The Synopsis Treasury by Christopher Sirmons Haviland Read Free Book Online

strange energy at work, but it does not register as either good or evil. The Sulcars decide to try to get ashore and hunt a source of water. No sign of any life—sea birds missing.
    They explore one ship and have a feeling they are being watched. Ashore are some very ancient buildings but there appears to be no way to enter these. No doors nor windows.
    Seeress visits what the Sulcars believe to be a fairly recently caught ship. She tries to sense any residue of happening aboard. Can pick up only fear which does not appear to have any one source. Orsya and Kemoc in water find evidence of more and more ships, some long sunk.
    Finally, they find a war ship of a different type. Skeletons on board and evidence of a battle. Only one where they have found evidence of any bodies. Seeress says men were dead before ship came here—already a derelict.
    Fire seen at night leads them to climb the cliffs above the bay. Think there is more volcanic action farther south and out to sea. Are worried about waves which might come from such a disturbance.
    On the morning after they see the approach of a Sulcar ship and with it another ship of a different type. They discover the Sulcar one which has Simon and Jaelithe on board. Mind contact tells them that there is life on board the strange vessel also. They get together and from the Sulcar ship see a boat lowered from the other vessel and six men in it. They hail them but men pay no attention. Orsya and Kemoc swim out. They can not make mind touch but do get aboard the boat and discover the men seem to be in a trance. They try to wake them but there is no way. Men are totally strange in appearance and clothing. Simon, Sulcars, and Jaelithe come to them. Strive to grapple the other boat but it is carried on so forcibly that their boat is also dragged along. Jaelithe and the seeress try to concentrate on one man but he seems insane and throws himself into the sea.
    Simon tells them this is a ship from apparently the same space-time as he had come from. The boat touched a big rock and the men arise and crowd by the Sulcars and the others going ashore. They follow.
    There is a waterway like a cannel [sic.] and the men throw themselves in this and swim. Kemoc and Orsya are ready to follow when the seeress falls into a like trance with the men and goes after them. They come to a huge cavern but by a wall in which there are a number of niches. The men from the ship and the seeress climb up and settle themselves in these. There are huge piles of bones rising out of the water before each niche showing that this must have happened many times before. Jaelithe, Simon, Sulcars and Falconers come by boat. Jaelithe probes the seeress and says that there is some type of installation here which runs on human energy—it does not work smoothly but is able at times to pick up ships or people from other time streams and draw these to it for fuel. It then causes the volcanic action—but it is irregular.
    Jaelithe, Simon, Kemoc, Orsya and several of the Sulcars unite power and succeed in breaking the ties the installation has on its latest fuel. The men from the ships fall dead but the seeress is saved. This all is the result they discover of one of the Dark Adepts’ experiments at Gate opening and it had not only opened on Simon’s world but on others also.
    The installation shut down is in the blank buildings and Simon oversees the taking of explosives from several derelicts from his own time and blowing it up. They explore and take curiosities from the ships, planning to return. But Simon and the Sulcars make sure that there is no vestige left of other world weapons which might cause future trouble. He says this explains the mystery of the Devil’s Triangle in his own world.
    Jaelithe, Orsya and the seeress work to make sure there can be no way of using any of the energy for Dark Purposes.
    ***

Robert A. Heinlein

    (photo by Dd-b, taken at the 1976 World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City, MO, USA, at