Highway of Eternity

EARLY BIRD BOOKS

FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW—

NEW DEALS HATCH EVERY DAY!

Highway of Eternity

Clifford D. Simak

1

New York

The cable reached Boone in Singapore:
NEED A MAN WHO CAN STEP AROUND A CORNER
.
CORCORAN
. He caught the next plane out.

Corcoran's driver was waiting for him as he came through Customs at Kennedy. The man took Boone's bag and led the way to the limousine.

It had been raining, but the rain had stopped. Boone settled back comfortably on the well-upholstered seat, watching the scene unwind through the windows. How long had it been, he asked himself, since he had been in Manhattan? Ten years, perhaps more than ten.

By the time they reached Corcoran's apartment building, it had begun raining again. The driver gathered Boone's bags, held an umbrella for him, and ushered him to a private elevator to the penthouse. Corcoran was waiting in the library. He rose from a chair in the corner and came across the heavy carpeting with hand outstretched and a look of relief on his face.

“Thanks for coming, Tom. Had a good flight?”

“Good enough,” Boone told him. “I slept on the last leg.”

Corcoran nodded. “I remember you could always sleep on planes. What are you drinking these days?”

“Scotch with a splash of soda.” Boone sank into the indicated chair and waited until the drink was handed him. He took a long pull of it, glancing about at the appointments of the room. “You seem to be doing well these days, Jay.”

“Quite well. I have wealthy clients who pay for what they get. And operatives all over the world. If a diplomat sneezes in Bogota, I hear of it within hours. What's doing in Singapore?”

“Nothing. Just a layover between jobs. I can afford to be selective about the stories I take to cover these days. Not like it was when we used to see each other.”

“How long ago was it?” asked Corcoran. “When we first met, I mean.”

“It must be fifteen years or more. That unpleasantness in the East. You came in with the tanks.”

“That's it. We got there too late. It was a massacre. Bodies all piled up and no sign of anyone alive.” Corcoran grimaced at the memory. “Then suddenly, there you were, unruffled, standing among the dead. You wore that jacket with all the pockets for your notebooks, recorder, tapes, camera, and films. You carried so much stuff you seemed to bulge. And you told me you'd just stepped around a corner.”

Boone nodded. “Death was half a second away. So I stepped around a corner. When I stepped back, there you were. But don't ask me to explain. I couldn't tell you then and I can't tell you now. The only answer is one I don't like—that I'm some kind of a freak.”

“Let's say a mutant. Have you tried it since?”

“I've never tried it. But it's happened twice more—once in China and again in South Africa. When I did it, it seemed natural—the kind of thing any man might do. And now, what about you?”

“You heard what happened to me?”

“Some,” Boone answered. “You were a spy—CIA and all that. You were trapped, but you got word back, and a fighter snatched you up. A daredevil landing out of a grade-B movie. The plane was shot to hell and gone, yet it made it back …”

“That's right,” said Corcoran. “Then it crashed. The whole back of my head was smashed in, and I was so close to dead it didn't matter. But I had information that was vital, so they performed miracles saving my life … Anyhow, they had to do some strange things in fixing my head. Apparently some of the wiring in my brain got crossed or something. I see things differently now sometimes—things others don't or can't. And I think in quirky ways. I tie little items of information together in a sort of sneaky deduction that defies straight-line thinking. I know things with no reasonable way to know them. I've made it pay, too.”

“Fine. And does that have anything to do with your calling me here from Singapore?” Boone asked.

Corcoran leaned back and took a sip of the drink he'd mixed for himself, considering. Finally he nodded. “It has to do with one of my clients. He came to me about six years ago. Said his name was Andrew Martin. Maybe it was.”

Martin had come in, aloof and cold, and wouldn't shake hands. He refused absolutely to answer any questions. Then, when Corcoran moved to show him out politely, Martin reached into his breast pocket, took out an envelope, and pushed it across the desk. Inside were one hundred thousand-dollar bills.

“That's just a retainer,” he stated. “For any work you do, I'll pay double your usual rates.”

What he wanted were rumors from all over the world. Not the usual political things, but unusual or outrageous rumors—the sort that seemed to make no sense at all. He wouldn't say how he could be reached. He'd phone in daily and tell Corcoran where to find him—always at a different place.

There weren't too many of the kind of rumors he wanted, but for those he paid well, usually more than double rate, and always in thousand-dollar bills. It went on that way for years.

Corcoran checked on him, of course. But there wasn't much to be learned. Martin seemed to have no past and no discoverable occupation. He had a respectable office with a part-time receptionist, but she had no idea what he did. He seemed to have no business dealings at all.

He also had a corner suite at the Everest, but he didn't live there. At least, when Corcoran's operative got into the suite, there were no clothes in the closets nor any other sign of occupancy.

On occasion, Martin was seen around town with a woman named Stella, as mysterious in her way as he was in his.

Then, a few months ago, Martin and Stella vanished into thin air.

Boone sat up abruptly. “What?”

“That's right—or they seemed to. After the last time I reported to him, he left me and was seen making a phone call. A short time later, my operative at the Everest saw Stella leaving and followed her. She and Martin went into an old warehouse near the docks. They never came out. And they haven't been seen since.”

Boone took a pull on his drink and waited. Finally he prompted Corcoran. “That last rumor …”

“It came from London. Had to do with someone searching frantically for a place called Hopkins Acre.”

“That seems innocent enough.”

Corcoran nodded. “Except for one thing. In all of Britain, there is now no place called Hopkins Acre. But there was, four, five hundred years ago. Located in Shropshire. I checked. In 1615 it disappeared while the family that owned it was off on an European tour. It was there one day, gone the next. No sign left to show it had ever existed. The whole estate—the land, even the landscape—all of it gone, along with the people who farmed it or worked as servants in the house. Even the house. Not even a hole in the ground was left.”

“That's impossible,” said Boone. “A fairy tale.”

“But a true one,” said Corcoran. “We established beyond question that it had once been there and had disappeared.”

“And that's the end of the story?” Boone asked. He shook his head. “But I still don't see why you sent for me. I'm no good at tracing missing persons or locating houses that disappeared almost four hundred years ago.”

“I'm coming to that. I had other business, and Martin was gone, so I tried to forget him. But a couple of weeks ago, I read that the Everest was to be dynamited.”

Corcoran raised his eyebrows questioningly. Boone nodded. He was familiar with the way they placed shaped charges around a building that was to be demolished. When the process was done right, the structure simply came apart and fell as rubble for the shovels and bulldozers to clear away.

Corcoran sighed. “That brought Martin back to my mind. I went down to have a final look at the building. I'd left it to my operatives before, which was a mistake. Remember I said I saw things differently now?”

“You saw something?” Boone asked. “Something your men didn't see?”

“Something they couldn't possibly see. Only I can see it, and I have to catch it just right. I—well, I can't step around a corner, but sometimes I seem to see around a corner. Maybe on a wider spectrum, maybe a little way into time. Do you think it's possible for a man to step or see a little way into time, Tom?”

“I don't know. Never thought about it.”

“No. Well, anyhow, there it was—a sort of enclosed balcony like those you see plastered to the sides of apartment houses, just outside the suite Martin had occupied. Sort of out of sync with normal perception, half in and half out of our world. And since Martin never lived in the suite, I'm sure he must have lived in that balcony or box.”

Boone picked up his glass and drained it. He put it back carefully on the table. “You expect me to step around a corner to get into that box?”

Corcoran nodded.

“I'm not sure I can,” Boone told him. “I've never used the trick consciously. It always happened when I was in extreme danger—sort of a survival mechanism. I don't know whether I can do it on demand. I can try, of course, but …”

“That's all I ask,” said Corcoran. “I've exhausted every other possibility. The hotel is empty now and guarded, but I've arranged to get in. I've spent a lot of time there, probing, tapping, prodding, and drilling, trying to find a way into the contraption. Nothing. I can look out of the window against which it's stuck, and there's no sign of anything between window and street. But when I go outside and look up, there it is.”

“Jay, what's your big concern? What do you expect to find in that so-called balcony?” Boone demanded.

Corcoran shook his head. “I don't know. Maybe nothing. Martin became sort of an obsession with me. I probably spent a lot more trying to find out about him than his business paid. This is worse. Tom, I've
got
to get into that box!”