saidabout making radio contact, so we'll just listen in. Want to take overthe radio on the way down?" He forced the _Latecomer_ into as tight aspiral as he dared. The wings were still useless here in the ionosphere.
Carol turned on the receiver, dialed expectantly. "Ken--the whole bandis silent!"
"Take it easy, Lieutenant honey--we're barely through the F_{2} layer."
But all bands remained dead except for sun static. Rockets chatteringfor a 2G brake and directional control, they plunged through the F_{1}stratum, losing Sol behind the eastern rim of Terra. Down, down for dimcountless minutes, through the thin ionization of E, past the lowestranges of auroras and noctilucent clouds and below the ozone layer.Still no signals of any kind on any frequency.
At last Ken leveled off in the troposphere, at an altitude of fivemiles. A placid, swollen sun rode into view while they flashed west-wardover the Atlantic in a straight and lowering course that would take themover New York. The momentous--even though aborted--flight was over. Eachtiniest mechanism of the _Latecomer_ had functioned perfectly. Ken tooka deep breath at the sheer pleasure of normal gravity. Man held the keyto the planets, at least--if the psychologists could figure some way tonullify the soul-shattering fear imbued by deep space. Or had he andCarol reached the maximum distance life could tolerate? Was that theforeseen emergency, withheld from them lest it sap theircarefully-nurtured morale? He felt a vague, gnawing worry about thesilence of earth's transmitters.
New York would supply the answer. Over New York the cacaphony of blaringbroadcasts would practically tear the receivers from their moorings.
And New York did yield an answer--of sorts. With Long Island in visualrange, and not a sound or a picture on any wave length which Carol'sflying fingers tuned in at maximum volume, Ken dipped below legalceiling to drag the city.
Then his reactions galvanized him to motion of a speed outstripping histhoughts. Hardly hearing Carol's gasp of dismay, he snapped the coccoontight about them like a sprung trap, blasted the ship's nose to askidding vertical and spurted away from the yawning craters of New YorkCity at five Gs.
* * * * *
He leveled off in ozone over Canada and relaxed the couch.Unbelievingly, he looked at Carol. She looked back at him, wide-eyed.
"Listen, Carol--we can't both be crazy the same way. You tell me exactlywhat you saw."
"Well--everything had been bombed."
"What else?"
"There--there wasn't any movement or people or--"
"_What else._"
"There--oh, Ken, there were _trees growing in the craters_!"
Some of the tenseness left his features. "Okay, honey. Now we know alittle bit. The war came and went and there's not an active transmitterin the world. Somebody knew it was coming, even before we left, so theywant us to land at a hideout in Oregon. There'll be a landing stripthere--they've had more than a month to build it since I was at theCaves, and it only took a day for the whole war, for the radiation toclear up--and for twenty--maybe fifty-year-old trees to grow!" Hisending sarcasm was directed at himself; youth angers at the spur ofillogicalness.
Carol pressed his shoulder and kissed him. "Darling--maybe we shouldn'teven think about it now. They must be waiting for us in Oregon."
"Yeah," he said absently. "Wonder what happened farther inland?" Heherded the _Latecomer_ down along the border of Lakes Ontario and Erie.Cleveland was dotted with lakes, the city rubble choked with brush. On azig-zag course, Detroit was a wilderness, Chicago almost a part of LakeMichigan. Carol's spirits sank with each revelation.
They arced high above the jet winds, on course to Oregon.
Ken almost shouted with joy when their beacon code came in weakly,strengthening as they approached the Pacific. Carol hugged him until herelinquished control to the autopilot and gave her his undividedattention.
The chronometer ticked away time, but Sol gave up the unequal race, andso it was another morning of the same day when Ken slipped the_Latecomer_ over the mighty Cascades, homing on the beacon until theyboth saw the outline of a long, level, arrow straight runway carved fromforested mountainside and spanning chasmal, growth-choked gulches.
But it was the outline only, discernible through a light rain. "At leasttwo years' work," mused Ken, "littered with at least a hundred years'debris. _And we've only been gone a day._" He killed signal reception,circled the runway.
Carol pressed his arm. "It's been longer than a day, Ken. I mean, we'veactually used up more time, because it was morning when we were over NewYork, and it's still--"
"Okay--day and night don't mean much. But we've clocked a little overthirty-three hours since we took off. That's _our_ time."
There was a catch in her throat. "I know, darling. Something's horriblywrong. Everybody we know must be dead!"
His jaw set, then he said gently, "Snug down, kitten, we're going in."
She glanced through the port. "But how can you land on _that_?"
He tightened the couch about them. "Blow the stuff out of the way," hesaid cheerfully. "Maybe." He swooped in from the east. "Keep an eyepeeled for the Caves' entrance--I bet it won't look like it did lastmonth."
The _Latecomer_ touched the runway at little more than a hundred milesper hour. Its forward rockets braked sharply, blasting aside thescattered dead limbs and smaller trees--roaring, bucking and hissing.Its underside buckled from triphammer contact with rock slides and a fewlarger logs. It grated to a bumpy halt, gouged, scarred, split, itswarped hull a forever useless thing.
Before opening the port he buckled the long knife at his waist, hadCarol do the same with the short one. He climbed out, breathing deeplyof the warm, moist air, savoring the incense of pine while helping Carolto the ground.
* * * * *
They avoided the radioactive path made by the ship, picked their wayalong the side of the strip until Carol pointed and cried, "There itis!"
Ken gripped her arm. "You follow behind me, and if the welcomingcommittee moves this way you get up in that big madrona over there."
"_What?_"
He pointed out the bear, watching from a wet tangle of brush. "If it's amale--or a female with no cubs--we're probably all right."
"Oh. But what will _you_ do?"
"Don't argue, Lieutenant." His hand moved to the pommel of his knife.Ranger training wasn't exactly qualification for tangling with a bear,but long odds were becoming commonplace.
The animal remained where it was. They climbed over a rock slide andfaced a wide bronze door protected by a concrete foyer. Out a way fromthe door was--
"Look, Ken--that's been a recent campfire!"
He whipped the blade from its sheath. "C'mon, kitten--get that knifeout!" He vaulted the ashes.
A six-inch square was cut deeply in the dense metal. Ken poised hisknife over a slot, and as Carol plunged her blade into the wall herammed his home to the guard.
With a squeak and a sigh the door, terraced like a vault portal, swungoutward slowly. Ken grabbed a recessed knob to hurry it up. Lightsflashed inside, flooding a man-changed interior.
He leaped across the raised threshold, dragging Carol with him, swungthe door shut and shot home two great bolts on its inner surface. On arack just beside the door was an automatic rifle, ready for instant use.The psychologists had not known about the campfire, but they had plannedfor the possibility of a hostile builder.
Ken and Carol looked about the first of the labyrinthine caverns.Squared walls were lined solidly with glass-enclosed bookshelvesstretching as far as they could see. Crowding the floor were machines,cabinets of tools, implements, instruments, weapons and medical andsurgical supplies.
They moved to stand before a large video screen set near the door. Kenflipped the single toggle below it. A scene grew, showing a white-hairedarmy colonel seated behind a desk, facing them.
"Ken--it's Dr. Halsey," Carol whispered.
"_Was_ Dr. Halsey," said Ken heavily. "I used to wonder if we had thesame instructors
."
The officer's lips moved. "Hello, Ken and Carol. I've been selected tomake this film to greet you, and I know both of you will return to seeit." His eyebrows lifted in the quizzical expression they knew well."I'm going to rattle off a lot of explanations and suggestions, but Iimagine the first thing you'll want to know is how all the things you'veseen could have happened so quickly. And knowing that, will clarify therest.
"You remember the experiments the Air Force made, sending small animalsabove the stratosphere. By means of controlled diets and morecomplicated devices you'll find explained in a book, we learned thatthese animals were not subjectively experiencing the time-span theyshould