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  "Ah." Marie said. "They make it tell us the wrong dates, eh? But, David, why?"

  She gazed at me as the sense of her question seeped in. "Yeah." I breathed. "Why should they tinker with the program?" Strange thoughts, almost insane ideas shot from one side of my skull to the other. "Four hundred years, a lot of the old world would be still around. Buildings, bridges, right? But ten thousand means nothing survives, except her." I glanced at Melanee who was listening to our talk with frowning concentration.

  "Suppose." Jules was drawing patterns on the ash from the fire with a stick. "Suppose they know what is going to 'appen, eh? Suppose they set the times for four centuries, eh? But suppose they get it wrong and they do not know it is ten thousand?" He looked at Marie who shook her head.

  "Four hundred years." I mused. "If you had the machinery, you could clear most of the highways, they would still be there. The cities, well, not so easy." I couldn't see the logic of what they had done.

  "David, it does not matter if it is four hundred or ten thousand." Marie explained. "With no people, how do we start again? The difference is not the time but the people."

  "Oui, we need people." Jules agreed.

  But there were no people, or at least only small fragments represented by Melanee. Thinking of her made my slow cortex come alive with an almost audible click. "Ten millennia!" I glared at her as if she was responsible. "Why aren't they swarming all over Europe?"

  We all stared at her, making her draw back uneasily. "Do not understand." She said defensively. "My mm people? Live mm water."

  "Near the river." Jules nodded his head. "It is what we said, yes?" He leaned forward and peered at her with Gallic smoothness. "Melanee? Hm, pretty name." He smiled silkily. "You 'ave sisters? Brothers? 'Ow many children your mother 'ave?"

  She regarded him with mystification before the meaning of his question seeped in. "I do not know." She said with a frown.

  "She's a foundling." I explained, but seeing what Jules was getting at, we extracted the interesting fact that none of the women in her tribe or settlement had more than three children and most only had two. How many tribes did she know of? Two others about the same size were flitting around southern France but apart from them the only inhabitants were the enigmatic forest dwellers.

  "So." Marie smiled at her. "We 'ave maybe two 'undred people she knows about. They mix now and again for to stop the inbreeding. They know to keep clean." She glanced at my mending shoulder. "They know about medicines." She stopped smiling. "But David is right. Ten thousand years and there should be millions."

  "There must be a limit on the population." Jules asserted.

  "How?" I demanded. "And why? Who's doing it?" But they didn't know and neither did Melanee who was thoroughly out of her depth in this discussion. We weren't doing ourselves any good by gnawing away at a problem we couldn't solve and probably never would. The afternoon was advancing, the sun beginning its decline, the shadows of the trees creeping across our small clearing. "All right." I agreed wearily. "We'll go tomorrow and see if we can find an oracle."

  Marie shrugged and glanced at Jules. "David, we want to 'elp but what else can we do?" She set up the data box again and started tapping the keyboard. "I will ask the ship to scan again. Maybe we get some deep radar outline."

  Watching her fingers, the curtain in my head suddenly swept aside. "Marie!" I cried sharply, making her start and look at me with wide eyes. "The other box! It wasn't left behind! Linda must still have it!"

  "Mon Dieu." Jules whispered, but Marie stopped her programming and instead spread the main touchboard and turned so that the small screen was in the shade. We all crowded round her, gazing at the rows of figures running down the screen.

  "You should 'ave said." She told me tartly. "I am sending a squawk signal." She gave me a brown eyed glare. "We could 'ave done this hours ago."

  I nodded contritely, aware of my own stupidity, Melanee's shoulder pressed hard against mine to view the fascinating magic box. "Ah!" Marie cried. Co-ordinates arrived on the screen and we scrabbled to spread out our large-scale chart.

  Jules did hasty calculations, muttering figures in French while Marie tapped away until Jules sat up and scratched his chin, his finger on a spot near a river. "Moussac." He declared. "It is per'aps twenty kilometres."

  "East north east." I scrutinised the spot. "No town there now."

  "David." Marie prodded me in the ribs. "The position, it moves." She ran her eye up and down the scrolling figures as I did. She was right. Our signal went straight up to the ship in orbit and was bounced back down, the ship being able to calculate any movement up to tiny measurements. It could tell if an ant walked three inches, providing the ant had a radio of course.

  "So, someone's carrying it." I said, feeling a slow but spreading delight and euphoria creeping over me. "Can you get it to respond?"

  Marie shook her head. "Only if she switches on the transponder." She replied, her words giving more hope. She meant Linda and so did I, but I daren't say it out loud, the conviction that if I didn't say so it would come true grabbing me in illogical fashion, like not stepping on cracks in the pavement to prevent unknown disaster happening. Jules looked at me with a slightly twisted smile as Marie shut down the trace.

  "The ship goes over the 'orizon soon." She explained, folding the keyboard and sitting herself comfortably with her hands in her lap, gazing at me. "So, David, we go to Moussac and kill the dragon?" Her words were light but her expression showed me she knew about the turmoil in my head.

  Jules said nothing more and they all waited for me to speak, even Melanee, who must have been bursting with curiosity by now. Hard thinking and pulling my favourite ear produced an answer that I didn't like too much but it seemed the only way. "No." I decided. "We've got to be practical. Twelve or thirteen miles across country like this will take at least three days." I stopped to let cold pluses and minuses accumulate in my mind. "If they aren't dead now, then they won't be for the foreseeable future, weeks at least, which is as far as we dare look." I was aware of Melanee's intent stare. "She," I jerked a thumb at Melanee. "She says that these people make a habit of kidnapping, but she's never heard of them killing their captives."

  "Tried to kill you." Jules pointed out.

  "True, but then we're not the usual sort of human." I gritted my teeth because I was arguing with myself. "We mustn't split up. We're vulnerable if we do." They all nodded, even Melanee. "And we're so damned close to this Quissac place we should see if we can get in. There might be something there we can use."

  They didn't try to talk me out of it. Marie and Jules looked at each other and conversed silently before they got up and started to prepare the camp for the night. Obviously, they had more brains than I had because they were scientific about it. Long branches were cut off the right trees to make a lean-to shelter against the ruined wall, a pit dug for roasting supper which I was deputed to catch, stacks of firewood procured. It was all very efficient and made me feel guilty as Melanee and I sloped off to find some innocent animal to kill.

  The absence of man for so long must have bred the instincts of wariness out of the animal population, except bears who were natural born hooligans anyway, but we didn't want a bear for supper. The trails left by the wild boars were everywhere, they must be the dominant species, so Melanee sniffed at me and trotted along until we came to a bank amidst thick woodland from which grunts emerged. Retreating to a downwind distance we waited for the family to come out which they duly did. We had a clear line of sight for forty yards through gaps in the trees and ground cover, the crack of the rifle shot disappearing in the forest without echoes. The piglet – or was it a boarlet? – was bowled over and the sow, an animal I was determined to keep well clear of, was alarmed, furious but puzzled, emitting loud snorts and kicking up clouds of dust and dead leaves. She didn't know where the enemy was but she had other small fry to consider and scuttled back, allowing me to sidle up and scoop up the corpse. A loud grunt and the sight of a formidably tu
sked front end peering out of the bushes quickened my pace but that was all. It was too easy, and I began to feel illogically guilty at killing baby pigs, although Melanee was delighted.

  She collected sundry fresh wild salad ingredients plus fruit and altogether we had a fine meal that quiet evening as the sun slowly descended behind the trees on the hill tops and stars came out to stud the darkening sky with diamonds. Between us all we had maybe five days emergency rations from the original stores but at this rate it seemed we could live off the country well enough. Jules and Marie cuddled together under the lean-to canopy, much to Melanee's curiosity, leaving us sitting in easy silence, staring at the fire. In three hours, I would wake Jules and he would take over but for now I gave the surroundings a casual sweep with the rifle sights now and then, just to satisfy my martial training. Time passed and I started to doze while still sitting up, an old soldiers’ trick.

  "You come from stars?" The question woke me with a start, but the implications behind it banished all thoughts of sleep.

  "What do you know about the stars?" I looked up at the blaze of silent star fields over our heads. In the old days, light pollution was such that only in isolated deserts or mountains would you see what we could now, the full glory of the milky way.

  "Stars long way. Stars all suns." She pointed a long, slender finger at a bright spot on the Southern horizon. "Vennis." She said. "Not star. Mm world? Yes, world like this." She put her hand on the earth near her, turning her eyes on me to see if I understood, which I did but was temporarily speechless at this revelation. Getting no immediate response, she continued. "Mm, how long come from star? Many moons?"

  "My God." I muttered. This was no savage, she had received education and not a mass of verbal folk lore either. Who had taught her? "More than moons, years." I told her, having to explain the concept of years but she understood quickly. Progressing to arithmetic, helped by scrawling figures in the ashes from the fire, I found she could comprehend addition, subtraction and multiplication although her figures were oddly distorted. Big numbers, really big like millions and billions were more difficult and getting her to grasp the speed of light and stellar distances was a struggle but at last, after much halting conversation, she lifted her chin and gazed fixedly at the star patterns.

  "Go for years. Many tens of years. Sleep all way. Come back, mmm sleep again." She paused while she sorted out complexities in her head. "Think you come back when old people still here." She flicked her eyes to my astonished face. "Know about old people. Mm Gods? Not Gods." She smiled faintly, a fascinating sight. "But David find old people gone many tens years gone."

  She had it all worked out. I felt somewhat awed, if truth be told. In days she picked up enough language to talk to me and now she tells me she comprehends the basics of space exploration and time warp factors. What kind of girl was this and did they have any more like her back home? Her brain put even Linda in the shade and I told her so, receiving a full, bright and rather devastating smile in return.

  "Tomorrow." I told her. "We're going to try and find a big cave, a huge cave left behind by the old people. There may be machines, we don't know, but it may tell us what went wrong ten thousand years ago."

  "T-ten tousand?" She repeated. "Ten thousand." It came out correctly after thought. "It is mm a hundred hundred." She shook her head slightly. "We know about old people. Big mm camp? City? Can fly, can talk across world. Gods? Are you Gods?"

  Jules woke up then, preventing my answer to this pregnant question but his sardonic expression told me he had heard her enquiry. I slumped down under the cover as Marie sleepily sat up, finding Melanee crammed tightly against me, her arm across my chest, much to Jules and Marie's amusement and curiosity but I was asleep before their pointed looks progressed to pointed remarks.

  The complex entrance was or had been a couple of miles up the road, so we moved off with the dawn, going into the seemingly eternal forest, the endless vistas of thick trunks and dense leaf cover winding in front of us until Jules, leading with the compass, came to an abrupt halt. Clustered round him to see the cause we all stared down at a track, a definite track, almost a road under the trees. It wound its way, avoiding the biggest trees, and led uphill, disappearing in the thick forest. Many feet had made this track, as wide as three men abreast. Signing Jules to the rear, I followed the path, Melanee behind me, looking apprehensive, the others pointing rifles aggressively.

  The road was clearly going where we wanted to go. There were places where steep banks rose suddenly out of nowhere, covered in moss and ivy but I knew where we were, I recognised the surroundings, odd though that may seem. When the French insisted on building this vast and expensive underground complex in this inconvenient spot, they made access roads, deep cuttings where reinforced roadbeds were forced through the hillside. Even railway tracks had been laid but they were on the other side of the hill. The pathway straightened and became a close valley between nearly vertical banks stretching fifty feet over us. The path was thick with scrub, brambles, shiny leaved bushes so close they formed a carpet, but through all this wound the path. Here and there attempts had been made to clear away the scrub and recently too, judging by the state of the cut branches. Overhead the light dimmed as the cutting deepened, the tree cover on the top meeting until it made a green cave. Deep silence descended, only the rustle of our footsteps breaking the heavy quietness. Presently, the loom of a dark opening appeared in front of us.

  The entrance was big, I remembered it well, thirty feet high and twenty wide, protected by an armoured door nearly two feet thick. Edging up to the overgrown opening, I gazed around me. Obviously the door was open and could just be made out, a vague outline against the tunnel wall, almost completely covered in greenery, a cascade of small plants falling down it like a verdant waterfall. The inside led into a tunnel that advanced a hundred yards before opening up into the main access centre. The problem was that the place was black, stygian, totally dark.

  "Must 'ave a light." Marie muttered into my ear.

  "Yeah." I agreed. Where do we get searchlights from?

  "Fire." Jules said with an air of resignation.

  "Yeah." I said again. "You two stay here. I'll get the wood." I looked round us for signs of recent invasion but could see no fresh footmarks except our own. "Don't get nervous when we come back."

  Jules grinned but Marie looked uncomfortable as Melanee and I threaded our way back down the path. Plenty of wood about but we wanted thick pine branches according to Jules instructions. It took us quite a time, Jules and Marie giving us glances of relief as we staggered back laden with wood. Tearing off masses of shrubbery while they made the fire kept us occupied and gave me time to think. Why was this forbidding place visited so frequently? That pathway argued regular comings and goings by a lot more than one man. Who was it and what did they want? What was in here that was so important?

  The fire was a success and raised morale in this gloomy defile. Jules demonstrated the properties of resinous wood by whirling a branch around his head vigorously, producing a bright flare. Hoping that we would not have to emulate demented tic tac men, we all fished out a long branch, carefully ignited by Jules and waving the things rather foolishly, we advanced into the darkness.

  Fifty yards in, the floor ceased to be a complicated mess of leaf mould and litter, becoming solid, even and flat. The darkness was deep, the thin light from the entrance behind us fading away as we trod warily on. The central area had been a reception come cargo distribution area, various passageways leading off and stairways going up and down. Underneath us was the real reason for this huge hole in the ground. A giant rabbit warren of chambers went down more than fifty levels and even I didn't know what was below the top four, I hadn't had clearance to allow me down there. Above us had been the big control rooms for the interplanetary vehicles and telemetry reception. I didn't see what we would get out of that so I peered down the stairway leading to the lower levels.

  "Someone 'as been down there." Jules observe
d, waving his flaming torch about, pointing to mud and scattered debris. I was surprised that the damned stairs were still there and apparently undamaged but either we shrugged our shoulders and gave up or we pressed on. Giving Jules a nod, I started down. These were merely emergency stairs; the main access had been the lift system, but I didn't feel like clambering down any lift shaft. The stairs originally had armoured doors for security, but they were open, covered in oxides and green oily stuff that felt velvety. Melanee looked decidedly nervous and stuck to me like the proverbial leech as we climbed down. Steel handrails were long ropes of rust, disintegrating to touch.

  Every two or three levels, the stairs opened up to a flat access area which was in turn protected by armoured doors. They were all open, puzzling because they were never open in my time. Tramping down, wondering how long these primitive torches would last, I felt Melanee's hand grasp my shoulder with alarm just as Marie hissed a fierce French phrase, but I had already seen it. Below, well down, many levels, there was a light, a steady, white artificial light.

  Chapter 11

  OLD FRANCE

  The stairs were concrete, or at least concrete based but the stuff was simply moldering away. Damp and insidious residues of animals plus time had given the whole gloomy place an atmosphere of depressing decay as seen in the flickering glare of resin torches that weren't going to last much longer, but that light, so intriguing, so impossible, dragged us on.

  The level where the indistinct luminescence was coming from was the thirty seventh down - I had been counting. Everywhere the armoured doors, previously opened and shut by powered rams, were open and reverting to rust, even the high carbon steel flaking away. But this level gave into a wide, spacious area littered with heaps of dust and skeletal remains of what might have been machinery or electronics. We didn't pay any attention to this, feeling our way towards a corner where, above and recessed into the ceiling a formless glow emanated from a square perhaps a foot wide. Closer to, we could see that surrounding this odd square was a ring of tiny red lights.