by Earl
Tyson slanted the ship down toward the ponderous gates and landed it on the wall next to a small housing. The gatekeeper, a hawk-nosed fellow, stared at them quizzically.
“Open the gates,” commanded Tyson.
“But why?” asked the gate-keeper, turning to peer with squinted eyes beyond the city. “There is no one approaching from the Earth-dimension.”
“No, but we wish to try going through the Spot, back toward Earth, just for our own satisfaction,” spoke up Carver. “There’s no harm trying, is there?”
The gate-keeper grinned at him in recognition. “You’re the man who arrived recently? There is no return to Earth. Others have tried it—countless others.”
“I want to try for myself,” insisted Carver stubbornly.
The gate-keeper scowled. “All right,” he said grumblingly, after a moment. “Go down below. But do not go too far outside the gate. I saw one of the big beasts roaming around before.”
Tyson led the way down winding stairs to the base of the wall. Carver was in a fever of impatience to attempt the return, despite the repeated pessimism against its success. Finally the massive halves of the metal gate swung outward, without a whisper of sound.
The three waiting stepped forward, out toward the dark wild wastes. Squinting his eyes, with the sun in back of him, Barry Carver could see the “mirage” of Earth before him, the vast ocean of the Sahara. It hung over the other scene like a dancing image. Was there no return to it?
They trudged forward. Out of curiosity, Carver took out his compass and glanced at it. The needle, pointing away from the city as north, suddenly spun wildly as he walked along. A few feet further on it was pointing into the city, in a queer reversal that was like an ill omen.
Altogether, they walked forward a hundred yards, but the Earth-mirage did not become real.
“You see?” said Tom Tyson, but with disappointment himself.
“I had been hoping—a little,” murmured Helene.
Carver looked back baffled. He could see the outline of the Spot, like a round bluish tunnel in the air, filling the space between the gate posts. They had walked right through it. It offered no return to Earth. He was convinced of it now. He shrugged and turned to go back.
“Oh!”
IT was a gasp from Helene. Her fingers dug into his arm. He looked in the direction she indicated and gasped himself. Out of the dark land was charging a monster of scales and spines, rearing twenty feet from the ground. Rooted in surprise, Carver recognized it. A Tyrannosaurus, from the Reptilian Age of the dim past! It thundered down on them, a juggernaut of bone and muscle.
“Run!” shouted Tyson. They fled for the gateway, but Carver felt futile despair. They would never make it before the monstrous killer caught up with them. He jerked out his automatic and emptied it at the creature, though he realized it would have as little effect as tossing pebbles.
Fifty yards to go! Carver pushed the girl before him and glanced over his shoulder. Giant jaws, edged with rows of horrible teeth, were almost within striking distance. Death at his very back!
And then—from the top of the wall stabbed a crimson beam, hissing through the air. It caught the beast squarely and burned smokingly through armored scales. Screaming shrilly, it spun about and raced back the way it had come, with a thunder of its ponderous feet.
Safe within the gates, trembling and panting, the three watched the great portals swing together.
“A dinosaur!” growled Carver. “What else have you got in this crazy world?” He was more angry than astonished, for his sense of surprise had become dulled with repeated revelations.
When they had climbed to the top of the wall, the gatekeeper was shoving a wheeled weapon back to its niche in the guardhouse. Carver could see an intricate group of tubes, coils and wiring behind a mesh-screen, connecting to a shiny convex mirror. It was powered, probably, from the ether broadcast lines and shot out raw heat energy as a beam. Again an example of advanced science.
“Thanks, Proxides,” said Tyson warmly. “We owe our lives to your sharp eyes and quick action.”
The gate-keeper grunted. “These eyes that are trained to watch for the demon-people’s slinking shapes cannot fail to see a mountain of flesh before the nose. And in the old days”—his eyes flashed slightly—“one had to learn quickness in the hand-to-hand battles with the Persians. Ah, in those times—”
The buzzing of a wall instrument intervened.
Carver turned to see a square panel glow with prismatic colors that suddenly flew together to form a face. Television—and far clearer than the images cast by the latest 1942 models on earth!
A bearded, sharp-nosed visage peered out of the visi-screen.
“Proxides,” he barked, “for whom or what reason did you open the gates?”
“For the new man, sire, who did not believe there was no return to Earth.”
“I see.” The eyes shifted to meet those of Carver and he felt as though he were looking into pools of endless depths. “I will explain to him sometime, when I am not so busy.” The image faded.
“Who’s he?” asked Carver.
“Chief scientist of Shorraine,” said Tyson. “If you want a scientific explanation for everything, Val Marmax is the man to give it.”
“Then let’s see him right away!” demanded Carver.
“Can’t, while he’s busy. But I’ll arrange for you to see him as soon as possible.”
“AND right now,” spoke up Helene Ward, “you’re going back to your room, and bed. You’re still a convalescent. Too much excitement at one time.”
“I feel fine,” Carver protested.
“Doctor’s orders,” said the girl firmly. “You’re not as well as you think, yet.”
“You’re taking pretty good care of me,” smiled Carver.
The girl’s face tinted and she lowered her eyes without answering. By the time they had flown back to his room, Carver realized she was right. A strange weakness had stolen over him, an after-effect of the drugs, he surmised. In bed, he fell instantly asleep, too tired to conjecture over the amazing riddle of Shorraine.
For the next three days, while his full strength rapidly returned, Barry Carver lived a strange dream. Helen and Tyson, who spent most of his waking hours with him, had obviously entered a conspiracy to explain little or nothing. Tyson assured him that soon he would be told all things, by one more qualified to make it clear, Val Marmax, the scientist.
In fact, in the many hours they spent on the balcony conversing, Helene and Tyson asked the most questions. They were pitifully eager, almost, to hear of events in their former life. They drank in his words, the picture of rapt attention.
“We hear much of what goes on in the world, by radio,” informed Tyson. “But it’s dry, second-hand. And we can’t ask the announcer questions. Since the war’s been on, we’ve heard less, because, I suppose, of stiff censorship. We hardly know what is going on right now.”
Carver’s eyes went bleak.
“It’s the greatest conflict in human history,” he murmured. “With science let loose as a ravening brute. It all began with the assassination of Hitler, over a year ago. It was a mistake. He became a martyr, in the eyes of his world-wide followers. Two months later they rose in attack, inflamed by the other leaders. Every nation became involved, on one side or the other. If the enemy wins—dictatorship all over Earth!”
He jumped up and began pacing, hands clenched. “I keep thinking of that Jap army. It must be stopped! Why did I have to fall, or crawl, into this damned trap?”
“You wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t.” reminded Helene gently.
“Well, you’re right,” admitted Carver. His shoulders sagged helplessly. “I’ll have to make the best of it.”
He saw an exchange of looks between the other two, as though they too at one time had come to such a conclusion.
Tyson took them flying at times, over the city. He taught Carver the technique of handling the controls, and it was with some pleasure
that Carver maneuvered the ship at breathtaking spurts and spins. It was far superior in manipulation to clumsy propellored ships. He thought vaguely of such craft in the war on Earth, and what a tremendous advantage they would be in any aerial battles.
The second day, high over the city, Carver noticed a break in the horizons beyond, which elsewhere was an unbroken expanse of dark wilderness. Faintly, he seemed to see the spires and serrate outlines of another city.
“Is it a city?” he asked.
Tyson nodded, his lips tightening a little.
“Well?”
“It’s a city of—other people,” vouched Tyson reluctantly.
CARVER stared at their averted eyes.
“You two are keeping a lot from me,” he accused.
Helene touched his arm. “You’ve only been here a few days, Barry,” she said softly. “You can’t learn of everything at once. Val Marmax will explain better than we can.”
Carver let it rest at that, though his impatience and wonder grew hourly. His two guides took him through the various industries of Shorraine. Robot machinery, almost unattended, made the necessities of life, including food. All raw material came from simple rock molecules, by processes of transmutation. Power to run all machines, as with the aircraft, came wirelessly from a central power-station. This gigantic plant was crammed to the roof with busily humming cyclotrons. Carver vaguely understood it as the generation of atomic energy.
And here was all this science in full-bloom, cooped up in some isolated “dimension!” It was the science of Earth’s future. But how wonderful to have it now, if only Earth could have it.
The people of the city interested Barry Carver the most, however. Though dressed uniformly in the colorful costumes of their style, they were of all races, including a sprinkling of Chinese and Negroes. The predominant white, in turn, was of all different types, from almost black Asiatic Indians to pink-white Nordics. The main bulk, however, seemed to be an olive-skinned, sharp-nosed people.
Ethnologically, the citizens of Shorraine were a mixed group. And Carver sensed too that they were divergent in a subtler way that he couldn’t define. Snatches of conversation that he overheard mystified him. There were references to the past that puzzled him. But most amazing of all, when he stopped to think of it, was the widespread use of dozens of different languages. And particularly when he noticed a swarthy Indian talking German, a Chinese using French, a blonde Nordic rolling off the difficulties of Greek!
It was always with a queer shock that Carver came upon the silent, unobtrusive Neanderthal Men. They served as well-treated menials, apparently. Their little, dull eyes reflected the muddled mind of a creature half-way between man and ape. Earth anthropologists would mortgage their souls for one of them.
On the third morning of his awakening, Helene informed him, in a rather subdued voice, that he was to be received by the “Queen.”
“Your ruler?” asked Carver.
“No. She was a Queen, in her former life, and out of courtesy the title remains. She makes it a practice to welcome all newcomers to Shorraine.” Helene turned away with a strange hunch of her shoulders. She turned back suddenly. “If you wished, you could pass it by.”
“No, I’ll see the Queen,” said Carver, interested. He quoted: “A royal invitation is a command.”
Tyson joined them and together they soared to a tower of elaborate design, frescoed and studded with blocks of sparkling stone. At the landing terrace, a bowing hawk-nosed attendant ushered them into a room hung with gorgeous tapestries. Statuettes gleamed in wall niches. Perfume lingered in the air. On a couch of silks reclined a woman in a clinging robe of white.
“Her Majesty, Queen Elsha!” announced the attendant solemnly, withdrawing.
CARVER stared almost rudely. He had never seen a woman quite like her before. Raven-black hair ran smoothly over the ears to outline an olive-tinted face of dark, heavy-lidded eyes, thin aristocratic nose and lips crimsoned artificially. One hand, with gold-tinted nails, toyed with the ears of a woolly dog curled beside her. The langorous lines of her figure were a study of artistic perfection.
She was staring at him, a faint smile on her lips.
“You are Barry Carver, most recent pilgrim to Shorraine,” Her voice was low, husky, melodious. “You will tell me about the outside world that I have not seen for—a while?”
“Anything you want to know, Queen Elsha,” assured Carver, flushing a little at her direct gaze. He felt himself being appraised, weighed, almost analyzed, and seemed to see a gleam of approval in those slumbrous eyes.
She glanced at the others. “May I not be alone with my guest?”
Carver saw Helene dart a veiled glance at the woman, and then turn away with that same little hunch of her shoulders. Tyson managed to whisper a word in Carver’s ear before he left, with a cynical grin: “Dynamite!” Alone with the creature who seemed the essence of Oriental womanhood, Carver felt at a loss. He could feel his ears burn.
“Sit down beside me, Barry Carver,” she invited. Her English was fluent, natural. “Tell me about yourself.”
He did, briefly. Then he asked: “What were you queen of, before you came to Shorraine?” He reflected it must be some comic-opera principality, perhaps in Asia Minor.
Her eyes lighted. “Of a great land. But that is no more.” A fiercer expression shone from her dark eyes, then. “I should still be a rightful queen. But they have taken my power away, in Shorraine.” She peered up at him. “Will you help me regain what I have lost, Barry Carver? You are a leader. I know that at first glance. You could do much—for me.”
Carver stammered a negative, startled at the sudden appeal.
“No?”
Her arms were suddenly around his neck, drawing his lips to hers. The exotic perfume of her hair hypnotized his senses. But a word flashed through his mind: “Dynamite!”
“I have to go,” he said firmly, pulling himself away. He left without a backward glance, and soared away in his ship.
Helene was waiting, at his tower. “Well?” she said, with a trace of coldness.
“Well, what?” he countered.
“You were there a half hour,” said the girl pointedly. “When the Queen welcomed me, it only took five minutes.” She turned with that queer hunch of her shoulder.
Carver laughed, and drew her to him. “I love you, Helene,” he said simply. “From the first moment.”
She resisted him. “You’ve only known me three days. How can you know—”
“Three days, three minutes, three years—what’s the difference? Helene—”
Carver was determined, sure of himself. He hadn’t been sure of it before. The episode with Queen Elsha had served to crystallize his own attitude to the sweet, attractive girl who had been nurse and companion for three days.
SHE held herself stiffly as he slipped his arms around her, but suddenly relaxed in surrender, sought his lips eagerly.
“Oh, Barry, take me away from this place—back to Earth!” she half sobbed, after a moment.
“I’ll certainly try,” he promised.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered. “Tomorrow Val Marmax will see you. You’ll hear the full story.” She shuddered. “Then you’ll know!”
In the morning, Tyson was on hand. “Val Marmax is waiting for us, Barry.
He says he will explain many things.”
“Good,” nodded Carver. “So far I’ve seen things that need plenty of tall explaining.” He set his lips grimly. “If I’m to be stuck in Shorraine, I want to know the why of everything. Coming along, Helene?”
She slipped her hand in his. “I think I want to hear what Val Marmax has to say, too. I’ve been here a year, Earthtime, and it’s all a mystery to me.”
“Why do you say ‘Earth-time’ ?” asked Carver, having heard the expression several times. “Is there a different time-system in Shorraine?”
“Let Val Marmax explain,” said Tyson, shortly.
Their flat-decked ship arose, smoothly, and dart
ed in the direction of the city’s gates. A short distance before them lay a long, low building in the shadows of sky-piercing towers. Landing on the roof, the way led down winding stairs. Finally, before a door of burnished metal, Tyson pressed a button. Soft lights flashed in their eyes—Carver guessed it to be a vision scanner—and then the door opened.
Not unfamiliar with laboratories, Carver recognized the room beyond immediately as such. But little of the paraphernalia strewn about on benches and shelves was that of Earth-science. The aspect of the place was foreign, strange and somehow, age-old. Carver’s heart beat faster, for some indefinable reason.
Val Marmax was seated at a desk before an instrument whose rotating metal scroll made some kind of record. But the scientist was neither speaking nor writing. He was just staring at a small humming globe over the machine. In a flash of insight, Carver knew he was recording his thoughts directly on the scroll.
The three stood silently, waiting.
Finally the scientist’s thin, sensitive hand flipped a switch at the side and the machine’s hum ceased. He looked up. Carver met his eyes. Far more than the vision screen had showed, that other time, they were orbs of dynamic intensity. They seemed filled with the wisdom of ages, shining forth like a steady beacon. Yet behind this, Carver sensed a deep weariness. For the rest, he was an average man, about forty, somewhat portly, with a lofty brow, pointed beard and full lips.
At a querulous glance from the scientist, Tyson gave Carver’s name.
“The things of Shorraine mystify you, Barry Carver?” spoke the scientist in a deep, grave voice. “I will answer your questions. I am Val Marmax, chief scientist of Shorraine.”
“From where are you?” queried Carver first of all, unable to place the man’s precise accent.
“From Atlantis.”
“Atlantis?” Carver looked blank. Then he gasped “Atlantis‘.” again, sharply. It took him a few seconds to regain his lost voice. “But you can’t mean the mythical island of prehistory—” He stopped, looking at his two companions, but they showed no surprise.
