Wistfully, Pat said, “It would be nice. It’s been a long time since we’ve had food like that.”

  Masterson strode over. “Let’s kill her and boil her in a big kettle. Skinny old witch—she might make good soup.”

  “In the oven,” Flannery corrected. “Some gingerbread, to take along with us.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” Pat said apprehensively. “She’s so—well, maybe she is a witch. I mean, maybe that’s what witches were…old women with strange talents. Like her—being able to pass through time.”

  “Damn lucky for us,” Masterson said briefly.

  “But she doesn’t understand it. Does she? Does she know what she’s doing? That she could save us all this by sharing her ability. Does she know what’s happened to our world?” Flannery considered. “Probably she doesn’t know—or care. A mind like hers, business and profit—getting exorbitant rates from us, selling this stuff to us at an incredible premium. And the joke is that money’s worth nothing to us. If she could see, she’d know that. It’s just paper, in this world. But she’s caught in a narrow little routine. Business, profit.” He shook his head. “A mind like that, a warped, miserable flea-sized mind…and she has that unique talent.”

  “But she can see,” Pat persisted. “She can see the ash, the ruin. How can she not know?”

  Flannery shrugged. “She probably doesn’t connect it with her own life. After all, she’ll be dead in a couple of years…she won’t see the war in her real time. She’ll only see it this way, as a region into which she can travel. A sort of travelogue of strange lands. She can enter and leave—but we’re stuck. It must give you a damn fine sense of security to be able to walk out of one world, into another. God, what I’d give to be able to go back with her.”

  “It’s been tried,” Masterson pointed out. “That lizard-head Tellman tried it. And he came walking back, covered with ash. He said the truck faded out.”

  “Of course it did,” Flannery said mildly. “She drove it back to Walnut Creek. Back to 1965.”

  The unloading had been completed. The members of the colony were toiling up the slope, lugging the cartons to the check-area beneath the ship. Mrs. Berthelson strode over to Flannery, accompanied by Professor Crowley.

  “Here’s the inventory,” she said briskly. “A few items couldn’t be found. You know, I don’t stock all that in my store. I have to send out for most of it.”

  “We know,” Flannery said, coldly amused. It would be interesting to see a country store that stocked binocular microscopes, turret lathes, frozen packs of antibiotics, high-frequency radio transmitters, advanced text books in all fields.

  “So that’s why I have to charge you a little dearer,” the old woman continued, the inflexible routine of squeeze. “On items I bring in—” She examined her inventory, then returned the ten-page typewritten list that Crowley had given her on the previous visit. “Some of these weren’t available. I marked them back order. That bunch of metals from those laboratories back East—they said maybe later.” A cunning look slid over the ancient gray eyes. “And they’ll be very expensive.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Flannery said, handing her the money. “You can cancel all the back orders.”

  At first her face showed nothing. Only a vague inability to understand.

  “No more shipments,” Crowley explained. A certain tension faded from them; for the first time, they weren’t afraid of her. The old relationship had ended. They weren’t dependent on the rusty red truck. They had their shipment; they were ready to leave.

  “We’re taking off,” Flannery said, grinning starkly. “We’re full up.”

  Comprehension came. “But I placed orders for those things.” Her voice was thin, bleak. Without emotion. “They’ll be shipped to me. I’ll have to pay for them.”

  “Well,” Flannery said softly, “isn’t that too damn bad.”

  Crowley shot him a warning glance. “Sorry,” he said to the old woman. “We can’t stick around—this place is getting hot. We’ve got to take off.”

  On the withered face, dismay turned to growing wrath. “You ordered those things! You have to take them!” Her shrill voice rose to a screech of fury. “What am I supposed to do with them?”

  As Flannery framed his bitter answer, Pat Shelby intervened. “Mrs. Berthelson,” she said quietly, “you’ve done a lot for us, even if you wouldn’t help us through the hole in your time. And we’re very grateful. If it wasn’t for you, we couldn’t have got together enough supplies. But we really have to go.” She reached out her hand to touch the frail shoulder, but the old woman jerked furiously away. “I mean,” Pat finished awkwardly, “we can’t stay any longer, whether we want to or not. Do you see all that black ash?

  It’s radioactive, and more of it sifts down all the time. The toxic level is rising—if we stay any longer it’ll start destroying us.”

  Mrs. Edna Berthelson stood clutching her inventory list. There was an expression on her face that none of the group had ever seen before. The violent spasm of wrath had vanished; now a cold, chill glaze lay over the aged features. Her eyes were like gray rocks, utterly without feeling.

  Flannery wasn’t impressed. “Here’s your loot,” he said, thrusting out the handful of bills. “What the hell.” He turned to Crowley. “Let’s toss in the rest. Let’s stuff it down her goddamn throat.”

  “Shut up,” Crowley snapped.

  Flannery sank resentfully back. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Enough’s enough.” Crowley, worried and tense, tried to speak to the old woman. “My God, you can’t expect us to stay around here forever, can you?”

  There was no response. Abruptly, the old woman tinned and strode silently back to her truck.

  Masterson and Crowley looked uneasily at each other. “She sure is mad,” Masterson said apprehensively.

  Tellman hurried up, glanced at the old woman getting into her truck, and then bent down to root around in one of the cartons of groceries. Childish greed flushed across his thin face. “Look,” he gasped. “Coffee—fifteen pounds of it. Can we open some? Can we get one tin open, to celebrate?”

  “Sure,” Crowley said tonelessly, his eyes on the truck. With a muffled roar, the truck turned in a wide arc and rumbled off down the crude platform, toward the ash. It rolled off into the ash, slithered for a short distance, and then faded out. Only the bleak, sun-swept plain of darkness remained.

  “Coffee!” Tellman shouted gleefully. He tossed the bright metal can high in the air and clumsily caught it again. “A celebration! Our last night—last meal on Earth!”

  It was true.

  As the red pickup truck jogged metallically along the road, Mrs. Berthelson scanned “ahead” and saw that the men were telling the truth. Her thin lips writhed; in her mouth an acid taste of bile rose. She had taken it for granted that they would continue to buy—there was no competition, no other source of supply. But they were leaving. And when they left, there would be no more market.

  She would never find a market that satisfactory. It was a perfect market; the group was a perfect customer. In the locked box at the back of the store, hidden down under the reserve sacks of grain, was almost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A fortune, taken in over the months, received from the imprisoned colony as it toiled to construct its ship.

  And she had made it possible. She was responsible for letting them get away after all. Because of her short-sightedness, they were able to escape. She hadn’t used her head.

  As she drove back to town she meditated calmly, rationally. It was totally because of her: she was the only one who had possessed the power to bring them their supplies. Without her, they were helpless.

  Hopefully, she cast about, looking this way and that, peering with her deep inner sense, into the various “aheads.” There was more than one, of course. The “aheads” lay like a pattern of squares, an intricate web of worlds into which she could step, if she cared. But all were empty of what she wanted.

  All showed bleak plains of black ash, devoid of human habitation. What she wanted was lacking: they were each without customers.

  The patterns of “aheads” was complex. Sequences were connected like beads on a string; there were chains of “aheads” which formed interwoven links. One step led to the next…but not to alternate chains.

  Carefully, with great precision, she began the job of searching through each of the chains. There were many of them…a virtual infinity of possible “aheads.” And it ‘was her power to select; she had stepped into that one, the particular chain in which the huddled colony had labored to construct its ship. She had, by entering it, made it manifest. Frozen it into reality. Dredged it up from among the many, from among the multitude of possibilities.

  Now she needed to dredge another. That particular “ahead” had proven unsatisfactory. The market had petered out.

  The truck was entering the pleasant town of Walnut Creek, passing bright stores and houses and supermarkets, before she located it. There were so many, and her mind was old…but now she had picked it out. And as soon as she found it, she knew it was the one. Her innate business instinct certified it; the particular “ahead” clicked.

  Of the possibilities, this one was unique. The ship was well-built, and thoroughly tested. In “ahead” after “ahead” the ship rose, hesitated as automatic machinery locked, and then burst from the jacket of atmosphere, toward the morning star. In a few “aheads,” the wasted sequences of failure, the ship exploded into white-hot fragments. Those, she ignored; she saw no advantage in that.

  In a few “aheads” the ship failed to take off at all. The turbines lashed; exhaust poured out…and the ship remained as it was. But then the men scampered out, and began going over the turbines, searching for the faulty parts. So nothing was gained. In later segments along the chain, in subsequent links, the damage was repaired, and the takeoff was satisfactorily completed.

  But one chain was correct. Each element, each link, developed perfectly. The pressure-locks closed, and the ship was sealed. The turbines fired, and the ship, with a shudder, rose from the plain of black ash. Three miles up, the rear jets tore loose. The ship floundered, dropped in a screaming dive, and plunged back toward the Earth. Emergency landing jets, designed for Venus, were frantically thrown on. The ship slowed, hovered for an agonizing instant, and then crashed into the heap of rubble that had been Mount Diablo. There the remains of the ship lay, twisted metal sheets, smoking in the dismal silence.

  From the ship the men emerged, shaken and mute, to inspect the damage. To begin the miserable, futile task all over again. Collecting supplies, patching the rocket up…The old woman smiled to herself.

  That was what she wanted. That would do perfectly. And all she had to do—such a little thing—was select that sequence when she made her next trip. When she took her little business trip, the following Saturday.

  Crowley lay half buried in the black ash, pawing feebly at a deep gash in his cheek. A broken tooth throbbed. A thick ooze of blood dripped into his mouth, the hot salty taste of his own body-fluids leaking helplessly out. He tried to move his leg, but there was no sensation. Broken. His mind was too dazed, too bewildered with despair, to comprehend.

  Somewhere in the half-darkness, Flannery stirred. A woman groaned; scattered among the rocks and buckled sections of the ship lay the injured and dying. An upright shape rose, stumbled, and pitched over. An artificial fight flickered. It was Tellman, making his way clumsily over the tattered remains of their world. He gaped foolishly at Crowley; his glasses hung from one ear and part of his lower jaw was missing. Abruptly he collapsed face-forward into a smoking mound of supplies. His skinny body twitched aimlessly.

  Crowley managed to pull himself to his knees. Masterson’ was bending over him, saying something again and again. “I’m all right,” Crowley rasped.

  “We’re down. Wrecked.”

  “I know.”

  On Masterson’s shattered face glittered the first stirrings of hysteria. “Do you think—”

  “No,” Crowley muttered. “It isn’t possible.”

  Masterson began to giggle. Tears streaked the grime of his cheeks; drops of thick moisture dripped down his neck into his charred collar. “She did it. She fixed us. She wants us to stay here.”

  “No,” Crowley repeated. He shut out the thought. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. “We’ll get away,” he said. “We’ll assemble the remains—start over.”

  “She’ll be back,” Masterson quavered. “She knows we’ll be here waiting for her. Customers!”

  “No,” Crowley said. He didn’t believe it; he made himself not believe it. “We’ll get away. We’ve got to get away!”

  IF THERE WERE NO BENNY CEMOLI

  Scampering across the unplowed field the three boys shouted as they saw the ship; it had landed, all right, just where they expected, and they were the first to reach it.

  “Hey, that’s the biggest I ever saw!” Panting, the first boy halted. “That’s not from Mars; that’s from farther. It’s from all the way out, I know it is.” He became silent, afraid as he saw the size of it. And then looking up into the sky he realized that an armada had arrived, exactly as everyone had expected. “We better go tell,” he said to his companions.

  Back on the ridge, John LeConte stood by his steam-powered chauffeur-driven limousine, impatiently waiting for the boiler to warm. Kids got there first, he said to himself with anger. Whereas I’m supposed to. And the children were ragged; they were merely farm boys.

  “Is the phone working today?” LeConte asked his secretary.

  Glancing at his clipboard, Mr. Fall said, “Yes sir. Shall I put through a message to Oklahoma City?” He was the skinniest employee ever assigned to LeConte’s office; the man evidently took nothing for himself, was positively uninterested in food. And he was efficient.

  LeConte murmured, “The immigration people ought to hear about this outrage.” He sighed. It had all gone wrong; the armada from Proxima Centaurus had after ten years arrived and none of the early-warning devices had detected it in advance of its landing. Now Oklahoma City would have to deal with the outsiders here on home ground—a psychological-disadvantage which LeConte felt keenly.

  Look at the equipment they’ve got, he thought as he watched the commercial ships of the flotilla begin to lower their cargoes. Why, hell, they make us look like provincials. He wished that his official car did not need twenty minutes to warm up; he wished—

  Actually, he wished that CURB did not exist. Centaurus Urban Renewal Bureau, a do-gooding body unfortunately vested with enormous inter-system authority—it had been informed of the Misadventure back in 2170 and had started into space like a phototropic organism, sensitive to the mere physical light created by the hydrogen bomb explosions. But LeConte knew better than that; actually the governing organizations in the Centaurian system knew many details of the tragedy because they had been in radio contact with other planets of the Sol system. Little of the native forms on Earth had survived. He himself was from Mars; he had headed a relief mission seven years ago, had decided to stay because there were so many opportunities here on Earth, conditions being what they were…

  This is all very difficult, he said to himself as he stood waiting for his steam-powered car to warm. WE got here first, but CURB does outrank us; we must face that awkward fact. In my opinion, we’ve done a good job of rebuilding. Of course, it isn’t like it was before…but ten years is not long. Give us another twenty and we’ll have the trains running again. And our recent road-building bonds sold quite successfully, in fact were oversubscribed.

  “Call for you, sir, from Oklahoma City,” Mr. Fall said, holding out the receiver of the portable field-phone.

  “Ultimate Representative in the Field John LeConte, here,” LeConte said into it loudly. “Go ahead; I say go ahead.”

  “This is Party Headquarters,” the dry official voice at the other end came faintly, mixed with static, in his ear. “We’ve received reports from dozens of alert citizens in Western Oklahoma and Texas of an immense—”

  “It’s here,” LeConte said. “I can see it; I’m just about ready to go out and confer with its ranking members, and I’ll file a full report at the usual time. So it wasn’t necessary for you to check up on me.” He felt irritable.

  “Is the armada heavily armed?”

  “Naw,” LeConte said. “It appears to comprise bureaucrats and trade officials and commercial carriers. In other words, vultures.”

  The Party desk-man said, “Well, go and make certain they understand that their presence here is resented by the native population as well as the Relief of War-tom Areas Administrating Council. Tell them that the legislature will be called to pass a special bill expressing indignation at this intrusion into domestic matters by an inter-system body.”

  “I know, I know,” LeConte said. “It’s been all decided; I know.”

  His chauffeur called to him, “Sir, your car is ready, now.”

  The Party desk-man concluded, “Make certain they understand that you can’t negotiate with them; you have no power to admit them to Earth. Only the Council can do that and of course it’s adamantly against that.”

  LeConte hung up the phone and hurried to his car.

  Despite the opposition of the local authorities, Peter Hood of CURB decided to locate his headquarters in the mins of the old Terran capital, New York City. This would lend prestige to the CURBmen as they gradually widened the circle of the organization’s influence. At last, of course, the circle would embrace the planet. But that would take decades.