Ossian's Ride by Fred Hoyle Page A

of a watershed, separate implacably to their respective oceans, so this was the point of divergence of my story. If I had hurried Cathleen along I think I would have married her. I think in the long run I would have taken a comparatively lucrative job with I.C.E. (knowing the situation as I do now), and I think we would have settled down to raise a family in peace and quiet on the coast of Kerry. But because I allowed her a breathing space, scenes of horror were to follow in the short run, and in the long run I was to solve the secret of I.C.E.
    I was extraordinarily slow in spotting the form of Houseman’s attack. At first I thought that some enterprising farmer must be early at work. We had ridden for maybe ten minutes before I realized that the noise was too loud for just one tractor. Surely every farmer in the district couldn’t have employment for such an implement at six o’clock in the morning?
    Not until we mounted a low hill could I convey a real sense of urgency to Cathleen. Some two miles back, perhaps a little more, four caterpillar tractors were heading in our direction.
    Even now I was not seriously alarmed, for at our accelerated pace I thought we must be moving quite as fast as the tractors. Ws couldn’t be much more than six miles from the road, and after five of these we would be in cover.
    But I was not reckoning on a sudden change of the ground. Quite suddenly it altered from the smoothness of the common to coarse, tussocky grass. We began to bounce and to lose speed. The tractors would hardly be affected. The position was plainly desperate.
    There was nothing for it but to abandon the bikes. We could make better time now on foot. At this stage we were about three miles from the cover by the road; the tractors were two miles farther back still, five miles from cover. On this rough terrain they would probably take half an hour to do the five miles. Could we run three miles in the half hour? Without my rucksack, and alone, I believe I could have done it. But Cathleen was no faster than I could manage with the rucksack, so there was no point in discarding it.
    I will not dwell unduly on the painful slowness of the following minutes. Nor was it only time that seemed to go “on leaden feet.” We ran until I thought that my lungs would burst, and yet at every stride the tractors closed the precious distance.
    Next there came a long stretch of rough uphill ground which had to be taken in the face of quite a fresh breeze. Everything depended on the other side of the hill. With a great effort we would reach the top two or three hundred yards in the lead. If there was reasonable cover on the other side we should be safe.
    With every muscle screaming for rest we arrived at the top. Ahead was the best part of a mile of open ground, and then, only then, a plethora of trees and bushes. The tractors would run us down before we could cover half this distance.
    If only we had hurried back there on the common. If only we had gained ten minutes. If only—but this was the lesson of life compressed into a single hour.
    Then I had an idea. I shouted to Cathleen to run on. with fumbling fingers I tore open the rucksack and pulled out the papers. I could see the drivers clearly by now, grim-faced men in cloth caps. Houseman was a passenger in one of the machines, a great fat slug clinging to the rolling monster. But this would give him a problem to think about. In a gust of wind I released the pages of the manuscript. As if to show its contempt for this appalling rubbish, this desecration of Lesbesgue, the breeze lifted the sheets. Within a minute they were scattered over a couple of acres or more. If they were to be retrieved, Houseman would have to act instantly, for even on the ground the sheets chased along at a merry pace in the direction from which we had come.
    There was never any question as to what would happen. Houseman jumped down to retrieve one of the pages, took a quick look at it, and began shouting orders at