Clifford D. Simak

“ Some night, fire or no fire, a herd of mastodon will come busting in here and if they ever hit the helicopter, we'll be dead ducks. It wouldn't take more than just five seconds to turn us into Robinson Crusoes of the Pleistocene."
"Well, now that this recognition thing has petered out on us," said Adams, "maybe we can get down to business."
"Trouble is," Cooper answered, "we spent about the last of our money on the chain saw to cut this wood and on Chuck's trip to Washington. To build a stockade, we need a tractor. We'd kill ourselves if we tried to rassle that many logs bare-handed." ”

“ Hudson sat before the burned-out campfire and held his blistered hands before him.
It should work, he thought, better than the logs—and less dangerous.
Grab a handful of sand. Some trickled back between your fingers, but most stayed in your grasp. That was the principle of the pyramid of stones. When—and if—the time machine should work, most of the rocks would go along.
Those that didn't go would simply trickle out and do no harm. There'd be no stress or strain to upset the working of the force-field.
And if the time unit didn't work? ”

“ He thought of the bull session back in university and the little, usually silent kid who sat quietly in the corner, a law-school student whose last name had been Pritchard.
And after sitting silently for some time, this Pritchard kid had spoken up: "If you guys ever do travel in time, you'll run up against more than you bargain for. I don't mean the climate or the terrain or the fauna, but the economics and the politics."
They all jeered at him, Hudson remembered, and then had gone on with their talk. And after a short while, the talk had turned to women, as it always did. ”

“ The question which faces us here is an immediate one. Do we give all this up or do we keep on watching that Wisconsin farm, waiting for them to come back? Do we keep on trying to find, independently, the process or formula or method that Adams found for traveling in time?"
"We've had no luck in our research so far, General," said the quiet physicist who sat at the table's end. "If you were not so sure and if the evidence were not so convincing that it had been done by Adams, I'd say flatly that it is impossible. We have no approach which holds any hope at all. ”

“ Here they were separated by a hundred and fifty thousand years.
Wes Adams was the lucky one so far. Even playing his thousand-to-one shot, he still held tightly to a purpose, feeble as it might be—the hope that he could repair the time machine.
We don't need to watch him now, thought Hudson. The time we'll have to watch is when he is forced to admit he can't fix the machine.
And both Hudson and Cooper had been kept sane enough, for there had been the cabin to be built and the winter's supply of wood to cut and the hunting to be done. ”

“ That's what scares me the most about those films I lost. Someone will find them and they may guess what it's all about, but I'm hoping they either won't believe it or can't manage to trace us."
"We could swear the hunting parties to secrecy," said Cooper.
"How could a sportsman keep still about the mounted head of a saber-tooth or a record piece of ivory?" And the same thing would apply to anyone we approached. Some university could raise dough to send a team of scientists back here and a movie company would cough up plenty to use this place as a location for a caveman epic. ”

“ There may be, as a matter of fact, more ways than one. We'd like to keep on trying."
"Not one word of blame has been put on you for your failure," the chairman told the physicist. "That you could do it seems to be more than can be humanly expected. If Adams did it—if he did, I say—it must have been simply that he blundered on an avenue of research no other man has thought of."
"You will recall," said the general, "that the research program, even from the first, was thought of strictly as a gamble. Our one hope was, and must remain, that they will return." ”

“ We could make our own laws and regulations and be able to enforce them. We could bring in settlers and establish trade. We could exploit our natural resources. It would all be legal and aboveboard. We could tell who we were and where we were and what we had to offer."
"We aren't licked yet," said Adams. "There's a lot that we can do. Those river hills are covered with ginseng. We can each dig a dozen pounds a day. There's good money in the root."
"Ginseng root," Cooper said, "is peanuts. We need big money."
"Or we could trap," offered Adams. "The place is alive with beaver." ”

“ Sanctuary—that had been what Hudson had offered the then-secretary of state fifteen years ago—and the idiot had frozen up with the insult of it and had Hudson thrown out.
And if war did not come, think of the living space and the vast new opportunities—not the least of which would be the opportunity to achieve peaceful living in a virgin world, where the old hatreds would slough off and new concepts have a chance to grow. ”

“ Cooper looked as discouraged as Hudson felt.
"How does this sound?" asked Adams. "We'll build a platform twelve feet high. That certainly should be enough to clear us and yet small enough to stay within the range of the unit's force-field."
"And what if we're two feet higher here?" Hudson pointed out.
"A fall of fourteen feet wouldn't kill a man unless he's plain unlucky." ”

“ What if Chuck can't get back? They might throw him in jail or something might happen to the time unit or the helicopter. We should have gone along."
"We had to stay," Adams said. "You know what would happen to this camp and our supplies if we weren't around here to guard them."
"The only thing that's given us any trouble is that old mastodon. If he comes around again, I'm going to take a skillet and bang him in the brisket."
"That isn't the only reason, either," said President Adams, "and you know it. We can't go deserting this nation now that we've created it. We have to keep possession. ”

“ With us, it's different. Ours is a private enterprise. You dreamed up the time unit and built it. The three of us chipped in to buy the helicopter. We've paid all of our expenses out of our own pockets. We never got a dime from anyone. What we found is ours."
"I hope you're right," said Adams uneasily.
Old Buster had moved out from the grove and was shuffling warily toward the camp. Adams picked up the rifle that lay across his knees.
"Wait," said Cooper sharply. "Maybe he's just bluffing. It would be a shame to plaster him; he's such a nice old guy."
Adams half raised the rifle. ”

“ It isn't just a matter of walking into Washington and getting recognition. They'll want to know about us, such as our population. What if Chuck has to tell them it's a total of three persons?"
Cooper shook his head. "He wouldn't answer that way, Wes. He'd duck the question or give them some diplomatic double-talk. After all, how can we be sure there are only three of us? We took over the whole continent, remember."
"You know well enough, Johnny, there are no other humans back here in North America. The farthest back any scientist will place the migrations from Asia is 30,000 years. ”

“ We just go out and cut some logs."
"A twelve-foot log is heavy. And how are we going to get that big a log uphill?"
"We drag it."
"We try to, you mean."
"Maybe we could fix up a cart," said Adams, after thinking a moment.
"Out of what?" Cooper asked.
"Rollers, maybe. We could cut some and roll the logs up here."
"That would work on level ground," Hudson said. "It wouldn't work to roll a log uphill. It would get away from us. Someone might get killed."
"The logs would have to be longer than twelve feet, anyhow," Cooper put in. "You'd have to set them in a hole and that takes away some footage." ”

“ Calmly, without a word, Adams put a bullet into the head of the saber-tooth.
V
General Leslie Bowers rose from his chair and paced up and down the room. He stopped to bang the conference table with a knotted fist.
"You can't do it," he bawled at them. "You can't kill the project. I know there's something to it. We can't give it up!"
"But it's been ten years, General," said the secretary of the army. "If they were coming back, they'd be here by now." ”

“ And we can't make him swallow it when we say that it's okay, we don't mind at all."
"That's a lot to swallow, Johnny."
"What's going to happen to us, Chuck?"
"We've got ourselves a place to live and there's lots to eat. Save our ammo for the big game—a lot of eating for each bullet—and trap the smaller animals."
"I'm wondering what will happen when the flour and all the other stuff is gone. We don't have too much of it because we always figured we could bring in more."
"We'll live on meat," said Hudson. "We got bison by the million. The plains Indians lived on them alone. ”

“ I've spent the last ten years with it. As you say, I'm trying to make up for what I failed to do ten years ago. I should have talked to Hudson. I was busy, sure, but not that busy. It's an official state of mind that we're too busy to see anyone and I plead guilty on that score. And now that you're talking about closing the project—"
"It's costing us money," said the army secretary.
"And we have no direct evidence," pointed out the JCS chairman.
"I don't know what you want," snapped the general. "If there was any man alive who could crack time, that man was Wesley Adams. ”

“ But if they did, they would be working against the sure and certain knowledge that it all would come to naught, for they knew in advance that no such pyramid existed in historic time.
Or they might set out to seek contemporary Man, hiking across four thousand miles of wilderness to Bering Strait and over into Asia. And having found contemporary Man cowering in his caves, they might be able to help him immeasurably along the road to his great inheritance. ”

“ You still could go to some industry or some university or the government and if you could persuade them you had something on the ball—why, then, they might put up the cash after cutting themselves in on just about all of the profits. And, naturally, they'd run the show because it was their money and all you had done was the sweating and the bleeding. ”

“ And if the worst should come—which it never would with a setup like that—you'd have a place to which the entire nation could retreat, leaving to the enemy the empty, blasted cities and the lethally dusted countryside. ”

“ The JCS chairman said, "It checks, sir, with everything we know."
"But it's incredible!" the President said.
"They're afraid," said the CIA chief. "They lie awake nights. They've become convinced that we're on the verge of traveling in time. They've tried and failed, but they think we're near success. To their way of thinking, they've got to hit us now or never, because once we actually get time travel, they know their number's up."
"But we dropped Project Mastodon entirely almost three years ago. It's been all of ten years since we stopped the research. ”

“ We got to keep an eye on him."
"Let's take a rest," panted Hudson.
They halted and lowered the deer to the ground.
"He blames himself too much," said Cooper. He wiped his sweaty forehead. "There isn't any need to. All of us walked into this with our eyes wide open."
"He's kidding himself and he knows it, but it gives him something to go on. As long as he can keep busy with all his puttering around, he'll be all right."
"He isn't going to repair the time unit, Chuck." ”

“ But the thought occurs that any planet has only a certain grand total of natural resources. If we go into the past and exploit them, what effect will that have upon what is left of those resources for use in the present? ”

“ Adams suggested.
"We'll have to," Cooper said. "There are sportsmen up ahead who'd fork over ten thousand bucks easy for two weeks of hunting here. But before we could sell them on it, we'd have to show them movies. That scene with the saber-tooth would cinch it."
"If it didn't scare them off," Hudson pointed out. "The last few feet showed nothing but the inside of his throat."
Ex-ambassador Hudson looked unhappy. "I don't like the whole setup. As soon as we bring someone in, the news is sure to leak. ”

“ And on the home front, you'd have air-raid shelters that would be effective. You'd evacuate your population not in space, but time. You'd have the sure and absolute defense against any kind of bombing—fission, fusion, bacteriological or whatever else the labs had in stock. ”