“It’s a marvel how much dreary landscape the world has to offer,” Luke panted after a quarter of an hour of splashing through the shallows had led them back to their starting point.
“We’ll have to try again,” Roger said. “We can’t stay here.” He swatted one of the huge, inquisitive mosquitoes that swarmed about their heads. They stepped once more through the Aperture—
* * *
—and were . . . in a wide field of flowers, under a balmy sky. All around, wooded hills rose to an encircling ring of snow-capped peaks. A small falls tumbled down over a rocky outcropping nearby, feeding a clear river that wound off across the plain.
“How beautiful!” Mrs. Withers exclaimed. “Roger—Luke—can’t we stay here awhile?”
“I’m wearied with this scrambling from one climate to the next,” Luke agreed. “And we’re no closer to escape than ever.”
“It suits me,” Roger said. “And I’m hungry. Let’s get a fire going and rustle a meal.”
After they ate, Mrs. Withers wandered off, picking the crimson poppies and yellow buttercups that abounded there, accompanied, grumbling, by Luke. Roger stretched out on the grass by the Aperture, Beebody squatting uncomfortably beside him.
“Master Roger,” the parson said awkwardly after the others had passed out of earshot. “I . . . I propose that we come to terms, thee and me.”
“About what?”
Beebody hunkered closer. “As thee see, thy strength avails naught against mine. Try as thee will to draw my soul into Hell, still I resist, sustained by prayer and righteousness.”
“Try to get this, Beebody,” Roger said. “As far as I’m concerned, you can keep your soul. All I want is a way out of here.”
“Aye—a path back into the Pit thee came from!” Beebody hissed. “Think thee not I can smell the brimstone on thee—and on the imp who takes the form of Luke? Did I not mark how thee two stood against thy fellow demon, sent no doubt by thee to slay Job Arkwright and his mistress.” His eyes went to the bundle. “And think thee not I understand why thee was so set on bearing the foul remains of thy ally with us?”
“Go to sleep, Fly,” Roger said. “You’ll need all the rest you can get.”
“I have prayed and meditated, even as by the strength of my virtue I kept thee from the path thee seek; and it comes to me now that, to preserve my earthly husk to continue the struggle against sin, it would be meet to come to agreement with thee. Otherwise will we both exhaust ourselves.”
“Come to the point,” Roger said roughly. “What do you want?”
“Take the woman,” Beebody whispered. “Spare me! Return me to the true world, and I’ll omit thee in my curses!”
“You’re an amazing man, Fly,” Roger said, studying the cherubic face, the worried eyes. “Suppose I take you, and free Odelia instead?”
“Nay, demon, my works are needed in the sinful world of fallen man! I cannot allow such a victory to the Dark One!”
“Your concern for the populace is touching,” Roger said, “but—” He broke off as Fly Beebody’s eyes went past him, widening. The fat man rose to his feet, pointing. Roger turned to look. A shaggy brown bear had appeared at the edge of the forest, a hundred feet distant. It moved forward confidently, directly toward the two men.
“I yield!” Beebody babbled. “Send not this new devil to me! I consent to join with thee, to aid thee in thy fell designs! Take the woman! I’ll help thee now! I’ll fight thee no longer!”
“Shut up, you jackass!” Roger snapped. “Luke!” he called. “Get Mrs. Withers through the Aperture!”
Luke and Mrs. Withers started back at a run. The bear, interested in the activity, broke into a heavy gallop. “Beebody!” Roger shouted. “Help me distract him until they’re clear!” From the corner of his eye, he saw the parson move—in the opposite direction. He turned in time to see him lift the bagged alien, swing the bulky bundle toward the Aperture.
“Fly! Don’t! You might be dumping that monster in among defenseless people!” Roger grabbed for the blanket, but Beebody resisted with surprising strength. For a moment they struggled back and forth, Beebody red of face and rattling off appeals to a Higher Power, Roger casting looks over his shoulder at the rapidly approaching animal, and at Luke and Odelia Withers, coming up fast from the right.
Suddenly his foot slipped. He felt himself whirled about, off balance. He tottered back, saw the glint of the Aperture expanding around him, saw Beebody’s flushed face, Luke and the woman behind him, and beyond, the open jaws of the bear.
The daylight winked out—
* * *
—to be replaced by an all-enclosing gray. For an instant, Roger teetered on one toe, struggling for balance. Then a giant hand closed on his body, yanked him up, around, and out into the brilliant light of a vast, white-floored room.
4
He stood half-dazed, staring around at looming banks of gleaming apparatus under a glowing ceiling that arched overhead like an opaque sky, hearing the soft hum and whine of machinery that filled the air. Nearby stood half a dozen sharp-eyed men with excellent physiques shown off by form-fitting outfits in various tasteful colors.
One of the men stepped forward, emitted a sharp, burping sound, looking at Roger warningly.
“I hear the Asiatics do that after dinner,” Roger said in a tone close to hysteria. “But I never heard of using it as a greeting.”
“Hmmm. Pattern noted: Subject either fails to understand, or pretends to fail to understand Speedspeak. I will therefore employ Old Traditional.” He eyed Roger sternly. “I was just advising you that disorganizer beams are focused on you. Make no attempt to employ high-order mental powers, or we will be forced to stimulate your pain centers to level nine or above.”
“B-b-b-b,” Roger said.
“Your behavior has puzzled us,” the man went on in a cool, mellow voice. “We have followed your path through the Museum. It appears aimless. Since this is incompatible with your identity, it follows that your motives are of an order of complexity not susceptible to cybernetic analysis. It therefore becomes necessary to question you. It is for this reason that we have taken the risk of grappling you from the Channel.”
“My m-motives?” Roger gulped. “Look here, you fellows have got the wrong idea.”
“You continue to broadcast meaningless images of flight and primitive fear,” his inquisitor stated. “These delaying tactics will not be tolerated.” A swift flash of pain tingled along Roger’s bones.
“What was the principle underlying your choice of route?” the questioner demanded.
“There wasn’t any!” Roger yelped as the pain nipped him again.
“Hmmm. His movements do fit in with a random factor of the twelfth order,” a second man spoke up. “It appears the situation is more complex than we imagined.”
“His appearance here at this particular juncture is a most provocative datum,” another pointed out. “It suggests a surveillance aspect we’ve failed heretofore to include in our computations.”
“He’s obviously an incredibly tough individual, capable of enduring any mere psychophysical stimulus without breaking,” a man in powder blue contributed. “Otherwise he would never have been dispatched on his errand—whatever that might be.”
“In that case, we may as well proceed at once to mechanical mind-stripping techniques,” a lemon-yellow Adonis proposed. There was a soft click! and a large, white-enameled, blunt-snouted machine like a gigantic dentist’s drill swung into position directly over Roger.
“Wait a minute!” he protested, and attempted to back away, only to discover that he was paralyzed—rooted to the spot. “What’s the big idea?” he blurted. “Let me out of here! For all you know, I had important business pending back where I came from! I might have been on my way to land a high-pay, low-work job! I could have been rushing to marry the richest and most beautiful woman in the Middle West! I might even have been on my way to Washington to deliver information vital to national security!”
“What a mind-shield!” a man in raspberry pink said admiringly, studying his dials. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was only a high-grade moron with an IQ scarcely above one hundred forty.”
“That’s it!” Roger agreed. “Now we’re getting somewhere! I don’t know who you gentlemen think I am, but I’m not! I’m Roger Tyson, gentleman adventurer—”
“Come now,” the man in blue said kindly. “Do you expect us to believe that your appearance in the Museum today—if you’ll pardon the expression—just as we are about to launch our long-awaited probe mission down the null-temporal Axis is sheer coincidence?”
“Absolutely,” Roger said fervently. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t the faintest idea where I am now. Or”—a look of dawning wonder appeared on his face—”when I am!”
“Our era is the twenty-third decade after the Forcible Unification. About twenty-two forty-nine, Old Calendar—as if you didn’t know.”