"Yes," Parsons said.
All of them were silent now.
"He was too suspicious," Loris said at last. "Unwilling to trust anyone. Nixina was right. You didn't mean to. It wasn't your fault. Any more than it was his." She raised her dark, grief-stricken eyes. "It was his fault in a sense. For being the way he was."
"There's no use thinking about that now," Jepthe said curtly.
"No," Loris agreed. "Well, there's nothing to do but go back. We failed."
Helmar said, "At least we know how it happened." He eyed Parsons with scorn and loathing.
"We'll abide by Nixina's decision," Jepthe said to him in a sharp, commanding voice.
"Yes," Helmar said, still staring fixedly at Parsons.
"What is her decision?" Parsons demanded.
Loris said, "We'll--" She hesitated. "Even if it was an accident," she said woodenly, "we feel that you should make some sort of atonement for it. We're going to leave you here. But not at this point in time." Her voice grew fainter. "A little further along."
With comprehension, Parsons said, "You mean after Drake's ship has left."
Helmar said, "You can spend your time trying to find that out." With his weapon, he indicated that he wanted Parsons to come toward them.
Together, they walked back along the cliff, to the time ship. Sitting in front of the ship, in her special chair, Nixina waited for them unseeingly. Several of the Wolf Tribe stood around her.
When they reached her, Parsons stopped. "I'm sorry," he said.
The old woman's head moved slightly, but she said nothing.
"Your son wouldn't listen to me," Parsons said.
After a time, Nixina said, "You shouldn't have stopped him. You weren't worthy to stop him."
Parsons thought, The blame has to be on me. For them to admit that Corith was responsible, through his fanaticism and paranoia--that would be too much for them. Psychologically, they could not stand it. So, he thought, I'm the scapegoat. I must be punished, as proof of my guilt.
Wordlessly, he entered the ship.
Trees.
He stood looking around him, trying to catch some indication of change. Blue sky, the distant boom of the surf . . .
All the same. Except--
As fast as possible, he made his way to the cliff. Below, the beach. Sand, seaweed, the Pacific. Nothing else.
The careenage had ended. The Golden Hind had gone.
Or--had not yet come.
How could he tell? Marks in the sand? The remains of the wooden stakes to which the ropes had been tied? Some debris of some sort would remain.
But what did it matter?
Maybe, he thought, I can find some way of getting south, down into Mexico. Cortez . . . when he landed?
The best I can hope for is to reach a friendly Indian tribe. If I'm lucky I can either live with them or persuade them to help me get south. But I can't remember if there are Spanish settlements yet. And I don't know what year this is, so even if I remembered, it would not help me. They could have moved me back a century. Or even several centuries. Ocean, rocks, trees--those remain the same for a thousand years.
I may be standing here two hundred years before the first white man lands in the New World.
He thought, In fact I may be the first white man in the New World.
At least, he could go down to the beach and see. If there were any debris left from the Golden Hind, it would prove that they had not moved him back in time. And that would be something. A faint hope--the Spanish colonies to the south. And then a ship back to Europe.
Once again, he began the slow, dangerous descent to the beach.
For an hour he searched up and down the beach, seeing no sign of the ship or the men ever having been there. No marks, no refuse. What about the brass plate? he asked himself. Where had Drake actually left it? Lying in the sand? Buried in the face of the cliff? He searched for that, but by now he had covered so much of the beach that he no longer had a central point from which to work. Possibly he had wandered a mile or so from his original spot. The beach all looked alike, now; cliff and sand and seaweed . . .
Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. If he was stranded here, how did he manage to get back to the Wolf Lodge to kill Corith a second time? All this had no importance; obviously he did get back to the Lodge. If not, then he would be removed from this place anyhow, by the new time-sequence set up by his failure to reach the recuperating Corith. And the only way he could get back to the Wolf Lodge was by means of a time ship. Obviously, someone came back to get him--would come back.
But how soon? He could spend years here, decades, become an old man, and then, after all that, one of them could return in a time ship and pick him up. Near the end of his life.
For instance, he might, over a period of years, work his way south to a Spanish settlement, and then back to Spain, up to England, where he would manage to make contact with Stenog. Eventually, in that manner, he could regain access to the future . . . a worn-out fever-ravaged old man whose life was over. A man who had wandered the face of the globe, who had used up his life.
And of course it was always possible that someone else killed Corith the second time.
He noticed, now, that the day was ending. The air had become cold and the sun had moved to the edge of the sky. A few gulls flapped by overhead; their mournful cry, like the rubbing of ropes, made the scene even more lonely.
Night would come on soon. What would he do? He couldn't spend the night on the beach. Better to trudge back up and start inland, back across the peninsula; as he recalled, there had been Indian settlements on the inner bay, Tomales Bay, where it was more sheltered.
Standing on the beach, looking up at the cliff, he did not see a way to ascend; he would have to go along the beach, searching for one of the declivities, or a spot where trees and shrubs had grown. But he was too tired. I'll have to wait until tomorrow, he decided. He seated himself on a log that had been washed up on the beach, unlaced his moccasins, and rested his head on his arms. Closing his eyes, he listened to the surf and the croaking gulls. The inhuman, inhospitable sound . . . how many millions of years, more or less, had this sound gone on? Long before there had been any men. And long after.
He thought, It would be so easy to walk out into the water and not come back. Simply start walking.
The chill wind blew about him; he shivered. How long could he sit here? Not much longer. Opening his eyes he saw that it had become appreciably darker; the sun had now disappeared. Far off, a flight of birds disappeared beyond the hills to the north.
Like children, he thought. Punishing me by exiling me here. Unable to bear the blame themselves. And yet, in a sense, they were right. I should bear the blame; I was the agent responsible for his death. And if I had a chance to kill him again, I would. I wish to God I had that chance, he thought. He got up from the log and began walking along aimlessly, kicking at shells on the sand ahead of him.
A large rock crashed noisily down the cliff side; involuntarily, he jumped away. The rock rolled out onto the beach, along with a shower of smaller stones. Shading his eyes, he peered up.
A figure stood at the top of the cliff, waving to him. The figure cupped its hands to its mouth and called something, but the boom of the surf blotted it out. He saw only the outline of the figure; he could not tell if it was a man or a woman or what it wore. At once he began frantically waving back.
"Help!" he shouted. He ran toward the cliff, indicating that he could not climb up. Now he scampered along, half-falling, trying to find a way up.
Above him, the figure made motions that he could not grasp. He halted, panting for breath, trying to make out what it was telling him. Then the figure abruptly disappeared. One moment it was there; the next it was gone. He blinked in bewilderment, feeling slow terror creep over him. The person had turned away from the cliff and gone off.
Frozen with disbelief, he remained where he was, unable to stir. And, while he stood there, a metallic sphere rose from the top of
the cliff and rapidly floated down to the beach.
The time ship landed on the sand ahead of him. Who would come out? He waited, his heart laboring.
The door opened and Loris appeared. She did not wear the Indian costume now; she had changed back to the gray robe of the Wolves. Her face had lost most of its shock and grief; he realized that for her considerable time had passed.
"Hello, Doctor," she said.
He could only gaze mutely at her.
"I came back for you," she said. She added, "It's a month or so later. I'm sorry it took so long. How long has it been for you? You haven't got any beard, and your clothes look about the same . . . I hope it's the same day."
"Yes," he said, hearing his voice grate out harshly.
"Come on," she said, beckoning him toward her. "Get in. I'll take you back, Doctor. To your own time. To your wife." She smiled at him, a forced smile. "You don't deserve to be left here." She added. "Nobody from your civilization would ever find you here. Helmar saw to that. This is 1597. No one will come here for a long, long time."
Trembling, he stepped into the time ship.
After she had closed the door behind him, he said, "What made you change your mind?"
Loris said, "You'll find out some day. It has to do with something that you and I did together. Something that didn't seem important at the time." Again she smiled at him, but this time it was an enigmatic, almost caressing smile on her full, dark lips.
"I appreciate it," he said.
"Do you want me to take you directly back?" she asked, as she began to operate the controls. "Or is there anything from our period that you need? I have your instrument case here." She pointed, and he saw, on the floor of the time ship, his familiar gray case.
With difficulty, he said, "I'd like to go back to the Lodge for a little while. To get cleaned up. Change my clothes, rest. I don't want to return to my family this way." He indicated the ragged fur costume, the remains of the dye. "They'll think it's a wild man escaped from the zoo."
"Of course," Loris said, in the formal, civil way that he had become familiar with. The aristocratic politeness. "We'll go back to my time; you'll be given whatever you need. Of course, you'll have to stay out of sight. No one else must see you. But you understand that. I'll take you directly to my apartment."
"Fine," he said. And he thought with a rush of misery, It's her father that I'm going back for. To complete what I have to do. How will she feel if she ever finds out? Maybe she never will. If I can get use of the time machine for even a second . . .
She saved me, he thought, so that I can murder her father. For the second time.
Silently, he sat watching her manipulate the controls.
SIXTEEN
The time ship came to rest in an enclosed courtyard paved with cobblestones. Parsons, as he stepped from the ship, saw the iron railings of vaulted balconies, damp foliage of plants, and then Loris led him through a doorway and along a deserted corridor.
"This part of the Lodge," she said over her shoulder to him, "is mine. So you don't need to worry; no one will interfere with us."
Soon he lay in a bathtub of hot water, his head against the porcelain side, eyes shut, enjoying the smell of soap and the peace and silence of the room.
Almost at once the door opened and Loris entered with an armload of washcloths and towels. "Sorry to bother you," she said, folding a fluffy white bathtowel over a rack on the wall.
He did not answer. He did not even open his eyes.
"You're tired," she said. Lingering, she said, "I know now why none of our signal markers reached you."
At that, he opened his eyes.
"That first trip you took," she said. "To the far future. When you didn't know how to operate the ship."
"What happened to the markers?"
She said, "Helmar destroyed them."
"Why?" he said, wide awake.
Brushing her long black hair from her eyes she said calmly, "We sought any possible way to break the chain at some point. You understand--very few of us have any well-disposed feelings toward you." She hesitated, considering him as he lay in the tub. "Odd," she said, "to have you back here. You're going to spend the night with me, aren't you?"
He said, "So Helmar did what he could to leave me trapped in the future." He thought, It was not bad enough for me, back in the past, in Nova Albion. Recalling the desolate plains of the future, his body and mind recoiled. And they had done their best. If it had not been for the plaque . . . Abruptly he said, "And he tried to find the granite plaque, too?"
"He searched," Loris said. "But he failed to find it. There was some doubt in our minds--quite a bit in Helmar's that there ever was any plaque. All the signal markers were located; there was no real trouble in doing that, since we knew exactly where they were, and how many we had sent out. Helmar returned, but it made no difference. My father--" She shrugged, her arms folded. "It had no effect on him."
After his bath, he dried himself. He shaved, and then, putting on a silk robe that Loris had presented to him, came out of the bathroom.
On a chair in the corner of the bedroom, Loris sat curled up, her feet bare; she wore Chinese coolie trousers and a white cotton shirt. On her wrists were heavy silver bracelets. And she had tied her hair back in a pony tail. She seemed pensive and taciturn.
"What is it?" he said.
She glanced up. "I'll be sorry to see you go. I wish--" All at once she slid from the chair and paced about the room, her fingers stuck in the side pockets of her light blue trousers. "I want to tell you something, Doctor. But I shouldn't. Maybe some day." Turning swiftly, she said, "I think a great deal of you. You're a fine person."
He thought, She is making it hard for me. Excruciatingly hard. I wonder if I can do it. But there is no alternative that I know of.
His clothes had been carefully put up on a shelf of the closet. Now he got them down.
"What are you going to do?" Loris said, watching him. "Aren't you going to bed?" She showed him the pajamas that she had for him.
"No," he said, "I want to be up awhile."
After he had dressed he stood indecisively at the door of the apartment.
"You're so tense," Loris said. "Does it frighten you to be here, in the Lodge? You're not afraid Helmar will come bursting in, are you?" Going past him--he smelled the warm fragrance of her hair--she bolted the door to the outer hall. "Nobody can come in here; this is sacred. The queen's bedroom." She smiled, showing her regular, white teeth. "Enjoy yourself," she said gently, putting her hand on his arm. "This will be your last time, my dear." Leaning forward, she kissed him on the mouth with great tenderness.
"I'm sorry," he said. And unbolted the door.
"Where are you going?" Now her face filled with wariness. "You're going to do something. What is it?" At once she slipped by him, catlike, barring his passage. Her eyes glowing, she said, "I won't let you go. You want to get revenge on Helmar, do you? Is that it?" She studied him. "No, that's not it. But what can it be?"
Putting his hands on her shoulders, he moved her aside. Her powerful, healthy body resisted; for a moment she tugged at his hands, and then suddenly, on her face, comprehension appeared.
"Oh God," she whispered. The color left her face; the burnished red faded, and he saw, for an instant, the haggard, desolate face of an old woman. "Doctor," she said. "Please don't."
He started to open the door.
At once she was on him. Her fingers raked at his face, tearing at his flesh, clawing at his eyes. His arm came up instinctively and he flung her backward; she clung to him, pulling him down, dragging at him with the strength and weight of her body. Her white teeth flashed; she bit him frenziedly on the neck. With his other arm he struck her across the face and she dropped away, gasping hoarsely.
Rapidly, he stepped out of the apartment, into the hall.
"Stop," she snarled, coming after him. From her shirt she tugged something, a slender metal tube; he saw it, and then he lashed out. His fist caught her on th
e side of the jaw, but she avoided the force of the blow; her eyes glazed with pain, but she did not fall. The tube wavered, and he grabbed at it. Instantly she yanked back, away from him; he saw the tube pointed at him, and the look on her face. The suffering. Raising her hand, drawing it back, she flung the tube at him, sobbing.
The tube fell to the floor near his feet and rolled away.
"Goddamn you," she moaned, covering her face with her hands. She turned away, her back to him; he saw the convulsions that racked her. "Go on," she cried, again turning toward him, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Swiftly, he ran down the hall, the way they had come. He came out onto the darkened courtyard. There, dimly, he saw the outline of the metal ship. As quickly as possible he entered it, slammed and locked the door.
Could he operate it? Seating himself, he inspected the dials. Then, summoning his memory, he clicked on a toggle switch.
The machinery hummed. Dials swung to register.
He closed a switch and then, hesitating, pressed a button.
A dial showed that he had gone back half an hour in time. That gave him half an hour to make a thorough study of the dials, to recover his earlier knowledge.
Calming himself, he began his scrutiny.
At a period of one day and a half in the past, he stopped the mechanism. With caution, he unlocked the door of the ship and swung it open.
No one was in sight.
Stepping out, he made his way across the courtyard. He swung up onto a balcony and stood, pondering.
First, he had to get one of Corith's arrows.
Down beneath the ground, in the first subsurface level, he would find the workroom in which Corith had constructed his costume. But did the arrows still exist there? A few were far back in the past, at Nova Albion. One, which he had pulled from Corith's chest, was here somewhere in the Lodge, unless it had been destroyed.
Did Corith die the second time from the same arrow?
Now he remembered. That arrow had been disassembled; he had removed the flint head, the feathers, to analyze them. So his second death could not have come from that arrow; it had to be one of the others. And that second arrow was not, like the first, removed. At least, not to his knowledge.