A World Out of Time

His way back to the park was slower. Three times he had to open a door to let out the smoke; each time the car slowed as if it had rammed invisible taffy. But he got back, and maneuvered the trash can out of the car into the patch of vines, under a threatening sky. The logs had gone to coals.

He turned the can on its side and braced the bottom higher than the lip. He pushed the coals into a pile at the back. He found more wood, not too damp, which he set in the trash can to be dried by the heat. When the warm rain opened up on him it didn't bother him. It was not especially uncomfortable, and now his fire was safe.

This time a million years ago... this time two million years ago Corbell the spaceman had already crossed tens of thousands of light-years, and at the core of the galaxy was skirting the edge of a black hole massive as a hundred million suns. Corbell the naked savage went forth to hunt his di

Living things rustled around him, but he saw nothing. It didn't matter. He didn't have anything to kill with, not so much as a kitchen knife. He kept his eyes open for another club while he pulled up roots. He pulled up quite a number of different roots. He'd roast them all, and taste them.

He spent more time gathering nuts. The rain stopped. This rain seemed regular enough: starting just after noon, lasting two or three hours. It was nice to be able to count on something. In the customary red sunset light he sat down to cook his di

He had to throw away half the roots. He got, in rough and approximate terms, one potato, one very large beet, a combination yam and carrot, and a more nearly pure yam. He burned most of the nuts, but some survived, and were delicious. He went back for more.

Then night was upon him. He set the trash can upright and set some dead tree limbs in the coals, and settled down to sleep in a patch of nearly dry moss.

the third day

Corbell half woke in darkness. He felt fur and a warm spot against his back, but elsewhere he was chilled. He curled more tightly around himself and went back to sleep.

Sometime later the memory snapped him awake. Fur? There was nothing against his back now. A dream? Or had, a friendly cat-tail stretched against him for warmth? The touch hadn't wakened him fully. He and Mirabelle used to share their king-sized bed with a kitten, until the kitten became a tomcat and started behaving like one.

Well, he was awake now. He did easy exercises until the stiffness was gone. He breakfasted on fruit; what else? Perhaps he ought to be looking for nests, and eggs.

The fire was still going. He built it up with twigs, then went looking for larger pieces. He wished for an ax. The little stuff burned too fast, the big stuff was too heavy to move, and he would soon use up all the dead limbs in the area. He spent part of the morning dragging a huge limb to his replenished fire. After he had tilted the trash can on its side and pushed the big end of the limb into it, he decided he'd created a fire hazard. He moved the whole arrangement onto a nearly buried outcropping of granite.

It was meat he hungered for. If he could find a straight sapling perhaps he could fire-harden it into a spear-provided he could sharpen a point. What he really needed was a knife, he thought. For that alone it was worth exploring Sarash-Zilhish.

Four crossed commas brought the car to the Sarash-Zihish Hospital. Corbell recognized it at once. From outside it was identical to the Four City Hospital.

Civilization must have become awfully stereotyped before its collapse. Corbell fantasized a great pogrom in which all the world's architects had died. Afterward humanity had been reduced to copying older buildings detail for detail. It didn't make a lot of sense. He'd look for other reasons for the duplication he saw everywhere.

Inside, the place kept reminding him of his nightmare flight from Mirelly-Lyra. Clean corridors, doors with no handles, cloud-rug.

The only difference was the lack of a vault. He found a central place, a two-story room lined with shelves and occupied by a computer that must be diagnostic equipment. But there was no vault door and no double "phone booth." No precautions against thieves. No mummified losers.

If Mirelly-Lyra had not lied, the Boys had owned this city. They would not have needed to steal dictator immortality. Only dictators- adults-would need that.

He found more locked doors... which would open with a kick. He found an operating room: two flat tables with straps attached, and clusters of jointed arms above them, tipped with scalpels and suction tubes and needles and clamps. The metal showed the stains of neglect and age.

The stiffly extended insectile arm: That was his target. Corbell climbed up on a table, leaned out to grip the arm at its end. He swung outward and hung suspended. The arm sagged, then broke in the middle and dropped him to the floor.

Corbell the hunter left the hospital carrying three feet of metal spear with a scalpel at the end.

Again the rains caught him on the way back. He made his way to his fireplace, checked to see that the fire was still going, then sat down to wait it out. There were several inches of water in his other trash barrel.

He was killing time by trying to shave-very carefully, but the weight of the handle was awkward and he wasn't doing a good job of it-when he saw the giant turkey. It was pecking under a nut tree, looking bedraggled and unhappy. He froze. It hadn't seen him. He debated as to whether he might sneak up on it. Probably not.

He eased forward onto the balls of his feet, spear held lightly in both hands.

He sprinted. The bird looked up, squawked, turned and fled. Corbell swung the spear and chopped at its foot. The bird stopped to peck at whatever had bitten it. Corbell chopped again, at the neck, and felt the satisfying shock in his shoulders.

The bird was hurt and in panic. It ran in clumsy circles, squawking, while Corbell chased it. He got two more shots at the neck, and then he had to stop, gasping, his pulse thundering in his ears. The bird was spouting blood. It hadn't slowed down, but its flight was Brownian motion, sheer blind panic.

It had not gone far when Corbell recovered his breath and resumed the chase. He was moving in for the kill when the bird turned and ran straight at him. A lucky swing as he sprawled backward, and the bird was headless. It ran right over him and kept going.

He tracked it until it fell over.

The patch of bare rock was nearly dry. Corbell spilled his fire across it, added more wood, then went back for the bird. He pulled feathers until he was exhausted, rested, pulled more feathers. He opened the bird's belly and cleaned it, tugging two-handed at internal organs, his feet braced on rough rock.

The cupboard door from the police station became his griddle. He fried the liver on it, and ate it while parts of the rest of the bird were roasting. Afterward he worked at cutting into the joints. He couldn't build his fire big enough to roast the whole bird, but he could roast a drumstick. And broil thick slices of breast on a stick.

Meat! It was good to taste meat again. There was far too much for tonight. He had roasted both drumsticks; he could eat them cold tomorrow. He could cut up parts of the carcass and boil them for soup, in the other trash can, with some of the roots.

II

The northeast was turning gray, but in the black northwestern sky one star still glowed. Corbell had watched it on several nights. It did not twinkle and it did not move against the stellar background. That made it a planet, a big object dimly lit, possibly the world whose skewed orbit had disturbed Peerssa.

Now it twinkled; now it was marginally brighter. Corbell blinked. Just his imagination? Now it was fading before the coming dawn.... Corbell closed his eyes. He didn't want to wake up. There was no special reason why he should. He wasn't hungry or uncomfortable.