CHAPTER V

THE FLIGHT IN CENTRAL PARK

Alan found himself outside the laboratory. Its door was open, with a yellow glow streaming out. Charlie, clinging to the girl, was with him. The glow fell on them; Alan shoved them aside.

"Which way, Charlie? We've got to get out of here!"

They stood in the darkness a moment against the laboratory wall. The hospital was aroused. A voice had shouted. Others were taking it up. Lights were showing in several of the windows. An uproar--growing now of its own momentum. Some one lighted a light in the reception room. A shade snapped up.

The courtyard was brightening with yellow glints of light. No one as yet seemed to notice the three figures standing by the wall.

"Which way, Charlie?" Alan was momentarily confused. They would have to pass through the lower part of the building, get into the garden, fight their way through if necessary.

The girl stood docile: Charlie was chattering with fright. A desperation was on Alan; he shoved at Charlie. "Come on!"

But he stopped abruptly. The Indian had come to the laboratory door. He shouted--vehement, guttural words. An answer came. Dr. Turber! The man appeared in the light of a lower doorway in the main building.

All thought of flight was momentarily stricken from Alan's mind. "Charlie, wait!" They were standing by the upright wheelbarrow. "Look!"

Turber came running. The shaft of light from the doorway picked out his running figure. He was heading for the laboratory door. Not to menace these intruders; knowing only that his secret was discovered. With his hospital in uproar around him, Turber was in flight.

The Indian disappeared back into the room; Turber went at a full run through its doorway. Alan had not thought to try and stop him. Instead, he moved to the door, fascinated.

The room already was empty; Turber had gone through it; was leaping into the vehicle of the inner courtyard. An instant. Then the huge aero--it was nearly a hundred feet long--with all its gray solidity, began melting. Dissolving. A wraith of a cabin with wings--a dissipating phantom--

The inner courtyard was empty!

Charlie's voice: "Look! There it is! There it is!"

From the top of the laboratory building--perhaps automatically operated by the going of the aero--the searchlight beam was standing up into the air!

Alan found his wits. "Charlie, for God's sake lead us out of here! You don't want to get caught in this affair."

Figures were now in the courtyard; voices, questioning; at a window of the first story a boy in white nightclothes stood gazing down. The excitement set him screaming--shrill, piercing, unearthly screams! Voices began shouting at him.

It was a welcome diversion. Alan gripped the girl by the arm. She seemed to understand what was going on. She ran with Alan as they followed Charlie across the courtyard, into a lower doorway. In a corridor a man opposed them. He ducked away from Alan's waving weapon.

Through a dim room, crowded with the silent machinery of a laundry. Through another door. A hall. At the foot of a staircase two nurses in dressing gowns saw the running figures and screamed.

Charlie fumbled at a door; opened it. They were in the side garden.

"Which way?" Alan demanded. "You go back! Nobody recognized you? Pretend you had nothing to do with it."

"This way! There's the tennis court--to fight and run away--live again to fight--"

There were people in the outer grounds now. The presence of intruders was recognized. A voice called, "Which way did they go?" One of the inmates began screaming again. Some one fired a revolver--several shots into the air to arouse the neighborhood.

At the little gate Alan paused. "Lock it after us! Throw the key away! Don't let them find it on you! Thanks, Charlie--you're a brick. Say nothing--know nothing."

"All right, I won't." He touched the girl. "Good-by--the maiden fair is gone!"

"Yes, Charlie. Thanks for what you did--we won't forget you--"

The gate thumped closed. Its lock turned. Charlie whirled and vanished in the shadows of the trees.

* * * * *

The girl clung to Alan's hand and ran swiftly, lightly as a fawn, beside him. The uproar at the hospital faded into the distance.

Within ten minutes, running through the darkness over the stony road, Alan and the girl were at our car.

We bundled the girl into the back seat. Nanette sat with her. "Wrap her in the cloak, Nanette! Is it there?"

"Yes."

"Move over, Ed," Alan said. "I'll drive."

In the silence other shots sounded off at Turber's. Alan hastily backed the car and turned it.

"Raising hell up there! But I got her!"

We sped away into the night.

The thing was clear to us now. This girl had come in a Time-traveling tower from the Past--or the Future. Turber also possessed a Time-vehicle; one more effective than the tower, since it seemed a vehicle also capable of traveling through Space. This girl undoubtedly knew Turber in some other Time-world. And feared him--just as Nanette feared him.

With purring motor we were speeding along one of the island's highways, almost deserted at this hour of the night.

"Which way you going, Alan? Not to the ferry?"

"No. West, over the bridge into Jersey. Get back to New York that way. We're safe enough."

"What are you going to do with the girl?" I asked.

He hardly knew. "Take her home, I guess. See if we can't learn to understand her. She's intelligent--she speaks some kind of language."

We sped through a quiet, sleeping village. It was a long drive, around this way through Jersey. The night was well advanced toward the new dawn when we were again in Manhattan.

We had stopped once on a lonely Jersey road. Stopped by Nanette's voice.

"Alan! She's trying to talk to me!"

We drew down the car curtains; lighted the tiny dome light. The girl was much smaller than Nanette; she sat, with her blue robe crushed about her, enveloped in Nanette's long cloak. She was smiling, gesturing.

"She's beautiful, Alan. She's been talking--I can't understand."

Her voice was soft; queer liquid syllables, queerly intoned. A voice like music; the wind in harp strings, stirring them to murmur--but it meant nothing intelligible to us.

But there were gestures.

I said: "She understands! She's trying to show us she understands--"

Nanette demanded: "Is she looking at me? Look, dear--I'm Nanette--understand? Oh, you can see--and if you can see, you must understand! I'm Nanette." She laid her hand on her own breast. "Can you say it? Nanette--"

The girl said, quite clearly, "Nanette!" And laughed with a low ripple of pleasure. "Nanette! Lea! Nanette! Lea!" She was indicating herself. "Lea!"

"Her name is Lea! Yes, dear, we understand you."

I murmured: "And at Bellevue--"

With quick hearing she caught the word. "Bellevue," she said. She had evidently learned it while there. "Bellevue." She repeated it, frowning. She made a gesture, meaningless, and sank back, huddled against Nanette.

Alan switched off the dome light. "We'd better get started--some one might see us." He drove on. "Keep on trying, Nanette."

We decided to take her to Alan and Nanette's apartment. The Turber staff at the hospital would report that Turber and his assistant and the girl suffering from amnesia had vanished. What else could they say? Charlie probably would not talk; and Alan doubted if himself or Charlie had been recognized. Our connection with the mysterious midnight disturbance at Turber's might never be established.

* * * * *

We were in the quiet, mid-town streets of New York when Nanette called us again.

"She understands the word 'tower'! She just said it. Lea, what do you mean? Try! Say something else to Nanette!"

Lea was murmuring: "Tower! Tower!" She seemed trying to look out of the side window. I leaned back and drew up the shade.

"That all right, Alan?"

"Yes. What does she want to do?"

She was peering through the window. We went on a few blocks in silence. Alan said nothing. But he had told me he intended crossing Forty-Second Street to the East Side. He did not. He went north to Fifty-Ninth. Then turned east. Soon we were passing along the southern edge of Central Park.

Lea had been peering intently. She recognized the park. She murmured: "Tower! Tower!" Insistently. She even turned and plucked at Alan's shoulder. "Tower! Tower!"

Understanding swept me. "Alan, she--"

"Yes. Wait, Ed! Don't say anything--just watch her."

He silenced Nanette's questions. We turned up Fifth Avenue. The dark, tree-dotted park was on our left. Nanette sat quiet, trying to fathom the sudden tenseness which had come to us. Lea stared through her window at the park. Intent. Motionless.

We came into sight of the Metropolitan Museum a few blocks ahead. Alan slowed the car.

"Lea--"

She turned at the sound of her name. She smiled; gestured at the park; reached toward the door of the car.

I exclaimed: "She recognizes it, Alan! She wants to get out. What are you doing?"

He had turned into the cross-street. "Stop here. See what she wants to do."

We opened the car door. I stood at the curb. This cross-street was dim and deserted.

"Lea." She turned again as Alan spoke. She smiled and gestured again toward the park. And pulled at Nanette.

"What is it, Lea, dear?"

"She wants you to get out, Nanette."

"Shall I, Alan?"

"Yes. Help her, Ed."

I guided Nanette. Lea plucked at Alan. He put the lights of the car out and locked it. His fingers were trembling.

"You walk with Lea, Nanette. Let her guide you. We'll follow. See what she wants to do."

Four of us; unnoticed by the great, sleeping city, all unaware of us. And what would it have cared?

We crossed the avenue; plunged into the shadows of the park. To the east the leaden sky over the house-tops was brightening with the coming dawn.

We crouched in the shrubbery by the edge of a path. Trees were over us; a lake near by; a winding park roadway off there with lights along it; the shadowy building of the Museum at the edge of the park was in the distance.

Lea had marked well this landscape! It was familiar to her, as it was to Alan and me, who had been here so often, and had seen the vision of it on the screen last night. This open spread of lawn here, with the lake near it, this path bordering it.

My mind swung back. A forest glade was here, three hundred years ago. Three thousand years ago, what? A virgin forest? And three hundred thousand years ago? Primitive man, hiding here--as we of 1945 now were crouching?

This same Space; the spread of this lawn in Central Park--what would it be in another hundred years? Or a thousand? This little Space, from the Beginning to the End so crowded with events and only Time to hold them separate!

* * * * *

Lea was in advance of us. I whispered to Alan. "That tower we saw here--coming again?"

"Of course! Don't you think so? She's waiting for it--expects it."

This empty lawn--no! Not empty!

The tower materialized all in an instant. It stood gray and silent. We were on our feet--Alan and Nanette off to one side.

The tower doorway opened. The young man stood there with the light behind him. Stood gazing--

No vision this! Reality! Empty space, two moments ago. Then a phantom, a moment ago. But a real tower, now! Solid. As real, as existent--now--as these rocks, these trees!

Suddenly, even nearer at hand, another shape materialized. The Turber vehicle! It came from nothing into visibility. It settled like a giant airship upon the lawn. Its door opened. Figures sprang out.

There was a moment when we were all too surprised to move. Lea gave a cry. The young man from the tower rushed toward us. From the Turber aero three men came running. They were no more than twenty feet away.

"Ed! Run!" I became aware that Alan had turned to run with Nanette. She stumbled, fell, and before he could pick her up they were caught.

I leaped for them. It was Turber; and his Indian; and a huge, half-naked man in an animal skin. He swung a stone ax. Alan was fighting; he fired his revolver, but missed. The ax struck him; he went down, but he was not badly hurt, for from one knee he fired again. The giant with the ax swayed and dropped to the grass.

I leaped for Turber. Another man came running from the aero. Turber was holding Nanette; he flung his coat over her to stifle her screams. I did not dare fire. I launched into them. From behind something struck me. I dropped; but I recall that I was still struggling--gripping Turber's legs, but he kicked me off. Then some one leaped on me; struck me again. I fell insensible.

Alan was again on his feet. Turber was carrying Nanette away. Alan dared not fire at them; he swayed on his feet, trying to run after them. He saw the Indian strike me. And then the Indian whirled. Incredibly swift. Alan was hurt. The dim park swayed before him. He saw Lea and the young man from the tower standing together. Both seemed unarmed. They stood horrified, undecided what to do.

Alan, reeling dizzily, was no match for the Mohican. He blindly fired his revolver; but he missed. The Indian's tomahawk caught him a glancing blow on the head.

He must have recovered consciousness in a moment. Lea and the young man were bending over him. The aero was gone, taking Nanette and me with it.

Alan was not badly hurt. He sat up, then he stood. Lea urged him toward the tower. But he resisted her. And then she used force. The youth with her seized Alan. He was too weak and shaken to withstand them. They hurried him to the tower. He saw upon the grass the motionless body of the giant, with a primitive stone ax lying beside it.

The tower door closed after him. Lea sat him in a chair; the young man went to a table of instruments.

Alan felt a flash, a reeling of all his senses and of all the world.