“This is where the sound I heard came from.”

“I’m too old to be playing follow-the-leader in the dark,” Ashwood grumbled tiredly. “I’m going back to my blanket.” Carter felt her left hand leave his waist.

In the near perfect silence of the cave there sounded a querulous meow.

“I’ll be damned,” Carter muttered. “It can’t be.”

“I thought you would want to find out,” Igor told him. “I believe it is your animal. It definitely is not Mr. Fewick’s.” The meow sounded again, slightly louder this time.

Ashwood resumed trailing her younger companion. “How the devil can you tell cats apart in the dark?”

“Because this one kept us company all the way from Cuzco. I am very attuned to animal odors. It is part of my business. Of course,” he added, “I could be wrong.”

Gingerly Carter felt his way through the ceremonial stone entrance. “But how could she get here?”

“Remember that it was Mr. Fewick’s cat who accidentally activated the Paititi transmitter in the first place. Perhaps there is something in a cat’s body odor which triggers the transmission pattern. Or more likely, it has something to do with the way in which they walk atop the device. Their weight in combination with their foot patterns, maybe.

“If this is your animal, she may have traced your smell to the transmitter at Paititi. Or she may have decided to curl up atop it. I remember the material of which it is fashioned as being quite cool to the touch. Cats in hot places seek out cool ones in which to sleep.

“By whatever means, contact with it seems to have resulted in her being transmitted here prior to our arrival. It would have been a frightening experience, as would the later arrival of dozens of noisy people. It would be hard for an animal to pick out one human’s smell among so many, even if we had not all recently been soaked to the skin. I suspect that is why she has not sought you out. Or her experience may have made her suspicious.”

Carter’s extended fingers contacted something hard and smooth: the transmitter. “Macha?” he murmured softly.

The responding meow was much louder. “Son of a bitch. It is her. I thought she might hang around Paititi.”

“I imagine she waited for you to return,” Igor surmised. “Or maybe not. There is plenty of small life in the jungle for a cat to eat, and the cave offered a secure, cool place to sleep. If I were a cat, I would have stayed there.

“And then one day she jumped up on the transmitter, activating it, and was sent here.” He paused to allow the significance of that thought to sink in. “Fewick’s animal managed to activate it twice. Why not yours?”

“Back to Paititi.” Ashwood’s breathing came fast in the darkness. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“What about Fewick and the others?” Carter wondered.

“What about them?” Ashwood said sharply. “You trust any of ’em?”

The actor hesitated. “Not actually, no.”

“Then screw ’em. Talk to your cat. Let’s see what she can do.”

“She probably has to retrace a specific pattern,” Igor murmured. “Can you induce her to get up and walk?”

“No problem.”

Fumbling in the darkness, Carter sifted the air with his right hand until he touched something soft, warm, and furry. Macha meowed again. Running his fingers down between her ears, he began stroking her back. A deep-throated purr filled the air.

“She’s doing it,” he informed his companions. “She’s walking. I’m petting her.”

“I can hear that,” Ashwood murmured. “Keep it up.”

Sooner than any of them dared hope, the transmitter began to emit a sonorous hum. In the darkness, the whorls of intensely colored light that began to coalesce deep within the ovoid’s hermetic depths were more pronounced than ever.

“It’s working!” Ashwood observed huskily. “It’s working!”

Farther up the cavern, sleepily voiced questions were beginning to displace the nighttime silence. They were soon replaced by shouts. Lights blinked to life, silhouetting frantic figures against the smooth stone walls.

“Hurry up!” Ashwood yelled, not whispering anymore.

Carter could see several swarthy figures running toward them. The nearest dropped to one knee and aimed something in their direction. Light glinted off a two-foot-long tube.

The increased illumination allowed Carter to see beyond the arched back of the animal he was petting. Igor was staring back at him as the volume of anxious shouts and queries rose.

“You both realize, of course,” his guide told them, “that this might send us back to Contisuyu instead of to Paititi … or somewhere entirely different.”

They were not given time to second-guess. The humming noise was now intense enough to tickle his bones. White light overwhelmed Carter’s senses. His stomach turned upside down as somewhere someone cursed in a strange language.

The last thing he heard was Ashwood saying tightly, “I always did hanker to travel an’ see the worlds.”

XIV

He stumbled, losing contact with the cat, and it took him a moment to recover his balance. It was impossible to take stock of his surroundings because they stood once again in total darkness.

His outraged pupils tried to focus. “What happened? Did they turn out their lights?” At any moment he expected a blast from a guard’s tube to send him sprawling on the ancient stonework.

Something hit his chest hard and he almost yelled. Then it curled up in his hands, purring contentedly, and he relaxed. He felt Igor brush past him as he cradled Macha against his right arm.

“D’you think they’ll come after us?” Ashwood wondered.

“They do not know where we have gone. They may think we’re dead. Or they may decide it is not worth trying to pursue us. We are only three.” The guide was picking his way forward. “We should make use of every minute of freedom before they make up their minds what they want to do.”

“Makes sense.” Carter took a step, hit something bulky, and went sprawling. Macha yowled and leaped clear.

“What was that?” Ashwood asked. “You okay, cuddles?”

“I’m fine. I just fell over something.” In the darkness he felt the object which had tripped him. “It’s a pack. Feels like mine. If it is …”

He dug at the fabric-covered lump. The pull-tights and straps were all as he remembered them. So were the wonderfully familiar contents: cans of fruit juice, a big box of waterproof matches, a small 35mm camera. He shoved them all aside until his fingers closed around a hard plastic tube.

The beam from the small but powerful flashlight lit their surroundings. He located Ashwood, then Igor. They were still in a cavern, but the walls were close, the ceiling low. They were no longer at Nazca.

Igor was beckoning. “Over here.”

While Carter held the light the guide recovered his own pack. It lay next to those belonging to their captors.

“We’re back,” he declared unnecessarily, his companions having already reached the same conclusion independently. “We will make our way downriver to Puerto Maldonado, where I intend to buy your cat the biggest fish to be had in the central marketplace.”

“Do you guys hear something?” Ashwood whirled.

A familiar but now ominous hum was rising from the ovoid.