“Maybe,” he told himself, fighting for calm, “I can work that trick we used before.” He drew a shaky breath, pictured a standing lamp with an old-fashioned shade.
“Let there be light!” he murmured . . .
Brilliance sprang into being. Squinting against the glare, Roger came to his feet. He was in the center of a vast plain of polished glass that stretched away on all sides as far as he could see, featureless, unadorned.
“Well, at that, it’s better than being blown up,” he told himself. “I suppose my next move is to explore the place. In fact, it’s my only move, so I might as well start walking. Unless . . . ” He raised his voice: “Bicycle?”
There was a resounding crash. The twisted ruins of a hundred-foot Schwinn lay a quarter of a mile away, one forty-foot wheel spinning slowly.
“Smaller,” he specified. “And closer to the ground.”
“LITTLE BEING, DID YOU DO THAT?” a vast voice boomed out of the white sky.
Roger shied violently. “Wh-who was that?” he called.
“IT WAS I. WHO ELSE?”
Roger clapped his hands over his ears. “Do you have to talk so loud? You’re bursting Q’nell’s eardrums!”
“Is this better?” the voice spoke gratingly from a point a few feet above Roger’s head.
“Much. Uh—who’s speaking, anyway?”
“You may call me UKR.”
“Uh, where are you, Mr. Ucker?”
“At present I am occupying a ninth-order niche within Locus 3,432,768,954, Annex One, Master Index Section. Why?”
“Well—it’s rather disconcerting, not being able to see you.”
“Oh, perhaps it will help if I extend a third-order pseudosome into your coordinate system.”
A looming, misshapen form snapped into existence before Roger. It was twelve feet tall, and featured an amorphous head with a wide, slobbery mouth crowded with mismatched fangs, crossed scarlet eyes, pits like bullet wounds for nostrils, and arms of unequal length ending in satchel-sized hands with unpared nails.
“Yelp!” Roger cried, and backed rapidly away.
“Something wrong?” A booming voice issued from the monster’s mouth. “I selected every detail of the projection from a catalogue lodged deep within your subconscious. Don’t you find it reassuring?”
“You t-tapped the wrong level,” Roger quavered. “Try again.”
“How’s this?” The figure flowed and shrank like hot wax, reshaping itself into a bulletheaded, pot-bellied, unshaven seven-foot ogre with warts and a harelip.
“Better, but still not quite on the mark,” Roger demurred.
The figure dwindled still more; the face contorted like a rubber mask, settled into the benign features of an elderly professorial type. The stubble shot out to form a patriarchal white beard. The scarlet pupils disappeared behind thick bifocals, while the body became that of a retired librarian.
“Ah, I see by your expression I’ve hit it at last,” a frail, breathless voice said in a pleased tone. “Ah—is something missing?”
“Clothes would help,” Roger confided.
A serape appeared, draping the lean form. “How’s this?”
“Not quite in character, Mr. Ucker,” Roger pointed out.
Roger’s new acquaintance worked quickly through several outfits, including football togs circa 1890, a cowboy suit with matched pistols, and a pink leotard before settling on a swallow-tailed coat, striped pants, and a starched shirt with stand-up collar.
“Much better,” Roger approved, swallowing hard. “But don’t get the idea I’m impressed. I can do similar tricks myself.”
“Please don’t!” The old gentleman raised a hand. “You have no idea what hob you play when you meddle with the continuum that way. As a matter of fact, you completely spoiled a gob of pre-material flux from which I was about to construct a third-order ecological experiment on this supposedly sterile slide.”
“A sterile slide?” Roger looked around wildly. “I don’t see any slide. Or much of anything else.”
“Oh, forgive me,” UKR said. “Of course you’d prefer a cozy third-order frame of reference.” Instantaneously, the surrounding expanse of polished floor winked out of existence, to be replaced by a yawning abyss dropping away on all sides from the lone spire of rock on which they stood.
Roger shut his eyes tight. “Would you mind just putting a rail around the edge?” he asked between gritted teeth.
“Oh, a claustrophile. There; how’s that?”
Roger opened his eyes cautiously. The rocky ground had become a floor surrounded by walls and equipped with stone-topped benches with Bunsen burners, retorts, mazes of glass tubing, and complicated equipment.
“It looks like a laboratory,” he said.
“Precisely. Which brings us back to the problem of contamination. Before I sterilize the slide, I wonder if you’d mind telling me just how you managed to introduce yourself into a sealed environmental mock-up?”
“I didn’t introduce myself. I was pitched in here by the Rhox.”
“Dear me, this becomes more complex by the moment.” UKR frowned. “You imply there are other foreign bodies in the system?”
“As foreign as you could get,” Roger assured the old gentleman. “You see, the Rhox are planning to invade Earth, and they’ve built this trap system so they can spy out the lie of the land. It’s not just an ordinary invasion, mind you: they’re invading from time; they plan to occupy all ages simultaneously, and—”
“Earth? Earth?” The old man pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. “I don’t seem to place it. A moment, please.” He stretched out a hand and drew a massive volume from a shelf at his elbow. He riffled rapidly through, ran a knobby finger down a column.
“Ah, here we are. Hmmm. Molten surface, incessant meteorite bombardment, violent electrical discharges in the turbulent CO2 atmosphere?”
“Not quite, that was some time ago. Nowadays—”
“Oh, yes, how stupid of me. Giant saurians battling to the death in steaming swamps.”
“Still a little early. In my time—”
“Of course; I have it now: mammals, flowering plants, ice caps, all that sort of thing.”
“Close enough,” Roger agreed. “And it’s all going to be taken over by the Rhox, unless Q’nell succeeds in planting the null-engine—” He broke off. “But I’m wearing her body, so I must have the null-engine!” He felt over Q’nell’s pockets, produced a small cylinder and held it up. “Here it is!”
The old fellow plucked it from his fingers.
“Careful! Don’t twist the cap!” Roger blurted as the old man twisted the cap. There was a sharp pop! and a puff of smoke. UKR thrust his fingers into his mouth.
“Astonishing! It released enough temporal energy to reduce the average fourth-order continuum to mush,” he said around them. “Perhaps I’d better just scan your rudimentary brain to see what other surprises you have to offer.” There was a momentary pause. “Ah, yes. Very amusing.” The old man nodded. “However, Mr. Tyson, I’m afraid you labor under a number of misapprehensions.”
“Look here . . . ” Sudden hope dawned in Roger’s voice. “You seem to be a pretty clever chap. Maybe you could help get me out of the fix I’m in!”
“Don’t give it another thought, my boy. I’ll see to everything.”
“You will? Wonderful! I suggest you start by pointing out—”
“The contamination is apparently a good bit more extensive than I thought,” the old man was rambling on. “According to the data in your mind, these Rhox creatures appear to have introduced impurities into a large number of culture specimens—”
“Forget about your nutrient broths for a second,” Roger cut in. “I’m talking about the whole future of the human race!”
“—and it will therefore be necessary to throw out the lot, I suppose. A pity, but there you are. But what does it matter, really? It’s a small series, only ten billion, four hundred and four million, nine hundred and forty-one thousand, six hundred and two slides.”
“Did you say ten billion, four hundred and four million, nine hundred and forty-one thousand, six hundred and two?” Roger inquired.
“I did. And—”
“That’s a coincidence,” Roger said. “That’s exactly the same as the number of exhibits in the Museum.”
“Culture slides,” the old man corrected absently. “Not exhibits. And it’s not a museum, of course.” He chuckled amiably. “But as I said, I’ll clear it all up in a moment, by the simple expedient of returning it all to a pre-material state. As for yourself, just stand by; won’t take a moment, and it will be quite painless.”
“Wait! You mean—all those places I saw were just glorified microbe cultures?”
“Hardly glorified; just run-of-the-mill random samplings. Among all the others in the files, they’ll never be missed.” The old man sighed. “It’s really rather a bore, at times, maintaining a laboratory complex for a race of Builders that never use it.”
“You mean the Rhox?”
“Dear boy, the Rhox are a minor impurity, nothing more. According to their own statements, as recorded in your rather limited memory cells, they exist in a mere fifth-order continuum. Having stumbled upon the Filing System, they seem to have managed to burrow into it at a number of points, probably with a view to nest-building.”
“B-but—if they didn’t set up the time trap—who did?”
“I did.”