The Lighter Side (14 page)

Five minutes later Roger and Harwood stood beside the small stream which flowed through the wooded ground below the cliff, all that remained of the mighty flow which, ages ago, had carved the gorge.

"There was a nice stand of timber at the spot I'm looking for," Roger said. "A big elm, a yard in diameter, about ten feet from the bank—"

"White pebbles in the bottom?" Harwood cut in.

"I think so . . . yes."

"This way."

The sound of Bimbo's crashing approach came clearly to their ears as they hurried along the bank. It was no more than a minute before Roger halted, looking around.

"This is the place," he said. "I was right at the water's edge, with a big pine at my back." He stepped to the tree, pulled aside the low-growing boughs, squinting into the deep shade.

"I don't see nothing," Harwood muttered. "Looky, if we go back now and give ourselves up, maybe it'll take the edge off his temper."

"It's here," Roger said. "It's got to be here!"

"I don't know about that," Harwood said. "But Bimbo's here!"

"Keep him occupied!" Roger urged as the giant burst into view, puffing like a switch engine.

"Sure." Harwood's tone was not without an edge of sarcasm. "I'll trick him into pulling my legs off one at a time; that'll hold his attention fer a minute or two."

Suddenly there was a crackling of twigs and a swishing of leaves to Roger's left. A pair of segmented metallic tubes were groping about as though testing the air. A bulge of dusty red swelled into view, followed by the remainder of the headless body of the monster Roger had last seen in the desert.

"Cornered!" Roger gasped. "And I was so close . . . "

The alien being swiveled its lone eye about, failed to notice Roger lurking in the shadowy greenery. It pushed forward, emerged onto the riverbank a few feet behind Luke Harwood, who was making pushing motions toward the advancing Bimbo. The latter paused, his tiny red eyes flicking from the men to the monster, which stood jouncing on its spidery legs, waving its upper members uncertainly. The motion appeared to annoy Bimbo; he bellowed and charged straight past the astonished Harwood and on into the foliage as the alien bounded aside.

"Luke! This way!" Roger yelled as he lunged for the Aperture. Harwood, imagining the ape-man to be on his heels, sprang for the cover offered. Roger caught his arm, dragged him with him toward the line of light, which widened, flashed around the pair, and vanished as darkness closed in.

"Land sakes!" Luke muttered. "Where in tarnation are we?"

"I don't know—but at least there's no shellfire," Roger said. He felt around him, sniffled, shuffled his feet. He was standing on a hard-surfaced road, under a starry night sky. Wind moved softly in treetops; a cricket shrilled. Far away a train hooted sorrowfully.

"Hey—a light!" Luke pointed.

"Maybe it's a house," Roger said. "Maybe . . . maybe we're Outside!"

"Yippee," Luke caroled. "Just wait'll the boys back on the poop deck hear about this! Ye reckon they'll believe me?"

"You'd better prepare for a shock," Roger said. "Frankly, there've been a few changes . . . "

"Trouble is, I got no proof," Luke said. "In the last three weeks I had two broken arms, a busted leg, six split lips, goshamighty knows how many busted ribs and bruises, lost six teeth, and been beat to death four times—and not even a blood blister to prove it!"

"You'll have to curb your tendency to exaggerate," Roger said. "We might be able to sell our story to the newspapers for a tidy sum, but not if you carry on like that."

"Funny thing is," Luke said, "there ain't nothing much to it—getting kilt, I mean. Just blap! And then you're waking up and starting all over."

"I suppose Bimbo is enough to unhinge anybody," Roger muttered sympathetically. "But let's not think about that part now, Mr. Harwood. Let's go find a telephone and start shopping around for a publisher."

Five minutes' walk brought them to the source of the gleam. It was a lighted window in a converted farmhouse, standing high and white above a slope of black lawn. The two men followed the flower-bordered drive—two strips of concrete, somewhat cracked but still serviceable—to a set of brick steps leading up onto the wide porch. Roger knocked. There was no response. He knocked again, louder. This time he thought he heard uncertain footsteps.

"Who . . . who's there?" a frightened female voice came from inside.

"My name is Tyson, ma'am," Roger called to the closed door. "I wonder if I might use your phone?"

A bolt clicked; the door opened half an inch. A woman's face appeared—at least one large, dark eye and the tip of her nose. For a moment she stared at him; then the door swung back. The woman—slim, middle-aged, still pretty—swayed as if she were about to fall. Roger stepped quickly forward, caught her elbow.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes—I—I—I—it's just . . . I thought . . . I was the only one left in the world!" She collapsed into his arms, weeping hysterically.

Half an hour later, their hostess restored to calm, they were seated at a table in the kitchen, sipping hot coffee and exchanging reports.

"So—I just settled down and made the best of it," Mrs. Withers said. "I guess it's been the most restful three months of my life."

"How have you managed?" Roger asked. "I mean for food."

Mrs. Withers went to the brown wooden ice-box, opened it.

"Every morning it's full again," she said. "The same things: the three slices of ham, the half-dozen eggs, the bottle of milk, some lettuce, left-overs. And there are the canned goods. I've eaten the same can of creamed corn forty times." A smile twitched at her face. "Luckily, I like creamed corn."

"And the ice?" Roger pointed at the half-melted block in the bottom compartment.

"It melts every day and every morning it's whole again. And the flowers: I cut them every day and bring them in and the next morning they're back outside, growing on the same stems. And once I cut myself on a can. It was a deep cut, but in the morning it was gone, not even a scar. At first, I tore a page off the calendar every day, but it came back. It never changes, you see. Nothing changes. The sky is the same, the same weather, even the same clouds. It's always the same day: August seventeenth, nineteen thirty-one."

"Actually . . . " Roger began.

"Skip it, son," Luke whispered behind his hand. "If she gets any comfort out of thinking it's twenty-two years in the future, let her."

"What would you say if I told you it was nineteen eighty-seven?"

"I'd say your mainstay's parted, son."

"I'd argue with you," Roger said. "Except that I wouldn't want my suspicions along those lines confirmed."

"What's happened, Mr. Tyson? What does it mean?" Mrs. Withers asked.

"We've fallen into a trap of some sort," Roger said. "It may be a natural phenomenon or an artificial one, but it has rules and limitations. We already know a few of them."

"Yes," Mrs. Withers nodded. "You
did
come here—from somewhere. Can we go back?"

"You wouldn't like it there," Roger said. "But I don't think we'll land in the same place. I haven't so far. There seems to be a series of these cages, all joined at one point—a sort of fourth-dimensional manifold. When we leave here, we'll probably step into another cell. But I'm hoping we'll eventually find ourselves outside."

"Mr. Tyson—may . . . may I go with you?"

"You can come along if you like," Roger agreed.

"I want to," Mrs. Withers. "But you
will
wait until morning?"

"I'll be glad of a night's sleep," Roger sighed. "I can't remember the last one I had."

Lying in a clean bed in a cozy room half an hour later, Roger looked at his watch. 12:20. There was no reason, of course, to expect that an arbitrarily designated midnight should have any special significance in terms of the physical laws now governing things, but nonetheless . . . 

Time blinked.

There had been no physical shock, no sound, no change in the light. But
something
had happened. At 12:21 precisely, Roger noted the time. He looked around the room, in the almost total darkness saw nothing out of the ordinary. He went to the bed where Luke Harwood lay, bent to look at the man's face.

The scratches were gone. Roger touched his own bruised side, winced.

"It's a closed cycle, in time as well as space," he murmured. "Everything reverts to the state it was in twenty-four hours earlier—all but me. I'm different; my bruises collect. That being the case, let's hope tomorrow is an easier day than this one."

Bright and early the following morning, the trio left the house carrying a small paper bag of food and a twenty-two-caliber rifle Mrs. Withers had produced along with three cartridges. Roger located the Aperture after a short search.

"We'd better stay close together," he said. "I suggest we hold hands, just to be sure we don't get separated and wind up in different localities."

Mrs. Withers offered a hand to each of her two escorts. Roger in the lead, they stepped forward—

—and emerged in deep twilight which gleamed on giant conifers spreading ice-crusted boughs in the stillness. Roger sank calf deep in the soft snow. The air was bitterly cold.

"That was a short day," Luke grunted. "Let's go back and try again."

"I should have thought of this," Roger said. "It must be below zero."

"I'll just run back and get coats," Mrs. Withers suggested.

"It doesn't work that way," Roger said. "We may wind up in a worse place than this. And while we're here, we may as well look around. For all we know, we're clear. There may be a road within fifty feet of us, a house just over the rise! We can't run away without even looking. Luke, you go that way"—he pointed up-slope—"and I'll check below. Mrs. Withers, you wait here. We'll be right back."

Luke nodded, looking unhappy, started off in the direction indicated. Roger patted the woman's arm and set off among the trees. Already, his hands and toes and ears ached as if pliers were clamped on them. His breath formed instantly into fog before his face. He had gone no more than a hundred feet when he saw the felled tree.

It was a small pine, a foot in diameter at the base, only lightly powdered with snow. Most of the branches had been trimmed off and were neatly stacked nearby. The stump was cleanly cut, as if by a sharp axe. Roger studied the ground for tracks, in a moment found them, partially filled by blown snow.

"Only a few hours old," he muttered half aloud. The tracks led directly up-slope. He started off, following them, not an easy task in the failing light. He had almost reached the ridge when the deep
boom!
of a gun shattered the arctic stillness.

For a moment Roger stood rigid, listening as the echoes of the single shot rang in the air. It had come from the right, the direction Luke Harwood had taken. He started off at a run. The drifted snow caught at his legs, dragging at him; the icy air burned in his throat. He fell back to a walk, scanning the shadowy forest all around for signs of life, detoured around a giant fallen tree, encountered deeper snow. He heard faint sounds of movement ahead, as of someone hurrying away through the snow.

"Wait!" Roger called, but his voice was only a weak croak. For an instant, panic gripped him, but he forced it down.

"Got to get out," he whispered. "Colder than I thought. Freezing. Find Luke, get back to Mrs. Withers . . . "

He stumbled on, his hands and feet numb now, forced his way through a tangle of dry, ice-coated brush, and saw a crumpled figure lying in the snow. It was Luke Harwood, lying on his back, a bullet hole in his chest, his sightless eyes already rimmed with frost.

There was nothing he could do for Luke, Roger saw. He turned and set off at a stumbling run for the spot where he had left Mrs. Withers. Ten minutes later he realized he was lost. He stood in the gathering dusk, staring about at ranks of identical trees. He shouted, but there was no answer.

"Poor Mrs. Withers," he thought, his teeth chattering. "I hope she goes back through before she freezes to death." He stumbled on a little farther. Then without remembering falling, he was lying softly cradled in the snow. The warm, cozy snow. All he had to do was curl up here and snooze a while, and later . . . when he was rested . . . try . . . again.

He awoke lying in a bed beside a hide-covered window aglow with watery daylight. A tall, gaunt, bearded man was standing over him, chewing his lower lip.

"Well, you're awake," Job Arkwright said. "Where was you headed anyways, stranger?"

"I . . . I . . . I . . . " Roger said. His hands and feet and nose hurt, but otherwise he seemed sound of mind and limb. "What happened? Who are you? How did I get here?" A sudden thought struck him. "Where is Mrs. Withers?"

"Your missus is all right. She's asleep." The gaunt man nodded toward a bunk above the one in which Roger lay.

"Say!" Roger sat bolt upright. "Are you the one that shot Luke?"

"Reckon so. Sorry about that. Friend o' yours, I s'pose. I took him for somebody else."

"Why?" Roger blurted.

"Reckon it was the bad light."

"I mean—why were you going to shoot somebody else?"

"Why, heck, I never even met your friend to talk to, much less shoot, leastwise on purpose."

"I mean—oh, never mind. Poor Luke. I wonder what his last thoughts were, all alone out in the snow."

"Dunno. Why don't you ast him?" The stranger stepped back and Luke Harwood stood there, grinning down at Roger.

"B-but you're dead!" Roger yelped. "I saw you myself! There was a hole in you as big as your thumb!"

"Old Betsy's bite's as mean as her bark," Arkwright said proudly. "You should of seed Fly Beebody, time I picked him out of a pine at a hundred yards. One of my finest shots. He'll be along any minute now; get him to tell you about it."