Part 16 (2/2)
Stunned enough to accept anything he saw, Temple waited for the rope ladder to drop, grasped its end, climbed. He swung his legs over a sill, found himself in a neat little cabin with Arkalion, who hauled the ladder in and did something to the controls. They sped away.
Temple had one quick moment of lucid thought before everything which had happened in the last few moments shoved logic aside. What he had observed looked for all the world like a foot-race.
”Where the h.e.l.l _are_ we?” Temple demanded breathlessly.
Arkalion smiled. ”Where do you think? Journey's end. Welcome to Nowhere, Kit. Welcome to the place where all your questions can be answered because there's no going back. Sorry I set you down in that field by mistake, incidentally. Those things sometimes happen.”
”Can I just throw the questions at you?”
”If you wish. It isn't really necessary, for you will be indoctrinated when we get you over to Earth city where you belong.”
”What do you mean, there's no going back? I thought they had a rotation system which for one reason or another wasn't practical at the moment. That doesn't sound like no going back, ever.”
Arkalion grunted, shrugged. ”Have it your way. I _know_.”
”Sorry. Shoot.”
”Just how far do you think you have come?”
”Search me. Some other star system, maybe?”
”Maybe. Clean across the galaxy, Kit.”
Temple whistled softly. ”It isn't something you can grasp just by hearing it. Across the galaxy....”
”That isn't too important just now. How long did you think the journey took?”
Temple nodded eagerly. ”That's what gets me. It was amazing, Alaric.
Really amazing. The whole trip couldn't have taken more than a moment or two. I don't get it. Did we slip out of normal s.p.a.ce into some other--uh, continuum, and speed across the length of the galaxy like that?”
”The answer to your question is yes. But your statement is way off.
The journey did not take seconds, Kit.”
”No? Instantaneous?”
”Far more than seconds. To reach here from Earth you travelled five thousand years.”
”What?”
”More correctly, it was five thousand years ago that you left Mars.
You would need a time machine to return, and there is no such thing.
The Earth you know is the length of the galaxy and five thousand years behind you.”
CHAPTER VII
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