Adventure stories; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
A moment he hung below us, a thing of whirling mists, the three orbs of
green glowing radiantly through the darkness. Then he had dropped down
onto the battle, expanded, extended his own misty form until it held
within it the score of air-boats in which were the survivors of the
Kanlars' forces.
A second it continued thus, its vaporous form enveloping the remaining
cars of the Kanlars, and then, out from the green, radiant triangle
of orbs there burst flash on flash of green light, aimed at the
surrounding cars of the Khluns. The cars touched by that green light
vanished, simply disappeared from view, leaving a little cloud of
radiant sparks which dimmed and vanished likewise.
There was a great shout from behind us, and down toward the Raider,
from the car of Kethra, there dropped a thing like a black, enveloping
net, queerly tenuous-seeming in the one glimpse of it I had. It was
like a net of black force, dropping down on the Raider, but before it
reached its objective, the Raider and the cars it held within it had
abruptly vanished.
"The Raider!" cried Kethra. "He's gone on into time, with the surviving
Kanlars! Follow, follow, follow!"
From the scores of air-boats below us came a savage yell, and there was
a second's pause, a second's silence, and then our car was struck by a
gale that nearly overturned it, and we hung alone in space. Kethra and
his air-boats had followed the Raider on into time, with the time-wave
apparatus we had showed them how to use. I knew, too, that at that
moment half the air-boats were speeding into the past and half into the
future, in search of the Raider, for that had been our plan in case we
had need to pursue the Raider into time.
"Shut the car-door!" I cried to Lantin. "We'll follow, too."
"Wait!" he shouted, his head out of the circular door, peering away to
the north.
The gray light of dawn was welling up in the east, and by it I saw,
away to the north, a black speck that rushed down toward us. It raced
on, and now I saw that it was a Khlun air-boat. It sped on toward us,
and now I recognized it as the one we had dispatched to rescue our four
friends from the pit.
The car sped on toward us, and I saw that on it were the pilot and his
two aides, but not our friends. Even before the pilot shouted to us a
premonition of disaster filled me.
"The pit!" cried the pilot, bringing his car up beside us.
"What of the pit?" I shouted. "What of our friends?"
"They're safe, for the time," he answered, "but the hordes are coming
out of the pit!"
"What?" I yelled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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