Headhunters of Nuamerica

by Stanton A. Coblentz

Downey grumbled something beneath his breath, thinking this a poor time for jesting. But incisively over all rose the voice of Judith, "if you have had no bombing raids for three hundred years, then what year is this? Didn't we go through a raid only a little while ago?"

The starred one cast Judith a piercing glance, and replied, contemptuously, "I suppose, then, you're forgotten this is the year 314!"

"That is, 314 by the new reckoning," another voice explained. "2270, if you prefer the Medieval calendar."

Downey and the girl stared at one another, dumbfounded. Could it be that they had slept for more than three centuries?

"Do not forget," the starred one continued, fixing Downey with a severe scowl, "we have yet to account for your presence here. A few days ago, digging among the ruins left by the savages in their war hundreds of years ago, we came across a big concrete tube which, on being opened, gave out fumes that produced temporary unconsciousness in the investigators. Later, as they worked with gas-masks, you two were noticed within. It is evident that you entered sometime after the first opening was made, while the workers lay drugged by the fumes. But where did you come from? That is what we cannot understand."

Downey's mind reeled. An explanation, amazing and yet barely possible, had flashed over him. What if the impact of the explosion had sealed both ends of the concrete tube where he and Judith had sought refuge? What if the tube had been buried beneath the earth, to remain there for centuries? What if the poison gas released by the bombs had entered their retreat, too diluted to kill them and yet strong enough to produce suspended animation? He remembered reading of a new war gas which could cause precisely that effect; and he knew that such substances did exist in nature: as, for example, the paralyzing fluid which the hunting wasp injects into the spider, to keep it indefinitely alive though seemingly lifeless. If such a poison could operate for weeks or months, what was there to prevent it from being effective for a year? for ten years? even for three hundred years?

Then might this not be what had happened to Judith and himself? In their profound unconsciousness, time would have no meaning for them; generation after generation might be born, grow to maturity and old age, and pass away while they slept their dreamless sleep, to be awakened at last when the opening of their tomb had released the poisoned fumes and let in some pure air.

By some swift intuition, Downey felt sure that this was what had happened.

But his new acquaintances were not to be convinced by his explanation. "I do not know where you are from," said the starred one, while his green and orange costume glittered brilliantly in the sun. "You do not talk like natives of our Nuamerica. You know our speech as if from old books, and there is a foreign ring to your voices. Your clothes are strange and clownish—I half believe you have robbed a museum. Either you are foreigners who have no passport, or fugitives who seek an outlandish disguise. For that reason, I proclaim you under arrest! You will come with me to be examined by the High Councillor!"

To the accompaniment of a sound as of rattling chains, three men stepped forth from the crowd. Each drew out a little pistol-like machine, and pressed the trigger; and from the muzzle of each apparatus there shot forth thin shining wires, which, with incredible swiftness, wound themselves about Downey and the girl, binding their arms to their sides beyond possibility of release.