Time Trial td-53 Read online

  I do not know how long I can stand by, responsible as I am for the deaths of many of these people, without aiding them in some small way.

  The crew is spending the whole of every day working on Cassandra, attempting either to repair the time travel mechanism, or to get the craft into suitable condition to fly to a less inhabited location, where we could work on repairs without the constant fear of encroaching on this village. I do not know if either is possible.

  The entry was signed "Colonel Kurt Cooligan, U.S. Air Force."

  "Guess there's not much doubt where 'Kukulcan' came from," Remo said.

  Lizzie leafed through the pages absently. "Kurt Cooligan, the white god from the sky," she whispered. "Poor guy."

  "From what we've seen here, it looks like he made his decision," Remo said. "Did he ever fix the time module?"

  "I don't know yet," she said, skimming the pages rapidly. "Here's something about 'waves'... No, it's 'war.' His handwriting gets worse as he goes along."

  "Must have been pretty hard on him."

  "There's a lot about war. Some kind of war he got involved in here."

  "The king told us that. Cooligan drove off some other tribe or something. Probably used guns— wait a second."

  "The magic spears of fire," Lizzie remembered.

  "Lasers. You saw them in the temple. Cooligan must have stashed them in here someplace." He set to searching the plane systematically as Lizzie read.

  11/17/2032

  There's no more point in hoping. Metters keeps working on the time module like a man possessed, but it's been three months. I don't think we'll ever get out of here alive.

  "That's heartening," Lizzie said, feeling her heart sink.

  "What?"

  "A lot of help you are," she said. "Suppose you did find the lasers. Do you think you can blast our way out of here?"

  "Very funny. Do me a favor and mind your own business, okay?"

  2/21/2033

  I have given penicillin bread mold and Chinchona bark to the local healer, an old woman who delivers babies and makes herb teas for the dying. Communication was tough, but I think I got it across that one cures infections and the other malaria. She acted like they all do around me, as if I just blew in from Mars. I can't say I blame them, especially after the shoot-out we had with those crazy spearchuckers over the hill. Apparently the Olmec have been terrorizing this place for decades, raping and killing whoever got in their way. Unfortunately for all concerned, my plane and crew were the Olmec's target the last time. They haven't been back.

  I don't like being a god, but they seem to have made me one. The king— an old timer who's as progressive as they come— just unveiled some ridiculous statue of "Kukulcan" (that's me) wearing my helmet. It took about thirty men to carry the thing over to the Cassandra.

  I try not to interfere but, damn it, this is the best thing I've ever done. All the farms are planted in steps now, and the harvest these people get is unbelievable, what with the heavy rain and year-long summer. This mad king has even opened up trade with other villages down the road. Said road, incidentally, was designed by Major Bolam, botanist, copilot, and now civil engineer.

  To hell with not interfering. We make a difference here, a big difference.

  Sometimes I even manage to forget about Sandy and Michael.

  "Sandy and Michael?" Lizzie said aloud.

  "Huh?"

  "Nothing. Did you find your guns?"

  "Nope. What's Cooligan say?"

  "He seems— happy."

  "Terrific. Is he, by chance, happy because he discovered a way back to the twenty-first century?"

  "No. Not yet, anyway."

  "Some captain," Remo said in disgust, going over to the control panels.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm going to see if I can get this heap to work."

  "Just like that? Don't you even need the flashlight?"

  "No. My eyes adjust." He lifted off the lightweight metal panel and explored around the thousands of wires beneath it.

  "You're serious, aren't you?" Lizzie asked, amazed.

  "Would I lie to you?"

  "Then why did you act like you needed light before?"

  "So that you wouldn't ask me the kind of dumb questions you're asking me now," Remo said.

  She dug back into the log.

  7/2/2033

  It's getting so hard to write. The headaches are happening almost every day now, and my vision is beginning to blur. It's no surprise. The doctor said this would happen. Glasses would help, for a while at least, but then glasses haven't been invented yet. Hah hah.

  It's funny— now that my eyes are going, Sandy and Michael are clearer to me than ever. I guess the important things are what you see with your heart. That's pretty sloppy sentiment for a captain's log, but what the hell. Nobody's ever going to read this anyway.

  Since I've been here these past fourteen months, watching the crew's hopes turn into bad jokes, I've been giving a lot of thought to fate. The king— he's got a name a yard long, like everyone else in this place— says that our crash landing here was part of some prophecy. Like it was our destiny to blow out of the sky so we could build roads and invent mortar and teach these folks what zero is.

  Bolam, our Renaissance man, is now supervising the construction of an observatory to read the stars with. I thought it was pretty crazy, but then, why not? What's a botanist got to do around a wrecked plane except go nuts? Metters, too. Sometimes I swear he's in love with the time module. He talks to it like a woman. He's already taken it apart and put it back together four times. He thinks he's getting close.

  Let him play, too. We know our destiny, the king and I.

  By the way, I've learned some of the language here. As the captain, I'm the official spokesman, but of course Bolam has picked it up, too. There's a guy who never should have enlisted. He's a born teacher, a real intellectual. Military life really held him back, I think.

  I must admit I'm a lot freer myself than I used to be, but then I didn't want to befree before. If the truth be told, the U.S. Air Force was all that kept me from jumping off that bridge where Sandy and the baby crashed into the guardrail.

  A blowout. A turbine malfunction. It's all the same, isn't it? You're going along, not doing too much of anything, and then fate steps in and gives you the finger. It's sure waving in my face now, 6,000 years away from home. But Sandy got worse than that.

  I should never have let her drive that old clunker. Money was so tight then, but I should have made them take the bus. Or driven them myself. Then maybe she wouldn't have had the blowout and maybe she wouldn't have skidded into the guardrail, and maybe the car wouldn't have blown up and burned my baby son to death.

  The military kept me together then. The rules, the routine, the other guys.

  But I know I should have been in that car with them.

  We've moved. After more than a year of sleeping in tents and foraging in the jungle like monkeys for food, I let the guys move into the rooms that the king set aside for us since we got here. It's in the royal palace, no less, with dancing girls and the works. Yesterday we played a game of baseball out on the grounds. We started out with teams of three, but all the local guys wanted to join in, and by the fourth inning there were more than twenty players on each team. I suppose baseball will turn into a national institution here, too. Then, afterward, the whole town got plastered on this brew made from fermented woodpeckers or something. Bolam, the botanist, was the worst of the lot. He has really changed. I didn't touch the stuff myself. Booze has the wrong effect on me. It makes me remember.

  And now the headaches are starting, just like the good, discrete, private doctor said they would, and I made the mission, and the mission fizzled, and I'm going blind in a place where nobody can help me.

  That's fate.

  Sandy, I'm glad it's finally my turn.

  Lizzie closed the book. "Remo, we've got to get out of here."

  "Really? I hadn't thought about it," Remo sai
d sarcastically. He looked up from the tangled mass of wires to see Lizzie's face glistening with tears. "Hey, what's the matter?"

  She told him Cooligan's story. "He must have loved her so much," she said. "He was going blind, and all he could think about was his wife."

  Oh, Dick. I've never even told you I loved you.

  "Please try, Remo. I want to go home."

  "I'm doing what I can," Remo said, winding two wires together. To his surprise, a hum began, low and erratic.

  "You've done it," Lizzie gasped. "You fixed it!"

  "Now cool it. I haven't done anything, except start a hum."

  "That's a motor. That Metters guy must have fixed the module, after all. They all escaped!" she cried jubilantly. "And we know where the switch is. We can make this thing take us back."

  "How?" Remo asked.

  "That's up to you. I'll get the others."

  ?Chapter Eleven

  "Quick, we're leaving," Lizzie shouted, interrupting Chiun's 450th stanza of an Ung poem about a bee lighting on a flower.

  The court musicians playing behind him stopped abruptly. The king snorted out of deep slumber. In the corner of the king's throne room, where Po and Nata-Ah were playing dice, the spotted snakebones twirled in the air and landed in the silence with a dead thump.

  "You have ruined my recital," Chiun said, clenching his jaws. "Now I will have to begin from the beginning."

  "No, we have to leave now," Lizzie insisted. "Remo's got the mechanism working. Let's go."

  Chiun stared at her acidly, deciding that the next time he came across a woman buried in stone he would leave her to rot. He made his apologies to the king through Po.

  As Nata-Ah listened to the boy's explanation, tears filled her eyes. The boy turned to speak to her, but she scrambled to her feet and ran out of the room.

  "Come on, come on. There's no time for this nonsense," Lizzie said, pushing the boy out.

  In the temple, Lizzie gathered up all the priceless artifacts she could carry, plus the captain's log, and led the way into the pod.

  "That is stealing," Chiun said coldly.

  "This is archaeology," she retorted. "We need this as evidence that we've really been here. Besides, this temple was built for us, wasn't it?"

  Remo looked up from the dials of the console. "No, it wasn't," he said softly. "It was built for some Irish pilot who played baseball and made medicine and then went blind. And he didn't take anything from here."

  "We don't know that," she snapped. "For all we know, he took everything he could get his hands on. That old king's too old to know if anything's missing, anyway. Hurry up."

  Remo shook his head and continued to work at the controls. The hum was getting louder.

  As Po was walking reluctantly into the pod, the king and Nata-Ah appeared in the darkened doorway of the Cassandra. The boy started to move toward them, but Lizzie snatched him back.

  "I'm sorry," Remo said. The king seemed to understand. He bowed to Chiun, then stood erect, his hand clasping the young girl's.

  "If it does work, God only knows where we'll end up next. We might walk out of this thing and see a bunch of cavemen or futuristic mutants," Remo complained.

  "Just set the dials right," Lizzie ordered.

  Remo held his temper and set the dials. He pulled the broken switch. "I guess that's it," he said.

  "Get in here," Lizzie shouted from inside the pod.

  Ignoring her, Remo bowed to the king. The old man and his granddaughter both returned the bow. Then Remo climbed into the pod and closed the door to await the weird, syrupy sensations that would take him home.

  "You interrupted my Ung poem for this?" Chiun said after several minutes.

  "Nothing's happening," Lizzie said.

  Remo stood up. "I told you all I started was a hum."

  "You must have done something wrong!" Lizzie yelled, kicking open the door.

  Outside, the king and Nata-Ah were still waiting. At the sight of the visitors, their faces lit up. The king began to sink to his knees, but Chiun held him up.

  "No bowing," he said. "Those of our age bend to no man." Po translated, and the king led them back to the throne room.

  "You have blessed me and my people by returning," the king said. "It is the time when we most need your services. You knew of our need and came back to us."

  "What need?" Remo said.

  "With Quintanodan returned to his tribe, the Olmec will be making ready to do battle against you."

  "The Olmec are going to fight us?"

  "But they will not win," the king assured him. "They cannot. For I have preserved something of Kukulcan's magic to aid you."

  He led them behind a gold filigree screen, where a five-foot-tall jar of finest jade glowed. Lizzie's eyes popped at the sight. He bade Remo to remove the heavy lid of the jar and tip the vessel over. From its green mouth spilled six weapons made of greenish metal.

  "The lasers," Remo said, picking one up. The light metal was strong as iron.

  "The magic spears of fire," the king said, smiling. "For these ten years I have hidden them from all eyes, saving them for the return of our beloved Kukulcan. I had almost despaired of ever seeing the god again. But he has remembered my people. He has sent you in his place. These now, I know, belong to you." He started to bow, then straightened up with a smile to Chiun.

  "Thank you, my friend," the old Oriental said. "But we have no need of these weapons now. When we return, my son will wish to take one to show his people. But if your enemies attack, we will fight them with our hands and our minds. Nothing else is necessary."

  "Forgive me, wise one," the king said. "I should have known that Kukulcan would send other gods of different abilities, who fight in different ways." He smiled, and his eyelids drooped. "I am grateful, so grateful," he said, walking softly toward his gold and silver throne.

  "You are weary," Chiun said. "Let us take you to your bed."

  "No. I will remain here. There is much to be done in preparation for the attack of the Olmec. I will rest, but here, and just for a moment."

  "As you wish," Chiun said. They left quietly.

  * * *

  From behind a panel of mirrors, a figure moved. The king was alone, and his heavy, even breathing filled the empty room. The man behind the mirror was dressed in a beggar's rags, but on his neck hung the precious topaz amulet of Quintanodan, high priest of the Olmec. He moved slowly, quietly as a cat, to the king's throne. Then, with practiced fingers, he encircled the old man's neck and squeezed. The king's eyes opened in silent terror.

  "I have waited ten years to find the magic spears of fire," Quintanodan, the priest, whispered, staring directly into the king's face. "And now you have shown them to me. The Olmec will kill your people, destroy your gods, and level your kingdom to ashes. When you are gone, there will be nothing left of you but your rotting bones."

  The king opened his mouth in a futile gesture. No sound came out. His face started to shake with spasms; his eyes bulged. He reached up with one trembling hand and clasped the topaz amulet, cold against his hot, numbing skin.

  "Look in my eyes, old man, and despair," the priest whispered as he choked the life out of the dying king.

  ?Chapter Twelve

  "Read this," Lizzie said, handing Colonel Cooligan's log to Remo.

  10/13/2033

  Today we have an interesting project. Major Bolam, now the kingdom of Yaxbenhaltun's principal road builder, wants to construct a major trade route between this city and Chetumal Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, some 40 miles east. Bolam says the route will spur trade. I know what he's got in the back of his mind, though— a transatlantic crossing. I suppose nothing will stop Bolam in his quest for knowledge.

  The main difficulty in surveying this route seems to be a local superstition about an area due east of here called, of all things, the Forbidden Fields. From all accounts, they lie between us and the caves of the Olmec.

  The people here claim that the Olmec, who worship death, have poisone
d the air of the fields, and Bolam's surveying team absolutely refuses to go. More than that, the king himself forbade my men to explore these so-called Forbidden Fields unless we use "magic" to protect us— meaning the oxygen equipment we were wearing when we first stepped out of the time module.

  So I agreed. I figure there's no harm in wearing the equipment, at least until we're out of view of our hosts. The Olmec themselves, I understand, keep far away from the fields, so I don't think we'll have any problems with them. I think it will just be a nice journey through some non-jungle countryside, and that will be a pleasant change for us all.

  We'll build a road to the sea. Take that, Fate. Old Kukulcan, practically blind as a bat and no good for flying even if the Cassandra suddenly decided to work, is not so bad, after all.

  I'm proud of all my men. They all know by now that we're never going to get out of here. Metters is even getting married to a local girl. When he does, I think I'll let him dismember Cassandra's wiring so that he can invent electricity. The town could really use a generator for water. One of the other men has begun to draw up plans for a sewage system here.

  Malaria's already practically nonexistent now. That's my contribution. God, every time I see a little sick kid get well, I think of Michael, dying the way he did, and I wish I could have helped him. Maybe by helping these others I'm sort of helping him, too, in a roundabout way. I hope so.

  We'll be together soon, Sandy and Michael and. This disease I've got is supposed to progress geometrically. I guess the end will be pretty bad. Unfortunately, I don't know how to invent morphine for the pain. Well, nobody's perfect.

  I can't say I'm glad about dying. It's funny, after I lost Sandy and the baby, dying was all I wanted. But this time I've spent here in Yaxbenhaltun has changed all that.