The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

replied. “But the men have to go to school again, and they won’t be ready to come on for maybe three, four weeks. To change runs means unlearning stuff as well as learning it—”
    “What about new men?”
    “Don’t think Kelgarries isn’t out now beating the bushes for some! Only, we have to be fitted to the physical type we are supposed to represent. For instance, set a small, dark-headed pugnose among your Norse sea rovers, and he’s going to be noticed—maybe remembered too well. We can’t afford to take that chance. So Kelgarries had to discover men who not only look the part but are also temperamentally fitted for this job. You can’t plant a fellow who thinks as a seaman—not a seaman, you understand, but one whose mind works in that pattern—among a wandering tribe of cattle herders. The protection for the man and the project lies in his being fitted into the right spot at the right time.”
    Ross had never really thought of that point before. Now he realized that he and Ashe and McNeil were of a common mold. All about the same height, they shared brown hair and light eyes—Ashe’s blue, his own gray, and McNeil’s hazel—and they were of similar build, small-boned, lean, and quick-moving. He had not seen any of the true Beakermen except on the films. But now, recalling those, he could see that the three time traders were of the same general physical type as the far-roving people they used as a cover.
    It was on the morning of the fifth day while the three were studying a map Webb had produced that Kelgarries, followed at his own weighty pace by Millaird, burst in upon them.
    “We have it! This time we have the luck! The Reds slipped. Oh, how they slipped!”
    Webb watched the major, a thin little smile pulling at his pursed mouth. “Miracles sometimes do happen,” he remarked. “I suppose the sub has a fix for us.”
    Kelgarries passed over the flimsy strip of paper he had been waving as a banner of triumph. Webb read the notation on it and bent over the map, making a mark with one of those needle-sharp pencils which seemed to grow in his breast pocket, ready for use. Then he made a second mark.
    “Well, it narrows it a bit,” he conceded. Ashe looked in turn and laughed.
    “I would like to hear your definition of ‘narrow’ sometime, Miles. Remember we have to cover this on foot, and a difference of twenty miles can mean a lot.”
    “That mark is quite a bit in from the sea.” McNeil offered his own protest when he saw the marking. “We don’t know that country—”
    Webb shoved his glasses back for the hundredth time that morning. “I suppose we could consider this critical, condition red,” he said in such a dubious tone that he might have been begging someone to protest his statement. But no one did. Millaird was busy with the map.
    “I think we do, Miles!” He looked to Ashe. “You’ll parachute in. The packs with which you will be equipped are special stuff. Once you have them off sprinkle them with a powder Miles will provide and in ten minutes there won’t be enough of them left for anyone to identify. We haven’t but a dozen of these, and we can’t throw them away except in a crisis. Find the base and rig up the detector. Your fix in this time will be easy—but it is the other end of the line we must have. Until you locate that, stick to the job. Don’t communicate with us until you have it!”
    “There is the possibility,” Ashe pointed out, “the Reds may have more than one intermediate post. They probably have played it smart and set up a series of them to spoil a direct trace, as each would lead only to another farther back in time—”
    “All right. If that proves true, just get us the next one back,” Millaird returned. “From that we can trace them along if we must send in some of the boys wearing dinosaur skins later. We have to find their primary base, and if that hunt goes the hard way, well, we do it the hard way.”
    “How did you get the fix?” McNeil asked.
    “One of their field parties ran into trouble and yelled for help.”
    “Did they get it?”
    The major grinned. “What do you think? You know the rules—and the ones the Reds play by are twice as tough on their own men.”
    “What kind of trouble?” Ashe wanted to know.
    “Some kind of a local religious dispute. We do our best with their code, but we’re not a hundred per cent perfect in reading it. I gather they were playing with a local god and got their fingers