The Sound of Thunder

They let themselves be led along the metal Path. They sank wearily into the Machine cushions. They gazed back at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armour.

A sound on the floor of the Time Machine stiffened them.

Eckels sat there, shivering.

“I'm sorry,” he said at last.

“Get up!” cried Travis.

Eckels got up.

“Go out on that Path alone,” said Travis. He had his rifle pointed. “You're not coming back in the Machine. We're leaving you here!” Lesperance seized Travis' arm. “Wait” “Stay out of this!” Travis shook his hand away. “This son of a bitch nearly killed us. But it isn't that so much. Hell, no.

It's his shoes Look at them! He ran off the Path. My God, that ruins us I Christ knows how much we'll forfeit. Tens of thousands of dollars of insurance We guarantee no one leaves the Path. He left it. Oh, the damn fool! Ill have to report to the government. They might revoke our license to travel. God knows what he's done to Time, to History!” “Take it easy, all he did was kick up some dirt.” “How do we know?” cried Travis. “We don't know anything!

It's all a damn mystery! Get out there, Eckels!” Eckels fumbled his shirt. “Ill pay anything. A hundred thousand dollars!” Travis glared at Eckels' chequebook and spat. “Go out there. The Monster's next to the Path. Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth. Then you can come back with us.” “That's unreasonable!” “The Monsters dead, you yellow bastard. The bullets!

The bullets can't be left behind. They don't belong in the Past; they might change something. Here's my knife. Dig them out!” The jungle was alive again, full of the old tremorings and bird cries. Eckels turned slowly to regard that primeval garbage dump, that hill of nightmares and terror. After a long time, like a sleepwalker, he shuffled out along the Path.

He returned, shuddering, five minutes later, his arms soaked and red to the elbows. He held out his hands. Each held a number of steel bullets. Then he fell. He lay where he fell, not moving.

“You didn't have to make him do that,” said Lesperance.

“Didn't I? It's too early to tell.” Travis nudged the still body. “He'll live. Next time he won't go hunting game like this. Okay.” He jerked his thumb wearily at Lesperance.

“Switch on. Let's go home.” 1492. 1776. 1812.

They cleaned their hands and faces. They changed their caking shirts and pants. Eckels was up and around again, not speaking. Travis glared at him for a full ten minutes.

“Don't look at me,” cried Eckels. “I haven't done anything.” “Who can tell?” “Just ran off the Path, that's all, a little mud on my shoes what do you want me to get down and pray?” “We might need it. I'm warning you, Eckels, I might kill you yet. I've got my gun ready.” “I'm innocent. I've done nothing]” 1999. 2000. 2055.

The Machine stopped.

“Get out,” said Travis.

The room was there as they had left it. But not the same as they had left it. The same man sat behind the same desk.

But the same man did not quite sit behind the same desk.

Travis looked around swiftly. “Everything okay here?” he snapped.

“Fine. Welcome home!” Travis did not relax. He seemed to be looking at the very atoms of the air itself, at the way the sun poured through the one high window.

“Okay, Eckels, get out. Don't ever come back.” Eckels could not move.

“You heard me,” said Travis. “What're you staring at?” Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there. The colours, white, grey, blue, orange, in the wall, in the furniture, in the sky beyond the window, were... were...

And there was a feel. His flesh twitched. His hands twitched.

He stood drinking the oddness with the pores of his body.

Somewhere, someone must have been screaming one of those whistles that only a dog can hear. His body screamed silence in return. Beyond this room, beyond this wall, beyond this man who was not quite the same man seated at this desk that was not quite the same desk... lay an entire world of streets and people. What sort of world it was now, there was no telling. He could feel them moving there, beyond the walls, almost, like so many chess pieces blown in a dry wind...

But the immediate thing was the sign painted on the office wall, the same sign he had read earlier today on first entering.

Somehow, the sign had changed:

TYME SEFARI INC.

SEFARIS TU ANY YEEH EN THE PAST.

YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.

WEE TAEK YOU THAIR.

YU SHOOT ITT.

Eckels felt himself tall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling. “No, it can't be. Not a little thing like that. No!” Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful, and very dead.

“Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!” cried Eckels.