 Key Outta Time by Andre Norton This is a Levervox recording. All Levervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit levervox.org. Recording by R.J. Davis. Key Outta Time by Andre Norton. Chapter 1 – Lotus World There was a shading of rose in the pearl-archer sky, deepening at the horizon meeting of sea and air in a rainbow-tenner cloud. The lazy swells of the ocean held the same soft color, darkened with chrysm veins where spirals of weed drifted. A rose-world bathed in soft sunlight, knowing only gentle winds, peace and slope. Ross Murdock leaned forward over the edge of the rock ledge to peer down at a beach of fine sand. Pale pink sand with here and there a glitter of a crystalline shell. Or were those delicate fluted oval shells? Even the waves came in languidly. And the breeze, which ruffled his hair, smoothed about his sun-brown half-fair body caressed it, did not buff it on its way inland to stir the gross, which the Terran settlers called trees, but which possessed long, lacy fronds instead of true branches. Havaka, named for the old Polynesian paradise, a world seemingly without flaw, except the subtle one of being too perfect, too welcoming, too wooing. His long, uneventful, unchanging days enticed forgetfulness offered a life without effort, except for the mystery. Because this world was not the one pictured on the tape which had brought the Terran settlement team here. A map, a directing guide, a description all in one. That was the ancient voyage tape Ross himself had helped elude a storehouse on an unknown planet for a cargo assist tape. Once they had been the space navigation guides for a race or races who had ruled the star lanes ten thousand years in his own world past. A civilization which had long since sunk again into the dust of its beginning. Those tapes returned to Terra after their chance discovery were studied, pro-deciphered by the best brains of his time, shared out by a lot between already suspicious Terran powers, bringing into the exploration of space bitter rivalries and old hatreds. Such a tape had landed their ship on Havaka, a world of shallow seas and archipelagos instead of true continents. The settlement team had had all the knowledge contained on that tape crowded into them, only to discover that much they had learned from it was false. Of course, none of them had expected to discover here still the cities, the civilization the tape had projected as existing in that long ago period. But no present island straying they had visited approximated those on the map they had seen. And so far they had not found any trace that any intelligent beings had walked, built, lived on these beautiful slumberous atolls. So what had happened to the Havaka of the tape? Ross's right hand rubbed across the ridskars which disfigured his left one, to be carried for the rest of his life as a mark of his meeting with the star voyages in the past of his own world. He had deliberately seared his own flesh to break the mental control they had asserted. Then the battle had gone to him. But from it he had brought another scar. The unease of that old terror which Ross Murdoch, fighter, rebel, outlawed by the conventions of his own era, Ross Murdoch who considered himself an exceedingly tough individual, that toughness sealed by the training for time-agent sorties, had come up against the power he did not understand, instinctively hated and feared. Now he breathed deeply at the wind, the smell of the sea, the sense of the land gross, strange but pleasant, so easy to relax to drop into the soft, lulling swing of this world in which they had found no fault, no danger, no irritant. Yet once these things had been here, the blue suited, hairless ones he called baldies, and what had happened then, or afterward. A black head, brown shoulders, slender body broke the sleepy slip of the waves. A shimmering mask covered the face, catching glitter fire in the sun. Two hands freed a chin curved yet firmly set. A mouth fade more for laughter than sternness. Wide dark eyes, carava tree hern of the ally, the one-time Hawaiian god sheafed in line, was an exceedingly pretty girl. But Ross regarded her aloofly, with a coldness which bordered on hostility, as she flipped her mask into his pocket on top of the gill pack. Below his rock purse she came to a halt, her feet slightly apart in the sand, and if he twist to her lips as she called mockingly. Why not come in, the water's fine. Perfect, like all the rest of this. Some of his impatient came out in the sour tone. No luck as usual. As usual, carawa conceded. If there ever was a civilization here, it's been gone so long we'll probably never find its traces. Why don't you just pick out a good place to set up that time probe and try it blind? Ross galled, because his patience was exaggerated to the point of insult. We have only one peep probe. Once it's set, we can't tear it down easily for transport somewhere else. So we want to be sure there's something to look at beyond. She began to wring the water out of her long hair. Well, as far as we've explored, nothing. Come yourself next time. Tino Raw and Tara aren't particular, they like company. Putting two fingers to our mouth, carawa whistled. Twin heads popped out of the water, basing the shore and her. Projecting noses, mouths with upturned corners so they curved in a lasting pleasant grin at the mammals on the shore. The dolphin pair, mammals whose ancestors had chosen the sea, whistled back in such close counterfeit of the girl's signal that they could be an echo of her call. Years earlier, their species intelligence had surprised almost shocked men. Experiment training, cooperation had developed a tie which gave the water limited race of mankind new eyes, ears, minds to see, evaluate, and report concerning an element in which the bipeds were not free. Hand in hand with that cooperation had gone other experiments. Just as the clumsy armored diving suits of the early 20th century had allowed man to begin penetration into a weird new world, so had the frog man equipment made him still freer in the sea. And now the gill pack, which separated the needed oxygen from the water, made even that lighter burden of tanks obsolete. But there remained depths into which man could not descend, whose secrets were closed to him. There the dolphins operated. In a partnership of mines, equal mines, though that last fact had been difficult for man to accept. Ross's irritation, unjustified as he knew it to be, did not rest on Tina Ra or Tara. He enjoyed the hours when he buckled on gill pack and took to the sea with those two 10 foot black and silver escorts sharing the action. But Karawa, Karawa's present was a different matter altogether. The ages teams had always been strictly masculine. Two men partnered for an interlocking of abilities and temperaments, going through training together, becoming two halves of a strong and efficient whole. Before being summarily recruited into the project, Ross had been a loner, living on the ragged edges of the law, an indigestible bit for the civilization which had become too ordered and adjusted to absorb his kind. But in the project he had discovered others like himself, men born out of time, too ruthless, too individualistic for their own age, but able to operate with ease in a dangerous past of the time ages. And when the time search for the wrecked alien ships had succeeded and the first intact ship found, used, duplicated, the agents had come from forays into the past to be trained anew for travel to the stars. First there had been Ross Murdock criminal, then there had been Ross Murdock and Gordon Ice time agents. Now there was still Ross and Gordon and a quest as perilous as any they had known, yet this time they had to depend upon Karawa and the dolphins. Tomorrow, Ross was still not sorting out his thoughts, truly aware of the feeling which worked upon him as a thorn in the finger. I will come. Good. If she recognized his hostility for what it was, that did not bother her. Once more she whistled to the dolphins, waved a casual farewell with one hand and headed up the beach towards the base camp. Ross chose a more rugged path over the cliff. Suppose they did not find what they sought here, yet the old tape map suggested that this was approximately the site starred upon him, marking a city, a starport. Acid volunteered for Hawaii Key demanded this job after the disastrous Topaz affair when the team of Apache volunteers had been sent out too soon to counter what might have been a red sneak settlement. Ross was still unhappy over the ensuing months when only Major Calgaris and maybe in a lesser part Ross had kept coordination the project at all. That Topaz had been a failure was accepted when the settlement ship did not return, and that had added to Acid's sense of guilt for having recruited and partially trained the lost team. Among those dispatched over Acid's vehement protests had been Travis Fox, who had shared with Ash and Ross the first galactic flight in an age-old derelict spaceship. Travis Fox, the Apache archaeologist, had he ever reached Topaz, or would he and his team wander forever between worlds? Did they sit down on a planet where some inimical form of native life or a red settlement had awaited them? The very uncertainty of their fate continued to ride Ash. So he insisted on coming out with the second settlement team, the volunteers of Samoan and Hawaiian descent, to carry on a yet more exciting and hazardous exploration. Just as a project had probed into the past of Terra, so would Ash and Ross now attempt to discover what lay in the past of Abakaki to see this world as it had been at the height of the galactic civilization and so to learn what they could about their forerunners into space. And the mystery they had dropped into upon landing added to the necessity for that discovery of discoveries. Their probe, if fortune favored them, might become a gate through time. The installation was a vast improvement over these passage points they had first devised. Technical information had taken a vast leap forward after Terran engineers and scientists had had access to the tapes of the Stellar Empire. Adaptations and shortcuts developed so that a new hybrid technology came into use. Well went from the knowledge and experimentation of two civilizations thousands of years apart in time. If and when he or Ash or Karwa and her dolphins discovered the proper site, the two agents could set up their own equipment. Both Ross and Ash had had enough drill in the process. All they needed was a brick of discovery. Then they could build their wall, but they must find some remainder of the past. The smallest trace of ancient ruin upon which to center their peep probe. And since landing here the long days had flowed into weeks with no such discovery made. Ross crossed the ridge of rock which formed a coxcomb rise on the island's spine and descended to the village. As they had been trained the Polynesian settlers adapted native products to their own heritage of building and tools. It was necessary that they live off the land for their transport ship had had storage space only for a limited number of supplies and tools. After it took off to return home they would be wholly on their own for several years. Their ship a silvery ball rested on a rock ledge. It's pilot and crew having lingered to learn the results of Ash's search. Four days more and they would have to live for home even if the agent still had only negative results to report. That disappointment was driving Ash. The way that six months earlier his outrage and guilt feelings over the Topaz affair had driven him. Karawa's suggestion carried weight the longer Ross thought about it. With more swimmers hunting there was just that much increased chance of turning up some clue. So far the dolphins had not reported any dangerous native sea life or any perils except the natter ones any diver always had had his shoulder under the waves. There were extra gilpaks and all the settlers were good swimmers. An organized hunt ought to shake the Polynesians out of their present do it tomorrow attitude. As long as they had had definite work before them the unloading of the ship the building of the village all the labor's incidental to the establishing of this base. They had shown energy and enthusiasm. It was only during the last couple of weeks that the land court which appeared part of the atmosphere here had crept up on them. So that now they were content to live at a slower and lazier pace. Ross remembered Ash's comparison made the evening before. Liking Havaaki to a legendary Terran Island where the inhabitants lived a drug existence. Beating upon the seeds of a native plant Havaaki was fast becoming a lotus land for Terrans. Through here then whispered. Ash hunched over the crate table in the mat walled house. He did not look up as Ross entered. Car was still damp head was bowed until those black locks now sleep to a round skull almost touch the man's close crop brown hair. They were both studying map as if they saw not lines on paper but the actual inlets and lagoons which that drawing represented. You're assured Gordon that this is a modern point to match the sight on the tape. The girl brushed back straying hair. Ash shrugged. There were tight brackets about his mouth which had not been there six months ago. He moved jirkely not with the fluid grace of those old days when he had faced the best distance of time travel with unruffled calm and a self confidence to steady and support the novice Ross. The general outline of these two islands could stand for the capes on this. He pulled a second map this on transparent plastic to fit over the first. The capes marked on the much larger body of land did slip over the modern islands with a surprising fit. The once large island shattered and broken could have produced the groups of atolls and islets they now prospected. How long? Carwell mused aloud and why? Ash shrugged. Ten thousand years? Five? Two? He shook his head. We have no idea. It's apparent that there must have been some worldwide capitalism here to change the contours of the land masters so much. We may have to wait on a return space flight to bring a chopper or a hydroplane to explore further. His hands swept beyond the boundaries of the map to indicate the whole of Havaka Key. A year maybe two before we could hope for that Ross cut in. Then we'll have to depend on whether the council believes this important enough. The contrariness was spiked his tongue whenever Carwell was present made him say that without thinking. Then the twitch of Ash's lip brought home Ross' error. Gordon needed reassurance now. Not a recitation of the various ways our mission could be doomed. Look here Ross came to the table. His hands sweeping past Carwell as he used his forefinger for a pointer. We know that what we want could be easily overlooked even with the dolphins helping us to check. This whole area is too big and you know that it is certain that whatever might be down there could be hidden with seagrows. Suppose ten of us start out in a semi-circle from about here and go as far as this point heading inland. Video cameras here and here comb the whole sector inch by inch if we have to. After all we have plenty of time and manpower. Carwell asked softly manpower always manpower Ross but there is woman power too and we have perhaps even sharper sight. But this is a good idea Gordon. Let me see. She began to tell off names on her fingers. But Kiki, Viola, Hori, Lillia, Teima, Yui, Honoura. They are the best in the water. Me, you, Gordon, Ross. That makes ten with keen eyes to look and always there are Tina Raw and Tara. We will take supplies and camp here on this island which looks as much like a finger cooked to beckon. Yes, somehow that beckoning finger seems to me to promise better fortune. Shall we plan it so? Some of that tight look was gone from Asher's face and Ross relaxed. This is what Gordon needed. Not to be sitting in here going over maps, reports, reworking over and over their scant leads. Asher had always been a field man and a settlement work had been studifying a laborious chore for him. When Carawa had gone, Ross dropped down on the bunk against the side wall. What did happen here do you think? Half was real interested in the mystery they had mowed over and over since they had landed on a vikiki which diverged so greatly from the maps the other half a desire to keep Asher thinking on a subject removed from immediate worries. An atomic war? Could be their old radiation traces, but these aliens had, I'm sure, progressed beyond atomics. Just suppose they could tamper with the weather, with the balance of the planet's crust. We don't know the extent of their powers, how they would use them. They had a colony here once, where there would have been no guide tape. And that is all we are sure of. Suppose Ross rolled over on his stomach, pillows his head on his arms. We could uncover some of that knowledge. The switch was back at Asher's lips. That's the risk we have to run now. Risk? Would you give a child one of those hand weapons we found in the derelicts? Naturally not, Ross snapped and then saw the point. You mean, we aren't to be trusted? The answer was plain to read in Asher's expression. Then by this whole setup, this hunt for what might mean trouble. The old pink, the bad one. What if the Reds discover something first? They drew some planets in the tape lottery, remember? It's a seesaw between us, we advance here, they there. We have to keep up the race or lose it. They must be combing their stellar colonies for a few answers, just as furiously as we are. Shall we go into the past to hunt if we have to? Well, I think I could do without answers such as the Baltes would know. But I will admit that I would like to know what did happen here two, five, ten thousand years ago. I stood up and stressed for the first time he smiled. Do you know, I rather like the idea of fishing off Carowas' Americaning finger. Maybe she's right about that changing our luck. Ross kept his face carefully expressionless as he got up to prepare their evening meal. This concludes Chapter One. Key Out of Time by Andre Norton, Chapter Two. This is a Leaver Box recording. All Leaver Box recordings are in a public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit leverbox.org. Recording by RJ Davis. Key Out of Time by Andre Norton, Chapter Two. Lair of Manonui. Just under the surface of the water the sea was warm. Weird life showed colors Ross could name. Shades he could not. The corals, the animals masquerading as plants. The plants disguised as animals which inhabited the oceans of Terra had their counterparts here. And the settlers had given them the familiar names. Though the crabs, the feasts, the anemones, and weeds of the shallow lagoons and reefs were not identical with Terran creatures. The trouble was that there was too much. Such a wealth of life to attract the eyes. Hold attention that it was difficult to keep to the job at hand. The search for what was not natural. For what had no normal place here. As the land seduced the senses and bewitched the off-worlder, so did the sea have its enchantment to pull one from duty. Ross resolutely skimmed by a force of weaving, waving lace, which varied from a green which was almost black, to a pale tent he could not truly identify. Among those waving fans lurked ghost speech. Fans swimmers transparent enough so that one could sight through their pallid sides the evidences of recently ingested meals. The Terrans had begun their sweep search a half hour ago, flipping overboard from a ferry canoe heading in towards a checkpoint of the finger isle, forming an arc of expert divers, men and girls so at home in the ocean, that they should be able to make the discovery as needed if such did exist. Mystery built upon mystery on a vaca key. Ross thought as he used his speargun to push aside a floating banner of weed in order to peer below his curtain. The native life on this world must always have been largely aquatic. The settlers had discovered only a few small animals on the islands. The largest of which was a burrier, a creature not unlike a miniature monkey in that it had hind legs on which it walked erect and four paws, well-clawed for digging purposes, which it used with as much skill and dexterity as a man used hands. His body was hairless and it was able to assume chameleon-like, the color of the soil and rocks where it dend. The head was set directly on its bowed shoulders without vestige of neck and it had round bubbles of eyes near the top of its skull, a nose which was a single vertical slit and a wide mouth bang for crushing the shell creatures on which it fed. All in all, to tear in eyes, it was a vaguely repulsive creature. But as far as the settlers had been able to discover, it was the highest form of land life. The smaller rodent-like things, the two species of wingless diving birds and an odd assortment of reptiles and amphibians sharing the island were all the burriers prey. A world of sea and islands. What type of native intelligent life had it once supported? Or had this been only a galactic colony with no native population before the coming of the stellar explorers? Ross hovered above a dark pocket where the bottom had suddenly dipped into a saucer-shaped depression. The sea growth about the rim rippled in the water raggedly, but there was something about its general outline. Ross began a circumference of that hollow, allowing for the distortion of the growth which had formed lumpy excretances or reach turns toward the surface. Yes, allowing for those, this was decidedly something out of the ordinary. The depression was too regular, too even. Ross was certain of that. With a thrill of excitement, he began a descent into the cup, striving to trace signs which would prove his suspicion correct. How many years, centuries, had the slow coverage of the sea life gathered there? Flourish? Died? With other creatures to build anew on the remains. Now there was only a hint that the depression had other than a natural beginning. Anchoring with a one-handed grip on a spike of a Vakakian coral, smoother than the Terran species, Ross aimed the butt of his spear gun at the nearest wall of the saucer, striving to reach into a crevice between two lumps of growth and so probe into what might lie behind. The spear rebounded. There was no breaking that crust with such a fragile tool. But perhaps he could have better luck lower down. The depression was deeper than he had first judged. Now the light which existed in the shallows vanished. Red and yellow as colors went, but Ross was aware of blues and greens in shades and tints which were not visible above. He switched on his diving torch and color returned within his beam. A swirl of weed, pink in the light, became darkly emerald beyond, as if it possessed a chameleon of the beauty of the borers. He was distracted by that phenomenon, and so he transgressed the diver's rule of never becoming so absorbed in surrounding as to forget caution. Just when did Ross become aware of that shadow below? Was it when a school of ghost feasts burst unexpectedly between weed growth and he turned to follow them with a torch? Then the outer edge of his beam cut the movement of a shape, a flutter in the water of the gloomy depths. Ross swung around his back to the wall of the saucer as he aimed the torch down at what was arising there. The light caught and held for a long moment of horror, something which might have come out of the nightmares of his own world. Afterward, Ross knew that the monster was not as large as it seemed in that endless minute of fear, perhaps no bigger than the dolphins. He had had training in shark-infested seas on Terra, being carefully briefed against the danger from such hunters of the deep and ocean jungles. But this kind of thing had only existed before in the fairy tales of his race as a dragon of Olor, a scaled head with wide eyes gleaming in the light beam with cold and sullen hate, a gaping mouth fang-filled, a horn-set muzzle that long undulating neck and below it the half-seen bulk of a monstrous body. His spear-gun, the knife at his waist-belt, neither were protection against this. Yet, to turn his back on that rising head was more than Ross could do. He pulled himself back against the wall of the saucer. The thing before him did not rush to attack. Plainly he had unseen him, and now it moves with the leisure of a hunter having no fears concerning the eventual outcome of the hunt. But the light appeared to puzzle it, and Ross kept the beam shining straight into those evil eyes. The shock of the encounter was wearing off. Now Ross edged his flipper into a crevice to hold him steady while his hand went to the sonic calm at his waist. He tapped out a distressed call which the dolphins could relay to the swimmers. The swaying dragon head paused, held rigid on a stiff-scaled column in the center of the saucer. That sonic vibration, either surprised or bothered the hunter, made it wary. Ross tapped again. The belief that if he tried to escape, he was lost. That only while he faced it so had he any chance to reach stronger. The head was only inches below the level of his flippered feet as he held to the weeds. Again that weaving movement, the rise of head, a tremor along the serpent neck, and agitation in the depths. The dragon was on the move again. Ross aimed the light directly at the head. The scales as far as he could determine were not horny plates, but lapped silvery ovals such as a feast possessed. And the underparts of the monster might even be vulnerable to his fear. But knowing the way a tearing shark could absorb the darts of that weapon and survive, Ross feared to attack except as a last resort. Above and to his left there was a small hollow where in the past some portion of the gross had been ripped away. If he could fit himself into that crevice, perhaps he could keep the dragon at bay until the help arrived. Ross moved with all the skill he had. His hand closed upon the edge of the neck and he whirled himself up, just making it into that refuge as the head laced at him wickedly. His suspicion that the dragon would attack anything on the run was well founded, and he knew he had no hope of winning to the surface above. Now he stood in the crevice facing outward, watching the head darting in the water. He had switched off the torch and the loss of light appeared to bewilder the reptile for some precious seconds. Ross pulled as far back into the niche as he could until the point of one shoulder touched a surface which is sleek, smooth, and cold. The shock of that contact almost sent him hurtling out again. Gripping the spear before him in his right hand, Ross cautiously felt behind him with the left. His fingertips glided along a seamless surface where the gross had been torn or peeled away. Though he could not, or dared not, turn his head to sea, he was certain that this was his proof that the walls of the saucer had been patient and placed there by some intelligent creature. The dragon had risen, hovering now in the water directly before the entrance to Ross's hole. With his next curl back against his bulk, it had wide flippers moving like planes to hold it poised. The body, sloping from a massive round of shoulders to a tapering rear, was vaguely familiar. If one provided a tearing seal with a gorgon head and scales in place of fur, the effect would be similar. But Ross was assuredly not facing a seal at this moment. The straight movement of the flippers kept it as stabilized as if it sprawled on a supporting surface. With the neck flattened against the body, the head curved downward until the horn on a snout pointed the tip straight at Ross's middle. The tearing steadied his speargun. The dragon's eyes were his most vulnerable targets. If the creature lost the attack, Ross would aim for them. Both man and dragon were so intent upon their duel that neither was conscious of the sudden swirl overhead. A sleek dark shape struck down, swimming across the humpback ridge of the dragon. Some of the settlers had empathy with the dolphins to a high degree, but Ross's own powers of contact were relatively feeble. Only now he was given an assurance of aid and a suggestion to attack. The dragon head rift, twisted as a reptile attempted to see above and behind its own length, but the dolphin was only a streak past disappearing and that riffing changed the balance the monster had maintained pushing it towards Ross. The tearing fired too soon and without proper aim so the dark snake passed ahead, but the harpoon line half hooked about the neck and seemed to confuse the creature. Ross squirmed as far back as he could into his refuge and drew his knife. Against those spangs, the weapon was an almost useless toy, but it was all he had. Again the dolphin dived to attack on the reptile, this time seizing in its mouth the floating cord of the harpoon and giving it a jerk, which jolted the dragon even more off balance, pulling it away from Ross's niche and out into the center of the saucer. There were two dolphins in action now, Ross saw, playing the dragon as matadors might play a ball, keeping the creature disturbed by their agile maneuvers. Whatever prey came naturally to the vacacan monster was not of this type and the creature was not prepared to deal effectively with their teasing dodging tactics. Neither had touched the beast, but they kept it constantly striving to get at them. Though it swam in circles attempting to face its teasers, the dragon did not abandon the level before Ross's refuge and now and then it darted its head at him unwilling to give up its prey. Only one of the dolphins frisk and dodged above now as a sonic on Ross's belt vibrated against his lower ribs with its message warning to be prepared for further action. Somewhere above his own kind gathered. Hurdly he tapped out encode his warning in return. Two dolphins busy again. Their last dive over the dragon pushing the monster down past Ross's nits toward the saucer's depths. Then they flashed up and away. The dragon was rising in turn, but coming to meet the vacacan creature was a ball giving off light bringing sharp vision and color with it. Ross's arms swung up to shield his eyes. There was a flash. Such answering vibration carried through the waves that even his nerves far less sensitive than those of the life about him reacted. He blinked behind his mask. A beast floated by spiraling up its belly exposed and about him grossed root. Trailed lifelessly through the water while there was a now motionless bulk sinking to the obscurity of the depression floor. A weapon perfected on terror to use against sharks and barracuda had worked here to kill what could have been more formidable prey. The Terran weagled out of the nits rose to meet another swimmer. As Ash descended, Ross relayed his news via the sonic. The dolphins were already nosing into the depths in pursuit of their late enemy. Look here. Ross guided Ash to the crevice which had saved him, aimed the torch beam into it. He had been right. There was a long groove in the covering built up by the gross. A vertical strip some six foot long of a uniform gray show. Ash touched the fine and then gave the alert via the sonic code. Metal or an alloy. We found it. But what did they have? Even after an hour's exploration by the full company Ash's expert search with his knowledge of artifacts and ancient remains, they were still baffled. It would require labor and tools they did not have to clear the hole of the saucer. They could be sure only of its size and shape. And the fact that his walls were of an unknown substance which the sea could cloak but not erode. For the length of gray surface showed not the slightest pitting or time where. Down at his centermost point they found a dragon's den. An arch coated with growth before which sprawled the body of the creature. That would drag the loft with the dolphin's aid to be taken ashore for study. But the arch itself. Was that part of some old installation? Tortures to the fore, they entered a shadow only to remain baffled. Here and there were patches of the same gray showing in its interior. Ash dug the butt of his speargun into the sand on the flooring to uncover another oval depression. But what it all signified or what had been its purpose they could not guess. Set up the peep probe here, Ross asked. Ash's head moved in a slow negative. Look further, spread out the sonic click. Within a matter of minutes the dolphins reported new remains. Two more saucers, each larger than the first, set in a mine on the ocean floor pointing directly to Cacarus Finger Island. Cautiously explored, these were discovered to be free of any but harmless life. They stirred up no more dragons. When the Terrans came ashore on Finger Island to rest and eat their midday meal one of the men paced along the beach dragon. Ashore had lost none of its frightening aspect. And seeing it, even beached and dead, Ross wondered at his luck in surviving the encounter without a scratch. I think that this one would be alone, Pakakee commented. Where there is an eater of this size there is usually only one. Manonui, the girl Tama shivered as she gave to this monster the name of the shark demon of her people. Sitchewan is truly king shark in these waters. But why have we not sighted this like before? Tino raw, tall, they have not reported Sitch. Probably as Pakakee says these things are rare as return. A carnivore of size would have to have a fairly wide hunting range. Yet there is evidence that this thing has layered in that den for some time. Which means that it must have a defined hunting territory allowing no trespassing from others of its species. Karwa nodded. Also it may not only at intervals eat heavily and lie quiet until that meal is digested. There are large snakes on terra that follow that pattern. Ross was in its front yard when it came after him. From now on, Ashford, a quarter of fruit we know what to watch for and a weapon which will finish it off. Don't forget that. The delicate mechanisms of their sonics had already registered the vibrations which would warrant of a dragon's presence and the depth lobes would then do the rest. Big skull oversized for the body Pakakee squatted on his heels by the head lying on the sand at the end of the now fully extended neck. Ross had here before been more aware of the armament of that head. The fangs set in the powerful jaws, the horn on the snout, but Pakakee's comment drew his attention to the fact that the scale-covered skull did dome up above the eye pits in a way to suggest ample brain room. Had the thing been intelligent? Karwa put that into words. Rule one, she went over to survey the carcass. Ross resented her half-question. Whether it was addressed to him or mere thinking allowed on her part. Rule one, conserved native life to the fullest extent. Human wage form may not be the only evidence of intelligence. There were the dolphins to prove that point right on terror. But did rule one mean that you had to let a monster nibble at you because it might just be a high type of alien intelligence? Let Karwa spout rule one while backed into a crevice underwater with that horn stabbing at her midsection. Rule one does not mean to forego self-defense, as commented mildly. This thing is a hunter, and you can't stop to apply recognition techniques when you are being regarded as legitimate prey. If you are the stronger or unequal, yes, stop and think before becoming aggressive. But in a situation like this, take no chances. Anyway, from now on Karwa pointed out, it could be possible to shock instead of kill. Gordon, pock a key, swung around. What have we found here besides this thing? I can't even guess, except that those depressions were made for a purpose and have been there for a long time. Whether they were originally in the water or the land sink, that we don't know either. But now we have a site to set up the peep probe. We do that right away, Ross wanted to know the impatience bit at him. But Ash still had a trace of frown. He shook his head. Have to make sure of our site? Very sure. I don't want to start any chain reaction on the other side of the time wall. And he was right. Ross was forced to admit remembering what had happened when the Galactics had discovered the red time gates and traced them forward to their 20th century source, ruthlessly destroying each station. The original colonists of Hauakiki had been as giants to Terran Pigmes when it came to technical knowledge. To use even a peep probe indiscreetly near one of their outposts might bring swift and terrible retribution. This concludes a reading of Chapter 2. Key out of Time by Andre Norton, Chapter 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by RJ Davis. Key out of Time by Andre Norton, Chapter 3. The Ancient Mariners. Another map spread out and this time pinned down with small stones on beach gravel. Here, here, and here. Ashes finger indicated the points marked in a pattern which flared out from three sides of Finger Island. Each marked a set of three undersea depressions in perfect alliance with the land, which, according to the Galactic map, had once been a cape on a much larger landmass. Though the Terran had found the ruins, if those saucers in the sea could be so termed, the remains had no meaning for the explorers. Do we set up here? Ross asked if we could just get a report to send back. That might mean the difference between awakening the cooperation of the project policy makers so that a flood of supplies and personnel would begin to head their way. We set up here, Ashes decided. He had selected a point between two of the lines where a reef would provide them with a secure base. And once that decision was made, the Terrans went into action. Two days to go to install the peep probe and take some shots before the ship had to clear with or without their evidence. Together, Ross and Ashes floated the installation out to the reef. Yui and Carrara helped to tow the equipment and parts, the dolphins lending pushing noses on occasion. The aquatic mammals were as interested as the human beings they ate it, and in water their help was invaluable. Had dolphins developed hands, Ross wondered pleasingly, would they have long ago rested control of their native world, would they be pleased from the humankind? All the human beings worked with practice ease, even while mask and submerge. To set the probe in place, aiming it landward at the checkpoint of the fingers protruding nail of Ross. After Ashes made the final adjustments, tested each and every part of the assembly, he gestured them in. Carrara was swift hand movement, asked a question, and didn't reply at twilight. Yes, dusk was a proper time for using a peak probe. To see without risk of being sighted in return was their safeguard. Here, Ashes had no historical data to guide him. Their search for the former inhabitants might be a long drawn out process, skipping across centuries as the machine was adjusted to tarantimers. When were they here? For sure, Carrara shook her out her hair, spread it over her shoulders to dry. How many hundred years back will the probe return? More likely, thousands, Ross commented. Where will you start, Gordon? Ashes rushed sand from the page of the notebook he had steadied against one belt knee and gazed out at the reef where they had set the probe. Ten thousand years. Why, Carrara wanted to know, why that exact figure? We know that galactic ships crashed on terra then, so their commerce and empire, if it was an empire, was far flung at that time. Perhaps they were at the zenith of their civilization. Perhaps they were already on the down slope. I do not think they were near the beginning, so that date is as good a starting place as any. If we don't hit what we're after, then we could move forward until we do. Do you think that there ever was a native population here? Might have been. But without any large land animals, no modern traces of any, she protested. Of people, I shrugged. Good answers for both. Suppose there was a worldwide epidemic of proportions to wipe out a species, or a war in which they used forces beyond our comprehension to alter the whole face of this planet, which did happen, the alteration I mean. Several things could have removed intelligent life. Then, said species as a borough could have developed or evolved from smaller, more primitive types. Those eight things we found on the desert planet rossed off back to their first voyage on the homing derelict. Maybe they had once been men and were degenerating. And the winged people, less than men on their way up. Eight things, winged people, car while interrupted, tell me. There was something imperious in her demand, but ross found himself describing in detail their past adventures. First on the world of sand and sealed structures for the derelict had rested for a purpose its involuntary passengers had never understood. And then of the Terran's limited exploration of the planet, which might have been the capital world of a far-flung stellar empire. There they had made a pact with a winged people living in the huge buildings of a jungle-choked city. But you see, the Polynesian girl turned to ice when ross had finished. You did find them. Those eight things and the winged people. But here there are only the dragons and the boroughs. Are they the start or the finish? No. Why, I ask? Not just because I am curious, though I am that also, but because we too must have a beginning and an end. Did we come up from the seas, rise to know and feel and think, just to return to such beginning at our end? If your winged people were climbing and your eighth thing is descending, she shook her head. It would be frightening to hold a court of life, but if both ends in your hands, is it good for us to cease this thing, Gordon? Men have asked that question all their thinking lies, Karla. There have been those who have said no, who have turned aside and tried to halt the growth of knowledge here and there. Attempted to make men stand still on one tread of a stairway. Only there is that in us which will not stop, ill-fitted as we may be for the climbing. Perhaps we shall be safe and untroubled here on Havakaki if I do not go out to that reef tonight. By that action I may bring real danger down on all of us. Yet I cannot hold back for that. Could you? No. I do not believe that I could, she agreed. We are here because we are of those who must know, volunteers. And being of that temperament, it is always to take the next step. Even if it leads to a fall, she added in a low tone. Axe gazes her. Though her own eyes were on the sea, for a lace of waves marked the reef. Her words were ordinary enough, but Ross straightened to match Axe's stare. Why had he felt that odd instant of uneasiness as if his heart had flooded instead of beating true? I know of you time agents, Karawa continued. There were plenty of stories about you told while we were in training. Tall tales I can imagine, most of them, Axe laughed, but his amusement sounded forced to Ross. Perhaps, though I do not believe that many could be any taller than the truth. And so also I have heard of that strict rule you follow, that you must do nothing which might alter the course of history. But suppose, suppose here that the course of history could be altered, that whatever catastrophe occurred might be averted. If that was done, what would happen to our settlement in the here and now? I don't know. That is an experiment which we have never dared to try, which we won't try. Alternate worlds in, maybe. Ross's imagination caught up that idea. Two worlds from a change point in history. He elaborated, noting her look apposiment, one stemming from one decision, another from the alternate. I've heard of that. But Gordon, if you could return to the time of decision here, and you had it in your power to say, yes, live, or no die, to the alien natives, what would you do? I don't know. But neither do I think I shall ever be placed in that position. Why do you ask? She was twisting her still damp hair into a ponytail and tying it so with a cord. Because. Because I feel. No, I cannot really put it into words, Gordon. It is that feeling one has on the eve of some important event. Anticipation, fear, excitement. You'll let me go with you tonight, please. I want to see it, not the abacca key that is, but that other world with another name, the one they saw and knew. An instant protest was hot in Ross's throat. But he had no time to voice it, for Asher's already nodding. All right, but we may have no luck at all. Feaching in time is a chancey thing. So don't be disappointed if we don't turn you up that other world. Now I'm going to pamper these old bones for an hour or two. Amuse yourself, children. He lay back and closed his eyes. The past few days had wiped half the shadows from his lean tan face. He had dropped two years, three, Ross thought, thankfully. Let them be lucky tonight, and Asher's cure would be nearly complete. What do you think happened here? Karwa had moved so that her back was now to the wash of waves, her face more in the shadow. How do I know? Could be any of ten different things. And will I please shut up and leave you alone, she countered swiftly. Do you wish to savor the excitement then? Explore a world upon world, or am I saying it right? We have abacca key one, which is a new world for us. Now there is abacca key two, which is removed in time, not distance. And to explore that, we won't be exploring it really, Ross protested. Why? Did your agents not spend days, weeks, even months of time in the past on terror? What is to prevent their doing the same here? Training. We have no way of learning the drill. What do you mean? Well, it wasn't as easy as you think to think it was on terror. He began scornfully. We didn't just stroll through one of those gates and set up business, say, in Nero's Rome, or Montezuma's Mexico. An agent was physically and psychologically fitted to the ear he was to explore. Then he trained, and how he trained. Ross remembered the weary hours spent learning how to use a bronze sword. The technique of beaker trading, the hypnotic instruction in a language, which was already dead centuries before his own country existed. You learned the language, the customs, everything you could about your time and your cover. You were letter perfect before you took even a trial run. And here you would have no guides, Carlos said nodding. Yes, I can see the difficulty. Then you will just use a peep probe. Probably. Oh, maybe later on we can scout through the gate. We have the material to set one up. But it would be a strictly limited project, allowing no chance of being caught. Maybe the big brains back home can take peep data and work out some basis of infiltration for us from it. But that would take years. I suppose so, only you begin to swim in the shadows, don't you? Not by jumping off a cliff. She left. True enough, however, even a look into the past might saw part of the big mystery. Ross run it and stretched out to follow Asher's example. But behind his closed eyes, his brain was busy, and he did not cultivate the patience he needed. Peep probes were all right, but care while I had a point. You wanted more than a small window into a mystery. You wanted a part in solving it. The setting of the sun deepened rose to red, making a dripping wine-hued banner of most of the sky, so that under it they moved in a crimson sea. Look back at an island where shadows were embers instead of ashes. Three humans, two dolphins, and a machine mounted on a reef, which might not even have existed in the time they sought. Ash made his final adjustments, and then his finger pressed a button, and they watched the visit plate no larger than the palms of two hands. Nothing. A dull gray. Nothing. Something must have gone wrong with their assembly work. Ross touched Asher's shoulder, but now there were shadows gathering on the plate, beginning to sharpen into a distinct picture. It was still the sunset hour they watched, but somehow the colors were paler, less red, and so on than the ones about them in the here and now. And they were not seeing the aisle towards which the probe had been aimed. They were looking at a rugged coastline where cliffs lifted well above the beach strand. While on those cliffs, Ross had not realized Karawa had reached out to grasp his arm until her nails bit into his flesh, and even then he was hardly aware of the pain, because there was a building on the cliff. Massey walls of native rock reared in outward defenses, collimating in towers, and from the high point of one tower, the pointed tail of a banner cracked in the wind. There was a headland of rock reaching out not toward them, but to the north and rounding that. War canoe Karawa exclaimed, but Ross had another identification, longboat. In reality, the vessel was neither one nor the other, not the double canoe of the Pacific, which had transported warriors enraged from one island to another, or the shield-hung warship of the Vikings. But the Terrans were right in his purpose. That rakey, sharp-proud ship had been fashioned for a swift passage of the seas, from maneuvered royalty as a weapon. Behind the first nose another and a third. Their sails were dyed by the sun, but there were devices painted on them, and the lines of those designs glittered as if they had been drawn with a metallic fluid. The castle, I should cry, pulled their attention back to land. There was movement along those walls. Then came a splash. A splash in the water close enough to the lead ship to where their deck was sprayed. They're fighting Karawa's shoulder against Ross for a better look. The ships were altering course, swinging away from land out to sea. Moving too fast for sails alone, and I don't see any oars, Ross was puzzled. How do you suppose? The bombardment from the castle continued, but did not score any hits. Already the ships were out of range. The lead vessel off the screen of the peep as well. Then there was just a castle in the sunset. Ash straightened up. Rocks, he repeated wanderingly. They were throwing rocks. But those ships, they must have had engines. They weren't just depending on sails when they retreated. Ross added his own cause for bewilderment. Karawa looked from one to the other. There is something here you do not understand. What is wrong? The pulse, yes, Ash said with a nod. Those would fit periods corresponding from the Roman Empire into the Middle Ages. But you're right, Ross. Those ships had power of some kind to take them offshore that quickly. A technically advanced race coming up against a more backward one, as it is the younger man, could be. Let's go forward some. The incoming tide was washing well up on the reef. Ash had to don his mask as he plumped head and shoulders under water to make the necessary adjustment. Once more he pressed the button, and Ross's gas was echoed by one from the girl. The cliff again, but there was no castle dominating it. Only a ruin, hardly more than rubble. Now above the sites of the saucer depressions, great pylons of silvery metal. Warm did the fire brilliance by the sunset raked into the sky like dawns, gelt and fingers. There were no ships, no signs of any life. Even the vegetation which it showed on shore had vanished. There was an atmosphere of stark abandonment and death which struck the Terrans forcibly. Those pylons, Ross studied them, something familiar in their construction, teased his memory. That refueled planet where the derelict ship had set down twice, on the voyage out and on their return. That has been a world of metal structures and he believed he could trace a kinship between his memory of those and these pylons. Surely they had no connection with the earlier castle on the cliff. Once more asked Duck to reset the probe, and in a fascinating light they watched a third and last picture. But now they might have been looking at the island of the present, say that it bore no vegetation and there was a rawness about it. A sharpness of rock outline now vanished. These pylons, were they the key to the change which had come upon this world? What were they? Who had set them there? For the last Ross thought he had an answer. They were certainly the product of the Galactic Empire and the castle, the ships, natives, settlers. Two widely different eras and the mystery still lay between them. Would they ever be able to bring the key to it out of time? They swam for the shore where you had a fire blazing and their supper prepared. How many years lying between those probes? Ross pulled broiled peace apart with these fingers. That first was 10,000 years ago. The second, ice paused. Only 200 years later. But, Ross stared at his superior. That means that there was a war or some drastic form of invasion. You mean that the star people arrived and just took over this whole planet? Karawa asked. But why? And those pylons, what were they for? How much later was that last picture? 500 years. The pylons were gone too then? Ross commented. But why? He echoed Karawa's question. I should have taken up his notebook, but he did not open it. I think there is a sharp grim note in his voice. We had better find out. Put up a gate? Asked, broke all the previous rules of their service with his answer. Yes, a gate. This concludes the reading of Chapter 3. Key out of Time by Andre Norton, Chapter 4. This is a lever box recording. All lever box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit leverbox.org. Recording by RJ Davis. Key out of Time by Andre Norton, Chapter 4. Storm Manus. We have to know. Asking back against the crate they had just emptied. Something was done here in 200 years. And then an empty world. Pandora's box. Ross drew a hand across his forehead, smearing sweat and fine sand into a brand. Asked, nodded. Maybe we run that risk, loosing all the devils of the aliens. But what if the Reds opened the box first on one of their settlement worlds? There it was again. The old thorn which prodded them into risk and recklessness. Danger ahead on both paths. Don't risk trying to learn galactic secrets. But don't risk your enemies learning them either. You hold a wide hot iron in both hands in this business. And as was right. They had stumbled on something here which hinted that a whole world had been altered to suit some plan. Suppose the secret of that alteration was discovered by their enemies. Were the ship and castle people natives, Ross wondered aloud? Just as a guess they were. Or at least settlers who had been established here so long, they had developed a local form of civilization which was about at the level of a feudal society. You mean because of the castle and the rock bombardment. But what about the ships? Two separate phases of a society at war. Perhaps a more progressive against a less technically advanced. American warships paying a visit to the Shogun's Japan, for example. Ross Grimm. Those warships didn't seem to fancy their welcome. They steered out to sea fast enough when the rocks began to fall. Yes, but the ships could exist in the castle pattern. The pylons could not. Which period are you aiming for first, the castle or the pylons? Castle first, I think. Then if we can't pick up any hints, we'll take some jumps forward until we do connect. Only we'll be under severe handicaps. If we could only plan an analyzer somewhere in the castle as a beginning. Ross did not show his surprise. If Ace was talking on those terms, then he was intending to do more than just lurk around a little beyond the gate. He was really planning to pick up aliens' peace patterns, eventually assuming alien agent identity. Gordon. Karawa appeared between two of the lace trees. She came so hastily that the contents of the two cups she carried slopped over. You must hear what Hori has to say. The tall Samolan who trailed her spoke quickly. For the first time since Ross had known him, he was very serious. A frown line between his eyes. There's a bad storm coming. Our instruments register it. How long away, Ace was on his feet. A day, maybe two. Ross could see no change in the sky, islands or sea. They had had idyllic weather for the six weeks since their planeting. No sign of any such trouble in the Iwaka-keen paradise. It's coming, Hori repeated. The gate is half up, Ace thought aloud. Too much of it set to be dismantled again in a hurry. If it's completed, Hori wanted to know, would it ride out of storm? It might, behind that reef where we have it based, to finish it would be a fast job. Hori flexed his hands. We've more brawn than brain in these matters, Gordon. But you've all our help for what is worth. What about the ship? Does it lift on schedule? Check with Rimbalt about that. This storm, how will it compare to a Pacific typhoon? Samoan shook his head. How do we know? We have not yet had to face the local variety. The islands are low, Karawa commented. Winds and water could. Yes, we'd better see Rimbalt about a shelter if needed. If the settlement had drowsed, now its inhabitants were busy. It was decided that they could shelter in a spaceship should the storm reach hurricane proportions. But before it's coming, the gate must be finished. The final fitting was left to Ash and Ross, and the older agent fastened the last boat when the waters beyond the reef were already wind ruffled. The sky darkening fast. The dolphins swam back and forth in the lagoon and with them Karawa, though Ash had twice waved her to the shore. There was no sunlight left and they worked with torches. Ash began his inspection of the relatively simple transfer, the two upright bars, the slab of opaque material forming a doorstep between them. This was only a skeleton of the gates Ross had used in the past. But continual experimentation had reduced this more easily transported installation. Piled in a net were several supply containers ready for an exploring run. Extra gill packs, the analyzer, emergency rations, a medical kit, all the basics. Was Ash going to try now? He had activated the transfer. The rods are glowing faintly. The slab they guarded having an eerie blue glimmer. He probably only wanted to be sure it worked. What happened at that moment Ross could never find any adequate words to describe, nor was he sure he could remember. The disorientation of the past through he had experienced before. This time he was whirled into a vortex of feeling in which his body, his identity, were ripped from him. And he lost touch with all stability. Instinctively he lashed out, his reflexes more than his conscious will keeping him above water in the wild rage of a storm whipped sea. The light was gone. Here was only dark and beating water. Then a lightning flash ripped wide to heaven over Ross as his head broke the surface. And he saw with unbelieving eyes that he was being thrust sureward, not to the strand of Finger Island, but against a cliff where water pounded an unyielding wall of rock. Ross comprehended that somehow he had been jerked through the gate. That he was now fronting the land that had been somewhere beneath the heights supporting the castle. Then he fought for his life to escape the hammer of the sea, determined to crack him against the surface of the cliff. A rough surface loomed up before him, and he threw himself in that direction embracing a rock, striving to cling through the back force of the wave which had brought him there. His nails grated and broke on the stone, and then the fingers of his right hand caught in a hole. And he held with all the strength in his gasping beaten body. He had had no preparation, no warning, and only the tough survival will which had been trained and bred into him saved his life. As the water washed back, Ross drove to pull up further on his anchorage, to be above the strike of the next wave. Somehow he gained a foot before it came. The mask of the gill pack saved him from being smothered in that curling torment as he clung stubbornly, resisting again the pull of the retreating sea. Hence by inch between the raves he fought for footing and stable support. Then he was on the surface of the rock, out of all but the luscious spray. He crouched there, spent and gasping. The thunder roar of the surf, and beyond it the deeper motor of the rage in the heavens, was deafening, dulling his sense as much as the ordeal through which he had passed. He was content to cling where he was, hardly conscious of his surroundings. Sparks of light along the shore to the north at last caught Ross's attention. They moved, some clustering along the wave line, a few strung up the cliff, and they were not part of the storm's fireworks. Men here, why is this moment? Another bolt of lightning showed him the answer, on a reef friend which ran a tongue of land into the sea on a ship, two ships, pounded by every hammer wave, shipwrecks, and those lights must mark castle dwellers drawn to aid the survivors. Ross crawled across his rock on his hands and knees, wavered along the cliff wall until he was again faced with angry water. To drop into that would be a mistake. He hesitated, and now more than his own predicament struck home to him. Ash. Ash had been ahead of him at the time gate. If Ross had been jerked through to this pass, somewhere in the water on the shore, Gordon was here too. But where to find him? Setting his back to the cliff and holding to the rough stone, Ross got to his feet, trying to see through the welter of foam and water. Not only the sea poured here, but a torrential rain fell into the bargain, screaming down about him, battering his head and shoulders. A chill rain which made him silver. He wore gill-pack, weighted belt with the sheath-tool and knife, flippers and a pair of swimming trunks, which had been suitable for the back of key he knew. But this was a different world altogether. Dare he use his torch to see the way out of here? Ross watched the lights to the north, deciding they were not too unlike his own beam, and took the chance. Now he stood on his shelf of rock pitted with depressions all pools. To his left was a drop into a boiling whorling cauldron from which points of stone banged. Ross shuddered, at least he had escaped being pulled into that. To his right, northward, there was another space of sea, a narrow strip, and then a second ledge. He measured the distance between that and the one on which he perched. Staying where he was would not locate us. Ross stripped off his flippers, made them fast in his belt. Then he leaped and landed painfully as his feet slipped and he skidded face down on the northern ledge. As he set up, rubbing a bruised and scraped knee, he saw lights advancing in his direction and between them a shadow crawling from water to shore. Ross stumbled along the ledge, hastening to reach that figure, who lay still now just out of the way. As Ross's limping pace became a trot, but he was too late. The other lights, two of them, had reached the shadow. A man, or at least a body which was humanoid, sprawled face down. Other men, three of them, gathered over the exhausted swimmer. Those who held the torches were still partially in the dark, but the third stooped to roll over of their find. Ross cut a glint of light on a metallic head cover. The glission of wet armor of some type on the fellow's back and shoulders as he made quick examination of the sea's victim. Then, Ross halted, his eyes wide, a hand rose and fell with expert precision. There had been a blade in that hand. Already the three were turning away from the man so ruthlessly dispatched. As, or some survivor of the wreck's ships, Ross retreated to the end of the ledge, the narrow stream of water dividing it from the rock where he had one on the shore washed into a cave in the cliff. Derry tried to work his way into that. Masked with the gill pack, he could go under surface if he were not smashed by the waves against some wall. He glanced back. The lights were very close to the end of his ledge. To withdraw to the second rock would mean being caught in a dead end, for he dared not enter the whirlpool on his far side. There was really no choice. Stay and be killed or try for the cave. Ross fashioned on his flippers and lowered his body into the narrow stream. The fact that it was narrow and guarded on either side by the ledges tamed the waves a little and Ross found a tug against him not so great as he feared it would be. Keeping hand holes on the rock, he worked along. He had his shoulders often under the worst of rolling water, but winning steadily to the break in the cliff wall. Then he was through into his face much larger than the opening. Water filled, but not with a wild turbulence of waves. Had he been sighted, Ross kept a hand hole to the left of that narrow entrance, his body floating with the rise and fall of the water. He could make out the gleam of light without. It might be that one of those hunters had leaned out over the runnel of the cave entrance with slicing his torch down into the water there. Behind mask plate, Ross' lips ripped in a snarl of the hunted. In here he would have the advantage. Let one of them, or all three, try to follow through that rock entrance in. But if he had been sighted at the mouth of the lair, none of his trackers appeared to whoosh to press the hunt. The light disappeared and Ross was left in the dark. He counted a hundred slowly and then a second hundred before he dared use his own torch. For all its slit entrance, this was a good-sized hideaway he had chanced upon. And he discovered when he ventured to release his wall-hold and swim out into the middle, the bottom arose and a slope towards its rear. Momus later Ross pulled out of the water once more. The crouch shivering on a ledge only lapped now and then by wavelets. He had found a temporary refuge, but his good fortune did not quiet his fears. Had that been ash on the shore? And why had the swimmer been so summarily executed by the men who found him? The ships caught on the reef, the castle on the cliff above his head, enemies, ships, crews, and castle men. But the callous act of the shore patrol argued a state of war carried two fanatic proportions, perhaps interracial conflict. He could not hope to explore until the storm was over. To plunge back into the sea would not find ice. And to be hunted along the shore by an unknown enemy was simply asking to die without achieving any good in return. No, he must remain where he was for the present. Ross unhooked the torch from his belt and used it on this higher portion of the cave. He was perched on a ledge which protruded into the water in the form of a wedge. At his back, the wall of the cave was rough and trails of weed were festooned on its projections. The smell of PCDK was strong enough to register as Ross pulled off his mask. As far as he could now see, there was no exit except by sea. A movement in the water brought his light flashing down into the dark flood. Then a sleek head arose in the path of that ray. Not a man swimming, but one of the dolphins. Ross's explanation of surprise was half gas, half cry. The second dolphin showed for a moment and between the shadow of their bodies just under the surface moved a third form. Ash, Ross had no idea how the dolphins had come through the time gate. But that they had guided to safety of Terran, he did not doubt at all. Ash, but it was not Ash who came waiting to the ledge where Ross waited with hand outstretched. He had been so sure of the other's identity that he blinked in complete bewilderment as his eyes met carwash and she has stumbled half reeled against him. His arms about her shoulder steadied her and her shivering body was close to his as she leaned her full weight upon him. Her hands made a feeble movement to her mask and he pulled it off. Uncovered, her face was pale and drawn. Her eyes now closed and her breath came in ragged, tearing sobs which shook her even more. How did you get here? Ross demanded, even as he pushed her down on the ledge. Her head moved slowly in a weak gesture of negaton. I don't know. We were close to the gate. There was a flash of light. Then her voice sealed up with a note of hysteria in it. Then I was here and tarred with me. Tina Raw came. Ross, there was a man swimming. He got ashore. He was getting to his feet and they killed him. Ross's whole titan. He stared into her face with a fierce demand. Was it Gordon? She blinked, brought her hand up to her mouth and wiped it back and forth across her chin. There was a small red trickle growing between her fingers, dripping down her arm. Gordon. She repeated it as if she had never heard the name before. Yes. Did they kill Gordon? In his grasp, she was swaying back and forth. Then realizing he was shaking her, Ross got himself under control. But a measure of understanding had come into her eyes. No, not Gordon. Where is Gordon? You haven't seen him? Ross persisted, knowing it was useless. Not since we were at the gate. Her words were less slurred. Weren't you with him? No, I was alone. Ross, where are we? Better say, when are we, he replied. We're through the gate and back in time. We have to find Gordon. He did not want to think of what might have happened out on the shore. This concludes the reading of Chapter 4. Key out of Time by Andre Norton. Chapter 5. This is a Leverbox recording. All Leverbox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Leverbox.org. Reporting by RJ Davis. Key out of Time by Andre Norton. Chapter 5. Time Wrecked. Can we go back? Karawa was herself again, her voice crisp. I don't know. Ross gave her the truth. The force which had drawn him through the gate was beyond his experience. As far as he knew, there had never been such an involuntary passage by Timegate. What their trip might mean, he did not know. The main concern was that Ash must have come through, too, and that he was missing. Just let the storm abate, and with the dolphin's aid, Ross's chance for finding the missing agent was immeasurably better. He said so now, and Karawa nodded. Do you suppose there is a war going on here? She hugged her arms across her breasts, her shoulders heaving in the torch light with shutters she could not control. The damp chill was biting, and Ross realized that was also danger. Could be, he got to his feet, switched the light from the girl to the walls. That seaweed, could it make them some form of protective covering? Hold this, aim it there. He thrust the torch into her hands and went for one of the loops of kelp. Ross reeled in line to the stuff. He was ranked smelling, but only slightly damp, and he pounded on the ledge in a kind of nest. At least in the hollow of that mound, they could be sheltered after a fashion. Karawa crawled into the center of the mass and Ross followed her. The smell of the stuff filled his nose. It was almost like a visible cloud, but he had been right. The girl stopped shivering, and he felt a measure of warmth in his own shaking body. Ross snapped off the torch, and they lay together in the dark. The half-rotten pile of weed holding him. He must have slept, Ross guessed. When he stirred, raising his head, his body was stiff, aching. As he braced himself up on his hands and peered over the edge of their kelp nest, there was light in the cave, a pale, grayish whore, which grew stronger towards a slit opening. It must be day, and that meant they could move. Ross, roping in the weed, his hand falling on a curve of shoulder. Wake up! His voice was hoarse, and held a snap of an order. There was a startled gasp and answer, and the mound beside him heaved as the girl stirred. Day out, Ross pointed. In the storm, she stood up. I think it is over. It was true that the level of water within the cave had fallen. That waveless no longer lapped with the same vigor. Morning, the storm over, and somewhere ash. Ross was about to snap his mask into place when Karawa caught at his arm. Be careful. Remember what I saw last night? They were killing swimmers. He shook her off impatiently. I'm no fool, and with the packs on, we do not have to surface. Listen, he had another thought, one which would provide an excellent excuse for keeping her safely out of his company, reducing his responsibility for her. You take the dolphins and try to find a gate. We'll want to out as soon as I locate ash. And if you do not find him soon, Ross hesitated. She had not said the rest. What if he could not find Gordon at all? But he would. He had to. I'll be back here. He checked his watch. No longer an accurate timekeeper. For Habakkukian days held an hour more than the Terran-24. But the settlers kept the offer of measurement to check on work periods. In, say, two hours. You should know by then about the gate. And we'll have some idea of the situation along the shore. But listen, Ross caught her shoulders in a taut grip, pulled her around to face him. His eyes hot and almost angry as they held hers. Don't let yourself be seen. Don't let yourself be seen. He repeated the cardinal rule of agents and new territories. We don't dare risk discovery. Karawa nodded, and he could see that she understood. Was aware of the importance of that warning. Do you want Tina wrong or Tara? No, I'm going to search along the shore first. Ash would have tried for that last night. Was probably driven in the way we were. He'd go to ground somewhere. And I had this. Ross touched a sonic on his belt. I'll set it on his call. You do the same with yours. Then if we get within distance, he'll pick us up. Back here in two hours. Yes, Karawa kicked free of the weed. Was already waiting down to where the dolphin circled in the cave pool waiting for her. Ross followed, and the four swam for the open sea. It could not be much after Don, Ross thought. As he clung by one hand to a rock and watched Karawa and the dolphins on their way. Then he paddled along the shore northward for his own survey of the coast. There was a rose cast in the sky, warming the silver along the far reaches of the horizon. And about him Bob's storm floated so that he had to pick a careful way through floating debris. On the reef, one of the wrecked ships had vanished entirely. Perhaps it had been battered to death by the waves. Ground to splinters against the rocks. The other still held. His prow well out of the now receding waves. Jagged holes in his side through his spurts of water cascaded now and then. The wreck which had been driven landward was composed of planks, boxes, and containers rolled by the waves force. Much of this was already free of the sea. And on the beach figures moved examining it. In spite of the danger of chance discovery, Ross edged along rocks. Seeking a bannish point from which he could watch that activity. He was flat against a seagirt boulder. A swell of floating weed draped about him when the nearest of the foraging parties moved into good view. Men. At least they had the outward appearance of men much like himself. Though their skin was dark and their limbs appeared to disproportionately long and thin. There were two groups of them. Four wearing only a scanty loincloth, busy turning over and hunting through the debris under the direction of the other two. The workers had thick gross of hair which not only covered their heads, but down their spines and the outer sides of their thin arms and legs to elbow and knee. Their hair was appalled yellow-white in vivid contrast to their dark skins. And their chins protruded sharply, allowing the lower line of their faces to take on a vaguely disturbing likeness to an animal's muzzle. Their overseers were more fully clothed, wearing not only helmets on their heads, whose helmets had a protective visor over the face, but also breast and back plates molded to their bodies. Ross thought that these could not be solid metal, since they adapted to the movements of the wearers. Feet and legs were covered with casing combination of shoe and leggings, colored dull red. They were armed with swords of an odd pattern. Their points curved up so that the blade resembled a piece hook. Unsheathed, the blades were clipped to a wrist belt by Ketch's, which glittered in the weak morning light as if Jim said. Ross could see little of their faces, for the beak visors overhung their features. But their skins were as dusky as those of the laborers, and their arms and legs of the same unusual length, men of the same race he deduced. Under the orders of the armed overseers, the laborers were reducing the beech to order, sorting out the floatsome into two piles. Once they gathered about a find, and the sound of excited speech reached Ross as an agitated clicking. The armored men came up, surveyed the discovery. One of them shrugged and clicked in order. Ross caught only a half glimpse of the thing two of the workers dragged away. A body. Hush! The Terran was about to move closer when he saw the green cloak dragging about the corpse. No, not Gordon, just another victim from the Rex. The aliens were working their way towards Ross, and perhaps it was time for him to go. He was pushing aside his well-arranged curtain of weed when he was startled by a shout. For a second he thought he might have been sighted, until resulting action on shore told him otherwise. The furred workers shrank back against the mound to which they had just dragged the body. While the two guards took up a position before them, curved swords snapped from their belt hooks ready in their hands. Again that shout was as a warning or a threat. With the language barrier Ross could only wait to see. Another party approached along the beach from the south, and the lead was a cloaked and hooded figure, so muffled in its coverings of silver-gray that Ross had no idea of the form beneath. Silver-gray? No. Now that hue was deepening with blue tones darkening rapidly. By the time the cloaked newcomer had passed the rock which sheltered the tavern, the covering was a rich blue which seemed to glow. Behind the leader were a dozen armed men. They wore the same beaked helmets, the subtle encasing breast and back plates, but their leggings were gray. They too carried curved swords, but the weapons were still last to their belts and they made no move to draw them in spite of the very patent hostility of the guards before them. Blue cloak halted some three feet from the guards. The sea wind pulled at the cloak, wrapping it around the body beneath. But even so, the wearer remained well hidden. From under a flapping edge came a hand. The fingers, long and slender, were curled around an ivory-colored wand which ended in a knob, sparks flashed from it in a continuous flickering. Ross clapped his hand to his belt. To his complete amazement, the sonic disc he wore was reacting to those flashes. Cricking sharply in perfect beat to their blink-blink, the tavern cupped his scarred fingers over the disc as he waited to see what was going to happen. Wondering if the holder of that wand might, in return, pick up the broadcast of the code set on Asher's call. The hand clasping the wand was not dusky-skinned, but had much of the same ivory shade as the rod, so that the Ross, the meeting between flesh and wand, was hardly distinguishable. Now, by one firm thrust, the hand planted the rod into the sand, leaving it to stand sentinel between the two parties. Retreating a step or two, the red-clad guards gave ground, but they did not reclass their swords. Their attitude, Ross' judge, was that of men in some awe of their opponent, but men urged to defiance either by a belief in the righteousness of their cause or strengthened by an old hatred. Now the cloak one began to speak, or was that speech? Certainly the flow of sound had little in common with the clicking tongue Ross had caught earlier. This thrill of notes possessed the rise and fall of a chant or song, which could have been a formula of greeting or a warning, and the lines of warriors escorting the chatter stood to attention, their weapons still undrawn. Ross caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down on it, that chanting. It crawled into the mind, set up a pattern. He shook his head vigorously, and then was shocked by that recklessness, not that any of those on shore had glanced in his direction. The chant ended on a high broken note. It was followed by a moment of silence through which sounded only the wind and the beat of wave. Then one of the laborers flung up his head and clicked a word or two. He and his fellows fell face down on the beach, cupping their hands to pour sand over their unkept heads. One of the guards turned with a sharp yell to boot the nearest of the workers in the ribs. But his companion cried out, the wand which he stood so erect when it was first planted now inclined towards the working party. It sparked shooting so swiftly and with such slight break between that they were fast making a single beam. Ross jerked his hand from contact with the sonic. A distinct throb of pain answered that stepping up of the mysterious broadcast. The laborers broke and ramped or rather crawled on their bellies until they were well away before they got to their feet and pelted back down the strand. However, the guards were stern or stuffed. They were withdrawing all right but slowly backing away. Their swords held up before them as men might retreat before insurmountable odds. When they were well gone, the roved one took up the wand. Holding it out beyond, the cloak leader of the second party approached the two piles of salvage. The workers had heaped into rough order. There was a detailed inspection of both until the roved one came upon the body. At a thrilled order, two of the warriors came up and laid out the corpse. When the roved one nodded, they stood well back. The rod moved, the tip rather than the knobbed head being pointed at the body. Ross's head snapped back. That bolt of light, energy, fire, whatever it was, issuing from the rod had dazzled him into momentarily blindness and a vibration of force through the air was like a blow. When he was able to see once more, there was nothing at all on the sand where the corpse had lain. Nothing except a glassy trough from which some spars of vapor arose. Ross clung to his rock support badly shaken. Men with swords and now this, some form of controlled energy which argued of technical development and science. Just as the cliffcastle had bombarded with rocks ship sailing with a speed which argued engine power of an unknown type. A mixture of barbaric and advanced knowledge. To assess this, he needed more experience, more knowledge than he possessed. Now, ash could… ash? Ross would jerk back to his own quest. The rod was quiet, no more sparks were flung from its knob. And under Ross's touch, his sonic was quiet also. He snapped off the broadcast. If that device had picked up the flickering of the rod, the reverse could well be true. The cloak one chose from the pile of goods and its escort gathered up the designated boxes, a small cask or two. So laden the party returned south the way they had come, Ross allowed his breath to expel in a sigh of relief. He worked his way further north along the coast, watching other parties of the furred workers and their guards. Lines of the forework climbed the cliff, hauling their spoil, their destination, the castle. But Ross saw no sign of ash, received no answer to the sonic code he had reset once the strangers were out of distance. And the tavern began to realize that his present search might well be fruitless. Though he fought against accepting it. When he turned back to the slick cave, Ross's spirit was ready to be expressed in anger, the anger of frustration over his own helplessness. With no chance of trying to penetrate the castle, he could not learn whether or not ash had been taken prisoner. And until the workers left the beach, he could not prowl there, hunting the grimmer evidence his mind flinched from considering. Carwell waited for him on the inner ledge. There was no sign of the dolphins, and as Ross pulled out of the water, pushing aside his mask, her face in the thin light of the cave was deeply troubled. Did you find him? She made that a statement rather than a question. No. And I did not find it. Ross used a length of weed from the nest as a towel, but now I stood very still. The gate? No sign of it? Just this. She reached behind her and brought up a sealed container. Ross recognized one of the supply cans they had had in the catch by the gate. There are others scattered. Taha and Tina Raw seek them now. It is as if all that was on the other side was sucked through with us. Are you sure you found the right place? Is this not part of it? Again, the girl sought for something on the ledge. What she held out to him was a length of metal rod, twisted and broken at one hand, as if a giant hand had wrenched it loose from the installation. Rod nodded dully. Yes, his voice was harsh as if the words were pulled out of him against his will and against all hope. That's part of a sidebar. It must have been totally wrecked. Yet, even though he held that broken length in his hands, Ross could not really believe the gate was gone. He swam out once more, heading for the reef for the dolphins joined him as guides. There was a second piece of broken tube, the scattered containers of supplies. That was all. The terrains were wrecked in time, as surely as those ships had been wrecked on a sea reef the night before. Ross headed once again for the cave. Their immediate needs were of major importance now. The containers must be all gathered and taken into their hiding place, because upon their contents, three human lives could depend. He paused just at the entrance to adjust the net of containers he transported, and it was that slight chance which brought him knowledge of the intruder. On the ledge, Karwa was heaping up the kelp of the nest, but to one side and on a level with the girl's head, Ross dared not flash his torch, thus betraying his presence. Leaving the net hitched to the rock by its sling, he swam underwater along the side of the cave by a root which should bring him out within striking distance of that hunched figure perching above to watch Karwa's every move. This concludes the reading of Chapter 5.