Doorsways in the Sand

Chapter 2

Incidents and fragments, bits-and-pieces time. Like- "You're not joking?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I'd rather it looked like hell for the obvious reasons," she said, wide-eyed, backing toward the door we had just come through.

"Well, whatever happened, it's done. We'll just clean up and ... "

She reopened the door, that long, lovely, wild hair dancing as she shook her head vigorously.

"You know, I'm going to think this over a little more," she said, stepping back into the hall.

"Aw, come on, Ginny. It's nothing serious."

"Like I said, I'll think about it."

She began closing the door.

"Should I call you later, then?"

"I don't think so."

"Tomorrow?"

"Tell you what, I'll call you."

Click.

Hell. She might as well have slammed it. End of Phase One in my search for a new roommate. Hal Sidmore, who had shared the apartment with me for some time, had gotten married a couple of months back. I missed him, as he had been a boon companion, good chess player and general heller about town, as well as an able explicator of multitudes of matters. I had decided to look for something a bit different in my next roommate, however. I thought I had spotted that indefinable quality in Ginny, late one night while climbing the radio tower behind the Pi Phi house, as she was about her end-of-day business in her third-floor room there. Things had gone swimmingly after that. I had met her at ground level, we had been doing things together for over a month and I had just about succeeded in persuading her to consider a change of residence for the coming semester. Then this.

"Damn!" I decided, kicking at a drawer that had been pulled from the desk, dumped and dropped to the floor. No sense in going after her right now. Clean up. Let her get over things. See her tomorrow.

Somebody had really torn the place apart, had gone through everything. The furniture had even been moved about and the covers pulled off the cushions. I sighed as I regarded it. Worse than the aftermath of the wildest of parties. What a rotten time for breaking and entering and breaking. It wasn't the best of neighborhoods, but it was hardly the worst. This sort of thing had never happened to me before. Now, when it did, it had to happen at precisely the wrong time, frightening away my warm and lissome companion. On top of this, something of course had to be missing.

I kept some cash and a few semi-valuables in the top drawer of the bureau in my bedroom. I kept more cash tacked in the toe of an old boot on a rack in the corner. I hoped that the vandal had been satisfied with the top drawer. That was the uninspired idea behind the arrangement.

I went to see.

My bedroom was in better order than the living room, though it too had suffered some depredation. The bed clothing had been pulled off and the mattress was askew. Two of the bureau drawers were open but undumped. I crossed the room, opened the top drawer and looked inside.

Everything was still in place, even the money. I moved to the rack, checked my boot. The roll of bills was still where I had left it.

"There's a good fellow. Now toss it here" came a familiar voice that I could not quite place in that context.

Turning, I saw that Paul Byler, Professor of Geology, had just emerged from my closet. His hands were empty, not that he needed a weapon to back up any threat. While short, he was powerfully built, and I had always been impressed by the quantity of scar tissue on those knuckles. An Australian, he had started out as a mining engineer in some pretty raw places, only later picking up his graduate work in geology and physics and getting into teaching.

But I had always been on excellent terms with the man, even after I had departed my geology major. I had known him socially for several years. Hadn't seen him for the past couple of weeks, though, as he had taken some leave. I had thought he was out of town.

So: "Paul, what's the matter?" I said. "Don't tell me you did all this messing?"

"The boot, Fred. Just pass me the boot."

"If you're short on cash, I'll be glad to lend you-"

"The boot!"

I took it to him. I stood there and watched as he plunged his hand inside, felt about, withdrew my roll of bills. He snorted then and thrust the boot and the money back at me, hard. I dropped both, because he had caught me in the abdomen.

Before I even completed a brief curse, he had seized me by the shoulders, spun me about and shoved me into the armchair beside the open window where the curtains fluttered lightly in the breeze.

"I don't want your money, Fred," he said, glaring at me. "I just want something you have that belongs to me. Now you had better give me an honest answer. Do you know what I'm talking about or don't you?"

"I haven't the foggiest," I said. "I don't have anything of yours. You could have just called me and asked me that. You didn't have to come busting in here and-"

He slapped me. Not especially hard. Just enough to jolt me and leave me silent.

"Fred," he said, "shut up. Just shut up and listen. Answer when I ask you a question. That's all. Keep the comments for another day. I'm in a hurry. Now I know you are lying because I've already seen your ex-roommate Hal. He says you have it, because he left it here when he moved out. What I am referring to is one of my models of the star-stone, which he picked up after a poker party in my lab. Remember?"

"Yes," I said. "If you had just called me and ask-"

He slapped me again. "Where is it?"

I shook my head, partly to clear it and partly in negation.

"I ... I don't know," I said.

He raised his hand.

"Wait! I'll explain! He had that thing you gave him out on the desk, in the front room, was using it for a paperweight. I'm sure he took it with him-along with all his other stuff-when he moved out. I haven't seen it for a couple of months. I'm sure of that."

"Well, one of you is lying," he said, "and you're the one I've got."

He swung again, but this time I was ready for him. I ducked and kicked him in the groin.

It was spectacular. Almost worth staying to watch, as I had never kicked anyone in the groin before. The cold, rational thing to do next would be to go for the back of his neck while he was doubled over that way, preferably spiking him with my elbow. However, I was not in a cold, rational mood just then. To be honest about it, I was afraid of the man, scared to get too close to him. Having had small experience with groin-kicked persons, I had no idea how long it might be before he straightened up and came at me.

Which is why I took to my own element rather than stay there and face him.

I was over the arm of the chair, had the window the rest of the way up and was out it in an instant. There was a narrow ledge along which I moved until I had hold of the drainpipe, off about eight feet to the right.

I could continue on around it, go up or down. But I decided to remain where I was. I felt secure.

Not too much later his head emerged from the window, turned my way. He studied the ledge and cursed me. I lit a cigarette and smiled.

"What are you waiting for?" I said when he paused for breath. "Come on out. You may be a lot tougher than I am, Paul, but if you come out here only one of us is going back in again. That's concrete down there. Come on. Talk is cheap. Show me."

He took a deep breath and his grip tightened on the sill. For a moment I actually thought he was going to try it. He looked downward, though, and he looked back at me.

"All right, Fred," he said, getting control of his lecture voice. "I'm not that big a fool. You win. But listen, please. What I've said is true. I've got to have that thing back. I would not have acted as I did if it were not very important. Please tell me, if you will, whether you were telling me the truth."

I was still smarting from those slaps. I did not feel like being a nice guy. On the other hand, it must have meant a lot to him to make him behave as he had, and I had nothing to gain by not telling him. So: "It was the truth," I said.

"And you have no idea where it might be?"

"None."

"Could someone have picked it up?"

"Easily."

"Who?"

"Anybody. You know those parties we had. Thirty, forty people in there."

He nodded and gnashed his teeth.

"All right," he said then. "I believe you. Try and think, though. Can you recall anything-anything at all-that might give me a lead?"

I shook my head. "Sorry."

He sighed. He sagged. He looked away.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'm going now. I suppose you plan on calling the police?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm in no position to ask favors, or to threaten you, at the moment. But this is both a request and a warning of whatever future reprisal I might be able to manage. Don't call them. I've troubles enough without having to worry about them, too."

He turned away.

"Wait," I said.

"What?"

"Maybe if you tell me what the problem is ... "

"No. You can't help me."

"Well, supposing the thing turned up? What should I do with it?"

"If that should happen, put it in a safe place and keep your mouth shut about having it. I'll call you periodically. Tell me about it then."

"What's so important about it?"

"Un-uh," he said, and was gone.

A whispered question from behind me-"Do you see me, red?"-and I turned, but there was no one there, though my ears still rang from the boxing they had taken. I decided then that it was a bad day and I took to the roof for some thinking. A traffic-copter buzzed me later, and I was queried as to suicidal intentions. I told the cop I was refribbing shingles, though, and that seemed to satisfy him.

Incidents and fragments continued-

"I did try phoning you. Three times," he said. "No answer."

"Did you consider stopping by in person?"

"I was about to. Just now. You got here first."

"Did you call the police?"

"No. I've got a wife to worry about as well as myself."

"I see."

"Did you call them?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I'm not certain. Well, I guess it's that I'd like a better idea as to what's going on before I blow the whistle on him."

Hal nodded, a dark-eyed study in bruise and Band-aid.

"And you think I know something you don't?"

"That's right."

"Well, I don't," he said, taking a sip, wincing and stirring more sugar into his iced tea. "When I answered the door earlier, there he was. I let him in and he started asking me about that damned stone. I told him everything I could remember, but he still wasn't satisfied. That was when he began pushing me around."

"Then what happened?"

"I remembered some more things."

"Uh-huh. Like you remembered I have it-which I don't-so he'd come rough me up and leave you alone."

"No! That's not it at all!" he said. "I told him the truth. I left it there when I moved out. As to what became of it afterwards, I have no idea."

"Where'd you leave it?"

"Last I remember seeing it, it was on the desk."

"Why didn't you take it with you?"

"I don't know. I was tired of looking at it, I guess."

He got up and paced his living room, paused and looked out the window. Mary was off attending a class, a thing she had also been doing that afternoon when Paul had stopped by, had his conference with Hal and started the ball rolling down the alley that led to me.

"Hal," I said, "are you telling me the whole truth and nothing but?"

"Everything important."

"Come on."

He turned his back to the window, looked at me, looked away.

"Well," he said, "he claimed the thing we had was his."

I ignored the "we."

"It was," I said, "once. But I was there when he gave it to you. Title passed."

But Hal shook his head. "Not that simple," he said.

"Oh?"

He returned to sit with his iced tea. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, took a quick sip, looked at me again.

"No," he said. "You see, the one we had was really his. Remember that night we got it? We played cards in his lab till pretty late. The six stones were on a shelf above the counter. We noticed them early and asked him about them several times. He would just smile and say something mysterious or change the subject. Then, as, the night wore on and after he'd had more to drink, he began talking about them, told us what they were."

"I remember," I said. "He told us he had been to see the star-stone, which had just that week been received from the aliens and put on display in New York. He had taken hundreds of photographs through all sorts of filters, filled a notebook with observations, collected all the data he could. Then he had set out to construct a model of the thing. Said he was going to find a way to produce them cheaply, to sell them as novelty items. The half dozen on his shelf represented his best efforts at that point. He thought they were pretty good."

"Right. Then I noticed that there were several rejects in the waste bin beside the counter. I picked out the best-looking one and held it up to the light. It was a pretty thing, just like the others. Paul smiled when he saw that I had it, and he said, ‘You like it?' I told him that I did. ‘Keep it,' he said."

"So you did. That's the way I remember it, too."

"Yes, but there was more to it than that," he said. "I took it back to the table with me and set it down next to my money-so that each time I reached over for some change, I automatically glanced at it. After a time I became aware of a tiny flaw, a little imperfection at the base of one of the limbs. It was quite insignificant, but it irritated me more and more each time that I looked at it. So, when you two left the room later, to bring in more cold beer and sodas, I took it over and switched it with one of those on the shelf."

"I begin to see."

"Okay, okay! I probably shouldn't have done it. I didn't see any harm in it at the time. They were just prototype souvenirs he was fooling with, and the difference wasn't even noticeable unless you were looking hard."

"He'd noticed it the first time around."

"Which was good reason for him to consider them perfect and not be looking again. And what difference did it make, really? Even in the absence of a six-pack the answer seems obvious."

"It sounds all right, I'll give you that. But the fact is that he did check-and it also seems that they were more important than he had indicated. I wonder why?"

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," he said. "The first thing that occurred to me was that the souvenir business was just a story he made up because he wanted to show them off to us and he had to tell us something. Supposing he had been approached by someone from the UN to produce a model-several models-for them? The original is priceless, irreplaceable and on display to the public. To guard against theft or someone with a compulsion and a sledgehammer, it would seem wisest to keep it locked away and put a phony one in the showcase. Paul would be a logical choice for the job. Whenever anyone talks crystallography, his name comes up."

"I could buy parts of that," I said, "but the whole thing doesn't hang together. Why get so upset over the flawed specimen when he could just manufacture another? Why not simply write off the one we've lost?"

"Security?"

"If that's so, we didn't break it. He did. Why shove us around and bring it to mind when we were doing a good job forgetting about it? No, that doesn't seem to jibe."

"All right, what then?"

I shrugged.

"Insufficient data," I said, getting to my feet. "If you decide to call the police, be sure to tell them that the thing he was looking for was something you'd stolen from him."

"Aw, Fred, that's hitting below the belt."

"It's true, though. I wonder what the intrinsic value of the thing was? I forget where they draw the misdemeanor felony line."

"Okay, you've made your point. What are you going to do?"

I shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. Wait and see what happens, I suppose. Let me know if you think of anything else."

"All right. You do the same?"

"Yes." I started toward the door.

"Sure you won't stay for dinner?" he said.

"No, thanks. I've got to run."

"See you, then."

"Right. Take it easy."

Walking past a darkened bakery. Play of night and light on glass. DO YOU TASTE ME BRED? I read. I hesitated, turned, saw where shadows had anagrammatized a bake sale, sniffed, hurried on.

Bits and pieces-

Near midnight, as I was trying a new route up the cathedral, I thought that I counted an extra gargoyle. As I moved closer, though, I saw that it was Professor Dobson atop the buttress. Drunk again and counting stars, I guessed.

I continued, coming to rest on a nearby ledge.

"Good evening. Professor."

"Hello, Fred. Yes, it is, isn't it? Beautiful night I was hoping you'd pass this way. Have a drink."

"Low tolerance," I said. "I seldom indulge."

"Special occasion," he suggested.

"Well, a little then."

I accepted the bottle he extended, took a sip.

"Good. Very good," I said, passing it back. "What is it? And what's the occasion?"

"A very, very special cognac I've been saving for over twenty years, for tonight. The stars have finally run their fiery routes to the proper places, positioned with elegant cunning, possessed of noble portent."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm retiring, getting out of this lousy rat race."

"Oh, congratulations. I hadn't heard."

"That was by design. Mine. I can't stand formal goodbyes. Just a few more loose ends to splice, and I'll be ready to go. Next week probably."

"Well, I hope you have an enjoyable time of it. It is not often that I meet someone with the interest we share. I'll miss you."

He took a sip from his bottle, nodded, grew silent. I lit a cigarette, looked out across the sleeping town, up at the stars. The night was cool, the breeze more than a little damp. Small traffic sounds came and went, distant, insect-like. An occasional bat interrupted my tracing of constellations.

"Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth," I murmured, "Megrez, Phecda ... "

"Merak and Dubhe," he said, finishing off the Big Dipper and surprising me, both for having overheard and for knowing the rest.

"Back where I left them so many years ago," he went on. "I've a very peculiar feeling now-the thing I set out to analyze tonight. Did you ever look back at some moment in your past and have it suddenly grow so vivid that all the intervening years seemed brief, dreamlike, impersonal-the motions of a May afternoon surrendered to routine?"

"No," I said.

"One day, when you do, remember-the cognac," he said, and he took another sip and passed me the bottle. I had some more and returned it to him.

"They did actually creep, though, those thousands of days. Petty pace, and all that," he continued. "I know this intellectually, though something else is currently denying it. I am aware of it particularly, because I am especially conscious of the difference between that earlier time and this present. It was a cumulative thing, the change. Space travel, cities under the sea, the advances in medicine-even our first contact with the aliens-all of these things occurred at different times and everything else seemed unchanged when they did. Petty pace. Life pretty much the same but for this one new thing. Then another, at another time. Then another. No massive revolution. An incremental process is what it was. Then suddenly a man is ready to retire, and this gives rise to reflection. He looks back, back to Cambridge, where a young man is climbing a building. He sees those stars. He feels the texture of that roof. Everything that follows is a blur, a kaleidoscopic monochrome. He is here and he is there. Everything else is unreal. But they are two different worlds, Fred-two completely different worlds-and he didn't really see it happen, never actually caught either one in the act of going or coming. And that is the feeling that accompanies me tonight."

"Is it a good feeling or a bad one?" I said.

"I don't really know. I haven't worked up an emotion to go with it yet."

"Let me know when you do, will you? You've got me curious." He chuckled. I did, too.

"You know, it's funny," I said, "that you never stopped climbing."

He was silent for a while, then said, "About the climbing, it's rather peculiar ... Of course, it was somewhat in the nature of a tradition where I was a student, though I believe I liked it more than most. I kept at it for several years after I left the university, and then it became a more or less sporadic thing with changes of residence and lack of opportunity. I would get spells, though-compulsions, actually-when I just had to climb. I would take a holiday, then, to someplace where the architecture was congenial. I'd spend my nights scaling the buildings, clambering about rooftops and spires."

"Acrophilia," I said.

"True. Baptizing a thing doesn't explain it, though. I never understood why I did it. Still don't, for that matter. I did finally stop it for a long while, though. Middle-age hormone shift perhaps. Who knows? Then I came here to teach. It was when I heard of your own activities that I began thinking about it again. This led to the desire, the act, the return of the compulsion. It has been with me ever since. I've spent more time wondering why people quit climbing things than why they start."

"It does seem the natural thing to do."

"Exactly."

He took another drink, offered me one. I would have liked to but I know my limits, and sitting there on the ledge, I was not about to push them. So he gestured with the bottle, skyward, then: "To the lady with the smile," he said, and drank it for me.

"To the rocks of empire," he added a moment later, with a swing and a swig to another starry sector. The wrong one, but no matter. He knew as well as I that it was still below the horizon.

He settled back, found a cigar, lit it, mused: "How many eyes per head, I wonder, in the place they regard the ‘Mona Lisa'? Are they faceted? Fixed? And of what color?"

"Only two. You know that. And sort of hazel-in the pictures, anyway."

"Must you deflate romantic rhetoric? Besides, the Astabigans have plenty of visitors from other worlds who will be viewing her."

"True. And for that matter, the British Crown Jewels are in the custody of people with crescent-shaped pupils. Kind of lavender-eyed, I believe."

"Sufficient," he said. "Redeeming. Thank you."

A shooting star burned its way earthward. My cigarette butt followed it.

"I wonder if it was a fair trade?" he said. "We don't understand the Rhennius machine, and even the aliens aren't certain what the star-stone represents."

"It wasn't exactly a trade."

"Two of the treasures of Earth are gone and we have a couple of theirs in return. What else would you call it?"

"A link in a kula chain," I said.

"I am not familiar with the term. Tell me about it."

"The parallel struck me as I read the details of the deal we had been offered. The kula is a kind of ceremonial voyage undertaken at various times by the inhabitants of the island groups to the east of New Guinea-the Trobriand Islanders, the Papuans of Melanesia. It is a sort of double circuit, a movement in two opposite directions among the islands. The purpose is the mutual exchange of articles having no special functional value to the various tribes involved, but possessed of great cultural significance. Generally, they are body ornaments-necklaces, bracelets-bearing names and colorful histories. They move slowly about the great circuit of the islands, accompanied by their ever-growing histories, are exchanged with considerable pomp and ceremony and serve to focus cultural enthusiasm in a way that promotes a certain unity, a sense of mutual obligation and trust. Now, the general similarity to the exchange program we are entering with the aliens seems pretty obvious. The objects become both cultural hostages and emblems of honor to the trustees. By their existence, their circulation, their display, they inevitably create something of a community feeling. This is the true purpose of a kula chain, as I see it. That's why I didn't like the word ‘trade.' "

"Most interesting. None of the reports I've heard or read put it in that light-and certainly none of them compared it to the kula phenomenon. They cast it more in terms of an initiation fee for joining the galactic club, the price of admission to enjoy the benefits of trade and the exchange of ideas. That sort of thing."

"That was just the sales pitch, to ease public protest over the relinquishment of cultural treasures. All we were really promised was reciprocity in the chain. I'm sure those other things will eventually come to pass, but not necessarily as a direct result. No. Our governments were indulging in the time-honored practice of giving the people a simple, palatable explanation of a complex thing."

"I can see that," he said, and he stretched and yawned. "In. fact, I prefer your interpretation over the official one."

I lit another cigarette.

"Thanks," I said. "I feel obligated to point out, though, that I have always been a sucker for ideas I find aesthetically pleasing. The cosmic sweep of the thing-an interstellar kula chain-affirming the differences and at the same time emphasizing the similarities of all the intelligent races in the galaxy-tying them together, building common traditions ... The notion strikes me as kind of fine."

"Obviously," he said, gesturing then toward the higher stages of the cathedral. "Tell me, are you going to climb the rest of the way up tonight?"

"Probably, in a little while. Did you want to go now?"

"No, no. I was just curious. You generally go all the way to the top, don't you?"

"Yes. Don't you?"

"Not always. In fact, I've recently been keeping more to the middle heights. The reason I asked, though, is that I have a question, seeing that you are in a philosophical mood."

"It's catching."

"All right. Then tell me what it feels like when you reach the top."

"An elation, I guess. A sense of accomplishment, sort of."

"Up here the view is less obstructed. You can see farther, take in more of the features of the landscape. Is that it, I wonder? A better perspective?"

"Part of it, maybe. But there is always one other thing I feel when I reach the top: I always want to go just a little bit higher, and I always feel that I almost can, that I am just about to."

"Yes. That's true," he said.

"Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. To be reminded, perhaps. That boy in Cambridge would have said the same thing you did, but I had partly forgotten. It is not just the world that has changed."

He took another drink.

"I wonder," he said, "what it was really like? That first encounter-out there-with the aliens. Hard to believe that several years have passed since it happened. The governments obviously glossed up the story, so we will probably never know exactly what was said or done. A coincidental run-in, neither of us familiar with the system where we met. Exploring, that's all. It was doubtless less of a shock to them, being acquainted with so many other races across the galaxy. Still ... I remember that unexpected return. Mission accomplished. A half century ahead of schedule. Accompanied by an Astabigan scouting vessel. If an object attains the speed of light it turns into a pumpkin. Everybody knew that. But the aliens had found a way of cheating space out of its pumpkins, and they brought our ship back through the tunnel they made under it. Or across the bridge over it. Or something like that. Lots of business for the math department. Strange feeling. Not at all the way I had thought it might be. Sort of like working your way up a steeple or a dome-really difficult going-and then, when you reach the point where you realize you've got it made, you look up and see that someone else is already there on top. So we'd run into a galactic civilization-a loose confederation of races that's been in existence for millennia. Maybe we were lucky. It could easily have taken a couple more centuries. Maybe not, though. My feelings were, and still are, mixed. How can you go a little bit higher after something that anticlimactic? They've given us the technical know-how to build pumpkin-proof ships of our own. They've also warned us off a lot of celestial real estate. They've granted us a place in their exchange program, where we're bound to make a poor showing. Changes will be coming faster and faster in the years ahead. The world may even begin to change at a noticeable rate. What then? Once that petty-pace quality is lost, everyone may wind up as bewildered as a drunken old nightclimber on a cathedral who has been vouchsafed a glimpse of the clicking gear teeth between himself here and the towers of Cambridge there, wherever. What then? See the mainspring and turn to pumpkins? Retire? Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak and Dubhe ... They have been there. They know them. Perhaps, deep down inside, I wanted us to be alone in the cosmos-to claim all of that for ourselves. Or any aliens encountered, a little behind us in everything. Greedy, proud, selfish ... True. Now, though, we're the provincials, God help us! Enough left to drink to our health. Good! Here's to it! I spit into the face of Time that has transfigured me!"

Offhand, I could think of nothing to say, so I said nothing. Part of me wanted to agree with him, but only part. For that matter, part of me sort of wished he had not finished off the brandy.

After a time he said, "I don't think I'll be doing any more climbing tonight," and I reckoned that a good idea. I had decided against further altitude myself, and, wheeling, we narrowed our gyre, down and around and down, and I saw the good man home.

Bits and pieces. Pieces-

I caught the tag end of the late late news before turning in. A fog-dispelling item involved a Paul Byler, Professor of Geology, set upon by vandals in Central Park earlier that evening, who, in addition to whatever money he was carrying, had been deprived by the rascals of heart, liver, kidneys and lungs.

Some upwelling in the dark fishbowl atop the spine later splashed dreams, patterns memory-resistant as a swirl of noctilucae, across consciousness' thin, transparent rim, save for the kinesthetic/synesthetic DO YOU FEEL ME LED? which must have lasted a timeless time longer than the rest, for later, much later, morning's third coffee touched it to a penny's worth of spin, of color.