Free Highway of Eternity by Clifford D. Simak Page B

said Boone.
    Sitting beside the fire, they munched ham sandwiches as night closed down. A wolf was lamenting somewhere nearby, and from farther off came other sounds Boone could not identify. As the dark deepened, stars came out, and Boone, staring up at them, tried to make out if there were any changes in the constellations. In a couple of instances he thought there were, but he was not well enough acquainted with the constellations of his own time to determine if there were changes or not. Some distance out beyond the fire, spots of light, side by side, showed up.
    â€œThose are wolves?” asked Enid.
    â€œMore than likely. It’s possible they may never have seen fire before. And they’ve never seen or smelled a human. They are curious, probably frightened as well. At least apprehensive. They’ll sneak in and watch us. That is all they’ll do.”
    â€œAre you sure of that?”
    â€œSure enough,” he said. “They have the bull staked out. When they get hungry enough, they’ll close in on him. Maybe one or two of them will die, but the rest of them will eat. They’re waiting for him to weaken a bit more before they have a try at him.”
    â€œIt’s horrible,” she said. “This eating one another.”
    â€œJust like us. This ham …”
    â€œI know. I know. But the ham’s a little different. The hog was raised for slaughter.”
    â€œBut when you get right down to it, one thing dies so that something else may live.”
    â€œWhen you get right down to it,” she said, “none of us is very civilized. There’s another thing I have wondered about. When you got free of the rosebush and were legging it for the traveler, with the monster breathing down your neck, I had expected you to disappear.”
    â€œDisappear? Why should I disappear?”
    â€œYou told us about it, you remember. How you can step around a corner …”
    â€œOh, that. I guess the monster wasn’t any real danger. You were waiting for me and the port was open. The stepping around a corner seems only to be a matter of the last resort.”
    â€œAnd something else. In New York you stepped around a corner, hauling Corcoran with you, and were in Martin’s traveler. Where did you go those other times?”
    â€œStrange,” he said. “I don’t actually remember. I probably was wherever I went for only a very short time. A moment or so and then I was back again. Into my own world.”
    â€œIt had to be more than a moment or two. You had to stay there long enough for the danger to get over.”
    â€œYes, you’re right, but I never tried to get it figured out. I guess I didn’t want to face it. It was so damn confusing, so unbelievable. I remember telling myself once that there must have been some factor of time disparity, but I didn’t follow it up. It was too scary.”
    â€œBut where were you? You must have had some impression.”
    â€œEach time it was terribly fuzzy, as if I were standing in a heavy fog. There were objects out there in the fog but I never really saw them. I only sensed there was something there, and it scared me. Why are you so interested?”
    â€œTime, that’s what I am interested in. I thought that probably you had moved in time.”
    â€œI can’t be sure I moved in time. I only thought I might have. It afforded an easy explanation for a procedure that was impossible. One always seeks for answers, usually easy, simple answers. Even when the easy answers aren’t understandable.”
    â€œWe have time travel,” she said, “and none of us, I am sure, really understands it. We stole it from the Infinites. To steal time travel was the one way we could fight back, the one way we could flee. The human race had far space travel before the Infinites showed up. I think it was our far travel that aroused the interest of the Infinites in us. I’ve often wondered if