A Question Of Time, Fred Saberhagen [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

the land. Well, he hadn’t been given the chance to look around, and that was that.

      His little two-way radio was buzzing in his jacket pocket.

      Sighing, Bill pulled out the device. Speaking into it in a low voice, he tried to make contact with home base but, for the moment, failed.

      Stuffing the useless device back into his pocket, he dejectedly reversed course and started back uphill—only to come to a halt before he had climbed ten yards, his way blocked by a mass of boulders. Now it seemed that he was going to have trouble even finding the trail, or faint imitation of a trail, on which he had just come down.

      That he should have become confused was, in the circumstances, easy enough to understand. But he didn’t consider that gave him an excuse for doing so. Well, as long as he kept climbing, whether on a trail or not, he had to be going in at least approximately the right direction.

      Detouring around the immediate obstruction, Bill ascended patiently, one step after another. But soon he got into difficulties again. Sidestepping again, he climbed some more—only to come to a halt, looking warily about him and turning on his light. Now, in a place where he seemed to remember a steep but smoothly rising slope, a minor precipice dropped off. His light revealed the tips of tall pine trees, yards below his boots.

      Mentally rerunning the brief sequence of his headlong pursuit downhill, Bill couldn’t convince himself that it had lasted more than a couple of minutes. And now, only now, he became aware that something else was wrong. The lights of Canyon Village ought to be bright and fairly close above him. He could see, no lights at all were there.

      Frowning and muttering to himself, he began to use his flashlight steadily. The beam was thoroughly spoiling whatever night vision he might have left, but he’d given up the chase now anyway. Right now he’d have to be content with finding his way home.

      He was now making his way along what seemed to be a kind of minor ridge, gradually getting higher. Following this spine up until it ran into a more sharply ascending mass of rock, Bill resigned himself to finding his way through completely unfamiliar territory. His hopes were raised when he encountered what appeared to be another faint trail, and followed it uphill for a short distance. But again, suddenly, there was no more trail.

      By now Bill had climbed high enough to be once more well above the depth where the fog still held sway. But somehow his surroundings were not in the least familiar. That dark mass above him, discouragingly remote, making a sharp line of demarcation against the stars, naturally had to be the rim. But incredibly this rim still bore no sign of the clustered lights of Grand Canyon Village.

      Were they suffering some kind of power failure up there? What next?

      Sighing, Bill doggedly resumed his effort to get up the hill down which he had so briskly run. All right, it wasn’t quite the same hill. He could no longer even find that one. For some reason, this slope was vastly, incredibly different. Now barriers of rock loomed where he could swear none had existed only a few minutes earlier.

      Soon he came to a halt again, this time swearing under his breath. Unfamiliar terrain or not, he couldn’t have gotten lost as stupidly as this. He never had, not since he was six years old. It would have made him angry had anyone even suspected that he was capable of such a failure.

      And again he climbed.

      Having gained a little altitude, and, as he thought, perhaps surmounted  some interfering wrinkle in the landscape, he tried his two-way radio once more. Again the device brought him at first only a little noise—and then, at last, the noise was followed by a half-familiar voice.

      “This is the House,” Maria was saying, speaking very distinctly in an evident effort to make herself understood at all costs. “Bill, is that you? Come in.”

      Pressing a key, Bill reluctantly described his problems. He told Maria it looked like he was going to have to sit tight until daylight.

      “Sit tight, then,” said her small, distorted voice, sounding relieved. “Anything you need?”

      He told her that there was not, but he couldn’t be sure that he was getting through. All he got back was some more static.

      Switching off, he stuck the radio back into his jacket pocket. Partially unzipping the jacket, still muttering and swearing, he told himself that at least the air was notably warmer down here than up on the rim. Maybe his chase had lasted longer than he’d thought. Hell, that must be the explanation. Though that didn’t explain why he could no longer see even a glow from the Village lights…

      Despite what he’d told Maria, he kept trying. Making very slow progress uphill, Bill at last admitted to himself (in some embarrassment, not lessened by being so far private) that it looked like he was going to have to wait until morning to find his way back to the Tyrrell House and the hotel.

      Admitting that he seemed to be lost was bad, but not as bad as stepping over a cliff would be. For a little while he sat on a comfortably placed ledge, and thought. Then for a longer time he stalked around in a safely explored little space, waving his arms, and with half his mind considered building a fire. But really, the air wasn’t that cold, not any longer, and there was very little wind. Alternating periods of movement and resting, Bill even got a little sleep, sitting on one rock and leaning against another, hoping any rattlesnakes in the area would keep their distance.

* * * * * *

      Something roused him from an uncomfortable doze. Rubbing his stiff neck, he got to his feet. The stars were fading, which meant that dawn was coming at last. Stretching, moving about a little to keep warm, he watched