Dugan had guessed more than he had understood the meaning of Kahl's words. But to him the situation suggested more routine concerns.
"Say, Ray," he inquired, "do you suppose we're AWOL?"
"I don't think so," Manning choked down an impulse to wild laughter. "No more than a guy that's blown off his post by an 88. Anyway, I don't remember any General Order that says you've got to be in the right year. But our program now will have to be: get oriented in this place, this time, I mean, and dig up some fresh batteries to send this thing back to 1945. In the twenty-first century batteries shouldn't be scarce; we'll just have to be careful about contacting the natives, so we don't get tossed in jail or the booby hatch.... To begin with, let's get out of here. This damn traveling vault is getting on my nerves." He motioned at Kahl and Wolfgang. "Outside."
Kahl didn't stir; his eyes narrowed slyly. "There is no sense in your treating us as prisoners, now. The war is ancient history."
"Until further notice," said Manning, "we'll continue as of 1945. Move!"
Grudgingly they moved. Kahl growled over his shoulder, "One thing does not seem to have occurred to you. This is Germany of the future, where Wolfgang and I are much more likely to find friends than you are."
Manning did not answer. He had halted, stiffening, on the time machine's threshold, and sniffed the air critically. To him came sudden recognition of the scent which mingled, strengthening, with that of spruce and fir: a heavy, tarry odor of burning. He looked upwind. Through the rifts of the treetops were clearly visible clouds of black smoke, boiling upward against the blue sky. Flames flickered angrily beneath, and to Manning's ears came the faint but subtly all-pervasive crackling of the fire. It was drowned out briefly by the alarmed croakings of a flight of ravens that circled overhead and then flapped away, and in the relative stillness that followed another sound was audible—that of human voices, raised in shouts and commands.
"Looks like the local fire department's on the job," remarked Dugan.
"The fire!" exclaimed Kahl hoarsely. "It is blowing toward us—If it reaches the Zeitfahrer—"