drawing in toward the ship, very slowly. To stay where he waswould mean the loss of his hiding place; to try to run away wouldalmost certainly be fatal. And so Enoch acted in the only way left tohim.
By hooking his arms and legs around the girders forming the undersideof the ramp, he was able to lift himself clear of the ground. It meantbeing carried into the ship, but even that, he decided, was betterthan falling into the hands of Indians.
He clung there like a sloth to a branch. Fortunately the beams wererecessed enough to prevent his being scraped off when he reached theopening into the hull. When the ramp finally ground to a halt he foundhimself in darkness beyond anything in his experience. There was coldmetal under him now and he lowered himself gingerly onto it. When hetried to crawl into the open, he discovered that the edges of the rampwere now flush with the floor.
Suddenly a deep humming note tore at his ears, became a shrill whine,then passed into silence. The floor seemed to press harder and harderinto his back, his lungs fought for air, a sharp burst of light seemedto explode soundlessly before his bulging eyes and consciousness lefthim....
The rasp of metal against metal aroused him. The ramp was movingagain. Once more he attached himself to its girders and was slowlycarried from the spaceship. Sunlight on the grass told him the nighthad passed, and the moment the ramp came to a halt, he dropped to theground and squirmed into the open. He was close enough to the ship tokeep from being seen by those aboard, and he slipped quickly aroundone side before making a break for the shelter of a clump of treesbordering the clearing.
* * * * *
"And that, Mr. Quinlan," Kramer said, "just about brings you up todate. At 4:07 this afternoon Mr. Wetzel was found by the crew of anArmy tank twelve miles west of Burdette, Colorado. He told his storyto the colonel in charge of that perimeter of operations, and was thenflown directly to Washington." He paused and allowed himself ahumorless smile. "I assume you have some questions?"
I said, "I'm not going to ask if you take this man's story seriously.Considering the positions of the men in this room you obviously do.What I'd like to know is why?"
Kramer hesitated. "Let me ask you this, Quinlan," he said, choosinghis words carefully. "Based solely on this man's costume and speech,would you say he is an impostor?"
"No," I told him promptly. "Frontiersmen dressed exactly that way, thelong gun is authentic and his pronunciation, phrases and idiom comesstraight out of pre-Revolutionary times. But I still fail to see whyyou give a second thought to his story."
"You don't think it true?"
"My God, man, how can it be? Unless you're trying to tell me that thischaracter was brought here by a time machine!"
"One moment, Mr. Quinlan." Secretary of War McClave was back in thepicture. "Let me tell you why we do not regard Mr. Wetzel as a mentalcase. Shortly after one o'clock this afternoon, Rocky Mountain Time, asection of Washington County, Colorado, roughly thirty miles incircumference was suddenly cut off from the rest of the country--cutoff as completely as though it never existed. Telephone lines ceasedto function, a radio station in the same area went off the air in themiddle of a soap commercial. All traffic, vehicular and foot, ceasedto come out of it. The Governor of Colorado sent in a detachment ofthe National Guard; nothing has been heard from it since. Airobservers report all cars and trains appear to have stalled. Twoplanes trying a bit of hedge-hopping apparently conked out and wereforced to land. No radio contact with them."
I said, "I heard some of this on a news broadcast shortly beforemidnight tonight. According to the announcer the area involved waslarger than thirty miles."
McClave nodded soberly. "The affected area is expanding steadily. Itnow reaches as far west as Strasburg, Colorado, and as far east asthe Nebraska state line. The north and south limits seem to besomewhat narrower."
I looked at him and at the other men around the table. Their facesheld a quiet tautness, and General Ohlmsted's hand, holding a cigar,was shaking a little. "And," I said, "you feel that this spaceshipholds the answer. Is that it?"
"It's all we have to go on," the President said softly.
"One more question," I said. "Where do I fit into this?"
There was a moment's awkward silence, broken by the creak of the chairholding the man who had been introduced to me as a Mr. Proudfit. Hisround face smiled at me almost jovially.
"I expect I'm the one to explain that, Mr. Quinlan. Wetzel tells usthe man in charge of the spaceship appeared to be an Indian. It seemsour best move is to send an emissary into the blacked-out section tolearn the reason for this--well--this attack. Such a representativeshould be qualified to deal intelligently with this--this Indian.Somebody able to understand the Indian temperament. In short, Mr.Quinlan, you!"
* * * * *
I rubbed a hand along the back of my neck and smiled. "You know, thiswhole thing is utterly mad! Indians, time machines, robots,spaceships! But then these days the most fertile imaginations can'tseem to keep up with reality. If you gentlemen want me to try to getto this Indian and ask him what's the big idea, I'll do my best. Notbecause I want to, but because I wouldn't know how to go aboutrefusing the President of my country."
Some of the tension seemed to go out of the room. The President said,"You won't find me or your country ungrateful, Mr. Quinlan," and theSecretary of War nodded approvingly, and General Ohlmsted's cigarstopped shaking. Proudfit took out a sheaf of papers from an innerpocket of his coat, leafed through them quickly and handed one to me."This authorizes you as a representative of the United StatesGovernment, answerable only to the President, and with full authorityto act accordingly."
"Fine," I said, putting it away. "Maybe I can use it on these robotsWetzel mentioned!"
Proudfit looked at his strap-watch. "An Army jet bomber will take youand Mr. Wetzel to a point as close to Burdette, Colorado, as can bemanaged. Wetzel tells us he can locate the spaceship from that point.We don't know, of course, how closely guarded the ship is--or even ifit's guarded at all. But Wetzel is confident his training andbackground as a frontiersman and Indian fighter can get you thereunder cover of darkness. Once you reach the spaceship, the rest is upto you."
"And if I don't make it?"
Proudfit spread his hands. "Two companies of Army regulars enteredthat area at 6:30 tonight. They were fully armed, with orders to usethose arms if necessary. Nothing has been heard from them since. We'resending you on the theory that where many can't get through perhapsone or two can. You have until noon--slightly more than eleven hoursfrom now--to get word to us. If we don't hear from you by then or ifthe 'dead' area continues to expand after that time, then we throw ourSunday punch!"
Enoch Wetzel was still standing exactly as he had while telling hisstory. I walked over to him. "Let's get one thing straight, mister. Ifyou and I are going to work together, we leave personal feelings outof it. A few minutes ago I passed a remark or two about one of yourrelatives and you tried to knock my head off. I'm willing to forget itif you are. But I don't want any more cracks out of you about my beinga half-breed. Is that clear?"
He eyed me stonily, then without change of expression spat on the rugwithin a quarter-inch of my left shoe. I felt the muscles in my armstwang like plucked wires as I resisted the impulse to swing on him."Is that your answer, Wetzel?"
"I'll git you thar," he said tonelessly. "I promised these yeregennelmen I'd do thet much. But it don't hold I gotta cotton to you."
We stood there staring into each other's eyes. There was a wall ofhatred between us that could never be destroyed, a wall not fashionedby us but by our forefathers generations before. Yet a chain ofincredible events had made us allies against an alien foe. In spite ofour mutual dislike we must work together.
* * * * *
I turned back to Proudfit. "I'll need a pair of heavy black basketballshoes, dark coveralls, a good heavy sweater, a .38 Colt automatic withplenty of ammunition, and a compass."
*
* * * *
The bomber pilot was a fresh-faced youngster who chewed gum andclaimed to have been the second-ranking tennis player in Des Moines,Iowa. He shook hands gravely with me, eyed Wetzel and his strange garband out-size rifle with blank-faced wonder, and mentioned that it wasa nice night for flying.
The plane took off at 1:27. We were due over our target by 4:00o'clock Eastern Standard Time, or 2:00 Mountain Time. The plans calledfor the bomber to fly at a high altitude, then come in on Burdettewith jets off and drop us by 'chute. Wetzel had balked for a while atthe idea of stepping off into space, but a brief but patientexplanation of