Find the Feathered Serpent полностью

He turned again to Neil and seized him by the shoulders with his big hands. “You’re sure, Neil?”

“I’d like to, Erik. But. . “

“Well, enough, then,” Erik said, a smile brightened his face. “A man has his own duties. Get home safely, my friend.”

“Good luck, Erik.”

The Norseman whirled and clambered up the side of the ship. Several sailors on the beach put their shoulders against the bow of the ship, pushing hard against it until the vessel floated free in the water. They scampered up the sides as the oars lifted into the air and pulled against the sand in the low water.

Slowly the ship edged away from the beach. The Norsemen shouted good-bys at the Mayas, and the Mayas wished them well, waving at them, bidding the gods to treat them gently.

Erik stood in the glare of the afternoon sun, his head bare, his hair and his beard glistening like molten gold. He stood tall and erect, a proud figure in command of a valiant crew.

He waved once at Neil as the ship moved away.

Then the oars pulled against the water and the sail billowed out, and the ship became smaller and smaller, until it was lost at last in the blue expanse of limitless ocean.

Neil stood watching the sea long after the ship had disappeared beyond the horizon.

The days were lonelier now that Erik and his Norsemen were gone. Neil wandered aimlessly about the city, watching the Mayas in their daily chores. Dave, he knew, was busy on the time machine, and he didn’t want to disturb him.

The thought of getting home had become a pressing weight that he carried on his back, for under it all was the recurring thought that they might never reach home. Considering this deeply and anxious to see how the machine was coming along, Neil went to the place where Dave was working.

The machine looked much better now. The twisted rotors were straight, ready to carry the machine into the air. Dave had patched the shattered part of the lower bubble with deerskin, and the control room had taken on a semblance of unity and efficiency again.

Dave, however, looked sad.

“What’s the trouble?” Neil asked. “Something can’t be fixed?”

“That’s just it,” Dave answered. “I’ve fixed everything that can be fixed. The machine should be ready to leave any time.”

“Well, that’s wonder…”

“I said it should be ready.”

“I don’t understand. You said you’d fixed everything that could be fixed.”

“That’s just it. There’s a part missing.”

“A… part… missing,” Neil repeated blankly.

“Look, Neil, I don’t know how much you understand about the operation of the machine.”

“Not very much,” Neil admitted.

“Well, I’ll try to give you a quick briefing. You see, when your father discovered the temporium crystal, he also discovered that it had rather peculiar qualities.

“To explain these qualities briefly, let’s just say that a high frequency, low voltage current of electricity, when applied to two opposing facets of the crystal, will cause the crystal to travel in time.”

“I’m afraid you lost me back there,” Neil admitted.

Dave wiped his hand across his forehead. “Let’s look at it this way. We’ll assume, and this is all guesswork you understand, that time is really alternating, or oscillating back and forth at a high rate of speed. Do you follow?”

“I think so.”

“All right. Let’s assume further that all normal matter-you, me, a house, a rock-has a slight resistance in one direction to this oscillation. Something like the crystal detectors of the first radios had to alternating current.”

“I think I understand. Go on.”

“This resistance allows matter to be pushed slowly through time in one direction; the direction being from past to present to future.”

“I see,” Neil said. “This has nothing to do with the time machine, really. It’s just a theory on time and matter.”

“Well, yes and no. It’s a theory, yes, but it also can help explain the time crystal.”

“Go on.”

“Well, we’ve discovered that with the iodine salt of temporium-with temporium iodide, in other words- we can control this resistance of matter to time. In other words, we can make matter move through time more swiftly.”

“Now we’re getting down to the time machine.”

“Right,” Dave said. “We’ve found that by applying electricity to the facets on the short sides of the crystal we can move the crystal forward in time. If the crystal’s long sides are given the juice, it will move backward. In short, the crystal will travel.”

“But what about the machine? How does that travel?”

“Well, the effect of the crystal seems to spread out beyond the crystal. It’s sort of like a sphere with the crystal as a nucleus. Incidentally, that’s why the machine has helicopter rotors.”

“Why?” Neil asked.

“If we took off from the ground, the crystal would try to take the ground with it. It isn’t powerful enough to lift that much weight, though, so it would simply blow a fuse.”

“I get it,” Neil said. “This way, we go into the air first, and then activate the crystal. It doesn’t matter if we carry air along with us.”

“Exactly.”

“So what’s the problem?” Neil asked.