Then the gleam faded and the arm dropped back and the fingers came apart.
Sutton knew, even before he bent with his head turned against the heart, that the man was dead.
Slowly Sutton stood up.
The flame was dying down and the birds had gone. The craft lay half buried in the mud and its lines, he noted, were none he had ever seen.
Asher Sutton, the man had said. And his eyes had lighted up and he had made a sign just before he died. And there had been a battle back in '83.
Eighty-three what?
The man had tried to time-jump…who had ever heard of time-jump?
I never saw the man before, said Sutton, as if he might be denying something that was criminal. So help me, I don't know him even now. And yet he cried my name and it sounded as if he knew me and was very glad to see me and he made a sign…a sign that went with the name.
He stared down at the dead man lying at his feet and saw the pity of it, the crumpled legs that dangled even flat upon the ground, the stiffened arms, the lolling head and the flash of moonlight on the teeth where the mouth had opened.
Carefully, Sutton went down on his knees, ran his hands over the body, seeking something…some bulging pocket that might give a clue to the man who lay there dead.