Transit

TWO

After a time—it might have been minutes or years—the oblivion somehow became less than absolute, and he knew he was dreaming. Images, half-formed, shimmered vaguely like reflections on a face of liquid darkness.

He saw stars. He literally saw stars. Whirlpools of stars —bright and blinding and frozen in the frothy glory of the great nebulae. He was drifting down a dark river of space. He was drifting to the end of the cosmos; and island universes—unimaginable dust bowls of light— seemed to flash by in the icy rapids of creation.

It was too cold—not physically cold, but spiritually cold. His half-conscious mind rejected the patterns of awful splendour, groping hungrily for meaning and relief and location. He came to a sun; and the sun had given birth to planets. One of the planets was blue and white with clouds, green with oceans, red and brown and yellow with islands.

‘This,’ said the voice, ‘is home. This is the garden. This is the world where you will live and grow and know and understand. This is where you will.

The voice was gentle, but he was afraid of it. It came echoing at him down a draughty tunnel of centuries. Its whisper was thunder; and its words—such gentle words —were like the sentence for an unknowable crime.

. He was afraid. Fear burned like acid through the fluffy twilight of consciousness. Suddenly, he was awake. Agonizingly awake….

Avery found that he was lying on a bed. The bed was in a room whose walls were all metal. There were no windows. The ceiling glowed. It did not glow painfully but with enough light to provide pleasant illumination.

Obviously he was in hospital. He had passed out in Kensington Gardens, and they had taken him to hospital. But a hospital with metal walls….

He sat up quickly, and was rewarded by a roaring in his ears, a throbbing behind his eyes. He waited patiently until his vision cleared, then tried to collect his thoughts.

He looked for the door.

There was no door.

He looked for a bell-push.

There was no bell-push.

He looked for escape.

There was no escape.

He was contained in a metal room like an animal in a trap. Someone must have put him there. But who?

Panic surged, and he fought it down. Panic surged again, and again he fought it down.

Perhaps he had had a nervous breakdown and this was some kind of asylum. Perhaps he only thought he was awake, but in reality he was still sleeping. Still dreaming a dream as inconsequential in its own way as the vision of cosmic creation.

He had an idea. It was absurd, but at least it was an idea. He pinched himself, and felt pain. He pinched himself harder, and felt more pain. Still he was not satisfied, for the possibility had occurred to him that he might easily experience the illusion of pain while dreaming.

Then he developed a line of thought that seemed to take care of both dream and reality. If he were still dreaming there could be no harm in exploring the situation—as far as exploration was possible. If he were not dreaming, then exploration was absolutely essential.

He got off the bed and looked around. There was a wash-stand. The design was peculiar, but pleasing. There was also a small half-boxed-in lavatory—at least, he supposed it was a lavatory—and a mirror.

In the centre of the room was a table and a dining chair. There was also an extremely light easy chair—so light that he found he could lift it with one hand. The floor was uncovered and appeared to be made of some kind of deep crimson plastic. It had a dull surface, restful to look at and pleasant to walk upon.

But the most interesting piece of furniture was the pedestal by the bed. On top of it lay a machine that looked something like a small and incredibly neat typewriter. The paper was already fed into it from an endless roll.

It was a typewriter with a difference, however. For even as he looked at it, it began to type. All by itself. There was hardly any noise and no visible movement, but the message was printed out on the roll of paper quickly and smoothly.

Avery gazed at it for a moment as if it might explode. Then he pulled himself together, sat down on the edge of the bed opposite the machine and began to read.

Do not be alarmed, said the message (he smiled cynically at that). You are not in danger and you will be looked after with great care. Doubtless you have many questions to ask, but unfortunately there are some questions which cannot be answered. Whatever you need in order to live comfortably will be provided. Food and drink may be obtained on command. Your requests: should be communicated by means of the keyboard.

The machine stopped. Avery waited a few seconds, but that was all he was evidently going to get. He considered the message thoughtfully for a time, then put out two fingers—he had never been able to type with more than two fingers—and began to hit the keyboard.

He typed: Where am I?

His own message was not printed out on the paper roll, and he wondered if he had operated the machine properly. But as soon as he had finished, the reply was printed out for him.

No comment.

Avery stared at it and became angry. He punched out another question, hitting the keys as forcibly as he could.

Who are you?

Again the reply came immediately. No comment.

Why am I here?

No comment.

Avery spoke aloud for the first time. ‘This is a bloody useful instrument, I must say!’ The sound of his own voice shocked him. It was high, querulous. Whoever was on the other side of the metal wall must be enjoying himself—or themselves—hugely. He determined to do what he could to minimize their satisfaction.

He began to tap out another question:

Why did the quick brown fox jump over the lazy dog?

Back came the reply:

Query: To which fox do you refer?

Avery smiled grimly. It was good to have the opposition asking questions. It made him feel that he had at least stolen a little of the initiative.

The one that jumped over the lazy dog, he tapped out.

Query: Which lazy dog?

The one that was jumped over by the quick brown fox.

There was a pause. Avery sat back, feeling idiotically pleased with himself. The pause lengthened. They:— whoever they were—seemed: (a) to be taking the question seriously, and (b) seriously considering the possibility of an answer. All of which told him something. Not much, but something. They—the inscrutable they— didn’t recognize a simple typewriting exercise. It was no great discovery, but at least it was information.

The reply came: This question cannot be answered because insufficient data has been supplied. It is presumed that the answer, if any, does not have any immediate relationship to the subject’s well-being.

Avery felt that he had scored a moral victory. They— he visualized the word in italics—were either playing it dead-pan or else they were not very bright. He felt better.

The subject is depressed, he tapped. The subject is imprisoned, frustrated, bewildered and bored. The subject is also hungry and thirsty. He presumes that the bunch of raving maniacs with whom he is apparently dealing will at least have the decency to provide food and drink.

Query: In the present situation do you prefer water, an alcoholic drink, tea or coffee?

In the present situation, responded Avery, I prefer an alcoholic drink—a large brandy—and coffee.

There was no further communication. Avery sat and stared at his wristwatch. It was just over two minutes before anything happened. Then he became aware of a very faint scraping sound and looked up in time to see a rectangular panel slide back in the metal wall.

Behind it was a recess containing his meal. He got up and went to inspect. There was a plate of chicken salad— attractively laid out with crisp fresh lettuce, cress, beetroot and tomato—a knife, fork and spoon, and a miniature botde of Martell Three Star. There was a pot of coffee, a tiny jug of cream, brown sugar, a coffee cup and saucer and a brandy glass. All of which was arranged upon a plastic tray.

He picked the tray up and took it to his table. The panel in the wall remained open.

Suddenly, he went to the typewriter that was not a typewriter and punched out another message.

You forgot the bread and butter.

Query: How many slices of bread?

One. White. Thin.

The wall panel closed. It opened again about ten seconds later.

There was a small plate on which lay the bread. One slice. White. Thin.

Avery sat down at the table and tackled his meal. The salad was delicious, the chicken sweet and tender. Evi-dendy they did not intend that he should suffer from malnutrition.

As he ate, he tried to think clearly and sanely about his predicament. But his mind did not seem to be much in the mood for thought. It said, in effect, to him: There have been quite enough surprises for the time being. To hell with them! Something will sort itself out, sooner or later.

But would it? The predicament he was in was, itself, neither clear nor sane. One moment, it seemed to him, he was walking in Kensington Gardens; and the next moment he was waking up in what might well turn out to be a superior type of nut-house—or the inevitable mad millionaire’s secret retreat in the Highlands.

He was more than confused: he was extremely doubtful about the nature of this particular frame of reality. The whole thing might easily be no more than a kind of dream within a dream—metal prison, inscrutable typewriter, chicken salad and all.

There was something worrying its way up into his conscious mind. Something about a crystal…. A glowing crystal Somewhere, somehow, he had seen a tiny crystal that glowed coldly with an intense point of frozen fire at its centre. But perhaps that, too, was part of the dream….

He gave up the frail attempt at correlating thoughts and memories and deductions, and concentrated on the brandy and coffee. Something would sort itself out, sooner or later. It had to!

The brandy wasn’t so great, but the coffee was quite good. Avery smacked his lips appreciatively. Then he knew there was something missing. Something vital. He wanted a cigarette.

He fished in his pockets and found his gas lighter. But no cigarettes. Then he suddenly realized that somebody must have taken off his fleece-lined leather jacket. He looked round what he had already come to regard as his cell, but it was nowhere to be seen.

He went to the keyboard and tapped out: Cigarettes, please.

The response was immediate. There is a supply in the trunk under your bed.

Irrationally, Avery cursed himself for not having looked under the bed in the first place.

He hauled out the trunk. It was heavy and large and obviously new—the kind some travelling major or lower-echelon diplomat might buy for himself at the Army and Navy Stores. There were six heavy brass dips and a lock, but none of them were fastened. Avery lifted the lid back and peered inside. He was amazed.

There were several tropical shirts, three pairs of drill trousers and a couple of bush jackets—all new. There were two old pairs of leather sandals which he instantly recognized, and a couple of new pairs rather similar. There were vests and socks and a first-aid kit—all new.

His amazement became so great that it expired under its own weight. The whole thing was just too fantastic for words. He began to tip things out of the trunk untidily on to the floor as he delved deeper.

Together with his own toilet gear were some loaded razor-blade dispensers and about a dozen cakes of soap. Side by side with these was a small lightweight record player (mechanically operated as he discovered later) and a pile of new L.P. records. There were the Beethoven Fifths (symphony and piano concerto), the Bach Toccata and Fugue and Double Violin concerto, some Strauss waltzes, selections from My Fair Lady, several Chopin pieces, the New World symphony and a recording of ‘My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose’ that held too many memories because it belonged to a special world—the one that he had shared briefly with Christine.

Avery stared at the collection helplessly. Somebody must have done a pretty good job of reading his mind, because each piece was a favourite. Each was assigned for a special mood or a special occasion in what used to be the neat and tidy life of Richard Avery.

He was momentarily frightened. Whoever knew this much about him already knew too much. His unseen captors already held a majority of aces.

But then he realized that his fear was not only futile, it was—for the time being, at least—inappropriate. Although he was a prisoner, so far the indications were that he was a privileged prisoner. He could only hope it was not simply a case of fattening up the goose….

Some of the other things he came across surprised him even more. There was a tattered wallet in which he had kept a few photographs it seemed worth keeping— various shots of Christine, faded and rather formal shots of his parents, snaps of himself as a baby, child, youth and Second World War merchant seaman. There was a great quantity of tubes of oil paint, a palette, brushes and several canvas boards. There was a bundle of paperbacked novels, a couple of old diaries, about a ream of writing paper and a box of pencils.

And underneath everything were the cigarettes. Not just a packet. Not just a carton. But about five thousand. In fact the layer of packets—several deep—covered the entire bottom of the vast trunk. His favourite brand, needless to say!

Avery opened a packet, went back to his chair at the table, sat down and began to smoke in quick nervous puffs, surveying the debris by the bed.

Strewn about on the floor the contents of the trunk looked most incongruous. They gave the impression of either being impractical supplies for an absurd safari or the means by which a man might endure a stiffish prison sentence without going completely insane.

Avery poured himself a second cup of coffee, emptying the pot. As he sipped it he became aware of an intense weariness that seemed to crawl internally up his legs like some secret miniature alpinist, determined to reach the icy citadel of his brain.

Suddenly the cigarette tasted terrible, and he stubbed it out on his plate. He yawned and stood up, intending to put all the things back in the trunk just as he had found them—an exercise that at least might help to keep him awake.

He took two steps forward, yawned once more and realized that he was in no condition to start re-packing the trunk. The fatigue hit his brain with an almost physical impact. The room—the cell—began to ripple slightly. He knew that he would be very lucky if he managed to get as far as the bed.

He made it, but only just. Even as he slipped down the long tunnel of darkness he knew, oddly, that he had just remembered something important. But the memory and his awareness of it gently dissolved.

Avery was completely exhausted. Recent experience plus the after-effects of influenza had produced an overdraft of nervous energy that could only be reduced by sleep.