Downing felt confident that he could establish his innocence readily enough. He had written the new combination to the safe on a slip of paper. This had obviously become dislodged from the pocket where he had placed it the day the fever struck him. He hadn’t noticed it. He’d been down again. But thinking back, Downing did recall seeing Fred Radek, one of the clerks, pick something from the floor when the latter had left his office after delivering a sheaf of reports.
The object Radek had picked from the floor could likely have been the slip of paper bearing the new combination to the safe. In any event, Downing’s return would lift suspicion from himself and focus it on those of the office staff who could have been in a position to find the slip of paper and use the information it contained. Just a little careful undercover investigation by the police—and somewhere along the line they would be sure to find someone who had been acting a bit too strangely, spending a bit too much.
It was this hope that kept Downing in motion against the dragging weight of his illness. He was innocent and he had to prove it. Every second that passed damned him further in the estimation of Grace and Ogden.
The roadster roared on through the night, its headlights plowing the darkness. Once a milepost flashed by, and Downing caught a glimpse of the figures. Just ten miles more and he’d be in the city. He knotted his jaw, grimly determined to last that long.
The image of the milepost was still in Downing’s eyes when suddenly there swept over him a strange giddy feeling which he had never before experienced in connection with his attacks of fever. It was as though he were falling, falling endlessly. And then his body was subjected to a painful twisting and wrenching as though he were being twisted inside out. The next thing Downing knew it was daylight.
Daylight!
Shock brought his foot tromping down on the brakes of the roadster, bringing it to an abrupt stop. He stared about him incredulously. A great wave of cold dismay swept over him. During the interval while that strange sensation had wracked him, night had somehow changed into day!
Then Downing saw that this had not been the only transition. The world as he knew it had changed, too. For the sky was a vivid emerald green, and the sun that shone in it at zenith was a huge red-gold orb. This was no sun, this was no sky of Earth!
Downing sucked in a great shuddering breath, becoming aware as he did so of a host of rich tangy odors strange to him. What had happened? What had happened? The question thundered in his mind.
Darting bewildered glances about him, Downing saw that the roadster rested upon what seemed to be a broad highway. But it was not the familiar gray of concrete. Instead, it was a clear, glassy white. He probed his startled mind, but he could not remember having seen this sort of pavement before.
On either side of the highway was a smooth, grass-like expanse of olive-green that rolled gently away and away toward a range of low hills on the horizon. Spaced about with a curious suggestion of symmetry were strange trees with green boles and foliage of a brilliant yellow. Downing found the bizarre landscape almost park-like in appearance, and there were indications that it was carefully kept. And then he abruptly lost interest in his immediate surroundings as his eyes chanced upon a tiny white angularity almost lost in vegetation far down the highway. A house! It had to be. Downing prayed that it wasn’t anything else. A house would mean people, and people would mean answers and guidance.
Downing jerked the roadster into motion. The mental shock brought on by the weird transformation had not done his fever any good. For now as the temporary stimulation wore off, an abrupt dizziness swept over him and a veil of coruscating darkness dropped before his eyes. The roadster lurched, almost ran off the highway. Downing shook his head sharply, fought for the control which was fast slipping from him.
The buzzing was back in his ears, only louder now. The voices of delirium called in a swelling chorus. The dark veil dropped before his eyes again, and this time it was more difficult to tear it away. Consciousness was a candle flame flickering in a constantly rising wind.
Downing saw the white object more clearly now, but it was as something glimpsed through a storm It was a house sure enough, a strange angular white house.
The storm that was his fever raged more fiercely. The candle flame flickered—flickered. Pure instinctive reaction brought Downing’s foot down on the brake pedal as the roadster ran off the highway. A last flicker—and the voices of delirium rose suddenly in welcome.
* * * *
Darkness, light, sound—jumbled together in an insane pattern of flashes and tones. Sweet, slow music. An abrupt clap of deafening thunder. Grace, in a vivid yellow dress that somehow hurt his eyes, smiling at him with her soft red mouth, her snub nose wrinkled in the old, familiar way. Then—an apparition with olive-green hair streaming out in a lashing gale and two red-gold orbs for eyes that ran at him with clawed hands screaming, “Thief! Thief!” And then he lay naked in the middle of a milky-white desert while a green sun beat down at him in wave after searing wave of heat. He was parched. His tongue was a woolly thing that swelled in his throat—larger, larger, became a huge melon that finally burst with a furious tinkling of crystalline bells. And then he was floating up, up, higher, ever higher, weightlessly, up, ever up, into a great soft darkness that folded gently around him, cuddled him warmly. “Sleep, baby, sleep. Close your bright blue eyes…” A crash of cymbals, a roll of drums, and it began all over again. Over and over again. Years and years of it, and then merciful darkness, nothingness, utter and complete.
* * * *
Light filtered through the darkness, grew, became a flood held in check by the gates of his eyelids. He lay very still, aware of his growing consciousness, searching among the ashes of delirium for fragments of reality. Recollection gradually came to him. The roadster. The strange world of the emerald-green sky and the red-gold sun. Impossible, he decided. Just figments of his fevered dreams.
Something warm and soft and gentle touched his forehead. The contact startled him. His eyes jerked open. The breath became a log-jam in his throat.
Downing found himself staring at a girl of exotic, fawn-like loveliness. Her hand had recoiled from his forehead the moment his eyes opened, and now she gazed back at him in tense comprehension of his scrutiny. She did not seem alarmed. It was more as though she had abruptly been confronted with a new situation and did not quite know how to adjust to it.
The silence between them thickened. Downing sensed that his was the next move, his the cue which would create a new state of relations. But for the moment the unearthly beauty of the girl who faced him held him fascinated.
Her unusual eyes were the first things he had noticed. They were tawny, flecked with gold, slightly tilted at their outer corners, and fringed heavily with dark lashes. Her skin was like rich cream with a faint golden tint. Against it her long hair glowed with the deep, dark red of mahogany. She was dressed in a tight-fitting sleeveless silver jacket. A short skirt of some silken blue material fell in graceful folds midway to her shapely knees.
The girl had been bending over him. Now she straightened slowly, a flush covering her cheeks.
Downing awoke suddenly to the realization that he was staring rudely. He felt instantly contrite. He smiled what he hoped was a smile of apology. “Hello,” he said.
The girl’s dark brows drew together in a dainty frown. “Hal-loo?” she echoed questioningly. She shook her head, her long tresses glinting with the movement. “Nai shannaer atti.” Her voice was soft, curiously lilting.
“Don’t get me, eh?” Downing decided. “Far as that goes, what you said is Greek to me, too.” He translated with a smile and a shake of his head.
The girl studied him a moment with a child-like solemnity. Then she smiled in response, shrugged her slender shoulders. “Naia shannaer etla voss.”
“That goes for me, too,” Downing chuckled. He sobered abruptly as the knowledge struck him that he had s
omehow been acting out of character. For a moment the reason puzzled him. Then the answer flashed through him. He felt—good! He was weak, true enough, but he felt better than he’d had in years. The fever seemed to have left him entirely.
With that came awareness of something else. He was hungry—ravenously hungry, in fact.
Downing pointed at his mouth, then rubbed his stomach. He screwed up his face as though in pain. The girl understood, for she smiled in quick sympathy and hurried from the room.
Downing seized the opportunity to examine his surroundings. He saw that he was in a large, pleasant room, furnished with a kind of simple elegance. Drapes of a deep rose color covered one wall in which obviously was located a window, since a bar of sunlight slanted down through an opening in the material. A large chest of some lustrous dark wood stood against another wall, and beside it was a full-length mirror set in a metal frame. There was a curtained doorway beyond which Downing decided lay a bath or something of the sort. In the middle of the room stood a chair and table of strange design. The bed in which Downing lay was low and box-like, but fully as soft and comfortable as any bed he had ever known.
Downing came to the conclusion that it was a nice room. There were no frills about it, yet the obvious luxury of its simple furnishings gave it a certain charm.
Downing stretched, reveling in his sensations of well-being. He’d had the fever so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to feel really well. Must be something about the climate, he decided.
Abruptly he sobered. The climate of—where? Where was he? What had happened to him? Stark memory came of the falling experience, the sudden twisting and wrenching—and then, the bizarre world of the green sky and the red-gold sun. Obviously, he was still there, to judge from the strangeness of the room in which he lay and the exotic beauty of the girl whom he had seen upon awakening. As to how he had reached the room at all, Downing decided that the occupants of the house he had glimpsed before losing consciousness in the roadster had found him and carried him there.
Anxiety kindled within Downing as he wondered if it would be possible to return to Earth. He couldn’t stay here—wherever “here” was. Everything he knew or loved was back in the world from which he had come. He thought with sudden poignancy of Ogden, chubby and gay, the best friend he’d ever had. And he thought of Grace, with her snub nose and her laughing blue eyes, her gleaming brown hair falling in soft curls about her shoulders. Grace—the girl he was to marry.
Downing resisted the sudden temptation to throw aside his covers, return to his roadster, and drive, drive, until somehow the familiar sights of Earth were once more about him. Ogden and Grace must not be allowed to go on thinking that he was a thief—hiding with his loot. He had to prove to them that he was innocent.
Apprehension chilled Downing like an icy wind. He had to return. He had to. But—but what if there was no return?
Light footfalls heralded the reappearance of the exotic other-world girl. She bore a tray which she set down on the bed beside Downing. On the tray were a bowl of gruel or soup, a goblet containing a thick, yellow-tinted liquid which might have been milk, and a large platter of bright strange fruit.
Downing did not need the girl’s gestured invitation to spur him on. He fell to hungrily. The food was delicious, though as strange to his taste as was everything else to his other senses.
The girl went to the windows and pulled aside the drapes. Sunlight poured into the room in a rich rosy flood. That done, the girl became busily occupied with the room, arranging the furniture with minute care and dabbing at their gleaming surfaces with a wadded cloth which she had brought with her. From time to time, she glanced curiously at Downing as if to note his progress on the food.
Finally Downing was finished. He leaned back upon the bed with a sigh of contentment. The girl came forward to take the tray and dishes.
“Dreanna?” she queried in her soft voice.
“If you mean was it good, it certainly was,” Downing said. “And, say, there are a few things I’d like to know.” He pointed at himself. “Ross,” he said. “Ross Downing.” He pointed at the girl and looked a question.
Her smile had a trace of shyness. “Lethra,” she responded.
Downing pointed next to the window, beyond which showed a patch of emerald-green sky and an expanse of rolling olive-green fields. He looked another question.
“Valledon,” the girl said.
What Downing had wanted was the name of the world which he had so inexplicably entered. He wondered if the name the girl had given him was merely the name of the nation or continent wherein the house was located. He decided to make sure.
Downing pointed to the window again, but this time he waved an arm in an all-inclusive gesture. The girl gave a smile and nod of sudden comprehension. “Jorelle,” she said.
Jorelle, then, must be the name of this other-place, Downing thought. But—where was Jorelle?
Downing ceased further speculation on the subject as a tall elderly man strode quietly into the room. He glanced with friendly interest at Downing, then looked inquiringly at the girl. She spoke rapidly in her soft, lilting voice. Her explanation was charmingly animated. Watching her, Downing heard his name mentioned. Then the girl pointed to the elderly man. “Churran,” she told Downing.
Downing grinned and held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.
Churran made a stately bow. Then, noticing Downing’s extended hand, he looked puzzled. Obviously, Downing decided, the shaking of hands was a gesture unknown in Jorelle. He dropped his hand quickly and sought to make up for his mistake by replying with a bow of his own. Performed as it was in a reclining position, the effect must have been comic, for Churran smiled while Lethra’s soft laughter chimed merrily.
Churran was clearly Lethra’s father, for there was a strong physical resemblance between the two. Like the girl, he wore a sleeveless silver jacket, but with long, loose trousers bound in at the ankles. He was smooth-shaven, his grizzled gray locks held back from temples and forehead by a silver circlet. There was a quiet dignity about his appearance that Downing instantly liked.
Churran did not stay long—or rather Lethra did not let him stay. She bustled her father from the room, energetically straightened the bedcovers about Downing, and then, gathering up the tray from the table where she had placed it, she left.
The food had made Downing sleepy. He closed his eyes and shortly after he drifted off into slumber.
The days that followed might have been idyllic were it not for Downing’s constant gnawing desire to return to Earth and vindicate himself in the eyes of Grace and Ogden. His earlier feeling of well-being had not been illusory, since strength quickly returned to him. At last came the day when Lethra would permit him to leave the bed and don his clothes. She led him out to a garden at the rear of the house.
The garden was large and well-tended. In the center of it was a small fountain built of some pink stone and surmounted by the metal figure of a fairy-like being holding a shell in one extended hand. Water dripped from the shell and fell into the pool below with musical splashings. Large trees with brilliant yellow foliage shaded flagstone walks dotted here and there with benches made of the same pink stone as the fountain. Birds of vivid rainbow plumage flew twittering and chirping in and out among the trees, and the smell of myriad banked flowers hung with heady fragrance on the air.
Lethra took Downing on a tour of the garden, and then, as though fearing the exercise would be too much for him, she pulled him down upon a stone bench. “Dreanna?” she asked.
“Swell!” Downing said. He really meant it. The riotous tropical beauty of the place was compelling for all its strangeness of color and detail. If Grace were with him, he knew he could be very happy here. But Grace was far away—very far away. In another world. Downing wondered if he would ever see her again—Grace, and Ogden, and Chicago, with all its old familiar sights.
<
br /> He turned at a light touch on his arm. Lethra was gazing at him worriedly. “Atti nai serrata?”
Downing forced a smile and shook his head. Lethra smiled, too, but her tawny eyes were troubled.
A silence fell between them. Downing gazed at the ground, lost again in brooding. Only dimly was he conscious of the music of the fountain and the voices of the birds.
Suddenly Lethra rose, and as Downing looked up in response to the movement, she motioned to him with a graceful motion of one slender arm. Downing caught a glimpse of her lovely face before she turned to walk back toward the house. It was sad. Downing rose to follow her, chiding himself for troubling the girl with his worries.
Lethra took Downing now to a small building located a short distance from the rear of the main house. It was a workshop or something of the sort. Downing saw workbenches littered with tools, various small machines, shelves and cabinets filled with a wide assortment of objects. Churran was bent over what seemed to be a metalworking device, shaping a spinning silver ovoid with a cutting tool. He looked up from his work at the entrance of Downing and the girl, smiled in welcome.
Churran was a silversmith or an artisan of a closely allied nature. Lethra showed Downing vases, goblets, and plates, all exquisitely wrought of strange yet obviously precious metals. Creating things with his hands had always held a strong fascination for Downing. He found Churran’s work intensely interesting. It was with the eagerness of a boy that he touched the machines and the tools and watched Churran make signs of explanation. The morning passed swiftly while Downing absorbed himself in the wonders of Churran’s workshop. His interest seemed to please Lethra and Churran immensely.
After the noon meal, Downing returned to the workshop with Churran. At Downing’s own insistence, Churran provided him with a piece of abrasive cloth, and Downing set to work, polishing the first of a set of goblets which Churran was engaged in turning out.
The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK Page 33
