The Cave of Time Read online

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  Holding your knife with its long ivory blade pointing upward, you advance very slowly, step by step, toward the wolf, which stands growling softly, apparently confused by your boldness.

  Then it springs. You lunge with your knife, twisting your body to avoid its awesome fangs. Your knife cuts through nothing but air, but the wolf succeeds only in tearing off your bearskin coat. It stops for an instant to sniff at the coat, and you turn and plunge your knife into its neck. The wolf twists, looks at you with hate in its eyes, and falls limp, its spinal cord severed.

  Now you are a true Stone Age hunter. You skin the wolf and walk into the cave.

  You follow the right-hand tunnel, thinking you may find your way back to your own time, but suddenly you feel yourself falling—faster and faster into what seems a bottomless pit.

  You feel yourself slowly regaining consciousness. You are in your bed at Red Creek Ranch, looking up at Uncle Howard. Standing nearby is a friend of his who is a doctor.

  “You took quite a bad fall climbing on those rocks up in the canyon,” Uncle Howard says. “Doc Parsons tells me he doesn’t know why you didn’t break any bones. We were real worried about you—thought you got lost in one of those caves up there.”

  You feel a bit dizzy and weak, so you just smile and say nothing. Probably no one would believe you anyway. Years later, though, you write a book about your adventures in the Cave of Time.

  The End

  You work your way back to the mammoth’s rump and slide down, landing hard on the icy ground, where you lie aching and bruised, while the mammoth lumbers on. Suddenly it disappears, driven off the cliff. The hunters are shouting and cheering. Some of them come up to you. They are short and muscular, their jaws jut out, and they have bright squinting eyes. Their black hair hangs down to their shoulders. They are dressed in animal skins.

  You look up helplessly, wondering what they will do to you, but in an instant you can see they will not hurt you. They help you up and carry you back to their cave and feed you steaming broth. It tastes awful, but makes you feel much better. You soon learn that the cave people will accept you as one of them, because you have—without realizing it—performed the sacred rite of their culture by riding bravely on the back of a mammoth.

  Life is harsh and simple with the cave people, and sometimes you long for your family, your friends, and your own time again; yet your new life is as exciting and happy as you could wish for.

  The End

  You hold tightly to tufts of wool, hoping the mammoth will slow down enough so you can safely slide off. But suddenly it pitches forward, making a terrible bellowing. In an instant you realize you are falling through space. You cry out helplessly as you lose your grip, falling faster and faster.

  Thousands of years later when Dr. Carleton Frisbee, the famous paleontologist, finds your bones next to those of a wooly mammoth in the Red Creek excavation, he is amazed at how closely you resemble a twentieth-century human being.

  The End

  You enter the next tunnel you come to. It becomes smaller and smaller until you must crawl. You continue this way for almost an hour. Finally, your faith is justified, for you smell a fresh breeze blowing across a field of new-mown hay.

  A moment later you are blinking your eyes in the bright sunlight, looking at a beautiful meadow nestled between gentle hills. A dozen or more cows are grazing near a meandering stream. In the distance is a dirt road. A farmer is sitting on a cart filled with hay. A dapple-gray horse is pulling the cart toward a big red barn in the distance. From the other direction you hear the mournful hooting of a train whistle.

  You turn around and see that you are only a few hundred feet from the railroad tracks. A train is chugging around the bend, puffs of black smoke rising from its coal-fired steam engine. You are out of the Ice Age, all right, but not exactly in your own time.

  The train slows down as it approaches you, and you smile as you see the reason why—a cow is standing on the tracks just ahead, looking as if it would not move for anything. The train pulls to a stop, and a man jumps down from the cab, waving a coal shovel at the cow, which waits almost until the man is upon her before strolling back into the pasture. At that moment you realize you could easily climb onto the back of the train.

  Climb on the train

  Go to the farm

  Go back into the tunnel in hopes of finding your way back to your own time

  Your hosts give you a fine bedroom with large windows overlooking the park on one side. On another wall is a beautiful painting of the California seacoast. When you push a button, the painting folds up to the ceiling, revealing a large screen. Your room contains a computer terminal that enables you to select any movie or other program you desire from over 10,000 possibilities. There are even films where you are the main character and you can make choices as to what will happen next in the story. Then, if you don’t like the way the plot is working out, you can go back to an earlier point and make different choices from then on.

  On your terminal you can also play games and flash pages of books or magazines on the screen. You can live quite well without even getting out of bed.

  Eventually you go exploring. You meet other people, but you find none of them very interesting, so you spend most of your time watching the greatest movies of all time. Gradually you settle into your new life. One thing disturbs you. No one has made any new movies in the last 300 years.

  The End

  You take a deep breath, dive down, and swim through the tunnel. There is light ahead. In a moment you surface in a beautiful lagoon. Thatched cottages are nestled among the palm trees that rim the white sand beach. A warm, soft breeze brings the scent of jasmine and the sound of strange melodies from sonorous drums. Looking out to the inlet from the sea, you can see a fleet of outrigger skiffs with multi-colored sails running into the lagoons before the wind, their owners leaning against the booms to hold the sails out.

  You walk toward the village. Several handsome, brown-skinned people see you. Some of them run away, but others walk toward you with hands held up in salute. Two children, holding garlands of flowers, run up to you. Someone calls—` Alohar

  Soon you are sitting in front of a huge beach fire, cooking crabs and eating buana cake. Having never had a visitor before, your hosts are happy to see you. They welcome you into their society. Gradually you learn their language. The boys tell you they are your brothers; the girls that they are your sisters.

  You enjoy life in this new paradise, but you still wonder whether there might be a way to get back to the Cave of Time. Your new friends are unable to help. Perhaps if you journeyed inland you could find some who could. Your friends warn you against trying, however. They tell you that you will find only terrible jungles and rivers filled with crocodiles.

  Remain with your new friends

  Journey inland

  There is something deadening about the perfect future society that makes you want to return to your own time as quickly as possible. With a brief word of farewell, you hurry back to the tunnel, climb down, and find a fork to the right that you hope will take you toward the right time. Soon you are climbing up toward the surface, excited about the discovery you are about to make.

  When you reach the surface, it is completely dark. A chill wind is blowing. You sit resolutely waiting for dawn so that you can see what kind of a wor
ld you are in. Meanwhile, there is no way of telling what time it is, either by your watch or by the stars.

  You hear loud, clicking sounds all around you, mostly in the distance, but some quite close. As the orange-pink glow of oncoming dawn lightens the eastern sky, you see nearby the shape of a creature that is the size of a sheep but has a very different appearance.

  The End

  You follow the tunnel downward a short distance, suddenly you are sliding. Your head strikes something and you are knocked unconscious.

  When you wake up, you find yourself by a small lake, bordered by woods. A boy about twelve years old is fishing nearby, but there is no one else in sight. You go up and introduce yourself, hoping you can find out what year it is without sounding crazy.

  Fortunately, the boy is friendly and good natured. He tells you his name is Nick Tyler and that he lives on Birch Street. He works in his father’s business making candles and soap—the best in the Colonies, he says.

  Tell him you come from a future time

  Try to make up a believable story

  Your friends are understanding about your wish to find the way back to your own time, but they tell you they can show you something you never dreamed of. Since their society is very primitive, you wonder what they could have in mind.

  Next day they lead you to another cove where the waves roll in, rise up against the cliff and then roll out again. Sometimes the waves clap against each other and send a foamy spray of water high in the air. You see some young people on tiny rafts—nothing more than surfboards—riding in on the crests of the waves and then riding them out on the rebound. In a few hours you have learned a sport that brings excitement and fascination for hour after hour.

  With such delights as this, it is not long before you lose interest in returning to your own time. Sometimes you wonder, but you never learn, whether this paradise lies in the future or the past.

  The End

  You hug your friends good-bye and climb the ridge bordering the jungle. You soon find an animal trail leading through the dense undergrowth into a tropical rain forest. The green canopy of treetops is far overhead and only an occasional dapple of sunlight reaches the spongy, dark ground. You walk on and on, hoping to reach the mountains, where you might find another entrance to the Cave of Time.

  Night falls and you make yourself a crude bed. Your mattress is the mossy floor of the forest. You spread out fern leaves for a sheet. Early the next morning, as the birds are beginning their morning songs, you are awakened by the boa constrictor wrapped around your neck.

  The End

  Swimming through the underwater tunnel may be the only way to get out of the grotto, but the risk of drowning seems too great. You explore the rocks in the grotto and think about how you might possibly get up through the roof.

  Suddenly a voice calls, “Hello.” You whirl around and notice for the first time, huddled in the corner, a woman with sparkling blue eyes and a mysterious smile. She is sitting crosslegged, propped against a rock which is shaped in a way that gives her a comfortable seat. In her hands she is holding a flute, and as you stare in amazement she plays an unfamiliar melody with a sweetness and purity of tone such as you have never heard.

  “Hello,” you reply. “Tell me—who are you and how can we get out of here?”

  “Sit down,” she says, “and relax. You have all the time in the world.”

  “What do you mean?” you reply. “I am trapped. I slid down from the Cave of Time and I want to get out.”

  “Believe me,” the woman says, “there’s no way to get out; but do not be concerned. It is a beautiful place and you can be very happy here.”

  “But we’ll starve. How long have you been here?” you exclaim.

  “Forever and not at all,” she replies, “for this is the part of the cave which leads neither to the past nor to the future. Here, time does not exist, so, of course, you will never be hungry or bored, and, although you can never get out, you will be here for no time at all.”

  You sit down and rest your chin in your hands, unable to believe the fate that has befallen you. To live forever in a timeless world seems worse than death.

  “Well, to tell the truth, there is a way to get back to your own time,” the woman finally says, “but, if you follow it, you will not be able to live forever.”

  “I don’t care,” you say. “Show me the way.”

  “Very well,” she says, shaking her head in disbelief. “Dive under the rock ledge beneath me and swim through the tunnel you will find there. You will come up in your own time. Don’t worry, it’s only a few yards. You can make it.”

  You take a last look around, wave good-bye and dive. A few seconds later you surface in a pond just inside the entrance of the Cave of Time. You swim to shore and run out through the cave entrance into the open air, almost crashing into your Uncle Howard, who has come looking for you.

  “You’re late for dinner,” he says. “We wondered what happened to you. You ought to keep better track of the time.”

  The End

  You accept the offer, for you can hardly expect a better life at this point, and soon you begin to enjoy rowing out in the early morning mists and spreading your nets with the neighboring fishermen.

  One afternoon, as the people are pulling up their boats for the night, your friend, Angus McPhee, raises a cry and points at the water. You look out and see the great head and neck of a sea monster—a huge dragon of the lake. Nearby, splinters of wood are floating in the water.

  “That was Sutherland’s boat,” Angus cries out. “It’s been a hundred years since the monster has been seen, but now it has returned!”

  The monster swims away and soon is lost from view in the mists.

  “How could the monster be gone for a hundred years and then return?” you ask Angus.

  “Somewhere near Beatty’s Point,” he replies, “there is an underwater cave where the monster stays as long as it pleases—because it is a Cave of Time.”

  If only you could find your way back to the Cave of Time! But chances seem slim, and the risks seem great.

  Try

  Do not try

  Could you change history and save hundreds of lives by warning the captain that the “unsinkable” Titanic is destined for the bottom of the Atlantic? You see some stairs leading to a higher deck, and you run up them.

  A steward is standing near the top. “You can’t come up here,” he cries. But you dart past him and run toward the forward part of the ship. You dash up another set of stairs, where you find yourself at the starboard wing of the bridge. The gray-bearded captain is standing only a few feet away, looking out to sea through his binoculars at a ship on the horizon.

  “Captain,” you call out “You may not realize it, but this ship will sink in only two or three hours.”

  He turns and looks at you gravely. “I know,” he says softly. “But we are going to fire distress rockets. That ship out there—the Californian—should respond to help us.”

  “They will not respond, Captain,” you tell him. “They can’t believe the Titanic could be in trouble, even though they see your rockets. Your only hope is to put your strongest men in a lifeboat and have them row toward the Californian at top speed—firing rockets as they approach.”

  “Great heavens, you have bold ideas,” the captain replies, “but I need every man I have to lowe
r our lifeboats and keep order among the passengers. I can’t believe the Californian will not come when they see our rockets.

  “Now go to the deck below. Mr. Lightoller will see that you have a place in a lifeboat.”

  With that the captain turns and strides away, giving orders to an officer nearby. You sadly return down the stairs and wait in line for one of the places in a lifeboat.

  Two hours later, you sit huddled in the crowded boat, shivering in the cold breeze, and watch the great Titanic slip beneath the waves—with 1,500 people still aboard—together with your only hope of finding your way back to the Cave of Time.

  The End

  One day when the sun is bright and the water as warm as it’s likely to get, you take an old skiff and row to Beatty’s Point. You pull your boat up on the rocky shoal that marks the cave. You dive again and again along the rock wall that drops into the depths until you find the entrance. You swim a few feet inside and find you can get up to the surface inside an enormous cavern, most of it filled by an underground lake.

  You reach the shore and walk along the lakeside, deeper and deeper into the cavern, which is lit by a mysterious blue light. Then, ahead, you see what you had hoped to find—a tunnel that surely must lead to the Cave of Time. Nearby in the sand are three eggs as large as footballs. You pick one up and carry it into the tunnel. After walking awhile, the air becomes hard to breathe. You begin to feel dizzy and fall unconscious to the ground, still clutching the enormous egg.