Nonetheless, when he spoke it was in a neutral tone. ‘Still, Indians fought among themselves before the white man came. And my name is Peter Caxton.’

  He was watching her closely as he spoke. But if she recognised the name, it did not show in her back, her neck, or in the way she held her head.

  Caxton felt baffled.

  But this, he decided, was not the moment for such minor matters. He was the villain of this tragedy - that was what counted. That was what he must, somehow, counterbalance.

  ‘Miss Selanie,’ he began haltingly, ‘I seem to have made a grave error in judgement. Not only have I committed a harmful act against you and your father, but evidently I myself was duped into believing that -’

  He was cut off. ‘Mr Caxton,’ said the woman, ‘I would rather you didn’t apologise. When I look over the situation which you have created, I can see what a man will eventually expect from it, and I wish to make it very clear, Mr Caxton, that your cells somehow reflect a lower-grade body condition, and therefore you and I - here - shall never have a personal relationship. Is that understood?’

  It was so direct and unexpected that Caxton turned pale. Before he could recover from the impact of her words, or, more important, consider the meaning of what she had said, she turned and walked rapidly down the hill.

  Watching her, a fear came that she would go inside the trailer and lock the door on him. And she and her father would drive away, leaving him here on this lonely prairie. He began to run down the slope after her. She must have heard him, for she slowed. He passed her at a dead run. And so he reached the door first. With an enormous inward effort, he controlled that sudden terror, controlled it enough so that he opened the door, and held it for her, and then, still breathing hard from the unaccustomed exercise, stepped in behind her. Safe.

  He was ashamed of himself then. But that emotion merely superimposed itself on the remnants of his sudden fear. There was a stool in the middle room opposite the door and Caxton sat down on it, struggling for more control of his trembling body.

  He assured himself that they didn’t seem afraid of him. And that was amazing, because for all they knew he was a criminal. No fear, no anxiety, no concern that he might do them more damage. The girl seemed to accept him as a gentlemanly sort, one who could be controlled by a woman’s rejection.

  Caxton visualised the three of them alone here in this wild, pre-white America for thirty more years; and during that whole time, presumably, she would be an untouchable queen and he would be the unworthy peasant who had better not aspire.

  An undeterminable number of minutes went by, and the seethe of emotions in him would not subside. During that time the girl came through the middle room several times. On each occasion she glanced at him and said nothing. And each time, when she was gone, he was aware of the sound of cooking utensils loud and clear within inches, it seemed, of his eardrums.

  Finally the girl came out. ‘Dinner, Mr Caxton,’ she said.

  He went forward without a word. And there was the tiny table of the trailer set for three. Selanie motioned him to squeeze in at the far end. They ate silently. The father sat opposite Caxton, but stared at the wall beyond him, eating silently. The girl sat, apparently at ease as she ate. And Caxton was halfway through the meal before he realised that another set of thoughts was rushing in the usual disordered way through his mind.

  First thought. Dinner! Is it that late? He recalled having seen the sun when he was on the hilltop with the girl, but he could not remember where in the sky it had been. From the greenness of the grass and the trees, he guessed it was middle or late spring, and a warm day; so the sun would be describing its arc virtually at the zenith. Therefore, when they were out, it should have been sinking toward the west.

  Okay, he thought wearily, so I remain the world’s worst observer. I’m the guy that’s always in such a dither that it doesn’t really matter whether it’s day or night, raining or shining…. Except, he realised ruefully, he would now have plenty of time to observe such minutiae of nature.

  Years, in fact decades - but a limited number of those. Because, of course - he laughed a silent, grim, deep-inside laugh -this was the end of the quest for immortality of Peter D. (for donkey) Caxton. He wondered if Bustaman had known that this trailer could go into time earlier than the Palace of Immortality time fold. It was hard to believe that because the fact was that Bustaman did need new associates. His was a pretty small group, consisting apparently of one person: himself.

  Dinner ended slightly less silently than it had begun. As Selanie started to clear the dishes off into a tiny sink, Caxton came to, and asked, ‘May I help?’

  But she refused him with a shake of her pretty head, and a ‘No thank you, Mr Caxton. Your room is at the rear of the trailer, and I would appreciate it if you would go there or outside.’

  Since he wasn’t about to go outside, Caxton retreated to the rear room and there found that a wall cot had been folded down into the only space left in that crowded room. The door of that room, fortunately, was a sliding type, and so he quickly sealed himself in, wondering what the breathing facilities were in such a narrow space. They were perfect, and silent.

  His own experience with pumped-in air was that the fan made at very least a faint hissing noise. Curious, he began a tentative search for the ventilation system, but though he could feel a movement of air through the room, it was not directional, enough for its source to be located in such a small space.

  Presently, he lay down on the cot, and thought of taking an after-dinner nap. But as he sprawled, hopefully waiting for sleep, he suddenly remembered they had had steak for dinner: there would be a limited amount of that; and then he would have to become the hunter and meal provider. What happens then, he thought, my fair lady, to your aloofness when I am man, the provider, in a primitive world?

  That’s how it all started, baby. In those (these?) days, food was hard to get, and the human females attached themselves to men who could go out there and get it. You mean to tell me you think I’ll make all that effort, and not have female companionship as my just reward? If you do, you -

  That was as far as he got. At that point, from the near distance - not inside the trailer - he heard a sharp, cracking sound. It took a moment, because he was not accustomed to the sound; it took a long moment before he realised what it was: Gunshot!

  Caxton sat up, swung his legs off the cot and knocked over two boxes. Their contents tumbled around him, as he searched under the cot for his shoes. Finally he had the shoes on, unlaced. Up he stood, and stepped across the cot to the door. Forgetting it was a sliding door, he fought what he kept thinking was the latch.

  Then he had the door open and he ran awkwardly, with his untied shoelaces interfering, through the next room and the outer door - which was shut. Opening it, he was relieved to see that it was still light outside, a kind of bright twilight.

  Coming toward him, along what would later - much later - be Piffer’s Road, was Selanie. In her left hand she carried a rifle and in her right, swinging by the legs with head hanging, was a bird about the size of a large pigeon, except that it was brownish in color. Caxton, who was extremely vague about which birds were which, nevertheless guessed that this particular specimen was a partridge or a prairie chicken, or perhaps even a type of pheasant.

  As the girl came up to him, she held the creature forward for him to inspect. ‘I saw it come down from the sky and land near a clump of bushes,’ she said in a cheerful voice, ‘so I sneaked up on it - and we’ll all have a bite or two for breakfast.’

  She added in the same happy voice, ‘I’ve appointed myself huntress, cook, and food provider in general. That should keep me busy.’

  ‘B-but.’ Caxton had seated himself on the grass and was tying his shoes. ‘But what do I do?’

  The girl shrugged her slender shoulders. ‘Men like you tend toward philosophy,’ she said. ‘Kind of low-level, kind of endless, think-think, but still, it’s in the frame. Just keep on doing it,’ she finished.

  Having uttered the casual judgement and consigned him to a future of introspection, she walked on into the trailer. Since the door stayed open, Caxton remained where he was.

  It had become darker during those few minutes, and the stars were visible in the sky in increasing numbers. As he lay back and looked up at them, a coyote howled in the distance. Caxton, who in his life had never heard a coyote, nevertheless recognised the cry from descriptions he had read. What startled him was that the animal was undoubtedly only making its sound, but to his ears, and to something in his brain, it sounded deeply mournful.

  For the first time he recalled something that a friend - no. He consciously corrected the term: an acquaintance (he had no friends) - had once told him: that there were no really dangerous animals in North America. Be wary of bears, which meant, simply, turn aside and stay clear… and there was nothing else. Cougars did not seek men; men sought them. And the animal had such a peculiar, friendly interest in human beings that it would hold still to be murdered. Step away from rattlesnakes; don’t get in the path of a rampaging herd of buffalo - and that was it. Nothing else on the entire continent was ordinarily dangerous to a human adult.

  Okay, he thought in irritation, so I was philosophising; so I don’t change her mind by being the big, successful hunter and killer.

  Back on his cot, finally, he realised he was relieved.

  And that was their - his - first day in the mid-seventeenth century of what would one day be the United States.

  Day two!

  After breakfast, which Caxton ate silently, he went to his room since he was still unwilling to trust himself outside while they were in, and lay down on the cot to consider what he should do with his time. The minutes went by, and he couldn’t think of anything. Oh, a conversation or two with Mr Johns: how did the glove work? How had it damaged him? How come Caxton was not damaged when he was grabbed by the elbow with the same type of glove?

  A few other questions occurred to him as the day wore on, and he continued to lie there: what was known about the Palace of Immortality? How long had the Possessors been there?

  And that was all. And they were abstract questions now; for the time fold was up there in the future, and out of their reach. Any question about that was academic, would be interesting only because he had a strong curiosity. But no reply that either Johns or his daughter could give had a practical application.

  Caxton visualised a future consisting of five, maybe six, conversations with Johns, and an occasional insult from Selanie; and he was appalled… . Boy, he thought, there’s got to be sex. Without that, I’ll kill myself.

  With that thought, about midafternoon, he bestirred himself and went out of his room in search of the girl. The outer door was open; and he found that Johns had taken a metal chair of an odd kind, and was settling into it in the shade beside the trailer. What was odd about the chair was not obvious to Caxton, but Johns was reading and leaning back, and the chair was tilted so that he could do so comfortably. Caxton decided he would have to look that over to see the mechanical ingenuity of it. But that was for later.

  What he said was, ‘Where’s your daughter?’

  ‘She went hunting,’ Johns said casually; but his body moved in a way which indicated that he didn’t wish to be disturbed. His gaze remained glued to the book.

  Hunting? Caxton walked past the seated man, on up the hill. The picture of the girl out there somewhere, alone, made him uneasy. By the time he had that thought, he was at the top of the shallow rise and gazing out over those distances. Though he scanned the horizon far and near, he couldn’t see her anywhere.

  At first, he tried to analyse his inability to notice her small, undoubtedly moving figure, as a problem in perspective. It was like being in a car looking for a parking space. At even a relatively near point, one often could not see that there were, in fact, two or three spaces available ahead. In the same way, there were, as he recalled it, small valleys, beginning a mile or so away, and many more valleys further on, that were invisible from where he stood.

  She may have found a stream in one of those valleys, and be walking along it, trusting, he presumed, to some superior weapon that she carried, to protect her from any marauding band of Indians. What bothered him was that if Indians caught sight of her, they would most likely ambush her; and before she could even grab her weapon, would silently and from behind grab her and by achieving an instant overwhelm, make their capture.

  He took off his coat, laid it on the grass and sat down beside it to watch for the girl. The sun sank lower in the sky, but not once did the girl emerge from one of the valleys. After at least an hour he began to doubt his memory … he did actually wander considerable distances. Maybe those valleys were much farther away than he believed, when he was exploring them in the twentieth and twenty-fifth centuries.

  Presently the situation became incredible again. Because he could see a good five to eight miles in every direction - would she have walked that far?

  Anxiously, Caxton called down to Johns. ‘I can’t see your daughter anywhere, sir.’

  ‘Oh, she took her bike,’ Johns called back, ‘and she’s wearing her Fly-O; so she’s all right.’ Having spoken, he returned to his reading.

  Caxton felt deflated. Of course. How could he have forgotten? These people had had access to the remote future. The ‘bike’ as probably as silent as the Fly-O, and maybe it too could fly.

  He stood up. He put on his coat and walked down the hill, and so back to the trailer and his room. It was about an hour after that that he heard her voice. Instantly relieved, but also curious, Caxton hurried to the door. Standing in it, he saw the ‘bike’. It was a three-wheeled device, and Selanie, wearing shorts, a halter, and a Fly-O, sat astride one part of it. At the moment that Caxton saw the thing, it was still several feet above the ground; and clearly, it could fly. As he watched, the machine settled gracefully to the grass. Selanie got off, and now the closed-off part of the bike lifted up to reveal a capacious interior, which contained - as she took them out one by one - seven ducks, three more prairie chickens of the type he had seen the night before, and five rabbits.

  Leaving the day’s hunt lying on the ground, Selanie wheeled the machine toward the rear of the trailer and did three things. She pressed a button on the trailer, for an opening appeared in the trailer wall. Another button, and the bike began to fold itself. It was an amazing performance of folding, for in about a minute it had become a compact structure of flat surfaces folded against each other, and its total size seemed to be about two feet at its thickest. This structure Selanie lifted, as if it weighed nothing, into the recess that had opened in the trailer; which, as she drew back, closed, leaving only the faintest visible line.

  She walked briskly back to where Caxton was gathering up the dead birds and rabbits. ‘Take them into the foreward storeroom’, she commanded. ‘I’ll clean them after dinner.’

  ‘I’ll be glad to help,’ Caxton said.

  But she rejected the offer with a curt shake of her head

  And that was the second day.

  The next morning, when Caxton awakened, the trailer was in motion.

  XXII

  All the time he was dressing, Caxton had to brace himself to keep from losing his balance. He went forward at last, and found father and daughter in the cab, Selanie driving.

  The trailer he saw, was moving slowly over relatively flat prairie - but it was not flat enough. Caxton settled awkwardly into the rear seat; several minutes went by before the woman saw him. Instantly, she took her foot off the accelerator and the big trailer came to a bumpy stop.

  Selanie said, ‘You asked me the other day what you could do, Mr Caxton. I’d like you to drive while I make breakfast.’

  It seemed like the first sign of improvement in their relationship. … As she crawled over the seat to where he was, he put his hand on her shoulder to steady her … and she made no comment. He removed the hand quickly the moment she was beside him. Then he stepped over into the driver’s seat, and slid behind the wheel, searching the dashboard for the familiar mechanical devices of an automobile cab.

  Since, except for the steering wheel, everything looked different, they had to show him. There were eight foot pedals but he was soon able to put his foot lightly on the two that mattered: the brake and the accelerator. What the other pedals were for, he was not told; and he didn’t experiment. Selanie left as soon as his driving lesson was completed; and Caxton found himself with her father in the seat beside him, and ahead of them a world without a single road, and moment by moment the need to make one decision after another as to what was the best pathless pathway for the big machine. He had had a vague idea of questioning Mr Johns, but that was virtually impossible. All his attention and energy was needed for the task of driving.

  Yet he finally managed to gasp, ‘Where are we going?’

  The lean Johns shook his head. ‘You’ll have to ask Selanie,’ he said. ‘It was her idea.’

  Some minutes later when they stopped for breakfast, Caxton had time to consider that. He thought then that this girl was quite a dominant type. The fact was, there were two men here who were not even being asked their opinions - on anything!

  But at breakfast he asked, first, a question that had struck him when the purpose of the pedals was being explained.

  ‘Can this trailer fly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Caxton was amazed. ‘Then why aren’t we flying?’

  ‘Because we have, unfortunately, a limited power supply.’ There was suddenly red color in her cheeks. ‘It’s the one thing that I permitted a man - my father - to look after; but for some reason or other he kept neglecting to get a refill unit, trusting, I’m sure, to what he considered to be our perfect defensive position; not thinking of Bustaman persuading somebody like you to act against us. So here we are with power enough for two days of flying or about a year of driving.’