“Another theory?” Barker asked, interested in spite of himself. “Our megaliths seem to hold a certain fascination for you and your fellow Americans.”

  “We tackle our problems wherever we find them,” Lanning answered, opening the cover and disclosing a chunky and complicated piece of apparatus mounted on an aluminum tripod. “I have no theories at all about these things. I’m here just to find out the truth—why this thing was built.”

  “Admirable,” Barker said, and the coolness of his comment was lost in the colder wind. “Might I ask just what this device is?”

  “Chronostasis temporal-recorder.” He opened the legs and stood the machine next to the Altar Stone. “My team at MIT worked it up. We found that temporal movement other than our usual twenty-four hours into the future every day— is instant death for anything living. At least we killed off roaches, rats, and chickens; there were no human volunteers. But inanimate objects can be moved without damage.”

  “Time travel?” Barker said in what he hoped was a diffident voice.

  “Not really, time stasis would be a better description. The machine stands still and lets everything else move by it. We’ve penetrated a good ten thousand years into the past this way.”

  “If the machine stands still that means that time is running backwards?”

  “Perhaps it is—would you be able to tell the difference? Here, I think we’re ready to go now.”

  Lanning adjusted the controls on the side of the machine, pressed a stud, then stepped back. A rapid whirring came from the depths of the device: Barker raised one quizzical eyebrow.

  “A timer,” Lanning explained. “It’s not safe to be close to the thing when it’s operating.”

  The whirring ceased and was followed by a sharp click, immediately after which the entire apparatus vanished.

  “This won’t take long,” Lanning said, and the machine reappeared even as he spoke. A glossy photograph dropped from a slot into his hand when he touched the back. He showed it to Barker.

  “Just a trial run. I sent it back twenty minutes.” Although the camera had been pointing at them, the two men were not in the picture. Instead, in darkish pastels due to the failing light, the photograph showed a view down the Avenue, with their parked truck just a tiny square in the distance. From the rear doors of the vehicle the two men could be seen removing the yellow box.

  “That’s very … impressive,” Barker said, shocked into admission of the truth. “How far back can you send it?”

  “Seems to be no limit, just depends on the power source. This model has nicad batteries and is good back to about ten thousand B.C.”

  “And the future?”

  “A closed book, I’m afraid. But we may lick that problem yet.” He extracted a small notebook from his hip pocket and consulted it, then set the dials once again.

  “These are the optimum dates, about the time we figure Stonehenge was built. I’m making this a multiple-shot. This lever records the setting, so now I can feed in another one.”

  There were over twenty settings to be made, which necessitated a great deal of dial spinning. When it was finally done, Lanning actuated the timer and went to join Barker.

  This time the departure of the chronostasis temporal-recorder was much more dramatic. It vanished readily enough, but left a glowing replica of itself behind, a shimmering golden outline easily visible in the growing darkness.

  “Is that normal?” Barker asked.

  “Yes, but only on the big time jumps. No one is really sure just what it is, but we call it a temporal echo. The current theory that it is sort of a resonance in time caused by the sudden departure of the machine. It fades away in a couple of minutes.”

  Before the golden glow was completely gone the device itself returned, appearing solidly in place of its spectral echo. Lanning rubbed his hands together, then pressed the print button. The machine clattered in response and extruded a long strip of connected prints.

  “Not as good as I expected,” Lanning said. “We hit the daytime all right, but there is nothing much going on.”

  There was enough going on to almost stop Barker’s ar-cheologist heart. Picture after picture of the megalith standing strong and complete, the menhirs upright and the lintels in place upon all the sarsen stones.

  “Lots of rock,” Lanning said, “but no sign of the people who built the thing. Looks like the dating theories are wrong. Do you have any idea when it was put up?”

  “Sir J. Norman Lockyer believed that it was erected on June 24th, 1680 B.C.,” he said abstractedly, still petrified by the photographs.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  The dials were spun and the machine vanished once again. The picture this time was far more dramatic. A group of men in rough homespun genuflected, arms outstretched, facing toward the camera.

  “We’ve got it now,” Lanning chortled, and spun the machine about in a half circle so it faced in the opposite direction. “Whatever they’re worshiping is behind the camera. I’ll take a shot of it and we’ll have a good idea why they built this thing.”

  The second picture was almost identical to the first, as were two more taken at right angles to the first ones.

  “This is crazy,” Lanning said, “they’re all facing into the camera and bowing. Why, the machine must be sitting on top of whatever they are looking at.”

  “No, the angle proves that the tripod is on the same level that they are.” Sudden realization hit Barker and his jaw sagged. “Is it possible that your temporal echo could be visible in the past as well?”

  “Well … I don’t see why not. Do you mean … ?”

  “Correct. The golden glow of the machine caused by all those stops must have been visible on and off for years. It gave me a jolt when I first saw it and it must have been much more impressive to the people then.”

  “It fits,” Lanning said, smiling happily and beginning to repack the machine. “They built Stonehenge around the image of the device sent back to see why they built Stonehenge. That’s one problem solved.”

  “Solved! The problem has just begun. It’s a paradox. Which of them, the machine or the monument, came first?”

  Slowly, the smile faded from Dr. Lanning’s face.

  RESCUE OPERATION

  Pull! Pull steadily…!” Dragomir shouted, clutching at the tarry cords of the net. Beside him in the hot darkness Pribislav Polasek grunted as he heaved on the wet strands. The net was invisible in the black water, but the blue light trapped in it rose closer and closer to the surface. “It’s slipping…” Pribislav groaned and clutched the rough gunwale of the little boat. For a single instant he could see the blue light on the helmet, a faceplate and the suited body that faded into blackness—then it slipped free of the net. He had just a glimpse of a dark shape before it was gone. “Did you see it?” he asked. “Just before he fell he waved his hand.”

  “How can I know—the hand moved, it could have been the net, or he might still be alive?” Dragomir had his face bent almost to the glassy surface of the water, but there was nothing more to be seen. “He might be alive.”

  The two fishermen sat back in the boat and stared at each other in the harsh light of the hissing acetylene lamp in the bow. They were very different men, yet greatly alike in their stained, baggy trousers and faded cotton shirts. Their hands were deeply wrinkled and callused from a lifetime of hard labor, their thoughts slowed by the rhythm of work and years.

  “We cannot get him up with the net,” Dragomir finally said, speaking first as always.

  “Then we will need help,” Pribislav added. “We have anchored the buoy here, we can find the spot again.”

  “Yes, we need help.” Dragomir opened and closed his large hands, then leaned over to bring the rest of the net into the boat. “The diver, the one who stays with the widow Korenc, he will know what to do. His name is Kukovic and Petar said that he is a doctor of science from the university in Ljubljana.”

  They bent to their oars and sent the heavy boat steadily over the glasslike water of the Adriatic. Before they had reached shore, the sky was light and when they tied to the sea wall in Brbinj the sun was above the horizon.

  Joze Kukovic looked at the rising ball of the sun, already hot on his skin, yawned, and stretched. The widow shuffled out with his coffee, mumbled good morning, and put it on the stone rail of the porch. He pushed the tray aside and sat down next to it, then emptied the coffee from the small, long-handled pot into his cup. The thick Turkish coffee would wake him up, in spite of the impossible hour. From the rail he had a view down the unpaved and dusty street to the port, already stirring to life. Two women, with the morning’s water in brass pots balanced on their heads, stopped to talk. The peasants were bringing in their produce for the morning market, baskets of cabbages and potatoes and trays of tomatoes, strapped onto tiny donkeys. One of them brayed, a harsh noise that sawed through the stillness of the morning, bouncing echoes from the yellowed buildings. It was hot already. Brbinj was a town at the edge of nowhere, located between empty ocean and barren hills, asleep for centuries and dying by degrees. There were no attractions here—if you did not count the sea. But under the flat, blue calm of the water was another world that Joze loved.

  Cool shadows, deep valleys, more alive than all the sun-blasted shores that surrounded it. Excitement, too: just the day before, too late in the afternoon to really explore it, he had found a Roman galley half-buried in the sand. He would get into it today, the first human in two thousand years, and Heaven alone knew what he would find there. In the sand about it had been shards of broken amphorae; there might be whole ones inside the hull.

  Sipping happily at his coffee, he watched the small boat tying up in the harbor, and wondered why the two fishermen were in such a hurry. They were almost running, and no one ran here in the summer. Stopping below his porch, the biggest one called up to him.

  “Doctor, may we come up? There is something urgent.”

  “Yes, of course.” He was surprised and wondered if they took him for a physician.

  Dragomir shuffled forward and did not know where to begin. He pointed out over the ocean.

  “It fell, out there last night, we saw it, a sputnik without a doubt?”

  “A traveler?” Joze Kukovic wrinkled his forehead, not quite sure that he heard right. When the locals were excited it was hard to follow their dialect. For such a small country Yugoslavia was cursed with a multitude of tongues.

  “No, it was not a putnik, but a sputnik, one of the Russian spaceships.”

  “Or an American one.” Pribislav spoke for the first time, but he was ignored.

  Joze smiled and sipped his coffee. “Are you sure it wasn’t a meteorite you saw? There is always a heavy meteor shower this time of the year.”

  “A sputnik,” Dragomir insisted stolidly. “The ship fell far out in the Jadransko More and vanished, we saw that. But the space pilot came down almost on top of us, into the water… .”

  “The WHAT?” Joze gasped, jumping to his feet and knocking the coffee tray to the floor. The brass tray clanged and rattled in circles unnoticed. “There was a man in this thing— and he got clear?”

  Both fishermen nodded at the same time and Dragomir continued. “We saw this light fall from the sputnik when it went overhead and drop into the water. We couldn’t see what it was, just a light, and we rowed there as fast as we could. It was still sinking and we dropped a net and managed to catch him….”

  “You have the pilot?”

  “No, but once we pulled him close enough to the surface to see that he was in a heavy suit, with a window like a diving suit, and there was something on the back that might have been like your tanks there.”

  “He waved his hand,” Pribislav insisted.

  “He might have waved a hand, we could not be sure. We came back for help.”

  The silence lengthened and Joze realized that he was the help that they needed, and that they had turned the responsibility over to him. What should he do first? The astronaut might have his own oxygen tanks, Joze had no real idea what provisions were made for water landings, but if there was oxygen the man might still be alive.

  Joze paced the floor while he thought, a short, square figure in khaki shorts and sandals. He was not handsome, his nose was too big and his teeth were too obvious for that, but he generated a certainty of power. He stopped and pointed to Pribislav.

  “We’re going to have to get him out. You can find the spot again?”

  “A buoy.”

  “Good. And we may need a doctor. You have none here, but is there one in Osor?”

  “Dr. Bratos, but he is very old. …”

  “As long as he is still alive, we’ll have to get him. Can anyone in this town drive an automobile?”

  The fishermen looked toward the roof and concentrated, while Joze controlled his impatience.

  “Yes, I think so,” Dragomir finally said. “Petar was a partisan.”

  “That’s right.” The other fisherman finished the thought. “He has told many times how they stole German trucks and how he drove …”

  “Well, then one of you get this Petar and give him the keys to my car, it’s a German car so he should be able to manage. Tell him to bring the doctor back at once.”

  Dragomir took the keys, but handed them to Pribislav, who ran out.

  “Now let’s see if we can get the man up,” Joze said, grabbing his scuba gear and leading the way toward the boat.

  They rowed, side by side though Dragomir’s powerful stroke did most of the work.

  “How deep is the water out here?” Joze asked. He was already dripping with sweat as the sun burned on him.

  “The Kvarneric is deeper up by Rab, but we were fishing off Trstenilc and the bottom is only about four fathoms there. We’re coming to the buoy.”

  “Seven meters, it shouldn’t be too hard to find him.” Joze kneeled in the bottom of the boat and slipped into the straps of the scuba. He buckled it tight, checked the valves, then turned to the fisherman before he bit into the mouthpiece. “Keep the boat near this buoy and I’ll use it for a guide while I search. If I need a line or any help, I’ll surface over the astronaut, then you can bring the boat to me.”

  He turned on the oxygen and dipped over the side, the cool water rising up his body as he sank below the surface. With a powerful kick he started toward the bottom, following the dropping line of the buoy rope. Almost at once he saw the man, spread-eagled on white sand below.

  Joze swam down, making himself stroke smoothly in spite of his growing excitement. Details were clearer as he dropped lower. There were no identifying marks on the pressure suit; it might be either American or Russian. It was a hard suit, metal or reinforced plastic, and painted green, with a single, flat faceplate in the helmet.

  Because distance and size are so deceptive underwater, Joze was on the sand next to the figure before he realized that it was less than four feet long. He gasped and almost lost his mouthpiece.

  Then he looked at the faceplate and saw that the creature inside was not human.

  Joze coughed a bit and blew out a stream of bubbles: he had been holding his breath without realizing it. He just floated there, paddling slowly with his hands to stay in a position, looking at the face within the helmet.

  It was still as a waxen cast, green wax with roughened surface, slit nostrils, slit mouth, and large eyeballs unseen but prominent as they pushed up against the closed lids. The arrangement of features was roughly human, but no human being had skin this color or had a pulpy crest, partially visible through the faceplate, growing up from above the closed eyes. Joze stared down at the suit made up of some unknown material, and at the compact atmosphere-regeneration apparatus on the alien’s back. What kind of atmosphere? He looked back at the creature and saw that the eyes were open and the thing was watching him.

  Fear was his first reaction; he shot back in the water like a startled fish, then, angry at himself, came forward again. The alien slowly raised one arm, then dropped it limply. Joze looked through the faceplate and saw that the eyes were closed again. The alien was alive, but unable to move; perhaps it was injured and in pain. The wreck of the creature’s ship showed that something had been wrong with the landing. Reaching under as gently as he could, he cradled the tiny body in his

  arms, trying to ignore a feeling of revulsion when the cold fabric of the thing’s suit touched his bare arms. It was only metal or plastic, he had to be a scientist about this. When he lifted it up, the eyes still did not open, and he bore the limp and almost weightless form to the surface.

  “You great stupid clumsy clod of peasant, help me,” he shouted, spitting out his mouthpiece and treading water on the surface, but Dragomir only shook his head in horror and retreated to the point of the bow when he saw what the physicist had borne up from below.

  “It is a creature from another world and cannot harm you!” Joze insisted, but the fisherman would not approach.

  Joze cursed aloud and only managed with great difficulty to get the alien into the boat, then climbed in after him. Though he was twice Joze’s size, threats of violence drove Dragomir to the oars. But he used the farthest set of tholepins, even though it made rowing much more difficult. Joze dropped his scuba gear into the bottom of the boat and looked more closely at the drying fabric of the alien space suit. His fear of the unknown was forgiven in his growing enthusiasm. He was a nuclear physicist but he remembered enough of his chemistry and mechanics to know that this material was completely impossible—by Earth’s standards.

  Light green, it was as hard as steel over the creature’s limbs and torso, yet was soft and bent easily at the joints as he proved by lifting and dropping the limp arm. His eyes went down the alien’s tiny figure: there was a thick harness about the middle, roughly where a human waist would be, and hanging from this was a bulky container, like an oversize sporran. The suiting continued without an apparent seam—but the right leg! It was squeezed in and crushed as though it had been grabbed by a giant pliers. Perhaps this explained the creature’s lack of motion. Could it be hurt? In pain?