Mastodonia by Clifford D. Simak Page B

more private that way.”
    â€œIt so happens that I’ve just finished for the day. I’ll be right over.”
    I hung up and said to Rila, “I don’t like this business. Ben probably will be all right; after all, he wants to get an early jump on this motel business, and he probably has some other deals in mind as well. But I have a queasy feeling. It’s too early to take someone into our confidence.”
    â€œYou can’t keep the thing under wraps much longer,” she said. “As soon as you start installing the fence, people will know something is going on. You don’t put a ten-foot fence around forty acres just for the fun of it. And we need Ben, or someone else, to carry that second gun. We’ve already decided it’s insanity to go back to face dinosaurs with only one gun. You said Ben is the man you want.”
    â€œHe’s the best I know. He’s a hunter. He knows how to handle guns. He’s big and strong and tough and he wouldn’t panic in a tight situation. But this whole thing could backfire, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”
    I opened up a cupboard door and took down a bottle, setting it on the kitchen table. I found three glasses; I made sure that there was ice.
    â€œYou’re going to entertain him out here at the kitchen table?” Rila asked.
    â€œHell, he wouldn’t know how to act if we sat down in the living room. It would be too formal; it would spook him. Here he’ll be comfortable.”
    â€œIf that’s the case,” she said, “I’m all for it. I like it myself. A tavern atmosphere.”
    Feet thumped outside on the walk, coming up to the kitchen door.
    â€œIt didn’t take him long,” said Rila.
    â€œBen’s anxious,” I said. “He’s smelling money.”
    I opened the door and Ben came in. He had the sort of look a dog has on its face when it smells a rabbit.
    â€œYou have it then?” he asked.
    â€œBen,” I said, “sit down. We have business to discuss.”
    Drinks poured, we sat around the table.
    â€œAsa, what you got in mind?” asked Ben.
    â€œFirst of all,” I said, “I have a confession to make. I lied to you the other day. Or halfway lied. I told you only part of the truth and not the important part.”
    â€œYou mean there isn’t any spaceship?”
    â€œOh, there’s a spaceship, all right.”
    â€œThen what is this all about—this half-truth business?”
    â€œWhat it means is that the spaceship is only part of it, a small part of it. The important thing is that we have found how to travel into time. Into the past and maybe even into the future. We never asked about the future. We were so excited about it, that we never thought to ask.”
    â€œAsk who?” Ben had a slack-jawed look, as if someone had clobbered him with something heavy.
    â€œPerhaps we’d better start at the beginning,” said Rila, “and tell him all of it, the way it happened. These questions and answers aren’t getting anywhere.”
    Ben emptied his glass in a gulp and reached for the bottle.
    â€œYeah,” he said. “You go ahead and tell me.”
    He was believing none of it.
    I said to Rila, “You tell him. I can’t afford to take the time. I’ve fallen a long ways behind in my drinking.”
    She told the story precisely and economically, without the use of an extra word, from the time I had bought the farm up to this very moment, including her interviews in Washington and New York.
    During all the time that she was talking, Ben didn’t say a word. He just sat there, glassy-eyed. Even for a time after she had finished, he still sat in silence. Then, finally, he stirred. “There’s one thing about it,” he said, “that beats me. You say Hiram can talk with this Catface thing. Does that mean he can really talk with Bowser?”
    â€œWe don’t know,” said