This time they roared.
The Elder flung himself face down into the snow. The younger clansmen scattered. O'Hara shook his fist at them. The craft shot forward. Before it reached the wall of trees it knifed into the sky.
For some minutes O'Hara was too busy with the glory of his wings, driving higher, soaring, to observe that Nedra had now shut her eyes. The ticking of his scintillometer broke in upon his absorption finally, its milliroentgen count a steady .285. Then he heard a more staccato clicking, and it was Nedra.
"Here, your teeth are chipping. Take this jacket, Nedra."
He pulled it off. And the metal book that he had taken from the library in Washington dropped onto his knees. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he flicked wide the covers. Upon the single sheet of bright magnesium was this:
"December 20, 12:35:01 P.M. Save for these ten seconds, only you can do it."
Nedra called his name but he did not hear her. His mind was working like an exquisitely refined machine. He was counting, squeezing the fractional lost months and weeks and days and hours, the minutes and seconds of the past twelve months into a pattern, calculating time, estimating his position by the daytime pinpoints of the stars.
"O'Hara, O'Hara! Our mountains have vanished—"
December 20—and precisely at 12:35:01 P.M.—and for the ensuing ten seconds.
Sweat poured from his body. Infinitesimal memories arranged themselves. He could not be certain. But then he could never be certain again on this side of the Curtain. To the day, yes! And to the hour and possibly quite close to the minute—but never to the second! He would have to feel his way into it, watching his milliroentgen count, and if the Curtain was there, he would have to turn back. Yet this fuel would not last him back from the Curtain to Nedra's mountains. It would be a chance—a frightful chance.