"It will not endanger my soul to learn of this?"
"It will not."
"Do you dare swear this before God?" said Andre.
"I swear this before God."
Andre frowned. "I do not think a sorcerer can so swear. Very well, then, I will risk to listen."
Hunter sighed. "Where do I begin?"
"At the beginning, if this is not asking too much," said Andre.
Hunter shrugged. "What the hell? All right. I was a soldier."
"A man at arms?"
"A man at arms, if you will. Now shut up and listen. And don't interrupt. I was a soldier. I served in an army mightier than anything you have ever seen or heard of. An army that will not exist for centuries."
Andre started to speak, but held back.
"Thank you. I said you would have to be patient. Try to imagine what it must have been like for the first men to walk the earth. And the first women, too. They were simple savages, little more than animals. They had not yet discovered fire or clothing. They did not know how to build shelters, so they slept in the open or in caves. They knew only how to eat and kill and little else. For their weapons, they used simple clubs of wood or axes made of stone. Now, take such a man or woman and imagine what it would be like for them today, if they were to suddenly be transported to this time and place. They would see castles and not know what they were, since they did not know how to build with stone and wood. They would see a crossbow or an arbalest and think it was the work of the devil, for they would know nothing of the craft involved in making such weapons. They would see armored knights and take them for horrifying monsters or even gods."
Andre nodded slowly.
"Now, what if we were able, you and I, to have some mastery over time?" said Hunter. "What if we had a mode of travel that would take us not from one place to another, but from one time to another? What if I were to take you far into the future, to this very place, only a thousand years from now? You would be like that savage from the dawn of time, failing to comprehend everything you saw around you, for with time, man's knowledge grows ever greater. What would you see a thousand years from now?"
"I do not know."
"I'll tell you. You would see cities a thousand times greater than the towns you know. You would see many more people. You would see a world in which simple wagons and carts had been replaced by conveyances that would enable you to make a journey that would now take you months in just a matter of minutes. Just as men have learned to craft a crossbow or a suit of armor, so will they have learned to build devices that enable them to fly."
"To fly!"
"A thousand years from now," said Hunter, "flying will be as commonplace as riding a horse is today. You would look at those men and women of the future and think that they were gods, or sorcerers, since you would not understand how they can do the things they do. They will live much longer than people do today, for they will have learned to overcome disease. They will wear different clothing. They will have machines—artifacts they made—perform work for them that men must do for themselves today, only these machines will do the work far more efficiently and much faster. They will have even traveled to the stars."
Andre sighed, shaking her head.
"You think I'm mad," Hunter said. "Listen to me. When the first crossbow was made, it was said that the world was coming to an end. How could the society of man survive such a devastating weapon? Yet, a thousand years from now, there will be weapons so devastating that they will make the crossbow seem like the wooden club of the simple savage."
Hunter took out his .45 and held it up so she could see it.
"This is one such weapon. And there are others, far more powerful than you could imagine in your wildest nightmares."
Andre stared at the gun. "It does not look very formidable," she said. "What use would it be against a crossbow or a sword?"
Hunter smiled. "Watch," he said. He cocked the weapon and aimed it at a bottle on the shelf. He fired and the bottle shattered in an explosion of glass and whiskey.
Andre turned pale. "Sorcery," she whispered.
"No," said Hunter. "In a way, it is something like a crossbow, in that it shoots a projectile. The crossbow shoots a bolt or quarrel. This gun," he showed it to her and, in spite of herself, she leaned forward to look at it more closely, "shoots a tiny piece of lead. It has functioning parts, just like a crossbow, only there are more of them and they take a great deal of skill to make."
He removed the clip and he began to disassemble the gun.
"You see, there are many parts to this weapon. I will explain in the simplest way, just so you understand the principle. When I pull back on the slide here, it brings the bullet into position. The gun is now prepared to function. When I gently squeeze the trigger, it acts on these other parts here, so, and this hammer falls on the end of the bullet. This little metal piece here, the firing pin, strikes the primer, which causes the powder in the case to ignite. This creates a tremendous force which pushes the lead out of the case and down this barrel here with very great speed, causing it to fly out of the gun here, like an arrow leaves a bow, only far faster than the eye can follow. The sound you hear is caused by the force created when the powder ignites, and this same force causes the slide to be moved back again, bringing the next bullet into position. You can feel this force when you shoot the weapon. Would you like to try?"
"You would trust me with this magic weapon?"
"I'll be right next to you," said Hunter, smiling. "If you attempt to use it against me, I have enough skill to take it away from you before you can employ it."