The Gateway to Never

by A Bertram Chandler

He threaded his way through the pass on radar, breathed a great sigh of relief when he was out and clear. He would have liked to have got out his pipe, but he dared not take his hands from the controls. He flew through the last of the heavy smoke and steam into relatively clear air—but only relatively clear. Although on this side of the Smokies it was almost calm, some freak of atmospheric circulation had brought down a thick haze, a yellow murk through which the fantastic rock formations looked menacingly. And Grimes was obliged to make a rock-hopping approach, as was Williams astern of him. If they flew above the eroded monoliths they would be picked up by Drongo Kane's radar. The master smuggler was not a man to neglect precautions.

  Grimes watched his indicator needle, keeping Clavering ahead as much as possible. At the same time he watched his radar screen and tried to keep a visual lookout. Afterwards, when he told the story, he would say, "If the Venus of Milo had been equipped with arms I'd have knocked them off—and I as near as dammit castrated the Colossus of Eblis!" This was exaggeration, but only slightly so.

  On he flew, and on, perspiring inside the protective suit that he was wearing, his hands clenched on the wheel, his attention divided between the indicator needle, the radar screen, the forward window of his cramped cabin and the chart of the area, one blown up from the brochure issued to tourists. He passed as close as he dared to the rock formations so that he could sight them visually and identify them. Now and again, caught by a freak eddy, he had to apply vertical or lateral thrust, or both together. The work boat complained but kept on going.

  Then, ahead on the radar screen but still obscured by the haze, loomed a great mass. There was only one formation that it could be, and that was Ayers Rock. But surely the Rock did not have a much smaller monolith just over a kilometre to the east of it.

  Grimes decided not to reduce speed. By so doing he could well forfeit the advantage of surprise. He ignored his radar, concentrated on a visual lookout. And, at last, there, on his port bow, was the sullenly brooding mass of red granite and, right ahead, indistinct but clearer with every passing second, the silvery spire of a grounded spaceship. By the foot of the ramp from her after airlock was a small atmosphere craft.

  The Commodore applied maximum forward thrust and, at the same time, using one hand, worked his respirator over his head. He put the boat on full reverse when he was almost up to and over Clavering's craft. He cut the drive, slammed down heavily on to the red sand. He was out of the door and running for the ramp before the dust had settled. He was dimly aware that Williams, just behind him, had brought the coach in to a hasty landing.

  It was too much to hope for—but it seemed that his arrival had been neither seen nor heard. The airlock outer door remained open, the ramp remained extended. He pulled his stungun from its holster as he ran up the gangway. Impatiently he waited for Williams and Billinghurst to join him in the chamber of the airlock; it was too small to hold more than three men. The others—Rim Malemute's people and the Customs officers—would have to wait their turn.

  Williams used the standard controls to shut the outer door, to evacuate the foul air of Eblis and to introduce the clean air of the ship into the chamber. All this must be registering on the remote control board in the control room, but perhaps there was no officer on duty there. He pushed the knob that would open the inner door. It opened.

  A tall figure stood on the other side of it to receive them—a big man who, if he lost only a little weight, could be classified as skinny. His face, under the stubble of greyish yellow hair, was deeply tanned and seamed, and looked as though at some time in the past it had been completely shattered and then reassembled not too carefully.

  He said, "Welcome aboard, Commander Grimes! I beg your pardon, Commodore Grimes. But I always think of you as that boy scoutish Survey Service Lieutenant Commander who was captain of Seeker."

  Grimes removed his respirator with the hand that was not holding the gun. "Captain Kane," he said, "you are under arrest, and your ship is seized."

  "Am I, now? Is she, now? Let's not be hasty, Commander—Commodore, I mean. What will the Federation say when it hears that a breakaway colonial officer has arrested one of its shipmasters? Suppose we have a yarn about old times first, Commodore. Come on up to my dogbox to see how the poor live. This is Liberty Hall—you can spit on the mat an' call the cat a bastard!"

  "I'd rather not accept your hospitality, Captain Kane, in these circumstances. Or in any circumstances."

  "Still the same stuffy bastard, ain't yer, Grimes? But if yer seizin' Southerly Buster III—I still haven't forgiven yer fer what yer did ter the first Southerly Buster—yer'll have ter see her papers. Register, Articles o' Agreement an' all the rest of it."

  "He's right," said Billinghurst.

  "Ain't yer goin' ter introduce me to yer cobbers, Commodore?"

  "This is Mr. Billinghurst," said Grimes curtly, "Chief Collector of Customs for the Confederacy. And this is Commander Williams, of the Rim Worlds Navy."

  "The way I'm surrounded," drawled Kane. "I suppose I should surrender. But I ain't goin' to. I . . ."

  Whatever else he said was drowned by the sudden clamour of Southerly Buster's inertial drive as she lifted with vicious acceleration, as she staggered under the sudden application of lateral thrust that threw the three unprepared men heavily to the deck.

  Kane's stungun was out, and a couple of tough looking characters, similarly armed, had put in an appearance.

  Speaking loudly to be heard above the irregular beat of the drive Kane said cheerfully, "An' if he's doin' what he was told ter do, my gunnery boy's just in the act o' vaporizin' your transport with his pet laser cannon. I hope none o' your nongs are still inside that coach they came in."

  But he didn't seem to be worrying much about it.

  XXXI

  "An' now," drawled Drongo Kane, "what am I goin' ter do with you bastards?"

  "Return us to Inferno Valley!" snapped Grimes.

  Kane lazily surveyed his prisoners—Clavering, Grimes, Billinghurst, and Williams, the officers from Rim Malemute, the Customs sub-inspectors. He said, leering in Denise Dalgety's direction, "Seems a cryin' shame ter throw a good blonde back ter where she came from, don't it?"

  The girl flushed angrily and Williams snarled, "That's enough o' that, Kane!"

  "Is it, now, Commander? Get it inter yer thick head—an' that goes for all o' yer—that there ain't a thing any o' yer can do."

  And there's not, thought Grimes. Not until this paralysis wears off. And it won't, as long as these goons keep giving us extra shots with their stunguns as soon as it looks like doing so.

  "In fact," Kane went on, "I think I deserve some reward for goin' back, for not leavin' Blondie an' the others wanderin' around in the desert." He extricated a gnarled cigar from the breast pocket of his uniform coverall, ostentatiously lit it with his laser pistol. It stank as bad as it looked.

  "Release us at once!" blustered Billinghurst.

  "An' wouldn't yer be peeved if I did, Chief Collector? What if I took yer at yer word, an' dumped yer down in the Painted Badlands, miles from anywhere, an' with no transport but yer own bleedin' hooves?" He exhaled a cloud of acrid smoke. "But yer dead lucky. Clavering here won't play ball, so I have ter go all the way ter Inferno Valley in person, singin' an' dancin', ter make me own deal with the boss cocky o' that bunch o' holy joes. Church o' the Gateway, ain't it? They want dreamy weed, I've got it. They can have it, at my price." He fixed his attention on Grimes. "Ever hear o' Australis, Commodore? Not Austral. Australis. A frontier planet like these worlds o' yours, only 'stead o' bein' on the Rim it's way out to hell an' gone beyond the south rotor bearin' o' the Galaxy. Did a sim'lar deal there, wi' some bunch o' religious nuts. They had a guru, too. Often wonder what happened. Been no news out o' Australis fer quite some time. Could be that the world itself ain't there any more. After I heard the guru's advance spiel about what he said was goin ter be the final act o' worship, acceptance an' all the rest of it I decided ter get the hell out." H
e grinned. "Tell yer what. I'll return yer all ter Inferno Valley, an' insist that this Guru William try ter make converts o' yer. If he won't play he gets no dreamy weed."

  "The users of it," remarked Billinghurst, "claim that dreamy weed is non-addictive."

  Keep out of it, you stupid, fat slob! thought Grimes.

  "So 't'is, Chief Collector. So 't'is. Smoked it once myself—try anythin' once, that's me. Guess I've the wrong kind o' mind. Didn't see visions or dream dreams. But I'm a baddie, an' you're all goodies."

  Clavering said, "There will be no business transactions of any kind on my world."

  "An who's goin' ter stop me from doin' business? Not you, fer a start. You were pleased enough ter take yer rake-off from my deals until that silly bitch got blown up, weren't yer? Oh, well, go an' stew in yer own juice with the other goodies."

  Grimes realized that sensation was coming back into his hands and feet, that he could move his fingers and toes. He mentally measured the distance between himself and the arrogant Drongo Kane, and between Kane and the three armed spacemen lounging negligently in the doorways of the ship's saloon. There was a chance, he thought. There was a chance, and if he could use Kane's body as a shield it might be a good one.

  "Mr. Welland," drawled Drongo Kane, "yer might give the . . . er . . . passengers a sprayin' over with yer stungun. I noticed the Commodore twitchin' his pinkie just now."

  The weapon, set on low power, buzzed softly. Grimes' nerves tingled, then went dead. He could breathe, he could move his eyes, he could speak, even, but that was all.

  "I'll give yer all a stronger dose before we land," Kane promised them. "The Guru an' his boys an' girls can carry yer off me ship."

  "You'll be sorry for this," promised Grimes.

  "I shan't be when I count the foldin' money that Guru William's goin' ter hand over ter me," Kane assured him. "Or, if I am, I shall cry all the way ter the bank."

  XXXII

  Kane left then, presumably to take over the pilotage of his ship. The three guards remained. They sneered at Billinghurst's offer of a free pardon, a reward even, if they assisted the forces of law and order. They laughed loudly when Denise Dalgety made an appeal to their decency as human beings. Welland, who seemed to be Kane's Second Mate, exclaimed, "We ain't decent, lady; if we were we wouldn't be in Drongo's rustbucket. If yer want ter find out just how indecent we can be. . . ."

  "No!" she cried. "You wouldn't!"

  "Wouldn't I, honey?"

  But he didn't, though it was obvious that it was fear of Kane that restrained him rather than any respect for the girl.

  Grimes, listening to the varying beat of the inertial drive, was trying to work out where they were. They were flying through severe turbulence, that much was obvious. He said to Clavering, "Has Kane been to Inferno Valley before?"

  "Only as a passenger, Commodore. And only in my flier, usually during the evening lull."

  "Mphm. Will he be able, do you think, to get down into the valley with the winds on top at gale force, at least?"

  "You did, Commodore."

  "In a much smaller ship."

  Welland guffawed scornfully. "The Old Man could take this bitch through hell without singeing her hide! But stow the gab, will yer? Yer none o' yer sparklin' conversationalists!"

  "For the last time . . ." began Billinghurst, making a final attempt to enlist aid from this unlikely quarter.

  "Aw, shaddup!"

  The stunguns buzzed, and breathing became almost impossible, and talking quite impossible.

  Grimes could still think, and he could hear. There were surges of power as lateral thrust was applied one way and the other, then a diminution of the irregular beat as vertical thrust was reduced.

  Southerly Buster III was coming in for a landing.

  XXXIII

  Those who had been Kane's prisoners were seated in a group to one side of the huge dining hall, and with them were Sally Clavering and the members of Clavering's staff. These, too, had been incapacitated by judicious use of the stunguns. Drongo Kane had collected his payment from the Guru William and had gone, the noisy hammering of his inertial drive echoing back and forth between the sheer cliffs of the valley's walls until it had suddenly faded into silence.

  Kane was gone—but the Guru William remained.

  He was a harmless man—to judge by his appearance—saintly, even. He had stood over the nonbelievers after they had been dragged and carried into his temple and had looked at them for long minutes, a faint smile curving his mouth, his huge, brown eyes looking through and beyond the helpless men and women. He murmured, "Peace."

  Grimes tried to say something, anything, but could not. He would be voiceless until the paralysis wore off.

  "Peace," murmured the guru again, but in a louder tone. "Peace. The last, the everlasting, peace. And you, my sons and my daughters, are blessed, for you shall see, with us, the cessation of all that is harsh, all that is discordant."

  Billinghurst managed to make some sort of noise. "Blahh . . . blahh."

  "I must leave you, my sons and my daughters, my brethren, my sisters. The worship, the last act of worship, of acceptance, is to begin. Surrender yourselves. Join with us, the People of the Gateway. The gateway is about to be opened."

  On to what? Grimes demanded of himself desperately. On to what? More than any of the others, with the possible exception of Williams, he was starting to realize the implications of it all. He tried to hold his breath as he smelled the sweet yet acrid taint that was beginning to pervade the air in the dome, reasoning that the smoke of burning dreamy weed was being blown in through the airconditioning system. He wondered how much the Guru William had paid for the consignment. A small fortune—or a large one—must be smoldering away somewhere behind the scenes.

  William had mounted the dais and, surrounded by acolytes, was squatting there in the lotus posture. The bald heads of the women glimmered eerily in the dim light. Their eyes, and the eyes of the men, seemed to be self-luminous. Drifting streamers of grey fog curled about them.

  "We accept. . ." intoned the Guru.

  "We accept . . ." repeated his flock. The words had a faraway sound, like a thin, cold wind rustling the detritus of long dead years.

  "The nothingness . . ."

  "The nothingness . . ."

  "Beyond the stars."

  "Beyond the stars."

  The nothingness, or the otherness, thought Grimes. Here, out on the Rim, on the very edge of the expanding galaxy, the skin of the bubble that held the continuum was stretched almost to bursting, the barriers between the dimensions were flimsy, almost nonexistent. There were, Grimes knew all too well, the other time tracks, the alternate universes. And what—if anything—lay between the time tracks, the universes?

  "Open the Gateway . . ."

  "The Gateway to Never . . ."

  I will not believe, Grimes told himself. I will not believe.

  The effects of the last stungun shock were wearing off now, but the fumes of the consciousness-expanding drug were taking effect. On the dais the guru's form was outlined by an aura, not of light, nor yet of darkness, but of nothingness.

  And the word beat in the Commodore's mind, Never . . . never . . . never. . . . Those about him were becoming insubstantial, filmy. . . . He lifted his hand—and realized with horror that he could see through it, that he was looking through skin and flesh and bone at the calm, the impossibly calm face of Pahvani.

  "Nirvana . . ." the young sub-inspector was murmuring. "Nirvana. . . ."

  And was this what had happened on Australis, to Australis? Was this why Drongo Kane had gotten away and clear like a bat out of hell? The picture that formed in Grimes' mind of a huge, black, winged mammal beating its way through and between towering columns of crimson fire was as real as though he were actually seeing it—and it was better than that nothingness which was showing through the widening rents in the very continuum.

  "Open the Gateway. . . ."

  "The Gateway to Never . . ." />
  "Accept, accept. . . ."

  I'm damned if I'll accept, thought Grimes.

  Light was beating upwards in waves—red, orange, dazzling blue-white—from the core of the planet, washing over and through Grimes' body like cool water, dissipating itself in the utterly starless dark, the dark that was a negation of everything, all around, light that fought a losing battle against the nothingness, that faded, faster and faster, to a faint, ashy glimmer. He put out his hand, or thought that he put out his hand, to catch one of the last, feeble photons, held it in his cupped palm, stared at the dying, weakly pulsating thing and willed it to survive. It flared fitfully, and . . .

  Somebody had hold of his sleeve, was shaking it. Somebody was saying, almost hissing, "Sir, sir!"