by L. P. Davies
To come and capture us again … But would it be their intention to make prisoners of us this time? Or, after the injury we had inflicted upon one of their number, would they come bursting out with weapons ready to fire? Would they use that infernal heat-ray against us again?
We stood there, backs to the mist, facing the threat of the cleft.
The first of our pursuers appeared in the opening, bamboo tube held across his chest. I can remember the way the sunlight flashed from the knife at his waist as he slid to a stop in a small flurry of dust. Two more men appeared, one of them carrying the larger tube of the heat-ray. And they too came to an abrupt halt.
They were not looking directly at us but over our shoulders towards the mist. And there was something akin to fear on their squat swarthy faces. For a long moment we stood there, looking at them, waiting for their next move. Lee had gripped my elbow and I could feel the way his fingers bit into my flesh.
It was the figure with the dart-weapon who made the first move. He tore his eyes away from the mist, blinked at us, and then started to bring up his weapon. That move made me aware of, and broke the spell of, the feeling of lassitude that had been creeping over me.
We turned together, Lee’s grip still tight on my arm, and fled from the threat of poison darts and heat-ray towards the unknown and whatever might be waiting behind the the mist.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the instant before reaching the curtain of mist I threw one last quick glance back over my shoulder. Lee was right behind me, almost blotting out the scene. But I caught a glimpse of the group of men at the opening of the ravine, more of them now—perhaps a dozen or so—all standing there, making no attempt to follow.
Then I turned my head back again and was in the mist. It is difficult to recall what happened then. I can remember being surprised that there was a sensation of solidness, that instead of feeling cold dampness on my face, instead of being able to plunge through it without obstruction, I felt a warm tingling on my exposed flesh and a resistance that almost brought me to a halt. It was the invisible resistance found in a nightmare race away from horror when one’s panic-stricken pace is reduced to slow motion.
There was a smell, the same warm, sickly animal smell I had noticed before and had come to associate with the mist. Blinded by the enveloping greeny-greyness I had the impression of being held, of being picked up bodily and suspended in mid-air while walls closed in on either side. The substance that enclosed and held me became thicker and darker, blotting out what little light remained. The tingling on face and hands became more acute. I closed smarting eyes. There was the feeling of something draining the life out of my body, but that was a sensation that could only have lasted for a moment. Then the walls seemed to move back, the barrier in front ceased resisting and I dropped, or seemed to drop, lurching forward, stumbling, falling to my knees. The prickling stopped and I opened my eyes to find myself peering through floating tendrils of mist at a nightmare landscape of dim but hideous pools of seething matter, gigantic bubbles rising to the surface, bursting, sending up trails of vapour that drifted about the ghost-shapes of grotesque pinnacles of rock and tortured, leafless trees. The revolting stench caught at the back of my throat and burned in my nostrils. The terrifying, alien horror of the scene was indescribable. There was the feeling of being on another planet an infinity of space and time away from my own world, even from Dimension A. I felt the very ground under my knees writhe, as if it were alive, as if I were kneeling on the skin-shuddering back of some enormous creature. Fighting rising sickness, I closed my eyes against the horror and put my hands in front of my face—as if the action would afford some kind of protection. I couldn’t have been far from unconsciousness.
Gradually the nausea passed. Behind my closed eyes I was aware of a change. The evil smell had gone and there was warmth on my shoulders. Taking my hands from my face I opened my eyes. The nightmare scene had gone. I was kneeling on the emerald grass of a glade with the familiar artificial trees and bushes and flowers all about me. And in the distance the bird was trilling its soft eerie notes.
Just behind me Lee was sitting up and gazing about in stupefaction. Beneath the coating of sweat-caked dust his features were strained. His eyes, meeting mine, were glazed.
“Are you all right?” I asked anxiously.
He nodded, trying to square his shoulders. He tried to speak, failed, tried again. “That was nasty while it lasted. I think I must have passed out. I can’t remember much about it, only that stuff, whatever it is, taking hold of me. It wasn’t like ordinary mist…”
I waited for him to say something about that first hideous scene. But he didn’t, and when I asked him he shook his head, saying he had seen nothing like that. “And I don’t think I was that far gone. You’re sure you saw it?” He looked round. “Here—where all this is?”
The trees and bushes were all around us; even the mist had vanished.
“Where all this is,” I said.
He came to his feet. “Like I said, I almost passed out.”
“I was conscious. It wasn’t a dream.”
“Another puzzle then. I wouldn’t like to have to go through that experience again. A bit like coming through the door. Remember? The same sort of feeling of being turned inside out.”
I pushed myself upright. “Not much to choose between them for unpleasantness,” I agreed.
“And we know one’s artificial. A magnetic field. So—”
“Not ordinary mist,” I said. “Not even mist produced artificially. Some kind of force field perhaps.
And whatever it is, I don’t think the people out there have had anything to do with it. They looked scared as far as I could tell. They had us cornered, there for the taking, but they just stood as if frightened to come any further.”
“Conclusion:”—he mused—“two different forms of life. Those fellows out there and something that lives in here behind the mist or the force field, whichever it is. Something or some people who are able to produce solid hallucinations. Like all this now. Which could mean that if you weren’t dreaming, what you saw was their real home before they got to work dolling it up for our benefit.”
“I didn’t dream it. You could be right, Lee. And if you are, and they bear any resemblance to their native surroundings, then I wouldn’t much care to meet one of them face to face.”
“They’ve done us no harm so far,” he said. “The reverse if anything. It seems they’ve gone to the trouble to change their scenery into something they know we’ll find more congenial. They’re trying in their own way to make us feel at home. Last time we were in here they laid water on for us. Even if we didn’t take advantage of it. Maybe, if that storm hadn’t blown up, they’d have laid on food as well. They’re offering hospitality. But why the hell do they keep out of sight?”
He scratched the stubble on his chin.
“Invisible? Is that it? They’re here all the time, all around us. I can feel them watching us.”
And so could I. There was that same neck-tingling sensation of being studied or carefully examined, as if the dark places under the trees harboured rows of inquisitive, intent eyes.
This could have been the same glade we had found ourselves in that other time. If it wasn’t the same, then it was identical, even to the path that led through the trees, the only way out of the emerald circle.
“Another safari?” asked Lee.
I didn’t reply. In my mind I was going back over ground we had already covered, wondering if there was some way we could prove at least part of our theory. We were being watched—that was for sure. By people—or things—able to look inside our minds, read the thoughts there, and then turn those mental images into a fair semblance of reality. In my mind they had found a picture of my home. But only of the outside. If I had been thinking about the inside, my bedroom, Mother’s proud front room that she always called the “parlour,” then the home they had made for my benefit wouldn’t have been just an empty shell. I debated the possibi
lity of trying an experiment by deliberately forming a picture of something in my mind. But then it occurred to me that, able to read my present thoughts, they would know what my intentions were and would perhaps refuse to allow themselves to be the subject of such an experiment. They might even take exception to it,
And what sort of beings were they? Unusual mental powers. And with the technical ability to enclose themselves in some kind of force field. I was sure that was what the mists were.
But why that shield at all? What were they protecting themselves against? Certainly not the fur-clad denizens of the rest of this dimension, for they had been frightened at even the sight of the mist.
My train of reasoning moved another step up the ladder. The fact that we had been allowed to penetrate their defense surely proved they knew we could do them no harm. More: the first time we had found ourselves in the artificial woods they had created, we had not entered of our own accord. They had sent us to sleep and, while we slept—I felt sure this was what had happened—they had moved their shield forward, parting it when it reached us, closing it behind us once we were inside. Don’t come to visit my house, let me bring my house to you … And why had they done that? Curiosity, perhaps. Then the storm had come, and for some reason they had withdrawn the force field to leave us outside again. And then made another attempt to enclose us, one we had foiled by running away. Now we were back inside again. They had allowed us through—sanctuary from the danger outside. I could find no reason in the sequence of comings and goings.
I wondered if the path was the only way out of the glade, or if it was possible to force a way through the bushes and trees. It was, I felt, worth the effort of finding out if our movements in here were being deliberately controlled. After three attempts to find a way through the undergrowth (watched with raised eyebrows by Lee) I gave up. It was patently clear that if we wanted to leave the glade, the only way was by using the path. Lee was waiting for me at the entrance.
“And what was all that in aid of, Gerald?”
I told him as we walked.
“A guided tour,” said he. “We go in the direction they want us to go or not at all. That’s been obvious from the first.”
It was a pleasant path to follow. The cool, green and gold shade was soothing. The soft green turf was resilient beneath our feet. Under any other conditions than these it would have been an enjoyable stroll. And oddly enough, although I knew we were at the mercy of something unknown, a feeling of placid contentment started to build up inside me. There was reassurance in the soundless padding of our feet, in the semi-hypnotic movements of tree trunks sliding by, vistas melting and changing like the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope. I yawned. Aware that we had slowed our pace I still found nothing to worry about. Everywhere was silent, no breeze to ruffle the leaves, no bird-song. We were the only moving things. I was utterly at peace with myself and the world.
Lee’s voice startled me.
“Four dials,” he said slowly, tonelessly. “The top one indicates overloading. Two of the others have fixed readings, adjusted before the sequence starts. The third dial represents the current intake—”
He broke off, staring round him dazedly. I realised we were standing still.
Lee put one hand to his forehead. “Was that me?”
“You must have been daydreaming. You were back in the lab by the sound of it.”
“I can’t remember.” He shook his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. “I don’t think I was daydreaming. I must have been, though. My own voice woke me. Asleep on my feet.”
We set off again. The path meandered along. Each corner we turned revealed a similar scene ahead. I had the uncanny feeling that we were marking time, that it was the scenery that was on the move, not we, the trees sliding by while we remained in the same place.
And it was getting dark, I suddenly realised. The sunlight that filtered through the branches overhead was losing its brightness. Shadows were deepening. The lassitude was back so that it became an effort to put one foot in front of the other. With it was the dream-like sensation of being suspended above the surface of the ground, walking on nothing, but that nothing clinging to my feet, retarding them, slowing my pace. Lee was a vague shape at my side, his voice coming from far away, the words too faint to be distinguishable. In a small surge of alarm I shouted to him. I opened my mouth, formed words, but no sound came.
Then the darkness became complete. I hung alone in emptiness. Something was deep inside my mind, twisting and writhing. I lurched forward through some vast, echoing place—echoing although there was no sound. My outstretched hands grasped desperately at nothing. I was falling, falling … And then blinding light came, and I could see again.
This was a dream. There could be no other explanation. I had fallen asleep, was dreaming, and was aware that I was dreaming. The woodland path had gone. Underfoot was the uneven hardness of cobbled stones. I had paused to wind my watch and now I was continuing across the farmyard to the squat grey building that housed the laboratory.
With no memory of opening the door, of passing through the outer room, I was in the lab itself, with Lee, shirt sleeves rolled up, turning to grin at me before entering his latest readings.
I was standing by the generators, the heat rising in waves … I was walking across the room, dislodging the wooden indicator with a careless foot. Knowing what was going to happen, but with no way of avoiding it, I was stooping to replace it, and the filaments were glowing inches from my face.
I shouted, as I had that other time, when I felt the grip of power. Lee’s stool was flying and he was coming towards me. I felt his hand gripping my ankle and then I was plunging through the dancing screen of light, dragging him with me.
CHAPTER NINE
It was the same as it had been that first time, only now I knew what was happening, what was going to happen. Preparedness brought no relief to the sickening nightmare sensation of plunging down through darkness into some bottomless abyss. There was the same terrifying feeling of some power reaching inside me, lifting me out of myself, twisting me, replacing me. I wasn’t prepared, for all I knew it was coming, for the body-jarring shock of striking ground. I was unable to prevent myself from lurching forward, falling, and rolling over and over until brought to a halt by some invisible obstruction.
The grey streaks of dawn were already in the brightening sky, which changed more rapidly than the first time, as if speeded up for my benefit. I had to go through the motions of turning to look back up the hill in search of the door, knowing all the time that it wouldn’t be there.
And with that repetition came an end to the duplication of past events. Something seemed to withdraw from my mind, leaving my actions my own again. It was broad daylight now. I sat up and looked about me. A few yards away Lee was crouching on his knees. Between us was our cairn of stones, and all around was the familiar barren landscape of raw red rock, leafless shrubs, and stunted trees. And there as well, hanging at the far side of the open space, was the green-tinged curtain of mist.
On his feet, swaying a little, Lee gestured helplessly. “Back where we came in …” And then angrily, savagely: “I’m damn well fed up with being messed about. The hell with it!” He glared about him.
Coming to my feet I kept a wary eye on the curtain. It seemed to be moving towards us again. Rock formations—one of them my pyramid and spire arrangement—that had been visible when the light first came were no longer there. There was no need for me to cry a warning. Lee had spotted it for himself.
“No you damn well don’t!” he hurled at the mist. And then, sliding and skidding on a patch of loose rock, he moved in the opposite direction to that we had taken the first time we had fled from the creeping curtain. It took me a moment to catch up with him. His fury had worn off; his grin was only partly shamefaced.
“I feel all the better, anyway.” He looked back. The mist was still visible, but at a safe enough distance. “I wonder if they heard me?”
He made no co
mment about our latest experience, and I didn’t bring the subject up. Talking about it would get us nowhere. Not now, not while we needed all our breath for the rough road we were travelling.
It was the familiar desolate wilderness of raw red rock and stunted trees and scrub that seemed to form the greater part of the scenery of this world. Dust rose in a fine red cloud about our feet, and drifting, settled on the sticky sweat of faces and hands. The sun beat down with tropical intensity.
We had left the hill where we had first arrived. Passing between two huge boulders we found ourselves on the brink of a large, crater-like depression. • Standing at one side was a clumsy-looking construction of lengths of tree trunk lashed together, a crude scaffolding with a platform on top that was about eight feet square. The contraption stood about six feet from the ground, and rough ladders made of shorter lengths of wood were attached to each side.
