A Question Of Time by Fred Saberhagen (best electronic book reader TXT) 📗

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      Maybe, thought Jake, that idea about being a million years in the past was something that needed thinking about. Well, if so, he wasn’t up to the task right now. Instead he went into the cave again and wandered the several rooms and alcoves, which took up at least as much room as a small house. He stared at everything by Edgar’s bright electric lights, but being able to see clearly did nothing to clear up the mystery. Trying to get a better idea of what the old man was up to here, Jake looked at the long workbench, the pits in the floor, the fragmentary carvings, so many of the latter that some must have been started and abandoned.

      Camilla had come back into the cave too and was following him around in silence.

      “Where’s old Edgar now?” Jake demanded of her at last.

      “Sleeping.”

      “You told me that a couple of times already. What I’m asking now is where he sleeps.”

      Camilla did not reply.

      “You think I’m just going to stay here—wherever this is—and work for that bastard because I can’t find my way out? And every time you shake your little ass at me, I’ll forget everything else?”

      “No, Jake. Like I told you, I brought you here because I was desperate, I needed you to help me. I want out of this as much as you do. More, I’ve been here longer.” Again Camilla seemed to be on the edge of breaking down.

      “Old Edgar thinks I’m going to work for him, because I don’t have any choice?”

      After another pause Camilla said: “You want to know the truth? I don’t think old Edgar really cares much if you ever do any work or not. But he’ll make you work, to keep you busy, so you won’t spend your time thinking up ways to give him trouble. And he doesn’t need me as a model anymore. Not really. But still h-he won’t let me go.”

      “Why not? If he doesn’t need us, what’s he keeping us here for?”

      She wouldn’t, or couldn’t, answer.

      “What’s he want us for?”

      Answering appeared to cost Camilla a great effort. It was as if she were putting her deepest fear into words. “I think he wants—our lives. In some way.”

      Jake felt a chill. “What do you mean, our lives? For what?”

      “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. But for now we’re all right. So you can just make up your mind to stay here for a while. With me. The old man won’t ever bother us during the day. You can work for him a while. I’ve worked for him, he’s not that bad.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Then together you and I have to figure out something. Find a way for both of us to get out of here.”

      “A way? Like what?”

      “That’s what we’ve got to figure.”

      “I want to talk to him.”

      “Not now, he’s sleeping. Believe me, you’re not going to talk to him now.”

      “At least you can show me where he sleeps.”

      Camilla sighed heavily. “All right. You’re not gonna believe me, but all right.”

Chapter Seven

      Bill Burdon, leaping recklessly downhill along a barely perceptible trail, intent upon pursuing into darkness what had appeared to him as two striding figures, managed to stay creditably close to his quarry, the rearmost of those figures, for the first sixty yards or so. At the start Bill had confidently expected to be able to gain ground, but this hope proved embarrassingly futile.

      Summoning up his best authoritative sergeant’s voice, he cried for his quarry to stop.

      But if his command to halt had any effect at all, it was the very opposite of what had been intended. The single speeding form still visible ahead of Bill did not look back, but seemed to accelerate. Now Bill was definitely losing ground in the chase.

      Some twenty seconds into the pursuit, that pacing figure reached the level of the lowering mist and vanished completely. Bill could still hear brush crackling and rocks sliding under his quarry’s feet; a few moments later he plunged into the fog himself, and was forced to reduce his own speed, as even the ground immediately ahead of him became almost invisible.

      Bill flicked on his flashlight. The beam set a small volume of fog aglow, and revealed something of the slanted earth just before his feet, but was of no help to him in locating his quarry.

      And now the sounds of the other’s passage had also faded completely away.

      Bill slowed to a fast walk. Examining the ground carefully with the help of his flashlight, he was able to identify and follow a faintly visible path, winding downhill among rocks, blackbrush, and prickly pear. Here and there traces of snow persisted from the last fall, evidently several days ago. Looking for individual tracks, of course, trying to find anything like a footprint on a surface composed almost entirely of hard rock, would have been foolish, especially in darkness.

      For a few more minutes he continued walking down this trail, pausing several times to listen for sounds of movement in the darkness ahead. He disliked having to use the flashlight at all, but there hadn’t been any real choice.

      At last, when even with the light he could no longer convince himself he had a trail to follow, Bill came to a halt. He snapped off the flash.

      Whoever he had been chasing might very well have managed to get away, he decided, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up. Again he started downslope, moving more slowly and cautiously now, alert for any sound or spark of light in the murky depths ahead.

      Whatever human presence had vanished in that direction was remaining neatly concealed, or else was by now so far ahead that Bill might as well give up. As far as he could tell, he might be entirely alone on the whole damned canyon wall. Again he regretted not having been able to get a good look in daylight at the lay of