The Gate of Time

“Two Perkunishans left—that I know of,” Two Hawks whispered to O’Brien. “And they must have orders to take us dead or alive. Maybe they don’t care which, otherwise they’d not have cut loose at us in the dark.”

He looked over the body again. He could see no men. They were probably crouching behind the cars, reloading their revolvers and discussing a plan of attack. They could not safely presume that everybody was dead or incapacitated. They would have to come out from behind the cars.

Nor would they have much time to check. There was much noise in the house, voices shouting questions, a patient screaming, and the sound of feet ru

Nevertheless, the gunfire could attract the police patrols on the streets in the city below. They could soon be coming up the winding hill, and, if they did, the Perkunishans would find their car blocked. Unless, that is, they had left their vehicle below and had come up on foot.

Two Hawks waited patiently, his revolver cocked. O’Brien groaned, and Two Hawks told him to shut up. He removed the long knife from the scabbard of the fallen rifleman. With one hand, he hefted it and tested its balance. It would make a good throwing knife and would give him a fair chance to demonstrate how effective his hundreds of hours of practice had been.

The Perkunishans had decided to proceed cautiously. One ran out from behind the car and toward the protection of the corner of the verandah. Two Hawks let him go. It was too difficult in the dark and at this distance to make sure of a hit with the revolver. Besides, if he refrained from firing, he might convince them they had nothing to fear.

Slowly, he rolled over away from the body and swiveled around to face the shrubbery at the other curve of the drive. As he had suspected, the second agent had gone through the bushes to approach the other end of the verandah. Two Hawks heard a twig cracking during a brief cessation of noise from the house. He crawled back to O’Brien and into the bushes at the base of the verandah. His back was soaked with the sweat of fear, and his skin felt as if it were bristling.

When he reached the point where the verandah abruptly curved to go along the side of the house, he stopped. He waited and then, as he had hoped, the Perkunishan dashed from the bushes toward the shrubbery behind which he crouched. Two Hawks shifted the knife to his right hand and the gun to his left. He arose, and, just as the man crashed into the bush, Two Hawks thrust the point of the knife into his throat.

The agent burbled and fell to his knees. Two Hawks pulled the knife out, stepping to one side to avoid the spurt of blood. The man fell over on his side.

The other Perkunishan called out. Two Hawks spoke softly in the only Perkunishan phrases he knew, deliberately making them indistinct. Satisfied with this, the other agent left the corner of the verandah. Two Hawks stepped out from the bushes and walked confidently toward him. In the darkness, the Perkunishan would not be able to recognize his silhouette until he got close, or so Two Hawks hoped. The agent, however, must have been able to see well enough by the light from the windows of the house. He shouted and fired. His shout gave Two Hawks enough warning to throw himself to one side and into the bushes. The bullet screamed by. There was the sound of shoes on the crushed stone. Two Hawks, looking out, saw him disappear around the car. He leaped up, heedless of noise, and ran across the driveway into the tall shrubbery. When he was several yards from the vehicle, he slowed down and walked silently.

A dim bulk was moving soundlessly except for the crunching of wooden wheels on the broken stones. For a minute, Two Hawks thought that the car was being pushed. Then the absurdity of such an act became apparent, and he knew the car was steam-operated. He ran forward. Again, he traded weapons with his hands, placing the knife in his right. Why waste a bullet he might need later? Besides, if he should miss, the Perkunishan would have no lance of flame from a gun muzzle to show him where his enemy was.

He burst out of the shrubbery just alongside the car. The driver sat on the right side, since traffic went on the left lane in this country. But the left window was down and so offered no obstacle. The knife struck true, going through the open window and into the side of the neck of the driver. The driver slumped forward. Two Hawks run around in front of the car, which continued its slow backing up.

He jerked the door open, reached in, and pulled the corpse out by its arm. He did not have time to retrieve his knife. Once in the driver’s seat, he frantically tried to locate the proper controls. Fortunately, he had seen illustrations of operating apparatus of steamers in Tarhe’s library and had studied them for just such an occasion.

Two short sticks on a horizontal table projecting from the instrument panel regulated direction and speed. The left one moved right or left to steer. The right one, when pushed forward, resulted in forward acceleration. Before discovering this, Two Hawks had stopped the car with the foot pedal on the floor, although it protested at the strain between brakes and engine. Two Hawks placed the speed stick in neutral, pushed it forward, learned that the car went forward, and then pulled the stick toward him. The vehicle went backward.

He drove the car forward and around the curve. With an almost inaudible chuff of steam escaping and wheels crunching on the stones, the car moved up to where O’Brien lay. Two Hawks stopped it and then tried to determine which knobs on the panel controlled the lights. The first one he turned operated the single windshield wiper, placed in the center of the shield. To do its job, it had to describe an 180 degree arc. Two Hawks thought that Hotinohsonih cars had a long way to go before they could compete with those of his Earth.

But he was happy that he had at least this much.

He turned another knob. A small panel light and the two front head lights, set on top of the fenders, came on. These were not very powerful, but they were good enough for his purposes. The beams lit up the front of the asylum, the bodies on the verandah and the bodies on the steps and on the driveway. He yelled at O’Brien, who rose slowly and walked to the car.

“You’re doing all right, lieutenant,” he said in a low voice. “But where do we go from here?”

Two Hawks did not answer. He was studying the indicators on the panel. These were glass cylinders set in the middle of the instrument panel. There were six, illuminated by lights behind them. Each had a lighted symbol above it, the symbols being derived from the ideographic writing the Hotinohsonih had used before abandoning it for the Greek alphabet. At various levels, a pale red fluid was rising in each tube, across which were white gradations. The tubes apparently indicated the level of water supply, temperature of steam, amount of fuel, the speed, the battery condition, and the mileage. Two Hawks knew what the degree marks were supposed to mean, but since the Hotinohsonih had a peculiar measuring system, he had trouble converting them into English units.

The water and fuel indicators showed full. As for the speed, he would judge by the seat of his pants. He waited until O’Brien got into the seat beside him, then started down the steep and winding road that led to the city below. Behind them, men emboldened by the absence of gunfire, burst out of the house. At that moment, the moon broke clear of the clouds. He turned off his lights and drove more swiftly by the illumination of the moon. On reaching the bottom of the hill, he stopped the car and got out to look at a street sign. The fact that there was one there showed that he was near a main highway, since very few streets had signs. In the residential districts, a stranger either had to have a map or ask questions if he wanted to find his way around.