Doorsways in the Sand

Chapter 5

Hanging there, tensing and untensing my muscles to counteract the pendulum effect of the long, knotted line, I examined the penny on which Lincoln faced to the left. It looked precisely the way a penny would look if I were regarding it in a mirror, reversed lettering and all. Only I was holding it in the palm of my hand.

Beside/below me, where I dangled but a couple of feet above the floor, hummed the Rhennius machine: three jet-black housings set in a line on a circular platform that rotated slowly in a counterclockwise direction, the end units each extruding a shaft-one vertical, one horizontal-about which passed what appeared to be a Moebius strip of a belt almost a meter in width, one strand half running through a tunnel in the curved and striated central unit, which faintly resembled a wide hand cupped as in the act of scratching.

Pumping my knees, feet braced against the terminal knot, I set up a gentle swaying that bore me, moments later, back above the ingoing aperture of the middle component. Lowering myself, extending my arm, I dropped the penny onto the belt, was halted at the end of my arc, began the return swing. Still crouched and reaching, I snared the penny as it emerged.

Not what I had expected. Not at all, and no indeed.

In that its first journey through the innards of the thing had reversed the coin, I had assumed that running it through the works again would return it to normal. Instead, I now held a metal disk on which the design was properly oriented but was incised, intaglio-like, rather than raised. This applied to both sides, and in the place of the milling the edges were step-recessed, like a train wheel.

Curiouser and curiouser. I would simply have to do it again to see what happened next. I straightened, gripped the line with my knees, began to redirect my errant arc.

For a moment I glanced up into the gloom where my thirty-foot puppet string reached to its shadowy bar. An I-beam, too near the ceiling to mount, I had traversed it aardvark-style-ankles locked above, letting my fingers do the walking. I wore a dark sweater and trousers and had on thin-soled suede boots. I had carried the line coiled about my left shoulder until I had reached a point as near to being directly above the apparatus as was possible.

I had made my way in through a skylight I had had to jimmy after cutting away some grillwork and jump-wiring three alarms in a fashion that produced a small nostalgia for my abandoned major in electrical engineering. The hall below was dim, the only illumination provided by a series of floor-level spots that encircled the display and concentrated their beams upward upon it. A low guardrail enclosed the machine, and concealed electric eyes fenced it invisibly. Sensor plates within the floor and the platform would betray a footstep. There was a television camera bolted to my beam. I had turned it slowly, slightly, so that it was still focused on the display-only farther southward, as I planned to descend on the north side where the belt was flattest just before it reached the central unit-a guesstimate, from those four courses in TV production. There were guards in the building, but one had just made his rounds and I planned to be quick. All plans have their limits and hazards, which is why insurance companies get rich.

The night was cloudy and a very cold wind went around in it. My breath flapped ghostly wings and flew away. The only witness to my finger-numbing exercises on the roof was a tired-looking cat crouched in the scuttleway. The chill had been about when I had arrived in town the night before, a journey resulting from a decision I had reached on Hal's couch the previous day.

After Charv and Ragma had, at my request, set me down about fifty miles out of town during the dark of the moon, I had hitched rides and gotten back to my neighborhood well after midnight. And a good thing it was that I had.

There is a side street that dead-ends into my own, and my building is right across the way from it. As you proceed along that side street the windows of my apartment are in plain sight. More naturally in night's dark and quiet than they would by day, my eyes sought them. Dark, as they should be. Blank. Vacant.

But then, half a minute later, as I neared the corner, came a small flare, a tiny flickering, blackness again.

Any other time and I would have dismissed it if I had noted it at all. It could very easily have been a reflection or an imagining. Yet ...

Yes. But recently recuperated and still full of warnings, I would be a fool to be anything but wary. Neither a fool nor a raisin be, I told myself as I put on my waries, turned right and headed away.

I walked a pair of blocks to and a couple from, coming at last up the alley behind my building. There was a rear entranceway, but I avoided it, making my way to a place where I could go from pipe to sill to ledge to fire escape, which I did.

In a very brief while I was on the roof and moving across it. Then down the pipe to the place I had stood when talking with Paul Byler. I edged forward from there and peered in my bedroom window. Too dark to tell anything for certain. It was the other window, though, that had framed what might have been the lighting of a cigarette.

I rested my fingertips on the window, pressed firmly, then exerted a steady pressure upward. It slid open without a sound, the reward of consideration. Being an erratic sleeper and fond of my nighttime gambols, I kept the running grooves heavily waxed so as not to disturb my roommate.

Leaving my shoes behind on the ledge, I entered and stood still, ready to flee.

I waited a minute, breathing slowly, through my mouth. Quieter that way. Another minute ...

A creak from my uneasy easy chair reached me, an effect it always manages when its occupant uncrosses and recrosses his legs.

That would place a person to the right of the desk in the front room, in a position near to the window.

"Is there any coffee in that thing?" a harsh voice managed softly.

"I think so" came the reply.

"Then pour me some."

Sounds of a thermos being unstoppered. Pouring. A few scrapes and bumps. A muttered "Thanks." They placed the other fellow at the desk itself.

A slurp. A sigh. The scratch of a match. More silence.

Then: "Wouldn't it be funny if he'd gotten himself killed?"

A snort.

"Yeah. Not bloody likely, though."

"How can you say that?"

"He stinks of luck, or something like it. And he's such an odd one to begin with."

"That I'll buy. Wish he'd hurry up and find his way home."

"That makes for two of us."

The one in the easy chair got to his feet and moved to the window. After a time he sighed. "How long, how long, 0 Lord?"

"It will be worth the wait."

"I'm not denying it. But the sooner we catch hold of him the better."

"Of course. I'll drink to that."

"Hear! What've you got there?"

"A bit of brandy."

"You've had that all along and you've been giving me this black mud?"

"You kept asking for coffee. Besides, I just found it a while back."

"Pass it here."

"There's another glass. Let's be genteel. It's good stuff."

"Pour!"

I heard the cork come out of my Christmas bottle. A few clinks followed and footfalls.

"Here you are."

"Smells good."

"Doesn't it?"

"To the Queen!"

A shuffling of feet. A single clink.

"God save ‘er!"

They reseated themselves after that and grew silent once again. I stood there for perhaps a quarter of an hour, but nothing more was said.

So I edged my way to the corner rack, found some money I had left behind still in its place in the boot, removed it, pocketed it, removed myself back to the ledge.

I closed the window as carefully as I had opened it, retreated to the roof, cut across the path of a black cat who arched his back and spat-doubtless superstitious, not that I blamed him-and made my way away.

After scouting Hal's building for loiterers other than myself and not spotting any, I rang his place from the booth on the corner. I was somewhat surprised to have my call answered in a matter of seconds.

"Yeah?"

"Hal?"

"Yeah. Who's this?"

"Your old buddy who climbs things."

"Hoo boy! What kind of trouble are you in, anyway?"

"If I knew that I'd have something for my pains. Can you tell me anything about it?"

"Probably nothing important. But there are some small things that might-"

"Listen, may I come over?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Now, I mean. I hate to be a bother, but-"

"No trouble. C'mon up."

"Are you all right?"

"Matter of fact, no. Mary and I had a little difference of opinion and she's spending the weekend at her mother's. I'm half stoned, which leaves me half sober. Which is enough. You tell me your troubles and I'll tell you mine."

"It's a deal. I'll be there in half a minute."

"Great. See you then."

So I cradled it, walked over, went in, buzzed his number and got admitted. Moments later I was knocking on his door.

"Prompt, oh prompt," he said, swinging it wide and stepping aside. "Enter, pray."

"In which order?"

"Oh, bless this house, by all means, first. It could use a little grace."

"Bless," I said, stepping in. "Sorry to hear you got troubles."

"They'll pass. It started out with a burnt dinner and being late for a show, that's all. Stupid thing. I thought it was her when the phone rang. I guess I'll have to do my apologizing tomorrow. The hangover should make me sound exceptionally repentant. What're you drinking?"

"I don't really ... Oh, what the hell! Whatever you've got there."

"A drop of soda in a sea of Scotch."

"Make it the other way around," I said, moving on into the living room and settling in a big, soft, tilled chair.

Moments later Hal came in, handed me a tall glass from which I took a healthy slug, sat down across from me, tasted his own, then said, "Have you committed any especially monstrous acts lately?"

I shook my head.

"Always the victim, never the victor. What have you heard?"

"Nothing, really. It's all been implication and inference. People have been asking me a lot about you but not telling me much."

"People? Who?"

"Well, your adviser Dennis Wexroth was one-"

"What did be want?"

"More information about your individual project in Australia."

"Like, for instance?"

"Like where. He wanted to know exactly where you were digging around."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I didn't know, which was reasonably true. This was over the phone. Then he stopped by in person, and he had a man along with him-a Mister Nadler. The guy had an I.D. card saying he was an employee of the State Department. He acted as if they were concerned about the possibility of your removing artifacts from over there and creating an incident."

I said something vulgar.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too," he said. "He pressed me to rack my memory for anything you might have said concerning your itinerary. I was tempted to misremember, say, Tasmania. Got scared, though. Didn't know what they could do. So I just kept insisting you hadn't told me anything of your plans."

"Good. When did this happen?"

"Oh, you'd been gone for over a week. I'd gotten your postcard from Tokyo."

"I see. That's it, then?"

"Hell, no. That was just the beginning."

I took another big swallow.

"Nadler was back the next day, asking whether I'd remembered anything else. He'd already given me a number to call if I did, or if I heard from you. So I was irritated. I said no and got rid of him. Then he came around again this morning to impress on me that it was to your benefit if I cooperated, that you might be in trouble and that I could help you by being honest. By the time they had learned of your difficulties at the Sydney Opera House, he said, you'd disappeared into the desert. What happened at the Sydney Opera House anyway?"

"Later, later. Get on with it. Or is that all?"

"No, no. I got irritated again, told him NO again and that was all so far as he was concerned. But there were other inquiries. I received at least half a dozen phone calls from people who claimed they just had to get in touch with you, that it was very important. None of them would say why, though. Or give me anything that could be used to trace them."

"What do you mean? Did you try tracing them?"

"No, but the detective did."

"Detective?"

"I was just getting to that part. This place has been broken into and ransacked on three separate occasions during the past two weeks. Naturally, I called the cops. I didn't see any connection with the calls, but after the third time the detective wanted me to tell him about anything unusual that had happened recently. So I mentioned that strange people kept calling and asking for a friend who was out of town. Several of them had left numbers, and he thought it was worth looking into. I talked with him yesterday, though, and he said nothing had turned up. All of them were from semipublic phones."

"Was anything stolen?"

"No. That bothered him, too."

"I see," I said, sipping slowly. "Has anyone approached you directly with unusual questions not involving me? Specifically, about that stone of Byler's?"

"No. But you might be interested in knowing that his lab was broken into while you were away. No one could really tell whether anything was missing. Getting back to your other question, though, while nobody approached me about the stone, someone seemed to be getting near for some purpose or other. Maybe it was tied in with the entry and searching here. I don't know. But for several days it seemed that I was being followed about. I didn't pay much attention at first. Actually, it wasn't until things started happening that I thought of him. The same man, not especially obtrusive, but always around-somewhere. Never came near enough for me to get a good look. At first I thought I was just being neurotic. Later, of course, he came to mind. Too late, though. He disappeared after the police started paying attention to me and to this building."

He tossed off the rest of his drink and I finished mine.

"That pretty much summarizes things," he said. "Let me fix us a couple more of these, then you tell me what you know."

"Go ahead."

I lit a cigarette and pondered. There had to be a pattern to all this, and it seemed likely that the star-stone was the key. There were too many subsidiary actions to try to separate, analyze, follow up individually. If I knew more about the stone, though, I felt that these recent happenings might begin to drift into truer perspective. Thus began my list of priorities.

Hal returned with the drinks, gave me mine, reseated himself.

"All right," he said, "considering everything that's been happening here. I'm ready to believe anything you've got to tell me."

So I told him most of what had occurred since my departure.

"I don't believe you," he said when I had finished.

"I can't lend you my memories in any better condition."

"Okay, okay," he said "It's weird. But then, so are you. No offense. Let me fog my brain a little more and I'll try to consider it. Right back."

He went and freshened the drinks again. I was beyond caring. I had lost count during the time I'd been talking.

"You were being serious?" he finally said.

"Yes."

"Then those fellows are probably still back at the apartment."

"Possibly."

"Why not call the police?"

"Hell, for all I know they may be the police."

"Toasting the Queen that way?"

"Could be their old alma maters Homecoming Queen. I don't know. I'd just as soon no one knew I'm back till I've learned more and done more thinking."

"Okay. Silence here. What can I do to help?"

"Think. You've been known to have an original idea every now and then. Come up with one."

"All right," he said. "I have been thinking about it. Everything seems to go back to the star-stone facsimile. What is it about the thing that makes it so important?"

"I give up. Tell me."

"I don't know. But let's consider everything that is known about it."

"Okay. The original came to us on loan as part of that cultural exchange deal we've joined. It was described as a relic, a specimen of unknown utility-but most likely decorative-found among the ruins of a dead civilization. Seems to be synthetic. If so, it may be the oldest intelligently fashioned object in the galaxy."

"Which makes it priceless."

"Naturally."

"If it were lost or destroyed here, we could be kicked out of the exchange program."

"I suppose that is possible ... "

" ‘Suppose,' hell! We can. I looked it up. The library now has a full translation of the agreement, and I got curious enough to see what it said. A hearing would be held, and the other members would vote on the matter of our expulsion."

"Good thing it hasn't been lost or destroyed."

"Yeah. Great."

"How could Byler have gotten access to it?"

"My guess is still the UN itself-that they approached him to create a duplicate for display purposes, he did it and then there was a mixup."

"I can't see the mixup on something that important."

"Then suppose it was intentional."

"How so?"

"Say they loaned it to him, and instead of returning the original and a copy he returned two copies. I can see him as wanting to hang onto it and study it for as long as he could. He could have given it back when he was finished or caught, whichever came first, and claimed he had made a simple error. No fuss could be raised, with the entire enterprise that clandestine. Or perhaps I am being too devious. Maybe he'd had it on a legitimate loan all the while, studying it at their request. Whichever, let us suppose that he'd had the original up until a while back."

"All right, say that."

"Then it vanished. Either it got mixed in and thrown out with some of the inferior replicas, or it was the one given to us in error ... "

"To you, to you," I said, "and not in error."

"Paul arrived at this conclusion, too," he continued, ignoring the assignment of guilt. "He panicked, went looking and roughed us up in the process."

"What precipitated his wising up?"

"Someone spotted the ringer and asked him for the real one. When he looked it wasn't there."

"And he got dead."

"You said the two men who questioned you in Australia as much as admitted having done him in as a by-product of questioning him."

"Zeemeister and Buckler. Yes."

"The undercover wombat told you they were hoodlums."

"Doodlehums, but go ahead."

"The UN informed the member nations-which is where the State Department comes into the picture in our case. Somewhere there was a tear in the beanbag, though, and Zeemeister decided to locate the stone first in order to claim a large ransom. Pardon me, a reward."

"It does make a kind of surrealistic sense. Continue."

"So we might have had it and everybody knows it. We don't know where it is, but nobody believes us."

"Who is everybody?"

"UN officials, the Foggy Bottom boys, the doodlehums and the aliens."

"Well, granting that the aliens have been informed and are actually assisting in the investigation, Charv and Ragma become a little more understandable-with their thing about security and all. But then, something else bothers me. They seemed awfully sure that I knew more than I thought I did concerning the stone's whereabouts. They even felt that a telepathic analyst might turn up some useful leads in my subconscious. I wonder what gave them that idea?"

"You've got me there. Perhaps they have eliminated almost everything else. And maybe they are right. It did seem to vanish rather strangely. I wonder ... ?"

"What?"

"If you do know something useful, something you may have suppressed for some reason? Perhaps a good non-telepathic analyst could drag it out, too. Hypnosis, drugs ... Who knows? What about that Doctor Marko you used to go to?"

"It's a thought, but it would take a long while to convince him as to the reality of all the preliminaries he'd need to know before he could go to work. Might even think I've lost touch, trank me up and give me the wrong therapy. No. I'll hold off on that angle for now."

"Where does that leave us?"

"Drunk," I said. "My higher cerebral centers all just moved off center."

"Want me make some coffee?"

"No. Consciousness is losing six to nothing and I'd like to retire gracefully. Mind if I sleep on the couch?"

"Go ahead. I'll get you a blanket and a pillow."

"Thanks."

"Maybe we'll have some fresh ideas in the morning," he said, rising.

"Thinking them will be painful, whatever they are," I said, going over to the couch and kicking off my shoes. "Let there be an end to thought. Thus do I refute Descartes."

I sprawled, not a cogito or a sum to my name.

Oblivion.

There was a teletype machine in a room at the back of my mind. It had never been used. Within the uncreation where the not-I didn't exist for a peaceful interval of non-time, however, it stuttered and spewed, synthesizing some recipient who resembled myself for purposes of pestering him ...

: : : : : : : : : : : :

DO YOU HEAR ME. FRED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

DO YOU HEAR ME. FRED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

YES

: : : : : : : : : : : :

GOOD

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WHO ARE YOU?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

I AMXXXXXXXXXXXXX

: : : : : : : : : : : :

DO YOU HEAR ME, FRED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

YES. WHO ARE YOU?

I AMXXXXXX IXXXXXXXX ARTICLE 7224 SECTION C. I BROUGHT IT TO YOUR ATTENTION

: : : : : : : : : : : :

ALL RIGHT

: : : : : : : : : : : :

CAN YOU OBTAIN AN N-AXIAL INVERSION UNIT?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

NO

: : : : : : : : : : : :

IT IS IMPORTANT

: : : : : : : : : : : :

IT IS ALSO UNDEFINED

: : : : : : : : : : : :

NECESSARY

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WHAT THE HELL IS AN N-AXIAL INVERSION UNIT?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

TIME NAMES CORRESPONDENCESXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX THE RHENNIUS MACHINE. THAT MECHANISM

: : : : : : : : : : : :

I KNOW WHERE IT IS. YES

: : : : : : : : : : : :

GO TO THE RHENNIUS MACHINE. TEST ITS INVERSION PROGRAM

: : : : : : : : : : : :

HOW?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

OBSERVE THE PROGRESSIVE TRANSFORMATIONS OF AN OBJECT PASSED THROUGH ITS MOBILATOR

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WHAT IS A MOBILATOR?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

THE CENTRAL UNIT THROUGH WHICH ITS BELT MOVES

: : : : : : : : : : : :

IMPOSSIBLE TO GET THAT CLOSE TO THE THING. IT IS UNDER GUARD

: : : : : : : : : : : :

VITAL

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WHY?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

TO REFORMULATEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TO REFORMXXXXXXXXXXXXX TOXXXXXXXX

: : : : : : : : : : : :

DO YOU HEAR ME. FRED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

YES

: : : : : : : : : : : :

GO TO THE RHENNIUS MACHINE AND TEST ITS INVERSION PROGRAM

: : : : : : : : : : : :

SUPPOSING I CAN DO IT. WHAT THEN?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

THEN GO AND GET DRUNK

: : : : : : : : : : : :

PLEASE REPEAT

: : : : : : : : : : : :

TEST THE INVERSION PROGRAM AND GO INTOXICATE YOURSELF

: : : : : : : : : : : :

ANYTHING ELSE?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

SUBSEQUENT ACTIONS CONTINGENT UPON UNDETERMINED EVENTS

: : : : : : : : : : : :

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WILL YOU DO THIS?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WHO ARE YOU?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

IXXXXXXXXXXXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXX

XXXXSPEICUSPEICUSPE ICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICU SPEICUSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXEICUSPEIXXC USPEXXICUSXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXPECXXXUSPEIX XXXCUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSP EICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEIC USPEICUSPEICUSPEBCUSXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXX

: : : : : : : : : : : :

: : : : : : : : : : : :

IT FIGURES

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WILL YOU DO AS I HAVE ASKED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WHY NOT?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

YOU INDICATE ASSENT?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

ALL RIGHT, RECORDING. ALL RIGHT. AFFIRMATIVE. I AM PROGRAMMED CURIOUS

: : : : : : : : : : : :

VERY GOOD. THAT THEN IS ALL

It raineth on the just and the unjust; likewise shineth the sun. I came around with the latter doing that thing, in my eyes, through the front window. And I must have been just-or just lucky-as I was not only unhung over but felt fairly good. I lay there for some time, listening to Hal's snores coming from the other room. Reaching a decision as to who and where I was, I rose and set a pot of coffee to gurgling in the kitchen and went to the bathroom to find some soap and a razor and do some other things.

Later, I had some juice, toast and a couple of eggs, took a cup of coffee back to the living room. Hal was still buzzing. I loafed on the sofa. I lit a cigarette. I drank coffee.

Caffeine, nicotine, the games the blood sugars play-I do not know what it was that pierced the dark bubble as I sat there assembling the morning and myself.

Whatever prompted it, the thing I had gotten in lieu of the usual unsolicited dreams returned to me between a puff and a sip, far clearer than my id-sponsored late late monster shows ever were.

Having decided earlier to accept the peculiar in the proper spirit, I confined my considerations to the matter of content. It made as much sense as any of a number of things I had recently experienced, and possessed the virtue of requiring a positive action on my part at a time when I was weary of being acted upon.

So I folded the blankets and placed them in a neat heap with the pillow on top. I finished my coffee, poured a second cup and turned the pot down to a simmer. I located some writing paper atop a miscellaneous chest of drawers and scrawled a note: "Hal-Thanks. I've a thing I'm off to pursue. It came to me last night. Quite peculiar. Will call in a day or so & let you know what comes of it. Hope everything is happily ever after again by then. -Fred. P.S. The coffee is on." Which covered everything I could think of. I left it on the other end of the sofa.

I got out and headed for the bus station. A long ride lay ahead. I would arrive too late, but the next day I would see the Rhennius machine during normal viewing hours and figure a way to get at it for a private showing later on.

And I did.

Voila! Lincoln stared to my right again and everything else seemed in its proper place. I pocketed the cent, steadied myself, began to climb.

Halfway up, brassy bongs bloomed in my ears, my nervous system came unzipped and my arms turned to putty. The free end of the line was swinging widely. Perhaps it had struck something, or gotten into range of the camera. Academic, whichever.

Moments later, I heard a shouted, "Raise your hands!" which probably came to mind a lot more readily, say, than "Stop climbing that rope and come back down without touching the machine!"

I did raise them, too, rapidly and repeatedly.

By the time he was threatening to shoot, I was across the beam and eying the window. If I could spring, catch hold, pull, vault, pass horizontally through the eighteen inch opening I had left myself and hit the roof rolling, I would have a head start with a variety of high routes before me. I would have a chance.

I tensed my muscles.

"I'll shoot!" he repeated, almost directly beneath me now.

I heard the shot and there was glass in the air as I moved.