The Time Traders | Page 7

again until it touched Kelgarries' arm; then it flexed a little as if the hand under it was trying to grip.
"Safe--?"
"You bet you are!" The major's tone carried firm reassurance. Now Kelgarries looked up at Ross as if he knew the other had been there all the time.
"Murdock, get down to the end room. Call Dr. Farrell!"
"Yes, sir!" The "sir" came so automatically that Ross had already reached the end room before he realized he had used it.
Nobody explained matters to Ross Murdock. The bandaged Hardy was claimed by the doctor and two attendants and carried away, the major walking beside the stretcher, still holding one of the mittened hands in his. Ross hesitated, sure he was not supposed to follow, but not ready either to explore farther or return to his own room. The sight of Hardy, whoever he might be, had radically changed Ross's conception of the project he had too speedily volunteered to join.
That what they did here was important, Ross had never doubted. That it was dangerous, he had early suspected. But his awareness had been an abstract concept of danger, not connected with such concrete evidence as Hardy crawling through the dark. From the first, Ross had nursed vague plans for escape; now he knew he must get out of this place lest he end up a twin for Hardy.
"Murdock?"
Having heard no warning sound from behind, Ross whirled, ready to use his fists, his only weapons. But he did not face the major, or any of the other taciturn men he knew held positions of authority. The newcomer's brown skin was startling against the neutral shade of the walls. His hair and brows were only a few shades darker; but the general sameness of color was relieved by the vivid blue of his eyes.
Expressionless, the dark stranger stood quietly, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, studying Ross, as if the younger man was some problem he had been assigned to solve. When he spoke, his voice was a monotone lacking any modulation of feeling.
"I am Ashe." He introduced himself baldly; he might have been saying "This is a table and that is a chair."
Ross's quick temper took spark from the other's indifference. "All right--so you're Ashe!" He strove to make a challenge of it. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
But the other did not rise to the bait. He shrugged. "For the time being we have been partnered----"
"Partnered for what?" demanded Ross, controlling his temper.
"We work in pairs here. The machine sorts us ..." he answered briefly and consulted his wrist watch. "Mess call soon."
Ashe had already turned away, and Ross could not stand the other's lack of interest. While Murdock refused to ask questions of the major or any others on that side of the fence, surely he could get some information from a fellow "volunteer."
"What is this place, anyway?" he asked.
The other glanced back over his shoulder. "Operation Retrograde."
Ross swallowed his anger. "Okay, but what do they do here? Listen, I just saw a fellow who'd been banged up as if he'd been in a concrete mixer, creeping along this hall. What sort of work do they do here? And what do we have to do?"
To his amazement Ashe smiled, at least his lips quirked faintly. "Hardy got under your skin, eh? Well, we have our percentage of failures. They are as few as it's humanly possible to make, and they give us every advantage that can be worked out for us----"
"Failures at what?"
"Operation Retrograde."
Somewhere down the hall a buzzer gave a muted whirr.
"That's mess call. And I'm hungry, even if you're not." Ashe walked away as if Ross Murdock had ceased to exist.
But Ross Murdock did exist, and to him that was an important fact. As he trailed along behind Ashe he determined that he was going to continue to exist, in one piece and unharmed, Operation Retrograde or no Operation Retrograde. And he was going to pry a few enlightening answers out of somebody very soon.
To his surprise he found Ashe waiting for him at the door of a room from which came the sound of voices and a subdued clatter of trays and tableware.
"Not many in tonight," Ashe commented in a take-it-or-leave-it tone. "It's been a busy week."
The room was rather sparsely occupied. Five tables were empty, while the men gathered at the remaining two. Ross counted ten men, either already eating or coming back from a serving hatch with well-filled trays. All of them were dressed in slacks, shirt, and moccasins like himself--the outfit seemed to be a sort of undress uniform--and six of them were ordinary in physical appearance. The other four differed so radically that Ross could barely conceal his amazement.
Since their fellows accepted them without comment, Ross silently stole glances at them as he