The Far Shore of Time

There wasn’t any point in asking Beert again what he had already told us ten times, so I just observed to him that it was crowded in here, and when he agreed I reported to Pell: “He guarantees it.”

The man from Amarillo sighed. He glanced at his partner, then said: “All right. We’ll start arming the first device.”

In the event, the men from Amarillo didn’t take any thirty seconds. I guess they were worried about the time pressure; anyway, they closed up the first beachball pretty quickly and the two of them together rolled it on its little wheeled pallet over to the transit machine. By the time the door was closed and the Doc activated the transmission, less than twenty seconds had passed.

And when the Doc opened the door again, the chamber was empty.

So far, so good. “Reset for the second machine,” I ordered the robot. It didn’t move. All it did was extend a couple of twiglets questioningly toward Beert.

Who sighed. “You will obey this person,” he ordered, and it did. When it reported the setting was complete I told the technicians to ready the second bomb; which went as expeditiously as the first.

But when it came to getting ready for the third, the Christmas tree fiddled for a while, then spoke up. “No additional transit machines are in operation at the target. It appears destruction is complete.”

“Thank you,” I said absently, thinking. Beert could not have known what I was thinking about, but it was clear that he knew something was going on in my head.

“What is it, Dan?” he asked worriedly, just as Pell ran out of patience: “What the hell, Dannerman? Are we going to send the third bomb or not?”

I gave Pell a shake of the head and turned to Pirraghiz. “Get on the horn to the subs!” I ordered. “Tell them to take their Dopeys into custody!”

And then, as she excitedly began meowing into the microphone, I faced Beert. “Do you want to go home?” I asked.

That shook him up. His head darted to within centimeters of my face, his jaw dropped. “Dan,” he whispered pleadingly, “what are you saying?”

I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Just answer the question,” I said.

His long neck was trembling with excitement. “Go home, Dan? My belly yearns for it! Would you allow this?”

Marcus Pell was turning from Pirraghiz to me, his expression angry. “What’s she jabbering about? What’s going on?” he demanded.

I ignored Pell, speaking to the Christmas tree. “Can you transmit Djabeertapritch to the machines in the nest of the Eight Plus Threes?” And when it confirmed that it could, I ordered, “Set the machine up for transmission.” And then at last I turned to the nearly apoplectic deputy director.

“I just wanted to make absolutely sure,” I said apologetically.

The Far Shore of Time 301

“The job’s done. The survey ship is destroyed; there’s nothing left to transmit to.”

He made me repeat it two or three times, alternately blinking at me and at Pirraghiz as she meowed urgently into the ship-to-ship microphone. I jerked a thumb at the two remaining bombs. “Don’t you think you should get the hoists back so we can get these things out of here?” I suggested.

That took him by surprise. “Right,” he said, as glad as I thought he would be of the excuse to get away from them. And when he was out of the hatch to find the hoist operators, I said, “Good-by, Beert. Don’t linger. If he comes back, he’ll try to stop you.”

Horch don’t cry, but Beert’s hard little nose was running as he wrapped those reptilian arms around me for a moment, then leaped into the chamber. The men from Amarillo were goggling at what was going on, but they didn’t have any authority to prevent it.

I had one other thing to say to Beert. I held the door from closing for a moment, making him dart his head at me inquiringly. “Tell them for me, Beert,” I said. “Tell them we will fight the Others in every way we can. We won’t let them conquer us. But if we have to, we will fight the Horch as well. Tell them that.”

“I will tell them, Dan,” he said as I closed the door. And when it opened again the chamber was empty.

PART TWELVE

VICTORY

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

By the time Beert was gone the deputy director was already scrambling back down the ladder, shouting my name in a very unfriendly way. I didn’t look at him. For that matter, I didn’t stop to rejoice, or even take a deep breath; I had more important things to take care of.

First priority was giving Pirraghiz the orders to pass on to the sub crews: “Tell them all to turn off their transit machines and keep them off. Make sure they do that! Then,” I added as an afterthought, “tell them all to head out to deep water and stay there.” I didn’t want any of them where somebody could try a depth bomb.

When I was sure she was passing the word on I turned back to die deputy director, interrupting his tirade. “I’m sorry, Marcus,” I said, reasonably politely, “but I’m too busy to talk to you now.”