

dipped into a saucer-shaped depression. The sea growth about the rim rippled

in the water raggedly, but there was something about its general outline. .

. . Ross began a circuit of that hollow. Allowing for the distortion of the

growths which had formed lumpy -excrescences or raised turrets toward the

surface--yes, -allowing for those--this was decidedly something out of the

ordinary! The depression was too regular, too even, Ross was certain of

that. With a thrill of excitement he began a descent into the cup, striving

to trace signs which would prove his suspicion correct. How many years,

centuries, had the slow coverage of the sea life gathered there, flourished,

died, with other creatures to build anew on the remains? Now there was only

a hint that the depression had other than a natural origin. Anchoring with a

one-handed grip on a spike of Hawaikan coral--smoother than the Terran

species--Ross aimed the butt of his spear-gun at the nearest wall of the

saucer, striving to reach into a crevice between two lumps of growth and so

probe into what might lie -behind. The spear rebounded; there was no

breaking that crust with such a fragile tool. But perhaps he would have

better luck lower down. The depression was deeper than he had first judged.

Now the light which existed in the shallows vanished. Red and yellow as

colors went, but Ross was aware of blues and greens in shades and tints

which were not visible above. He switched on his diving torch, and color

returned within its beam. A swirl of weed, pink in the light, became darkly

emerald beyond as if it possessed the chameleon ability of the burrowers.

He was distracted by that phenomenon, and so he transgressed the diver's

rule of never becoming so absorbed in surroundings as to forget caution.

Just when did Ross become aware of that shadow below? Was it when a school

of ghost-fish burst unexpectedly between weed growths, and he turned to

follow them with the torch? Then the outer edge of his beam caught the

movement of a shape, a flutter in the water of the gloomy depths. Ross swung

around, his back to the wall of the saucer, as he aimed the torch down at

what was arising there. The light caught and held for a long moment of

horror something which might have come out of the nightmares of his own

world. Afterward Ross knew that the monster was not as large as it seemed in

that endless minute of fear, perhaps no bigger than the dolphins. He had had

training in shark-infested seas on Earth, been carefully briefed against the

danger from such hunters of the deep. But this thing he faced had only

existed -before in the fairy tales of his race--it was a dragon straight out

of legend. His light beam exposed a scaled head whose eyes gleamed with

sullen hatred and whose fanged mouth gaped in a horned muzzle. Its long,

-undulating neck rose from the half-seen bulk of a monstrous body. His

spear-gun, the knife at his waist belt, neither were protection against

this! Yet to turn his back on that rising head was more than Ross could do.

He pulled himself back against the wall of the saucer. The thing before him

did not rush to attack. Plainly it had seen him and now it moved with the

leisure of a hunter confident of the hunt's eventual outcome. But the light

appeared to puzzle it and Ross kept the beam shining straight into those

evil eyes. The shock of the encounter was wearing off; now Ross edged his

flipper into a crevice to hold him steady while his hand went to the

sonic-com at his waist. He tapped out a distress call which the dolphins

could relay to the swimmers. The swaying dragon head paused, held rigid on a

stiff, scaled column in the center of the saucer. That sonic vibration

either surprised or bothered the hunter, made it wary. Ross tapped again.

The belief that if he tried to -escape, he was lost, that only while he

faced it so had he any chance, grew stronger. The head was only inches below

the level of his flippered feet as he held to the weeds. Again that weaving

movement, the rise of head, a tremor along the serpent neck, an agitation in

the depths. The dragon was on the move again. Ross aimed the light directly

at the head. The scales, as far as he could deter-mine, were not horny

plates but lapped, silvery ovals such as a fish possessed. And the

underparts of the monster might even be vulnerable to his spear. But knowing

the way a terrestrial shark could absorb the darts of that weapon and

survive, Ross feared to attack except as a last resort. Above and to his

left there was a small hollow where some portion of the growths had been

ripped away. If he could fit himself into that crevice, perhaps he could

keep the dragon at bay until help arrived. Ross moved with all the skill he

had. His hand closed upon the edge of the niche and he whirled himself up,

just making it into that refuge as the head lashed at him wickedly. His

suspicion that the dragon would attack anything on the run was well founded,

and he knew he had no hope of winning to the surface above. Now he stood in

the crevice, facing outward, watching the head darting in the water. He had

switched off the torch, and the loss of light appeared to bewilder the

reptile for some precious seconds. Ross pulled as far back into the niche as

he could, until the point of one shoulder touched a surface which was sleek,

smooth, and cold. The shock of that contact almost sent him hurtling out

again. Gripping the spear before him in his right hand, Ross cautiously felt

behind him with the left. His finger tips glided over a seamless surface

where the growths had been torn or peeled away. Though he could not, or

dared not, turn his head to see, he was certain that this was his proof that

the walls of the saucer had been fashioned and placed there by some

intelligent creature. The dragon had risen, hovering now in the water

-directly before the entrance to Ross's hole, its neck curled back against

its bulk. It had wide flippers moving to hold it poised. The body, sloping

from a massive round of shoulders to a tapering rear, was vaguely familiar.

If one provided a terrestrial seal with a gorgon head and scales in place of

fur, the effect would be similar. But Ross was assuredly not facing a seal

at this moment. Slight movement of the flippers kept it as stabilized as if

it sprawled on a supporting surface. With the neck flattened against the

body, the head curved downward until the horn on its snout pointed the tip

straight at Ross's middle. The man steadied his spear-gun. The dragon's eyes

were its most vulnerable targets; if the creature launched the attack, Ross

would aim for them. Both man and dragon were so intent upon their duel that

neither was conscious of the sudden swirl overhead. A sleek dark shape

struck down, skimming across the humped-back ridge of the dragon. Some of

the settlers had empathy with the dolphins to a high degree, but Ross's own

powers of contact were relatively feeble. Only now he was given an assurance

of aid, and a suggestion to attack. The dragon head writhed, twisted as the

reptile attempted to see above and behind its own length. But the dolphin

was only a streak fast disappearing. And that writhing changed the balance

the monster had maintained, pushing it toward Ross. He fired too soon and

without proper aim, so the dart snaked past the dragon's head. But the

harpoon line half hooked about the neck and seemed to confuse the creature.

Ross squirmed as far back as he could into his refuge and drew his knife.

Against those fangs the weapon was an almost useless toy, but it was all he

had. Again the dolphin dived in attack on the monster, this time seizing the

floating cord of the harpoon in its mouth and jerking the dragon even more

off balance, pulling it away from Ross's niche and out into the center of

the saucer. There were two dolphins in action now, Ross saw, playing the

dragon as matadors might play a bull, keeping the creature disturbed by

their agile maneuvers. Whatever prey came naturally to the Hawaikan monster

was not of this type, and the creature was not prepared to deal effectively

with their teasing, dodging tactics. -Neither had touched the beast, but

they kept it constantly striving to get at them. Though it swam in circles

attempting to face its teasers, the dragon did not abandon the level before

Ross's refuge, and now and then it darted its head at him, unwilling to give

up its prey. Only one of the dolphins frisked and dodged above now as the

sonic on Ross's belt vibrated against his lower ribs with its message

warning to be prepared for further action. Somewhere above, his own kind

gathered. Hurriedly he tapped in code his warning in return. Two dolphins

busy again, their last dive over the dragon pushing the monster down past

Ross's niche toward the saucer's depths. Then they flashed up and away. The

dragon was rising in turn, but coming to meet the Hawaikan creature was a

ball giving off light, bringing sharp vision and color with it. Ross's arm

swung up to shield his eyes. There was a flash; such answering vibration

carried through the waves that even his nerves, far less sensitive than

those of the life about him, reacted. He blinked behind his mask. A fish

floated by, spiraling up, its belly exposed. And about him growths drooped,

trailed lifelessly through the -water; while there was a now motionless bulk

sinking to the obscurity of the depression's floor. A weapon perfected on

Earth to use against sharks and barracuda had worked here to kill what could

have been more formidable prey. The man wriggled out of the niche, rose to

meet -another swimmer. As Ashe descended, Ross relayed his news via the

sonic. The dolphins were already nosing into the depths in pursuit of their

late enemy.

"Look here--" Ross gestured, guiding Ashe to the crevice which had saved him

and aimed the torch beam into it. He had been right! There was a long groove

in the covering built up by the growths; a vertical strip some six feet

long, of a uniform gray, showed. Ashe touched the find and then gave the

alert via the sonic code.

"We've found something!"

But what did they have? Even after an hour's exploration by the full

company, Ashe's expert search with his knowledge of artifacts and ancient

remains, they were still baffled. It would require labor and tools they did

not have, to clear the whole of the saucer. They could be sure only of its

size and shape, and the fact that its walls were of an unknown substance

which the sea could cloak but not erode. The length of gray surface showed

not the slightest pitting or time wear. Down at its centermost point they

found the dragon's den, an arch coated with growth. Before it sprawled the

body of the creature. That was dragged aloft with the dolphins' aid, to be

taken ashore for study. But the arch itself . . . was that part of some old

installation? Torches to the fore, they entered its shadow, only to remain

baffled. Here and there were patches of the same gray showing in its

interior. Ashe dug the butt of his spear-gun into the sand on the flooring

to uncover -another oval depression. But what it all signified or what had

been its purpose, they could not guess.

"Set up the peep-probe here?" Ross asked. Ashe's head moved in a slow

negative. "Look farther . . . spread out," the sonic clicked. Within a

matter of minutes the dolphins reported new remains--two more saucers, each

larger than the first, set in a line on the ocean floor, pointing directly

to Karara's Finger Island. Cautiously explored, these were discovered to be

free of any but harmless life; they stirred up no more dragons. When the

humans came ashore on Finger Island to rest and eat their midday meal one of

the men paced along the beached dragon. Ashore it lost none of its

frightening aspect. And seeing it, even beached and dead, Ross wondered at

his luck in surviving the encounter without a scratch.

"I think that this one would be alone," PaKeeKee commented. "Where there is

an eater of this size, there is usually only one."

"Mano-Nui!" The girl Taema shivered as she gave to this monster the name of

the shark demon of her people. "Such a one is truly king shark in these

waters! But why have we not sighted its like before? Tino-rau, Taua . . .

they have not reported such--"

"Probably because, as PaKeeKee says, these things are rare," Ashe returned.

"A carnivore of size would have to have a fairly wide hunting range, yet

there's evidence that this thing has laired in that den for some time. Which

means that it must have a defined hunting territory -allowing no trespassing

from others of its species."

Karara nodded. "Also it may hunt only at intervals, eat heavily, and lie

quiet until that meal is digested. There are large snakes on Earth that

follow that pattern. Ross was in its front yard when it came after him--"

"From now on"--Ashe swallowed a quarter of fruit--"we know what to watch

for, and the weapon which will finish it off. Don't forget that!"

The delicate mechanisms of their sonics had already registered the

vibrations which would warn of a dragon's presence, and the depth globes

would then do the rest.

"Big skull, oversize for the body." PaKeeKee squatted on his heels by the

head lying on the sand at the end of the now fully extended neck. Ross had

heretofore been more aware of the armament of that head, the fangs set in

the powerful jaws, the horn on the snout. But PaKeeKee's comment drew his

attention to the fact that the scale-covered skull did dome up above the eye

pits in a way to suggest ample brain room. Had the thing been intelligent?

Karara put that into words:

"Rule One?" She went over to survey the carcass. Ross resented her half

question, whether it was -addressed to him or mere thinking aloud on her

part. Rule One: Conserve native life to the fullest extent. Humanoid form

may not be the only evidence of intelligence. There were the dolphins to

prove that point right on Earth. But did Rule One mean that you had to let a

monster nibble at you because it might just be a high type of alien

intelligence? Let Karara spout Rule One while backed into a crevice under

water with that horn stabbing at her mid-section!

"Rule One does not mean to forego self-defense," Ashe commented mildly.

"This thing is a hunter, and you can't stop to apply recognition techniques

when you are -being regarded as legitimate prey. If you are the stronger, or

an equal, yes--stop and think before becoming aggressive. But in a situation

like this--take no chances."

"Anyway, from now on," Karara pointed out, "it could be possible to shock

instead of kill."

"Gordon"--PaKeeKee swung around--"what have we found here--besides this

thing?"

"I can't even guess. Except that those depressions were made for a purpose

and have been there for a long time. Whether they were originally in the

water, or the land sank, that we don't know either. But now we have a site

to set up the peep-probe."

"We do that right away?" Ross wanted to know. Impa-tience bit at him. But

Ashe still had a trace of frown. He shook his head.

"Have to make sure of our site, very sure. I don't want to start any chain

reaction on the other side of the time wall."

And he was right, Ross was forced to admit, remembering what had happened

when the galactics had discovered the Russian time gates and traced them

forward to their twenty-first century source, ruthlessly destroying each

station. The original colonists of Hawaika had been as giants to human

pygmies when it came to technical knowledge. To use even a peep-probe

indiscreetly near one of their outposts might bring swift and terrible

retribution.

The Ancient

Mariners

Another map spread out and this time pinned down with small stones on beach

gravel.

"Here, here, and here--" Ashe's finger indicated the points marked in a

pattern which flared out from three sides of Finger Island. Each marked a

set of three under-sea depressions in perfect alliance with the land which,

according to the galactic map, had once been a cape on a much larger land

mass. Though the humans had found the ruins, if those saucers in the sea

could be so termed, the remains had no meaning for the explorers.

"Do we set up here?" Ross asked. "If we could just get a report to send

back. . . ." That might mean finally awakening the co-operation of the

Project policy makers so that a flood of supplies and personnel would begin

to head their way.

"We set up here," Ashe decided. He had selected a point between two of the

lines where a reef would provide them with a secure base. And once that

decision was made, the humans went into action. Two days to go, to install

the peep-probe and take some shots before the ship had to clear with or

without their evidence. Together Ross and Ashe floated the installation out

to the reef, Ui and Karara helping to tow the equipment and parts, the

dolphins lending pushing noses on occasion. The aquatic mammals were as

interested as the human beings they aided. And in water their help was

invaluable. Had dolphins developed hands, Ross wondered fleetingly, would

they have long ago wrested control of their native world--or at least of its

seas--from the -human race? All the humans worked with practiced ease, even

while masked and submerged, to set the probe in place, aiming it landward at

the check point of the Finger's protrud-ing nail of rock. After Ashe made

the final adjustments, tested each and every part of the assembly, he

gestured them in. Karara's swift hand movement asked a question, and Ashe's

sonic code-clicked in reply: "At twilight."

Yes, dusk was the proper time for using a peep-probe. To see without risk of

being sighted in return was their safeguard. Here Ashe had no historical

data to guide him. Their search for the former inhabitants might be a long

drawn-out process skipping across centuries as the -machine adjusted to the

different time eras.

"When were they here?" Back on shore Karara shook out her hair, spread it

over her shoulders to dry. "How many hundred years back will the probe

return?"

"More likely thousands," Ross commented. "Where will you start, Gordon?"

Ashe brushed sand from the page of the notebook he had steadied against one

bent knee and gazed out at the reef where they had set the probe.

"Ten thousand years--"

"Why?" Karara wanted to know. "Why that exact figure?"

"We know that galactic ships crashed on Earth then. So their commerce and

empire--if it was an empire--was far-flung at that time. Perhaps they were

at the zenith of their civilization; perhaps they were already on the down

slope. I do not think they were near the beginning. So that date is as good

a starting place as any. If we don't hit what we're after, then we can move

forward until we do."

"Do you think that there ever was a native population here?"

"Might have been."

"But without any large land animals, no modern traces of any," she

protested.

"Of people?" Ashe shrugged. "Good answers for both. Suppose there was a

world-wide epidemic of proportions to wipe out a species. Or a war in which

they used forces beyond our comprehension to alter the whole face of this

planet, which did happen--the alteration, I mean. Several things could have

removed intelligent life. Then such species as the burrowers could have

developed or evolved from smaller, more primitive types."

"Those ape-things we found on the desert planet." Ross thought back to their

first voyage on the homing derelict. "Maybe they had once been men and were

degenerating. And the winged people, they could have been less than men on

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