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Frost And Thunder
Asimov SF Adventure – 1979, Summer
(1979)*
Randall Garrett
Illustrated By Jim Odbert
Ulglossen was dabbling in polydimensional energy flows again.
Do not try to understand Ulglossen. Ulglossen's time was—is—will be—three million years after Homo sapiens sapiens ruled Earth, and Ulglossen's species is no more to be understood by us than we could be understood by Australopithecus.
To say. then, that Ulglossen built a "time machine" is as erroneous—and as truthful—as saying that a big industrial computer of the late 20th Century is a device for counting with pebbles.
Doing polydimensional vector analysis mentally was, for Ulglossen, too simple and automatic to be called child's play. Actually constructing the mechanism was somewhat more difficult, but Ulglossen went about it with the same toilsome joy that a racing buff goes about rebuilding his Ferrari. When it was finished, Ulglossen viewed it with the equivalent of pride. In doing the mental math, Ulglossen had rounded off at the nineteenth decimal place, for no greater accuracy than that was needed. But, as a result, Ulglossen's "machine" caused slight eddy currents in the time flow as it passed. The resulting effect was much the same as that of an automobile going down a freeway and passing a wadded ball of paper. The paper is picked up and carried a few yards down the freeway before it falls out of the eddy currents and is dropped again.
Ulglossen was not unaware of that fact; it was simply that Ulglossen ignored it.
The device, you see, was merely a side effect of Ulglossen's real work, which was the study of the attenuation of the universal gravitational constant over a period of millions of millenia. Ulglossen happened to be on Earth, and had some experiments to perform in the very early pre-Cambrian. Ulglossen went back to do so.
-
I'll try to tell this the best I can. I don't expect you to believe it because, in the first place, I haven't a shred of proof, and, in the second place, I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't actually experienced it.
Sure, I might have dreamed it. But it was too solid, too detailed, too logical, too real to have been a dream. So it happened, and I'm stuck with it.
It begins, I suppose, when I got the letter from Sten Örnfeld. I've known Sten for years. We've fought together in some pretty odd places, argued with each other about the damndest things, and once even quarreled over the same woman. (He won.) He's a good drinking buddy, and he'll back a friend in a pinch. What more do you want?
A few years back, Sten and I got interested in what was then the relatively new sport of fast shooting, fast reloading, and accuracy to make points. One of the rules is that you must use full-charge service cartridges. No half-charge wadcutters allowed.
We both enjoyed it.
Then, I didn't see Sten for some time. I didn't think much about it. Sten does a lot of traveling, but, basically, he's a Swede, and he has to go home every so often. I'm only half Swede, and I was born in the United States. Sweden is a lovely country, but it just isn't home to me.
Anyway, I got this letter addressed to me, Theodore Sorenson, with a Stockholm postmark. Sten, so he claimed, had introduced combat pistol shooting to Sweden, and had built a range on his property. He was holding a match in September, and would I come? There would be plenty of akvavit.
He hadn't needed to add that last, but it helped. I made plane reservations and other arrangements.
You would not believe how hard it is to get a handgun into Sweden legally. (I don't know how hard it would be to do it illegally; I've never tried.) Even though Sten Örnfeld had all kinds of connections in high places and had filed a declaration of intent or something, informing the government of his shooting match, and had gotten the government's permission, it was rough sledding. I had to produce all kinds of papers identifying the weapon, and papers showing that I had never been convicted of a felony, and on and on. Fortunately, Sten' letter had warned me about all that. Still, just filling out papers and signing my name must have used up a good liter of ink.
Eventually, they decided I could take my .45 Colt Commander into Sweden. Provided, of course, that I brought it back out again; I couldn't sell it, give it away, or, presumably, lose it, under dire penalties.
Mine isn't an ordinary, off-the-shelf Colt Commander. I had it rebuilt by Pachmayr of Los Angeles. It has a 4-1/2-inch barrel, a BoMar adjustable combat rear sight, a precision-fit slide with a special Micro barrel-bushing, a special trigger assembly that lets me fire the first shot double action, and a lot of other extra goodies. It's hard-chromed all over, which means it can stand up to a lot of weather without rusting. In a machine rest, I can get a three-inch group at a hundred yards with a hundred shots. When Frank Pachmary finishes with a Colt Commander, you can damn well bet you've got one of the finest, hardest-hitting handguns in the world.
So I had no intention of selling, giving away, or losing that weapon.
Sten Örnfeld met me at Arlanda Airport and helped me get through the paperwork. My Swedish is as good as his, just as his English is as good as mine—but he knows the ins-and-outs of the local ways better than I do. Then we got in his plane, and he flew me to his little place in the woods.
Not so little, and more of a forest than woods. It was on the Österdalalven—the Österdal River—on the western slope of the Kjölen, that great ridge of mountains whose peaks separate Norway from Sweden. It was some miles northeast of a little town called Älvadalen, well away from everything.
Sten landed us in a little clearing, and said: "Theodore, we are here."
Sten always called me Theodore, another reason why he was a friend. I have never liked "Ted." My mother was an O'Malley, with red-auburn hair; my father was a blond Swede. Mine came out flaming red-orange. So I was "Ted the Red"—and worse—in school. Like the guy named Sue, it taught me to fight, but I hated it.
Of course, if Sten was speaking Swedish at the time, it came out something like "Taydor" but I didn't mind that.
He showed me through his house, an old-fashioned, sturdy place with the typical high-pitched, snow-shedding roof.
"You're the first one in," he told me. "Sit down and have a little akvavit. Unless you're hungry?"
I wasn't; I'd eaten pretty well on the plane. We had akvavit and coffee, and some rågkakor his mother had sent him.
"Tonight," he said, "I'll fix up the spices and the orange rind and the almonds and the raisins, and let 'em soak in the booze overnight for hot glögg tomorrow. And I've fixed it up for some people to drive up from Älvadalen with a julskinka we'll serve fourteen weeks early."
"So I'm the only one here so far?" I said.
"First arrival," he said. "Which poses a problem."
I sipped more akvavit. "Which is?"
"I think—I say I think—you're going to outshoot the whole lot of 'em. Now, I've got this special course laid out, and a lot of 'friend-and-foe' pop-up targets. I was going to let each of you guys run it cold. But there are some of these hard-nosed skvareheads who'd secretly think I took you over the course early so you'd be prepared. They wouldn't say anything, but they'd think it.
"So what do you figure on doing?"
"Well, I haven't set the pop-ups yet; I was going to set 'em in the morning. Instead, I'm going to take all of you over the course before the targets are set, then set 'em up while you guys watch each other here." He roared with laughter. "That will keep you all honest!"
Sten isn't your big Swede; he's a little guy, five-six or so, and I stand six-four. I must outweigh him by thirty-six kilos. I could probably ship him in a flight, but I would be in damn sad condition for a while afterward. I have seen what has happened to a couple of large galoots who thought he'd be an easy pushover. He was standing over them, begging them to get up for more fun, but they couldn't hear him.
"Hey!" he said. "How about checking me out on that fancy piece of artillery, now that we've managed to get it into the country?"
I was willing. I showed him the Pachmayr conversion of the Colt Commander, and he was fascinated. His final comment was: "Goddam, what a gun!"
When we were glowing nicely warm inside the akvavit, and I could taste caraway clear back to my tonsils, Sten put the bottle away. "Got to keep the shootin' eye clear and the shootin' hand steady for tomorrow," he said. "Besides, I've got to do the glögg fixin's."
"Need any help?"
"Nope."
"Is there anyplace I could go hose a few rounds through the tube, just to get the feel in this climate?"
"Sure. There's a dead pine about eighty yards due south. I'm going to cut it down for winter fuel later, but I've put a few slugs in it, myself. Make damn heavy logs, I'll bet." He laughed again. Then: "Hey, you got a name for that blaster of yours yet?"
"No. Not yet." Sten had a habit of naming his weapons, but I'd never gone in for the custom much.
"Shame. Good gun should have a name. Never mind; you'll think of one. It's beginning to get late. Dark in an hour and a half. Dress warm. Good shooting."
Dressing warm was no problem. I was ready for it; I knew that the weather can get pretty chilly in the highlands of Sweden in September. Walking from Sten's little plane hangar to his lodge had told me that I wasn't properly dressed for afternoon; I knew good and well that the clothes I was wearing wouldn't be warm enough for dusk.
"What's the forecast for tomorrow, Sten?" I yelled at him in the kitchen.
"Cold and clear!" he yelled back. "Below freezing'"
"I should have known! You call me out of warm California so I can freeze my ass off trying to fire a handgun in Sweden!"
"Damn right! You got to have some sort of handicap! Shut up and go shoot!"
It really wasn't cold enough yet, but I decided I'd have a little practice in full insulation. I put on my Scandinavian net long Johns, and an aluminized close-weave over that. I get my outdoor clothing from Herter's, in Minnesota; there's no one like them for quality and price. I wore a Guide Association Chamois Cloth tan shirt, Down Arctic pants, and Yukon Leather Pac boots. Over that went the Hudson Bay Down Artie parka with the frost-free, fur-trimmed hood.
For gloves, I had two choices: the pigskin shooting gloves or the Hudson Bay buckskin one-finger mittens. I shoved the mittens in my parka pocket and put on the shooting gloves. Try 'em both, I told myself.
I'd had the parka specially cut for quick-draw work, with an opening on the right side for the pistol and holster. Before I sealed up the parka, I put on the gunbelt, a special job made for me by Don Hume, of Miami, Oklahoma. It has quick-release leather pockets, five of them, for holding extra magazines. The holster is a quick-draw job made for my sidearm. When Don Hume says, "Whatever the need," he means it.
"Carry on, bartender!" I yelled from the door. "I am off to the wars!"
"Be sure that old dead pine doesn't beat you to the draw!" he yelled back.
It was cold outside, but there wasn't much wind. I saw the dead pine, and headed for it.
Night comes on slowly in the north, but it comes early , east of the Kjölen. Those mountains make for a high horizon.
Sven had, indeed, used that pine for target practice; he'd painted a six-inch white circle on it. I went up to the pine, then turned to pace off twenty-five yards.
I was at twenty paces when the wind hit.
I don't know how to describe what happened. It was like a wind, and yet it wasn't. It was as if everything whirled around, and then the wind came.
And I was in the middle of the goddamdest blizzard I had seen since the time I nearly froze to death in Nebraska.
I stood still. Only a damn fool wanders around when he can't see where he's going. I knew I was only fifty yards from Sten's lodge, and I trusted the insulated clothing I was wearing. I wouldn't freeze, and I could wait out the storm until I got my bearings.
I put out my arms and turned slowly. My right hand touched a tree. I hadn't remembered a tree that near, but it gave me an anchor. I stepped over and stood the leeward side of it, away from the wind.
In those two steps, I noticed something impossible to believe.
The snow around my ankles was four inches deep. There had been no snow on the ground when I started out.
And I don't believe there has ever been a storm which could deposit four inches of snow in less than two seconds.
I just stood there, wondering what the hell had happened. I couldn't see more than a couple of yards in front of me, and the dim light didn't help much. I waited. The howling of that sudden wind was far too loud for my voice to be heard over fifty yards. Sten would never hear me.
But he would know I was out in this mess, and he would know I would keep my head. I could wait. For a while, at least.
I looked at my watch to check the time. Very good. Then I leaned back against the relatively warm tree to wait.
My hands began to get cold. I stripped off the shooting gloves and put on the one-finger mittens. Better.
As sometimes happens in a snowstorm, the wind died down abruptly. It became a gentle breeze. Overhead, the clouds had cleared, and there came almost a dead calm as the last few snowflakes drifted down. My watch told me it had been twenty-seven minutes since the storm had started.
The sun glittered off the fresh snow.
The sun?
By now, it should have been close to the peaks of the Kjölen. It wasn't. It was almost overhead.
I looked carefully around. I should have been able to see the dead pine, and I certainly should have been able to see Sven's lodge.
I could see neither. Around me was nothing but forest.
Only the distant crest of the Kjölen looked the same.
The whole thing was impossible, and I knew it. I also knew that I was seeing what I was seeing.
My mother, bless her, had told m...
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