Find the Feathered Serpent

Chapter 1 Through Time to Yucatan!

The rifle barrel jerked up, its blue-black metal catching the feeble rays of the moon and reflecting them dimly. “Who goes there?” the voice snapped at the darkness.

Neil Falsen recognized the voice, and smiled, his lips parting over even, white teeth. “It’s only me, Rusty,” he said. “Advance and be recognized, Neil,” Rusty kidded. Neil walked over to the man in khaki and patted him on the shoulder. “Any trouble, Rusty?”

Rusty lowered his rifle to the ground and leaned against the fence surrounding the enclosure. He spit into the dust and grinned broadly in the darkness.

“Not a bit, kid,” he said, “not a bit.” He shifted the rifle into a more comfortable position. “And there won’t be any trouble, either.”

“You never can tell,” Neil said. Rusty nodded his head sagely and said, “Ah, but I can tell, my friend. I’ve been in the Army for a long time now, Neil. I been through the African campaign, and the Italian campaign, and I was ready to go into Germany when I happened to stop a bullet. I’ll tell you one thing, and you should never forget it. Whenever the Army has you guarding something, there’ll be no trouble.”

“I don’t get you,” Neil said.

Rusty leaned closer and said, “It’s simple, kid. Wherever there’s no guard, that’s where the trouble pops. I’ll let you in on a secret. This guard business is all a hoax, Neil. It’s just a plan to make sure that no self-respectin’ dogface gets a good night’s sleep, that’s all.”

Rusty began chuckling, and Neil joined him.

“Come down to have another look at her?” Rusty asked.

Neil nodded. “I feel kind of funny,” he admitted. “I mean about… well…”

Rusty spit into the sand again. “You mean about going along on the trip?”

“Yes,” Neil admitted. “I still don’t think it’s exactly right.”

“Forget it,” Rusty said. “You’ll have the time of your life, believe me. There’s nothing like overseas duty.”

Neil’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark now, and he saw that Rusty was smiling again. Rusty was a short, squat private first-class with a shock of red hair that always hung in an unruly manner over his forehead. He had a broad nose that seemed to have been squashed into his face and then peppered with freckles. His grin was a quick, infectious one, and Neil could never be with him without feeling in good spirits.

That was one of the reasons he’d come down to the enclosure tonight. He’d begun thinking about the time trip again, and feeling a little blue. He knew he’d find Rusty here, with his disheveled uniform and his highly polished rifle. Neil could never figure out why the same man would keep his clothes so dirty and his rifle so clean. But each was an integral part of Rusty’s makeup, and Neil had come to like the soldier a lot. In a way, he almost wished that Rusty were going on the trip tomorrow.

Tomorrow!

Again, the same half-thrilling, half-frightening tingle shot up Neil’s spine. He, Neil Falsen, was leaving in the time machine tomorrow; leaving for Yucatan and the land of the ancient Maya, in search of a god.

“May I go inside and look at her?” he asked Rusty.

“Sure, kid,” Rusty said. “But you’re gonna wear the old lady out with your staring.”

He chuckled again and unlocked the gate leading to the inside of the enclosure. He wheeled the gate back and, when Neil stepped through, he closed it again, leaving the padlock hanging open.

The time machine rested on a platform high above the ground. It looked clean, and shining, and unused. The moon perched above it, a thin crescent in an ebony-black sky.

It looks like an hourglass, Neil thought.

The machine was at least twenty-five feet high, a beautifully tooled work of aluminum and plastic. The control room was in the exact center of the ship, an aluminum band that seemed to squeeze the plastic bubbles above and below into a constricting wasp waist. Exactly like an hourglass, the bubbles above and below arced away from the tight band of aluminum. The lower compartment contained the fuel tanks, aluminum containers set against the circular, plastic walls of the machine. A hatchway stood in the center of the lower bubble and, to the right of this and on the inside, was a thin aluminum ladder leading to the control room.

Above the control room, and housed in the upper plastic bubble, was a shaft that led to the twin rotors at the top of the machine. The rotors were exactly like those on a helicopter, and Neil knew they would handle the space-travel angle of the machine’s operation.

The time-travel angle, and here Neil’s own heart skipped a beat at the thought, had its heart in the control room, in the temporium crystal that lay covered by sheets of aluminum in the control panel.

Tomorrow, I’ll be whirling through time. Me, Neil Falsen,

It was funny the way things happened suddenly. Everything would be going along just as it always had, with the University quiet and complacent on the desert sands, and the sun shining brightly, and the birds singing, and everything normal, everything just the way it always was, day after day. And then, bango! and the whole world could go topsy-turvy, just like that, just like snapping your fingers and pulling a rabbit out of a silk hat.

Only, this was more than topsy-turvy. This was unimaginable, absurd, fantastic.

Neil tried to remember the events that had led up to this very moment.

Yesterday had started out to be another normal day, yes. He had eaten his breakfast, and was heading over to the ball lot to see if any of the guys were around.

That’s when it had happened. Or at least, that’s when it had started. His mother had caught him just as he was leaving the house.

“Neil,” she said, “Dad wants to see you a minute.”

Neil’s face had expressed reluctance. “I’m pitching, Mom,” he said. “Does Dad know that?”

“It’ll only take a minute,” Mrs. Falsen assured him.

“Oh-h-h, all right,” Neil grunted.

He took the steps up to his father’s room two at a time, the ball glove still on his left hand. He knocked on the door softly, and his father’s voice answered.

“Come in, Neil.”

Neil opened the door and stepped into the room. Doctor Falsen lay propped against the soft, white pillows on his bed. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he saw Neil, and he moved his head off the pillows and leaned forward slightly. He shook his head sadly, the black locks of his hair jumping with the movement. Doctor Peter Falsen had a long, angular face, with Neil’s fine nose and deep blue eyes. His chin was covered with an immaculate black beard that covered the jut of his jaw and no more.

His leg stood out at an acute angle from his body. It was in a heavy plaster cast, and it hung suspended from the ceiling by a network of complicated strings and pulleys.

“This darned leg,” Doctor Falsen said, his head still wagging. “You know, Neil, it’s beginning to itch. Itch, mind you.” He opened his eyes in disbelief.

Neil grinned at his father and came straight to the point.

“I hope this isn’t important, Dad. I’m pitching and I-”

“Well, I don’t know if you’d call it important,” Doctor Falsen said.

“Good,” Neil replied, socking his right hand into the glove. “What’s on your mind, Dad?”

“Well, nothing much really. I just wanted you to go along on the time trip. In my place.”

Neil’s hand was poised, ready to sock into the glove again. It stopped suddenly, and his eyes opened wide while his jaw fell open.

“What!”

Doctor Falsen assumed the air of a man who had just said, “A nice day today, isn’t it?” He looked at Neil in mock puzzlement and said, “The time trip, Neil. I’d like you to go in my place.”

Neil’s astonishment wore off, and he looked at his father suspiciously. “Do you feel all right, Dad?” he asked. “Shall I get Mother?”

Doctor Falsen continued as if he hadn’t even heard Neil.

“It’s this way, son. The other men are anxious to get started. Heaven only knows when this leg of mine will be healed. It’s not fair of me to hold them up any longer.”

“Not fair?” Neil repeated blankly.

It seemed to be the only thing he could think of saying.

“Of course not,” Doctor Falsen went on. “I finally convinced them to leave without me. Arthur Blake, that stubborn old fool, held out to the last. But I threatened to club him with my plaster cast if he didn’t listen to reason.”

Doctor Falsen began chuckling while Neil swallowed the lump in his throat.

“But… but…” he stammered, “that’s impossible.. I mean, it’s your time machine.”

Doctor Falsen shook his head. “No, Neil, it is not my time machine. It is the University’s. They supplied the money that made the machine a reality. Without their grants, it would still be on the drawing board.”

“But you invented it!” Neil protested.

“Let us say, I had a part in inventing it. We mustn’t forget the brilliant work Dave Saunders did.”

Neil fell silent for a moment. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully.

Then, suddenly, he said, “I won’t go.”

“But why not?” his father asked.

“Because it’s not fair. You do all the work on the machine and then, because of a lousy accident, I take your place. No, sir, not for me!”

“Don’t you want to go?” Doctor Falsen asked slyly.

“I’d love-” Neil started, stopping himself before it was too late. “No, no, I don’t want to go.”

“Why not?”

“First of all, I don’t know anything about Yucatan. I don’t even know why you’re going there.”

“You don’t have to know anything about Yucatan,” Doctor Falsen said. “Doctor Manning is an archaeologist, and Arthur Blake is a historian. They’ll take care of that end.”

“Nope,” Neil said. “I’m not interested.”

“They’re going to look for a god, you know,” Doctor Falsen said.

“I’m still not-” Neil paused. “Look for a what?”

“A god.”

“That’s silly.”

“It may be, true. But they’re going to try to find the Feathered Serpent.”

“What kind of a snake is that?” Neil asked.

“It’s not a snake,” Doctor Falsen replied, laughing softly. “It’s the god they’re looking for. Kukulcan, he was called.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Neil said, beginning to get interested in spite of his resolve.

“You’ve probably heard of Quetzalcoatl. He was a man who lived in the thirteenth century, a man who greatly influenced the history of the whole of Central America.”

“Yes,” Neil said, “I’ve heard of him.”

“Quetzalcoatl was the Mexican name for this man. The Mayas called him Kukulcan. The name means practically the same in both languages, you see. In Mexican, it’s ‘Quetzal-bird-serpent,’ in Maya, ‘feathered serpent’”

“Well, if you know all about this Kukulcan, why are you going to look for him?” Neil asked.

“We do know a great deal about this thirteenth-century man named Kukulcan,” Doctor Falsen admitted. “But we’re not going back through time to find him”

“Who then?”

“The thirteenth-century man was named after the Feathered-Serpent god. We are looking for the original Kukulcan, the god the man was named after.”

“Then there are two Kukulcans,” Neil said.

“Exactly. One was a man. The other-who knows?” Here Doctor Falsen spread his hands wide, palms upward.

“What do you mean?” Neil asked.

“We don’t know,” Doctor Falsen said. “Was the original Kukulcan a man too? Or was he nonexistent, a story that simply grew into a legend? Or was he a combination of men? We just don’t know.”

“And that’s the reason for the time trip?”

“Yes. The University granted me the money to finish my time experiments on condition that the first trip be made to Yucatan, to find the Feathered-Serpent god. There’s quite an archaeology department here, you know.”

Neil considered this for a moment, and then asked, “How far back will you have to go? In time, I mean.”

“Very far. Perhaps all the way back to A.D. 50.”

Neil let a long, low whistle escape his lips.

“Perhaps farther,” Doctor Falsen added. “You see, we have no way of knowing when the legend came into existence.”

“It sounds exciting,” Neil admitted. “But I couldn’t go, Dad, really. I can think of a hundred reasons why.”

“Name one,” Doctor Falsen interrupted.

“Well-” Neil thought for a second and then said, “I’m too young. I’m only sixteen. That’s much too young to be-”

“Nonsense. Besides, you’ll be seventeen in two months.”

“And Mother would worry if I’m a…”

“I’ll take care of Mother. I’ve been taking care of her for twenty years now.”

“And the ball team. I have to pitch for…”

“Bob Andrews can pitch. He’s been dying for the chance all summer.”

“And-”

“Yes?”

Neil suddenly ran to the bed and gripped his father’s hand tightly. For a moment, their eyes met, and there was seriousness in both their faces.

“Do you really want me to go, Dad?”

“Yes, Neil. I’d consider it a great honor if you took my place.”

“And the others. Doctor Manning and Mr. Blake? And Dave?”

“They’ve already agreed. In fact,” and here Doctor Falsen grinned, “you’re leaving the day after tomorrow.”

And that was how a guy suddenly had the whole pattern of his life changed. For here it was the night before they were leaving! And there the machine stood, proud and strong in the light of the moon. Tomorrow. Tomorrow!

“You’d better get some sleep, kid,” Rusty’s voice said from the gate. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”

“Yeah,” Neil agreed. Rusty opened the gate, and Neil stepped through. “You’ll be here when we leave, won’t you, Rusty?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, kid,” Rusty said. “Now go get some sleep.”

“Good night,” Neil said.

“Good night, kid.”

Neil began walking toward the University, looking back at the machine only once.

Like an enormous hourglass, it stood poised against the blackness of the night, waiting.

The next day was clear and bright. The sky stretched for as far as the eye could see in a brilliant, almost-blinding sheet of blue.

The good-bys were over and done with. Neil’s mother had kissed him and cried a little, and then she’d reminded him to change his underwear regularly. Neil’s father had simply shook his hand, the way men do, and wished his son good luck.

And now Neil waited below while Dave Saunders warmed up the engine of the machine. He wore a linen shirt, open at the throat. His blond head was bare, and his skin against the brilliant white of the shirt was a gleaming bronze in the sun. He wore dungarees, rolled at the cuff, and a pair of solid leather boots.

Standing beside him was Arthur Blake, dressed in almost the same fashion. He was a small man, with a balding head and quick, intelligent eyes. Two shaggy black eyebrows sprawled over his eyes like elongated hyphens. His nose was sharp and thin, and he spoke in a soft voice.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she, Neil?”

“She is,” Neil agreed, staring in wonder at the plastic and aluminum dream that was his father’s.

“Here’s Doctor Manning now,” Arthur Blake said.

Doctor Manning was at least six-feet-four. He had the square, muscular shoulders of a fullback, complete with a waist that rivaled that of the time machine’s for its slenderness. His face seemed to have been chiseled out of hard granite, set with black coal for eyes. His jaw jutted out like the trapdoor on a gallows, and when he spoke, his voice boomed forth from his enormous barrel chest.

“Dave warming her up, I see,” he said.

If anyone looked less like an archaeologist, Neil decided, it was Doctor Manning.

One of the portholes on the side of the control room opened and Dave’s head popped out.

“Let’s go, boys,” he called cheerfully.

Doctor Manning and Arthur Blake started for the machine. Neil walked to where Rusty stood leaning on his rifle. He extended his hand.

“Good luck, kid,” Rusty said.

“Thanks,” Neil answered.

“Come back soon. I won’t know what to do at night, not having that machine to guard.”

Neil smiled and started for the ship. He climbed the ladder that was in place before the platform. The ladder was of the movable type to be found on any airfield, triangular shaped, with wheels under each leg.

As Neil climbed the ladder to the plastic hatchway in the lower bubble, his mind wandered back to what had happened less than a month ago on this very spot. His father, after inspecting the machine, had stepped through the hatchway and reached for the ladder with his foot. A negligent attendant had moved the ladder from the hatchway, and Doctor Falsen had tumbled fifteen feet to the ground below. If it hadn’t been for that accident, Doctor Falsen would be climbing the steps now, rather than Neil.

Neil reached the hatchway and pulled up on the toggle that snapped it open. He climbed through and signaled to the attendant below to wheel the ladder away. Then he pulled the hatchway shut and peered through the plastic. A little way in the distance, the University spires stood out against the sky in dim silhouette. He could almost make out the little house on the campus in Faculty Row. Here, he knew, his mother was probably still crying, and his father would be trying to console her. He bit his lower lip and started for the aluminum ladder that led to the control room. The ladder was bolted securely to the aluminum floor of the plastic bubble, and it rose vertically to an opening in the floor of the control room. Neil climbed it, hand over hand, rung by rung, and poked his head into the control room.

“Hi,” he called.

Dave Saunders looked up from the control panel. He was a young man, twenty-six at the most, with straight brown hair and large, warm brown eyes. He had a finely sculpted face with high cheekbones, and a sensitive, thin mouth. He would have been good-looking if it hadn’t been for his nose. While an engineering student, Dave had been a member of the college boxing squad. From what Doctor Falsen had told Neil, Dave was quite good. But he’d been unlucky in one bout, and he sported a broken nose as a result.

“Good,” Dave said when he saw Neil. “We were waiting for you.”

“Are we ready to go?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be. Help me chase these two coots out of here, will you, Neil?”

“Let’s go, Arthur,” Doctor Manning said. “I can take a hint.”

“Aren’t you going to stay up here for the take-off?” Neil asked.

Dr. Manning shrugged his fullback’s shoulders. “Only two people allowed in the control room, Neil.”

“Well, if you want to stay-” Neil started.

“We’ll go down below,” Doctor Manning said. “I want to see what happens anyway. With all that clear plastic down there, it’d be a shame to stay cooped up here. Coming, Arthur?”

He started down the ladder, with Arthur Blake following close behind him.

“I’ll give you a warning buzzer just before we take off,” Dave said to the descending figures.

“All right,” Arthur Blake answered as his head went below the floor level into the lower bubble.

Dave checked a few dials on the instrument panel and nodded his head.

“Everything seems okay so far. I’d better start the crystal working.”

“The time crystal?” Neil asked,

“That’s it, Neil,” Dave said, smiling. “We’re fancy, and we call it the temporium crystal. But time crystal will do.”

He reached out to a switch on the panel and closed the circuit. A hum, low and steady, filled the machine. Behind it, and almost too faint to be heard, was a slight coughing sound. Dave’s face clouded momentarily, and he studied the dials before him.

“That’s strange,” he said.

“What’s the matter? Is anything wrong?”

Dave hesitated before answering. “No-o-o,” he said slowly. “Not by the instruments anyway. Everything seems to be fine. I could have sworn I heard some rumbling when I threw on the generator, though.”

“I heard something too,” Neil admitted.

Dave shrugged. “Probably just warming up,” he said. “We haven’t used the machine since its test runs, you know.” He checked his dials again. “Want to press that warning buzzer on your right, Neil?”

Neil looked over the instrument panel and found a large red button near the right-hand corner. He pressed it with his forefinger, and a loud buzz filled the machine.

“Ready, Neil?” Dave asked.

“Yes.”

“Nervous?”

“A little.”

“Don’t be. Everything’ll turn out fine. We’ll be in Yucatan before you can say Kukulcan.”

“Here we go,” Dave said.

He throttled the big machine and an ominous roar filled the aluminum chamber.

Slowly, steadily, like a giant elevator rising, the machine lifted from the platform.

“Easy as pie,” Dave said, his mouth breaking into a wide grin. “Switch on the inter-com, Neil. We’ll see how the boys in the cheaper seats are enjoying the ride.”

Neil reached up to the speaker on the wall and snapped a toggle. A red light gleamed as the inter-com took on life.

Dave reached over and depressed the “Press-to-talk” lever.

“How is it down there, boys?” He released the lever.

“Fine, just fine,” Doctor Manning and Arthur Blake chorused.

Dave pressed the lever again and said, “We’re clear of the platform now. I’m putting space travel up to top speed and I’m cutting in the crystal.” He waited.

“I’ve been waiting to see this for a long time,” Arthur Blake said.

“There won’t be much to see, Art. It’ll probably look kind of gray out there. Remember that night and day will be changing some thirty times a second.”

“I’ll enjoy it anyway,” Arthur Blake replied.

“Well, here we go,” Dave said. He moved away from the inter-com and snapped another switch on the instrument panel. A louder hum filled the machine, and Neil remembered what Dave had told him about the machine. At full speed, the machine was capable of traveling some three hundred years an hour. That meant five years a minute, a month every single second. Summer would become winter in just six seconds!

And, at the same time, the machine would be plowing forward in space at a speed of more than one hundred miles an hour. Of course, the machine was calibrated so that it would land in the right place at the right time.

“Neil,” Dave said.

And that time and place would be Yucatan in A.D. 50 or perhaps later. It all depended on what they found when-

“Neil!” Dave’s voice was sharp.

Instantly, Neil snapped out of his thoughts.

“What is it, Dave?”

“Something’s wrong.”

“What?”

“Something’s wrong, I said.”

“But, I don’t understand. You said everything was-“

Dave turned a worried face to Neil. His brown eyes were large against a pale face, and his nose somehow looked comical against the seriousness of his features.

There was nothing funny about what he said, though.

“I can’t control the machine, Neil. I can’t control it!”