CHAPTER 3
THE RAIDER
A silence hung over the room when Cannell ceased to speak. I drew a long breath and turned to Lantin, my brain awhirl, but already he was calmly questioning the archeologist.
"This thing you call the Raider," he began; "I don't understand your description very well, Cannell. Do you mean that it was just misty gas or vapor, able to change into solid form at will, and change back? And, withal, a living, intelligent thing?"
"I mean just that," Cannell told him. "The thing is undoubtedly a sentient, living being of extraordinary intelligence and powers, able to assume either a solid or gaseous form. The phenomenon of the three shining orbs, changing from green to purple and back, is connected with that change in form, I assume. And at the same time I believe that triangle of the three lights to be the center of the thing's consciousness and intelligence, its brain and sense organs.
"Such a thing is not impossible, Lantin," he went on. "You and I, intelligent, living creatures, are composed of solid and liquid elements, but there is no real reason why life and intelligence could not be present in an entirely gaseous creature. And as I believe, this creature only assumes the gaseous form when it is traveling through time. The winds that accompany its passage through time are undoubtedly caused by the fact that as it flashes on into a different time, it leaves in the atmosphere a sudden vacuum, and the surrounding atmosphere rushing in to fill this vacuum causes the gusts of wind."
"But where could the thing come from?" Lantin objected. "Where was it taking you?"
Cannell's face darkened. "I believe that it comes from the far future," he said slowly. "Who can say what manner of creatures will inhabit earth a million years from now? And it may be that this thing, a being of some future age, has discovered a way to travel through time and now sweeps back at will, snatching up luckless humans in every age. The purpose of these raids, who can say? Maybe for victims or slaves or food even. It is all a mystery, even to myself. One thing alone is clear to me, that the thing does come from some future time, since it was speeding back into the future with me when I escaped it."
I found a chance to interject a query. "But how?" I asked. "That's what interests me, the method of traveling through time at will. I've heard theories on that subject, but this actual accomplishment, this power to race into past or future—have you no idea as to how that is done, Cannell?"
He considered before answering. "The transformation into a gaseous form when time-traveling is a significant detail," he said. "I have an inkling of what power the Raider utilizes to speed through time. I was in the thing's grip only for a few minutes, but I noticed some things, even in that short time, that set me thinking, afterward. I formed a rough theory concerning the method of time-traveling, and on the voyage home I jotted down some notes concerning it, intending to investigate the matter later."
Reaching into an inside pocket, he brought forth a little packet of soiled envelopes and folded sheets. "My own idea about it—" he began, then suddenly broke off speaking and sat motionless, listening tensely. Astonished, we listened likewise, but the only sound was the far dim roar of the city below, and the curtains at the open French windows, billowing gently in a soft breeze. From an adjoining room came the faint chime of a clock.
Relief dropped on Cannell's face, and its tense outlines relaxed. "I thought I heard—" he murmured, then abruptly stopped and jumped to his feet, his eyes wild. My heart gave a sudden great throb, for through the open windows came the sound of a high, thin whistling, far and faint and crystal-clear, an eery chorus of piercing knife-blades of sound, that shrilled out louder and louder, swelling to a roaring tumult of wind-sounds. The window-curtains whipped up madly, in a buffeting gale, as through the windows came a breath of icy air.
Abruptly the lights of the room went out, plunging us into darkness. There was a shout from Lantin: "The switch!" and I heard him running toward it. Outside the wind-shrieks had risen to a thundering bellow, and there were cries and running feet, somewhere in the building below us. A dark, erect figure appeared in the open window, silhouetted blackly against the brilliant lights of the distant streets. It poised there a moment, then passed out onto the outside roof, walking stiffly and unhumanly, like a puppet pulled by unseen strings.
"Cannell!" I cried; "get back!" I raced across the room toward the window, and in the darkness collided with Lantin, who was making for the same objective. We staggered, recovered our balance, rushed together to the window, and then recoiled.
Standing at the roof's edge, darkly outlined against the city's splendid brilliance, was Cannell, and down upon him from the upper air was dropping—what? A changing, inchoate shape of gray, at the center of which burned a little triangle of three radiant circles of purple light, one above the other two. In the moment that the thing swept down on Cannell, the roaring winds hushed for an instant, and we saw a writhing, shapeless arm reach out from the central mass, grip Cannell and draw him in. The gray mass hung for a moment, then the purple lights flashed into green, and at the same time the thing had changed into a swirling cloud of dense gray vapor, the three green orbs at its center, and the roaring winds shouting again with renewed power. The thing rose swiftly above the roof, holding Cannell, hung for a moment above us, a tornado of whistling winds, then vanished like a clicked-off cinema scene.
But as it disappeared before our eyes, as its raging, piercing winds died away to a mere whisper, out from the empty air where it had been rang an eery, fading cry, Cannell's voice, coming faintly down through time.
"Lantin! Follow—follow—"
Then the last word, coming dimly to us like a ghostly echo out of space and time, but with a world of fear and horror in it:
"The Raider!”