Mastodonia

THIRTY

Late in the afternoon, Safari phoned Ben. They would send in an expedition, they said, to visit the scene of the disaster and bring out what remained of the victims.

Rila and I went back to Mastodonia. Neither of us had much to say on the trip; both of us were depressed.

Hiram and Bowser were waiting for us, perched on the steps. Hiram was bubbling with talk. He had found Stiffy and had a good talk with him; he had hunted up Catface and talked with him as well. Both had been glad to see him, and he had told them all about his stay in the hospital. Bowser, he said, had found a woodchuck, run him into a hole and tried to dig him out.

Hiram had hauled him from the hole and rebuked him.

Bowser, he said, was ashamed of himself. Hiram had fried some eggs for lunch, but Bowser, he reminded us severely, did not care for eggs. We should always plan to leave some cold roast for Bowser.

After dinner, Rila and I sat out on the patio. Bowser and Hiram, tired out with their day, went to bed.

“I’m worried, Asa,” Rila said. “If’ Safari has paid us only half of the contract, we may be running low on funds. We gave Ben his commission on the Safari deal even though he had nothing to do with it.”

“He had it coming,” I said. ”Maybe he had nothing to do with the Safari contract, but he worked his tail off for us.”

“I’m not complaining about it,” said Rila. “I don’t begrudge it to him. But it all adds up. The fence cost us a fortune and the office building didn’t come cheap.

The salaries for the guards run to several hundred dollars a day. We still have money, but it’s being eaten up. If Safari should pull out, if the movie people decide to wait, we could be in trouble.”

“Safari won’t pull out,” I said. “They may mark time for a while until this blows over. But Ben is right.

The more dangerous the situation, the more anxious your hunting type will be to have a shot at it. The movie company I don’t know about, but they had dollar signs in their eyes. They won’t pass it by.”

“Another thing,” said Rila. “Courtney doesn’t work cheap. God knows what kind of bill he is piling up.”

“Let’s not get upset right yet,” I said. “It will all work out.”

“You think I’m greedy, don’t you, Asa?”

“Greedy? I don’t know. You’re a businesswoman.

You spent all those years in business.”

“It’s not business,” she said. “It’s not greed. It’s security. Even more than a man, a woman needs to feel secure. Most women can feel secure in a family, but I didn’t have a family. I had to look for some other basis for security and I came up with money. Money seemed the answer. If I could pile up enough money, then I’d be secure. That’s why I am so grabby.

That’s why I latched onto the time-travel idea so fast.

I saw big possibilities in it.”

“There are still big possibilities.”

“There are also headaches. And our base is so slight.

Catface and Hiram. If either of them fails us …”

“We managed without Hiram.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But it was awfully awkward.”

“Not any more,” I said. “I’ve been trying to tell you for a couple of days, but I never had the chance.

First, there was the house, then Hiram coming back, and after that, what happened to the Safari people.

What I wanted to tell you is that I can talk with Catface.”

She looked at me in surprise. “You mean, really talk to him? Just like Hiram?”

“Better than Hiram,” I said. Then I went ahead and told her, while she watched me closely, with a faint tinge of disbelief.

“What a spooky business,” she said. “I would have been scared.”

“I wasn’t scared. I was too numb to be scared.”

“Why do you think he tried so hard? To fix it so he could talk with you?”

“He ached to talk to someone.”

“But he could talk with Hiram.”

“Hiram wasn’t here, remember? He hadn’t been for days. I don’t think Catface understood what had happened to him. And Hiram would not have been the most satisfactory person to talk to. He would have understood very little of what Catface showed to me.

Catface is a human sort of being.”

“Human?”

“Yes, human. An alien, sure. But with certain human characteristics you’d not expect to find. Perhaps he hid his alien characteristics from me, accentuated what you might call his human streak. …”

“In which case,” said Rila, “he is a very clever creature. And sophisticated.”

“Anything that has lived for a million years would have to be sophisticated.”

“Once he told us he was immortal.”

“We didn’t talk about that. Not a great deal, actually, about himself.”

“You’re fascinated by him,” Rila said.

“Yes, I suppose I am. Funny thing about it is that I have talked with an alien intelligence. That’s the kind of thing a newspaper would blow into big headlines. A sensational story. Rightly sensational, I suppose, for it is something that has been written about and talked about for years. Are there other intelligences in the universe? What would happen if a human met an alien? All the wonder about that first contact. But to me it doesn’t seem sensational at all. ”

It all seems friendly and quite ordinary.”

“You’re a strange man, Asa,” Rila said. “You always were a strange man. I think that’s why I love you.

What other people think makes no mark upon you.

You think for yourself alone.”

“Thank you, my dear,” I said.

And I sat there, thinking about Catface, wondering about him. He was out there now in the gathering dusk, perhaps in the crab-apple patch, perhaps in the old home orchard. And I found, as I thought about him, that I knew much more about him than he had told me. The knowledge, for example, that he was not biological, but some strange combination of electronic-molecular life that I could not understand. Perhaps, I thought, an electronics engineer might be able to understand it, but not in its entirety. The knowledge, too, that he thought of time not as a part of the space-time continuum, not as a glue that held the universe together, but as an independent factor that could be explained by certain equations, which I could neither recognize nor make any sense of (for no equation made any sense to me) and that it could be regulated or manipulated if one had an understanding of the equations. And the knowledge that while he had said he was immortal, he still held a faith and a hope of afterlife — which seemed to be an extremely strange idea, for to an immortal, there should be no need of such faith or hope.

How was it, I asked myself, that I should know such things about him? I was certain he had not told me, but it was, I admitted, possible that he had, for during much of the time that he had talked to me, I had been confused and perhaps not as sharp as I should have been.

Rila got up. “Let’s be off to bed,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.”

It turned out to be not a bad day, not a good day; actually, nothing much happened.

Late in the morning, Rila and I drove to Willow Bend. Hiram had already disappeared somewhere, leaving with Bowser shortly after breakfast. We didn’t try to hunt them down and herd them home. We couldn’t spend all our spare time playing nursemaid to Hiram. He’d been told at the hospital to take it easy, but the only way to make him take it easy was to hogtie him.

Ben had got word that the Safari people would arrive the next day. There were no indications, however, when, or if, other safaris would be coming in.

The newspapers had given a lot of space to the Cretaceous disaster. According to the stories, Safari, Inc., had made an almost immediate disclosure of the incident. There had been no attempt to soft-pedal the horror of it, but Safari officials were quoted as saying that over the years many people had died while on safari — that this was different only in that the entire party had been wiped out, Rila stayed at the office to talk with Ben and Herb, but I cut out, after a short time, to see if Catface might be in the orchard. He did happen to be there.

I didn’t tell him anything of what had happened. I was not sure he’d be much interested and, besides, there were a lot of other matters we could talk about.

We settled down to talk and spent a couple of hours at it. It was not so much talking as showing. As had happened before, I found myself sort of tucked into Catface, as if I were part of him, seeing through his eyes.

He showed me more of the headquarters city and some of the specialists who worked there: the insect-like race that were trained historians, paying attention not so much to the events of history as to trends and development, treating history as a science rather than a mere progression of happenings; the globe-shaped creatures who specialized as sociologists, working to identify the racial characteristics and the historical trends that made intelligent beings what they were; the snaky whitherers, who dealt not so much in prediction as in scientifically attempting to extrapolate the future trends of civilization, trying in the course of their studies to pinpoint possible future crisis points.

He also tried to show me how he employed certain equations and manipulated certain forces (all or which were beyond my understanding) to construct the time roads. I asked him a lot of questions, but it appeared that my questions were so wide of the mark that they did no more than confuse him. When he did try to explain, his explanations confused me more than ever.

Knowing that Rila probably was wondering where I’d gone, I broke off the talk and went back to the office. Rila, Ben and Herb were still deep in conversation and seemed not to have noticed my absence.

Early the next morning, the Safari expedition showed up. Ben and I went into the Cretaceous with them and this time, Rila went along.

It was a grisly business. I did none of the work, but only stood around and watched. The crew put the stripped human skeletons into plastic bags, making the best guesses they could as to which bones belonged to which skeletons. In some cases, however, the bones had been dragged around a bit and I’m not sure the effort was successful. In a few instances, where ID bracelets or chains were still in place, some identification was possible, but most of the bags were anonymous.

The skeleton of the huge allosaur, if that was what it was, also was loaded on one of the trucks. A Harvard paleontologist had asked that it be brought back.

In a couple or three hours time, the campsite was cleared of all bones, guns, ammunition, tents and other supplies, and we returned. I don’t mind admitting I was glad once we were back in Mastodonia.

Ten days went past. The newspapers were hammering away at the Cretaceous disaster.

A couple of suits were filed against Safari. Several members of Congress made speeches calling for governmental regulation of time travel. The Justice Department called a press conference to explain that regulation would be difficult since Time Associates were operating in what amounted to a foreign nation, although it was stressed that the status of Mastodonia under international law was far from clear. The number of newsmen and camera crews who had been standing watch at the gate in Willow Bend shrank considerably.

Stiffy came up the ridge several times to visit us, and after paying him off with carrots, we shagged him out of there. Hiram was outraged that we didn’t want him around. Bowser got into a fight with a badger and was soundly whipped. Hiram spent two days holding his paw until his lacerations began to heal. The crowd of tourists fell off slightly, but Ben’s parking lot and motel were still doing a good business.

Ben drove Rila to Lancaster; she hid in the back of the car until they were out of Willow Bend. She talked with the contractor and came home with a set of preliminary blueprints. We spent several nights with the plans spread out on the kitchen table, talking over what we wanted modified or changed.

“It will cost us a lot,” she told me. “Twice as much as I had expected. But I think, even at the worst, there’ll be enough money to build it. And I want it so badly, Asa. I want to live in Mastodonia and have a good house to live in.”

“So do I,” I said. “One of the nice things about it is that we won’t have to pay taxes on it.”

I had several conversations with Catface. When Hiram found out that I could talk with Catface, his nose got slightly out of joint, but in a day or two, he got over it.

Ben had some good news. Courtney phoned to say the movie people were negotiating again. Safari announced that it would be sending out more safaris in a week or ten days.

Then the bottom fell out of everything.

Courtney phoned Ben to say that he was flying to Lancaster, asking to be picked up there. “I’ll tell you what it’s all about,” he had said, “when I get there.”

Herb drove in to tell us and we were waiting in Ben’s office when Courtney af d Ben arrived.

Ben got out a bottle and paper cups.

“That’s a good idea,” Courtney said. ”We all better have a stiff drink to brace ourselves. This time we really are in trouble.”

We sat and waited for the word.

“I don’t know all the details yet,” said Courtney, “but I wanted to talk with you to get an idea of what you may want to do. You’ve been placed under quarantine. The State Department issued an order this morning barring American citizens from entering Mastodonia.”

“But they can’t do that,” said Rila.

“I’m not sure whether they can or not,” said Courtney. “I think, perhaps, they can. The fact is that they have. No reason given. I assume they might not have to cite a reason. As a matter of fact, it is within their power to do this anywhere in the world simply by specifying countries to which a citizen may not travel.”

“Why should they want to do it?” asked Ben.

“I’m not sure. The Cretaceous disaster may have something to do with it; Mastodonia opens the gate to places where it isn’t safe for a citizen to travel. It is causing worldwide ruckuses. It is tearing this country apart. There was a lot of wailing in Congress that the issue was ever allowed to arise.

Terrific pressure groups are developing. It is the hottest potato Washington has ever fielded, or tried to field.

The answer, of course, is to strike at Mastodonia and time travel. If you can’t get to Mastodonia, you can’t travel in time. And if you can’t travel in time, the issue becomes moot.”

“This means that Safari can’t use the time roads,” said Ben. “That nobody can use the time roads. This probably kills the talks with the movie people. This action could put us out of business.”

“At the moment, it does,” said Courtney. “We can move for a temporary injunction. If the injunction is granted by the court, then we’ll be back in business until the merits of the case can be adjudicated. The court then could make the injunction permanent, which would mean we’d be back in business for good, or it could deny the injunction, which would mean that the order would stand and we’d be out of business for good.”

“Or we could move the operation to some other country,” said Rila.

“I suppose that could be done,” Courtney told her.

“But it would involve negotiations with the country you wanted to move to and that might take considerable time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it also would require substantial payments of monies.”

“Bribes,” said Ben.

“They’d probably call it something else. Most nations, in the face of what our government has done, would be reluctant to let us in. First, you’d have to find a country. I warn you it would not be one of the better countries, probably a dictatorship. Once you were there, you might find the officials difficult to get along with. There is one good thing about the State Department order. It tacitly admits that Mastodonia is another country and that spikes the guns of the IRS.”

“You’ll file for the injunction soon,” said Ben.

“Immediately,” said Courtney. “I think it likely I can convince Safari and the movie people to join us in the action. They can claim unfair restraint of trade.

There probably are a lot of other arguments we can cite. I’ll have to think about that.”

“It looks as if we’ll just have to hunker down and weather the storm,” said Ben. “How certain are you that you will get an injunction?”

“I honestly don’t know. Ordinarily, it’s no great problem to get a temporary injunction. But in this case, we are bucking the State Department. That could be heavy.”

He hesitated for a moment and then said, “I don’t know if I should mention this right now, but I suppose I may as well. There may be another out. I’m not sure. I may have my signals wrong. But the CIA has been in to talk with me. Hinting about cooperation and our patriotic duties. Trying to make it off the record, but I never told them it was off the record — although if I were you, I’d not talk about it. I gained the impression they’d like to use time travel to get some of their men into position ahead of time in some sticky situations. They didn’t say so, but that’s one way they could use time travel. I played stupid, but I don’t think I fooled them.”

“You mean that if we’d let them use time travel,” said, Ben, “the State Department might lift the order.

That the order may be no more than a pressure tactic.”

“I can’t be sure,” said Courtney. “The signal’s not strong enough. If I signaled back to the CIA we were willing, there might suddenly be a lot of pressure on the State Department.”

“Well, why don’t we try it,” said Ben. “It’s no skin off our noses who uses time travel, or for what.”

“No,” said Rila.

“Why not?” asked Ben.

“Once you give the government a foot in the door, they begin taking over,” she said.

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Courtney. “My advice, for what it’s worth, is to save the CIA for future consideration. We might want to make that last desperate deal to save ourselves.”

“Okay,” said Ben. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Understand, I’m not even sure how the CIA ties into this,” said Courtney. “I’m just guessing.”

He rose and said, “Ben, if you’d drive me back. I have work to do.”

Rila and I headed for home. As we drove into Mastodonia, we saw at once something was wrong. The mobile home had been tipped over. Standing beside it was Stiffy. Bowser stood a little way off, barking fiercely. Hiram was belaboring Stiffy with a stick, but the old mastodon was paying no attention to him.

I speeded up the car.

“He’s after those damn carrots,” I said. “We never should have fed them to him.”

I saw as we drove nearer that he was not only after the carrots; he already had them. He had smashed the kitchen end of the home, had somehow gotten the refrigerator open, and was contentedly munching carrots.

I skidded the car to a halt and the two of us jumped out. I started forward, but Rila grabbed me and held on.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “If you try to drive him off …”

“Drive him off, hell,” I yelled. “I’m going to get a rifle and shoot the son-of-a-bitch. I should have done it long ago.”

“No,” she shouted. “No, not Stiffy. He is such a nice old guy.”

Hiram was yelling at him, one word over and over:

“Naughty, naughty, naughty.”

And, as he yelled at Stiffy, he beat him with the stick. Stiffy went on eating carrots.

“You can’t get a gun, anyhow,” said Rila.

“If I can clamber up there and get the door open, I can. The rack is just inside.”

Hiram yelled and beat at Stiffy. Stiffy switched his tail, leisurely and happily. He. was having a good time.

As I stood there, I found the anger draining out of me and I began to laugh. It was ridiculous — Hiram yelling and wailing away at Stiffy and Stifiy paying no attention whatsoever.

Rila was weeping. She had let go of me and her arms hung at her side. She stood erect, too stiffly erect, while she was racked by sobs. Tears ran down her cheeks. In a few more minutes, I realized, she could become hysterical.

I put an arm around her and got her turned around and urged her back toward the car.

“Asa,” she gasped between her sobs, “it’s awful.

Nothing has gone right today.”

I got her in the car, then went back to collect Hiram. I grabbed him by the arm that held the stick and took it away from him.

“Cut out that yelling,” I told him sternly. “It’s not doing any good.”

He looked at me, blinking, surprised to see me there.

“But, Mr. Steele,” he said, “I told him and I told him. I told him not to do it, but he did it just the same.”

“Get in the car,” I said.

Obediently, he shuffled toward the car.

“Come on,” I said to Bowser. Bowser, no fool, glad to get off the hook, stopped his barking and trotted at my heels.

“In the car,” I told him and he jumped in back with Hiram.

“What are we going to do?” asked Rila wildly.

“What can we do?”

“We’re going back to the farm,” I told her. “We can stay there for a while.”

That night, in my arms, she cried herself to sleep.

“Asa,” she said, “I love Mastodonia. I want to have a house there.”

“You will,” I said. “You will. One too big and strong for Stiffy to tip over.”

“And, Asa, I so wanted to be rich.”

I had no assurances on that.