Flight From Tomorrow

  2

  It was broad daylight when he woke, and there was a strange throbbingsound; Hradzka lay motionless under the brush where he had slept, hisblaster ready. In a few minutes, a vehicle came into sight, followingthe road down the mountainside.

  It was a large thing, four-wheeled, with a projection in front whichprobably housed the engine and a cab for the operator. The body of thevehicle was simply an open rectangular box. There were two men in thecab, and about twenty or thirty more crowded into the box body. Thesewere dressed in faded and nondescript garments of blue and gray andbrown; all were armed with crude weapons--axes, bill-hooks, long-handledinstruments with serrated edges, and what looked like broad-bladedspears. The vehicle itself, which seemed to be propelled by some sort ofchemical-explosion engine, was dingy and mud-splattered; the men in itwere ragged and unshaven. Hradzka snorted in contempt; they wereprobably warriors of the local tribe, going to the fire in the beliefthat it had been started by raiding enemies. When they found thewreckage of the "time-machine", they would no doubt believe that it wasthe chariot of some god and drag it home to be venerated.

  A plan of action was taking shape in his mind. First, he must getclothing of the sort worn by these people, and find a safe hiding-placefor his own things. Then, pretending to be a deaf-mute, he would goamong them to learn something of their customs and pick up the language.When he had done that, he would move on to another tribe or village,able to tell a credible story for himself. For a while, it would benecessary for him to do menial work, but in the end, he would establishhimself among these people. Then he could gather around him a faction ofthose who were dissatisfied with whatever conditions existed, organize aconspiracy, make arms for his followers, and start his program ofpower-seizure.

  The matter of clothing was attended to shortly after he had crossed themountain and descended into the valley on the other side. Hearing aclinking sound some distance from the road, as of metal striking stone,Hradzka stole cautiously through the woods until he came within sight ofa man who was digging with a mattock, uprooting small bushes of aparticular sort, with rough gray bark and three-pointed leaves. When hehad dug one up, he would cut off the roots and then slice away theroot-bark with a knife, putting it into a sack. Hradzka's lip curledcontemptuously; the fellow was gathering the stuff for medicinal use. Hehad heard of the use of roots and herbs for such purposes by the ancientsavages.

  The blaster would be no use here; it was too powerful, and would destroythe clothing that the man was wearing. He unfastened a strap from hisbelt and attached it to a stone to form a hand-loop, then, inchedforward behind the lone herb-gatherer. When he was close enough, hestraightened and rushed forward, swinging his improvised weapon. The manheard him and turned, too late.

  * * * * *

  After undressing his victim, Hradzka used the mattock to finish him, andthen to dig a grave. The fugitive buried his own clothes with themurdered man, and donned the faded blue shirt, rough shoes, worntrousers and jacket. The blaster he concealed under the jacket, and hekept a few other Hundredth Century gadgets; these he would hidesomewhere closer to his center of operations.

  He had kept, among other things, a small box of food-concentratecapsules, and in one pocket of the newly acquired jacket he found apackage containing food. It was rough and unappetizing fare--slices ofcold cooked meat between slices of some cereal substance. He ate thesebefore filling in the grave, and put the paper wrappings in with thedead man. Then, his work finished, he threw the mattock into the brushand set out again, grimacing disgustedly and scratching himself. Theclothing he had appropriated was verminous.

  Crossing another mountain, he descended into a second valley, and, for atime, lost his way among a tangle of narrow ravines. It was dark by thetime he mounted a hill and found himself looking down another valley, inwhich a few scattered lights gave evidence of human habitations. Notwishing to arouse suspicion by approaching these in the night-time, hefound a place among some young evergreens where he could sleep.

  The next morning, having breakfasted on a concentrate capsule, he founda hiding-place for his blaster in a hollow tree. It was in asufficiently prominent position so that he could easily find it again,and at the same time unlikely to be discovered by some native. Then hewent down into the inhabited valley.

  He was surprised at the ease with which he established contact with thenatives. The first dwelling which he approached, a cluster offarm-buildings at the upper end of the valley, gave him shelter. Therewas a man, clad in the same sort of rough garments Hradzka had takenfrom the body of the herb-gatherer, and a woman in a faded and shapelessdress. The man was thin and work-bent; the woman short and heavy. Bothwere past middle age.

  He made inarticulate sounds to attract their attention, then gestured tohis mouth and ears to indicate his assumed affliction. He rubbed hisstomach to portray hunger. Looking about, he saw an ax sticking in achopping-block, and a pile of wood near it, probably the fuel used bythese people. He took the ax, split up some of the wood, then repeatedthe hunger-signs. The man and the woman both nodded, laughing; he wasshown a pile of tree-limbs, and the man picked up a short billet of woodand used it like a measuring-rule, to indicate that all the wood was tobe cut to that length.

  Hradzka fell to work, and by mid-morning, he had all the wood cut. Hehad seen a circular stone, mounted on a trestle with a metal axlethrough it, and judged it to be some sort of a grinding-wheel, since itwas fitted with a foot-pedal and a rusty metal can was set above it tospill water onto the grinding-edge. After chopping the wood, hecarefully sharpened the ax, handing it to the man for inspection. Thisseemed to please the man; he clapped Hradzka on the shoulder, makingcommendatory sounds.

  * * * * *

  It required considerable time and ingenuity to make himself a more orless permanent member of the household. Hradzka had made a survey of thefarmyard, noting the sorts of work that would normally be performed onthe farm, and he pantomimed this work in its simpler operations. Hepointed to the east, where the sun would rise, and to the zenith, and tothe west. He made signs indicative of eating, and of sleeping, and ofrising, and of working. At length, he succeeded in conveying hismeaning.

  There was considerable argument between the man and the woman, but hisproposal was accepted, as he expected that it would. It was easy to seethat the work of the farm was hard for this aging couple; now, for aplace to sleep and a little food, they were able to acquire a strong andintelligent slave.

  In the days that followed, he made himself useful to the farm people; hefed the chickens and the livestock, milked the cow, worked in thefields. He slept in a small room at the top of the house, under theeaves, and ate with the man and woman in the farmhouse kitchen.

  It was not long before he picked up a few words which he had heard hisemployers using, and related them to the things or acts spoken of. Andhe began to notice that these people, in spite of the crudities of theirown life, enjoyed some of the advantages of a fairly complexcivilization. Their implements were not hand-craft products, but showedmachine workmanship. There were two objects hanging on hooks on thekitchen wall which he was sure were weapons. Both had woodenshoulder-stocks, and wooden fore-pieces; they had long tubes extendingto the front, and triggers like blasters. One had double tubes mountedside-by-side, and double triggers; the other had an octagonal tubemounted over a round tube, and a loop extension on the trigger-guard.Then, there was a box on the kitchen wall, with a mouthpiece and acylindrical tube on a cord. Sometimes a bell would ring out of the box,and the woman would go to this instrument, take down the tube and holdit to her ear, and talk into the mouthpiece. There was another box fromwhich voices would issue, of people conversing, or of orators, or ofsinging, and sometimes instrumental music. None of these were objectsmade by savages; these people probably traded with some fairly highcivilization. They were not illiterate; he found printed matter,indicating the use of some phonetic alphabet, and paper pamphletscontaining printed reprod
uctions of photographs as well as verbal text.

  There was also a vehicle on the farm, powered, like the one he had seenon the road, by an engine in which a hydrocarbon liquid-fuel wasexploded. He made it his business to examine this minutely, and to studyits construction and operation until he was thoroughly familiar with it.

  It was not until the third day after his arrival that the chickens beganto die. In the morning, Hradzka found three of them dead when he went tofeed them, the rest drooping unhealthily; he summoned the man and showedhim what he had found. The next morning, they were all dead, and the cowwas sick. She gave bloody milk, that evening, and the next morning shelay in her stall and would not get up.

  The man and the woman were also beginning to sicken, though both of themtried to continue their work. It was the woman who first noticed thatthe plants around the farmhouse were withering and turning yellow.

  * * * * *

  The farmer went to the stable with Hradzka and looked at the cow.Shaking