Tickets to Paradise
by D. L. JAMES
The ice stone was a time warp, a
pathway through 500,000 years!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Comet December 40.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It all started at Bandar Shahpur. You see, I'm a railroad construction man. Our job was finished, and the whole outfit was waiting at Bandar Shahpur, which is on the inlet Khor Musa of the Persian Gulf, for a boat to take us back to America.
And there, out of nowhere, this Dr. Champ Chadwick showed up. He seemed to be starving for a little good old U.S.A. palaver, and I guess that's why we struck up an acquaintance.
"I've been doing a little digging over in Iraq," he said offhand. "But things quieted down there. So now I'm bound for the desert and mountains to the north of here. This railroad has opened things up. It's difficult to get an expedition financed, you know, and transportation is sometimes the chief item."
I began to catch on that he was one of those guys who dig up ruins and things, and read a country's whole past from what they find. Then he went on to tell that he'd been sent out by a university in Pennsylvania, but that this present trip was just a sudden idea of his own.
And as he talked I began to like Dr. Chadwick. He was a serious-faced, rawboned little guy—not half my size—with steady eyes, a firm chin, and black hair plastered down slick on his head. By and by he got around to mention that he was looking for a strong-backed man to take along with him.