There were no greens. The vegetation favored a deep violet hue. Enormous white and yellow blossoms hung from trees that looked half human, like people who had defied the gods and taken root. Plump red and yellow fruit hung from thick, gnarled branches. The ground was thick with leaves.
The sun hovered on the horizon, but whether it was early evening or morning was impossible to say.
The cupola appeared to be made of clear glass. It had a door, which was ajar. The ground beyond was higher than the floor of the cupola by more than a foot. Which meant what? That the cupola, like the Roundhouse, was long abandoned?
The forest was silent, save for the hum of insects and the occasional flutter of wings. Where was April?
Surely she would not have left the area voluntarily. Unless she was taken. It was a thought he tried to put aside as he smelled the warm, sweet air.
He pushed on the door. It crashed into the grass. Max jumped, and then smiled at his own nervousness.
When April had arrived, the door (which apparently hadn’t been used in a long time) was jammed shut by the higher ground outside. So she had removed the bolts from the hinges.
Max stepped through the opening. A large bird flapped across the sky and disappeared into the trees. In the distance, he could hear the roar of surf.
He called April’s name. Something screeched back.
Where the hell was she?
He looked at the tangled grass and brush and surveyed the sweep of woodland. There was a glade at the bottom of the hill, and the shrubbery was not so dense as to preclude walking. She could have gone in any direction.
He turned back to the cupola and went inside. The structure was shaped like a bell jar, approximately twelve feet in diameter, its top almost at tree level. He had arrived on a circular dish, the same size as the grid in the Roundhouse. A post, in which was mounted another array of icons, rose behind the dish. The icons were three-dimensional and took the form of glyphs. They were earth-colored, and the symbols were different from the other group (save one), although the styling was the same.
The exception was the stag’s head. His ticket home. He touched it, very gently, and then pressed it.
Nothing happened.
He visualized April standing here, with a jammed door at her back, trying to get it to work.
He looked doubtfully at the icons. It was possible she had gone on to another terminal in another reality. Possibly in the hope she would find a link home.
That was a dark possibility.
But going through another port would have been an act of desperation. No: She’d left her jacket. It said, in effect, I am here. Come find me.
There were eight icons this time. Five were geometrical figures, a sixth might have been a flower, another had wings.
Seven new destinations, presumably. What in God’s name had they stumbled into?
He took another look at the forest, to be sure nothing was sneaking up on him. His first priority was to make a way out.
He opened his tool kit.
The disk seemed to be hard rubber. Its center was rounded and raised.
He used his drill to cut into the post. Again, it was tough going, and he worked for almost forty minutes before he broke through. By then it had become clear that the sun was setting.
Inside the post, he found a mounted crystal similar to the one he’d seen at the Roundhouse. Good so far. The power cable looked okay. He checked the wiring behind the icons. The pattern was the same: strands from each of the icons formed a color-coded cluster, as before, which disappeared up into the post. Three, however, were missing, not connected at all. Unfortunately, the stag’s head was not among them.
He looked at the crystal and started to worry. If the problem was buried in the technology, he was dead.
The post was about ten feet high. It tapered as it rose and curved out over the disk, widening finally into an amber lens. A ladder was connected to the rear. He picked up his drill, climbed the ladder, and cut into the post just below the lens. The cable cluster had broken apart and the individual lines were tied into connectors. The line from the stag’s head, which was white, had pulled loose.
He tried to tighten it, then went back down and returned with a piece of electrical tape. It seemed to work.
He took his pad of paper and a marker and wrote:
Arky,
I’m okay. April has gone off somewhere, and I am going to find her. Wait.
He removed the broken flashlight and took the jacket off the tree branch that supported it. He tore off the sheet of paper and stuffed it in a pocket, leaving a corner jutting out, and laid the jacket on the grid. When he’d finished, he took a deep breath and pressed the stag’s head. The icon lit up and, twenty-three seconds later, he was gratified to watch the light burst appear. When it had faded, the jacket was gone.
Bingo.
On a second sheet, he wrote another message and taped it to the door:
April,
I’m here. Please stay put. I’m looking for you and will be back in a few minutes.
Max
The hill on which the cupola stood might not have been entirely natural. Worn stone steps, all but buried, descended to the forest floor. He went down cautiously, regretting that he had not thought to bring a weapon. The colonel would have been dismayed.
He called her again. The cry echoed back.
He was both fearful and annoyed. She’d have wanted to explore, and he could understand she would not have waited by the cupola for a rescue party that might never come. (How much confidence did she have in him, anyway?) But it would have been nice to find her there.
Which way?
He listened to the distant rumble of the sea.
That was the direction she would have gone. Anybody would.
Now that he was down among the trees, the sky was concealed by the overhang. But the light was failing rapidly.
He wanted to find her and get back before it got dark. The hill on which the cupola stood was higher than any other ground he could see. But things could get dicey at night.
He set off. It was easy walking; the vegetation was luxuriant but not thick or high enough to impede him. The soil was rocky, and he periodically piled several stones together to mark a trail. He saw no animals, although he heard them, and occasionally saw shrubbery move.
He noticed also that he felt more energetic, and maybe even stronger, than normal. Probably it had to do with the weather. He was outside, and the air was fresh and clean.
He traveled at his best speed for about a half-hour. Dusk came on, and the vegetation grew sparser. Finally he left the trees behind altogether and walked out onto a wide beach. Gray-red cliffs rose on his left, backlit by the last light from a sun that was below the horizon. Blue water opened before him, and a cool salt wind stung his nostrils. Wherever he was, he had come a long way from North Dakota.
He saw her almost immediately. She was out near the tide line, seated beside a flickering fire. The surf boomed and roared, so she did not hear him when he called her name. She was gazing at the sea, and he was almost beside her before she realized he was there.
She jumped to her feet. “Max,” she cried. “Welcome to the other side.” A long wave broke and rolled up the strand. She extended a hand, then shrugged and fell into his arms. “I’m glad to see you,” she said.
“Me, too. I was worried about you.”
She hung onto him. Squeezed him. “I’ve got bad news,” she said. “We can’t get home.”
He pushed her away so he could see her face. “Yes, we can,” he said. “It works.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she pulled him close again and kissed him. Her cheeks were wet.
It was cool, and after a minute they sat down by the fire. A few birds flapped across the incoming tide. They had long beaks and webbed feet. As he watched, one landed behind a retreating wave and poked at the sand. “I thought I was stuck here, Max.”
“I know.”
“This place is ni
ce, but I wouldn’t want to stay forever.” And, after a second thought: “You’re sure? You tried it?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
That seemed to satisfy her.
“We wouldn’t have left you,” Max said.
She held a bag out to him. “Peanut butter,” she said, offering him a sandwich.
He was hungry.
“This is all I had left.”
Max took a bite. “It’s good,” he said. And, after a moment: “Do you know where we are?”
“Not on Earth.”
He moved in closer to the flames. “I should have brought your jacket,” he said.
“I’ll be fine.”
The sea had grown dark. Stars were starting to appear. “I wonder who lives here,” Max said.
“I haven’t seen anyone. And I don’t think anybody’s used the transportation system for a long time.”
Max watched a breaker unroll. “Are you sure? That this isn’t Earth? I mean, that’s a lot to swallow.”
“Take a look around you, Max.”
The Alice-in-Wonderland forest had grown dark.
“And the gravity’s not right. It seems to be less here.” She studied him. “How do you feel?”
“Good,” he said. “Lighter.”
“Did you see the sun?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not ours.”
She didn’t elaborate, and Max let it go. “We should be getting back,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Arky will be worried.”
She nodded. “In a way, I hate to leave. Why don’t we stay out here tonight? We can go back tomorrow.”
It wouldn’t occur to Max until several hours later that there might have been a proposition in the offer. He was too unsettled by events and not thinking clearly. “We need to let them know we’re okay.”
“Okay,” she said.
The sky was becoming a vast panorama. It was almost as if the stars switched on with a roar, a million blazing campfires, enough to illuminate the sea and prevent the onset of any real night. Great black storm clouds had appeared, and Max blinked at them because they too seemed swollen with stars. “Odd,” he said. “The sky was clear a few minutes ago.”
“I don’t think,” she whispered, “the clouds are in the atmosphere.”
Max frowned. The breakers gleamed.
“Look.” She pointed out over the sea. A thunderhead floated above the horizon, flecked with liquid lightning and countless blue-and-white lights. “I’ve seen that before,” she said.
So had Max. It looked like an oncoming storm, but it had the distinct shape of a chess piece. A knight.
“I think it’s the Horsehead Nebula,” he said.
She stood up and walked down to the shoreline. “I think you’re right, Max.” Her voice shook.
Max watched her; he listened to the fire crackle and to the melodic roar of the surf. Perhaps for the first time since the child had died in the burning plane, he felt at peace with himself.
21
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven…
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Hymn Before Sunrise”
London, Mar. 14 (BBC News Service)—
The recent rise in workplace murders in the United Kingdom can possibly be ascribed to events on Johnson’s Ridge, according to Timothy Clayton, an industrial psychologist writing in the Economist. “People are more fearful for their jobs than they’ve been since the Great Depression,” Clayton says. “They’re not sure who’s responsible, but to a remarkably increasing degree, they’re gunning down bosses, secretaries, newspaper vendors, and anyone else who happens to get in the way.”
The five members of the tribal council, four men and a woman, were arrayed across the front of the chamber behind a long wooden table. Behind them hung the banner of the Mini Wakan Oyaté, the shield of the Devil’s Lake Sioux, with its buffalo skull and half-sun devices. Chairman Walker occupied the center of the group.
The chamber was packed so tightly with journalists and photographers there wasn’t much room for the tribe’s members. Some nevertheless managed to squeeze in, while others waited in the hallways and outside the Blue Building. The mood was jubilant, and when Wells stepped forward, there was a smattering of applause.
“Chairman,” he said, “esteemed council members, as you are aware, I represent the men and women of the National Energy Institute, which hopes to be allowed to examine the archeological find on Johnson’s Ridge and to preserve the find for future generations. In order to accomplish this, we are offering to pay the Mini Wakan Oyaté two hundred million dollars in exchange for the property.”
The crowd caught its collective breath. Applause began, but Walker quickly gaveled it down. Wells smiled, enjoying himself. He took out a letter and gazed at it. “I have, however, been directed by my superiors to inform you that some of our investors doubt that this is a wise use of their money, and they are threatening to pull out. The offer could be withdrawn at any time.” He crumpled the letter and pushed it back into his pocket. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, looking concerned, “take the money while you can. Unfortunately, once I walk out that door, anything might happen.”
The chairman nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Wells. The council appreciates your coming here this evening to speak with us.”
Wells bowed slightly and sat down.
“We have one other person on the agenda for this matter.” He looked to his right, where April and Max were seated with Arky. “Dr. Cannon?”
April looked like a world-beater. She wore a dark blue business suit and heels and the expression of someone who’d just found a cure for cancer. “Chairman,” she said, “and members of the council. Two hundred million dollars sounds like a lot of money—”
“It is a lot of money,” said a middle-aged woman up front.
“—but something happened today that changed the value of your property.” April paused. “The Roundhouse has a doorway. It’s a port to another world.”
The audience did not react, and Max realized that people did not understand what she was saying. Even the media representatives were waiting for more.
“This morning two of us walked into that building and walked out onto another world. This means that the Roundhouse contains the secret of instantaneous travel. There is a technology that would allow any of us to travel to Fargo, to Los Angeles, to China, in the blink of an eye.”
An electric charge rippled through the crowd. Flashbulbs went off, and cellular phones appeared.
Walker pounded his gavel.
In accordance with Arky’s advice, April described the land through the port as a place where the world felt young, a wilderness of virgin forests and starlit seas. “Moreover,” she said, “we think there are several ports. Perhaps to other forests. We don’t know yet. What we do know is that the Mini Wakan Oyaté have a bridge to the stars.
“Do not sell it for a few million dollars. Don’t sell it for a few billion. It’s worth far more.”
She sat down, and near pandemonium erupted. It was almost a full minute before the chairman could restore order. “We will now,” he said sternly, “hear comments from the floor.”
Andrea Hawk stood up to be recognized.
“I would like to remind the council that we are talking here about two hundred million dollars.
“I know April Cannon, and I am happy for her. This port she talks about, if it really exists, is of supreme importance. But that is in the future. The reality is that we have people suffering now. We can do a great deal for ourselves, and for our kids, with this kind of money. I implore the members of the council not to let it slip away.”
A tall man in a worn buckskin jacket told a story about a coyote who, by trying to grab too much, got nothing.
One by one they rose and related stories of children gone bad, of men and women ruined by drugs, of what it meant to be powerless in a rich society. Wells sat looking piously at the ceiling.
“The outside world,” said a man who looked ninet
y, “only knows we are here when they want something from us. However much they offer, they are trying to cheat us. Be careful.”
It was the most encouraging comment Max heard until Arky got up. “Tonight,” he said, “I am saddened at what I hear, and I worry for my people. Once again, the white man offers money, and we are quick to snatch it from him. We pay no heed to the nature of the bargain.
“The problems that you have described do not happen because we have no money. Rather, they happen because we have lost our heritage. We have forgotten who we are and what we might have been. I tell you, brothers and sisters, if we allow ourselves to be seduced again, it would be better for us if we never saw another sunrise.”
A murmur ran through the crowd. The journalists were holding up cassette recorders, aiming TV cameras, getting it all. Arky turned back to the council.
“We have been shown a new world. Maybe it’s time we stopped trying to live on pieces of land that the whites dole out. Maybe it’s time to do what our fathers would have done. Let us hold on to this forest world that April Cannon has found. Let us see if we cannot make it ours. That is the choice before you tonight: Take this man’s money, or live again as we were meant to live.”
After the council had filed out to deliberate, the media jumped April. While she answered questions, Max took Arky aside. “I don’t think you convinced the crowd,” he said.
The lawyer smiled. “I wasn’t trying to,” he said. “I was pointed in their direction, but I was talking to the old warriors.”
Devil’s Lake, ND, Mar. 15 (AP)—
The tribal council of the Devil’s Lake Sioux today turned down a two-hundred-million-dollar offer from a consortium of business interests to purchase the Johnson’s Ridge property on which a controversial excavation site is located. Their action is related to the alleged discovery of a “star bridge.” (See lead story, above.) Unrest among tribe members has been reported. Several mounted a demonstration here today, and police are bracing for more….
They made a second trip through the port and took some reluctant reporters along. That night the nation developed what Jay Leno dubbed “Roundhouse fever.” Pictures of the beach and the Horsehead Nebula and of people vanishing in a splash of golden light were on the front page of every newspaper and on every channel. As daylight moved around the globe, the Roundhouse and the wilderness world made headlines everywhere.
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