The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

demanded.
    Ashe shrugged. “How do they do the hundred and one things I have seen happen here? We’ve been teleported. How it’s done I don’t know any more than I did the first time it happened. Simply a part of Foanna ‘magic’ as far as spectators are concerned.” He sat down on a stool, his long legs stretched out before him. “Other worlds, other ways—even if they are confounded queer ones. As far as I know, there’s no reason for their power to work, but it does. Now, have you seen the time gate? Is it in working order?”
    Ross put down the now empty cup and sat down opposite Ashe. As concisely as he could, he outlined the situation with a quick résumé of all that had happened to him, Karara, and the dolphins since they had been sucked through the gate. Ashe asked no questions, but his expression was that of the Agent Ross had known, evaluating and listing all the younger man had to report. When the other was through he said only two words:
    “No return.”
    So much had happened in so short a time that Ross’s initial shock at the destruction of the gate had faded, been well overlaid by all the demands made upon his resources, skill, and strength. Even now, the fact Ashe voiced seemed of little consequence balanced against the struggle in progress.
    “Ashe—” Ross rubbed his hands up and down his arms, brushing away grains of sand, “remember those pylons with the empty seacoast behind them? Does that mean the Baldies are going to win?”
    “I don’t know. No one has ever tried to change the course of history. Maybe it is impossible even if we dared to try.” Ashe was on his feet again, pacing back and forth.
    “Try what, Gordoon?”
    Ross jerked around, Ashe halted. One of the Foanna stood there, her hair playing about her shoulders as if some breeze felt only by her stirred those long strands.
    “Dare to try and change the course of the future,” Ashe explained, accepting her materialization with the calm of one who had witnessed it before.
    “Ah, yes, your traveling in time. And now you think that perhaps this poor world of ours has a choice as to which overlords it will welcome? I do not know either, Gordoon, whether the future may be altered nor if it be wise to try. But also…well, perhaps we should see our enemy before we are set in any path. Now, it is time that we go. Younger brother, how did you plan to leave this place when you accomplished your mission?”
    “By the sea gate. I have extra swimming equipment cached under the jetty.”
    “And the Rover ships await you at sea?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then we shall take your way, since the cutters are sunk.”
    “There is only one extra gill-pack—and that Baldy sub is out there, too!”
    “So? Then we shall try another road, though it will sap our power temporarily.” Her head inclined slightly to the left as if she listened. “Good! Our people are now in the passage which will take them to safety. What those outside will find here when they break in will be of little aid to their plans. Secrets of the Foanna remain secrets past others’ prying. Though they shall try, oh, how they shall try to solve them! There is knowledge that only certain types of minds can hold and use, and to others it remains for all time unlearnable. Now—”
    Her hand reached out, flattened against Ross’s forehead.
    “Think of your Rover ship, younger brother, see it in your mind! And see well and clearly for me.”
    Torgul’s cruiser was there; he could picture with details he had not thought he knew or remembered. The deck in the dark of the night with only a shaded light at the mast. The deck…
    Ross gave a choked cry. He did not see this in his mind; he saw it with his eyes! His hand swung out in an involuntary gesture of repudiation and struck painfully against wood. He was on the cruiser!
    A startled exclamation from behind him—then a shout. Ashe was here and beyond him three cloaked figures, the Foanna. They had their own road indeed and had taken it.
    “You…Rosss—” Vistur fronted them, his face a mixture of bewilderment and awe. “The Foanna—” said in a half whisper, echoed by crewmen gathering around, but not too close.
    “Gordon!” Karara elbowed her way between two of the Hawaikans and ran across the deck. She caught the Agent’s both hands as if to assure herself that he was alive and there before her. Then she turned to the three Foanna.
    There was an odd expression on the Polynesian girl’s face, first of