It was this faux pas which gave the stranger an opportunity to land a clean left jab on Wilson’s face. It was inches higher than the button, but in Bob’s bemused condition it was sufficient to cause him to cease taking part in the activities.
Bob Wilson came slowly to awareness of his surroundings. He was seated on a floor which seemed a little unsteady. Someone was bending over him. “Are you all right?” the figure inquired.
“I guess so,” he answered thickly. His mouth pained him; he put his hand to it, got it sticky with blood. “My head hurts.”
“I should think it would. You came through head over heels. I think you hit your head when you landed.”
Wilson’s thoughts were coming back into confused focus. Came through? He looked more closely at his succorer. He saw a middle-aged man with gray-shot bushy hair and a short, neatly trimmed beard. He was dressed in what Wilson took to be purple lounging pajamas.
But the room in which he found himself bothered him even more. It was circular and the ceiling was arched so subtly that it was difficult to say how high it was. A steady glareless light filled the room from no apparent source. There was no furniture save for a high dais or pulpit-shaped object near the wall facing him. “Came through? Came through what?”
“The Gate, of course.” There was something odd about the man’s accent. Wilson could not place it, save for a feeling that English was not a tongue he was accustomed to speaking.
Wilson looked over his shoulder in the direction of the other’s gaze, and saw the circle.
That made his head ache even more. “Oh, Lord,” he thought, “now I really am nuts. Why don’t I wake up?” He shook his head to clear it.
That was a mistake. The top of his head did not quite come off—not quite. And the circle stayed where it was, a simple locus hanging in the air, its flat depth filled with the amorphous colors and shapes Of no-vision. “Did I come through that?”
“Yes.”
“Where am I?”
“In the Hall of the Gate in the High Palace of Norkaal. But what is more important is when you are. You have gone forward a little more than thirty thousand years.”
“Now I know I’m crazy,” thought Wilson. He got up unsteadily and moved toward the Gate.
The older man put a hand on his shoulder. “Where are you going?”
“Back!”
“Not so fast. You will go back all right—I give you my word on that. But let me dress your wounds first. And you should rest. I have some explanations to make to you, and there is an errand you can do for me when you get back—to our mutual advantage. There is a great future in store for you and me, my boy—a great future!”
Wilson paused uncertainly. The elder man’s insistence was vaguely disquieting. “I don’t like this.”
The other eyed him narrowly. “Wouldn’t you like a drink before you go?”
Wilson most assuredly would. Right at the moment a stiff drink seemed the most desirable thing on Earth—or in time. “Okay.”
“Come with me.” The older man led him back of the structure near the wall and through a door which led into a passageway. He walked briskly; Wilson hurried to keep up.
“By the way,” he asked, as they continued down the long passage, “what is your name?”
“My name? You may call me Diktor—everyone else does.
“Okay, Diktor. Do you want my name?”
“Your name?” Diktor chuckled. “I know your name. It’s Bob Wilson.”
“Huh? Oh—I suppose Joe told you.”
“Joe? I know no one by that name.”
“You don’t? He seemed to know you. Say—maybe you aren’t that guy I was supposed to see.”
“But I am. I have been expecting you—in a way. Joe . . . Joe—Oh!” Diktor chuckled. “It had slipped..my mind for a moment. He told you to call him Joe, didn’t he?”
“Isn’t it his name?”
“It’s as good a name as any other. Here we are.” He ushered Wilson into a small, but cheerful, room. It contained no furniture of any sort, but the floor was soft and warm as live flesh. “Sit down. I’ll be back in a moment.”