Before The Golden Age - A SF Anthology of the 1930s

by Edited By Isaac Asimov

  “Sure,” Colbie remarked. “But in a way I’m not. You’re a likeable fellow. I admit it. But you haven’t got the instinct to help make an organized unit of society—you’re a gear out of mesh. ‘Course, there’s others like you—but it’s you I have to take in. I suppose I’ll do it, too.”

  “Forgetting the mix-up we’re in?”

  “No. Just trying to match your own superb confidence in crises like this one.”

  “Touché” The outlaw grinned. “Any ideas to match your confidence?”

  “Not a shard.”

  “Me either—yet. By the way”—and here Deverel regarded Colbie thoughtfully—”I’m keeping anything I learn to myself—anything that might get us out, I mean.”

  “Meaning?” Colbie’s eyes hardened.

  “I’ll sell what I know for a price.”

  “Ho! Freedom, I guess!” Colbie said sardonically.

  “Well—not that, exactly. I’ll tell you what it is, if I ever get anything to sell.”

  Colbie studied him, shrugged his shoulders carelessly. He looked over his shoulder, but he didn’t see the approaching rim.

  “Our angle’s much steeper.” Deverel followed his thought. “The rim isn’t far away. Couple minutes yet.”

  “We won’t make it though,” Colbie said regretfully, “unless there’s something else we don’t know anything about”

  In a few minutes, they saw the rim outlined against the black sides of an uneven mountain range which might have been set back from the rim anywhere from ten to twenty miles. They regarded its stubborn approach with anxiety.

  So slowly it came toward them—and so rapidly their velocity was being decreased to the zero point! Nerves tensed, fists clenched, eyes strained. But intuitively, rather than from any deliberate mental calculation, they felt that they would not reach it. Their velocity was simply not enough.

  And it wasn’t. Slowly—compared to their earlier enormous velocities— they rose toward the rim which was so painfully near, yet so infinitely difficult to reach. One moment, then, they were rising; the next, falling. There had been no pause, or if there had been it was nestled close to that infinitesimal space of time which man will never measure. They began to fall.

  In a voice that held words of chagrin—true to human nature, he had not given up hope—Colbie said, “Missed it—by about ten vertical feet, as a close guess. Next time we swing across this damned mirror we’ll miss it by twenty feet.”

  “Something like that,” Deverel agreed abstractedly. At the moment they had fallen, he had noted the time down to the exact fraction of a second. And he kept it in mind. Not that he had any idea of its ultimate benefit then, but he felt it might be a good thing to know. “Let’s see,” he was muttering to himself, and using Colbie’s phrase, went on, “the time for one swing across—”

  And he didn’t finish the sentence. For an idea, a conception so alluring, so utterly startling, leaped into his mind, that he drew his breath inward through his suddenly meeting teeth. “Lord!” he whispered, and almost as if he were stunned, he dropped back, lying full length, his head cupped in the palms of his joined hands. And he saw the stars.

  The two men were zooming along at a good fast clip that was building on itself. They were guided by the frictionless stuff of the mirror, and pulled by the force of gravity.

  And above were the stars. So cold, so remote, so harshly, quietly beautiful. Deverel was looking at them, hard. They were exciting stars. They never changed their position as a whole. They looked the same as when they—the men—had gone plunging down the curve of the mirror.

  * * * *

  While Deverel lay there on his back, his brow wrinkled in thought, Colbie watched him, watched him for a good many minutes, while they plummeted into the depths of the shining bowl. In an incredibly short time, they reached bottom—and Colbie grew tired of trying to read the outlaw’s thoughts. He tried to rise to his feet. He went through a number of gyrations, which left him lying face down, looking at his own reflections.

  Deverel had come out of his brown study, and was watching amusedly. “If there were a large enough area on the soles of your feet, m’lad, you could stand easily enough. But when you sit down, the center of gravity of your body is considerably lowered, and it’s easy. So you’ll never stand up unless by some miracle of balance.”

  This bit of wisdom was apparent. Colbie sat down, drew the water tube into his mouth, and sucked with abandon. Then he regarded Deverel knowingly. “Been thinking, eh? What about?”

  “The mirror,” Deverel replied solemnly. “I have to keep it to myself, though—sorry!”

  “Likely!” There was a tigerish snarl implied in Colbie’s voice overtones.

  Deverel’s worldly wise eyes grew sardonic. “Sure—I’ve been doing a lot of figuring, and I’ve found out a lot of stuff. Interesting, unusual. But there’s something missing, Colbie—something I can’t put my finger on. If I had it—and I will get it—I could get us out of here. Any suggestions?” he concluded, regarding Colbie sidewise out of a laughing eye.

  “If I had them,” pointedly, “I’d keep ‘em. By the way, are you being fair? Withholding information? I’m referring to your promise—that you wouldn’t try to get away.”

  “I did make a promise, just as you said—that I wouldn’t try to get away. And I haven’t. And I won’t until you tell me it’s all right if I try. Get it?” He fixed Colbie with a rigidly extended index finger, and went on in tight tones of significance. “Let’s be ourselves from now on, Colbie—outlaw and cop! Right now, we’re just partners in adventure. But you, just by saying so, can make us what we really are—and I’d be your prisoner. D’you see? Do that, Colbie, and I’ll get us out of here!”

  Colbie felt a slow flush rising to his face. Suddenly he felt utterly humiliated; felt as if his intelligence had been insulted and mocked at. Colbie’s voice exploded, an eruption of searing wrath. “No! Listen,” he went on in a low, deadly, flat voice, “the answer is no. No from now on. I don’t give a damn. I don’t give a damn if we slide back and forth here for eternity—that’s what we’ll do if you wait for me to give in to you and your damned insulting demand. You’ve got the brass—” Colbie choked apoplectically, and stopped. He waved his arms helplessly, glaring at the other man. After a while he went on, his voice now even, “You suggest I haven’t got the mentality or the resource to find my—our—way out of here. Maybe I haven’t. Maybe I’m a damned dummy. But I’ll tell you something that’s going to make you squirm; you’re going to see me outbluff you! And you’re going to give in to me! Remember it.”

  He sank back, glaring.

  Deverel’s eyes were popping. “Well!” he exclaimed in astonishment. “Phew! Glad you got that off your chest—you sure take the fits!”

  A lot of thought went on under Deverel’s helmet, and in a way they amused him. But they were all directed toward one end—escape. This was a new Colbie, an undreamed-of Colbie, he saw here, and he was going to be a tough nut to crack! So Deverel finally said, “You’re going to outbluff me, you said.”

  “Sure. Now, ever, and always. Something else, my dear mental marvel —it’s you that’s going to do the thinking.” His voice was contemptuous. “Now, go ahead and use that so superior gray matter you’re claiming.”

  Deverel’s lips twitched. He said, shrugging, “If that’s the way you want it But you’re crazy.”

  Colbie refused to answer.

  “Well.” The outlaw laughed lightly. “Now we’ve got our own personal feud mapped out. We won’t be on speaking terms for maybe two or three hours. Incidentally, we’ll be bored to death. We won’t even enjoy ourselves the least bit. That’s the way people do when they’re mad at each other. If I were a kid, or if we were medium-close relatives, I’d say all right—but we’re two grown men.”

  “I get it.” Colbie put a grin on his face.

  “Good!” Deverel exclaimed. “Now where are we, Colbie? Near the top again. There’s the rim, too!”

 
It was true. The rim was there—but it was not the same section of the rim from which they had dropped. Deverel realized it. That mountain, that landmark, did not show up against the rim. They had gone across the mirror twice. By common sense, they should have returned to their starting point. But had they returned, Deverel would have been startled indeed.

  They came to the apex of the second trip across—and dropped back, once more missing it by an additional ten vertical feet. Once more they plunged downward into the depths of the shining bowl.

  On the way down, Colbie was silent. Unable to help himself, his thoughts began to revolve. How could they get out? But his thoughts revolved futilely. He was unable to look at the matter objectively. Had he been solving a puzzle on paper, the answer would have come soon enough. He was well enough equipped on the laws of motion to have solved it. But, being a part of the brain-teaser himself, he was helpless.

  But undoubtedly he should have noticed that the position of the stars in the heavens never changed.

  They passed bottom, went sloping upward again, in a monotony of evenly decreasing speed that was maddening, at least to Colbie.

  Deverel was not silent. He occupied himself in a frivolous manner, talking, laughing, cracking jokes. He enjoyed himself thoroughly. He could make himself at home anywhere, and in the strangest circumstances. It was one of his admirable qualities.

  Finally he called, “How about it, Lieutenant? Making any headway?”

  Colbie came out of it. “Know less than I did before,” he admitted sadly. The light of the stars, and the light which the mirror so faithfully threw back into space, were beginning to irritate him, too.

  “Damn shame.” Deverel sounded regretful. “I’ve got a lot of dope on this strange vale o’ paradise,” he added sadly, “but I can’t find the missing link that’d put it to some advantage. And to be frank, the time to put it to the best advantage will be in less than an hour. A crucial moment, I mean.” He was staring intently at Colbie.

  “Damn the crucial moment,” Colbie said coldly.

  “Well, there’ll be several crucial moments,” Deverel said, laughing softly. “The best possible times for us to get out—but I don’t know yet how we’ll get out. You say I have to do the thinking? But it won’t hurt if we talk things over a little, will it?”

  Colbie said it was all right with him. After all, the whole thing was up to Deverel from now on. No number of solutions would help if Deverel didn’t give in.

  They discussed the color of the strange substance. Did it have one? No, certainly not; it absorbed no light, hence was the color of any light it reflected. Could they, as a single system of two bodies, change their direction of motion? No. They were a closed system, and as such had a single center of gravity which would continue on its present course forever, unless some outside force intervened. They could jerk, they could squirm, but for every action in one direction, there would be equal reaction in the other. Was this substance either hot or cold as determined by human senses? No. For it could absorb no heat, nor could it, therefore, transmit heat. The first would convey the impression of coldness, the second that of warmth-

  It was an amusing subject, and exhaustless. But Deverel plucked no fruit from its many branches. They were still hopelessly marooned within the bowl of the incredible mirror.

  They hit the apex of the third swing across the great mirror—and fell downward again. They bounced back up from the bottom, zoomed upward through the sea of luminescence, fell downward again the fifth time.

  And Deverel said, “It’s coming. It’s here. The first Crucial Moment. But we have to pass it up.”

  The sixth apex dwindled away, found Deverel looking longingly at the sharply rising mountain which he had placed in his head as a landmark, “the place they had to get back to.”

  “I know when we have to get out,” he told Colbie anxiously, “but the how of it knocks me! Every trip across we take, we fall nearer the bottom by ten feet. Right now we’re about sixty feet below the plane of the rim of the mirror. How are we going to rise that sixty feet?”

  “You have me there,” said Colbie nonchalantly.

  Deverel regarded him seriously. Colbie was an uncaring idiot—didn’t seem to give a damn whether they got out or not. But Deverel was beginning to feel whole new quantities of respect for the IP man. There was certainly more to him than he had hitherto suspected. He smiled. “Still holding out?”

  Colbie said he was.

  “Well, you know I won’t give in.” Deverel said harshly, “I’m supposed to be damned fool enough to think my way back to Earth with you, back to jail. I’ve outbluffed better men than you, Colbie, and I’ll stick this one out, too. Are we going to be damned fools? You know, if this was off my mind, I could devote myself a lot better to the one problem that fuddles me up.”

  But Colbie said that he was sorry he couldn’t help the outlaw get the suspense off his mind. And Deverel’s teeth closed with a snap. Colbie, looking at the hard sardonic features, wondered vaguely, perhaps with a slight inward shudder, what would be the outcome of it all.

  Then ensued utter weariness. For interminable minute after interminable minute, they swept dizzyingly down and up through the pressing, aching mist of light. Their eyes became tortured, their brains became inflamed, their muscles stiffened, their nerves jangled. They became irritable and touchy. The monotony was man-killing, especially in view of the fact that the manner of their salvation was yet a thing of the future—or perhaps a thing of no solution.

  Deverel was up against a blank wall, and his every word had a snarl in it. “There’s some way it can be done,” he insisted, as they were dropping down after the tenth plunge across the great mirror. “And I have to find it soon. We’re a hundred feet below the rim now. You could help me, Colbie —you’ve the brains for it, I know you have. But you’re lazy, damn it. You insist on sitting back there and letting me do all the thinking. Suggest something, won’t you?”

  Colbie answered seriously, “Deverel, I have been thinking. But it’s no good. What is it you know? What strange characteristics has the mirror got that both you and I don’t already know?” He paused, shaking his head. “I can’t see the trees for the forest—I’ll admit it.” He was genuinely sorry he couldn’t help, and was more than a little touched by the outlaw’s desperate search for the final link in the chain he had evidently fabricated. “Why not tell me what it’s all about?” he suggested. “Maybe I can go on from what you’ve found out.”

  “No sale!” Deverel snorted angrily. “What I know is my trump card— you’d know as much as I do. Wouldn’t do me any good.”

  “Won’t do you any good, anyway—unless you give in.” Colbie grinned easily.

  “And you can bet everything you’ve got I won’t!” Deverel snapped. And then looked queerly at Colbie. “You really have made up your mind, haven’t you?” he demanded. He shrugged his shoulders sulkily. “But maybe you’ll change it. That’s what I’m banking on, anyway. You’re not the type that can hold out forever.”

  Colbie shrugged his own shoulders in indifference, and then crossed his legs a different way. Thinking better of it, he lay flat on his back, and by virtue of swinging his arms one way and his legs the other, started to whirl about. Elsewhere, the action might have seemed childish, but here it was one of a strictly limited number of amusements.

  While this aimless gyration, which, once started, continued unabated, may have amused Colbie at first, it very soon had a much different effect. Abruptly he sat up—still spinning lazily—and stared at Deverel. A slow grin appeared on his lips, went into temporary eclipse as he turned around, and appeared again as the rope holding them together wound up about him. “Your difficulty,” he asked judiciously, “lies in being unable to make up for that hundred feet or so we’ve lost to friction, I take it?”

  Deverel looked at him keenly and nodded.

  Colbie’s face split in a slow, broad grin. “I haven’t got it all figured out. I said I’d let you do that. But I know
how to make up for that difference. It takes cooperation, and maybe if you know how to do it, you’ll give me the rest of that information sooner. Because I won’t cooperate till you do. You think what I was doing, and you’ll get it.”

  Deverel looked at him blankly. Then—”I’ve got it!” he gurgled. “I knew it could be done—and it’s easy!”

  He was talking rapidly, excitedly. “I’ve got the whole thing worked out, now. Everything I need! It’s only a question of waiting. Two or three more times across the mirror— Now listen,” he went on rapidly. “You have to tell me it’s all right. This’ll get us out, both of us. You will, won’t you?” he demanded anxiously.

  Then he saw Colbie’s mask of a face and shouted furiously, “Don’t be a damned fool, Colbie! You don’t want to die, do you? You know you won’t be able to stand death from lack of water and food—you know it! Now’s the time to make up your mind.” He was feverish.